Annie Nelson on the ‘Fuel That Doesn’t Kill Us’

Annie Nelson, wife of Willie Nelson and co-chairperson of the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance, speaks to Truthdig about stomaching the State of the Union and the myth that alternative fuels are years away.

Truthdig: Did you see the State of the Union?

Nelson: Yeah, I stomached as much as I could.

Truthdig: Did you see what the president said about ethanol? ... He did say one sentence or one line about biodiesel. Did any of that resonate with you?

Nelson: Yeah, about as much as it did the last time he said it. I mean, it’s all a bit of—it’s just talk. You know, they give 13 gazillion dollars to the oil and gas industry as some welfare for these people who are making phenomenal historic record-breaking profits, and less than—I think it’s 7.7 [billion] for research into alternative fuels which are already here. It’s lip service. It’s all lip service.

Truthdig: And what’s your involvement in biodiesel?

Nelson: Pretty much we’re proponents. I don’t know how else to say it. We’re in production. We have partnerships with Pacific Biodiesel Texas and Pacific Biodiesel, and we are doing community production of biodiesel. And our intent is to keep them community [based] and then promote that idea where each community ... can and should create their own fuel, and let that be the market for the community.

Truthdig: What is biodiesel?

Nelson: It is the fuel that obviously powers—I’m going to go real elementary, right?

Truthdig: Yeah.

Nelson: The fuel that powers a diesel engine. Biodiesel needs to run in a diesel engine, and what it does—where it comes from are several sources. It can come from recycled cooking oil, which then keeps that junk out of landfills; several plant seed stocks from seeds and those types of things; the rendering of animals, just you name it. There are tons of ways to get it. There’s a process where they remove the glycerin—that’s biodiesel. You can put pure cooking oil into your car, but you have to have a converter inside of it. But just any regular diesel [vehicle] can run on biodiesel because it’s been refined, which means the glycerin has been taken out.

Truthdig: So ... you can actually drive on recycled cooking oil?

Nelson: Yes, the diesel engine was designed to run on peanut and hemp oil, not petroleum. But then again Rudolf Diesel disappeared over the Atlantic. It never was intended to run on petroleum, and in fact I think an interesting connection is if you go—if you check out the Prohibition era, when the government was going after stills that were on farms and such, a lot of those stills were producing ethanol and biodiesel for—mainly ethanol—for farm production, for their machinery. That’s what happened. There were so many people involved in it, in that whole deal, that Prohibition was probably a whole lot less about alcohol and a whole lot more about killing the renewable energy possibilities. Obviously the petroleum companies were behind it.

Truthdig: What’s the difference between biodiesel and ethanol?

Nelson: Well, ethanol is almost like—and I’m not an expert on ethanol at all, so let me just put that disclaimer in there immediately—it’s more like a grain alcohol, almost. It’s from sugar. It’s a plant that needs to have a particular cellulose to create a gasoline-type fuel. But it’s mainly turning the sugar into fuel.

Truthdig: With ethanol we know how much money has been given to Iowa and other states where ethanol is being produced. On Biodiesel.org, they say there’s no government program to support them. Do you have an opinion on that?

Nelson: Biodiesel.org is an actual biodiesel board and there are many others. They’re just one entity, and they’re fine. They tend to have a lot more large producers and a lot of soybean people. Our whole deal, and we just actually formed—Daryl Hannah and I are co-chairs and Kelly King and Laura Louie, who is Woody Harrelson’s wife, and a group of us just formed the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance, where our intent is to focus specifically on sustainable community biodiesel production. And if it ends up being ethanol as well at some future date, that’s fine, but the whole point is to keep it community—to eliminate the ADMs and the Cargills and those people ... large oil companies from just transferring their monopoly on Middle Eastern oil to home-produced, naturally produced fuel. Right now they can ... it’s really a matter of connecting the farm bill with our national security bills and those types of things without allowing one group or one industry to control our energy, whether it be from the Middle East or from our own country. If it’s domestically produced, that should be domestically distributed as well. We’re here to protect the family farmers and the community co-ops that want to produce their own fuel and sell it.

