This will come as a big shocker to you: The U.S. Government has wasted tens of millions of dollars which were to be used for Iraqi reconstruction efforts.
Tens of millions of U.S. dollars have been wasted in Iraq reconstruction aid, some of it on an Olympic-size swimming pool ordered up by Iraqi officials for a police academy that has yet to be used, investigators say.
The quarterly audit by Stuart Bowen Jr., the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, is the latest to paint a grim picture of waste, fraud and frustration in an Iraq war and reconstruction effort that has cost taxpayers more than $300 billion and left the region near civil war.
According the the article, Virginia Senator Jim Webb thinks our tax dollars should have been used for Hurricane Katrina reconstruction. My thought is that they already wasted more than enough of our tax dollars on waste, fraud and abuse (or at least for alcohol, sexual gratification and expensive designer bags at taxpayer expense) in Louisiana.
Using taxpayer dollars to build overseas swimming pools seems ludicrous to me. It gets worse, though. Pools require both water and electricity. The availabity of water and electricity in Iraq is still scarce and many Iraqi citizens have to do without for periods of time each day. One would think they could at least find less laughable ways to waste our tax dollars.
More Americans than ever before are volunteering. In 2005, 29 percent of adults were serving - a 30-year high, according to a December report by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS).
It's partly because volunteerism is uniquely rooted in the American character, some experts say. Barn-raisings and harvest seasons bonded communities long ago. Today, as mentoring, drug rehabilitation, and other programs depend primarily on volunteers, and as religious groups reach far beyond their congregations to address social problems, the trend is poised to engender real change, says David Eisner, chief executive of the CNCS.
"There are no other countries that have the kind of deep-rooted volunteering ethic that we have," Mr. Eisner says. "If we're able to engage volunteers in our country to visit these issues ... volunteers won't just turn the tide and make a difference, but we can fundamentally solve some of our most intractable problems."
Three age groups - older teens, baby boomers, and seniors - are driving the upsurge. And as these teens grow and boomers retire, bucking the expectation they will slow down, together they could expand volunteerism even more, Eisner says. The CNCS, a federal agency that since 1993 has fostered civic engagement through community service, has launched a push to boost the number of US volunteers by 10 million to 75 million by 2010.
Since volunteerism is working so well, perhaps we can start eliminating some of our federal entitlement programs. OK, back to reality, now.
However, here is one place were volunteers are always welcome.
Canada's prime minister apologized Friday and offered $8.9 million in compensation to Maher Arar, a Canadian software engineer who was deported by U.S. officials in 2002 to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured for a year.
After being wrongly identified by Canadian police as an Islamic extremist in information shared with U.S. authorities, Arar was detained by American agents during a stopover at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. They held and interrogated him for 11 days, then sent him to his native Syria, where he was tortured into making false confessions that he was involved with Al-Qaida.
The compensation, valued at 10.5 million Canadian dollars, was announced by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in a televised news conference. It was recommended in fall 2006 by a Canadian judicial inquiry, which cleared Arar of terrorist links and determined that the Canadian government had passed on faulty intelligence and did not make adequate efforts to correct it.
Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales insist there are reasons to keep Arar on the terror list. Gonzales promised to provide confidential details to senior members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week. Given the notoriety of the case and the unambiguous findings of the Canadians, they should publicly reveal why Arar remains a pariah in their eyes. They also should either apologize to Arar for sending him to Syria to be tortured or explain why they think it was justified.
It makes me wonder if they tortured confessions out of some confidential informant, as well.
There have been several recent media reports about the somewhat exciting conclusion of recount operations in Ohio. Richard Winger of Ballot Access News wrapped it all up quite well:
After the November 2004 election, the presidential nominees of the Green Party and the Libertarian Party jointly requested a recount of the presidential vote in New Mexico and in Ohio.
