What else could we name after Reagan?

All this talk of naming the Pentagon after Reagan, and putting Reagan's face on the dollar, got me thinking of what other things deserved to be named after Reagan:

1. AIDS
It was first recognized in 1981 and Reagan did ignore it for most of his two terms.

2. The budget deficit
After all, Reagan is the father of fiscal responsibilty through massive deficits.

3. Al Qaeda
It was Reagan, after all, who funded the Afghan rebels which included Bin Laden and company.

I'm open to any other suggestions you may have - feel free to post them in the "comments."

JOHN Read the rest of this post...

So it's ok for Bush to torture, maim, and murder American citizens

I'm a bit confused here.

As noted below, Bush's lawyers say that the president could order torture, Abu Ghraib style and worse, of anyone he wants, whenever he wants, and it's not a violation of the Geneva Conventions or any other international treaties or laws, US law or anything else, since nothing can restrict the power of the president to conduct military operations. Which poses a few conclusions and questions:

1. That means that any action the president orders, if it is to further an interrogation of any suspect, so long as the interrogation is intended to benefit the war on terror, is per se legal under US and international law and something the president has full authority to do. That would include, therefore, any kind of torture, physical or mental, including chopping off appendages, electrocution, castration, rape, and even murder (including beheading).

2. Then why are we punishing the smiling Abu Ghraib soldiers for doing things that would have been perfectly legal had the president ordered them? What exact crime did they commit?

3. And finally, that memo seems to say that the president can order US citizens arrested, tortured, disfigured, and killed so long as he does this in his role as commander in chief in order to further an interrogation in the war on terror. Think about that little analysis.

This is chilling stuff, folks. And don't think the Bushies haven't thought about what kind of power that memo gives them.

(Atrios just posted the link to the torture memo, a portion of it at least - you can get it here, via IsThatLegal.org) Read the rest of this post...

Gays not mourning Reagan

AFP:

Ronald Reagan's death has gone largely unmourned by the US's gay community, which still harbours bitter memories of his indifference to the emerging AIDs epidemic in the 1980s.

Gay activists yesterday offered sharply divergent verdicts on the Reagan presidency, which they see as tainted with the blood of thousands of victims of the HIV scourge.

Initial public awareness of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome dates to the early days of Reagan's first term, with the 1981 publication of an article in The New York Times that detailed a rare cancer being seen in the homosexual community....

The lack of significant federal funding to combat AIDS is cited by many as a major factor in the dramatic spread of the disease.

In the critical years of 1984-1985, according to his White House physician, Reagan thought of AIDS as though "it was measles and would go away".

Read the rest of this post...

March 2003 memo: Bush not bound by Geneva Conventions

This has to be one of the most bizarre stories I've read yet about the Abu Ghraib scandal and it's larger implications.

Reuters got its hands today on a legal memo from the Bush administration that says, basically, that the president is bound by NO international treaties and no international law, including the Geneva Convention. Essentially, the memo is saying that if the president wants to have our troops violate the Geneva Conventions, that's ok. What's worse, the memo seems to say that this bizarre twisting of the law doesn't only apply to suspected terrorists, but we also don't have to apply the Geneva Conventions to prisoners of war who are part of legitimate foreign armies. Try them apples.

And we wonder why people behead our citizens when our own government runs around saying there are no rules to war. Are there or aren't there? And as for the argument that beheadings are "worse" than torture, tell that to this guy. Dead is dead.

Reuters:

President Bush, as commander-in-chief, is not restricted by U.S. and international laws barring torture, Bush administration lawyers stated in a March 2003 memorandum.

The 56-page memo to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld cited the president's 'complete authority over the conduct of war,' overriding international treaties such as a global treaty banning torture, the Geneva Conventions and a U.S. federal law against torture.

'In order to respect the president's inherent constitutional authority to manage a military campaign ... (the prohibition against torture) must be construed as inapplicable to interrogations undertaken pursuant to his commander-in-chief authority,' stated the memo, obtained by Reuters on Tuesday.

Read the rest of this post...

Stop Republicans from putting Reagan on the dollar

Ok, this has gotten out of hand much sooner than I predicted. The Republicans in the House and Senate are now talking about putting Reagan on either the $10 or $20 dollar bill, or on half of the dimes (Roosevelt would get the other half of the dimes).

