Mens Rea

The Trillion Dollar War: the costs won't stop when the fighting does

2007-02-19T10:03:00.000-05:00

National Priorities.com has a fantastic running counter showing the cost of the war to Date, and what else that money could have bought. Its an incredibly sobering website if you've never been; especially since, as I'm writing this diary, that number is up to: $363,274,750,000.00 and climbing every second

And staggering as the number is, there is only one slight problem with it.

It's Low. By between 100 and 200%.

At least that's what A New Harvard University Study on the future costs of veterans health care has concluded:

Medical costs for U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could range from $350 billion to $662 billion over the next 40 years,

If you add this future liability to the "hard costs" of this war, we are already over the $1 Trillion dollar mark. Apparently, the problem is the soldiers just aren't dying enough:

soldiers survive injuries that would have killed them in past conflicts, according to a Harvard University study,... Due to improvements in battlefield medicine and equipment, there are now about 16 "nonmortally wounded" soldiers for every death, far more than the 2.6 soldiers wounded per death in Vietnam, the study said, citing Department of Veterans' Affairs data.

In other words, even the horrific death toll of 3,411 US soldiers, is misleading when considering the true human costs of the war. A favorite tactic of the few remaining war supporters has been to mock the "low" death toll of this war compared to conflicts past. They point out that as many Americans have died in Iraq as Died in One day of the D-day invasion. But, as this study shows us, a pure comparison of numbers creates a false statistic.

Consider the example given in the article. In Vietnam if the death toll was at 3,400 soldiers that would have meant that you could expect that another 8,000-odd were wounded. But In this conflict, thanks to all the improvements in medicine and life saving techniques we have roughly 55,000 wounded. Or looked at another way, we didn't have as many wounded soldiers in Vietnam as we do today until the death toll there had reached nearly 20,000 or nearly half of the 10-year total.

Worse yet, the numbers in the Study may be MUCH lower than the real costs because of the assumptions they used:

The potential costs include medical care, disability payments and other benefits paid to injured veterans and assume that 44 percent of veterans eventually claim disability. That was the percentage of claims from the first Gulf War. Bilmes' calculations assume that by 2016, 2 million soldiers will have participated in these wars.

The problem is, this war is VERY different from the First Gulf War, or ANY previous war. As previous statistics have shown the Kinds of Injuries we are seeing from this war are MUCH more severe than in conflicts past. For example, The military's own data shows that the amputation rate for this war has been twice that of any war since the Civil War(when amputation was basically the ONLY surgical technique available to battlefield doctors) and 1 in 5 or 20% of all wounded soldiers have had severe head trauma.

This is particularly bad because:

The angle of the force of these IEDs is right for the neck and face. That's been devastating to folks over there," said Holt, explaining that Kevlar helmets do not protect the underside of heads and necks, where crucial nerves and blood vessels lie. ...These injuries, surgeons said, have long-term implications, with many involving irreversible brain damage, breathing and eating impairments, blindness, or severe disfiguration. The study prompted the military to add a full-time head and neck surgeon to a Baghdad field hospital.

"These folks are just starting to come back, and they may require care for a long, long time," said Holt.

(If you want to know precisely how bad these injuries are, and you have a strong stomach, I suggest you check out this New England Journal of Medicine Photo essay about caring for the wounded in Iraq.

So not only are more of our soldiers coming back alive, but they more broken than in any previous war. This means that fixing them up is likely to be a VERY long and expensive prospect for us that will Dwarf even the ruinous costs of fighting this war.

When I was younger and still thought wars and militarism was somehow cool, I read extensively on the subject, and from that reading I recall a paragraph about guerilla tactics that for obvious reasons has come very much to mind of late:

:For the Guerilla, success will come not in killing your enemy but in wounding them severely. Killing a soldier will only gain you victory if you can kill enough of them so that the enemy has no more to send. A dead soldier costs his country very little: the cost of funeral, perhaps some provision for his widow and children and that's it. Now a WOUNDED soldier on the other hand, requires rescue, transport, medical care, and years, if not a lifetime of expensive rehabilitation. Thus wounding soldiers is far better than killing them as it will allow you to paralyze the enemy, destroy the morale of his soldiers and bankrupt his country."

When I look at the staggering, ever-increasing number that is the true cost of this war; I can't help but wonder if that long forgotten author might not be right.

The new Congress is ALREADY changing things for the better

2006-11-28T20:07:00.000-05:00

Talk about service. Even though they won't be sworn in for another month, our Dems are already causing a rollback some of the most egregious abuses of power from the last six years. The looming specter of Democratically controlled committees armed with subpoena power is starting to "Scare Straight" a lot of Agency folks all over Washington who've decided that they really aren't willing to go to jail for W.

For example, miraculously this week, The DOJ, decided they really ought take another look at warrantless wiretapping just to, ya know, make sure it's legal and all:

The[DOJ] is launching an internal review of its participation in the [NSA's] domestic eavesdropping program, ...The review, which congressional Democrats have sought for nearly a year, will examine the Justice Department's role in the warrantless domestic spying program

What an amazing coincidence that this should come up on their to-do list now eh?

