Federal Government

Guidance From Arthur

This entry was posted in bush administration Federal Government Iraq US Politics on by

Pay attention:

The law is not the only method by which the state controls us, and strips our national discussion of all meaning. There is another, less formal but no less constricting means, which is commonly identified by the phrase, “the rules.” We must all follow “the rules.” You cannot ever break “the rules.” Be very, very clear on this point: the only way you can speak the truth on any subject of importance in this country today is BY BREAKING THE RULES.
…..
Friends, if this country — and if you individually — are to have any kind of human future at all, and by “human,” I mean a life with any genuine meaning and joy, a life not fatally compromised by ongoing murder, torture, and brutality — you had better fucking disturb the peace every second of every day.

You know the routine.

Oh yea, start today, start now: start breaking the rules!

Spin, Spin, Spin

This entry was posted in bush administration Federal Government Government on by

fema, building on a long tradition of strong bush administration public relations efforts such as colin powell’s un security council presentation and the fine news reporting provided by embedded reporters in Iraq, had demonstrated new skills in government puffery:

The U.S. government’s main disaster-response agency apologized on Friday for having its employees pose as reporters in a hastily called news conference on California’s wildfires that no news organizations attended.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, still struggling to restore its image after the bungled handling of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, issued the apology after The Washington Post published details of the Tuesday briefing.
….
No actual reporter attended the news conference in person, agency spokesman Aaron Walker said.
……
The agency had called the briefing with about 15 minutes notice as federal officials headed for southern California to oversee and assist in firefighting and rescue efforts. Reporters were also given a telephone number to listen in on but could not ask questions.
But with no reporters on hand and an agency video camera providing a feed carried live by some television networks, FEMA press employees posed the questions for Johnson that included: “Are you happy with FEMA’s response so far?” (Ed: emphasis added)

A made up presss conference to provide made up answers to made up questions. Can it get any better?
Perhaps, but not for the citizenry. fema’s director of external affairs could have stopped the conference:

“It was absolutely a bad decision. I regret it happened. Certainly . . . I should have stopped it,” said John P. “Pat” Philbin, FEMA’s director of external affairs. “I hope readers understand we’re working very hard to establish credibility and integrity, and I would hope this does not undermine it.”(Ed: emphasis added)

Lucky for us philbin is leaving fema:

Philbin’s last scheduled day at FEMA was Thursday. He has been named as the new head of public affairs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, ODNI spokeswoman Vanee Vines said.

No, this is not from The Onion.

We are so looking forward to future information programs from the odni!

WMS

This entry was posted in bush administration Federal Government Health Care on by

Yes, the weapon of mass stupidity bush administration is at it again:

On Monday, President Bush appointed Susan Orr to oversee federal family planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Orr, who is currently directing HHS child welfare programs, was touted by the administration as “highly qualified.”
But a look at Orr’s record shows that her strongest qualifications appear to be her right-wing credentials and endorsement of the Bush administration’s failed abstinence-only policies. Before joining HHS, Orr served as senior director for marriage and family care at the conservative Family Research Council and was an adjunct professor at Pat Robertson’s Regent University.

Another wonderfully Orwellian appointment.
From the perspective of the bushies and some religious sects there is nothing stupid about this. It is exactly the type of appointment that they intended to make from before bush was selected president by the supreme court and have made over and over again.
For the rest of us it is another example of bushidity.
For many it is also yet another sharp example of government waste. As John Cole asks:

…why the hell do we even need this damned office?

A good question!
If the department has any use at all it might be to help educate folks about what it takes to raise a child, encourage them to hold off on having children until they have the resources to raise them and explain over and over how valuable contraception is both in disease prevention and in birth prevention.
I’m not so sure a democratic or progressive administration would properly focus on both these points.

So, either give the money to Planned Parenthood or quit stealing it from us.

Yes, Applaud These Kids

This entry was posted in Anarchism Federal Government Government on by

Ed Brayton encourages us to applaud these kids and I am happy to join him.
They are certainly taking a step in the right direction.
However, why are they reciting any pledge at all?
The only ones who should be reciting a daily pledge are our servants: government employees everywhere.
As I wrote here a couple years ago:

..there is a group who by dint of their position should recite a pledge…probably several times per day. That would be the set of government employees, elected, appointed or hired, throughout the world. Our servants: congress critters, kings and queens, premiers, secretaries of desks and states, governors, presidents, soldiers, firepersons, police, mayors, etc.
They, each and everyone, in every government job throughout the world should start their day with something like:

I pledge allegiance to the people of name your jurisdiction and swear to protect their lives, help them maintain their liberty and assist them in their pursuit of happiness.

…and repeat it frequently throughout the day and once again before going to sleep at night.

Free individuals are under no obligation to recite pledges of allegiance of any kind.

What, tenet Should Have Resigned?

This entry was posted in bush bush administration Federal Government Iraq on by

Nora Ephron is right that we set our expectations too high if we expect government officials to resign as a matter of principle:

The notion that George Tenet — or Colin Powell, to take another example of a person we keep asking this question about — would have resigned just because he knew that the administration was lying about weapons of mass destruction, is truly laughable. …
…
We have such affection for the idea that people will quit on a matter of principle that it’s almost sweet. We believe that they quit for moral reasons, that they quit because they want to take a stand against impropriety, that they quit, willingly quit, because they know right from wrong. Once again, let me say this: no one quits.

This administration doesn’t even fire people until the last ounce of incompetence is wrung out of them.*
Unfortunately she becomes an apologist for the bush war when she says:

And in fairness to Tenet and Powell, what’s clear now wasn’t so clear back in the day. That image of the two of them at the United Nations is today such an indelible marker on the road to war. But they couldn’t have known at that time that the war would be such an unmitigated disaster; they surely couldn’t have known that there wouldn’t even be a July 4th sparkler found in all of Iraq;

Sure, the full scope of the bush administration’s incompetence was not yet obvious but, yes, they should have known the sparkler bit. That was tenet’s job….
More importantly even if they had found sparklers that would not have provided a moral excuse for the invasion, for the wasted Iraqi and American lives.

*Given how many of the incompetents are left this is a truly depressing thought.