GOP Ecstatic Bin Laden Is Alive

If President Bush wins re-election on Tuesday, it will clearly be because he and the Republican Party have dishonestly scared America into voting for them. It is a pathetic and disgusting strategy, especially when you consider that Republicans are now openly ecstatic about Osama bin Laden being alive.

Despite the fact that it bin Laden's message is proof that the mass murderer is still alive, and that Bush's mishandling of the War on Terror is letting him continue to run free, the New York Daily News quotes Bush-Cheney officials actually expressing happiness about the video:

"We want people to think 'terrorism' for the last four days," said a Bush-Cheney campaign official. "And anything that raises the issue in people's minds is good for us."

A senior GOP strategist added, "anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush."

He called it "a little gift," saying it helps the President but doesn't guarantee his reelection.

The Associated Press quotes Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) excited about the bin Laden message:

"It's very helpful to the president," contended Bush ally Sen. John McCain.

This, from the same Republican Party that regularly impugns their opponents for supposedly giving "aid and comfort" to terrorists and for supposedly being "anti-American."

President Kerry's Signature

If Kerry is elected, there will be much work for him to do that will take long negotiations with Congress. But there are a number of executive orders he can issue immediately upon taking his office. All they need is his signature. He can:

- Repeal Bush's executive order reducing overtime pay protections for up to 8 million American workers.

- Overturn Bush's anti-union executive order that "effectively bars project labor agreements on all federally funded construction projects, even in situations where they have been regularly used since the 1940s."

- Revise Bush's excecutive order that "allows service contractors in federal buildings to layoff low-wage workers, who are mostly women, whenever there is a turnover of government contractors, which in effect erodes their job security."

- Reinstate "labor-management cooperation systems that serve the federal government and hundreds of thousands of federal workers" and that had "resulted in numerous productivity gains and cost-savings measures benefiting all taxpayers." When Bush repealed this, he was opposed by some in his own party.

- Terminate the requirement demanding government contractors effectively discouraging union membership (even though union jobs have higher wages/benefits), while discouraging contractors from telling workers about their union rights.

- Revoke the Bush executive order that restricts public access to historical records. This Bush order was opposed by some Republicans.

- Reform the Bush order that "requires federal agencies to give special consideration to energy interests in devising new regulation." This order "mirrored a draft proposal submitted by the American Petroleum Institute" (the oil industry's lobbying group), actually "borrowing words almost verbatim for a key section."

- Repeal the Bush order "that broadens the authority of agencies to withhold information from the public." The Bush order, signed in May of 2002, for instance "gave the EPA Administrator authority to designate documents 'Secret' or 'Confidential,' two of the three highest possible security classifications." It also allows the Administrator "to delegate classification authority to senior EPA officials." Once classified, a person can gain access to information only when an agency head or their designee reviews the request, the person signs a non-disclosure agreement, and the person can establish a "need-to-know" to the satisfaction of agency officials.

Corporate Colonization

As the election nears, we have a bird's eye view of just how much Corporate America has infested our political process. No longer is there a separation between business and government - the two are now one and the same. While we all know that corporations dump huge amounts of cash into political races, recent elections and the upcoming one now regularly feature major candidates for state and federal office who not only take that money, but come right from Corporate America's ranks, as either lobbyists, top executives, or consultants. These are not small businesspeople, mind you. These are people who come straight out of Big Business's ranks and who, as lawmakers, are supposed to oversee the same industries they came out of.

Indiana: Mitch Daniels, former Vice President of drug maker Eli Lilly, is the GOP nominee for governor. Not surprisingly, he is actively campaigning against allowing Americans to purchase lower-priced medicines from Canada.

Montana: Bob Brown, former corporate lobbyist for energy and telecommunications companies, is the GOP nominee for governor.

South Dakota: John Thune, a corporate lobbyist who pushed the limits on congressional lobbying ethics rules, is the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate.

Colorado: Pete Coors, Chairman of Coors Brewing Company, is the GOP nominee for Senate in Colorado. He has used his candidacy to push for a lower drinking age.

Louisiana: Bobby Jindal, a former corporate consultant to Fortune 500 CEOs at McKinsey & Company, is a leading congressional candidate in Louisiana's 1st district.

Mississippi: Haley Barbour, one of Washington, D.C.'s premiere lobbyists, last year was elected Governor of Mississippi.

These, of course, are just a few examples. But they show a new trend. In a way, electing these people - and others like them - is Corporate America's newest way to make sure it gets what it wants out of public policy. Instead of trying to influence lawmakers, they are making their own the lawmakers themselves. They are, in effect, colonizing the political system from within.

The Washington Slimes

The Washington Slimes, er, Times has long been known as a right-wing, Moonie-funded rag that is the laughinstock of Washington, D.C. And today's edition is a reminder of how they've achieved this level of ridicule.

In their edition today, they have stories implying gays control the election (a direct attempt to stir up the right-wing base), stating as fact that terrorists want Bush to lose (even though they have no solid evidence at all, and in fact have evidence to the contrary), and a news story whining about Bush getting negative press coverage from other news outlets.

This is why the Washington Slimes has absolutely no credibility at all. It is the paper of record for desperate conservatives whose only goal is to deny reality and play on the worst instincts of their far-right base.

Book Deal

FYI - wanted to announce the good news - I agreed on a deal with Random House's Crown publishing division to write a book. This is from Publisher's Marketplace, the publishing industry's newsletter, listing the deal:

Non-fiction: History/Politics/Current Affairs

Air America personality David Sirota's THE BIG SQUEEZE: How You're Getting Used and Abused by Washington...And What You Can Do About It, showing how we're all being squeezed from just about every angle by today's perversions of government -- and the corporate interests now holding sway over it.