Of course, according to the DOJ, the timing is purest coincidence. Perish the thought that it's Brown Trousers Time at the DOJ! No, it's just that their ever vigilant internal watchdogs had some, shall we call them concerns:

Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine said.

"After conducting initial inquiries into the program, we have decided to open a program review that will examine the department's controls and use of information related to the program and the department's compliance with legal requirements governing the program,"

look carefully upon that sentence fragment children, you will never see a finer example of Washington CYA-speak in the wild than this one. Note the careful beige neutrality of the language: "we have decided to open a program review to examine". Not that anything is necessarily WRONG mind you, they are just "reviewing" it. Whether they actually find something will depend on which way the political winds blow next.

Also, as an indication of how bad they think this might get; note the pre-emptive "Hey, I was doing MY job" opening : "after conducting initial inquiries into the program". That's the classic cry of a Washington Bureaucrat who sees an impending fecal matter/air circulator collision
This might as well be screaming "See? we looked into this. Really we Did! Sure we might have taken a while, but hey, slow and steady and all that...". You see they know that people rarely go to jail for being too slow and deliberate; but jail cells are FILLED with people that turned a blind eye towards shennanigans.

Of Course the IG can fairly claim that it IS awful hard to conduct an inquiry into anything when his staff isn't even cleared to know the program exists (despite what they read in say every major newspaper in the world,):

Fine said he was notified last week that the White House had granted security clearances to his staff in response to a request he made on October 20. Previously, only Fine and two members of his staff were given clearance, a prerequisite for conducting such a review, he said.

well nice to know the White House has decided after ONLY a month that it actually trusts its own DOJ IG's office eh? I mean it's not like there is ANY mechanism for say, pre-clearing them when they are hired or anything. But then I'm sure the "nobody could have anticipated" that the Inspector General's Office at the DOJ would EVER have need access to classified material right?

Still lets give credit where credit it due. The DOJ's actions brought a rare moment of praise for that agency from the ACLU:

"We applaud Inspector General Fine for his perseverance in pushing for this investigation and hope it will be comprehensive and free from political pressure," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office.

she, gasped out, before losing her battle to keep a straight face, and rolling on the floor in laughter.

Well its only a baby step, to be sure, in the right direction; but it IS a step. And that is one HELL of a lot better than what we've had for the LAST 6 years where the laws were apparently treated as optional. At least now they are aware there IS a law they might be breaking and NO they AREN'T allowed to do that, even when the president says "pretty please with sugar on top". Had the elections gone the other way, I sincerely doubt the executive would be experiencing anything like this "great awakening"; but they didn't and we are.

So lets take a moment to admire the system working as it should, even BEFORE we officially take power. Let's also admire the steadfast determination of our heroes Conyers, Dingell, Feingold, Waxman etc who have thus far been lonely voices in the wilderness, but whose impending rise to power has a lot to do with this sudden outbreak of Scrupulosity in the executive branch.

This should be a very INTERESTING next two years no?

Fear and Loathing on K street- And a lobbying reform proposal that will make us stronger.

2006-11-28T20:05:00.000-05:00

In the wake of the Democratic electoral landslide; it straight up sucks to be a K Street Lobbying Firm

The Democrats' takeover of Congress this month has turned official Washington upside down.

Corporations that once boasted about their Republican ties are busily hiring Democratic lobbyists. And industries worried about reprisals from the new Democrats-in-charge, especially the pharmaceutical industry, are sending out woe-is-me memos and hoping their GOP connections will protect them in the crunch.

Ahh my friends will you never learn? Sooner or later the worm always turns. And this November it took a very Hard Left, leaving some of the largest corporations looking upon the wreckage of the fabled K Street Project and Despairing:

As a recently leaked e-mail shows:

"We woke up the day after the election to a new world," said Ken Johnson, spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America. "We're going to have tough days ahead of us."

A post-election e-mail to executives at the drug company GlaxoSmithKline details just how tough. "We now have fewer allies in the Senate," says the internal memo, obtained by The Washington Post. "Thus, there is greater risk over the next two years that bad amendments will be offered to pending legislation." The company's primary concerns are bills that would allow more imported drugs and would force price competition for drugs bought under Medicare.

The defeat of Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) "creates a big hole we will need to fill," the e-mail says. Sen.-elect Jon Tester (D-Mont.) "is expected to be a problem," { knock em out the box John Knock em out!>-ed} it says, and the elevation to the Senate of Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) "will strengthen his ability to challenge us."

In other words they are scared, but unfortunately not scared enough. They believe that they just have to re-learn whose rings and posteriors need kissing and it'll be business as usual for them:

The e-mail also mentions that Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) "has worked closely" with the company and that the firm's PAC had supported six Democratic senators who faced reelection. "These relationships should help us moderate proposals offered by Senate Democrats," the e-mail says.

