Moral Geniuses

From a comment on The Daily Kos:

...But do I still support the individual men and women who have given so much to serve their country?
No. I think they’re a bunch of idiots. I also think they’re morally retarded. Because they sign a contract that says they will kill whoever you tell me to kill. And that is morally retarded.
Friends, the most important moral decision a man makes in the course of a day is "Who am I going to kill today?"
That’s a decision you should agonize over, dream about, rehearse in your mind for hours, not just leave up to some hare-brained President you didn’t even vote for.
A man’s killing list is a very personal matter. It should be between him and those persistent voices in his head.
So to sum up, I don’t like our troops, I don’t like what they’re doing, I don’t like their fat, whining families, and yet, I support them. Thank God I live in a free country.

I'd actually argue that looking down the barrel of a firearm, of any caliber, and pulling the trigger because you are under orders to do so, requires a level of moral insight greater than most of us have. Morally retarded would seem to indicate someone who is slow, or backward in his/her moral development. I haven't met a combat soldier/sailor/airman yet who would say, honestly, that warfare didn't trouble him or her. Even those who shut away the pain and don't think about the carnage once they come home, aren't morally retarded. Those are just the folks fighting for a way to deal. No, the real morally retarded are the people who criticize other's moral choices without ever having faced such a choice themselves. They are morally shallow, lacking the depth to realize that the very right which they espouse by their dissent was paid for by those they so naively disparage.

Thank God for the men and women who, throughout history, have awakened in the night screaming at the remembered horrors of warfare, but risen the next morning to go out once more and face the demons again.

The Price of History

In 1945 the NAZI government of Germany’s Third Reich surrendered, unconditionally, to the Allies. The war for Europe was over, and just beginning. Sixty-two years later we, the United States of America, still have troops stationed on German soil. We are there not as an occupying force, but as allies against a nebulous threat that may or may not arise.

In the summer of 2003 the coalition forces led by the United States overthrew the government of Saddam Hussein. His government was abolished. Hussein was later found, tried, and executed by a jury of his peers. The Iraqi people have a new, democratically - elected, government and a constitution. We still have troops on the ground, in the air, and off the coast, of Iraq. They are there not as an occupying army but as a bulwark against a threat that is clear, present, and deadly.

Would the Red Army have driven past the Rheine all the way to the French border if the Allies had not remained behind in West Germany? The answer is adamantly: yes. Would the world be a different place had that occurred? Most assuredly, yes. Today the Soviet Union is gone. The threat of insidiously spreading communism is a lesson for a history class, not a current concern of policy makers. Yet we still keep troops in allied European countries- for stability, for peace, for the hope that Europe never again descends into the nightmarish landscape of unlimited war.

So why are we, and our leaders whom we elect and who think they listen to us because they respond to polls, so insistent about leaving Iraq, now? The threat of Islamic extremism and the anti-western policies of Iran are just as clear and just as deadly as the threat that was communism in 1945. We can see the daily struggle that is waged for control of Iraq. If we leave now we abandon our allies to their fate and turn our back on history’s lessons.

Let that be said again: Iraq, the democratic government that represents the people of Iraq, is an ally. When has it ever been an American policy to abandon an ally? Do we, the descendents of those who have fought for freedom and prosperity for over 200 years, now give up on those ideals?

The easy answer is that we give up on our allies because the war is too costly. Economically that argument cannot be supported. The US economy, especially the market for private consumer goods, is still strong and flourishing. Citizens of 1944 would beg to have the economic conditions we currently enjoy. Economically the war has been a footnote, an asterisk to explain why the economy isn’t surging even more than it is now.

So, in the end, the price is too great because of the lives lost. Young men and young women die every single day in Iraq, too many of them innocents and too many of them never having a chance to confront their faceless, shirking, slinking, enemies. But in this age of instant news and sound-bite attention spans, it is not the individual loss that so horrifies and fuels the cries of “Get out now” and “No more blood for Bush”. No, it is the stark numerals of the increasing dead, the sheer weight of daily casualty counts that weigh us down with their repetitive nature and sap our resolve with the seeming futility of their incessant occurrence. We measure worth, now, not in the life of an individual but in the number of the dead.