Both states had relatively nominal fees for requesting a recount. But elections officials in both states were determined to thwart the requests. In New Mexico, the state retroactively increased the fee ten-fold and a lower court said that was OK. The two candidates couldn’t afford the $1,400,000 new fee for the recount, so they dropped their request, and the voting-counting machines were then reprogrammed so that any recount would be impossible. Later, on May 16, 2006, the New Mexico Supreme Court said the two candidates should have received the recount they had requested after all, but, of course, by then it was too late.
In Ohio, the recount supposedly went ahead. Under the law, a few precincts were supposedly to be randomly chosen. A hand count of these randomly-chosen precincts was then to be compared with the machine total. If they matched, no further recount in that county was needed. On January 24, a jury convicted two Ohio elections officials of rigging the recount. Instead of randomly choosing precincts, they first identified a few precincts in which the hand-count and the machine-count matched. Then they claimed that those precincts had been the randomly-chosen ones; and since totals matched, no further recount of other precincts was needed. As in New Mexico, it is too late to do anything about it.
We now seem one small step closer to war with Iran. WaPo reports:
The Bush administration has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran's influence across the Middle East and compel it to give up its nuclear program, according to government and counterterrorism officials with direct knowledge of the effort.
For more than a year, U.S. forces in Iraq have secretly detained dozens of suspected Iranian agents, holding them for three to four days at a time. The "catch and release" policy was designed to avoid escalating tensions with Iran and yet intimidate its emissaries. U.S. forces collected DNA samples from some of the Iranians without their knowledge, subjected others to retina scans, and fingerprinted and photographed all of them before letting them go.
Barrack Obama is now beginning to finally have to present his political issues. Here's how the AP presents the story:
Every American should have health care coverage within six years, Democratic Sen. Barack Obama said Thursday as he set an ambitious goal soon after jumping into the 2008 presidential race.
"The time has come for universal health care in America," Obama said at a conference of Families USA, a health care advocacy group.
"I am absolutely determined that by the end of the first term of the next president, we should have universal health care in this country," the Illinois senator said.
However, LNC Chairman Bill Redpath provided an alternate point of view in his response to the State of the Union Address:
On the positive side, the President's health care proposal to replace an unlimited employer health care expense deduction with standard deductions for individuals, while not perfect, is a large step in the badly needed direction of breaking the link between employment and health insurance in this nation. It would stop federal tax discrimination against people who are not covered by employer-provided insurance. It would, as the President said, make health care more affordable for more Americans.
Unfortunately, the President's proposal calls for a minimal tax increase for those Americans with the most expensive of insurance plans. Beyond this, various health care reforms should be the province of state and local governments. The federal government should not be involved; there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution granting it license for such involvement. Among this nation's political parties, only the Libertarian Party takes the Constitution and its limited powers for the federal government seriously.
The grassroots seems to support the Redpath side of the argument. Here's one example:
Socialized medicine, popular among Democrats under the euphemism "universal health care," would result in deprivation of Soviet proportions.
The roughly 85 percent of us served by the current flawed system would see our modern facilities and high standard of care replaced by aging capital, waiting lists and rationing.
Government programs get no special exemption from the laws of economics.
Socialized medicine can be thought of as a price control with all prices set to zero.
As we know from our experiences with gasoline, price controls lead to overconsumption and shortages.
Insulated from cost, patients will have no incentive for thrift and doctors will prescribe only the best treatments.
WIth Hillary and Barrack in the race, universalsocialized healthcare is an issue we will have to constantly deal with over the next two years.
Gene Healy wrote a good piece covering the history of the State of the Union Address and applied it to our current "monarch." Here's a taste:
"A speech from the throne," Thomas Jefferson called it. And as Washington waits for President Bush's sixth State of the Union address Tuesday night, the monarchical metaphor seems as apt as ever.
In recent weeks, the president has reserved the right to open Americans' mail and, in the face of an electoral rebuke of his Iraq policy, announced that he's throwing more than 20,000 more American soldiers into the midst of that country's burgeoning civil war.
Jefferson's primary complaint was that our first two presidents chose to deliver their annual messages in person before both houses of Congress - a practice he regarded as "an English habit, tending to familiarize the public with monarchical ideas."