....
interest groups, in general, are not concerned about the changes the election has brought. "We lost many friends in this election," said Steven C. Anderson, president of the Republican-leaning National Restaurant Association. "But that doesn't mean we can't make new friends, and that's what we'll do."

I'd like to believe that these corporate Welfare Queens are in for a bit of Shock when Sheriff Pelosi rides into town. Certainly the Top Dems are saying the right things:

Democratic congressional leaders have expressed disdain for their predecessors' fealty to "special interests." That is why they are planning an elaborate assault on lobbyists during their first week in session. Through changes in laws and in House rules, Democrats hope to ban lobbyist-provided gifts and travel to lawmakers and to create an Office of Public Integrity to oversee the disclosures that lobbyists must make about clients and fees.

But as My old Latin teacher would say Acta non Verba and the acta is less encouraging:

Democratic lobbyists prospected for new clients on the very night last week that House Democrats elected their leaders on an anti-lobbyist platform. Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (Md.) and Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (S.C.) were feted on the 10th and ninth floors, respectively, at 101 Constitution Ave. NW, a premier lobbying venue at the foot of Capitol Hill. Some of the city's top firms are in that building, including the lobbying arm of Goldman Sachs, the American Council of Life Insurers, Clark Consulting Federal Policy Group and Van Scoyoc Associates.

Hoyer's political action committee financed his reception in a room routinely used for lobbying and other events, but Clyburn's was paid for by Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP, a South Carolina-based law firm that lobbies extensively in Washington on health care and other issues and has offices in that building.

Dozens of lobbyists attended both functions and shuttled from one party to the other. "The elevators were jammed," said Gwen Mellor, a Democrat at the lobbying firm PodestaMattoon, who collected business cards that evening.

and some "Democratic" Lobbying firms seem awful eager to Meringue with firms that most Democrats, at least rhetorically, regard as the spawn of Satan:

Podesta said he had already signed up Wal-Mart and British Petroleum in anticipation of a Democratic victory. Now he is even busier fielding offers from other potential clients. "I've got a fairly full schedule of marketing meetings that are real," he said. "I did some right after the election, and I have four or five set up for next week."

So here's the part where my Modest proposal comes in, to:
A) stop the madness,
B)look like the good guys and indeed BE the good guys all the while
C) Maintaining our majorities and crippling the Republicans in the next

election cycle:

Basically, we need to Shutter the K. Street Porject forever; something tht's not currently on the agenda of our leaders. In fact, Steny already has something he calls "the Monday group" which he's Publicly stated he wants to turn into "the Democratic K Street Project."

That a VERY BAD idea. Yes K street can raise a TON of Cash, no question. However the strings attached to the money means letting large corporations have their way with our energy supplies, drug prices, environmental quality, etc. For Republicans this is all but their party platform in a nutshell anyway, so it's no big deal. We’d like to think we’re different however. So playing that game would be much more painful for our side, in fact, I dare say it's impossible without betraying core principles of our party and making much of our most cherished rhetoric into a lie. Not only would it be wrong, but betraying those principles would have a grave effect on our electoral fortunes as well.

The counter argument to the "Republican Culture of Corruption" I heard most often from "centrists" this year was "Yeah, but both parties are the same, they are both corrupt and both enslaved to the corporations; it amkes no difference which one I vote for." This means that there is a huge pool of disenchanted swing voter we can tap if we can consistently prove this isn't true. But that means NO playing footsie with the K-Street Crowd. The problem I've heard from Democrats is, this makes about as much sense as unilateral disarmament. They say that like it or not, this is how the game is played. Thus we'd simply be helping the Republicans by refusing to take advantage of our positions they way they did.

However there IS a way to do this, (refuse to take K. street Cash), that WON'T be helping our opponents either. It IS possible to be ethical and play hardball all at once, you see. Money is felt in its presence, but also its absence. Thus denying cash to your enemies has the same leveling effect as raising your own funds, but with far less ethical messiness and owing of favors afterwards. And that is in essence my Modest proposal:

Tell the K Street firms and their corporate patrons unequivocally that we want none of their filthy lucre. However, make it equally clear that we want the Republicans cut off completely as well. Tell them that if they give ONE DIME to our opponents, they are dead to us. No meetings, no favors, no face time with so much as the office summer intern. It needs to be made clear that the days of supporting both sides and hoping for the best after the elections are OVER. IF they want any access, any consideration at all on Capitol Hill, their bank accounts, and those of thier lobbying firms and chief executives had better be innocent of any Republican contributions.

The Dems have proven this election cycle that we can and did raise A LOT of money from channels that have nothing to do with lobbyists and corporations, since we were cut off by the K Street Project, we got creative and tapped other sources. The Republicans on the other hand are Vein-jabbing addicts of what K. Street has to offer, they are almost exclusive dependant on them for funding. Forcing them to go "cold turkey" is going to be extremely painful to them, whereas we'll barely notice it. Which means that not we be able to we outspend them; we can do it with squeaky clean funds. And THAT has the added bonus of cutting off the rallying crime of "throw the bums out" that's usually the minority party's strongest card to play.

