Governor of Baghdad Region Assassinated
Gunmen Kill Governor of Baghdad Region; Suicide Car Bomb Kills 10 at Interior Ministry Office
The Associated Press

Jan. 4, 2005 - Insurgents assassinated the highest-ranking Iraqi official in eight months Tuesday, gunning down the governor of Baghdad province and six of his bodyguards, and a suicide truck bomber killed 10 people at an Interior Ministry commando headquarters, the latest in a string of violence ahead of Jan. 30 elections.

Five American troops were slain in three separate attacks, officials said, in the deadliest day for the U.S. military in Iraq since a suicide bombing at a mess tent in Mosul on Dec. 21 killed 22 people, including 14 U.S. soldiers and three American contractors.


Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday described Israel as "the Zionist enemy" in response to the killing of eight Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip.

Molly Ivins - Creators Syndicate
01.04.05 - AUSTIN, Texas -- Oh boy! Starting the year off briskly, lending it such tone already, such cachet, such je ne sais quoi -- those Republicans are so special, aren't they? Their first move, first rat out of the trap, top priority: lower ethics standards. Yessiree, this 2005 is going to be quite a year.

Let's put that to a vote. Many problems before us -- Iraq, a Social Security "crisis," a real health care crisis, world terrorism, our international reputation possibly at its lowest ever... who is in favor of lowering ethics standards first? Who thinks ethics standards in Washington are too high?

House "Republican leaders" -- that would be your Tom DeLay, Dennis Hastert and other moral heroes of our time -- want to repeal the rule that makes it possible for the House to censure members for bringing "discredit" on the House, even if their behavior does not fall under a specific rule.




Stopping the Bum's Rush
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times
Tuesday 04 January 2005

The people who hustled America into a tax cut to eliminate an imaginary budget surplus and a war to eliminate imaginary weapons are now trying another bum's rush. If they succeed, we will do nothing about the real fiscal threat and will instead dismantle Social Security, a program that is in much better financial shape than the rest of the federal government.

In the next few weeks, I'll explain why privatization will fatally undermine Social Security, and suggest steps to strengthen the program. I'll also talk about the much more urgent fiscal problems the administration hopes you won't notice while it scares you about Social Security.



Steve Weissman wrote this at Truthout:

When Alberto Gonzales assured Mr. Bush that presidential war powers trumped anti-torture laws and treaties, the White House lawyer was doing what too many of his profession do. Like an ENRON tax lawyer or Mafia consigliere, he was helping his client commit crimes.

Big crimes. War crimes. Not Private Lyndie England having a good time forcing naked Iraqi captives with sacks of over their heads to masturbate at Abu Ghraib, though Gonzales's words certainly led to the subsequent scandal. His sin was far more substantial. As Counsel to the President, he enabled and encouraged the systematic use of torture, duly authorized by the Commander-in-Chief.

Rule of law? Due process? Fair trials? The presumption of innocence? Don't be silly. In the new post-9/11 paradigm propounded by Gonzales, these hard-won victories of the past sound as "quaint" as the Geneva Conventions with their old-fashioned idea that Prisoners of War need reveal only their name, rank, and serial number.


Maha reported:

Marie Cocco's column in today's New York Newsday gets to the heart of Bush economic policy, including so-called Social Security "reform":

So why does Bush want to create a crisis that doesn't exist and provide a solution that doesn't fix it? Because he is an economic Darwinist. In Bush's view, the financially strong should be helped to prosper. The weak should pay the bill.

What's remarkable to me is that somebody actually had to say this. After four years of Bush's economic Darwinism, you'd think a person would have to be brain dead not to understand that what Cocco says is true. Calling attention to it seems like calling attention to air, or gravity.




Unbecoming of the United States
"Once you say the Geneva Conventions are quaint and obsolete, you can't undo that."

Former military officers, including retired Army General John Shalikashvili, are challenging the nomination of White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales to be US attorney general because he endorsed shitcanning the Geneva Conventions for combatants captured in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing Jan. 6 on Gonzales's nomination to succeed the Crisco-enhanced flake John Ashcroft.

Democrats led by Vermont Senator Pat Leahy say they will at least try to make an effort to appear they are doing what they were elected for, and ask Gonzales to explain his role in drafting policies that may have spawned the prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib and at Guantanamo Bay, before they return to their usual submissive, cowardly reboob ball-licking servility.
--Maru

Gonzalez Requested Torture Memo
by Armando
Tue Jan 4th, 2005 at 22:46:08 PST

How can this piece of shit be the next Attorney General? This is a disgrace:

Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel, intervened directly with Justice Department lawyers in 2002 to obtain a legal ruling on the extent of the president's authority to permit extreme interrogation practices in the name of national security, current and former administration officials said Tuesday.

I thought these little tidbits from my clippings of January 4, 2005, might help us have perspective on current events. Abou Gonzales claiming to be a victim, for instance, and Bush fiscal policies.

--the BB