Fred Thompson, Round 1

As hard as it may be to believe, there are people out there who favorably view former Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN) entering the race for the presidency. Heck, they may actually believe that the so-called “Draft Thompson” internet campaigns are actually grass-roots in nature, rather than the carefully orchestrated political affairs that they are. Regardless, it seemed a good time to start putting out a few facts about this “New Reagan.” If Thompson does look good, it is only because of the poor company he’s keeping among Republican presidential contenders.

Thompson acted as a Washington, DC, lobbyist during the years of 1975 through 1992. He represented clients including Westinghouse, GE, and former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. He also lobbied on behalf of the Tennessee Savings and Loan League for the deregulation of the savings and loan (S&L) industry. His recommendations were incorporated into the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982. This act was a direct factor in the S&L crisis of the late 1980s that cost US taxpayers $125 billion.

From 2004 through 2007, Thompson worked for London-based Equitas Ltd, making $760,000.00 annually to lobby his former Senate colleagues. Equitas was in a pickle over asbestos-related health claims against the company. Thompson lobbied to remove a provision in a 2005 bill that would have forced Equitas to pay out a very substantial portion of an earlier agreed to settlement with those suing for health-related damages. His efforts were successful, getting Equitas off the hook.

Other activities after his Senate career include advocating for the invasion of Iraq and the war that followed, including doing a commercial for the pro-war organization Citizens United. He also served on the advisory board of the legal defense fund for I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who was convicted of obstruction of justice during the investigation of the Plame scandal. (Both of these should disqualify him from contention in the race for the presidency.)

We’ll have time going forward to flesh out Thompson as a candidate. I like him as an actor, but can he possibly be taken seriously as a president? Stay tuned.

20 June 2007

TPM on Reid/Pace Flap

I'm returning from vacation and there is a lot of material to cover. As a result, you'll probably only get short and to-the-point posts from me this week. I'll try to hit the high (e.g. low) points from my week away and also try to stay current with new material as well.

Joshua Micah Marshall over at TPM has a great piece on the political flap surrounding Senator Harry Reid's (D-NV) criticism of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace. It also touches on how Bush and the neocons are starting to spin the absolute failure of the war in Iraq... as not a failure of their making at all.

Thinking back over the blather last week over Sen. Reid's (D-NV) comments about Gen. Pace, it's quite astonishing that the White House could with a straight face attack Reid for questioning Pace's competence only day's after they'd fired him. Think about that. The White House fires Pace as part of its many-month effort to sack everyone from the Rumsfeld era at the Pentagon. And Reid is in hot water for questioning the man's abilities?

But setting aside abilities, politicians can criticize generals. That is after all the very nature of our political system. And it is a symptom of the deeply decayed and desperate state of the Iraq War debate that this is even a question. We are now far past the point of supporting the troops in their mission, ensuring that they are properly armed and protected, or anything else tied to respecting and honoring the overwhelmingly very young men and women who are paying with risk to their lives for the decisions we collectively make here at home.

Now apparently even criticism of the policy/strategy level command in Washington (this is after all what the JCS are) is beyond the pale, a sign of denigration of the military itself.

We can say whatever we want about double standards, that Sen. McCain (R-AZ) said even more to the face of the then-actual commander of American forces in Iraq (Gen. Casey) not long ago. But that's just a partisan distraction.

The real issue here is shaking ourselves loose from the degradation of our own civic and republican collective character that the war has brought us. Some principles are clear and worth repeating: You can't have a war for democracy fought by people whose principles are authoritarian and anti-democratic. It's not a throwaway line or a barb. It's the only pivot around which to understand the Bush years. [My italics.]

A few days ago, Andrew Sullivan linked to this rancid post by Glenn Reynolds previewing the coming claims that the war was sabotaged by the critics of the war who had more or less no power whatsoever during the entire prosecution of it.

But Reynolds' post and all his prefab reader emails should put us on notice that the architects of this and its dead-ender supports plan to lie their way out of this war just as they lied their way into it -- now whipping up a dust storm of rationalizations for their failures, imbecilities and lies much as the original entry into the conflict was floated on phoney claims about weapons of mass destruction and nonexistent ties between the past Iraqi regime and al Qaeda.

The only antidote to the advance of this sort of authoritarian mentality and strategy of organized lying that it is inevitably built on is the truth. Not that we can know the truth ourselves with any confidence or consistency. But we can take stock of the facts of the case as honestly as we can and speak them frankly. And that means breaking out of, ignoring, as many rhetorical bait and switch games as possible.