Stephen Hawking has a better chance of "Standing up" than the Iraqi Army according to US Generals

2006-11-28T20:04:00.000-05:00

Supposedly, the training of an effective, independent Iraqi army has been the lynch-pin of the US's exit strategy in Iraq (excuse me, "Victory Plan"), indeed it could be argued it IS the strategy..

As the President himself has said nearly, ad nauseum:

Our approach can be summed up this way: As Iraqis stand up, we will stand down. And when that mission of defeating the terrorists in Iraq is complete, our troops will come home to a proud and grateful nation

So how that's whole "getting them ready so we can get the hell out of Dodge" thing going anyway?

Well, to paraphrase A series of unusually blunt, interviews with US officers overseeing the program; Steven Hawking has a better chance standing up than the Iraqi army does.
So how bad is it really? Even worse than you are imagining:

The U.S. military's effort to train Iraqi forces has been rife with problems, from officers being sent in with poor preparation to a lack of basic necessities such as interpreters and office materials, according to internal Army documents...In dozens of official interviews.., officers who had been involved in training and advising Iraqis bluntly criticized almost every aspect of the effort.

And when they say EVERY aspect they mean EVERY Aspect:

Sullivan, who advised three infantry companies in the Iraqi army, called the U.S. Army's instruction for the mission "very disappointing."

Some officers thought that team members were often selected poorly. Others fretted that the soldiers who prepared them had never served in Iraq and lacked understanding of the tasks of training and advising. Many said they felt insufficiently supported by the Army while in Iraq, with intermittent shipments of supplies and interpreters who often did not seem to understand English.

Yes you read that right, the first major hurdle these advisors attempting to re-mak the Iraqi Army faced was one of communication. Most of their "interpreters" couldn't actually ,you know, technically , speak and understand English:

After arriving in Iraq, advisers said, they often were shocked to find that the interpreters assigned to them were of little use. Ciesinski reported that at his base in western Nineveh province, "They couldn't speak English and we would have to fire them."...

"It was a real juggling act" with interpreters, he said, noting that he would run from the headquarters to a company "to borrow an interpreter, run him over to say something, and then send him back."

The Center for Army Lessons Learned study, found one unit that learned after 10 frustrating months that its interpreters were "substandard" and had been translating the advisers' instructions so poorly that their Iraqi pupils had difficulty understanding the concepts being taught.

However even if there Hadn't been a language barrier, there was the slight problem that few if any of the US officers training the soldiers trainers really knew what the hell they were doing in the first place:

[the] Center for Army Lessons Learned, (CALL) , found that there was "no standardized guideline" for preparing advisers and that such instruction was needed because "a majority of advisors have little to no previous experience or training."

reported Maj. Mike Sullivan, who advised an Iraqi army battalion in 2004. "I went there with the wrong attitude and I thought I understood Iraq and the history because I had seen PowerPoint slides, but I really didn't."

said Lt. Col. Paul Ciesinski, ..." when we got to Iraq we could hardly shoot, we could hardly move and we could hardly communicate, because we hadn't been trained on how to do these things." ..., adding sarcastically: "They packed 30 days' training into 84 days."

and those were the Senior commanders talking. On the brigade and company levels the US personnel's lack of experience became even MORE glaring leading to a "don't teach your Grandma to suck eggs" problem with the Iraq officer corps:

Iraqis also had some complaints about their U.S. advisers, most notably that junior U.S. officers who had never seen combat were counseling senior Iraqi officers who had fought in several wars."

And that's only when and IF the Unit could actually find/trust qualified officers:

Many worried that the Iraqi units being advised contained insurgents. An Iraqi National Guard battalion "was infiltrated by the enemy," said Maj. Michael Monti, a Marine who was an adviser in the Upper Euphrates Valley in 2004 and 2005.

Some advisers reported being personally targeted by infiltrators. "We had insurgents that we detected and arrested in the battalion that were planning an operation against me and my team," Allen said.

But Iraqi officers may have had even more to fear, because their families were also vulnerable. "I went through seven battalion commanders in eight weeks," Allen noted. Dixon reported that in Samarra both his battalion commander and intelligence officer deserted just before a major operation.

"Numerous teams have lieutenants . . . to fill the role of advisor to an Iraqi colonel counterpart," the Lessons Learned report stated.

It got so bad for some that:

Farrell, the officer in east Baghdad, said some advisers were literally "phoning in" their work. Some would not leave the forward operating base "more than one or two days out of the week -- instead they would just call the Iraqis on cell phones," he said.

Still, there IS one bright spot in this report. Unlike their poetical leaders in Washington, the generals and officers involved in this effort are and capable of learning from their mistakes

Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, a staff officer with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Iraq in 2005 and 2006 who worked with Iraqi units, came away thinking that the Army fundamentally is not geared to the task of helping the advisory effort.

