This blog will focus on political images I have found all around the Internet, though I will intersperse some commentary and quotes that I find interesting.
By ROBERT TANNER AP National Writer
WASHINGTON Feb 27, 2006 (AP)— President Bush thanked the nation's governors Monday for their support of National Guard troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, even as state leaders are warning Bush's budget plans will cut Guard strength and leave states less able to respond to homegrown emergencies.
Most of the corpses in Baghdad's mortuary show signs of torture and execution. And the Interior Ministry is being blamed. By Andrew
Buncombe and Patrick Cockburn
Published: 26 February 2006
Hundreds of Iraqis are being tortured to death or summarily executed every month in Baghdad alone by death squads working from the Ministry of the Interior, the United Nations' outgoing human rights chief in Iraq has revealed.
John Pace, who left Baghdad two weeks ago, told The Independent on Sunday that up to three-quarters of the corpses stacked in the city's mortuary show evidence of gunshot wounds to the head or injuries caused by drill-bits or burning cigarettes. Much of the killing, he said, was carried out by Shia Muslim groups under the control of the Ministry of the Interior.
Buried in the huge budget-reconciliation bill, on which House and Senate conferees are putting the final touches right now, are a few paragraphs that accomplish an extraordinary feat. They roll back the price of a barrel of crude oil to what it sold for two years ago. They create this pretend price for the benefit of a small group of the politically well connected. You still won't be able to buy gasoline for $1.73 per gal. as you did then, instead of today's $2.28. You still won't be able to buy home heating oil for $1.60 per gal., in place of today's $2.39. But a select group of investors and companies will walk away with billions of dollars in tax subsidies, not from oil but from the marketing of a dubious concoction of synthetic fuel produced from coal and dependent on government tax credits tied to the price of oil.
From 2003 through 2005, TIME estimates, the synfuel industry raked in $9 billion in tax credits. That means the lucky few collectively cut their tax bills by that amount, which would be enough to cover a year's worth of federal taxes for 20 million Americans who make less than $20,000 a year and pay income taxes. How important is the tax credit to synfuel producers? In its latest annual report, Headwaters Inc., a Utah-based purveyor of synfuel processes and substances, says flatly, "Headwaters does not believe that production of synthetic fuel will be profitable absent the tax credits."
Posted Sunday, Feb. 26, 2006We live in riotous times. The global and national supplies of rationality seem dangerously depleted. Two weeks ago, there was the media riot over Vice President Dick Cheney's hunting accident. Last week there was a bipartisan congressional riot over the Bush Administration's approval of a deal to transfer the management of six U.S. ports from a British company to one owned by the United Arab Emirates. And then there is the constant, combustible throb of Islamic unrest, most recently the intramural explosion of Iraq's Sunnis and Shi'ites, which has devastated the possibility that civil order will arrive in that benighted country anytime soon.
The response of President Bush to all this has been surreal. Public support for his policies is dwindling; his own party is abandoning him; he seems naked, defenseless in the public square. Yet he has spent most of the past few weeks traveling the country, selling the vaporous "policies" he proposed in his State of the Union address. As the Dubai debate went nuclear, Bush was off trying to convince people that he was serious about developing alternative energy sources. (He isn't, really. His proposed budget increases for such projects run in the millions; a single tax break for oil companies proposed in the Interior department's budget—a reduction in the rent they pay to drill on public land—will cost an estimated $7 billion.) Then three days after the terrorist attack on Iraq's Golden Mosque, Bush gave another of his "freedom's on the march in the Middle East" speeches to a subdued American Legion audience in Washington. A paragraph condemning the mosque attack was added, but the President's address was both stale and fantastic. The news from the Middle East—Iran, Iraq, Palestine—has been nonstop awful, and Bush is beginning to sound as airy and out of touch as Woodrow Wilson must have in 1919, when that President tried to sell the futile dream of a League of Nations.
It just seems to me that someone, somewhere in our administration must have known that this would raise a firestorm and wanted it kept quiet for personal reasons.These guys should at least get their stories straight.
Seeking to defend the sale of U.S. port operations to a company based in the United Arab Emirates President Bush this week said, “Our government has looked at this issue, and looked at it carefully.” His statements were backed up by assurances from White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan who told reporters "The president made sure to check with all the Cabinet secretaries that are part of this process, or whose agencies or departments are part of this process."