Truthdig: Are there stations where people can fill up? One of the problems with ethanol has been transporting it and getting it to the public.

Nelson: People actually produce it all over the country. We do our tours through this whole
country, and we do it on biodiesel. At least a blend. At minimum, it’s a blend of biodiesel. We try to do 100 percent whenever we can.... So, it’s out there. It’s already available. The funny thing about why $7.7 billion was given to renewable fuels—and that 7.7 is spread out between wind and geothermal and biomass and ethanol and biodiesel and others—that’s spread out amongst all of them. When 13 point something billion is given to the oil and gas industry and coal, and then another 12 to nuclear. So it’s kind of serious, but instead of doing that, let each community—that’s our deal—to connect communities and make sure that they can produce their own fuels so they’re not dependent on one of these corporations that have already proven that they could care less about these people’s interests, and do their own. Make their own fuel. Make their own security, which gives everybody in this country security because not one person or organization is controlling the market. What’s the difference between OPEC and a group of American oil companies who control our prices?

Truthdig: There’s a list of gas stations on Biodiesel.org and a few other of these sites....

Nelson: There are gas stations. What they have a list of is people who are members. There are other people besides them—many, many other people that are producing biodiesel. When we put the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance online, it will be to help people connect to where they can get fuel around the country and, at the same time, promote community-based fueling stations where people can pull off the highway and fill up with whatever blend they need or 100 percent. So that is something that just hasn’t been put together. That’s what we’re going for. It exists out there—a lot of people making fuel. We’re some of them. In fact, if there was even more help, this would go big guns, but it also takes the profit away from some people that are in control right now.

Truthdig: During the State of the Union, the president said he would try and reduce foreign fuel by [20] percent by 2017. You’re saying....

Nelson: We’re already doing it. There are so many people already doing it. In fact, taking people and putting them back on land. Even if we just put them back on their land and let them buy their farms back. Put them back on land that’s sitting fallow right now. Let them grow food for ourselves and fuel. Then each community would start thriving again. You’ve got people out of the city, so there would be less congestion in the city. People on land, where they’re not [driven] insane by the inner city, where that’s not where they belong anyway. Put them back on the land, let them grow our fuel, let them grow our food, have it be sustainably grown, and then we eliminate—well, first we would eliminate, by getting them out of the city, the congestion of carbon fibers in the air, plus if they’re going to be using renewable fuels—and specifically I can speak for biodiesel, if up to 100 percent, you can eliminate 99 percent of particulates in the air.
So why wouldn’t we do that? People don’t want to be in the city, people want to be on their land; they never wanted to leave it to begin with. They got thrown off their land because the market is manipulated. So we put them back on it and allow them to earn ownership—we did that in the ’30s—but allow them to earn their ownership back, and let them produce food and fuel for us—fuel that doesn’t kill us, and grow it sustainably so it doesn’t kill the water and everything around us either. It doesn’t make sense not to. Then you have thriving communities ... when you put people back on the land then you need a grocery store, you need businesses that sustain those people. They have to buy their farm products somewhere, they have to buy their feed somewhere, when you get them back out there, you get those communities thriving again, and the heartbeat of America gets a little defibrillation—and certainly the economy. How is that bad? It’s not. It’s good for everybody; it’s just not great for those few who want it to be just good for them.

Annie Nelson is the wife of Willie Nelson and the co-chairperson of the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance Inc. She is a supporter of sustainable, community-based biodiesel production as a method for restoring the dignity of small family farmers, the environment, the economy, energy independence and U.S. national security.

Luckovich: Give His Plan a Chance

Daffy Does Doom

Maureen Dowd:

Delusional is far too mild a word to describe Dick Cheney. Delusional doesn’t begin to capture the profound, transcendental one-flew-over daftness of the man.

Has anyone in the history of the United States ever been so singularly wrong and misguided about such phenomenally important events and continued to insist he’s right in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary?