"The thing the Army institutionally is still struggling to learn is that the most important thing we do in counterinsurgency is building host-nation institutions," he told the interviewers, "yet all our organizations are designed around the least important line of operations: combat operations."

Yingling came to a broader conclusion. He recommended an entirely different orientation in Iraq, both for trainers and for regular U.S. units. "Don't train on finding the enemy," he said. "Train on finding your friends, and they will help you find your enemy. . . . Once you find your friends, finding the enemy is easy

One part of me, of course, wants to chalk this story up to "another day, another display of Katrina-Like competence from this Administration". Unfortunately, aside from a full-on "screw you guys I'm going home" pull-out; whipping the Iraqi Army into shape is basically the only hope we have for leaving Iraq anytime soon. In fact according to the Pentagon's new document on how to pull our heads out of the quagmire:

Pentagon officials are considering whether the number of Iraqi security forces needs to be far larger than the current target of about 325,000, which would require thousands more U.S. trainers.

Unfortunately, according to what we know now, adding those trainers under current conditions would be almost counterproductive. Now if I wasn't suffering from nearly chronic outrage fatigue, this is the point where I'd start getting PO'ed and demanding to know how the hell this could have been allowed to happen. Alas, I've come to almost accept lethal incompetence as par for the course from this Administration. So instead of figuring out how we arrived here I'm really left with only one question:

now what do we do?

USDA eliminates Hunger in America!

2006-11-28T20:02:00.000-05:00

Well I am sure You'll all be pleased to note that as of today , Tuesday November 16 2006 The USDA has officially , announced that there are no longer any Hungry people in America.

Every year, the Agriculture Department issues a report that measures Americans' access to food, and it has consistently used the word "hunger" to describe those who can least afford to put food on the table. No longer....Beginning this year, the USDA has determined "very low food security" to be a more scientifically palatable description for that group.

How very Nice for them. Hate to think they'd have to use terms they find "unpalatable" to describe people who have no idea when or where their next meal is coming from; cause we have a LOT of these "people with Very Low Food Security":

The USDA said that 12 percent of Americans -- 35 million people -- could not put food on the table at least part of last year. Eleven million of them reported going hungry at times.

Sickening/Astounding/Sad isn't it? But wait there's more:

This is a problem that, I'm sure you will not be shocked to find out, Has been getting Worse not better in the last five years, so much so that the Government is falling FAR short of even the modest anti-hunger goals it set for itself:

The United States has set a goal of reducing the proportion of food-insecure households to 6 percent or less by 2010, or half the 1995 level, but it is proving difficult. The number of hungriest Americans has risen over the past five years. Last year, the total share of food-insecure households stood at 11 percent.

But You'll be reassured to know that the USDA swears they are changing this terminology NOT to hide their abject failure, but simply to Better and more accurately study the problem. Whew. That's a relief isn't it?

Three years ago, the USDA asked the Committee on National Statistics of the National Academies "to ensure that the measurement methods USDA uses to assess households' access -- or lack of access -- to adequate food and the language used to describe those conditions are conceptually and operationally sound."
Among several recommendations, the panel suggested that the USDA scrap the word hunger, which "should refer to a potential consequence of food insecurity that, because of prolonged, involuntary lack of food, results in discomfort, illness, weakness, or pain that goes beyond the usual uneasy sensation."

Damn! why does that verbiage seem so familiar? Where else have I heard such elaborate and weasel-worded verbiage used to try to re-define a term which used to be perfectly well understood as a matter of common sense? hmmm... oh yes:
The Bush Administration's infamous Torture Memo. Compare and contrast:

Defined Torture as "severe physical or mental pain or suffering." which was defined as "involving damage that rises to the level of death, organ failure, or the permanent impairment of a significant body function."

Chilling innit?, Also Like the DOJ's Auto-da-Fe Legal Trust, the USDA scientists working on the hunger problem seem to exhibit that same Vulcan-like quality of detachment that allows them to say things like :

Mark Nord, the lead author of the report, said "hungry" is "not a scientifically accurate term ..."We don't have a measure of that condition. Hunger is clearly an important issue," Nord said. "But lacking a widespread consensus on what the word 'hunger' should refer to, it's difficult for research to shed meaningful light on it."
"

Tell ya what, Mr. Nord, how's about you go all Morgan Spurlock on us and move into household dependant on food stamps for 30 days? I betcha by the 26th or 27th you'd have a pretty damn concrete idea of exactly what "hungry" means.