But not so fast. On the same day, the Treasury Department issued a statement saying that Treasury Secretary John Snow, the chair of the committee responsible for the review and approval of the sale of the port operations “had learned of the approval of the Dubai Ports deal after the fact,” and that Assistant Treasury Secretary for International Affairs Clay Lowery was the most senior Treasury official involved.
The statement was apparently intended to put some distance between Snow and stories raising questions about what would appear to be a huge conflict of interest on his part.
I am not convinced that this Republican Congress will find, or report, the truth during this new 45-day discovery period.
The following is VERY funny - From John Breneman's "Fake News" - click here for the original...Vice President Dick Cheney has blown away the field in his quest for an Olympic biathlon medal in Torino. Literally.
Cheney successfully shot a Russian, a German, a Frenchman and a North Korean in the sport that combines cross-country skiing with rifle shooting.
The vice president was penalized for killing his rivals, but his cumulative time -- and their sudden absence from the competition -- was good enough to earn him a place in the finals.
Now the Wyoming outdoorsman is one step closer to his dream of blasting his way to Olympic gold. A Cheney medal for the U.S. would be seen as a victory in the war on terror, said President Bush, who was forced to pull out of the men's luge competition due to a strained groin.
Two-faced Son-of-a-Bitch - Have you heard of George Bush offering to use Federal money to help with the reconstruction of any of the churches burned in Alabama in recent weeks? Well, how about this...BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Shiite leaders in Iraq said President Bush has offered to help rebuild a sacred shrine that was bombed.The attack on the Askariya shrine in Samarra on Wednesday has ignited a wave of violence that has left more than 190 people dead. About 50 people were reported killed today, including 14 police commandos and 13 members of one family.The office of the head of Iraq's largest Shiite political party said Bush called Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim today to discuss the bombing. Al-Hakim's office says Bush condemned the attack and offered to help rebuild the shrine.
From Time.com - click here to read more...
Would Justice Clean the House?
The Justice Department has a message for Congress: clean up your house or else we may have to do it for you. A senior federal law enforcement official told TIME that the paralyzed and often lax House ethics committee has created a vacuum that prosecutors won't hesitate to fill. The House’s internal mechanism for keeping corruption in check is “broken,” says the official.
By contrast, current criminal probes of lawmakers are expanding rapidly. Like the Abramoff probe, the investigation into former Republican Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham from San Diego is also widening. Last week, defense contractor Mitchell Wade OF MZM, INC. pleaded guilty to supplying more than $1 million of the $2.4 million in bribes Cunningham previously admitted taking in a scheme that touches Defense Department officials and two other members of Congress.
A Defense Department spokesman tells TIME that "there is an ongoing review by appropriate organizations within the Department" as to whether the Cunningham- and MZM-linked intelligence contracts would have compromised any Pentagon intelligence programs.
From USA Today - click here to read the article...
WASHINGTON — Just when you think things could not get worse for the Bush White House, they do. The first year of President Bush's second term was hardly one to look back upon fondly. The Hurricane Katrina mess, the indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff for lying to a grand jury, the Harriet Miers Supreme Court debacle, lack of support for his efforts to overhaul Social Security and the protests of Cindy Sheehan, the California mother whose son was killed in Iraq, combined to knock the president off his stride and shake public confidence in his leadership.
Bush's job approval rating fell below 50% last May and hasn't come close to the midpoint since. He ended the year at 41% approval in a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll, and is at 39% now.
The American Civil Liberties Union released newly obtained documents Thursday showing that senior Defense Department officials approved aggressive interrogation techniques that FBI agents deemed abusive, ineffective and unlawful, RAW STORY has learned.
“We now possess overwhelming evidence that political and military leaders endorsed interrogation methods that violate both domestic and international law,” Jameel Jaffer, an attorney with the ACLU said in a release. “It is entirely unacceptable that no senior official has been held accountable.”
...
NEW YORK As the economy has steadily grown over the past four years, so too has the number of Americans going hungry.
America's Second Harvest, the nation's largest charitable food distribution network, is now providing help to more than 25 million people, an 8 percent increase over 2001, the last time the organization did a major survey of its more than 200 food banks in all 50 states.