I generally don't quote entire articles, but this one was short and spot-on. All credit should, of course, go to Mr. Marshall and TPM.

18 June 2007

Holsinger for Surgeon General

President Bush has nominated Dr. James Holsinger to become our next Surgeon General. For the President, the nomination is entirely a political game. Dr. Holsinger is a far-right crackpot who is adored by the religious right. Thus, he gets bonus points from this portion of his base – which is pretty much his base in total now – for the nomination, regardless of whether or not Holsinger is confirmed. On that subject, Democrats who fight the nomination – and rightly so – will stir up a hornets nest in that Fox News et al will run with the story and whip the aforementioned base into a further frenzy prior to the 2008 elections. It is win-win for the Republicans and lose-lose for America as a whole.

You can help confront the President on this issue and send a message to Congress to deny Dr. Holsinger confirmation by the Senate. The HRC has an on-line form that makes it easy to send your message electronically to the members of our government who hold sway on this issue. If you would like to contact your senators in another way, you can find their contact information here.

The HRC opposes Dr. Holsinger for this position due to his radical and radically unscientific views on homosexuality. While his views are unfortunate, he is entitled to them as a private citizen. They are anathema, however, for the “doctor of our nation” and the protector of our collective health.

18 June 2007

The Storm before the Calm

I am going out of town for a week of vacation and wanted to get one final post in before my departure. Here, I’ll simply point you in the right direction to learn more about two stories.

First up is the continuing mess in Iraq. As you know, a new funding bill for the war was passed by Congress last year and signed into law by President Bush. Instead of including a fixed timetable for withdrawal of American troops, or even the promise of withdrawal if fixed objectives are not met, it included a series of benchmarks, first put forward by the President in January, for the Iraqis. These benchmarks are a sham, with no punishment in the offing if they are not met. Moreover, it is the President who will make the determination as to their completion. Normally, I’d simply laugh in frustration at the idea of the Bush Administration policing itself. Here, however, I don’t have to suffer this because the Iraqis have already announced that none of the benchmarks will be met. Of course, this should surprise no one because none of the original benchmarks put forth by the Administration, but not previously written into law, had been met either. And yet, we are still asking our young people to die every day.

The second involves the testimony of Bradley Schlozman before Congress regarding the ever-unfolding scandal at the Department of Justice. Schlozman has been fingered for a key – indeed perhaps the key – role in the illegal politicization of the DoJ. Much of Schlozman’s testimony was contentious, even hostile. It was also downright unbelievable. Whereas other DoJ officials, including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, have played the “I don’t remember” card in their testimony, Schlozman made many unequivocal statements, some of which might already be coming back to bite him on the ass. (Funny how lying to Congress will do that to you, no?) For details, check out these stories by Josh Marshall and Laura McGann.

No to a Libby Pardon

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former Assistant to President Bush and Chief of Staff of Vice President Cheney, has been sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for perjury and obstruction of justice. (I wrote about the case in general here.) The Special Counsel in this case has stated his belief that Libby’s actions were to protect those “higher up the food chain” in the administration and that he will continue to dig for the truth. For this and other reasons, the pressure on the President to pardon Libby will be great. Justice will most certainly not be served by such a pardon. You can make your voice heard in opposition to a pardon using the Working Assets form that can be found here.

Your Farm Bill & You

Several weeks ago, I wrote a call-to-action piece on the 2007 Farm Bill, urging you to write your Members of Congress on the matter. I explained the reasons for my concern on this matter there, and won’t repeat them again here. I included a letter in that piece so that you could forward it under your own name. I made it clear that while I didn’t believe that the letter provided was the best possible tool, it would be better than if your legislators didn’t hear from you at all.

Today, I received an updated letter from the coalition that helps build support at the grass-roots level in my area. While once again it isn’t perfect, it is an improvement over the original epistle. If you failed to take action earlier, but want to do so now, I urge you to forward the new letter to your Members of Congress. Their contact information can be found here.

As I noted previously, this letter is written from the viewpoint of a resident of New Mexico. There are two sections near the end where New Mexico is mentioned. I have put the state’s name in blue. If you do not reside in New Mexico, you should change this specific text to fit your state of citizenship. Otherwise, the letter should be able to stand on its own.

Time is of the essence. If you are going to act, do so today. Thank you.

