Stop Them Before They Destroy Everything

The easiest thing you can blog about is the incompetence of the Bush Administration. Here's how you do it. Read any news site. Look at the first headline where "Bush Administration" is mentioned. Blog about it. Express outrage at the incompetence.

That's all there is to it. If "blogging" were a real job, I'd be leaning on a broom most of the time, and I'd never be behind in my work. Now, when they finally do change administrations, this whole blogging thing will probably get a lot harder.

(AP) The Bush administration is likely to move its research on one of the most contagious animal diseases from an isolated island laboratory off Long Island to the U.S. mainland near herds of livestock, raising concerns about a catastrophic outbreak.

Skeptical Democrats in Congress are demanding to see internal documents they believe highlight the risks and consequences of the decision. An epidemic of the disease, foot and mouth, which only affects animals, could devastate the livestock industry.



One such government report, produced last year and already turned over to lawmakers by the Homeland Security Department, combined commercial satellite images and federal farm data to show the proximity to livestock herds of locations that have been considered for the new lab. "Would an accidental laboratory release at these locations have the potential to affect nearby livestock?" asked the nine-page document. It did not directly answer the question.

The answer to this is--yes, it does spread and yes, it very much does matter where you put these facilities. This is not a case of "not in my backyard." This is a case of "don't you dare put this in a vulnerable place where it could spread disease." Foot and Mouth Disease is a devastating disease that can affect millions of farm animals and put further strain on our weakening economy.

A simulated outbreak of the disease - part of an earlier U.S. government exercise called "Crimson Sky" - ended with fictional riots in the streets after the simulation's National Guardsmen were ordered to kill tens of millions of farm animals, so many that troops ran out of bullets. In the exercise, the government said it would have been forced to dig a ditch in Kansas 25 miles long to bury carcasses. In the simulation, protests broke out in some cities amid food shortages.

"It was a mess," said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., who portrayed the president in the 2002 exercise. Now, like other lawmakers from the states under consideration, Roberts supports moving the government's new lab to his state. Manhattan, Kan., is one of five mainland locations under consideration. "It will mean jobs" and spur research and development, he says.

The other possible locations for the new National Bio-and Agro-Defense Facility are Athens, Ga.; Butner, N.C.; San Antonio; and Flora, Miss. The new site could be selected later this year, and the lab would open by 2014. The numbers of livestock in the counties and surrounding areas of the finalists range from 542,507 in Kansas to 132,900 in Georgia, according to the Homeland Security study.

[snip]

Leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee also are worried about the lab's likely move to the mainland. The chairman, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., and the head of the investigations subcommittee, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., are threatening to subpoena records they say Homeland Security is withholding from Congress. Those records include reports about "Crimson Sky," an internal review about a publicized 1978 accidental release of foot-and-mouth disease on Plum Island and reports about any previously undisclosed virus releases on the island during the past half century.

The lawmakers set a deadline of Friday for the administration to turn over reports they requested. Otherwise, they warned in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, they will arrange a vote next week to issue a congressional subpoena.

So the people who are supposed to protect us and use common sense won't even consent to Congressional oversight? I'm sure Senator Roberts wants the Federal funds for his state--but does he care that it comes with a price? How is it that there a fight over documents and the possibility of a Congressional subpoena in this matter? It's NOT a partisan matter. This isn't about whether Karl Rove was whispering something about someone into the President's ear. This is a basic public health and public safety issue.

This is the kind of thing you don't demagogue or fight over--you comply and negotiate and get yourself right with Congress.

[photo - Plum Island]

House Fails to Override Veto

Probably just a symbolic attempt, but nonetheless:

HR 2082 was the bill that was designed to ban waterboarding. The full description was: "To authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2008 for intelligence and intelligence-related activities of the United States Government, the Community Management Account, and the Central Intelligence Agency Retirement and Disability System, and for other purposes."

[A waterboarding ban was part of that.]

These three Democrats voted to uphold Bush's veto and joined the Republicans, and they had previously joined three other Democrats in voting against the legislation in December:

Nay OH-10 Kucinich, Dennis [D]
Nay GA-8 Marshall, James [D]
Nay CA-35 Waters, Maxine [D]

I tried to find an explanation for the votes, but I couldn't locate one. Perhaps they're just being "consistent" in their desire to not vote for any program that funds or supports the intelligence community. I don't think they are "FOR" waterboarding. I think they want to draw attention to themselves by voting against their party and against funding the intelligence community. And that's, umm, to put it mildly, brain-dead and immature.

Either way, this is another example as to why we need to have BETTER DEMOCRATS in the Congress. Kucinich, Marshall and Waters aren't the kinds of Democrats we need. They are self-centered, self-important, and in it for themselves.

I don't know--instead of grandstanding and all that, instead of being difficult, can't you just vote with the Democrats once in a while?

Will they stand firm this time, or cave yet again?

The feckless fool occupying the oval office will succeed in running out the clock on his failed Iraq fiasco, and dump it in the lap of the next president. That’s a given. The casualties mean nothing to him, he has no skin in the game, and neither do any of the useless social diseases who comprise the jackasses’ base.

He wanted just under $200 billion to continue the mission of completely wrecking Iraq and ushering about a thousand Americans a year to an early grave. Heckuva job, that.

On Thursday the House Democrats said he should hold the phone.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said that the congress would give him $50 billion to continue operations for about four months, and that there would be strings attached, including a mandate that the (still undefined) mission be restricted. If the Resident vetoes it, she said she would not send him another bill this year. “This is not a blank check fir the president. This is providing funding for the troops limited to a particular purpose, for a short time frame.”

Bush’s fetid, soulless mouthpiece Tony Fratto got his knickers in quite a twist and said that any bill containing “artificial timelines” for withdrawal would be vetoed. “We should be supporting our troops as they are succeeding, not finding ways to undercut their mission,” he whined.

(Let’s put that “success” in perspective, shall we? As of the end of May, more air strikes had been used than in all of 2006. And 2007 is already the deadliest year for Americans in Iraq – with over a month and a half to go. Then there is the fact that the ethnic cleansing has been largely successful, and that has lead to a decrease in sectarian violence in that beleaguered nation.)

Congressional Democrats are in a tight spot – you might say they are between Iraq and a hard place. They were returned to the majority in the 2006 elections by a public that is sick to death of the Deserter in Chief’s vanity war. But, being Democrats, they are split on how to proceed. Some say the war must be funded while troops are in harms way, and they fear that the craven, soulless fuck “president” would simply abandon troops in the field and leave them stranded. He is just about that petty and pathetic, so those fears are not entirely unjustified.

Several of the anti-war liberals in the House said on Thursday that they were tentatively willing to get behind Pelosi this time – provided the Speaker will not cave as she has in the past, and send him the money he wants anyway if he vetoes the spending bill. “What I don’t want to do is get on this merry-go-round where we try to end this war and negotiate it down to a blank check. It’s time to play hardball,” said Democratic Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts.

And if they can't manage that...then We, the People need some new, authentic, fire-breathin' DEMOCRATS. They have a short period of time to show us something,then screw 'em. Primary challenges it is!