It requires an exquisite kind of lunacy to spend hundreds of billions destroying America’s reputation in the world, exhausting the U.S. military, failing to catch Osama, enhancing Iran’s power in the Middle East and sending American kids to train and arm Iraqi forces so they can work against American interests.

Only someone with an inspired alienation from reality could, under the guise of exorcising the trauma of Vietnam, replicate the trauma of Vietnam.

You must have a real talent for derangement to stay wrong every step of the way, to remain in complete denial about Iraq’s civil war, to have a total misunderstanding of Arab culture, to be completely oblivious to the American mood and to be absolutely blind to how democracy works.

In a democracy, when you run a campaign that panders to homophobia by attacking gay marriage and then your lesbian daughter writes a book about politics and decides to have a baby with her partner, you cannot tell Wolf Blitzer he’s “out of line” when he gingerly raises the hypocrisy of your position.

State Constitutions that Discriminate Against Atheists

• Arkansas State Constitution, Article 19 Section 1 ("Miscellaneous Provisions")No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any court.
• Maryland's Declaration of Rights, Article 36"That as it is the duty of every man to worship God in such manner as he thinks most acceptable to Him, all persons are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty; wherefore, no person ought by any law to be molested in his person or estate, on account of his religious persuasion, or profession, or for his religious practice, unless, under the color of religion, he shall disturb the good order, peace or safety of the State, or shall infringe the laws of morality, or injure others in their natural, civil or religious rights; nor ought any person to be compelled to frequent, or maintain, or contribute, unless on contract, to maintain, any place of worship, or any ministry; nor shall any person, otherwise competent, be deemed incompetent as a witness, or juror, on account of his religious belief; provided, he believes in the existence of God, and that under His dispensation such person will be held morally accountable for his acts, and be rewarded or punished therefore either in this world or in the world to come."
• Massachusetts' State Constitution, Article 3 "Any every denomination of Christians, demeaning themselves peaceably, and as good subjects of the commonwealth, shall be equally under the protection of the law: and no subordination of any one sect or denomination to another shall ever be established by law." (Comment: Apparently Non-Christians are not "equally under the protection of the law.”)
• Mississippi State Constitution. Article 14 ("General Provisions"), Section 265No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office in this state.
• North Carolina's State Constitution, Article 6 Section 8"Disqualifications of office. The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God."
• Pennsylvania's State Constitution, Article 1 Section 4 "No person who acknowledges the being of a God and a future state of rewards and punishments shall, on account of his religious sentiments, be disqualified to hold any office or place of trust or profit under this Commonwealth."
• South Carolina's State Constitution, Article 4 Section 2"No person shall be eligible to the office of Governor who denies the existence of the Supreme Being; ..."Note: If you continue reading you will find that (in Section 8) the Lieutenant Governor must also meet the same qualifications as the Governor.
• Tennessee's State Constitution, Article 9 Section 2"No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state."
• Texas' State Constitution, Article 1 Section 4"No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being."

LSB: Article VI, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution says: "... but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." So how do these laws still exist? Whether or not these laws are enforceable, as a Christian I find this intolerance intolerable. We recently witnessed the effrontery that one Muslim member of Congress had to endure when he requested to take his oath of office on the Quran. While he was not denied his seat in Congress, this type of religious bullying was disgusting to watch.

This is not Iran or Afghanistan or some other theocracy; we have a separation of Church and State in this country… freedom of religion and freedom from religion. It is always when we attempt to overlap the two that conflict arises. The Religious Right will always remind us that this country was founded by Christian men and women; what they seem to have is a fuzzier understanding that majority of these men and women were seeking religious freedom from the Church of England.

My faith is just that – MY FAITH, – and it is not found in any worldly institution symbolized by Fred Phelps, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson or those goofballs at Focus on the Family. This is just as much my country as theirs, and I get a little pissed that these and other wingnut neocons think there should be some sort of litmus test for who should get the rights and responsibilities of citizenship the Constitution guarantees all of us.