Now I'm sure you'll be shocked to find out that some people have had the absolute cheek to suggest that the USDA has less than pure motives for its nomenclatural re-alignment:

Anti-hunger advocates say the new words sugarcoat a national shame. "The proposal to remove the word 'hunger' from our official reports is a huge disservice to the millions of Americans who struggle daily to feed themselves and their families," said David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, an anti-hunger advocacy group. "We . . . cannot hide the reality of hunger among our citizens."

and perhaps they can be forgiven for their skepticism inasmuch as:

A) the USDA apparently played politics with the timing of the report:

The agency usually releases the report in the fall, for reasons that "have nothing to do with politics," Nord said.
This year, when the report failed to appear in October as it usually does, Democrats accused the Bush administration of delaying its release until after the midterm elections. Nord denied the contention, saying, "This is a schedule that was set several months ago."{ and of course several months ago nobody could have imagined that there'd be a midterm election in early November--ED}

B) Our Compassionate- Conservative-in-Chief. George W. "The Decider" Bush simply doesn't believe the hunger statistics, perfering to see them as an evil liberal plot:

That 35 million people in this wealthy nation feel insecure about their next meal can be hard to believe, even in the highest circles. In 1999, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, then running for president, said he thought the annual USDA report -- which consistently finds his home state one of the hungriest in the nation -- was fabricated.
"I'm sure there are some people in my state who are hungry," Bush said. "I don't believe 5 percent are hungry." { Over 10% now doing a heckuva job Georgie-Ed }
Bush said he believed that the statistics were aimed at his candidacy. "Yeah, I'm surprised a report floats out of Washington when I'm running a presidential campaign," he said.

Now This is the part of the Diary when I really want to do some cathartic ranting about what an intolerable national shame it is that ANYONE goes hungry in the richest and most powerful nation on earth. I want to tell you about a man you've probably never heard of named Mike Kirwin who was until his recent death, the Mother Teresa of Washington DC, and how much hunger and poverty he ministered to in our Nation's Capital, for pity's sake.

But I'm preaching to the choir, aren't I? There isn't anybody reading this who finds these numbers even vaguely acceptable right, who doesn't get angry at the thought of bureaucrats shuffling terminology instead of addressing a real and terrible problem like this right? So now the question becomes, with a brand new shiny majority in moth houses of Congress (and one that owe us radicals a favor or two) What are we going to do about this?

Schadenfreudeapalooza!: Freepers and the five stages of grief

2006-11-28T20:01:00.000-05:00

AS we have just concluded Our nation's biennial autumnal observance of the solemn rites of Democracy, perhaps it is time for some sober dignified reflection on-

WEEEEEE are the CHAMPIONS MY FRIENDS....

Oops. Sorry about that. I had the stereo up a little loud. Now, as I was saying, as we observe the solemnities that is our system's glorious orderly transition of power perhaps a thought can be spared for-

I'M GONNA KNOCK YOU OUT! MOMMA SAID KNOCK YOU OUT!"

Again, my apologies, my OTHER stereo was also blasting. Just as a precaution, perhaps I'd better go turn off the one playing Ode to Joy as well. Now where was I? Ahh yes, sparing a concern for the vanquished, especially those deluded but vocal souls who regard Nancy Pelosi as Satan made flesh, those who expect Democrats to be having conference calls with Osama bin Laden by the end of the week. In short: The Freepers, how are they coping?

Strictly out of care and concern for my fellow man, and not out of any base impulse to revel in their misery, I visited the Free republic today and here is what I found:

Let me reassure you that while not all are progressing at the same pace, as a whole they are progressing through Kubler Ross' famed 5 Steps of Grief quite well.

First of COurse came Denial

There could still be a recount.
4 posted on 11/08/2006 5:35:35 PM PST by Jedi Master Pikachu
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Since there is going to be a recount..WTF.
17 posted on 11/08/2006 5:37:45 PM PST by svcw
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guess AP gets to call elections not the states secretary of state. Another office to abolish I guess??
18 posted on 11/08/2006 5:37:48 PM PST by samadams2000
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Virginia will say who wins this election, NOT the FREAKING AP!
25 posted on 11/08/2006 5:38:49 PM PST by GottaLuvAkitas1
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Last I heard, Allen has NOT conceded and neither has Conrad Burns in MT. Wonder if the Press has jumped the gun a little. I hope both of those Senators hold out until every vote has been counted!
208 posted on 11/08/2006 6:35:01 PM PST by katieanna
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To: West Coast Conservative
Ok, this is not a rhetorical question and I it may sound stupid, but just exactly how can a biased news organization (AP) call an election and declare a winner?
389 posted on 11/09/2006 4:42:31 AM PST by SMM48
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The war continues.
The war for our, and our children's, and our grandchildren's freedom
I will never surrender.
I will do my part to oppose the Democrats (when necessary, which is most of the time) and defeat them in 2008.
Who is with me ?
304 posted on 11/08/2006 7:42:40 PM PST by af_vet_1981

and then of Course we had ANGER and if there is one thing Freepers to exceptionally well, it's anger: at each other, at us, at the President, at the world, you name it:

