Fact-esque

Life in a Swing State

So here's the deal. There are about a million things I want to write about the NYT but I've been canvassing all weekend and will be stuck on a MoveOn conference call tonight. The house looks like giant hamsters live in it and I'm taking the kids out of school to see Kerry and Clinton in Philly tomorrow. I'll try to catch up with the NYT stuff tomorrow after I show our guy some love in the city that's named for it.

Throwing Pies at Ann Coulter Was a Damned Stupid Thing to Do

I nearly never mention Ann Coulter. She's beneath my notice. But I will say this: whoever thought it was a good idea to assault her with pies couldn't be more wrong. In fact, I think it was such a completely boneheaded move that the people who did it had to have been working for a GOP group. Someone should look into that.

Some lefty commentators have been trying their best to cede the high ground to Coulter as they constantly and foolishly attack her appearance and her sexuality. The only thing that saves us from those pathetic efforts is Coulter herself, who can't wait to churn out more and more of her idiotic ravings. But it doesn't matter what she says for all time because now she's an assault victim. If the two men who threw pies at her thought they weren't handing her the biggest advantage she'll ever get - one that she, with her limited intellect and reasoning skills, could never ever have created for herself - they're wrong.

It's the first rule of the playground, boys. No matter what nasty thing Jimmy says, if you hit him, you're the one in trouble and Jimmy won't ever let you forget it. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Hanging Out on the American Street

Be sure to read Kevin Hayden's personal note of thanks at The American Street. It's really very beautiful.

You'd Think a Fellow Reservist Would Be Sure His Comrades Were Taken Care Of

I won't be blogging much over this weekend or next because of obligations to MoveOn's Leave No Voter Behind GOTV effort. My precinct goal is huge and I want to be sure we make it. That means lots of hours on the phone and on the street.

But, I did want to point out this story from the NYT today. It describes the difficulities injured and wounded reservists are having getting medical treatment:

Under a web of Army rules, Sergeant Elliott and thousands of other part-timers injured on duty are navigating a system suited to full-time soldiers. Most are required to stay on a military base to get government medical treatment, to collect their active-duty salaries and to finish military evaluations that will decide whether they return to duty or leave with severance or disability payments.

Full-time soldiers recuperating with Sergeant Elliott have to wait, too, but they have lives here - their spouses and children, their churches and their jobs. Long before Iraq, they lived on the base or just down the road.

The rules are affecting a growing number of part-time soldiers, as the military is deploying the National Guard and Reserves in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere at rates unprecedented since World War II.

Many of the injured say they have grown embittered from being away from home so long. Some see the extended separations as one more indication that military leaders consider the needs of part-time soldiers - once taunted as weekend warriors - as less important than those of the full-time troops.

They view themselves as casualties not just of bombs and heart attacks and ankle twists, but also of poor planning for a war that is increasingly being fought by the nation's part-time military.

And it isn't only some soldiers who say this aspect of the war was poorly planned: (emph mine)

In March, a year after the war began, after thousands of part-time soldiers had already returned home sick or wounded, and as complaints began emerging from homesick soldiers, the military said it would begin a test program to let some part-timers receive active-duty pay while being treated at hospitals and Veterans Affairs sites closer to their homes. But even now, only a few are actually receiving that service.

Since January 2003, more than 16,000 reservists and guardsmen have been placed on "medical holdover" - waiting for treatment and the military to decide if they are fit for duty - either because of injuries overseas or because of medical problems found while they were training to be deployed. Of the 4,240 part-time soldiers now on such status, 904 are being treated in their own communities under the Army's Community Based Health Care Initiative. Many others, including residents of more than half the states across the country, cannot even apply.

Col. Barbara J. Scherb, who oversees the initiative for the Army Forces Command, was asked why military leaders had not planned a way for reservists and guardsmen to be treated near their homes before now. "No one really thought much about this before," she replied.

Colonel Scherb described the slim participation in the program. "I think a lot of it is because it's new," she said in a telephone interview, "and, quite candidly, because we're sort of making this up as we go along."

Some of the waiting soldiers, at Fort Lewis and at other bases, said that they had never heard of Colonel Scherb's program or had learned of only one or two soldiers who had been allowed to join it.

And what about that program to treat reservists closer to home? (emph mine)

It is uncertain how much it would cost the Army to allow all part-time soldiers to receive their pay as well as their treatments at home. Some say the military would save in housing expenses, but would be unable to control health care costs. For now, military officials say they are unsure even what the medical costs will be for their current community-treatment program.

The requirements for that program are numerous. A soldier's home must be in one of 23 participating states; he must live near a private medical facility or a V.A. hospital suited to treat his particular problem and accepting Tricare; if he is capable of any work, which most of these soldiers are, he must live near an armory, recruiting station or another military facility for work, and the military must not have begun the process of determining whether he is no longer able to be a soldier - which can take months.