How many is too many? At what point does the butcher’s bill become too steep and we withdraw to an ignoble, yet safe, distance? Do the 2,999 who have died before mean less than the soldier who brings the casualty count to 3,000? Or is each life a precious monument to a cause?

“Give me liberty or give me death”. Patrick Henry didn’t want the death of his fellow citizens for his liberty, but he stood up willing to sacrifice his own life for the sake of our freedom. If we withdraw now, we spit on the sacrifice of those who have already died in the hope of saving those who are fighting for the same ideals. We leave an ally to muddle through as best they can. We hope that we won’t have to return in 5, 10, or 15 years to watch more die, because of our lack of conviction now.

We fight for ourselves, for our friends, for the idea that “all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

If we leave now, we turn our backs on the idea that our friends are not as worthy of life and liberty as we. And that, friends, is not the attitude of a country I wish to be a part of.

He's no Ike

Let me start by saying that my first inclination was to call Sen. Reid a dumb son of a bitch. Having heard his comments from yesterday, specifically, "the war is lost", I sat dumbfounded and then cursed repeatedly.

But Sen. Reid is NOT a dumb man, whatever his pedigree. He's a very smart, very wily, very calculating, politician. His backroom deals and on-the floor parliamentary tricks have earned the respect of both sides of the aisle in the US Senate. Even in the minority, Reid often controlled floor agenda.

Reid knows he cannot get a bill past the President with a firm withdrawal date and that stalling troop funding is the current third rail of American politics. But he also knows the anti-war left, while not the majority of his party's members, control a large majority of its fundraising capabilities. So he has to look like he's doing something about the war.

As a consummate politician Reid has found a way to please the raving anti-war crowd and still maintain his political balance. He creates controversy and stirs national debate without any real action.

Unfortunately, his political maneuvering isn't executed in a vacuum. His comments have already resounded across the nation and the Middle East. He's emboldening not only domestic anti-war supporters but also terrorist insurgents and the anti-American forces in Iran, Syria, Somalia, and elsewhere.

Sen. Reid is a Senate floor mastermind and a skilled politician, but he is no general. He doesn't have the professional background, training or skills to give an accurate portrayal of US military capabilities. He needs to stick with what he does best, and leave the leadership of the most important forum for our nation at this time: the frontlines in Iraq, to the true experts.

Let It Be

On Monday night, and several times since, I sat down to write about the tragedy at Virginia Tech. I started writing about gun control laws, mental health services, political pandering, the role media plays in de-sensitizing society, and our insidious need to place blame as quickly as possible.

Every time I would lose my focus after the first few sentences. I would stare at the wordless screen and my heart would break all over again. As someone called to public service, as a writer, part-time social commentator, educated woman, mother, former RA, as a person, I should have a comment to make- right?

But the words wouldn’t come. Nothing was right. Then I heard a song playing in the background.

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

Let it be. Let, for this once, “Let’s Roll” be simply “let it roll on”. Let action not be the answer, not today. Let the pain do its work: give hearts time to heal, souls time to find comfort.

And when the broken hearted people
Living in the world agree,
There will be an answer, let it be.

There will be time to make speeches. There will be a chance to engage in a societal debate about how to prevent a repetition of this horror.

But that time is not now.

And when the night is cloudy,
There is still a light that shines on me,
Shine on until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
There will be an answer, let it be.



** Lyrics courtesy of the Beatles and this site: http://www.mp3lyrics.org/b/beatles/let-it-be/

Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung

“The lawyer and parents of John Walker Lindh, the American-born Taliban soldier serving 20 years in prison after his capture in Afghanistan, called on President Bush on Wednesday to commute his sentence and set him free.”

Dear Johnny:
As an American citizen you are entitled to all the rights, enumerated and otherwise, set forth by the US Constitution. The flip side of that coin is that you are bound by the edicts of the Constitution concerning that highest of crimes: treason.

Article III Section 3:
Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

You DID get a lighter sentence, traitor. You should have been convicted of treason for making war with, aiding, and abetting, the Taliban. You are complicit in the murder of Mike Spann. Repent your sins and may God have mercy on your soul, for that’s the only pardon you deserve.

"Breathes there the man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
'This is my own, my native land!'
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung."
-Sir Walter Scott.