That increase in the number of people who are hungry or "food insecure" - Washington bureaucratese for "not sure where their next meal will come from" - is reflected in data collected by the US Department of Agriculture as well. In 2005, it found more than 38 million Americans lived in "hungry or food insecure" households, an increase of 5 million since 2000.
From Raw Story - click here to read more...
As the Bush administration continues to fund only abstinence-only sex education, American youth are taking comprehensive sex education into their own hands, RAW STORY has learned.
Programs favored by the administration often censor information about birth control and abortion completely. A December 2004 report commissioned by Representative Henry Waxman (D-California) found 11 out of 13 abstinence-only curricula examined to contain errors and distortions.
In response to federal budget requests which would increase funding once again for abstinence-only sex education, Advocates for Youth has launched two new campaigns domestically and abroad—the Keep it REAL campaign and the Fix the Gap campaign, which seek to prioritize sex education programs that include information about contraception and the HIV prevention.
President Bush on Thursday defended his administration's decision to allow a company from an Arab country to operate six major U.S. ports, saying, "People don't need to worry about security."
"This deal wouldn't go forward if we were concerned about the security of the United States of America," Bush told reporters during a Cabinet meeting.
With yesterday’s bombing of one of Shiite Islam’s holiest shrines in Iraq, the common consensus appears to be that Iraq is now on the verge of a full-blown civil war. Such an outcome has been predicted for years, and the Bush administration has done little to shift its strategy to address the persisting threat.
In September 2004, intelligence officials at the CIA warned that Iraq could dissolve into civil war over the next 18 months (18 months have now elapsed since the report was revealed). “White House spokesman Scott McClellan, and other White House spokesmen, called the intelligence assessment the work of ‘pessimists and naysayers’ after its outlines were disclosed by the New York Times. President Bush called the assessment a guess, which drew the consternation of many intelligence officials.”
From The Roanoke Times - click here for more...
One letter to the editor referred to Bush as "a mental midget," but I give him more credit than that. Rather than admitting his mistakes, he's attacked those who accused him of having made them, while being backed up by others of his ilk.
In addition to what the war with Iraq has already cost us in terms of lives, finances and world respect, we continue to spend $10 billion monthly on what he's hyped as being a noble cause, while allowing people in other parts of the world to starve to death -- not to mention the needs of people in our country.
Using that kind of rationale, a lawyer could claim that a client who raped a victim did it for therapeutic reasons.
Washington -- Congress may huff and puff next week when it starts debating President Bush's latest request for money to finance the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- a $72.4 billion plan that will boost total spending on the conflicts to the range of $400 billion -- but quick and overwhelming approval is expected.
Still Bush's use of an emergency budgeting technique that circumvents the normal budgeting and spending process has increasingly angered members of Congress and, critics say, is being used to hide costs of the fighting.
Can you imagine our clown of a President doing anything "deftly?"
From The Heritage Foundation - click here to read the article...
President George W. Bush will travel to India and Pakistan in the first part of March. Although the United States, India, and Pakistan agree on several issues—such as the war on terrorism and trade issues generally—the President probably will face some requests that are contrary to both American interests and international arms control measures. Additionally, Pakistan and India each tends to view cooperation between the other country and the U.S. as inimical to its own interests. President Bush will need to balance the interests of the two South Asian rivals deftly while also advancing American interests.
Five years ago, when President Bush submitted his first budget, I wrote a column that began: "We are fortunate, after years of budget deficits, to finally enjoy a projected budget surplus, a real surplus separate and apart from the Social Security surplus. While this new 'on budget' surplus provides us with innumerable possibilities, it also requires us to balance how best to use our resources within a framework of fiscal responsibility. If we choose the wrong path we could return to the days of big federal deficits and all the damage they did to our economy."
Today, it is overwhelmingly clear that the President and Congress took the wrong path. The projected surpluses in 2001 would have eliminated our national debt entirely in 10 years. Instead, the President's new budget projects a debt of $11.5 trillion in five years -- a dramatic reversal and an enormous burden to pass on to our children and grandchildren. Where did the money go? An overwhelming amount went to pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. For example, the top 1 percent of households, whose incomes average nearly $1.2 million each year, received an average of $35,000 in 2004 from the Bush tax cuts.
Carl Levin is the senior U.S. senator from Michigan.