Military leaders began considering such a program, Colonel Scherb said, after they realized there might soon be overcrowding of part-time soldiers at military bases around the country. There is room for only 5,000 of these injured soldiers at bases, she said, and the numbers were mounting by late last year. Fort Lewis had also begun its own similar, smaller program for "remote care" late last year, a program Sergeant Elliott said he was allowed to join briefly.

In recent weeks, the numbers of those allowed to go home for treatment while still receiving active-duty pay has grown significantly, Colonel Scherb said, and she expects that to continue rising.

"Everybody is committed to making this work," she said.

But the future of the program seems uncertain. Announcing it in March, the Army described it as temporary, saying, "Once the number of soldiers needing care drops to a level that can be managed from Army posts, the program will be reduced or closed."

No final decisions have been made, Colonel Scherb said.

It sounds like no preliminary decisions were made either.

You know, if I wrote a novel that had a cowardly, rich boy, ne'er do well dodge service in Vietnam by getting his daddy to pull strings to get him a coveted position in the Texas Air National Guard, and then had him not only not complete that service, but later become a president who sent reservists to fight an unjust, ill-conceived war because he refused to put together a colation and a war plan that involved our allies - AND he didn't provide for the safety of those reservists while they fought or for their care when they returned from doing what he was never prepared to do for even a minute in his own life - well the story just sounds too unbelivable doesn't it? And if the slacker president, who was so bent on starting a war as the first step in some evil neocon economic experiment that he didn't bother to plan for the reasonable safety of the people he sent to fight it, was running against a man, who in his youth not only fought valiantly in Vietnam, but also came home to fight just as vailiantly against that war's continuation because he loved his fellow troops so much that he didn't want another one to have to die or be injured for its mistakes, you'd probably never believe that either.

US Commission on Civil Rights: Individuals with Disablities

I'm looking at a section of the US Commission on Civil Rights report on the BushCo record every weekday until the election. The report is largely critical of BushCo and although it is posted at the commission's website, easily understood and meticulously sourced, the corporate press has decided not have anything to do with it until after the election, when the commission will officially discuss their work.

In the time-honored tradition of Friday news dumps, I thought I'd post about the Individuals with Disablities section of the report late on a Friday night. (I've been busy with mom stuff all day). Why this section now? Because it's the only one I've found that gives BushCo a passing grade. Here's what the AP said about it: The report said, however, that Mr. Bush is committed to help people with disabilities ... "

Actually, the report says that BushCo is not only committed, but also following through on that committment, which is rare for him. For instance, he created the New Freedom Initiative that is designed to improve on his father's Americans with Disabilities Act:

Through NFI the administration shows it recognizes the critical needs of individuals with disabilities. NFI is an example of an effective multi-agency effort that reflects the administration’s commitment. The effort builds on the momentum created by the ADA, especially to reach out more effectively to the disability rights community and bring attention to remaining obstacles to equal access.

But BushCo's record isn't all sunshine and smiles, full funding and committment. It's also inadequate funding and inexplicable animosity to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). IDEA was the 1975 brainchild of Ford's administration. It's goal was to afford to all children a public education that met their individual needs. Special needs kids were finally officially included in the arena of public education. IDEA was reauthorized and strengthened in 1997 and was supposed to be renewed in 2002. BushCo allowed it to languish in Congress and created the President's Commission on Excellence in Special Education (PCESE), which was supposed to study federal, state and local special ed. Nothing like a committee to stall a process, which is what happened.

Clearly, the USCCR thinks the BushCo efforts in the direction of Special Ed are mixed:

The Bush administration has generally demonstrated commitment to improving special education. In his 2002 and 2003 budgets, President Bush requested $1 billion increases in funding for special education, the largest ever proposed. He also proposed an increase of $1 billion in grants to states for 2005, but level or reduced funding for other IDEA provisions, such as personnel preparation, parent information centers, preschool grants, and research. Moreover, in his 2005 budget proposal, President Bush recommends eliminating 38 DOEd programs, among them dropout prevention, school counseling, and smaller learning community programs, to save $1.4 billion. He recommends that the services they provide be funded through flexible grant programs. Many of these programs serve students with disabilities.

Although establishing PCESE constitutes a commitment to examining special education, some of PCESE’s recommendations oppose those of organizations working most closely with special education children. Moreover, the federal government has not fully implemented the changes Congress made to IDEA in 1997, and thus should be cautious about further sweeping changes. These caveats demand that the Bush administration fully fund IDEA and carefully examine whether changing IDEA before entirely implementing existing provisions will hinder progress.

