Friday, March 04, 2005

News for March 4th: Kill All Liberals Edition

So the “emergency” funding for Iraq got pushed through. The funding includes a massive embassy complex that would no doubt double as a headquarters for covert activities throughout the country.

I don’t know, is it a real emergency when you’ve already attempted to turn entire cities into fortress compounds? I have to give the Administration credit, though, they really are trying to drag Iraq into Western Society kicking and screaming…too bad they’re trying to build from the city-state stage. I think the next development will be flaming arrows.

Oh, wait, we already have Scott McClellan.

Emergency War Funding Wins Backing

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 4, 2005; Page A19

House Republican leaders overcame earlier concerns and decided yesterday to give President Bush most of the emergency war spending money he requested last month, including $600 million for a compound in Baghdad that will be the largest U.S. embassy in the world.

The leaders said they plan to approve all but $800 million of Bush's $81.9 billion request in emergency funding for Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terrorism. They cut back dramatically on the foreign aid portion of the request, because they said some of the proposed spending was not for emergencies or was potentially wasteful.

The Republicans -- backing off many of their complaints about the size and vagueness of the White House's request -- agreed to fund the project that had drawn the most criticism: construction of the embassy in Iraq, which will have the largest staff of any in the world.

Leaders attributed much of their willingness to grant Bush's request to an impassioned presentation by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in the chambers of House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) late Wednesday afternoon.

More at the Washington Post

Ow...just, ow. You know when China, the poster child for human rights outrages, feels safe to call you out on human rights outrages that you’ve done something wrong. I guess it takes one to know one.

China, Others Criticize U.S. Report on Rights
Double Standard at State Dept. Alleged

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, March 4, 2005; Page A14

BEIJING, March 3 -- China accused the United States on Thursday of using a double standard to judge human rights in other countries, adding to a list of nations suggesting that the government that produced the Abu Ghraib prison abuses has no business commenting on what happens elsewhere.

"No country should exclude itself from the international human rights development process or view itself as the incarnation of human rights that can reign over other countries and give orders to the others," Premier Wen Jiabao's cabinet declared, three days after the State Department criticized China in its annual human rights report.

The Chinese retort, which contained a long list of what it labeled U.S. human rights abuses at home and abroad, came directly from Wen's cabinet, giving it more weight than a Foreign Ministry comment or editorial. In addition, it used unusually direct language -- for example, charging that the United States "frequently commits wanton slaughters during external invasions and military attacks."

More at the Washington Post

It had to be said, and Harry Reid was the right man for the job. I get a little tired of hearing pronouncements from an unelected man who holds more power over the U.S. Economy than any of our elected officials. I don’t care who appointed him, Democrat or Republican, I just see him giving the rubber stamp to a lot of destructive policies these days.

Senate Democratic Leader Blasts Greenspan
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 4, 2005; Page A06

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan generally gets accolades for his public pronouncements. Yesterday he got a brickbat from Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who blasted Greenspan as "one of the biggest political hacks we have here in Washington."

Reid ripped Greenspan during an interview on CNN's "Inside Politics." He said the Fed chairman has given President Bush a pass on deficits that have built up in the past four years and should be challenging Republicans on their fiscal policies, rather than promoting Bush's plan to introduce personal accounts into Social Security.

"I'm not a big Greenspan fan -- Alan Greenspan fan," Reid said when asked about the Fed chairman's testimony this week urging Congress to deal quickly with the financial problems facing Social Security and Medicare. "I voted against him the last two times. I think he's one of the biggest political hacks we have in Washington."

More at the Washington Post

Oh, and speaking of arrogance and political hackery, guess who’s shilling for changes to the tax code? And not only changes, but Reagan-era style changes that favor the wealthy? That’s right…

Time to Change Tax Code Again, Greenspan Says
1986 Law Presented As Model of Reform

By Nell Henderson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 4, 2005; Page E02

The U.S. tax code should be simplified in ways that would boost economic growth, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said yesterday.

Greenspan, addressing the President's Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, urged the committee to follow the spirit of the "exemplary" 1986 law that lowered marginal rates while broadening the revenue base by scrapping many of the exemptions, deductions, credits and other provisions that shield much income from taxation.

Since 1986, he said, "the tax code has drifted back to be overly complicated," with higher rates and multiple special provisions that narrow the tax base. "It is perhaps inevitable that, every couple of decades, drift needs to be addressed and reversed."
Greenspan proposed no specific tax-law changes, but recommended broadly that the panel seek to keep tax rates as low as possible and make the rules predictable. That should benefit the economy overall, as did the 1986 law, he said.

"A simpler tax code would reduce the considerable resources devoted to complying with the current tax laws, and the freed-up resources could be used for more productive purposes," Greenspan said.

President Bush has made tax reform one of the top domestic legislative priorities of his second term.

More at the Washington Post

Hey, here are the folks who are in charge today. The fact that people who think like this can get elected, then cheered for encouraging genocide, is a scary, scary thing.

Texas Republican Congressman: "Nuke Syria"
Thu, 3 Mar 2005 09:31:27 -0600
Rep. Strangelove By Jackson Thoreau

I covered Rep. Sam Johnson [R-Texas] when he first ran for Congress in 1991. He was so “honest” that he didn’t even live in the district – he just rented an apartment in the district to run.

That was technically legal, but many raised questions about him using a loophole to run. I was one of the few reporters to write about that at the time, but it didn’t stop Johnson from winning the election.

Now, Johnson wants to kill everyone in Syria in one nuclear swoop, just because he has some unproven notion that weapons of mass destruction are being hidden there. That would include the relatives of my kids – who are part Syrian. Not to mention, the nuke would probably take out much of the Middle East, including Israel. And it would affect weather patterns and cause cancer in surrounding areas for years, if not decades.

His chief of staff says Johnson doesn’t really want to nuke Syria, but I don’t buy that. He has said this at least twice, including to a public gathering in a speech in a church, no less, on Feb. 19, and privately to Bush himself at the White House. Remember what Bush once tried to say: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame ­ won’t get fooled again.”

What’s also sad is that many in the audience at the church applauded right after Johnson said he wants to nuke Syria. In fact, “the crowd roared with applause,” according to a report in the non-partisan Roll Call publication that covers Capitol Hill.

More at GNN

On that note, here’s your quote of the day: “We need to execute people like John Walker [the American Taliban] in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise they will turn out to be outright traitors.” – Ann Coulter

Posted by crimnos @ 8:32 AM