President Bush is back at his old tricks again, antagonizing the authority of state governments in favor of executive power.

The latest blow is one of his pet projects. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) declared today that the recent energy bill, signed by Bush just the other day, was enough to override the state’s right to set emissions standards, which of course were far tougher. The federal emissions standards, largely shaped by the Bush politburo, favor the auto industries who claim that higher emissions standards would hurt their already weak business.

Aside from the fact that this has enabled Detroit to destroy itself, by not offering vehicles that are fuel efficient enough for the marketplace (the 70s all over again), it supersedes the Republican claim of “State’s Rights”.

This isn’t, of course, about fuel emissions, this is about power, namely, the ongoing battle between federal and state authority.

The EPA claims their following a “clear national solution” to emissions standards, not some “patchwork of states”. While this smacks of federal executive power, it also looks suspiciously like corporatist authoritarianism, also known as Neo-Liberalism. …

Privatization doesn’t work! It has brought us nothing but scandals, like the deregulation energy debacle in California a few years back, huge corporate disintegrations like Enron (ironically tied to the CA energy scandals), and the worst disgrace of them all, the horrifying actions of private companies in Iraq.

The appalling actions of Blackwater can fill volumes on why privatization doesn’t work. It’s tied the U.S. mission to the actions of a rag-tag group of misfits armed with assault riffles and RPGs. While they’ve been in the headlines a lot lately, they are now, apparently, only part of the privatization problem in Iraq.

Halliburton & former child company KBR, contractors in Iraq, have been implicated for rape charges and are being sued for punitive and compensatory damages. The accusations are pretty serious, not to mention disturbing. What’s even worse, the accuser, Jamie Leigh Jones, is one of a growing number of victims coming forward to accuse KBR of sexual misconduct. The recent actions have prompted one Texas Republican Congressman to call Iraq, “the wild West."…

Rudy “9-11” Giuliani has a new campaign ad that highlights a glorious achievement in the Reagan Presidency (I can’t say that more sarcastically), claiming the way to stop terrorists is to do what the “Gipper” did and stand up to them, let em know who’s boss. In the ad, Rudy claims that Ronald Reagan negotiated the release of the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis to get the hostages released within 1 hour of his inauguration as President, despite the fact that this is 100% false. The REAL negotiation actually took 4 months between President Carter’s Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Algerian intermediaries and representatives of the Ayatollah’s government. Christopher blamed Iranian mismanagement for the delayed release of American hostages till just one hour after Reagan’s swearing in.

To think that anyone with half a brain would think that between Reagan still celebrating his swearing in as President and all the media attention that the word hostage even entered his mind! Especially since Reagan was such a hands off President, lazy …

Frequent Soapblox.com readers have probably noticed the lack of Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert clips lately. I am a proud Daily Show/Colbert fan and a firm believer that their comedy duo is not only the funniest programming currently on television (by a wide margin), it is also the most intelligent programming a person can digest with accuracy that rivals and exceeds most local and network news shows. I’m not the only one who has said that Jon Stewart’s curse-filled commentaries on the absurdity of the Bush Administration are more intelligent than network news programs like, hmmm, let’s say “To Catch a Predator.” Surveys prove that Daily Show watchers are more informed than all of the network news shows, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer and even Newspapers! (FYI Fox viewers and the morning news watchers came dead last), but I digress. Where is Jon Stewart? He’s been supporting the WGA Writer’s Guild strike against the big studios, and while I 100% support Stewart’s move, I must admit, I miss Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert’s biting criticism of current events….

Since the Iraq War began, the United States has had a diminished role in world diplomacy. Meanwhile the rest of the world has chugged along, taking great advantage of Uncle Sam’s present status, ankle-deep in bloody dessert sand, and manipulated the distracted Bush White House to their advantage. This weekend proved how dramatically weak the U.S. President has become.

No one has taken greater advantage of this than Russian President, Vladamir Putin, who has returned strength and authority to his office. He’s limited the once free press, bullied opposition into hiding, even been accused of having a rival poisoned with radioactive material (remember that story?), all the while he grows more powerful by the day. Last week Putin checked Bush’s plan to install anti-ballistic-missile systems in former Soviet countries, by announcing Russia’s departure from the 1990 Conventional Weapons Treaty that limited the use of heavy conventional weapons in Europe. It is, a slap at Bush and a slap at Europe, who have become increasingly critical of Russia’s backslide toward a strongman government….

One particular topic I take great interest in is our nation’s correctional facilities. I have had the opportunity to see what lies just beneath all the “tough-on-crime” rhetoric and law and order mumbo jumbo. Let me tell you, what I found when I turned over the bright, shiny polished rock of justice, was a colony of privatized leeches, bilking the tax payers and inmates out of as much money as possible. So when I read a BBC article last week that called America’s prison system a “costly failure,” I was not surprised. What did surprise me, however, is how little coverage it got here in the states. In fact, most of the links here are from outside of the U.S. Media. I knew that Corporate America had its greedy, money grubbing hands all over the prison system, but I had no idea that the story would be squashed so handily in favor of other stories that have already come and gone, with little resistance from the people or press. The fact of the matter is, America’s “tough on crime” bs, has cost them dearly, pretending it doesn’t exist cannot …