Atrios notes that despite saying that all of his service records would be released, the President still hasn't done it.
Matt Bivens noticed that the pay records still show a three - six month gap, and given that no one can verify that Lt. Bush actually showed up for duty dates he has paid for, whether the question shouldn't be whether he was just AWOL or AWOL and fraudulently accepting pay.
Bivens also takes ashot at the lawyer types who got their panties in a not over the desertion issues by revealing the military's own internal guideline of 31 days AWOL as desertion.
Kevin Drum still has the best information on this issue, and points out that at least one quarter of pay records is missing and that some of them align with the President's relegation to the ARF.
Which brings me to my set of questions: When will the Preident release his full service records, and why is he hiding them? What's in there he doesn't want us to see?
I have the distinct misfortune to live in Marylin Musgrave's Congressional District in Northern Colorado. I was already less than pleased with the responses from some of my letters to her. For instance: she was not aware when I wrote to her about the President's proposed changes to Dept. of Labor rules regarding over time pay that any such change was planned.
And then came her marriage amendment, which is in the news again because it looks like the President prefers her version. Religious conservatives claim that it only bans gay marriages, but as many other people are pointing out today, that's not what it really says. The best analysis is here.
Lets take a look at the amendment proposal itself:
"Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this constitution or the constitution of any state, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups."
A quick read shows that this is neither aimed at activist judges (it specifically mentions Congress and state legislatures), nor interested in preserving civil unions when it says "marital status or the legal incidents thereof" are banned.
This particular little bit of legalese is not just a bait-and-switch, but it also shows that despite their previous claims, Republicans are no longer about States Rights, unless it suits them. Otherwise they wouldn't care os Hawaii, Massachusettes, or South Carolina allowed gay marriages. this is a case of them attempting to impose their view of the world on the entire nation.
I'm personally not sure how I feel about the whole gay-marriage issue. I well understand both sides of the argument. For now, I tend to come down on the civil union side, mostly over the semantics of what the term "marriage" itself means.
Of course, if anyone has good arguments for why that isn;t enough, I'll be happy to listen.
Despite what the politicians and many media organization want us to believe there is still a sub-class of working poor who can't get out of poverty in this country, and it gets worse every day.
Don't believe it? A recent television news cast here in the Denver area said that you had to make $17 an hour to afford an average two-bedroom apartment here.
More reports involving unaudted electronic voting machines have surfaced, this time in North Carolina, where several hundred votes at electronic voting machines were not counted. And yet, the manufacturers refuse to create any kind of voter verifiable audit trail of the votes cast. What are these companies hiding, and why won't they just create a paper trail?
I'm no big fan of Governor Dean or his decision to seal some of his gubernatorial records, but aren't we forgetting that the President tried to have his gubernatorial records hidden in his father's Presidential library? What about the fact that the panel investigating the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon are going to subpeona the records of Intelligence briefings delivered to him during 2001?
Of course, Molly Ivins thinks the media is conveniently forgetting most of the President's past acts.
Don't be deceived by new items like this one. This is just about pay records, which are but one way to document service. It's important to note that the President's superiors in Alabama never met him, as indicated in his OER for that year.
Also, these are not his complete service records, just items he has chosen to release. The question remains, why is he not allowing the records to be made public? What is he hiding?
In an interesting side note, President George H. W. Bush challenged Governor Bill Clinton to release all of the material related to him, the draft, his time at Oxford, and committments made to ROTC. If this was a legitimate request in 1991-1992, why isn't it now?
I bought and read this one over the Christmas holiday when the company I word for was shutdown (as a reward for a good year). It provides an interesting look at the earliest in chemical and biological weapons and discusses the ethical and moral debates over their use as early as 700 B.C. I highly recommend it for anyone who is interested in the ide behind WMDs, or who thinks that they are a strictly modern invention.
At least the Army officers on the ground in Iraq are attempting to gather and disseminate lessons learned from their experiences in Iraq. I hope the lessons learned will keep our troops and Iraqi civilians safer from harm in the future. This is not the kind of on-the-job training I would want to experience, but I guess it is part of warfare.