Top 10 Solutions for a More Perfect Union

Katrina vanden Heuvel: The "thumping" taken by the Republican Congress on election day was not just a rejection of K Street corruption and the catastrophe in Iraq. It was a call to action on issues that are more immediately relevant to people's lives. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will begin to answer that call by pushing a "100 Hours" agenda -- including common-sense legislation to increase the minimum wage, cut interest on student loans and open the way for Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices.

That's a good beginning, but it's only a down payment on a broader agenda. Progressives now have the opportunity to develop a new vision that returns power to the American people for the first time in generations. But to-do lists don't add up to a vision. But Democrats must show they are serious by passing bold measures that define a new "people's agenda." With that in mind, here are ten existing pieces of legislation that deserve to be passed by our new Congress. Some of these bills are eminently passable, a few are related to the "100 Hours" agenda and others can be seen as long-term goals. But all would help return our nation to the path to a more perfect union (note: Bill numbers may change in the new Congress).

1. Healthcare for All
More than 47 million Americans are now living without health coverage. Representative John Conyers's United States National Health Insurance Act (HR 676) would create a single-payer healthcare system by expanding Medicare to every resident. All necessary medical care would be covered -- from prescription drugs to hospital services to long-term care. There would be no deductibles or co-payments. Funding would come from sources including savings from negotiated bulk procurement of medications; a tax on the top 5 percent of income earners; and a phased-in payroll tax that is lower than what employers currently pay for less comprehensive employee health coverage. With 78 Congressional co-sponsors, and the endorsement of more than 200 labor organizations as well as healthcare groups, there is muscle and momentum behind this bill. To get involved, check out Healthcare-Now.org.

2. Counting Every Vote
Representative Rush Holt has introduced the Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act (HR 550) requiring all voting systems to provide a voter-verified paper trail to serve as the official ballot for recounts and audits. It would also insure accessibility for voters with disabilities. The bill, which was introduced in February 2005 and which currently has 222 bipartisan co-sponsors, was tied up in committee by the Republican Congress. Senators Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer and Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones introduced the Count Every Vote Act (S 450 and HR 939), which also calls for a voter-verified paper trail and would improve access for language minority voters, illiterate voters and voters with disabilities. Co-sponsors of that legislation include Senators John Kerry, Frank Lautenberg, Patrick Leahy and Barbara Mikulski, and seventy-nine House members.

3. Healthy Families Act
According to Washington Post columnist Amy Joyce, "nearly half of all private-sector workers in the United States do not have a single day of paid sick leave. And more do not have a paid day off that can be used to care for a sick child." Seventy-five percent of low-wage workers lack paid sick leave -- the very people who can least afford to take a day off and still be able to pay the bills. In 2005 Senator Edward Kennedy and Representative Rosa DeLauro introduced the Healthy Families Act (S 932 and HR 1902) -- a bill that would require employers with fifteen or more workers to provide one week of paid sick leave for those who work thirty or more hours a week. Employees who work less than that would receive prorated leave. The leave could be used to care for family as well. The new Democratic Congress is expected to hold hearings on the legislation, which has fifteen original co-sponsors in the Senate and seventy-one in the House, in early 2007.

4. The Right to Organize
The Employee Free Choice Act (S 842 and HR 1696) would strengthen workers' freedom to organize by requiring employers to recognize a union after a majority of workers sign cards authorizing representation. It also would create stronger penalties for management violations of the right to organize when workers seek to form a union. Currently there are 214 co-sponsors of Representative George Miller's House bill (including fourteen Republicans) and forty-four co-sponsors of Kennedy's legislation in the Senate (including Republican Senator Arlen Specter). This legislation would go a long way toward helping the 57 million nonunion workers in the United States who, according to polls, would form a union tomorrow if given the opportunity.

5. No Permanent Bases in Iraq
Representative Barbara Lee, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has proposed House Conference Resolution 197, which declares that it is "the policy of the United States not to enter into any base agreement with the Government of Iraq that would lead to a permanent United States military presence in Iraq." By passing this bill, Congress can send a clear and immediate signal to the Iraqi people and the international community that the United States has no intention of staying in Iraq indefinitely. There were eighty-six co-sponsors of Lee's legislation, including three Republicans.