The Pleasure of the President

Yes, I'm back! Yes the idiocy out of DC has driven me back to posting. Mark Twain, long dead as he is, would not be able to ignore the opportunities for lambaste, bombast, and general satire presented by this Congress.

Now, let's everyone, especially you Congress-critters, repeat after me. "U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President."

For those woefully unfamiliar with that wording, it simply means "The President brung ya into this job and he can takes ya right back out- and nominate another jest like ya!"

Anyone answering Congress' questions about this matter should have replied with that simple phrase and let it go at that. But, alas, nothing is ever logical or simple on the Hill. Now a House subcommittee wants to subpoena Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to testify about their political influence in the firing of, *GASP*, political appointees.

Perish the thought. The President sought political advice from political and legal advisors about the status of political appointees who worked for the Justice Department. We should all really be glad he didn't just flip a coin or call up Rumsfeld and ask his opinion. (Going out on a limb here and assuming the Rummy's regard for lawyers is similar to his high regard for reporters.)

If they do finally appear before a committee hearing, Rove and Miers should respond with "U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President. This committee has no jurisdiction over the matter."

And then, to keep with the atmosphere of schoolyard rivalries, stick out their tongues and flip the committee the bird.

..`bout birth'n no babies

An interesting thing happened in the news today. Actually, this "thing" happens every hour of every day in this country, but today it was reported.

(CNN) -- An estimated 2 million babies die within their first 24 hours each year worldwide and the United States has the second worst newborn mortality rate in the developed world, according to a new report.
...
The report highlights the three areas it says have the most influence on child well-being: female education, presence of a trained attendant at birth and use of family planning services.

Now that sounds like common sense, or it should, to most of us. Women who receive better pre-natal care are at less risk of delivering premature and/or low birth weight infants. So it is with a heavy heart that I present the other piece of news from today:

Senate Defeats Effort to Limit Medical Malpractice Awards: WASHINGTON — The Senate blocked legislation Monday that would have limited jury awards in medical malpractice cases, shunting aside one of President Bush's most sought-after domestic policy objectives.
...
The bills would have limited damages for pain and suffering to $250,000 in most instances, with an upper limit of $750,000 for cases involving multiple medical facilities. One bill would have applied to healthcare providers generally, while the other sought to shield obstetrician-gynecologists. Foes say such caps are unfair because they would fall disproportionately on people who suffer the most severe injuries.

Why is it so morbidly ironic that these two bits of news should appear within 24 hours of each other? Because appropriate prenatal and family planning care are extremely limited in this country due in part to the exorbitant costs of medical malpractice. Many ob/gyn's no longer practice obstetrics because the medical malpractice costs are prohibitive. There are areas in this country where you cannot find a practicing obstetrician to deliver your baby. Sadly, most of these areas are the same areas where mothers are predominately poor and under-educated.

Scarlett Says: We know so much about birth'n babies, so why aren't we leading the free world in pre-natal care?

A Cup of Sand

In 1995 a wonderful romantic comedy appeared on the big screen titled “The American President”. Written by Aaron Sorkin, who would later become better known as the mastermind behind the hit “West Wing”, the movie was full of poignant relationship drama and American political observations. My favorite character was not the spunky lobbyist who falls in love with the handsome President, or even the attractive and charmingly human President himself. My favorite character was the President’s harried speech writer, played by Michael J. Fox. A section of dialogue from that movie has been echoing in my head these past few weeks. (Thank you imdb.com for the quote text.)

President Andrew Shepherd: Look, if the people want to listen to-
Lewis Rothschild: They don't have a choice! Bob Rumson is the only one doing the talking! People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand.
President Andrew Shepherd: Lewis, we've had presidents who were beloved, who couldn't find a coherent sentence with two hands and a flashlight. People don't drink the sand because they're thirsty. They drink the sand because they don't know the difference.

With regards to the Dubai port deal, both these fictional politicians had it right. The so called “vast majority” of Americans who oppose this deal are listening to the only people who are talking- and simultaneously drinking the sand because they do not know the difference. Ask the next person you pass in the hallway or on the street what exactly DPW will be in “control” of if this deal proceeds. The most illuminating answer you are likely to receive is “The ports.”
Unless you work on the waterfront, in government security, or have bothered to do some research- and by that I mean reading scholarly articles, visiting the ports and reading the security documents ( classified or otherwise)- about this deal, it’s doubtful you have any clue what you are or are not opposed to.