Well....I am not surprised.
We have lost 2 of our best Senators..
Thank you to all of the Republicans that "punished" Bush over anything...
13 posted on 11/08/2006 5:36:54 PM PST by Txsleuth
--------------------------------
Your thanks should go to Bush and Rove, who could not find a way to secure the borders, to cut out of control spending, to punish the law breaking Clintonista's, who introduced Dubia Ports and who "managed" the occupation in Iraq and tieing the hands of our brave solders instead of turning them loose to do their job. i.e. Al Mookie Sadr should alreday be with his virgins.
Thank those who created this disaster. The POLICY MAKERS.
64 posted on 11/08/2006 5:45:27 PM PST by tennmountainman
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The air smells fresher. The grass seem greener. All nature sings as more babies will die, freedoms lost, taxes raised. It is a great day to be an American.
22 posted on 11/08/2006 5:38:11 PM PST by Lexinom
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All the terrorists are celebrating tonight.
58 posted on 11/08/2006 5:43:43 PM PST by LibWhacker
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Sickening, isn't it?
70 posted on 11/08/2006 5:46:55 PM PST by Enosh
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The Jackass Party, the enemy within, is now a bigger threat to the United States than the terrorists.
78 posted on 11/08/2006 5:47:41 PM PST by pleikumud
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How about it is the dumbass democrat voters fault
Ya know the same ones that gave Gore the popular vote in 2000
114 posted on 11/08/2006 5:58:41 PM PST by uncbob
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I live in the middle of a medium city here in MN. Some drugees arround my building were laughing and singing and yelling in a very happy way... like ive never seen before...
They must have got the news...They are still at it.
136 posted on 11/08/2006 6:05:00 PM PST by Therapsid
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-Ugh..the election was November 7, the anniversary of the communist revolution, and the Democrats won. What a fitting coincindence...--
11-7: THE DAY AMERICA CRAPPED OUT.
188 posted on 11/08/2006 6:25:18 PM PST by rfp1234
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"I was angry enough to stay home."
Great! Your family must be proud to have a cut and runner in their midst. As far as I am concerned, people like you put power into very very evil peoples' hands, and emboldened all of our enemies.
241 posted on 11/08/2006 6:50:57 PM PST by diamond6
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President Bush's announcement has NOTHING to do with this. Don't be dumb.
It was the Libertarian vote that handed the country over to the far left. Place the blame where it lies.
306 posted on 11/08/2006 7:45:02 PM PST by ohioWfan

Then I detected hints of the classic Bargaining Stage which mostly consisted of Embracing a Man they once derided as "Joe Loserman"

Joe Lieberman IS the WILDCARD! He KNOWS who helped him win,and who turned their backs on him.So don't say Senate Majority Leader Reid yet.Joe Lieberman knows real power comes from the heart,not mere feelings.I think ther's going to be a lot of bargaining done between now and Jan. 3rd.
370 posted on 11/08/2006 10:51:50 PM PST by screaming eagle2
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He said on the Hannity show he felt liberated. He also said he won't forget who was with him and who was against him. He's going to vote his conscience. He's in debt to no one.
357 posted on 11/08/2006 9:05:57 PM PST by concerned about politics

ANd then Of course Depression was running rampant for a while:

I have developed Post Traumatic Demoratic Party Stress Disorder (PTDPSD).
Anybody else suffering from PTDPSD? Do you have a Lawyer, er I mean a Doctor? Is there any kind of therapy for it?
I was watching videos of B52s dropping their payloads. Then I imagined the B52s loaded with pigs.{??????-ed}
That worked for a while, but I still can not get over the fact that our speaker marched with the leader of the man boy love association (MANBLA) { NAMBLA you idiot, dont you ever watch John Stewart-okay never mind}in a gay parade.
Maybe I should join a support group? I am going to go do a search on the Minute Men now.
371 posted on 11/08/2006 10:53:39 PM PST by do the dhue
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Well, there goes the Supreme Court. Based on today's oral argument, it looks like Kennedy has totally gone over to the dark side (he appears ready to strike down the Partial Birth Abortion ban), so we've now got five total libs on the Court and four moderate conservatives. When Stevens croaks we're not going to be able to replace him with anyone good, so be prepared for years of liberal activism on the bench. { How far right EXACTLY do you have to be to consider Justice kennedy a "liberal activist" and Nino Scalia a "moderate conservative"?}
19 posted on 11/08/2006 5:37:51 PM PST by NinoFan
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This electronic voting with no audit trail is wrong.
24 posted on 11/08/2006 5:38:40 PM PST by MineralMan (Non-evangelical atheist)
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Well, I guess we could only stall Armageddon for so long.
101 posted on 11/08/2006 5:54:45 PM PST by william clark
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Yep
A country falls from within and the commies have the shools and the MSM and have had them for quite a while now
129 posted on 11/08/2006 6:02:07 PM PST by uncbob
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Is it ever. The libs already have a majority on the Court. All we need now is for another Justice Kennedy to be nominated after a series of other failed nominations thanks to the Dems. That "justice" makes me sick.
"Bad news for the unborn."
Bad news for the Supreme Court.
Bad news for the troops.
Cindie
269 posted on 11/08/2006 7:05:49 PM PST by gardencatz
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And the hits just keep coming. :(
Maybe we should just sneak into Mexico, where they still know how to elect conservatives. /sarc
338 posted on 11/08/2006 8:32:02 PM PST by anymouse
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Cut and run in Iraq, impeachment proceedings, military budget cuts, abdication and appeasement in the war on terror, tax cut rollbacks, open borders with Mexico, assault weapons ban, the end of the Patriot Act, we are well and truly screwed.
If this country survives two more years, we can compare Liberal promises with actual results, and I seriously doubt they will have done anything they promised to do. That means Hillary will face an uphill battle, but we have to get there first.
Canned food, bottled water and duct tape, things are headed down the sewer fast.
--------------------------------
393 posted on 11/09/2006 4:49:34 AM PST by jeffers
To: frankiep
The hits just keep on coming....
Just wait till the BIG hit comes in 08 with the beast at the helm.