6. Stop Outsourcing Torture
Representative Ed Markey's Torture Outsourcing Prevention Act (HR 952) directs the Secretary of State to submit to Congress an annual list of countries where there are substantial grounds for believing that torture or cruel and degrading treatment is commonly used in detention or interrogation. The bill prohibits the direct or indirect transfer or return of people by the United States for the purpose of detention, interrogation, trial or other purposes to a listed country. Given the recent history of black sites, torture flights, innocent victims and suspension of habeas corpus, this legislation should be an immediate priority. It is one modest step in the right direction. It currently has seventy-seven co-sponsors.

7. Access to Higher Education
Senator Richard Durbin and Representative George Miller's Reverse the Raid on Student Aid Act (S 2573 and HR 5150) would cut interest rates on college loans for student and parent borrowers. The legislation would save $5,600 for the typical student borrower, who currently graduates with $17,500 in student-loan debt. The Durbin-Miller legislation cuts interest rates in half, from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent, for students with subsidized loans, and from 8.5 percent to 4.25 percent for parents. Earlier this year, the GOP Congress cut $12 billion out of federal student aid programs to help finance tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans. The average tuition and fees at four-year public colleges have risen 40 percent when adjusted for inflation, since 2001, according to the College Board's Annual Survey of Colleges. And the average student debt has increased by more than 50 percent over the past decade, according to the Project on Student Debt. With economic inequality and the concentration of wealth reaching unprecedented levels, improving access to higher education is essential. It also is critical if we are to reverse the trend of the US workforce lagging behind other nations in education.

8. Free and Independent Media
Representative Maurice Hinchey sponsored the Media Ownership Reform Act (MORA -- HR 3302), which seeks to restore a diverse media by significantly lowering the number of media outlets one company is permitted to own in a single market. Since 1996 the Federal Communications Commission has promoted massive media consolidation by increasing that number, allowing telecommunications corporations to buy up a larger share of television and radio stations, newspapers and other media outlets, and forcing independent and local media owners out of business. There are sixteen co-sponsors of MORA in the House.

9. Public Financing of Campaigns
Representative John Tierney introduced the Clean Money, Clean Elections Act (HR 3099) last year with thirty-nine Democrats and one Independent as co-sponsors. The bill establishes a voluntary system that offers candidates an option for public financing and reduced rates on broadcast advertising in exchange for self-imposed limits on campaign financing and spending. Participating candidates get a dollar-for-dollar match, up to a set limit, if a nonparticipating opponent spends more than the basic public-financing grant. This system would free candidates from the burden of continuous fundraising; allow those who obtain a prescribed number of contributions to run regardless of their economic status or access to large funders; and, perhaps most important, eliminate the skewed priorities caused by the financing of campaigns by special-interest contributors.

10. Clean Energy
Last May Senator Maria Cantwell introduced the Clean EDGE Act (S 2829) with twenty-four Democratic co-sponsors. The bill sets a goal of reducing US petroleum consumption by 6 million barrels a day by 2020 -- or 40 percent of America's projected imports. It mandates that 25 percent of new vehicles sold in the United States by 2010 be flex-fuel capable (able to run on higher blends of biofuels, which help to displace petroleum), rising to 50 percent by 2020. It also sets a national goal of installing alternative fuels at 10 percent of US gas stations by 2015. The bill also makes gas price-gouging a federal crime. It ends subsidies for major oil companies and extends incentives for renewable energy and efficiency technologies. To shrink US dependence on fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the bill requires that 10 percent of all US electricity come from renewable sources by 2020. A report by the Apollo Alliance and the Economic Policy Institute estimates that the Clean EDGE Act would create more than 500,000 jobs, including tens of thousands in states hit hardest by the loss of 3 million manufacturing jobs.

This list is by no means all-inclusive. But these are good and important initiatives that address longstanding and formidable challenges.