Much has been made about how security of our nation’s import and export lifelines cannot be entrusted to a government that once recognized the Taliban and even now shows sympathy, if not out-right support, for the causes of radical Islam. If the government of the UAW or the controlling partners of DPW were petitioning to take over the US Coast Guard or manage the audit trail for the Department of Homeland Security, I might be worried.

The simple fact is, our leaders in Congress and the Americans answering the pollsters phone calls have been drinking the sand so cleverly provided to them by rabble rousing politicians seeking an issue to exploit during an election year.

There are legitimate security concerns at American ports. Too much of our funding for security operations goes to paying analysts salaries in Washington and too little to the inspectors charged with opening crates and tracking shipping manifests. The turnover of operations of port terminals will not affect this gross negligence in any way. In order to be privy to the details of port security an individual needs a security clearance. People with security clearances have to be US citizens. Those US citizens, having obtained that clearance, must report any and all dealings with foreign nationals, even day-to-day business contacts.

Will controlling terminal operations make it easier for the forces of radical Islam to slip a shipping container full of WMD past customs officials? Probably not. The ability right now is staggeringly present. But, then why bother with the risk of detection of a shipping container when you can walk enough anthrax across the US-Mexico border to wipe out the entire US Congress?

Scarlett says: Stop playing into the demagoguery that assumes you are uneducated and as easily led as toddler with a lollipop. Stop drinking the sand, people.

Stop Drop and Remove Foot

CBS White House reporter Bill Plante laments: "But if it were up to Dick Cheney, he wouldn't tell us if our shirts were on fire, for heaven's sake."

There are so many comments that COULD be made about this off the cuff whine, but I'm not sure there's enough bandwidth. I would like to point out, however, that a reporter's job is to find and report the story, not have it spoon fed to him like a toddler gobbling mashed peas. Come to think of it, some of what we've been reading in newspapers and seeing on network news closely resembles those same mashed peas once the toddler has "processed" them.

Scarlett Says: Psst, Bill, you've already crashed and burned.

Movement from Feminism

My mother is a strong woman. She raised two children while traveling the world at the behest of my father’s military career. She has several undergraduate degrees, a master’s degree and a rock solid commitment to excelling in her field of employment. She’s a Christian and a Southern woman- in every sense of those two words. Her sense of family is boundless. I would never characterize my mother as a feminist.

But it was this same woman who told me, shortly after the birth of my first child, that there was no reason I had to give up my career to have a family.

I was struck dumb by that assertion.

There are many careers that are conducive to having a family. There are even those rare paragons of super-womanhood who manage to make the most stressful and time consuming job mesh with the dictates of motherhood. I’m not a superwoman and 14 hour days with a 2 hour commute as bookends were not my idea of how I wanted to spend my children’s infancy.

Life is about choices. Our options aren’t always what we’d like and our decisions aren’t always perfect, but we do have choices to make. I chose to leave behind a high profile, high paying, career to work on my own schedule, at my own pace, and spend more time with my children. I definitely won’t rise to the pinnacle of my one-timer career path, but I’ll be happy with myself and my family because I’ve made the choice that is best for us.

Feminism taught our mothers to seek self-worth and self-fulfillment through competition with men. I don’t need to compete with a man, or in a “man’s world” to value my position and goals in life. My personal choice was to seek fulfillment through realization and compromise. I don’t need to be judged by “what I do” outside of the home. I know my talents, I know my strength and I know that I was gifted in my career path and left of my own volition.

I see my self worth reflected back in cherubic smiles and belly laughs. There was a reason to give up my career for my family- and I’m happy I made the right choice for the right reasons.

Scarlett Says: Thank you Karen Hughes for your example.

Dear Cindy Sheehan

In ancient and medieval times a woman who had lost a husband or sons in war was quietly sheltered by her surviving family. If her grief turned to psychosis she was sent, in the Christian world, to a nunnery to live out her days in the peace and seclusion of the convent. It was understood that her "madness" was through no fault of her own and that she was a creature to be pitied and succored in her grief. However, it was also understood that her extreme protestations of grief could not be allowed to become a sickness that leached through the countryside sapping morale worse than any plague.

