The Progress Report.

GW Bush's final middle finger extension: last rush of mismanagement before leaving.

Lame duck president George W Bush (remember him?) is pushing through a host of "midnight regulations" before leaving office, many of them screwing with the environment.

The Los Angeles Times says environmentalists are angry by a host of loosened safeguards:

In recent days, the Bush administration announced new rules to speed oil shale development across 2 million rocky acres in the West. It scheduled an auction for drilling rights alongside three national parks. It has also set in motion processes to finalize major changes in endangered species protection, allow more mining waste to flow into rivers and streams, and exempt factory farms from air pollution reporting.

The Chicago Tribune did a special report saying the administration undercut a clean-air rule aimed at curbing childhood lead poisoning:

...the EPA had planned to require lead monitors next to any factory emitting at least a half-ton of lead a year. But after the White House intervened, the agency raised the threshold to a ton of lead or more, according to e-mails and other documents exchanged between the EPA and the Office of Management and Budget.

Read more: Bush's last rule-making hurrah (Yahoo)

As if it wasn't already clear which pocket Bush's interests lie in, and it's not you or me and it's not the American environment, in case you were wondering.

Time to boycott the Wall Street Journal.

There probably aren't too many true progressives out there who subscribe to the Wall Street Journal, but it's at least likely that we all know someone who does. I've worked with a few people who got the WSJ and brought it into work for the "financial news." All fine and good, but now that it's right-leaning tendencies are going to become even less transparent, it's time to get on your friends and family who give this thing money to think twice about it.

Wall Street Journal Makes Rightward Veer With Hire

Via Michael Calderone at Politico comes the news that the Wall Street Journal has hired Gerard Baker, a self-styled "right-wing curmudgeon" from the Times Of London, as the paper's new deputy editor-in-chief, where he will have oversight of the Journal's news coverage. Calderone says that the move "surprised some staffers because of his strong, right-wing political views." No doubt the surprise wore off after those staffers remembered recent events and said to themselves, "Oh, that's right! The Wall Street Journal was recently acquired by Rupert Murdoch after a protracted battle with the hopeless Bancroft family!"

And, in case you were wondering precisely what sort of right-wing ideologue you were getting at the Journal, and whether it made it more or less likely that the paper's famed editorial tilt would bleed its way into the news coverage, E&P's Greg Mitchell is here to remind you that Baker famously penned a column titled "Obama: is America ready for this dangerous left winger?" back in February 2008, in which he fulminated on a worldview that he claimed Obama espoused, one that included a fundamental lack of love for his country:

There is a caste of left-wing Americans who wish essentially and in all honesty that their country was much more like France. They wish it had much higher levels of taxation and government intervention, that it had much higher levels of welfare, that it did not have such a "militaristic" approach to foreign policy. Above all, that its national goals were dictated, not by the dreadful halfwits who inhabit godforsaken places like Kansas and Mississippi, but by the counsels of the United Nations.

Must read: Democracy Now! discussion on the proposed bailout.

This is a transcript from the Democracy Now program's discussion on the proposed bailout. Absolute must read.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, Robert Scheer and Dean Baker on the Proposed $700 Billion Bailout of Wall Street, the Largest Government Bailout of Private Industry in US History

Here's an excerpt, with Robert Scheer, veteran journalist, syndicated columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle, and editor of the political website, Truthdig. He is the author of several books, most recently, The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America:

Scheer: Yeah, well, the point is, when Bush and McCain and Paulson, who was head of Goldman Sachs before he was head of the Treasury, say they don’t know how this happened, they designed this system. We had a regulatory regime in place ever since the Great Depression to prevent this kind of meltdown, and that said that stockbrokers, insurance companies, banks, investment banks, commercial banks, could not merge. And in 1999, they passed legislation, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Gramm is the guy who McCain supported for president in ’96. He was co-chair of his campaign until he complained about the whiners out there, meaning the public. And that legislation is what caused this. It allowed the swaps and everything else.

And then, in 2000, hours before the Christmas break, Gramm introduced legislation. I’m holding it in my hand. This smoking gun is available on the internet; you can read it. And what it said is that the swaps is defined in the Financial Service Modernization Act, meaning that instead of going into a bank and somebody said, “OK, we’ll give you a loan, and we expect you to pay it over thirty years. We know your house has the equity. We know you have the means to pay it”—that was the traditional way—instead, they allowed these mergers, and as a result, they could buy insurance on it, they could do these swaps, they could do what they call hybrid instruments. And it is legislation that was never discussed, was—never had hearings or anything, says that all of this stuff is exempted from all previous regulation. The SEC cannot regulate it, the Commodity Futures Board cannot regulate it.