Experts See Peril in Bush Health Proposal

NY Times:

With his proposal to uproot a tax break that has been in place for more than 60 years, President Bush has touched off an impassioned debate over the future of the employer-based system that provides health insurance to more than half of all Americans.

“Changing the tax code is a vital and necessary step to making health care affordable for more Americans,” Mr. Bush said in his State of the Union address this week.

Mr. Bush said his proposal would eliminate a bias in the tax code that strongly favored insurance provided by employers over coverage bought by individuals and families outside the workplace.

Paul Fronstin, director of health research at the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a nonpartisan organization, said: “The president’s proposal would mean the end of employer-based benefits as we know them. It gives employers a way out of providing the benefits because their employees could get the same tax break on
their own.”

Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, denied that the president wanted to move people away from the employer-based system and toward the individual insurance market. “We are seriously agnostic on that,” he said.

It might take years for changes to occur. “Large corporate employers could not immediately terminate their health benefits because there is, at present, no reliable place where employees can get coverage they can afford outside the workplace,” said Frank B. McArdle, a health policy expert at Hewitt Associates, a benefits consulting firm.

The economic rationale for Mr. Bush’s proposal is that too many people have “gold-plated, deluxe” health insurance, which encourages them to use excessive amounts of health care, driving up costs for everyone.

Many economists agree. But they doubt that Mr. Bush’s proposal would do much to hold down costs or cover more people. “The president’s proposal addresses inequities in the tax code that provide an open-ended subsidy for premiums paid by employers,” said Robert D. Reischauer, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office. “If your employer does not provide health insurance and you have to buy it on your own, you get no tax benefit at all. The president’s plan would eliminate that distinction.”

But Mr. Reischauer said, “A glaring problem with the president’s plan is that he did not call for any stronger regulation of the individual insurance market.” In that market as it now exists in most states, insurers can deny coverage or charge higher rates to sick people.

Tester goes Transparent

With encouragement from the Sunlight Foundation, Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) now posts his schedule online at the end of each day. “Whether it’s a visit to the gym, a meeting with the founder of the Montana Meth Project, or an interview with Wolf Blitzer, staff for Tester post his entire schedule online each workday — a Senate first.” Check it out HERE.

LSB: Leading by example. Let's hope the rest of the Democratic House and Senate takes up this practice as well. This may do more for lobbying reform than any bill could ever do — and it wouldn't require any votes. If every Dem (he dreams) did this and promoted that they were doing this, how could the Repugs not follow suit?

Molly Ivins hospitalized in cancer battle.

Three weeks ago, legendary Texan and progressive columnist Molly Ivins “wrote that she would dedicate every single one of her syndicated columns from now on to the issue of stopping the war in Iraq — until it ended. But she has managed to finish only one more column since. The gravely ill Texas columnist has been hospitalized again this week in her ongoing battle with breast cancer.”

LSB: Molly really is a treasure. She has informed without preaching and kept me laughing for years. Wishing you speedy good health, Molly!

JFK Secret Society Speech

LSB: Eerily, this is even more true today!

Ted Kennedy on Republicans and Minimum Wage

What is it with Republicans and their refusal to help the working class?

"Do you have such disdain for hard-working Americans that you want to pile all your amendments on this? Why don’t you just hold your amendments until other pieces of legislation? Why this volume of amendments on just the issue to try and raise the minimum wage? What is it about it that drives you Republicans crazy? What is it? Something. Something! What is the price that the workers have to pay to get an increase? What is it about working men and women that you find so offensive?"

Bob Geiger has more… St. McCain voted against increasing the minimum wage also.

FLASHBACK: Pre-War Intelligence Report Coverup

Back in September, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released its definitive PHASE II report (.pdf) that debunked once and for all the flimsy and manipulated intelligence the Bush administration used to make it's case for war. Speaking on the floor of the Senate, Carl Levin claimed there were still "deeply disturbing" portions of the report being kept classified to politically protect the White House.

Click here for the video.