I realize that by bringing this up, especially in conjunction with some of my earlier posts, I may be giving the impression that I'm anti-religious. I'm not. I just don't believe that anyone should be trying to impose their particular religious beliefs on anyone else. I know that this flies in the face of various evangelical movements whose mission is to proselytize and win converts. That's their right, of course, but it is also my right to expect that when told to buzz off, that they will. It is also my right to expect that the government will not espouse any particular religious belief. This does not mean that government officials must divorce their religious beliefs from their public actions. Indeed, I would expect their moral convictions to inform their policy decisions while still abiding by their oaths of office.
However, there is a problem when it is taken too far. Government officials from meter maids to the President must be aware that this is not a theocracy, but a republic. This is where the President runs into problems.
There are increasing reports that he is basing his decisions for items of nation importance, from the invasion of Afghanistan to that of Iraq, on guidance from God. He has related this particular bit of news to foreign leaders like Paul Martin (Canada), Vladimir Putin (Russia), and Palestinian leaders.
This is a definite problem.
As I said earlier, the President's religious beliefs are between him and the Creator, but in this country, he represents us, the citizens of the United States. He is not, to my knowledge, the representative of God on Earth. I'd have expected God to pick someone with a little more moral fiber. There's also the question of what makes him the arbiter of God's word? What kind of arrogance does it take for someone to designate himself God's vicar on Earth?
The infiltration of peace protest groups sure sounds like the bad old days of Senator McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover's files on dissidents to me. Are we to believe that this sort of thing is really meant to preserve our rights and liberties?
Calpundit has unearthed some real evidence on this issue. Evidence the President may not be able to fight off.
The President's ARF (Army Reserve Force) records show dates that record duty for the 1972-1973 time period, which might make you think that the President satisfactorily showed up for duty during the disputed time period. Alas, it turns out that this is not the case.
The ARF is where Guard members were sent as disciplinary action for not showing up for their normal duty assignments. In the President's case, this means after he went to Alabama and never showed up for his flight physical. ARF members performed no actual duty and were liable to be called into regular service. They also were not paid.
As Kevin at Calpundit points out, the ARF record covers the time that the President was in Alabama, as well as the time he was back in Texas. It also shows that he did not put in the 36 duty-days that has been claimed in the past. The ARF status also explains why there are no pay records to confirm that Lt. Bush completed the final two years of his National Guard commitment.
What this means is that essentially the President blew off the final two years of his National Guard duty. It also explains why his military records have never been fully released to the public (despite his claims to the contrary on Sunday).
This also raises a perplexing issue: is it worse to blatantly dodge the draft, or is it worse to bail out on actual service when you become disinterested?
The state of New York provides yet another good example of why some things should not be outsourced to private companies. In this case, records documenting the daily whereabout of children in day care facilities was posted on the Internet, along with their names and birth dates.
No potential for mischief there.
It also shows the dangers of massive government databases that track our daily lives. How do we know that our personal data is not protected? Want another example? Although the states can no longer sell your driver license information, the practice of scanning licenses at bars and restaurants yields a treasure trove of information about you: Social Security numbers, driver licens numbers, addresses, credit history, maps showing your home, etc...
And we're supposed to believe that all of the data government agencies collect in the "war on terror" is going to stay out of the wrong hands. Sure.
Although the Bush Administration is big on claims that its recommendations for the overhaul of Social Security (including privatization and the use of Bond financing) will save the government money, this analysis says that the use of bonds to finance Social Security will cause public debt to balloon to new heights. I'm not sure the President really understands the concept of fiscal conservatism.
Yeah. This guy deserves to be a federal appellate judge. Sure.
