Classic DeLay: BLAME EVERYONE ELSE

Following his trend of claiming to be the victim of a political witch hunt, Rep Tom DeLay today accused the Washington Post of a "zeal to leave readers with a false impression that I did something that I did not do."

This was DeLay's response to an article that claimed DeLay acted illegally by accepting overseas trips that were paid for by lobbyists.

Delay also voiced his to face the ethics panel in the hopes of clearing this up. Of course, if I had just rewrote the laws regarding ethics investigations to my I would look forward to facing a panel that had lost some power.

DeLay's ship is sinking, and unfortunately blaming everyone else for his problems is the only way DeLay knows how to plug the holes. All these accusations should make DeLay a fun target in 2006.

Ryan Oddey
Ryan@TAFMess.com

SENATE VOTES TO DRILL ALASKA 51-49

This just in, the Senate voted to open the Alaskan wildlife refuge to oil drilling. The vote was a close 51-49, and although the Bush camp is calling this a victory for its energy policy the reality is that drilling will be a loss for everyone.

Many experts believe that drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge will have dire consequences for that areas ecosystem, harming both animal life and plant life.

Democrats, such as Senator John Kerry, had proposed that a better approach to the energy crisis would be a policy that focused more on conservation, such as fuel efficient cars.

Republicans believe this will move cut our need for foreign oil. Although this may reduce our need for foreign oil, the ramifications may be larger. For example, if oil prices drop drastically, more oil will be purchased. The end result will be an increase in pollution from all the extra oil we are using. Conservation was the way to go, Bush chose to screw the environment and take a short term answer.

Drilling proponents claim that drilling technology will safeguard the environment. However, when something goes wrong, and it will because it always does, the satisfaction of saying I told You So will be minimal because we all know how harmful oil spills can be on the environment.

Fossil Fuel is not going to be around forever, eventually we will have to learn how to conserve our energy resources. Maybe the next President won't be so ignorant when it comes to this impending situation.

Ryan Oddey
Ryan@TAFMess.com

Is Edwards the best Democratic Candidate for 08?


The Gadflyer's Paul Waldman thinks so in a post that he did earlier today. After reading his piece it is hard not to agree with him. Waldman notes that Edwards spent every day campaigning, yet failed to garner the attention of the national press because he did not do any over-the-top attacks.

Waldman also notes that Candidates who have lost in the primaries and then tried to run again include George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Al Gore, Bob Dole, and Gary Hart. Excluding Hart who dropped out because of personal indiscretion, two of the four who lost in primaries but tried again went on to win the White House.

However, Waldman fails to mention that Franklin Roosevelt first garnered national attention as a member of a losing ticket as the Vice-President candidate to Ohio Democratic Governor James Cox. Although they eventually lost to the ticket of Warren G Harding and Calvin Coolidge, FDR used his on the 1920 campaign to help him to the White House in later years.

Edwards in 08, something to think about.

Ryan Oddey
Ryan@TAFMess.com

Bush Recommends Wolfowitz for World Bank

AP News reports that President Bush will recommend Defense Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz to be the next head of the World Bank. The World Bank has traditionally had an American at the head of the organization.

Let's hope Wolfowitz can do a better job preparing strategy for the World Bank than the War in Iraq. It will be interesting to see how the international community reacts to this recommendation.

Ryan Oddey
Ryan@TAFMess.com

Hillary Clinton and Alan Greenspan Clash

The Associated Press reports that there was a brief exchange between New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

Greenspan said "It turns out that we were all wrong" in regards to the support he gave to Bush's 2001 tax cuts. Senator Clinton responded with "Just for the record, we were not all wrong, but many people were wrong."

I congratulate Senator Clinton for correcting Greenspan, as many of us have been saying for years that the type of Tax Cuts that the Bush administration has adopted would result in a negative out come.

Let us not forget, that the deficit is now bigger than it has ever been.

It's unfortunate we can not go back and undo what Bush did, but calling out people for mistakes like this will have to do.

Greenspan is also supportive of a Social Security overhaul, luckily for the rest of us it appears privatization won't happen. It's better to avoid mistakes than to try and fix them years later. Greenspan, of all people, should know that.

Ryan Oddey
Ryan@TAFMess.com

Republican Senator Speaks out Against Bolton

New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici, a Republican, has been quoted in the Albuquerque Journal with comments that are not in favor of John Bolton's nomination to represent the United States in the United Nations.

As reported by Steve Clemons at The Washington Note, the Article reads:

"He's not my favorite State Department person," Domenici said of Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control. "I am lukewarm about this appointment."

Domenici said Bolton has failed to finalize a Plutonium Disposition Agreement with Russia that could lead to the elimination of about 70 tons of weapons-grade plutonium.

Domenici, along with Sen. Richard Lugar, Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has tried for years to help secure the former Soviet Union's plutonium stockpiles.

Bolton, undersecretary for arms control during the president's first term, has reportedly been stymied by a U.S.-Russian dispute over liability protection if there were an accident or sabotage at a Russian facility.

"I've been upset because it's been delayed and I've questioned him on it," Domenici said.

This isn't the first time Domenici has publicly voiced his irritation with Bolton. In June 2004, Domenici told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Bolton wasn't up to the job.

"I've been amazed that the leadership of the United States and Russia cannot resolve this issue," Domenici said in testimony to the committee. "Failure to resolve the issue is simply not consistent with the urgency that the administration has attached to nuclear proliferation."

"Mr. John Bolton, who has been assigned to negotiate this, has a very heavy responsibility," Domenici said. "I hate to say that I am not sure to this point that he's up to it."


