Red State Welfare
By TIMOTHY EGAN
Published: Thursday, June 28, 2007

Drive across the empty reaches of the Great Plains, from the lost promise of Valentine, Neb., to the shadowless side roads into Sunray, Tex., and what you see is a land that has lost its purpose. Many of the towns set in this infinity of flat have a listless look, with shuttered main streets and schools given over to the grave.

With upwards of $20 billion a year in federal payments going to a select few in farm country, you would think that these troubled counties would have a more vigorous pulse. After all, corn and wheat prices are at record highs, and big manses here and there, with Hummers in limestone driveways, indicate that somebody is doing well.

It would be one thing if the despair and disparity in farm country were the sole products of history, if time had simply passed it all by. But it comes as a jolt to realize that government policy is much to blame.

The Red State welfare program, also known as the farm subsidy system, showers most of its tax dollars on the richest farmers, often people with no dirt under their fingernails, at the expense of everybody else trying to work the land. Like urban welfare before reform, agriculture subsidies reward those who can work the system — farming the government, as they call it around the diner.

And when you dare ask about the farmer in Colorado who received more than $2 million in handouts, or all those absentee landowners collecting their $150,000 government checks in gilded urban ZIP codes, the reaction is: it’s none of your business.

Bush Won't Supply Subpoenaed Documents
TERENCE HUNT | June 28, 2007 11:00 AM EST |
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WASHINGTON — President Bush, moving toward a constitutional showdown with Congress, asserted executive privilege Thursday and rejected lawmakers' demands for documents that could shed light on the firings of federal prosecutors.

Bush's attorney told Congress the White House would not turn over subpoenaed documents for former presidential counsel Harriet Miers and former political director Sara Taylor.

In reaction, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy accused the administration of shifting "into Nixonian stonewalling" and revealing "disdain for our system of checks and balances."

"With respect, it is with much regret that we are forced down this unfortunate path which we sought to avoid by finding grounds for mutual accommodation," White House counsel Fred Fielding said in a letter to Leahy and the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. "We had hoped this matter could conclude with your committees receiving information in lieu of having to invoke executive privilege. Instead, we are at this conclusion."

Thursday was the deadline for surrendering the documents. The White House also made clear that Miers and Taylor would not testify next month, as directed by the subpoenas, which were issued June 13. The stalemate could end up with House and Senate contempt citations and a battle in federal court over separation of powers.

"Increasingly, the president and vice president feel they are above the law," said Leahy, D-Vt., after getting the news from Fielding in an early-morning phone call. "In America no one is above law."

President Ahmadinejad's speeches can also be translated as a call for regime change, much in the same manner the Bush Administration has called for regime change in Iraq and Iran, making this resolution very ironic," Kucinich said.

Kucinich attempted to insert into the Congressional Record two independent translations of the speech from The New York Times and Middle East Media Research Institute...

I'm surprised MEMRI had a different translation than the "kill Jews" translation that floated around the MSM and in DC, considering that MEMRI often exaggerates translations from Palestinians.

Blue Buddha @ 6:

President Ahmadinejad's speeches can also be translated as a call for regime change, much in the same manner the Bush Administration has called for regime change in Iraq and Iran, making this resolution very ironic," Kucinich said.

Kucinich attempted to insert into the Congressional Record two independent translations of the speech from The New York Times and Middle East Media Research Institute...

I'm surprised MEMRI had a different translation than the "kill Jews" translation that floated around the MSM and in DC, considering that MEMRI often exaggerates translations from Palestinians.

This information has been available for 3 or 4 months. Again we see the EXTREME RIGHT WING MAIN STREAM MEDIA (ERWMSM) diligently spreading parsed propaganda.

Ron @ 7:

If the subpeonas are to be ignored then it is time to draft the arrest warrants for this cabal. We need to assign a specdial prosecuter and start proceedings.

RWN response to that: "But Congress just writes the law, they don't enforce it. The Executive Branch enforces the law... what does Congress think they can be the President?"

Court Limits Schools Considering Race
By MARK SHERMAN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected school diversity plans that take account of students' race in two major public school districts but left the door open for using race in limited circumstances.

The decision in cases affecting schools in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle could imperil similar plans in hundreds of districts nationwide, and it further restricts how public school systems may attain racial diversity.

The court split, 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts announcing the court's judgment. The court's four liberal justices dissented.

The districts "failed to show that they considered methods other than explicit racial classifications to achieve their stated goals," Roberts said.

Yet Justice Anthony Kennedy would not go as far as the other four conservative justices, saying in a concurring opinion that race may be a component of school plans designed to achieve diversity.

To the extent that Roberts' opinion could be interpreted to foreclose the use of race in any circumstance, Kennedy said, "I disagree with that reasoning."

He agreed with Roberts that the plans in Louisville and Seattle violated constitutional guarantees of equal protection.