At the time, then-Chairman Pat "Memory Pills" Roberts, who, according to Senator Rockefeller, was pressured by Vice President Cheney to suppress the inquiry, showed no interest in declassifying the report in full. Now that Rockefeller chairs the committee, it's finally time we got the whole truth about the lies that brought us to war. (Read the full story.)

And this from ThinkProgress: Vice President Dick Cheney exerted “constant” pressure on the former chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), to stall an investigation into the Bush administration’s use of false intelligence on Iraq. The so-called Phase II report on the administration’s use of pre-war intelligence was delayed for over two years. Two of its five portions were finally released in Sept. 2006.

Rockefeller said that he knew Cheney attended regular policy meetings in which he conveyed White House directions to conservative Capitol Hill staffers. They “just had to go along with the administration,” he said. Here are examples of Roberts’ vacillations on the Phase II investigation per White House orders:

• “We’ll proceed with Phase II. It is a priority. I made my commitment and it will get done.” [Press conference, 7/9/04]
• “I don’t know if we can get it done before the election.” [Meet the Press, 7/11/04]
• “That [the Phase II report] is basically on the back burner.” [UPI, 3/10/05]
• “I don’t think there should be any doubt that we have now heard it all regarding prewar intelligence. I think that it would be a monumental waste of time to replow this ground any further.” [U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 3/31/05]
• “To go though that exercise, it seems to me, in a post-election environment - we didn’t see how we could do that and achieve any possible progress. I think everybody pretty well gets it.” [U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 3/31/05]
• “I’m perfectly willing to do it, and that’s what we agreed to do, and that door is still open.” [Meet the Press, 4/10/05]
• “It isn’t like it’s been delayed. As a matter of fact, it’s been ongoing. As a matter of fact, we have been doing our work on Phase II.” [Senate Floor Speech, 11/1/05]
• “I don’t know the relevancy of that.” [CNN, 11/1/05]
• “We’ve been working on that. We will finish it. We had it scheduled for this week.” [Face the Nation, 11/6/05]

Begala on Cheney: “If he had any decency, he would simply resign”

From CNN.com, PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST:

Really, it's stunning. It's a great interview, and — because we saw the real Dick Cheney, you know, a really remarkable, probably historic, combination of arrogance, incompetence and dishonesty.

This is a man who, when he took office, Richard Clarke, the chief counterterrorism czar, told him that bin Laden was going to try to attack America. He ignored it. The president told him to chair a task force on terrorism. He refused to even convene it until after 9/11. He was too busy helping his friends at Enron and Exxon with his energy task force.

He told the country that Iraq was an imminent threat. He was wrong. He told us that they had a nuclear program — he was wrong — biological stockpiles, chemical stockpiles, that there were links to al Qaeda, that there were secret meetings between Mohamed Atta, the leader of the hijacking ring that attacked us on 9/11, and Saddam Hussein's government; they had a secret meeting in Prague. That was a fabrication as well — on and on.

It really is staggering, the — the level of this man's mendacity and arrogance, in the face — if he had any decency, he would simply resign, Wolf. He would give you an interview. He would say: You know, I give up. I have ruined — I have ruined the country in my first term. I'm ruining the world in my second term.

LSB: You go, boy! Rip the VP a new one!!

RUMOR: The Comedy Central Insider/InDecider has just heard more rumors from a SECOND reliable source that Dick Cheney will be stepping down as Vice President and will be replaced as Vice President by Condoleezza Rice. And now we're hearing that she would like to be on the ticket as the GOP VP candidate in '08. According to our rumor-meister, John Negroponte will be filling Condi's current position as Secretary of State. Negroponte was until recently the Director of National Intelligence (the first person ever to hold the few-years-old position) and the former US Ambassador to Iraq. [Comedy Central floated the rumor on its blog that Rumsfeld would resign the day after the election and nobody believed it. But then it actually came true and Comedy Central got a lot of attention because they "scooped" the real media. Well, this apparently is from a source exactly as reliable as that one was at the time. We’ll see.]