But even Jefferson could not have imagined what the modern ritual of the State of the Union would become: a passel of outsized promises and demands on the public pocketbook, greeted with repeated standing ovations from members of a coordinate branch. Last year, the speech was interrupted 67 times by frenetic applause, as President Bush promised, among other things, to teach our children well, heal the sick, "move (America) beyond a petroleum-based economy," and "lead freedom's advance" around the world.
The Supreme Court stepped back into the debate over campaign finance regulation today, announcing an expedited review of a ruling last month that substantially narrowed the application of a major provision of the McCain-Feingold federal campaign law.
At issue is a section of the 2002 statute that imposes a blackout period before election day on television advertisements that meet the law's definition of "electioneering communications" and that are paid for from the general treasuries of corporations or labor unions.
This should be a no-brainer for the Supremes, considering that the First Amendment reads:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
I guess we'll learn whether the USSC can read some really simple English or not.
When my daughter was a toddler, I recall one time she was playing with an electrical outlet with her dripping wet fingers. As her fingers were wet enough to render the plastic child safety cover ineffective, I popped the back side of her hand in order to immediately deal with the safety issue and also to leave a strong impression on her young mind that one should never play with electrical outlets.
It's a good thing this didn't happen in California, at least if Assemblywoman Sally Lieber gets her way. In her own words, her proposal would take common sense out of parenting and defer that authority to the state:
The bill, which is still being drafted, will be written broadly, she added, prohibiting "any striking of a child, any corporal punishment, smacking, hitting, punching, any of that." Lieber said it would be a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail or a fine up to $1,000, although a legal expert advising her on the proposal said first-time offenders would probably only have to attend parenting classes.
Corporal punishment was rarely used on me as a child and I used it even less with my children. I'm not a big advocate of spanking and personally believe it should be used only as a last resort. However; each child, each parent and each situation is different.
There is a considerable difference between some irrational person beating a child to within inches of his or her life and popping the back of my daughter's hand for playing with a dangerous electrical outlet.
Lieber could be attempting to craft a poorly worded and constructed bill to protect innocent victims from real abuse. However, it is far more likely that she intends to usurp the responsibilities of parenthood and turn that power over to the state.
It seems that even First Lady Laura Bush's alma mater has problems with the president. Here's the scoop:
A group of Methodist ministers from across the nation launched an online petition drive Thursday urging Southern Methodist University to stop trying to land George W. Bush's presidential library.
The petition, on a newly created Web site, http://www.protectsmu.org, says that "as United Methodists, we believe that the linking of his presidency with a university bearing the Methodist name is utterly inappropriate."
"Methodists have a long history of social conscience, so questions about the conduct of this president are very concerning," said one of the petition's organizers, the Rev. Andrew J. Weaver of New York, who graduated from SMU's Perkins School of Theology.
While there are plenty of reasons for Libertarians to dislike GOP presidential candidate John McCain, the one which stands out the most to me is the McCain-Feingold ActIncumbency Protection Racket. Now it looks like McCain may be considering Bob Riley as his running mate.
For those of you who don't recall much about Riley, he is the Republican governor of Alabama who tried to enact the largest tax increase in state history. Libertarians led the coalition which defeated Riley's tax plan by a 2-1 margin. Riley was just re-elected to his second term as governor.
This potential Republican ticket looks promising for Libertarians. A ticket led by an opponent of free speech and backed up by a "never met a tax increase I didn't like" VP candidate certainly won't drain any libertarian votes. Apparently, the GOP hasn't learned any lessons from the pounding they took in the 2006 elections.
Eleven-year-old Kailey Leinz says closing the so-called gun-show loophole would make her and her classmates feel safer.
"We need to close it for many reasons and also so kids like me won't feel scared, scared that somebody could just come in our school and just start shooting," said the sixth-grader at Keene Mill Elementary School in Fairfax County.
"It is far too easy for criminals to get a gun in this state. All they have to do is show up at a gun show and they can buy a gun from an unlicensed dealer, any gun, without having to go through a background check."