I'm sorry, but this man has only just died, and while he was surely an important president historically, he was by no means recognized as a "great" president by all sides (unlike Lincoln, Washington, Roosevelt, and Jefferson who are roundly recognized by everyone as "good guys"). This is absolutely outrageous, and it's the kind of thing the Republicans will jam through just like they renamed our airport, our metro station, our international trade building, and lots of other things in DC after Reagan.

Reagan was a controversial president to say the least. Many people with AIDS, and their friends and families, are convinced that Reagan is at least partly responsible for the millions of deaths of people with AIDS who were ignored during Reagan's 8 years in office. And that's just for starters. This is not the kind of president you honor on your national currency, not until there's a national consensus about his place in history, and that consensus has hardly been reached.

It's time for fair-minded Americans to draw a line in the sand. Demand that Republicans stop using Reagan's death for their own partisan political gain. When Democrats held an uplifting funeral for Paul Wellstone, Republicans twisted its message and lied to the American people about it being a "election" rally. Now that the Republicans are ACTUALLY USING A man's death to benefit their party, turnabout is more than fair play.

I strongly suggest folks call and email their congressional office in Washington DC and tell them you are NOT at all pleased about how people are playing politics with Ronald Reagan's death. Demand that he NOT be put on our currency:

- Find your Senator: http://www.senate.gov/
- Find your House member:http://www.house.gov/

Then copy this post and send it to your friends. And if your friends think this is an urban myth, tell them to read this CNN article:
http://money.cnn.com/2004/06/08/news/economy/reagan_hamilton/index.htm Read the rest of this post...

Bush again uses Reagan's death to promote campaign Web site

Second day in a row now that I receive an email from the Bush campaign trying to use Reagan's death to generate Web hits to the campaign Web site. Yesterday it was to read Reagan's speeches on the campaign site home page - that was totally devoted to a Reagan memorial - and today they're soliciting and posting messages from well-wishers "remembering" Reagan. ("Conveniently" at the bottom of the messages is a nice little box for you to join the campaign email list.)

This is totally inappropriate. The RNC, or even the White House, is within their rights to set up an online condolence page honoring Reagan's memory. But to do all of this on the Bush campaign Web site PER SE smacks of using Reagan's death as campaign fodder BECAUSE IT'S THE BUSH CAMPAIGN SITE. These guys are going to milk Reagan's death for everything it's worth.

Here's the email I received today:

Read the rest of this post...

When Saudi Arabia falls

Another notch in Bush's legacy, I predict, will be the fall of Saudi Arabia.

Whether it's a literal fall (the ruling Saudi family gets overthrown) or a more gradual one (terrorism increases, all westerners pull out, Saudi oil disruption is permanently crippled by ongoing attacks on pipelines, etc., and the Saudi family starts suffering assassinations), that little nasty country we all depend on is going through some serious and growing trouble, and we're not hearing nearly enough about it.

It's hard to say what Bush can do directly about Saudi Arabia's intransigence on fighting terrorism and its aversion to democracy, other than slap them around a bit more, which might feel good, but I'm not sure how much it would achieve in the end. Indirectly, the instability Bush's blindly interventionist policy in Iraq has caused in the region is a direct cause of the increasing problems in Saudi. You feed extremism, foster its growth, then reap the rewards when those extremists start to go after your friends (or economic lifelines, at least).

Al Qaeda is not dumb. They've hated the Saudi family for years. And they know, like any good anarchist, that the way to get the world's attention is to go for our jugular. Oil is our jugular. And all we're doing is giving the extremists the manpower and the moral credibility to launch even more successful attacks in the future. Read the rest of this post...

Controversial 'Stepford Wives' Ad Shows Hillary baking & Condi NUDE

Oh my God. This is so funny, and weird, I can't even believe it's true. The Stepford Wives trailer apparently shows morphed images of Hillary becoming a cookie-baking mom and Condi as a bare-breasted woman! You can read an article about this and see a TV news clip about it here.

Sorry, I had the link wrong before - it's fixed now. Read the rest of this post...

Gallup: Kerry leads; Nader spoils

Atrios alerts us to the newest Gallup poll showing Kerry leading Bush 49-44. With Nader in the race, it's 45-42 Kerry/Bush, 7% for Nader. Meaning, Nader takes 4 points from Kerry and 2 points from Bush - i.e., 2 to 1 he takes more votes from Kerry than Bush, the EXACT same result that was predicted prior to the 2000 presidential.