Originally published February 23, 2006
This Sunday, "60 Minutes" aired a piece on global warming. The piece, which featured correspondent Scott Pelley, largely took the existence of global warming as a given. But there are those who claim that global warming – and, specifically, the notion that humans are responsible for it – is a myth. I asked Pelley why the voices of the skeptics were not heard in the piece. "There is virtually no disagreement in the scientific community any longer about global warming," he says. "The science that has been done in the last three to five years has been conclusive.
We talked to the chairman of the National Academy of Sciences (NOTE: This word was incorrectly transcribed and has been corrected), Ralph Cicerone. Jim Hansen at NASA, who's considered the world's leading expert in climate change. The people in the story, who are well respected in the field. There's just no longer any credible evidence that suggests that, a, the earth is not warming or, b, that greenhouse gasses are not the cause. What you do see in the data again and again and again is this almost lockstep increase between the levels of CO2 and the rise of temperature in the atmosphere. And the climate models that predicted these things happening 15 years ago have proven to be accurate."
BUSH STILL LACKS A PLAN: Bush continues to ignore the warnings of his own generals, including Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, a key strategist in the U.S. Central Command covering the Middle East, who recently admitted that the American troop presence is a "contributory factor" to the instability in Iraq. Lt. Gen. John Vines has voiced "concerns that sectarian rivalries and incompetence could cripple major ministries and turn newly American-trained Iraqi security forces into militias for hire." 57 percent of the American public now disapprove of the way Bush is handling the Iraq war and are looking for an alternative. American Progress has some answers.
Two months after parliamentary elections that split largely along ethnic lines, Iraq still has no government and sectarian violence threatens to foment existing tensions and throw the country into a full-blown civil war. Since insurgents bombed one of Iraq's holiest Shiite sites yesterday -- destroying the "gleaming dome of the 1,200-year-old Askariya shrine" -- 90 Sunni mosques have been attacked and at least 50 people, including three Sunni clerics, have been killed.
"This could be a tipping point,'' says Juan Cole, a historian of Islam at the University of Michigan and author of the blog Informed Comment. Although Bush continues to insist that Iraq's political progress is "amazing" and State Department officials downplay the violence, the White House still has no plan to reduce sectarian tensions. The New York Times recently reported, "Of all of the changes that have swept Iraqi society since the American invasion almost three years ago, one of the quieter ones, yet also one of the most profound, has been the increased identification with one's own sect. In the poisonous new mix of violence, sectarian politics and lawlessness, families are turning inward to protect themselves." By invading Iraq without a plan for stability, President Bush has created a new haven for international terrorists and brought the country to the brink of a full-blown sectarian civil war.
From Seatllepi.com - click here to read more...
And this come from the guy who has used the US Air Force to blow up half the buildings in Iraq...
Bush condemns mosque bombing in Iraq
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON -- President Bush urged restraint among rival religious factions in Iraq after the bombing Wednesday of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, and pledged American help to restore the revered Shiite shrine."The terrorists in Iraq have again proven that they are enemies of all faiths and of all humanity," the president said in a written statement. "The world must stand united against them, and steadfast behind the people of Iraq. This senseless crime is an affront to people of faith throughout the world. The United States condemns this cowardly act in the strongest possible terms."
(CBS/AP) If there is one thing Congressional leaders and the White House can agree on, it is that neither knew the port deal with a United Arab Emirates company was even in the works, reports CBS News political analyst Gloria Borger.
President Bush was unaware of the pending sale of shipping operations at six major U.S. seaports to a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates until the deal already had been approved by his administration, the White House said Wednesday. Defending the deal anew, the administration also said that it should have briefed Congress sooner about the transaction, which has triggered a major political backlash among both Republicans and Democrats.
Think Progress (click here for more) reports that Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, was unaware of the sale of 6 major US Ports to a company owned by the rulers of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a nation with ties to terrorism. In addition, they had this update...Donald Rumsfeld, as Secretary of Defense, is a member of Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States. As such, he was one of the people who, according to the Treasury Department, unanimously approved the sale on February 13. How could do that when he didn’t even find out about the sale until last weekend?
From Scotsman.com - click here to read more...NEOCONSERVATISM has failed the United States and needs to be replaced by a more realistic foreign policy agenda, according to one of its prime architects.
Francis Fukuyama, who wrote the best-selling book The End of History and was a member of the neoconservative project, now says that, both as a political symbol and a body of thought, it has "evolved into something I can no longer support". He says it should be discarded on to history's pile of discredited ideologies.