Kailey made her remarks yesterday morning at a Capitol news conference sponsored by Virginians Against Handgun Violence, which is championing once again a measure that would require unlicensed private sellers at gun shows to perform criminal background checks on firearms purchasers.
Here's the GOP part:
State Sen. Jeannemarie Devolites Davis, R-Fairfax, is sponsoring this year's bill and is carrying it for the first time. State Sen. Henry L. Marsh III, D-Richmond, has sponsored similar measures that have died in the Senate.
The GOP-controlled legislature is considered a protector of the rights of gun owners. Even if the proposal clears the Senate, it likely faces a tough battle in the more conservative House of Delegates.
Davis said the bill isn't "about taking away anyone's Second Amendment rights. What this is about is making sure that upstanding citizens possess firearms and that those who are criminals do not."
If this isn't about taking away people's Second Amendment rights, perhaps they should look next door, in DC, where firearms have been rendered effectively illegal for practical purposes.
Jack Tanner is a mainstay of the Florida Libertarian Party. He also serves as the Chairman of the Lee County Soil & Water Conservation District. Here's a report of his latest success in reducing the cost of government:
Lee County soil and water managers did something Thursday that politicians rarely do - they cut their budget to zero.
"I've learned about conservation on this board but what we were doing was not cost-effective," said Jack Tanner, chairman of the Lee County Soil & Water Conservation District.
The conservation district's elected board canceled a contract with the Florida Department of Agriculture to provide mobile irrigation evaluations for county homeowners. It also fired its only two employees.
The $203,000 contract - that's paid by the South Florida Water Management District and administered by Agriculture - was the district's only source of income.
Now if we could get some Libertarians elected to federal office, we could eliminate the deficit in no time.
While Democrats were busy rubber-stamping Bush's proposals for the Patriot Act and the Iraq War, Libertarians led the way with their opposition to these plans. Now it seems that some Democrats (and even Republicans) are beginning to follow the Libertarian lead.
During the 2006 elections, much was written about how the Democrats captured a lot of libertarian votes in western and mountain states.
In December, the LP announced that we will be holding the 2008 Libertarian National Convention in Denver. According to this report, the Democratic Convention will be held in Denver, too.
It seems obvious that the Democrats hope to influence libertarian-minded people with this likely choice for their convention spot. However, both conventions being held in the same place will serve to highlight key differences between the two parties.
For starters, the Libertarian National Convention won't cost the taxpayer a dime. The Democratic Convention will cost all of us millions.
Democrats will have had two years in charge of Congress. By then, Americans will have had a taste of broken Democratic promises and bizarre Democratic economic policy and will probably already be looking for a new alternative.
It's hard to imagine a 2008 Democratic Convention without the very anti-libertarian Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi being featured speakers. The contrast between the two Denver conventions should be very interesting indeed.
Bipartisanship: Just Another Word for Harming Patients and Doctors
Ahh, the wonders of bipartisanship. It seems that Senator Edward Kennedy and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger have a lot in common. Here's a description of what we can expect from Kennedy before too long:
The federal government should join his home state of Massachusetts in enacting universal health coverage, says Sen. Edward Kennedy, the new chairman of the Senate committee with jurisdiction over numerous health issues.
Massachusetts is the first state to require everyone to have health insurance, just as drivers must have automobile coverage.
Kennedy has his own version of what universal health coverage would look like.
* California employers of 10 or more workers will be required to offer health insurance or else pay 4% of their payroll into a state insurance coverage program.
* All children will be covered by insurance, either private or through the state, including illegal alien minors.
* Doctors will pay 2%, and hospitals 4%, of their gross earnings to the state to subsidize insurance for low-income Californians.
* The state will then increase Medi-Cal reimbursements by $4 billion annually
* Requires health insurance companies to "spend 85% of every premium dollar on patient care".
Based on these plans, it is difficult to determine who the Democrat and who the Republican is. To help with the confusion, simply read a bit more of first article:
[Kennedy] wants to extend Medicare to all. But, in prepared remarks for a hearing scheduled Wednesday, he signaled an intent to consider programs being tried in the states.