Repeat after me. The American and British Intel communities did not exaggerate Saddam's WMD capabilities or desires. The provided estimates that did not meet the politician's needs to build a case for war so the politicians went out and made up their own.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1141401,00.html
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=487557
It's time for us all to recognize that we were misled at the very least regarding the case for war with Iraq. None of the statements that "Saddam is evil" or "Saddam used chemical weapons in 1988" constitute a justification for an invasion. Iraq did not at any time pose an actual danger to the United States, either imminent or future.
The only question is how we deal with the aftermath.
Despite all of the Bush Administration claims to want to make decisions based on "sound science", they are systematically excluding those people that have the most current experience in different areas from commenting.
I finally found the sources of the worries that Mel Gibson's forthcoming film The Passion. I hate to admit that the worriers may be right.
At first I dismissed the uproar because a reading of the four gospels pretty much lays the blame for Jesus' execution by crucifiction squarely on the Jews, even thought the Romans actually perform the deed. If you doubt me, read your nearest Bible. There are several good free electronic versions that are as accurate as any print copy on the 'Net. Despite Vatican II, it is hard for the Biblically protrayed Jews to come out of the story smelling of roses. This is a legacy of Constantine the Great, and another story.
That, however, requires that you accept the Gospels (and the Bible generally) as the Word of God in the literal sense. Being a historian in training, I don't subscribe to that particular viewpoint. I see the Good Book more as allegory or even a depiction of what we believe happened. I certainly don't ascribe to the idea that the Universe was created in seven twenty-four hour days, as some do. And I don't beleive that God has used divine influence to keep the Bible free of outside influences. History tells us that this is not true.
More on that some other time. Back to the movie.
The Passion has been noted for its interesting linguistic choices (Latin, Hebrew, and Arameic) and for its graphic depictions of the violence associated with the crucifiction. This last part has a large role in generating the outcry associated with the film. And for good reason.
One scene that may be dropped entirely depicts a Jewish priest casting a "blood curse" on either Jesus or the crowd. there are also scenes where Satan (not even the actual ancient name for the devil, which was Lucifer) is associated with the Jews, not the Romans who are executing Jesus.
Further issues that cause concern that the film may create an anti-semitic backlash include: Jewish leaders passing out bribes to assure Jesus' execution, the construction of the cross temple, Jesus' shoulder yanked out of its socket, and, the cross is dragged face-down through the streets after Jesus has been afixed to it. (Thanks to Dennis Neiwert for these last bits)
None of these last items appear anywhere in the Bible. According to MSNBC, they come from the writings of Anne Catherine Emmerich a 19th century Catholic nun. Gibson's reliance on this material that is not even part of the Bible, opens him and his film up to accusations of anti-Semitism because their only purpose is to inflame the audience. Combined with the depiction of the mob demanding Jesus' execution, it certainly makes it look like the Jews are to blame for Jesus' death.
What is left out is equally important. Vatican II recognized that for Jesus' spiritual mission to be accomplished, he had to die on the cross. Biblically speaking, that was his whole reason for existing as a man born of woman: to buy salvation for humanity with his death.
Again, all of this ignores historical reality. The only people in Jerusalem in the 1st century capable of executing anyone were the Romans. Some scholars claim that there are many problems with the course of events depicted in the Gospels. Here are a couple:
1. There was no tradition of the Romans freeing condemned prisoners at Passover.
2. There are questions about what the term messiah even meant at the time. One school of thought sees it as a military/religious leader. Given that Jesus was the scion of the House of David, and a King in the secular sense, the Roman's could have considered him a political threat.
3. The earliest of the Gospels appears not to have been written until one or two hundred years after Jesus' death, which means that they are not eyewitness accounts. This is based on linguistic and other evidence.
4. The divinity of Jesus was not officially adopted as Christian doctrine until the council of Nicea when Constantine the Great ordered the church to pick a doctrine, and made other "heretical" beliefs illegal. At the same time the sabbath was moved from Saturday to Sunday to coincide with the holy day of Sol Invictus.
5. Other Christian holy days were rearranged to fit with pagan practices, which is why Christmas is in December, not the Spring or Summer.
