Posted inPolitics: National

A war against truth in the Iraq hearings

I wonder why news organizations are even covering, much less hyping, the testimony of Gen. David Petraeus before Congress this week. We know nothing will change. President Bush will do as he pleases. He has shown the president to be above the law on torture, eavesdropping of American citizens, environmental policy, etc. Why should the president be above common sense?

All three presidential candidates will be among the members of Congress questioning Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker. This, too, will be entirely predictable. McCain, why is slyly trying to conflate Sunni and Shia extremists for a gullible public, will proclaim that the escalation ("surge") is a success. Obama and Clinton will try to look presidential and tough without alienating the anti-war elements of their party.

Nothing will change until we have a new president and more Democrats in Congress. The only question is whether anyone has the guts to level with the American people about what the change will be.

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Posted inPolitics: National

Congress and big oil: junkies blaming the pusher man

Maybe it was inevitable, with the closing of the frontier and the amassing of so much wealth, with the death of history teaching in schools and the idiocy inducing drug of television. Maybe it was inevitable with all this and more that America would become a nation of whining children.

Fresh evidence comes today with the theater of oil executives being called before "outraged" members of Congress to defend their obscene profits at a time when gasoline profits are so high. As the Washington Post reports:

Lawmakers seeking a way to deal with rising concern among motorists
took aim at the oil companies and the record profits they registered
last year amid record oil prices "I believe the laws of supply and demand when it comes to oil and gas are broken and completely malfunctioning," said Rep. John B. Larson (D-Conn.).

I hate to break it to the distinguished gentleman from the Constitution State, but the laws of supply and demand are functioning perfectly well.

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