Justice Stephen Breyer, in a dissent joined by the other liberals on the court, said Roberts' opinion undermined the promise of integrated schools that the court laid out 53 years ago in its landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education.

"To invalidate the plans under review is to threaten the promise of Brown," Breyer said.

The two school systems in Thursday's decisions employ slightly different methods of taking students' race into account when determining which school they will attend.

Federal appeals courts had upheld both plans after some parents sued. The Bush administration the parents' side, arguing that racial diversity is a noble goal but can be sought only through race-neutral means.

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the boosh 5-4 scotus continues its backward march
and the spineless dems did nothing to prevent this!

With Gonzo still in place and the new 5 to 4 supreme court, I feel pretty damned depressed and have little hope of this fight between the white house and the dems going the way we wish it would.

BaScOmBe your comment (#2) is beautifully written. You painted a picture with your words.
As to your comment (#3) :)

Not to mention NYT's master of extracting profundity from the heart of a platitude, Tom Friedman, who is all in favor of (other people) apologizing.

They just gassed immigration bill in Senate. It is a good day for rule of law.

No, the immigration bill did not pass. Reid took it off the floor. It's over. He couldn't get the number of votes he needed so he pulled it.

PNAAC Minister @ 19:

Impeachment is the only substantive response to "executive privelege" and with election season heating up, the Dems won't have the nerve.

Hang on to your seats.

That more than likely could be true all though, impeachment might not be the only way to look at this as we see from the following headline. A contempt of Congress charge could be leveled.:

Legal expert: White House stonewalling may force Congress to charge president with criminal offenses

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Law_Scholar_Wiretap_subpoenas_may_open_062...

pissed off patricia @ 20:

No, the immigration bill did not pass. Reid took it off the floor. It's over. He couldn't get the number of votes he needed so he pulled it.

HALLELUJAH!!!

View Forum Post
Date/Time: 6/28/2007 11:01:31 AM
Title: Why WSJ reporters didn't show up for work Thursday
Posted By: Jim Romenesko
Newspaper Guild release

June 28, 2007 11:00 A.M.

A statement from Wall Street Journal reporters:

Wall Street Journal reporters across the country chose not to show up to work this morning.

We did so for two reasons.

First, The Wall Street Journal's long tradition of independence, which has been the hallmark of our news coverage for decades, is threatened today. We, along with hundreds of other Dow Jones employees represented by the Independent Association of Publishers' Employees, want to demonstrate our conviction that the Journal’s editorial integrity depends on an owner committed to journalistic independence.

Second, by our absence from newsrooms around the country, we are reminding Dow Jones management that the quality of its publications depends on a top-quality professional staff. Dow Jones currently is in contract negotiations with its primary union, seeking severe cutbacks in our health benefits and limits on our pay. It is beyond debate that the professionals who create The Wall Street Journal and other Dow Jones publications every day deserve a fair contract that rewards their achievements. At a time when Dow Jones is finding the resources to award golden parachutes to 135 top executives, it should not be seeking to eviscerate employees’ health benefits and impose salary adjustments that amount to a pay cut.

We put the reputation of The Wall Street Journal and the needs of its readers first. That's why we will be back at our desks this afternoon, producing the day's news reports. But we hope this demonstration will remind those entrusted with the future of Dow Jones that our publications' integrity must be protected, and sustained, from top to bottom.

For more information, contact:
E.S. Browning (201) 491-8653
or Steve Yount (609) 220-5951

Even the president got in one the latest Ann Coulter story.

During a press conference today, he commented: 'That Ann Coulter, she's a long-blinded witch, isn't she?'

That's sure to make the evening news, under 'What did he say?'

http://www.mathaba.net/0index.shtml?x=556515

Cheney BAE Scandal Ignored By American Media
Posted: 2007/06/26
From: Mathaba

The public continues to turn to "main stream" news for information although as evidenced time and again it is the independent news agencies that are where uncensored news is to be found.

Explosive revelations that Vice-President Dick Cheney was behind the failed effort to cover up an $80 to $100 billion dollar slush fund run through the British defense firm BAE Systems, as reported several days ago by the Executive Intellegence Review and Mathaba News Agency, have been totally ignored by the mainstream media.

Instead, the American media establishment has been agog over a series of articles in the Washington Post claiming that Cheney has overstepped the boundaries of his office of Vice-President and behaves in an importunate manner to the President, George W Bush.

This type of deflection has become common during the Bush Presidency. A story detailing how the British Government set up a long-term agreement with the Saudi Arabian monarchy where defense systems and fighter jets were bartered for vast quantities of oil, which most of the profits from were turned into a slush fund used for gun-running and covert operations, aided and abetted by the U.S. government and Cheney, is more important to the public than four-year-old allegations about how Cheney supposedly manipulates Bush.

Excellent job all week!

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