In an extract from his forthcoming book, America at the Crossroads, Mr Fukuyama declares that the doctrine "is now in shambles" and that its failure has demonstrated "the danger of good intentions carried to extremes".
A prominent Kurdish politician, meanwhile, said talks between Kurdish and Shiite leaders on forming a new government are "not going well" because of major policy differences. That could delay formation of a new government and any drawdown of U.S. forces. . . .
A hard-line Sunni Muslim clerical group renewed accusations that the Shiite-dominated government is operating death squads to kill Sunni civilians and called on Muslim and Arab countries to support the Iraqi Sunni community.
Sheik Ismaiel al-Badri of the Association of Muslim Scholars said more than 300 Sunni Arabs have been assassinated in Baghdad over the past four months. The figure could not be independently confirmed."What's going on in Iraq is a dangerous human crisis and its impact will cross Iraq's borders if no one puts a stop to it," al-Badri told reporters at Umm al-Qura mosque in the capital. He said the killings were occurring "as if the government security forces and militias are racing against time to claim as much as they can from its rivals who oppose it." Al-Badri described "the sectarian cleansing" carried out by Interior Ministry-led militias "is the real barbaric terrorism."
In Search of Presidential EarmarksWASHINGTON -- Presidents like pork, too. With Congress on the defensive about members' appetites for earmarks -- those funds in spending bills dedicated to projects special to constituents and contributors -- Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill are taking a look at President Bush's plate of spending favorites. And his wife's as well.
There's the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian program, which this year has $24 million for grants to train people for the first lady's former profession. For the fiscal year that starts in October, Mr. Bush seeks $10 million for Preserve America grants for communities' historic preservation efforts and $50 million for the Helping America's Youth Initiative -- also among programs championed by Mrs. Bush.
While the Education Department's budget would be cut, Mr. Bush proposes a 16% increase to $204 million for teaching sexual abstinence in high schools, a popular cause for social conservatives.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- Up to 40 renewable energy scientists will have their jobs restored as the Energy Department transferred $5 million to the facility ahead of President Bush's visit Tuesday.
"The programs at NREL are critically important to realizing the President's vision to diversify and strengthen our nation's energy mix," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said in a news release. "The action we are taking today will allow the dedicated employees at NREL to continue their work that will bring us great innovation in renewable energy technologies." NREL refers to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
By BONNIE ERBEScripps Howard News Service
20-FEB-06
Those blasphemously "liberal" media outlets have once again deprived the American public of widespread coverage of nothing less than startling poll results. The non-partisan polling firm Zogby International last month found that by a margin of 52 percent to 43 percent, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush "if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge's approval."Well, there's no "if" about it anymore. The president approved warrantless wiretaps in 2002. Two years later, during a campaign appearance in Buffalo, N.Y. he volunteered he'd done nothing of the kind. That's called breaking the law and lying about it.
A Middle-East bristling with nuclear weapons is definitely not a good idea.Hamas Takes Control of Palestinian Parliament
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Feb. 18 -- The radical Islamic group Hamas took control of the Palestinian parliament Saturday during a somber swearing-in ceremony, and legislators from the new majority quickly made clear that they would not abide by signed agreements that recognize Israel's right to exist.
With the US Army vastly overextended in Iraq and Iran's friends in power in Baghdad, the Iranians apparently feel confident that the United States will take no action to stop them if they try to make a nuclear weapon. This is only one little-noticed consequence of America's failure in Iraq. We invaded Iraq to protect ourselves against nonexistent WMDs and to promote democracy. Democracy in Iraq brought to power Iran's allies, who are in a position to ignite an uprising against American troops that would make the current problems with the Sunni insurgency seem insignificant. Iran, in effect, holds the US hostage in Iraq, and as a consequence we have no good military or nonmilitary options in dealing with the problem of Iran's nuclear facilities. Unlike the 1979 hostage crisis, we did this to ourselves. . .
From Today In Iraq - click here to read more...
U.S. Churches denounce Iraq war
A coalition of American churches sharply denounced the United States-led war in Iraq today, accusing Washington of “raining down terror”.
The churches apologised to other nations for “the violence, degradation and poverty our nation has sown”.