From this report, that's a rave! I'm not sure what the deal with BushCo and IDEA. I'm inclined to believe that provisions in it don't allow him to privatize education and destroy teachers unions, which are the twin goals of his education policy. It's something to keep an eye on if, heaven forbid, he is elected.

Other posts in this series:
Environmental Justice
Voting Rights
Fair Housing
Native American Rights

Pepper Guns Can Kill People

Riot suppression weapons aren't water pistols. Victoria Snelgrove died when a pepper ball fired into a crowd of Red Sox fans hit her in the eye. The peaceful demonstrators in Jacksonville, Oregon, who were fired upon so that Dear Leader wouldn't be displeased by hearing slogans critical of his great name, are lucky that they weren't killed.

You're Hearing the Ravings of Ralph Reed, Who Used to Pimp for the Chrisitian Coalition

"Here in Arizona, the third debate, as America tries once again to try to decide which toilet to drink out of."

That's the opening of Triumph, the Insult Dog's report from Spin Alley. It's brilliant but rude. Watch it at

Rooftop Report or one of the two mirror sites linked there.

US Commission on Civil Rights: Environmental Justice

Part Four of my two-week look at significant chapters in the US Commission on Civil Rights' report on the record of the BushCo presidency. By what appears to be mutal agreement with the powers that be, the corporate media is postponing any discussion of the report until after Election Day.

Today's section: Environmental Justice

"I guess you could call me a good steward of the environment."

Or, we could could read the US Commission on Civil Rights report and find out that BushCo is not only most definitely not a good steward of the environment, he's also got a crummy track record on the environmental justice front.

The reports spends a lot of its time looking at BushCo's prosecution of Exectutive Order 12,898, “Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations.” It was issued by Clinton in 1995 and is designed to put the justice in "Environmental Justice." It directs federal agencies to set up environmental justice strategies and to create accountability standards and measures to evaulate the progress they've made.

BushCo, while issuing plenty of memos that make it seem as if he cares about environmental justice, has in reality set about hobbling the efficacy of the EO 12,898, condeming it by failing to establish goals for specific outcomes or adopt methods for measuring progress, which was the heart of the order.

The EPA's inspector general has found out that

despite a decade of active pursuit, Executive Order 12,898 is still not part of EPA’s core mission. President Bush did not consider implementation of the order a primary goal. The inspector general notes that EPA has not developed a clear vision or a comprehensive strategic plan, nor established values, goals, expectations, and performance measurements regarding the order. Further, EPA has not provided regional or program offices with standards for what constitutes a minority or lowincome community, or defined the term “disproportionately” as it relates to environmental justice. If EPA does not identify parameters for environmental justice, it will not be able to comply with Executive Order 12,898.

That's a pattern throughout the BushCo plan for environmental justice: set out ambitious goals, but gut the process by failing to follow through with any of the requisite standards and practices that would get the goals accomplished. All hat, no cattle.

Here's the conclusion: (emph mine)

In sum, the Bush administration has not adequately addressed environmental justice issues. Despite developing environmental justice goals, EPA has not created methods to measure the administration’s progress toward them. Although EPA has reduced its backlog of Title VI complaints, concerns have been raised about those that were dismissed or rejected. The administration also does not recognize or acknowledge that minority and low-income communities are disproportionately exposed to environmental pollutants. Despite both the administration’s position and whether municipalities and states are intentionally carrying out discriminatory policies, numerous studies reveal that minority communities are home to a disproportionate share of health hazards and waste sites. Minority and low-income people are victimized, and the Bush administration must acknowledge that environmental injustice exists.

It's painful to read the commission shouting into the wind of the BushCo adminstration's denials. The sad fact is that BushCo has made a career of not acknowledging anything that he finds inconvenient to acknowledge. And since the commission is operating from the reality-based world, their cries to have the health and well-being of the poor recognized by the industry-owned BushCo Empire will go ignored.

Read about the USCCR's view of the BushCo record on
Voting Rights
Fair Housing
Native American Rights

CN Elections - Vote Early and Often

Cartoon Network is running a series of ads that are worthy of the Daily Show. They're offering three tickets comprised of characters from four shows. One of the tickets, the independent party, is a 2x4 called "Plank." (my personal favorite) If you click over to watch some ads, be sure to check out the first link in Plank's column: "New! Anti-Endorsements" They've got a little Swiftboat action going on.

One More Sox-Yankees Post

I've been reading reports of the breaking of the Bambino's Curse. Call me a curse purist, but until the Red Sox win a World Series, the mojo is still working. They don't get to break it by winning the ALCS - even though they did it in spectacular fashion.

I imagine that Steinbrenner was up all night trying to figure out how to get Johnny Damon and Terry Francona to the Bronx. I'm so glad I'm not part of the Yankee organization this morning.

Go Cards!