Biffster’s World

Leave it to that dastardly Dick Cheney to leave out facts because they don’t jive with the admnistration’s policies:

Seeking to play down the effects of global warming, Vice President Dick Cheney’s office pushed to delete from congressional testimony references about the consequences of climate change on public health, a former senior EPA official claimed Tuesday.

The official, Jason K. Burnett, said the White House was concerned that the proposed testimony last October by the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might make it tougher to avoid regulating greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere. (via Yahoo News)

Yeah, who cares about the truth, anyway! Ignore whatever doesn’t work for us!

Barack Obama is already showing that he is not going to ignore unfounded attacks. Apparently he learned well from John Kerry’s mistakes in 2004. So when the rabid right wingers took one of Obama’s comments and twisted it to say that Obama wanted to force Americans to learn Spanish, Obama fired right back:

This is an example of some of the problems we get into when somebody attacks you for saying the truth, which is: We should want our children with more knowledge. We should want our children to have more skills. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s a good thing. I know, because I don’t speak a foreign language. It’s embarrassing. (via Yahoo News)

Bravo for Mr. Obama! Everything in his campaign is going right. There’s absolutely no reason to lay down and take these attacks. And Barack obviously understands that.

One thing that libertarians, moderates, liberals and progressives seem to agree about is that the current administration has made a mess of things. The nation is much worse off now than it was eight years ago. Aside from the 25% or so of staunch neo-conservatives/Bush devotees, everyone is happy that the Bush years are coming to an end. I think that, no matter which way the election goes, things are going to get better starting in January.

Of course, as one of our groups two progressives, I have to say that I am looking forward to an Obama presidency. Obama is poised to do for the country what Bill Ritter is doing for the state of Colorado: break us out of the rut that politics has been stalled in for decades, and move us onto a better, brighter future. We are seeing this in Colorado, as renewable energy corporations are starting to invest heavily in our state under Ritter’s natural energy initiatives. Obama’s policies are on a much larger scale, and the impact will be that much larger.

Of course, I am making the assumption that Obama will be the winner in November. Based on the current economy, the momentum that Obama is building, and the general feeling that the American people are sick of Republican leadership, I am pretty positive about that assumption. Add to this the fact that John McCain’s main strength is national defense, which is not going to be a factor in the upcoming election (unless there is a major economic recovery in the next six months), and I become even more positive about my assumption. It’ll be Obama in ‘08. And 2012, for that matter.

“We know the battle ahead will be long. But always remember that, no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change…

“We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics. And they will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks and months to come…

“Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can seize our future….

“And, together, we will begin the next great chapter in the American story, with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea: Yes, we can.”

Vote Obama

As much as I hate to disagree with Randi Rhodes (mainly because she almost always ends up being proven right), I think she is completely wrong when she refers to Dick Cheney as Darth Vader. Vader was the active hand of the government; he was a visible sign of the Empire’s power. Cheney is more like Palpatine from the prequels, sitting behind the scenes, guiding everything that happens but doing a good job of not being seen. This is apparent from the the washingtonpost.com four-article series on Dick Cheney. As stated in Part Three:

it was Cheney who served as the guardian of conservative orthodoxy on budget and tax matters. He shaped and pushed through Bushs tax cuts, blunting the influence of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, a longtime friend, and of Cabinet rivals he had played a principal role in selecting. He managed to overcome the presidents “compassionate conservative” resistance to multiple breaks for the wealthy. He even orchestrated a decision to let a GOP senator switch parties — giving control of the chamber to Democrats — rather than meet the senators demand for billions of dollars in new spending.On the home front, the vice president is well known for leading a secretive task force on energy policy. But in a town where politicians routinely scurry for credit, Cheney more often kept his role concealed, even from top Bush advisers.

“A lot of it was a black box, and I think designedly so,” said former Bush speechwriter David Frum. “It was like — you know that experiment where you pass a magnet under the table and you see the iron filings on the top of the table move? You know theres a magnet there because of what you see happening, but you never see the magnet.”

That is some seriously scary power. It’s an evil, corrupting influence. Cheney is a very scary man. The idea that he is controlling so much - including the President - and really doesn’t care what others think shows exactly what Cheney is made of. And that’s the scariest though of all.

Dunno why I am surprised by this. This administration has done this basic action again and again over the last 6 years. But there’s something about this one that seems more arrogant than the others. And more frustrating.

As reported by the New York Times, the Bush administration has basically forbidden government scientists and employees of the Fish and Wildlife Service from discussing issues regarding global warming:

Internal memorandums circulated in the Alaskan division of the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service appear to require government biologists or other employees traveling in countries around the Arctic not to discuss climate change, polar bears or sea ice if they are not designated to do so.

But the Bush administration decided this isn’t Draconian enough:

“Please be advised that all foreign travel requests (SF 1175
requests) and any future travel requests involving or potentially
involving climate change, sea ice and/or polar bears will also require
a memorandum from the regional director to the director indicating
who’ll be the official spokesman on the trip and the one responding to
questions on these issues, particularly polar bears.”

The sample
memorandums, described as to be used in writing travel requests,
indicate that the employee seeking permission to travel “understands
the administration’s position on climate change, polar bears, and sea
ice and will not be speaking on or responding to these issues.”

