Author: greatbasin2

To frame Republican actions as weak is a good exercise at a theoretical level, but this week’s news should make every progressive among us much more adept at labeling the GOP as the party of weakness. Lord knows they’ll try to hang that label on Democrats from now until November 2006.  We’ve already heard from Mean Jean Schmidt about “cutting and running,” and from Mr. SEC probe Frist about “retreat and defeat.”  Wait a minute! What did this week, and many many previous weeks, teach us about the President and the Republican leadership in Congress?  (below the fold)
First, we learned that the President was so fearful of making his case against terrorists that he felt compelled to allow searches without warrants. Warrantless searches that he could have made perfectly legal in a heartbeat by going to the FISA court. With all the power and resources of the Federal Government at his disposal he was still too timid to go to the special court for a quick warrant.

Is the President so afraid of bin Laden that he’s willing to tear up the Bill of Rights and resort to illegalwarrantless searches of American citizens?  Note please that the President doesn’t use that phrase often, American Citizens, he calls us the “American People.” Maybe the word “citizen” implies we have some rights he doesn’t have to respect.

Second, we learned that the President is so insecure about the support for his war that he has the Pentagon spy on Florida Quakers.  Now there’s a group to be afraid of?  Yes sir, you have to watch those members of the Society of Friends because they just might rise up and do something completely nonviolent.  We learned that the Pentagon has 400 pages of these types: pacifists, Quakers, anti-war types.  All that non-violence must just scare him to death.

Third, we learned that when the Republican Leadership in Congress is so uncertain and squeamish about their legislative agenda they try to hide it in must pass bills.  Nifty tactic that: slapping an amendment gutting the campaign reform act onto the Defense Appropriation Act. After the conference report was already signed. The act that increases health care benefits for National Guard troops, the act that provides for jammers and vests for the young men and women serving this country–that act may get stalled because the Republicans were too childish and fearful of defeat if they tried to let their agenda see the light of day.  And wasn’t this just like the cute stunt they pulled regarding drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve?

Fourth: Oh yes, Senator John Ensign of Nevada was supposed to have scheduled hearings in his Armed Services subcommittee about profiteering by Halliburton and others in December. Doesn’t look like that promise to Senator Dorgan is going to be kept. What’s the Senator so afraid of, that something unpleasant might be learned?

Fifth: On the same general note–wasn’t there supposed to be some investigation of Phase II? How the administration sliced and diced the intelligence leading up to the Iraq War? Now, where might that investigation be? Pigeon-holed up in some Republican controlled committee too fainthearted to really go after the truth?

Sixth: Seen all those ads on television for umpteen million prescription benefit plans that Senior Citizens are supposed to wade through? Is the current mess a product of an administration so thoroughly cowed by the pharmaceutical manufacturers that it couldn’t even bargain for lower prices?

BRING IT ON ye members of the GOP, call me a coward for “defeat and retreat” just explain why you couldn’t let a Defense Appropriations bill through without playing games with it.  BRING IT ON, and call me a defeatist but then kindly explain what a victory looks like and just when you might decide to provide adequate health care for our veterans.
BRING IT ON call me “old tax and spend” but then I’d certainly appreciate an explanation of why the costs of rebuilding the Gulf Coast have to be born on the backs of working people.
BRING IT ON: call me cringing if you want, but I’m not the one who’s so afraid of the Osama Bin Forgotten Boys that I’m willing to tear up the Constitution and hide shaking in my boots ready to give up my rights as a Citizen for just a little tiny bit of security.

There’s this old adage: The wheels of justice may grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.” All well and good, however sometimes they move slowly because someone’s put a wrench in the works. Call it foot dragging, subtle sabotage, or whatever your favorite phrase, the result is the same. No heat-No light. Thus leading to the second adage “Democracy dies behind closed doors.”