The statement, issued at the largest gathering of Christian churches in nearly a decade, also warned the US was pushing the world toward environmental catastrophe with a “culture of consumption” and its refusal to back international accords seeking to battle global warming.
“We lament with special anguish the war in Iraq, launched in deception and violating global norms of justice and human rights,” said the statement from representatives of the 34 US members of World Council of Churches. “We mourn all who have died or been injured in this war. We acknowledge with shame abuses carried out in our name.”
The World Council of Churches meeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil, includes more than 350 mainline Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox churches; the Roman Catholic Church is not a member. The US groups in the WCC include the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Methodist Church, several Orthodox churches and Baptist denominations, among others.
Shia leader Muqtada al-Sadr has said he rejects the Iraqi constitution backed by his partners in the biggest parliament bloc. "I reject this constitution which calls for sectarianism and there is nothing good in this constitution at all," he told Aljazeera late on Saturday. He criticised federalism in the constitution, which is rejected by Iraq's Sunni Arabs, who fear it will give Kurds and Shias too much power and control over Iraq's oil resources. "If there is a democratic government in Iraq, nobody has the right to call for the establishment of federalism anywhere in Iraq whether it is the south, north, middle or any other part of Iraq," he said. Al-Sadr's remarks raised the possibility of a crisis over one of Iraq's most explosive issues.
As the crimes of the Bush administration mount, it becomes increasingly difficult to avoid talk of impeachment.
As a result of his continuing abuse of power, the impeachment option is making its way from the margin to the mainstream. Legal scholars on the left and the right argue that Bush may have committed "high crimes and misdemeanors," as stated in Article II, Section 4, of the Constitution.
The National Security Agency eavesdropping scandal has led Bruce Fein, who served as associate deputy attorney general under President Reagan, to conclude that this is "an impeachable offense," noting "It's more dangerous than Clinton's lying under oath."
Like the flouting of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the bill of particulars against President Bush includes other violations of law.
President Bush had to lean on Vice President Cheney to get him to talk about his hunting accident, TIME Magazine's Nancy Gibbs and Mike Allen report in Monday editions.
Bush and Cheney had a quiet talk. According to a Republican official, the President told Cheney how much he too loved Whittington. He acknowledged what a crushing experience it must have been to see Whittington fall after Cheney pulled the trigger on a bird, failing to see his friend nearby. After one of McClellan's press briefings, Cheney deadpanned, "He looks like he's having fun." Cheney knew what to do, being acquainted, as anyone in his position would be, with that most familiar and degrading of political rituals, the act of public penitence...
Cheney was judged to be a big help in the first term and the 2004 re-election campaign, but there is a strong sense, even among some GOP stalwarts, that his influence has ebbed.
"He was a big plus. He clearly is not now. That has to wear on a relationship," said a Republican intimately familiar with how the White House operates.
Far more important to Cheney's standing with Bush than the regrettable shooting, a Republican said, is the vice president's unflinching advocacy of invading Iraq and the costly ensuing military operation.
From Morning Sentinel - click here to read more...As I watch the actions of the Bush administration, it becomes clear that President Bush is either the most incompetent president in history or the most untrustworthy. Probably a little of both.
After Sept. 11, Bush should have gone into Afghanistan and taken out the people who brutally attacked us. Instead, he left the job incomplete and used the fear of the American people to manipulate us into an invasion of a nation that posed no threat to the United States.
The pundits are having a field day: The U.S. supports democratic elections in the Palestinian territories but now won't even talk to the winner.
In Iraq, the winning party in U.S.-sponsored elections is dominated by religious leaders who reject the separation of church and state.
Meanwhile, violent demonstrations erupt in Muslim-dominated countries after a Danish newspaper exercises a bedrock democratic right: freedom of speech.
Published: Saturday, February 18, 2006: The National Park Service's mission was laid out in the 1916 act that created it: "To conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."
That clear, unequivocal mission would change under the Bush administration's proposed rewrite of the management plan for national parks. The 277-page document, if adopted by the park service, would shift the balance between conservation and recreation, and loosen controls on commercial activities and motorized recreation uses.
Safeguarding the parks for future generations would no longer be the park service's core mission. Among the most disturbing changes is the removal of language in the current manual stating that the 1916 law's intent was to ensure a predominant emphasis on conservation, particularly when conflicts between conservation and recreational values arise.