Cindy: get thee to a nunnery.

To touch the face of God

20 years ago today a teacher rushed into my classroom and had a hurried conversation with my teacher. The TV, which I don't recall being on before, was turned on and we all sat huddled in shock as the remnants of the invincible American space program sifted down through the cold Florida morning. Thos images still haunt me. They make up some of the first of a sadly growing list of pictures that, when I see them, I recoil in shock and feel the grief and horror as fresh as the day I first saw them.

President Reagan said it best and I won't even try to imitate his prose:

"And I want to say something to the school children of America who were watching the live coverage of the shuttle's takeoff. I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It's all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It's all part of taking a chance and expanding man's horizons. The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew was pulling us into the future, and we'll continue to follow them.

"We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and 'slipped the surly bonds of Earth' to 'touch the face of God"

On Bin Laden and "truce"

Supposedly Bin Laden has released a tape in which he mentions the possibility of truce with the Great Satan. This from the man who purported to love death. Apparently having his deputies blown up at the dinner table was a bit more death than he had bargained on. (If, indeed, this is Bin Laden on the tape, which of course is very much in doubt.)

Well, you vomitous mass, here is how we respond to an offer of truce (with all due credit to Mel Gibson in Braveheart):

Lower your arms and march straight back to hell, stopping at every home to beg forgiveness for a thousand years of theft, rape, and murder. Do this and your men shall live. Do it not, and every one of you will die today.

On wiretapping

Don't want your phone tapped? Don't call folks in tribal Pakistan and talk about who they are having over for dinner. Simple.

And, yes, I believe that we're tapping those phone calls for a good reason and I have to believe its the right thing to do. Why? Because I have to believe that. If you don't believe that protecting the citizens of the United States is the most important job of the US Government, then what is there left to hold on to? What is the point of government? Is our right to avoidance of illeagal search and seizure a suicide pact? No- but I have to believe that the folks doing the tapping are Americans who have my best interests in heart. That's what I pay them for, afterall.

"The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I've directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them." President George W. Bush 9/11/01

And that's all I'm gonna say 'bout that.

C is for cookie, S is for stupid

Oh horror of horrors, the NSA website deposits a "cookie" on your computer. The story, complete with blaring headline and small type admission of banality, seems aghast at this spying behavior.

Ok let's be semi-intelligent beings. This is the NSA we're talking about. If they really wanted to spy on your web surfing do you think they'd result to the lowest denominator technology to do it? Find me a website that DOESN'T leave a cookie- that would be news.

Folks in the interest of full disclosure I must tell you that your visit to this site has been logged. I can track your IP, your ISP, and even your OS.

Scarlett Says: The NSA and I, partners in non-crimes.

Rejoice, Rejoice

"There is but one Lord Jesus Christ. All the rest is trifles." -Elizabeth I

Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage - St. Paul

It's Christmas, folks. Rejoice in the birth of the Lord and let the blessings of peace and liberty shine upon you for the rest of your days.

On intelligent design:

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.

If the schools in Pennsylvania were only teaching ID/creationism instead of straight evolution then that would be the government (in the form of government schools) establishing a religion through common law practice. However that was not the case here.

The case was that ID should be offered as an alternative and open to debate. Perhaps, as some have said, ID should be taught in a religious studies course. But many schools don't have the staff or hours to teach a religious studies class. So an alternate theory, faulty or not, is not even discussed. Instead we spoon feed our students the straight line on accepted science and leave them without the recourse, or practice of, debating and thinking on their own.

How are the court and the school system/school board, not abridging the right of "free exercise" of religion by denying students and teachers the right to speak on their religious beliefs in the forum most available to them- school? Furthermore how is this not a restriction of freedom of speech? We've shut down debate.

Spoon feeding information that has been government approved and carefully scrubbed of all religious connotations- and people call right wingers the facists?