On approval ratings, Bush is 49-49 approve/disapprove overall. He has 56% approval on the war on terror, but in EVERY OTHER CATEGORY a majority DISAPPROVE: overall job; foreign affairs; the situation in Iraq; the economy; prescription drugs for the elderly; energy policy. Read the rest of this post...

Trailer for Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11"

Check it out, it looks REALLY good. Thanks to David for sending me this. Read the rest of this post...

Wash Post: Reagan risks diminishing Bush

Well, the mainstream media is now talking about exactly what many of us were predicting: that the memory of Reagan's grandure could expose how small Bush reall is. This is from the Wash Post:

The death of Ronald Reagan places President Bush squarely in the role of mourner-in-chief. But it's not entirely clear if Bush will emerge from a solid week of tributes and reminiscences resplendent as a self-styled heir to the Reagan legacy, or if he will suffer in comparison from a stature gap....

And, when all is said and done, comparisons to the larger-than-life Reagan may not help Bush.

For instance, Bush's insistence that he is optimistic might look desperate when compared to Reagan's effortless confidence. His recent attempt to liken the war on terror and the war in Iraq to prior global conflicts between good and evil may fall short of Reagan's similar claim about the end of the Cold War.

And some of the things they have in common -- massive deficits, a disengaged management style, ideological stubbornness -- are not necessarily Bush's strongest assets.

Read the rest of this post...

Totally Cool

Venus crosses the face of the sun.

Read the rest of this post...

What war on terror?

The suspected mastermind of the Madrid train bombings this past March 11 has just been arrested by the Italians (and the Spanish found other associated with the attack within weeks). That's two and a half months after the attack. Yet two and a half years after the September 11 attacks, how many terrorists have we caught involved in our attack? One - Zacharias Moussaui, and he was picked up by chance BEFORE the attacks. The question remains why the Europeans have made incredible strides in finding the Madrid masterminds, yet years after the New York and DC and PA attacks, where are we? Read the rest of this post...

"Super Size Me" guy doing well in theatres

After spending $65,000 on making the movie, box office numbers are $6.2M even though it's only playing at less than 200 small theatres. Glad to see that he's getting a laugh as well about the junk food lobby that is trying to discredit the guy. What a great success story! Read the rest of this post...

D-Day vet catches a ride on presidential flight with Chirac

Chirac was in excellent form over the weekend and this story is a great one.

"Keith Coleman, a former RAF gunner from New Zealand, had been hoping the coach he jumped on after the main international D-day ceremony in Arromanches would take him back to Paris. Instead he ended up stranded at a remote military airfield.

But help came from a most unexpected quarter when the 86-year-old was invited by President Jacques Chirac to fly back to the French capital on board one of the country's presidential jets."

Read the rest of this post...

Krugman on Reagan: The Great Taxer

Another voice of reality with Reagan and taxes. In the years since Reagan left Washington, conservatives have somehow pushed the myth that Reagan only cut taxes and led America through the great economic boom in history but the actual facts are different.

"We're also sure to hear that Mr. Reagan presided over an unmatched economic boom. Again, not true: the economy grew slightly faster under President Clinton, and, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates, the after-tax income of a typical family, adjusted for inflation, rose more than twice as much from 1992 to 2000 as it did from 1980 to 1988.

But Ronald Reagan does hold a special place in the annals of tax policy, and not just as the patron saint of tax cuts. To his credit, he was more pragmatic and responsible than that; he followed his huge 1981 tax cut with two large tax increases. In fact, no peacetime president has raised taxes so much on so many people.

Read the rest of this post...

Man fakes seizure, scares robbers

Excellent on-the-fly thinking by this Aussie traveler in China! Read the rest of this post...

Rice: Sudan is a "brewing disastor" and...it has oil

Sudan is fortunate enough to have oil reserves so I suppose that is why it has made the list of troubled African countries that the US will talk about. So does this mean that the other countries that are suffering with war and starvation can either find oil or fuck off? I'm just trying to figure out what a country has to do to make the list for US and world acknowledgement. It's also interesting to see that action is still being debated so far along in the war after so many have already died. Read the rest of this post...