I am not sure how many different ways this frustrates me. The administration is basically trying a combination of censorship (only employees aligned with the administration’s philosophy can comment about the issues) and bullying (scientists won’t even be allowed to travel near the arctic unless they agree to the rules). All so they can try and hide the reality of global warming, and the impact it is already having.

The administration realizes that polar bears could be a major rallying point. Everyone loves polar bears, everyone thinks they’re cute and fun and cuddly. Knowing that polar bears are being driven towards extinction could motivate millions of people into action. Millions who would otherwise not care about the issue, or at least not care enough to get involved.

For the past five years, the Bush administration got away with distorting facts about the effects of global warming. In less than a month, the Democratic congress is already tearing through the deceptions and holding the Bush administration over the coals:

Sen. John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) blasted the alleged political meddling, calling it “George Orwell at its best.”At the hearing, several witnesses testified that they had experienced or seen political interference by the Bush administration in climate-change science. Witnesses said press officers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other agencies had manipulated or obstructed media interviews with government scientists. Witnesses also said that important research on global warming had been downplayed, edited or suppressed by a system of “minders” and “gatekeepers.”

Unfortunately, I think that a lot of damage has already been done. There are already a number of people who have bought into the administration’s deceptions and now don’t believe global warming is real. These people will not listen to scientific studies, but instead put their full faith in what the government says.

Dunno whether I should be surprised or not, but 17 months after it happend, President George W. Bush still doesn’t have time to talk about or help New Orleans (via Yahoo! News):

In the president’s State of the Union speech last year, delivered just five months after the disaster, the devastation merited only 156 words out of more than 5,400.

On Tuesday night, the president spoke for almost exactly as long before a joint session of Congress. But Katrina received not a single mention.

By contrast, in the days ahead of the president’s address, Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia compared the U.S. money being spent on Iraqi reconstruction with the fraction committed to the Gulf Coast rebuilding. And, chosen to give the Democratic response to Bush on Tuesday, Webb brought up the continuing struggle of Katrina victims right away, listing “restoring the vitality of New Orleans” just behind education and health care among his party’s most pressing priorities, according to the text of his speech distributed in advance.

I don’t know if Bush is hoping that everyone will forget about things if he doesn’t mention them, or if he just doesn’t care what’s happening among the non-rich citizens of New Orleans. But it is obvious that he doesn’t spend any time thinking about New Orleans nor its citizens anymore. And it is also obvious that he isn’t going to send any large amounts of federal aid money to help rebuild the city nor the surrounding area. For whatever reason, Bush has turned his back on the city he allowed to be destroyed.

History is not going to look kindly on this Bush administration. And it shouldn’t. Between the massive failure in Iraq, and the massive failure in New Orleans, everything else doesn’t mean very much.

Friday was a bad news day for the Bush administration. The truth is coming out, which is a bad thing for an administration that relies so much on lies and half-truths. The last thing that the Bush administration wants aired is the truth. Yet the truth has a habit of always being discovered, always being freed. It is inevitable that, eventually, someone will hear the truth, and then the truth will spread.

First up was the truth about Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. Quoting the Associated Press article (via http://news.yahoo.com):

Saddam Hussein regarded al-Qaida as a threat rather than a possible ally, a Senate report says, contradicting assertions President Bush has used to build support for the war in Saddam Hussein regarded al-Qaida as a threat rather than a possible ally, a Senate report says, contradicting assertions President Bush has used to build support for the war in Iraq.

Released Friday, the report discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that before the war, Saddam’s government “did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward” al-Qaida operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or his associates.

The Bush administration has been trying to tie Iraq and al-Qaida together ever since they started trying to push for the Iraq war. But not only was their no connection between Saddam and al-Qaida, we now know that Hussein didn’t even like al-Qaida. Ironically enough, Saddam agreed with us when it came to al-Qaida. If we hadn’t have invaded Iraq, Saddam would’ve worked to keep al-Qaida out of Iraq. By attacking and destablizing Iraq’s government, we opened the door for al-Qaida to establish a foothold in Iraq.

Not good. Definitely not good.

The second bit of news that came out over the weekend is that our intelligence agencies can’t find hide nor hair of Osama Bin Laden (via the Washington Post):

The clandestine U.S. commandos whose job is to capture or kill Osama
bin Laden have not received a credible lead in more than two years.
Nothing from the vast U.S. intelligence world — no tips from
informants, no snippets from electronic intercepts, no points on any
satellite image — has led them anywhere near the al-Qaeda leader,
according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.

“The handful of assets
we have have given us nothing close to real-time intelligence” that
could have led to his capture, said one counterterrorism official, who
said the trail, despite the most extensive manhunt in U.S. history, has
gone “stone cold.”

Now, this would already be bad. But this is even worse news, because it turns out that we had a chance to captura Osama in Tora Bora:

This calculation is based largely on a lack of activity elsewhere and
on other intelligence, including a videotape, obtained exclusively by
the CIA and not previously reported, that shows bin Laden walking on a
trail toward Pakistan at the end of the battle of Tora Bora in December
2001, when U.S. forces came close but failed to capture him. [Emphasis mine]

We had the opportunity to capture the perpetrator of the most gruesome attack ever on American soil. We were able to get him on videotape. But instead of concentrating all of our forces on Tora Bora to track Osama down and bring him to justice, we instead started reassigning forces for the upcoming invasion of Iraq.

It is very good that this information is coming to light. As more and more information is released, more people will have to take notice.

The tide is turning.