I've said it before and I will say it again, we can stop John Bolton from becoming our ambassador to the United Nations. I applaud Senator Domenici for coming out against this nomination and I suspect other Republicans will follow his lead. A conscience is a great thing.

Ryan Oddey
Ryan@TAFMess.com

MORE DIRT ON BOLTON

Interesting news on John Bolton, as Steve Clemmons reports, a March 1 2005 letter from House Government Reform Committee Ranking Member Henry Waxman sent to Representative Christoper Shays claims Bolton "promulgated the Niger-Uranium fiction at the State Department despite rejection of this claim by State Department and CIA intelligence analysts."

The following is an excerpt from that letter.
Concealment of a State Department Official's Role in the Niger Uranium Claim

"In April 2004, the State Department used the designation "sensitive but unclassified" to conceal unclassified information about the role of John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control, in the creation of a fact sheet distributed to the United Nations that falsely claimed Iraq had sought uranium from Niger.

On December 19, 2002, the State Department issued a fact sheet entitled "Illustrative Examples of Omissions from the Iraqi Declaration to the United Nations Security Council." (9) The fact sheet listed eight key areas in which the Bush Administration found fault with Iraq's weapons declaration to the United Nations on December 7, 2002. Under the heading "Nuclear Weapons," the fact sheet stated:

The Declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger.
Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium procurement?

It was later discovered that this claim was based on fabricated documents. (10) In addition, both State Department intelligence officials and CIA officials reported that they had rejected the claim as unreliable. (11) As a result, it was unclear who within the State Department was involved in preparing the fact sheet.

On July 21, 2003, I wrote to Secretary of State Colin Powell, asking for an explanation of the role of John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, in creating the document. (12) On September 25, 2003, the State Department responded with a definitive denial: "Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, John R. Bolton, did not play a role in the creation of this document." (13)

Subsequently, however, I joined six other members of the Government Reform Committee in requesting from the State Department Inspector General a copy of an unclassified "chronology" on how the fact sheet was developed. (14) This chronology described a meeting on December 18, 2002, between Secretary Powell, Mr. Bolton, and Richard Boucher, the Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Public Affairs. According to this chronology, Mr. Boucher specifically asked Mr. Bolton "for help developing a response to Iraq's Dec 7 Declaration to the United Nations Security Council that could be used with the press. According to the chronology, which is phrased in the present tense, Mr. Bolton "agrees and tasks the Bureau of Nonproliferation," a subordinate office that reports directly to Mr. Bolton, to conduct the work.

This unclassified chronology also stated that on the next day, December 19, 2003, the Bureau of Nonproliferation "sends email with the fact sheet, 'Fact Sheet Iraq Declaration.doc.'" to Mr. Bolton's office (emphasis in original). A second e-mail was sent a few minutes later, and a third e-mail was sent about an hour after that. According to the chronology, each version "still includes Niger reference." Although Mr. Bolton may not have personally drafted the document, the chronology appears to indicate that he ordered its creation and received updates on its development.

The Inspector General's chronology was marked "sensitive but unclassified." In addition, the letter transmitting the chronology stated that it "contains sensitive information, which may be protected from public release under the Freedom of Information Act" and requested that no "public release of this information" be made. (15) In fact, however, the chronology consisted of nothing more than a factual recitation of information on meetings, e-mails, and documents."

As more and more people continue to dig up dirt on Bolton we will be getting much closer to stopping him from being confirmed. Keep up the hard work people, this is a battle that can be won.

Ryan Oddey
Ryan@TAFMess.com

A Step in the Right Direction

Tapped reports that Sen. Reid and Rep. Pelosi have decided to form a National Security Advisory Group that will help Democrats prevent things such as another unprepared war in Iraq. The group is to be headed by former Secretary of Defense William Perry.

This is an excellent move that will add a much needed level of analysis to the Democratic Party. Furthermore, with one group in charge of analyzing national security, it may help bring the Democratic Party closer together.

This is an excellent move by the Democrats and it is actions like this that make my realize that this party is making a come back.

Ryan Oddey
Ryan@TAFMess.com

STOP THE LIES

The fine people at Tapped have posted an article that should alarm everyone as well as clue us all in to just how low Republicans are willing to go.

We were all aware that the Bush Administration had been paying some columnists to write favorable pieces regarding White House policy. Now, according to the New York Times, the Bush Administration has also been paying actors to appear as reporters, and then sending out the "taped interviews" as actual news reports. Shameful

Although Tapped points out that corporate America has been using this tactic for sometime, it does not excuse anyone from trying to fool the public. This is propaganda at its worst. It does not matter if this is legal or not, this practice is immoral.

www.StopFakeNews.org has been launched as an attempt to stop those who would rather lie to Americans with false news stories instead of facing the tough questioning from the media pool.

Stopfakenews.org is trying to get the FCC and the Justice Department to do something about this, as they should. It's amazing how upset the FCC gets over an exposed breast or coarse language (all in the name of moral decency) yet does nothing to stop airing these fake stories. Hopefully that will change soon.

Ryan Oddey
Ryan@TAFMess.com

WWW.STOPBOLTON.ORG

Interesting development on the John Bolton front, as the Citizens for Global Solutions launched a website: www.StopBolton.org

Comes complete with streaming video of Bolton spewing off some of his famous quotes regarding the United Nations not existing, and that America will only use the United Nations when it feels it is important. Watch the whole video because it features two other delegates, one being Erskine Childers of Ireland, making some very sound statements about Bolton's comments.

John Bolton is not the man we need representing America in the United Nations, and www.StopBolton.org furthers that sentiment and offers video proof to back it up.

Ryan Oddey
Ryan@TAFMess.com