He particularly emphasized how Democratic legislators in his home state worked last year with Republican Gov. Mitt Romney in crafting universal coverage there.
If you don't recall, Romney's plan forces people to purchase insurance, whether they want it or not. In Romney's own words:
Some of my libertarian friends balk at what looks like an individual mandate. But remember, someone has to pay for the health care that must, by law, be provided: Either the individual pays or the taxpayers pay. A free ride on government is not libertarian.
It looks Libertarians are going to be fighting a major battle over the freedom to make our own healthcare financing decisions in the months ahead. Perhaps it's time we start coming up with some good speaking points and getting them out in the public eye.
Republican Tax Increase Part of Pelosi's 100 Hour Plan?
They couldn't even wait for their first 100 hours to expire. The Democrats promised deficit reduction and at least implied spending cuts, but it looks like their key ambition is to raise more taxes. Worse yet, it looks like Bush may sign the bill. Here's the scoop from Robert Novak:
As Bush's third secretary of the Treasury, he has engaged in secret bipartisan talks discussing an increase in the current $97,500 limit on personal income subject to the Social Security payroll tax. That would spike up the top marginal tax rate, demolishing supply-side tax principles that Republican administrations have purportedly followed for 26 years.
There is already one prediction of economic catastrophe as a result:
Eliminating the cap on payroll taxes would constitute the largest tax increase in U.S. history, estimated by the Heritage Foundation during the last Congress at $1.4 trillion over 10 years. This analysis predicted that such a step would cost nearly a million jobs and more than $55 billion in projected personal savings.
Novak is predicting not only economic calamity but also serious political consequences for Bush if he signs the bill. Perhaps Novak (and his readers) might consider jumping on board the only small government train remaining before the big government GOP train totally derails.
If listening to private phone calls isn't enough, it looks like Bush now secretly opens people's mail. From WaPo:
President Bush signed a little-noticed statement last month asserting the authority to open U.S. mail without judicial warrants in emergencies or foreign intelligence cases, prompting warnings yesterday from Democrats and privacy advocates that the administration is attempting to circumvent legal restrictions on its powers.
After performing a quick search on the Internet, I couldn't even find one Republican defending Bush on this one. When his defenders start scurrying out of the baseboards, I wonder what arguments they will use to support this latest violation of our privacy.
(Sarcastic) News Flash: Pelosi Elected as First Female Speaker of the House
I'm sure no one could have ever predicted this, but Nancy Pelosi has now been coronated by the Democrats as Speaker of the House.
My key question is how she plans to be competitive with former Republican Speakers. Specifically, can she take more of our money and our liberties than her GOP predecessors? Will she target the same freedoms, or go after new ones? Aside from her 100 Hour Plan, what will be her priorities?
House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi intends to give major corporations a major advantage when it comes to the 100 Hour Plan she intends to ram though Congress (and into the American people). Let me explain.
Her proposal to increase the minimum wage will harm small businesses who must pay workers at minimum wage in order to keep their doors open. Most, but not all, large corporations already pay their employees more than minimum wage. Some states already have a minimum wage higher than the federal level.
The people who rely on low paid employees in order to stay afloat are the ones who will be hit hardest by a mandatory wage increase. What Pelosi is proposing will shut some of these mom-and-pop businesses down. However, it seems very unlikely that any major corporation will go under as a result of the proposed law. Pelosi is, in fact, helping big business at the expense of small business.
For all the talk from Democrats about how corporations shouldn't receive any special legal, regulatory or financial status, she's certainly giving them a big chunk of special perks and favors.