When Dorgan (D-ND) asked for an investigation into the activities of Halliburton et. al. in conjunction with expenditures in Iraq the GOP voted it down. Nevada Senator John Ensign promised hearings in December on the issue in his subcommittee. That’s THIS December, December 2005, a month with three weeks to go and one Congressional Vacation in the midst of it.  The extended copy includes some reasons to hold Ensign’s feet to the fire and a review of why his tootsies should be subjected to a bit more heat.
It all started back in November. Remember? Halliburton Watch

The promised investigation made it to CNN “Whistleblower’s Iraq Claims to be Investigated” CNN and
Charlie Cray (Yahoo News) November 11, 2005 touted this news as well source here

It’s not like this was the first call for investigations into the dealings of the Pentagon and Halliburton + subsidiaries.  The Justice Department was supposed to be investigating as well.

Corporate Watch MarketPlace NPR October 25, 2005 “…Documents provided to The Wall Street Journal indicate that, despite those questions, the military’s going to let Halliburton keep some, possibly even all, of the money it’s already been paid. John Dimsdale reports from Washington.”…

Inquiries have been ongoing since March, 2004 CorpWatch Neil King, Jr. and Glenn R. Simpson Wall Street Journal:
“The Pentagon has asked the Justice Department to join an inquiry into alleged fuel overcharging by Halliburton Co. in Iraq, indicating that Pentagon officials see possible grounds for criminal charges or civil penalties.”

And, after all the press, the result? Not much.

The Hill  December 10, 2005 (Roxana Tiron) Hill News
“Almost one year after the House Government Reform Committee launched an investigation into the Pentagon’s contracts with Halliburton Corp. in Iraq, the panel still hasn’t received all the documents it requested from the Department of Defense (DoD).

In the wake of a subpoena threat earlier this summer, the Pentagon started turning over documents related to Halliburton’s disputed billing under a $2.5 billion contract for Iraqi oil-site repairs and fuel imports.”

For a more complete summary of the Center for Public Integrity’s “Windfalls of War Project” go to Public Integrity Org for additional information.

Has Ensign scheduled hearings? It doesn’t seem that he has. The Senate website shows only one committee hearing: “…posted to date: December 13, 2005 to consider the nomination of J. Dorrance Smith to be Assistant Sec. of Defense for Public Affairs.”

Senate Armed Services Committee/ Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support: Ensign, McCain, Inhofe, Roberts, Sessions, Chambliss, Cornyn, Thune; Bird, Bill Nelson, Ben Nelson, Dayton, Bayh, Clinton.
Senator Ensign’s contact information: Ensign Contact: 356 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510 (202) 224-6244

For additional information on Senator Ensign’s donors:
Ensign PAC contributions
Ensign top contributors including $19, 144 from Greenberg, Traurig et al.

In addition to your usual holiday mailings please consider a note to Senator Ensign asking when those “December Hearings” might take place!

While most of the country is tuned into the War in Iraq, there’s another war going on right in the good old U.S.A.  Rule by rule, regulation by regulation, law by law, the Bush Administration and its allies in Congress are rolling back as many environmental protections as they can. The latest victim is a fish. A salmon to be more precise.  There are no pictures of this fish in a uniform, and no tape of its grieving mates.  However, the fish is certainly a victim, just as we are victims of the “Not-so-Clean Air Act,” and the “Not-so-Clean Water Act.”  

For more about just what’s going on with Larry Craig (R-ID) versus the fish, and a suggestion for action we can take–please read on below the fold.
The Situation  Once upon a time northwestern fisheries and Native American tribes derived income from salmon fishing. Fishing/Guide services made money offering recreational trips to the Pacific NW. All this for a fish. However, competition between the fish and the utility companies has been a losing proposition for the fish in question, the Coho and the Chinook:

From the Natural Resources Defense Council
“Once abundant from Alaska all the way down to Santa Barbara, populations of chinook salmon have been declining steadily. Human modification of natural water flow for dams, hydropower and agriculture has cut into salmon habitat. Nine regional subgroups of chinook salmon are listed as threatened or endangered.

“Coho salmon went extinct in the Snake River in 1985. All five remaining species of Snake River salmon and steelhead are listed under the Endangered Species Act, headed toward the same fate unless we act now. Biologists say that, collectively, the four lower Snake River dams in southeastern Washington are the primary threat to salmon. These dams and reservoirs now lie between the inland streams where salmon are born and the ocean where they spend most of their lives.”
Sierra Club

The Problem The Bush Administration has engaged in foot-dragging and out right fighting the implementation and enforcement of fisheries improvement from day one.