We haven't settled on a time frame for when the book will come out, but the focus is clear: how Big Business has bought our government, how both parties are affected, and how public policy now deliberately squeezes the middle-class. If you see news stories, reports or data about this squeeze, I encourage you to email them to me at davidsirota@hotmail.com - I will need as much help as I can get!

Bush Team Still Claims Saddam Had WMD

Despite overwhelming evidence from Bush administration weapons inspectors, international experts, and the facts on the ground, the Bush team is still pushing the myth that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD. Today's example comes from the Bush campaign's top strategist Tucker Eskew, who actually said "the reality [is] that Saddam had lots of weapons and was a threat."

It is one thing for them to lie to the country to take us to war. That is simply dishonesty. But now we have the Bush team continuing to lie when even their own experts refute them. That insults the intelligence of every single American.

Bush's Global Test Means Zarqawi Still on the Loose

The Wall Street Journal gives more details to how President Bush three times rejected military plans to kill Abu Musab al Zarqawi before the Iraq war. Notice this part of the article in which it now is clear Bush refused to go after one of the world's most deadly terrorists because he was trying to pass the same kind of "global test" he has attacked Kerry over. Also, he didn't want to damage his pre-determined efforts to invade Iraq:

Another factor, though, was fear that a strike on the camp could stir up opposition while the administration was trying to build an international coalition to launch an invasion of Iraq. Lawrence Di Rita, the Pentagon's chief spokesman, said in an interview that the reasons for not striking included "the president's decision to engage the international community on Iraq."

And notice this section - the White House gave a weak denial, and yet its own general in the field acknowledges the contrary:

Targeting of the camp and Mr. Zarqawi before the war first was reported in an NBC Nightly News item in March, but administration officials subsequently denied it...Gen. Tommy Franks, who was commander of the U.S. Central Command and who lately has been campaigning on behalf of Mr. Bush, suggests in his recently published memoir, "American Soldier," that Mr. Zarqawi was known to have been in the camp during the months before the war.

CLAIM vs. FACT: Arnold on Crime

CLAIM:
Schwarzenegger said he opposed policies that mean “violent prisoners will get out of prison and roam the streets."
- Reuters, 10/20/04

FACT:
“Reversing Gov. Gray Davis' near zero-tolerance policy against paroling convicted murderers, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proven to be 50 times more likely to give second chances to killers. Democrat Davis, in his five years in office, blocked all but six parole recommendations for killers and kidnappers, with two of the recommendations involving the same inmate. Republican Schwarzenegger, in office less than 12 months, has approved 60 parole recommendations from the state Board of Prison Terms for convicts guilty of the most serious crimes. That makes him, on average, 50 times more lenient than Davis.”
- Pasadena Star-News, 10/17/04

DeLay Subpoenaed

From the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON - House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has been subpoenaed to testify in a Texas civil lawsuit related to his role in using government resources to track down Democratic legislators who fled the state during last year's bitter redistricting dispute.

No Post-War Planning

From Knight Ridder:

A Knight Ridder review of the administration's Iraq policy and decisions has found that it invaded Iraq without a comprehensive plan in place to secure and rebuild the country. The administration also failed to provide some 100,000 additional U.S. troops that American military commanders originally wanted to help restore order and reconstruct a country shattered by war, a brutal dictatorship and economic sanctions.

The full story is here.

The Novak Double Standard

The Bush Justice Department's partisan appointee is still investigating which Bush administration officials leaked the name of a CIA operative to columnist Bob Novak. In the course of the investigation, Time's Matt Cooper and the New York Times Judith Miller have been subpoenaed and threatened with jail time.

Amazingly, though, Bob Novak has not been threatened with the same punishment, even though was the only journalist to publish the name, and has refused to disclose who ilegally leaked the information. Instead, he's been left alone, allowed to continue printing columns filled with partisan attacks on the CIA, and bloviate on television about how other high-profile reporters should disclose sources.

Backing Up the Movie

FYI - Michael Moore has published a new book called The Official Fahrenheit 9/11 Reader - it is a book version of all the backup materials in his movie. It features all sorts of good articles, including (shameless self-promotion) a reprint of the article I did with Christy Harvey called "They Knew."

You can see more about the book here, and see the article we did in full here.

Insulting America

From ABC News:

"Vice President Dick Cheney asserted on Thursday that a finding by the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq that Saddam Hussein's government produced no weapons of mass destruction after 1991 justifies rather than undermines President Bush's decision to go to war."

This really insults Americans' intelligence. He thinks he can trick Americans into believing a report showing no WMD were in Iraq actually justifies the Bush administration's claims that Iraq had WMD that required an invasion.

Cheney is a Liar

Enough said.

Bushisms

Check out the new DVD Bushisms - the video version of the book that documents the now-famous blunders of the President. The trailer for the DVD is here.

CLAIM vs. FACT: Bush on Non-Proliferation

CLAIM:
“[Non]-Proliferation is one of the centerpieces of [my] multi-pronged strategy to make the country safer.”
- President Bush, 9/30/04

FACT:
“In his fiscal year 2005 budget request to Congress, released just a week earlier, Bush did not substantially increase funding for these programs and actually proposed cuts to the Department of Defense component as well as suggested spending shifts in programs in the Departments of Energy and State.”
- Arms Control Association, 3/04

FACT:
The Bush administration tried to cut funding for chemical demilitarization in the 2005 federal budget. These programs help reduce chemical weapons stockpiles.
- Army Magazine, 3/04

“[Bush] officials were attempting to persuade 65 skeptical governments at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva that much delayed negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, or “fiss-ban” (ending the production of fissile material for military purposes), should proceed without considering any verification rules.”
- The Economist, 9/2/04