As media watchers are well aware, the word "surge" is the buzzword being used by the pro-war faction to describe a proposed policy of sending an even higher quantity of troops to Iraq. Here's the latest from Politics1:
According to conservative columnist Bob Novak, US Senators Chuck Hagel (R-NE), Gordon Smith (R-OR), Norm Coleman (R-MN) and Susan Collins (R-ME) are all on record now in opposition to the President's call for a "surge" increase in US troops in Iraq. US Senator John Thune (R-SD) backed off his earlier support for the surge, now describing his support for the plan as only being "conditional." US Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) warmly embraced the idea a a few months ago. Now, The Hill reports, he's backed away from it. Kyl explains he would support an increase "only if the commanders on the ground requested it." US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) initially supported the short-term surge proposal, but now says "I don't believe that more troops is the answer for Iraq ... Apparently even the Joint Chiefs do not support increased combat forces for Baghdad." US Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and new House Intelligence Committee Chair Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) are the leading Dems most openly supportive of the "surge" concept ...
I expect to hear Bush use the word "surge" in his State of the Union Address, unless current field testing causes it to crash and burn before then. From the looks of things, it is starting to crash, but it will take a bit more force to finally push it over the cliff in time.
If you don't want to hear Bush use the word "surge" in the State of the Union Address, now's the time to get out there and totally trash the concept.
In the op-ed section of today's Wall Street Journal, President Bush outlined his goals for the new Democratic Congress. While the entire piece just begs to be ripped apart,for the purpose of brevity, I'll simply highlight some of the more obvious blunders.
I believe that when America is willing to use her influence abroad, the American people are safer and the world is more secure.
Are waterboards now considered to be influence abroad? I assume he is referring to secret prisons, torture, Gitmo and of course, the Iraq War. With influence like this, it's no wonder we have enemies.
When our nation was attacked, Republicans and Democrats came together to pass the Patriot Act and reform our intelligence agencies.
Republicans and Democrats have a habit of working together to undermine the Constitution with egregious acts designed specifically to deprive law abiding citizens of not just their privacy but their basic legal rights. Is Bush asking for more of the same?
When we saw that our public schools were failing our children, we came together to pass the No Child Left Behind Act, insisting on high standards, accountability and better options for parents.
So now that the federal goverment has taken a greater level of control over local education, we leave more children behind than ever before.
Our priorities begin with defeating the terrorists who killed thousands of innocent Americans on September 11, 2001...
Where's Osama bin Laden, again?
The bottom line is tax relief and spending restraint are good for the American worker, good for the American taxpayer, and good for the federal budget.
Has Bush taken a look at the deficit clock lately? We simply can't afford any more Republican spending restraint.
One important message I took away from the election is that people want to end the secretive process by which Washington insiders are able to slip into legislation billions of dollars of pork-barrel projects that have never been reviewed or voted on by Congress.
The last time I checked the Constitution, Congress votes for spending bills and the President either signs or vetoes them. He sure didn't break out his veto pen to stop Republican pork since he's been in office.
It's time Congress give the president a line-item veto. And today I will announce my own proposal to end this dead-of-the-night process and substantially cut the earmarks passed each year.
While I'm not opposed to the line-item veto, I don't remember Bush writing articles in the Wall Street Journal asking for the line-item veto of Republican bills when the GOP when in charge. This one really smacks of ultimate hypocricy.
Bush closed it all with a thinly veiled threat:
If the Congress chooses to pass bills that are simply political statements, they will have chosen stalemate. If a different approach is taken, the next two years can be fruitful ones for our nation.
I interpret this to mean that if the new Congress wants to repeal the Patriot Act or defund the war in Iraq, these bills will be vetoed. If Congress decides to impose some new civil liberties violation on the American public, in the name of security (of course), it will be considered "fruitful."
It might be nice to see some economic gridlock in order to at least curtail spending, but I'll not hold my breath. To be honest, I don't expect much of the Democratic Congress. They certainly won't cut taxes and many of them voted for the Iraq War and the Patriot Act. By 2008, I expect the death count in Iraq to be higher, the national debt to be higher and for Americans to have lost a few more of our cherished liberties.
Bush obviously wants more of the same policies that took Republicans out of office. If the Democrats follow his lead, they can be voted out in 2008.
Libertarian National Committee, Inc. - 2008 - Privacy Policy Paid for by the Libertarian National Committee -- 2600 Virginia Ave, N.W. Suite 200, Washington D.C. 20037 -- 1-800-Elect-Us Content not authorized by any candidate or candidate committee
