Paul Luvera Journal

My friend Brad Hobbs and I exchange e-mail observations. He recently sent me comments about George Tenet. Here’s an excerpt of what Brad said and my response: From the interview on CBS’s "60 minutes", I felt Tenet was trying to shift and deflect the responsibility of blame towards everyone, but himself, regarding the mishandling or complete indifference to threats of terrorism from Al Qaida just prior to 9/11/07. Perhaps rightly so, perhaps not… but I don’t know if we will…

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Joan Claybrook has an excellent editorial in Public Citizen News entitled "Bush steps up his attack on the regulatory system, endangering important health and safety protections." She gives the chronology of the attacks and notes that there is a stepped up effort to undermine the federal regulatory system. In January, Mr. Bush issued a new executive order requiring agencies to submit to the White House "significant guidance documents." It had already required them to submit to the White House proposed…

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Joe Scarborough’s blog is posted in the Huffington Post and has some clever observations this week about the confrontation between Cheryl Crow, Laurie David and Karl Rove. I commented yesterday about this subject. Here’s part of what he had to say: "But apparently Team Bush is tired of talking and has adapted a bunker mentality. Seven years of bad press, foreign wars and personal attacks (every bit as nasty as those Bill Clinton endured) have left people like Karl Rove…

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I greatly admire Arianna Huffington’s ability to write very witty comments with metaphors and analogies that ring true. I’ve even made a list from her books of phrases I thought were brilliant. In her blog The Huffington Post she discusses her attendance at the recent White House Correspondent’s Association dinner where Cheryl Crow, Laurie David and Karl Rove had a heated exchange over global warming. Huffington said "The entire evening had the surrealistic feel of a Salvador Dali movie." Here’s…

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People who are elected to public office are accountable to the citizens and taxpayers for their conduct and for spending of tax dollars. The original motivation for running for public office was that of wanting to provide a public service, not personal financial gain. In recent years, however, scandals regarding public officials taking financial advantage of their position have become more frequent just as the reports of excessive payments to CEO’s have become commonplace. (See post 4/6/07) The Seattle PI…

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Gary Trudeau in his Doonesbury (R) comic strip this Sunday pokes fun at the Republican insistence their party and candidates stand for family values, but the Democrats do not. His character Michael Doonsbury in the comic strip notes that on the Republican side the three front runners, Giuliani, McCain and Ginrich have five divorces among them, and says "four of them were really messy and all of them involving adultery." He then notes that on the Democratic side the three…

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Arianna Huffington’s blog has the disturbing follow up to the scandal of Congress and big oil’s love affair. See my report of 2/19/07 for the original report of the huge gift the lame duck Republican congress gave big oil by not charging for their government leases. The Democrats promised to fix this outrageous $10 Billion dollar windfall the Republican Congress had provided. A bill was passed in the house which which would require the oil industry to pay royalties from…

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Susan Dudley is typical of George Bush’s nomination of anti regulatory and anti environmental zealots to head important agencies responsible to control big oil and big business in their greed for profit at the expense of our planet. His appointees are selected as people who are expected to undermine  the function of these agencies and allow industry to do what they want. This is a person who opposed EPA plans for tougher public health standards for smog; who opposed cleaner…

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My mother, Mary Babarovich, had an uncle John Babarovich who died in 1916 and is buried in the Anacortes, Washington cemetery with the rest of the family. His tomb stone stands out from the rest because of what is written on it. It says: "Known among men as Honest John." Truth and honesty is an important part of the American culture especially in the West. Standing up and being accountable, speaking out when things aren’t right, and taking the blame…

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The furor over the political hatchet job done to the fired U.S. Attorneys will not be swept under the rug like the previous Republican Congress was always able to get away with. Now that some balance of power has been restored the facts are going to be exposed. I’ve reported my views about this before. (3/17/07) but the facts keep creeping closer and closer to George Bush and Karl Rove. The Bush Administration supporters have made two excuses for their…

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