Dear XXX,

I am writing to let you know that I care about your vote on the upcoming 2007 Farm Bill. I care about your vote because more than 35 million Americans, half of them kids, don't get enough to eat. Yet, kids get the majority of their calories at school, which makes school lunches extremely important to their wellbeing. So what do we feed them? Tater Tots, chicken (parts) nuggets, chocolate milk and canned fruit cocktail. School lunches are the dumping grounds for toxic food, and meanwhile one in two children will have diabetes by the age of 18!

I care about your vote because I worry about the loss of farmland and the fate of family farmers. As one example, in New Mexico over the last five years, over 200,000 acres of farmland and more than 500 farms have been lost! When farmland goes out of production, often the water rights are lost or transferred, which means that piece of land will never go into production again. As local farms disappear, our food security is threatened, especially as energy prices increase and our local production of food is compromised. Throughout the US, there are four times more farmers over the age of 65 than farmers under the age of 35. In northern New Mexico – once again a good example – the average age of farmers is 59 years old. Who will replace this generation of farmers? How can we train new farmers?

I care about your vote because I don't think it is right that our food system is dominated by corporations and commodities. It is crazy that almost 50% of all commodity subsidies went to just 5 percent of eligible farmers in 2005, which marginalized those who were producing locally grown organic food and grass fed meat and dairy products. I care because out of the hundreds of plant and animal species that have been cultivated for human use, the Farm Bill favors just four primary food groups: food grains, feed grains, oilseeds, and upland cotton. While millions of Americans are hungry, most of the subsidized food groups above are either fed to cattle in confinement or processed into oils, flours, starches, sugars or other industrial food additives. Now there's the threat of diverting farms to the production of biofuels, too.

I care about your vote because something is terribly wrong when millions of Americans are obese and the Surgeon General is predicting that this could be the first generation of kids who won't live longer than their parents. It's because the Food Bill favors the mega-production of sugars and starches rather than regional supplies of fresh vegetables, healthful fruits, and nuts. Over the last 15 years, the cost of fresh fruits and vegetables has risen 40%, while the cost of dairy, red meat, chicken, sugar, and fat has fallen 25%. Our populace doesn't have as easy access to food that is good for them, while highly-processed, subsidized food is easily and cheaply available.

Farmland conservation programs need help, too! Conservation bills have been cut by 14% and wildlife incentive programs have been underfunded by 30%. The Conservation Reserve Program helps farmers reduce soil erosion, yet 28 million acres are being removed from the program. Wildlife Habitat Incentives, Wetlands Reserve, Environmental Quality Incentives, Farm and Ranchlands Protection – all these programs need to continue to help farmers promote healthy habitat for animals and plants, reduce air and water pollution, and protect agricultural land from urban sprawl.

I think you'll agree that things are pretty out of whack with our country's Farm Bill. Now is the time to make our food and farm policies more enlightened, which is why I care so much about your vote!

Here are some of the things I'd like to see better funded in the 2007 Farm Bill:

* Increase the funding for the Food Stamp Program so that those below the poverty level can access the more costly fresh fruits and vegetables and have a choice over eating the processed, high fat, low nutritional cheap food now flooding the market.
* Continue and increase the funding for the Farm and Ranchland Protection Program. It will help farmers and ranchers create permanent conservation easements, receive a one-time, up-front payment equal to the fair market value of the development rights and continued use of the land for agricultural purposes.
* Please don't consolidate conservation programs! Each is important and deserves to be adequately funded.
* Provide more support for disadvantaged and limited resource farmers, so that farming is a sustainable lifestyle that others will want to do. In the west, 25% of farmers are minority, yet they get less than 1% of the funding. Be sure that the census accurately counts minority farmers.
* Allow schools to use federal money to have geographic preference to buy food. Right now, federal money doesn't allow us to buy food from New Mexico producers. New Mexico kids should eat New Mexico apples, not those flown in from Washington!
* Provide funding to help us rebuild our agricultural infrastructure. There's been a big push in New Mexico, for example, to grow wheat, but it has to be shipped 300 miles to get it milled in Texas! We need to rebuild our local mills and processing facilities to make it easier to grow and sell local food.
* Don't just subsidize the "big 5" crops (wheat, corn, cotton, rice, and soybeans). Farmers need support to grow fruits and vegetables, and be sure the funding has a geographic preference so it gets to all parts of the country, including New Mexico!