The League of Conservation Voters puts it this way:

“Indeed, his (Bush) administration has fallen short of targets required under a plan inherited from the Clinton administration for improving salmon habitats and water quality. Wild salmon are still well below the levels necessary to ensure their long-term survival, and a judge has ordered the entire rescue plan redone.”  

The Wild Salmon Center offers more details:

So, how does Mr. Craig (R-ID) fit into the picture? Mr. Craig is not happy about the way the fish are being counted. In a manuever calculated to delight his supporters from the hydroelectric power industry who gave him $145,436 for his campaigns since 2001, he inserted one sentence into a provision for energy spending: “…Craig blocked this funding mechanism (for the Fish Passage Center) by inserting a sentence in an energy and water spending bill that says, <u>”The Bonneville Power Administration may make no new obligations in support of the Fish Passage Center.”</u&gt

Why would Mr. Craig do this? The Washington Post catches and lands him:  Washington Post

Now where have we heard this before: “Kill the Messenger!”  Any agency, no matter how small, that enrages the industrial donors to the Republican Party will find its budget slashed, or in this case eliminated.
What do the CIA and the Fish Passage Agency have in common? They both told the White House and the Republican leadership in Congress things they didn’t want to hear?

If you’d like to make your voice heard there’s a letter to Congressional Representatives Take Action here.

At the very least you’ll make a bear happy?

Richard Pombo (R-CA) and James Gibbon (R-NV) have inserted a provision into the budget reconciliation act that would allow the Bargain Basement Sale of public lands–under the guise of making adjustments in the Mining Act.  

There are two things that need to happen. Neither Mr. Pombo nor Mr. Gibbons should be appointed to the conference committee regarding this bill. And, the provision should be stricken.

The message is simple: sections 6201-6207 of HR4241 must be deleted.

While members of Congress are home for the holidays, please consider contacting their offices and sending some letters to editors.  Our National Forests and public lands are not for sale to developers? Well, yes they are if these provisions stay in the bill!

The extended copy includes some sources that are useful rebuttals for this latest Republican Giveaway. This diary includes information from discussions on DKos.
Sources and Information:

U.S. Newswire, Tony Lallonardo- National Environmental Trust

“There must be better ways to generate revenue than selling off our national heritage. This is an unprecedented give-away of millions of acres of public lands to special interests at bargain-basement prices.
While the provision’s primary backer, Rep. Richard Pombo, says it will raise some $150 million over 5 years, it in fact sells public assets for far less than their value, and it raises less than half the revenue that could be raised by imposing a royalty fee on hardrock minerals taken from federal lands.”

Los Angeles Times

“Unfortunately, our federal public lands are now under siege in Congress. It seems that some folks simply do not like the idea of the public owning land. These radicals and ideologues are taking advantage of the fact that Americans are preoccupied with economic insecurity, high fuel prices and a war abroad to promote their personal interests by pushing language in the federal budget bill that would put a “for sale” sign on 270 million acres of national forest and other public land.”

Additional Information:

National Environmental Trust

Amanda G. Little’s article in Grist Magazine

Westerners for Responsible Mining

The Wilderness Society

The Sierra Club

Great Basin Mine Watch

Two can play this game (from the Houston Chronicle)
“AUSTIN — Travis County prosecutors today demanded the state’s regional administrative judge remove himself from U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay’s criminal case because he has made political donations to Gov. Rick Perry.”

“District Attorney Ronnie Earle said Administrative Judge B.B. Schraub, a Republican, should not pick the new trial court judge in DeLay’s case because Schraub has consistently given money to Republicans and Perry in particular.”

“This is not simply a request for a Republican administrative judge appointed by a Republican governor to be removed from a case where there is a bitterly partisan Republican defendant, but rather a specific instance where a staunch Republican has repeatedly donated to a central figure in the subject matter,” Earle said.”
Houston Chronicle  The bad news: a judge was removed (probably for partisan reasons). The good news: the longer this drags on toward the 2006 elections the better?