6. Different versions of the Bible have been edited for political reasons, as well as reasons of "clarity". That's why different denominations use different versions. Not everyone agrees what the words in the Bible actually mean.
I'm not trying to be offensive here, of course. I'm just trying to show that taking what appears in any ancient text as the literal truth can be problematic. The Bible, particularly the New Testament, is a generally good guide for moral living, but like anything touched by mankind, it has flaws. If you believe that the text was divinely inspired, fine, but also realized that mankind has a history of corrupting Good things for its own purposes.
Back to the point. For the last year the furor over the release of The Passion has continued to grow, and now we know why. This movie, which I plan to go see in order to truly understand it, contains some incredibly anti-semitic scenes that do no even come from Biblical texts or accepted Church interpretation. That's why people are upset. People are afraid that this film will have the same effect as some ministers continued teachings that Jews have tails and horns. (Really. My former mother-in-law is Jewish. She went to a conference and ran into someone who stared at her trying to figure out where the horns and tail were. Ricky, being a smart-ass, told the poor woman that she left the in her suitcase because they made travel difficult.)
I've been mulling over the Federal budget and comments about it in the press for several days, and I've finally decided what I think about the whole thing. I'm sure my conclusions will be neither novel nor surprising, as they are informed by the conclusions of other people.
The President and his "cheap-labor" conservative cronies (lickspittles, as Sam called them last night) are out to starve social programs of funding until they simply go away. Simply put, gigantic budget deficits are a way to unceremoniously dispose of the New Deal.
I know other people have said similar things elsewhere already, but it hit my like a sledgehammer while watching NBC's "The West Wing" last night when Toby declared that Social Security was not a government program, but "a moral covenant." (The rest of the show was about saving Social Security from collapse by raising the retirement age and allowing small investment accounts on top of the regular program, but that's an argument for another day.)
The point is that conservatives are still desparately trying to destroy FDR's legacy (and if you doubt that, take a look at the effort to replace FDR on the dime with Ronald Reagan). Deficit spending is their tool, mostly because it is hard for the average person to get at why we have such a huge deficit.
The conservative plan here is particularly insidious, in fact it makes me feel like I'm watching Senator Palpatine in a Star Wars movie. As the deficit goes up, the President announces new budgets that include funding decreases for social programs and kill some of them off entirely. This is portrayed as an effort to reduce spending. At the same time the spiraling budget deficit is blamed on the twin factors of miliary adventurism overseas (misleadingly called a "war", when no such war was ever decalred) and an economic recession. No mention is made of an equally important cause of the gigantic deficit: the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, which account for an amazing 36% of the budgetary shortfall. Only 31% comes from defense and security increases, with the remaining 33% due to the recession.
The President's reaction? To call for even larger tax cuts, and try to make the existing ones permanent. Nice. What do we get out of it? Cuts in vital programs.
Here are a few choice examples of cuts: $34 million for middle school guidance counselors, $30 million for school programs to reduce alcohol abuse, $38 million to help the disabled find employment, $393 million to upgrade air traffic control systems, $103 million for IRS systems upgrades to crack down on tax cheats. In all 128 government programs are hit, almost always those that provide social services.
What is not being done are things that would likely add revenue, like cracking down on corporate tax cheats, which could add $100 billion in revenue. Also not done is rolling back the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for the wealthy (leaving the middle class tax cuts), which could reduce the budget by $188 billion.
Which leaves us with the question: why keep the tax cuts, other than to simply mollify the wealthy? There isn't one, other than to starve the budget and kill off programs that are antithetical to the cheap-labor conservative philosophy, while maintaining the illusion that the programs aren't being deliberately killed.
The next time someone questions the patriotism of the Democrats, ask them where the veterans in Republican garb are? Then bring up Max Cleeland, John Kerry, Wesley Clark, and others. Also ask them to explain that 1972-1973 time period when the President didn't bother to report to Guard duty.
Does anyone find the timing of this the least bit suspicious? Especially considering that the Anthrax cuplrit remains unfound, and that most domestic terrorism is studiously ignored for weeks on end?