I depend on you to ensure that our food system is sustainable into the future by voting NOT with the farm bloc but for the common person who needs good food, locally available to live a healthy life. This opportunity to change the direction of our food and farm policies only comes once every five years, so please make the most of it. Thank you for your consideration.

John Q. Public
555 Main Street
Anytown NY 55555

4 June 2007

The Internet Needs You

The winds of change are blowing on the Information Super Highway and the driving force behind those winds is money. The history of the Internet is one of “Network Neutrality.”

Network Neutrality — or "Net Neutrality" for short — is the guiding principle that preserves the free and open Internet.

Put simply, Net Neutrality means no discrimination. Net Neutrality prevents Internet providers from speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination.

Net Neutrality is the reason why the Internet has driven economic innovation, democratic participation, and free speech online. It protects the consumer's right to use any equipment, content, application or service on a non-discriminatory basis without interference from the network provider. With Net Neutrality, the network's only job is to move data — not choose which data to privilege with higher quality service.

To put it another way:

…the issue called "Net Neutrality," which says that you, the customer, should choose what information you see, which services you use and not the company which owns the telephone or cable network you are using.

With the concept of Network Neutrality holding sway, it doesn’t matter what Net service you use to “log into” the Internet. You will be able to access any web site at the streaming speed of your connection provider. The site you are accessing cannot place speed limits or tariffs based on your Net choices. In other words, Comcast isn’t going to charge you a fee for visiting a site that is housed on their server network just because you use AT&T to connect to the Net. Nor will Comcast make your download or upload speeds slower because you use a competitor as your connection provider. On the flip side, AT&T shouldn’t prevent you from seeing any sites on the Net just because those sites are not affiliated with AT&T. This may soon change, restricting your freedom and the free-flow of information.

The nation's largest telephone and cable companies — including AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner — want to be Internet gatekeepers, deciding which Web sites go fast or slow and which won't load at all.

They want to tax content providers to guarantee speedy delivery of their data. They want to discriminate in favor of their own search engines, Internet phone services, and streaming video — while slowing down or blocking their competitors.

These companies have a new vision for the Internet. Instead of an even playing field, they want to reserve express lanes for their own content and services — or those from big corporations that can afford the steep tolls — and leave the rest of us on a winding dirt road.

The big phone and cable companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying Congress and the Federal Communications Commission to gut Net Neutrality, putting the future of the Internet at risk.

We need to make sure that our voices are heard on this issue. Congress is currently writing the next Telecommunications Act and the giant communications corporations are hard at work lobbying legislatures to sell them (or even give them) the right to carve up sections of the Internet as their own. With that power, they can control form of content, speed of delivery, access to content, and charge for access. When I speak of “charging for access,” I’m not speaking of an individual site charging for its content. That is a practice that is used by many businesses when information is their product. Rather, I’m talking about charging you just for the ability to get to a site’s URL address in the first place!

No matter how you look at this, it is bad for us as “consumers” of the Internet. It is bad for innovation through the free-flow of ideas and information. It is only good for the corporations looking for new, intrusive revenue streams and for corrupt legislators whose pockets are filled with cash at our expense.

What can you do?

As always, contacting your legislators is needed. Two sites allow you to send an e-mail to your legislatures, as well as to members of the FCC, quickly and easily using only a single form. They are MoveOn.org and Working Assets. Another site, SaveTheInternet.com, has an electronic petition that you can sign on its home page that will be presented to Congress. I urge you to fill out each of these forms so that electronic messages from you will reach the appropriate Members of Congress. Should you wish to take the fight farther and either call your legislators or write them via snail mail – either form of communication is taken more seriously by Members of Congress – their contact information can be found here.

Postscript: In spite of this being such a big issue, it has barely registered on the political state. Only John Edwards has taken up the call among the presidential candidates, and Al Gore has focused on it as well.

Postscript 2: Forms such as those I note above generally require a valid e-mail address in order for your messages to be sent. This is to help prevent individuals from “spamming” the sites with message requests. If you are worried about organizations either sending you future e-mails or passing along your information to third parties, most sites allow you to opt-out via checking or unchecking boxes as needed. Finally, you can always set up a “dummy” e-mail account for taking just this sort of action, for entering contests, etc. Google Mail, Yahoo Mail, and Microsoft’s Hotmail are all free, easy to use, and thus are perfect for just this sort of thing. (As an aside, I use Google's Gmail for my everyday e-mail and love it!)

Postscript 3: Thanks to my sister-in-law for the information on the Working Assets site.

1 June 2007