So they gave these institutions, of which Goldman Sachs was critical—so was Citigroup, where Robert Rubin, who was Clinton’s Treasury secretary, he had also come from Goldman Sachs. And, by the way, even though this is Republican-led, there were plenty of Democrats, in fact, a majority of Democrats, who voted for this. And Robert Rubin, who unfortunately is advising Barack Obama—I don’t know how this guy can wake up and—you know, and not be embarrassed and how he can appear on television—and Lawrence Summers, these are the two guys in the Clinton administration who teamed up with Phil Gramm to pass that atrocious legislation.

And now, you know, it seems to me, in terms of the bailout, why don’t they do what Hillary Clinton said during the primaries: just put a freeze on foreclosures? Start out with helping the homeowners and say, “OK, we’re not going to foreclose your house for the next year. We’re going to force the banks to work out reasonable payments. We’ll try to help you hold on to it.” That would have stopped the bleeding here much more effectively than throwing $700 billion at these bandits.

Transcript >>

Thank God we didn't listen to him (on Social Security)

Remember GWB's plan to privatize social security? Wherein some of it could be invested in Wall Street?  That was a horrible idea then and it looks even more clearly horrible now, doesn't it?

For old time's sake:

Bush outlines plan for privatizing social security (CNN, May 15, 2000)
Bush's Social Security Plan in Trouble? (Time, 2/27/05)
CNN Poll: Support Wanes for Bush's SS Plan (3/22/05)

The Bully Mentality.

This is something I've been thinking a lot about lately. What right-wing Republicans, either those on the campaign trail or those defending them, often remind me of are bullies. While the left and Democrats in general often wimp out, or expect a fair fight and try to play by the "rules" in debate. the right learned early on that the best way to get their way is to try to bully their opponents -- with direct insults and distortions instead of facts and logic. This is possibly because they haven't always had facts and logic on their side, but it's also easier to win when you don't even play "fair."

Anyway, Pete Cenedella says what I was trying to articulate, better (and stronger) than I could:

If you were subjected to the whims of a bully or two in your youth, and especially if you're a parent today who frets for your kid's emotional safety, you probably recognized the behavior on display in prime time last week from Minnesota. Politics is really not that different from the schoolyard. Especially for Republicans.

On the schoolyard, what do bullies do when they can't get their way? They lash out. They call people names, take swings at them, and generally cry and complain and make life miserable for everyone else. They make themselves the center of attention, but not through anything positive or remotely fun. They make themselves the center of attention by being mean. By being ugly. By going negative, and hoping that will bring the other kids around. Coercion and tantrums.

Sounds kind of like the Republican National Convention. Fred Thompson, who could barely stay awake for the task of having any idea where to lead the country back when he was allegedly running for president on the Sominex platform, suddenly morphed into a red-meat eating tiger when given the role of bully. Rudy Giuliani, the biggest bully the fair city of New York has ever seen (and that's saying something), came onstage and did pretty much the only thing he's good at: mocking a more honorable person through unsubstantiated ad hominim vitriol. Charming back in his Brooklyn youth at the playground, I'm sure. Equally so from the stage of the Xcel Energy Center.

...

When you can't win an argument on the merits, change the subject. And when you can't get your way, lash out, kick, cry and punch, then tell the teacher it was the other kid who started it. Not what I teach my kid, but pretty much what the Republicans have been doling out for 20 years. Nice family values! Here's hoping that the Dems this year can walk that fine line, and neither shrink from the fight nor turn into the churlish little thugs they must stand against toe to toe. And here's hoping that most of the American electorate isn't taken in again by these sucker-punching, pathetic little schoolyard cowards.

Read the rest >>

Graham Nash speaks

From the Denver Music Examiner:

In 2006, Neil Young supported his political manifesto Living With War, a controversial record, by re-teaming with Crosby, Stills & Nash for a tour, which has been documented in the Young-directed feature documentary CSNY: Deja Vu. Did you sixty-somethings stir things up the way you did in the past?

