March Madness -- Again!

It's March again, and, again, I'm mad. (See posting for March, 2006 for original madness.) Not about basketball, although Ohio State seems to be doing well in the tournament at least thus far. I'm mad, still, at the administration, for its shameful neglect of veterans, from the shoddy hospital situation to cutting benefits to ignoring funerals. I'm mad at Congress for having allowed conditions to get where they are, with no meaningful oversight having been exercised for at least ten years. I'm mad that this immoral war in Iraq has just passed its fourth anniversary, and that there's no end in sight. I'm mad that the American military that have now died in Iraq outnumber the victims of the attacks in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania on 9/11 (quite apart from the fact that there was no connection between those attacks and Iraq). I'm mad each time another example of how government does its work has been corrupted for party and personal loyalty over competence, whether its the Justice Department, FEMA, supplying equipment to the military, ordering substandard trailers, or any of the rest of it. And I'm really mad at the lapdog media that doesn't bother to investigate anything or verify anything (with a very few noble exceptions), and hopping mad at a public more than willing to be distracted by sports, the latest naked rock star crotch, or talentless celebrities and their deaths/lives/imbroglios. We get the government and policies we deserve, and we certainly deserve what an arrogant and authoritarian Administration is giving us now, as we lurch towards homegrown Christian Fascism more and more on the time passes and the good Christians try to exert more and more control over what everybody does.

And it just doesn't stop!

The news from Washington gets more and more bizarre. Now we have the firing of Federal prosecutors, with emails flying back and forth between the White House and the Department of Justice. Again, as with the Veteran medical scandal, it's clear that there were political considerations at work, with no one being concerned for anything other than finding prosecutors who were politically reliable and firing those who weren't pursuing political rivals with enough fervor.

But has been the case consistently, the administration first denies, then takes responsibility, then fires an underling, all the while insisting that nothing really wrong took place. Here's Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, at a press conference earlier this week, explaining that he's really busy and can't really be expected to on top of everything that happens in his large department, but that he takes ultimate responsibility.


what he couldn't possibly know, of course, was that his chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson, had spent a great deal of time over the past six months planning the firing of the federal prosecutors, explaining to Karl Rove and Harriet Miers that firing all 93 prosecutors would create some difficulties for the Department of Justice carrying on its business. Presumably Gonzales and Sampson had little occasion to see each other and keep up with what they were doing.

Gonzales, testifying below, of course has no intention of resigning. Although there are increasing calls for precisely that from the Senate, especially since it's now quite apparent that a whole series of Justice Department officials simply lied when testifying before Congress. No reason to tell the truth, after all, when one is under oath. More important to keep the Adminstration's doings under wraps.


oh, and Mr. Sampson is still at the Justice Department; he's keeping his office, his computer, his phone, etc., until he can find more work. Suppose he'll have a problem?



And of course, today saw Valerie Plame testifying about the vindictive outing of her CIA status by the Administration as retaliation against her husband's having had the nerve to reveal some of the lies behind the Iraqii invasion. It's long been known that revealing her identity placed many people in danger; now she's talking publically about the recklessness of this vindictive Administation. More details and analysis on the BBC website, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6460227.stm

There They Go Again

So discussing funding for the war in Iraq doesn't support the troops. So says Vice President Dick Cheney. Richly ironic, coming from a man who avoided service in the military during wartime some forty years ago. And doubly ironic (and, indeed, "richly" fits here in more ways than one), since today Halliburton's CEO announced that he was moving his office to Dubai. To be closer to the oil.

And infuriating. The government in which Cheney is second-in-command (or heads, depending on who's talking) has created a war under false pretenses, failed to properly equip the soldiers it's sending into harm's way, refused to enter into any sort of negotiations that might help defuse the situation until today--almost 3 years and more than 3000 American lives later--, refuses basic legal rights to anyone it decides doesn't deserve them, and has essentially created a facist dictatorship in the United States.

So why are his statements today even being reported? There's no credibility left in the Bush administration, so this sort of spin should be named for what it is--another part of the neverending and continuous attempt to create a reality by repeating lies and false talking points, over and over again. It's clearly not working, given the polls. But still it goes on. And still these draft-dodging chicken hawks get respect from the press, despite the blood on their hands of thousands of Americans and countless thousands of Iraqis. And all for a series of lies--and to pay back Hussein. And to distract all of us from the administration's manifest failures across the boards.

And like sheeple, we're distracted. We have the government we deserve.

Taking Care of Veterans

So now we have it confirmed by The Washington Post expose of conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington: not only are the coffins of the military dead from Iraq and Afghanistan hidden from view, so too are the wounded veterans relegated to moldy walls and substandard treatment. Joseph L. Galloway's angry editorial for McClatchy Newspapers, printed in the Austin (Texas) American Statesman -- at least that's where I found it, although it's syndicated, states it best--





Who among the smiling politicians - who regularly troop over to the main hospital at Walter Reed for photo-op visits with those who've come home grievously wounded from the wars the politicians started - have bothered to go the extra quarter-mile to see the unseen majority with their rats and roaches?





read the whole article at http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/02/25galloway_edit.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=45





Once again we have the twisting of reality for appearances--the photo op with the veterans (and precious little of
that), who are then shoved aside when they're no longer useful as props.


Army Surgeon General Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, left, talks with Marine Aaron Schoenfeld of Navarre, Fla. on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 6, 2006, prior to Kiley testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center

And President Bush addressed the American Legion convention today, and had the gall to sternly announce that conditions at Walter Reed "unacceptable to me" and "are not going to continue." Excuse me? Who's been in charge since 2000? Isn't it a bit late to suddenly discover shameful conditions in what was in the past the shining example of our country's providing for veterans who need medical treatment? And despite the rhetoric in today's speech, veterans and care for veterans have been conspicuously low on Mr. Bush's agenda. You can read his entire speech at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/03/20070306-1.html -- it's deeply infuriating. And it's also infuriating to read his smarmy humor. And this on the day that the Vice President's former chief of staff was convicted of lying to a grand jury over the out of a CIA agent. Have they, to paraphrase a famous question asked of Senator Joseph McCarthy over a half century ago, no shame?

And the answer, clearly, is "No. Not a bit." Instead, President and Mrs. Bush host a state dinner this evening for King Abdullah and Queen Rania of Jordan. No Presidential visit to Walter Reed planned.