Invocation revocation

A Catholic priest was giving the invocation before the lighting of the town Christmas tree and he dropped the "J bomb."
That's right, the priest had the audacity to mention — cover your ears, kiddies — Jesus Christ.
That caused an immediate ruckus.
A city councilman took over the microphone and insisted the tree lighting was not a Christmas tree but a holiday tree and there was to be no religion in the observance of the lighting of the holiday tree.

Ooook. Let me get this straight. There was a priest- a man of God- giving the invocation at a tree lighting ceremony and his mentioning of the Lord brought about an uproar?

Just what precisely did the city council think a priest was going to invoke?

"I, an ordained priest in the one true Holy Apostolic Church, do hereby invoke the spirit of the forest and the fireflies during this tree lighting. I ask the blessings of the tree people on our humble town"

Truthfully the controversy over "Happy Holidays" vs. "Merry Christmas" really doesn't phase me. I have Jewish friends and Christian friends and even one very odd atheist internet friend (We all point and laugh at him and won't let him join in any reindeer games- but I digress). When we are together in a group, for the sake of inclusiveness and brevity, I say "Happy Holidays". That doesn't mean I've forgotten what Christmas is about or that I am less of a Christian. I just happen to be respectful of my friends.

But, back to the point, come on! It's a Christmas tree. You asked a priest to come and say a few words before you turned on the pretty lights. Get over the silly offensiveness and get back to doing what government is supposed to be doing.

You know, "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".

We few, we happy few

John Kerry blamed top conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh Friday morning for the uproar over his claim that U.S. troops were terrorizing Iraqi women and children. "You know, the only people who are trying to make anything out of that, to be honest with you, are Rush Limbaugh and a few people on the right," Kerry told radio host Don Imus.

Poor Senator Kerry, still laboring under the delusion that there's a small but potent vast right wing conspiracy out to spell his, and the Republic's, doom. Wake up Kerry. Those "few people on the right" include every single conservative blog site I've encountered in the past few days. From the uproar on Free Republic, to the raging debate on an internet gamers board, private emails, and even a parenting group I visit, that idiotic quote has been the center of attention.

For those of you who don't belong to the VRWC (vast right wing conspiracy) let me re-iterate the nonsense:

And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the--of--the historical customs, religious customs. Whether you like it or not...Iraqis should be doing that.

That, friends, from the man who might have been President. That from a man who routinely criticized President Bush's "casual" relationship with the English language. Not only did Senator Kerry use the word terrorize in regard to American troops while we are engaged in a global war on terror, but he made the implication that such activities are a daily aspect of American soldiers’ routine and that really, Iraqi's should be doing the terrorizing.

Senator Kerry is not only incapable of articulating his points clearly and without slanderous accusations, but he's incapable of accepting responsibility for his faux paus. Instead it's just a tempest in a tea pot for Rush (read: the ant-Christ) and a few right wingers.

Scarlett says: And this from the man who "has a plan".

Tax "cuts" for the wealthy

A common mantra of anti-Bush forces is that his tax cuts benefit the super rich and hamper the "working poor". This has always struck me as particularly funny, since the tax "rebates" were based on the amount of taxes we had "over-payed" to the government. The so-called rich pay more than the so called-working poor. In fact the people whom we routinely visualize as working poor, those who earn minimum wage or slightly more, don't pay anything in taxes beyond Social Security deductions. The earned income credit rebates their taxes at the end of the year in addition to any tax refund they are eligible for.

The idea that the tax cuts are actually not benefiting the rich is evidenced in a new study published here and discussed at length in this excellent NRO article.

The synopsis, for those of you not really up to slogging through IRS data, is that "the top 1 percent of taxpayers, ranked by adjusted gross income, paid 34.3 percent of all federal income taxes that year [2003]. The top 5 percent paid 54.4 percent, the top 10 percent paid 65.8 percent, and the top 25 percent paid 83.9 percent." Add to this "but looking at [the data] over time shows that the share of total income taxes paid by the wealthy has risen even as statutory tax rates have fallen sharply" and you have some statistical proof that, as corporate profits and revenues have grown, the rich in this country are paying more in taxes than they were many years ago.

Next on tax issues for the working oppressed (you saw him, he's oppressing me!): the Alternative Minimum Tax and why you are now "rich".

Scarlett Says: We can cut $8 billion dollars a year from the Federal budget by eliminating the IRS.