"We had the balls to come out and advocate the impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney and most of the neocons. We were filmed every night, but our focus was the reaction of the fans to what we were doing -- good and bad. So we had fans that loved it -- `Yes, they're keeping up the tradition of town criers, going from city to city and saying that the emperor not only doesn't have any clothes on, he's totally naked, spiritually and morally.' Just a bunch of musicians in the chain of people stretching back to Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, the Weavers, Bob Dylan and many more. And we recorded adverse opinions -- people that were unbelievably angry with us. I'd like to see those people again that were so adamant against us, giving us the finger and telling Neil Young to stick his head up his ass. Because in the two years since 2006, the situation has gotten crazier -- the destruction of our civil rights, getting rid of `The Great Writ' of habeas corpus, what the Bush administration has done to the image of America throughout the world, spying on America . . . I could go on and on. I think George Bush will be considered the worst president we have ever had in our entire history. The film is called Deja Vu because we've all been here before. In 1968 and 1969, we were doing benefits against the Vietnam War and trying to bring awareness to people about the madness of what was going on. We were lied into that war -- the Gulf of Tonkin, even as recently as a couple of years ago, has been identified as being a complete sham. And here we are, once again, all these years later, being lied into the Iraq war. And right now, we’re probably being lied into a war against Iran. When Charlie Black, who is running the McCain campaign, turns around and says, `You know, if there's a terrorist attack on the United States, it would be a big advantage to McCain' -- making public comment like that is shameless and disgraceful. So here we are, playing music (laughs)."

Election fraud worries, 2008 version.

I don't usually like to re-post entire emails but this one from investigative journalist Greg Palast is too important. Read and pass it on:
==
Obama Doesn't Sweat. He should.

by Greg Palast

 

In swing-state Colorado, the Republican Secretary of State conducted the biggest purge of voters in history, dumping a fifth of all registrations. Guess their color. In swing-state Florida, the state is refusing to accept about 85,000 new registrations from voter drives - overwhelming Black voters.

 

In swing state New Mexico, HALF of the Democrats of Mora, a dirt poor and overwhelmingly Hispanic county, found their registrations disappeared this year, courtesy of a Republican voting contractor.

 

In swing states Ohio and Nevada, new federal law is knocking out tens of thousands of voters who lost their homes to foreclosure.

 

My investigations partner spoke directly to Barack Obama about it. (When your partner is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., candidates take your phone call.) The cool, cool Senator Obama told Kennedy he was "concerned" about the integrity of the vote in the Southwest in particular.

 

He's concerned. I'm sweating.

 

It's time SOMEBODY raised the alarm about these missing voters; not to save Obama's candidacy - journalists should stay the heck away from partisan endorsements - but raise the alarm to save our sick democracy.

 

And that somebody is YOU. Joining with US, the Palast investigative team. Here's how:

Vermont Rocks.

Voters in two Vermont towns on Tuesday approved a measure that would instruct police to arrest President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for "crimes against our Constitution," local media reported.

The nonbinding, symbolic measure, passed in Brattleboro and Marlboro in a state known for taking liberal positions on national issues, instructs town police to "extradite them to other authorities that may reasonably contend to prosecute them." -- from Reuters

   

Bobby Kennedy, a remembrance.

A nice remembrance from Jeff Greenfield on Robert Kennedy, 40 years after his shocking death: CBS News In Memory of Bobby.

As RFK was before my time, it makes me sad and angry that I never got the chance to see what he could've accomplished had he continued on.

Veteran CBS News correspondent Roger Mudd said, "There was about Robert Kennedy a perpetual sense of outrage.  As a reporter, it was something to behold."

"He had the ability to speak out of his soul, out of his gut," said Congressman John Lewis, D-Ga., "and people believed in him."

---

But after John F. Kennedy's death in 1963, as a war in Vietnam and racial unrest darkened the national mood, something seemed to change or shift in Robert Kennedy.

The freshman Senator from New York was becoming a very different kind of politician, looking at America with a radically original mind.

"Robert Kennedy always had an instinct for the outsider," said Peter Edelman, who was one of Kennedy's key Senate aides. "And it turned out that what he really cared about was people all over this world who don't have a fair shake."

"He saw the anguish," said Lewis, who was a young civil rights worker when he first met Kennedy. "He saw the predicament that black people, that poor people were faced with. And he made a commitment to do something about it, not just as the attorney general. Not just as Senator Kennedy for the presidency. But as a human being."

UPDATE: Time Magazine informs me of their online collection of rare and unpublished photographs of RFK from Life Magazine. Definitely scan through 'em.