And then of Course we have Acceptance and while this IS Freep and accepting reality isn't exactly their strong suit; I did manage to find three examples of people that had Made it all the way through, So let's take our hats off to these very nearly reality-based souls:

Election Speculation - A friend suggested that the election results were driven by the Iraqi War. I disagreed so I ran these primitive datamining graphs out of curiosity.
To my suprise, all three graphs imply that "Iraqi War" was the primary topic on voters' minds.
http://www.realmeme.com/...
164 posted on 11/08/2006 6:17:14 PM PST by shimbo
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To: Jedi Master Pikachu
You said, "There could still be a recount." I said, "Go home." ...as in, the partie's over, go on home. That's all.
385 posted on 11/09/2006 4:24:57 AM PST by PA-RIVER

and this post that is so stunningly lucid and rational I thought it deserved its own grey box (on Freep no less...hmmm... maybe there IS something to all the "it's the APOCALYPSE! chatter coming from the right these days)

I didn't offer my vote because the GOP didn't ask for it. My not voting was my say. Would you rather I went to the polls and voted for a Democrat?
It used to be with us conservatives, that we were patriots first, and so we voted for Republicans. Now we think voting for Republicans automatically MAKES us patriots. This is the road to tyranny, when we make ourselves the property of a political party, rather than the political party the property of us.
381 posted on 11/09/2006 3:43:04 AM PST by Thane_Banquo

Update [2006-11-9 13:37:37 by Magorn]: Sorry I couldn't resist going back for one more look and I HAD to bring this comment back to balance out the incredibly lucid one I closed with. For This lady, Denial doesn't begin to accurately describe her mental state, and even delusional seems a little mild. Enjoy

I would just like to give one word of advice here.... There have been vile and evil things said on this forum about President Bush in the past two days. DU trolls and ignorant FR bottom dwellers have used this 'opportunity' to gleefuly say foul and false things about one of the FINEST men to ever occupy the Oval Office. DON'T LET THEM DISCOURAGE YOU! These bashers will never be half the man that President Bush is, and they know it. They don't have the courage, the honor, the decency, the moral certitude, or the strength of character that he has.
They have no responsibility to lead, and they flippantly attack him with vile words from their safety and ease at home.
Do NOT pay attention to the bashing going on right now. The bashers will go back to DU or crawl back into their FR hidey holes in a few days, and sanity will return to this forum.
God is in control of all things. We must have the calm to know that we are in the right, and that our President is leading us with certitude and strength. Don't let the cowardly bashers get you down!!

405 posted on 11/09/2006 6:10:24 AM PST by ohioWfan

why do I think this lady also seriously questions our commitment to Sparkle Motion?

More Good News! Robber Baron FAILS to steal WV legislature

2006-11-28T19:59:00.000-05:00

A few Weeks ago I told you about Massey Energy's CEO Don Blankenship's outrageous attempts to essentially Buy a Republican majority in the WV legislature the same way he'd previously purchased a Friendly Supreme Court Justice. That is, by by flooding the small state (average campaign cost: $~$25,000) with millions of dollars of his own money funneled through loopholes in the campaign finance law passed specifically to stop him.

I'm pleased to report to you today He Failed. Utterly. In fact, it was a rout:

Voters on Tuesday kept Democrats in charge of West Virginia's Legislature, largely ignoring a coal executive's multimillion-dollar campaign to sweep Republicans into office.
At least 31 House Democrats targeted by Massey Energy Co. Chief Executive Don Blankenship survived their races, while 27 of the GOP challengers he aided fell short.
An ailing Delegate Margarette Leach, D-Cabell, appeared to be the only incumbent Democrat to fall as her party kept its majority in the House of Delegates

and even if you don't live in WV this is incredible news:

You See, while the name Massey Energy may not be familiar to you; anybody who lives in Appalachia knows it, and likely loathes it.

To say Blankenship and Massey Energy are Corporate Bad actors is to radically understate the case. Blankenship comes closer to a classic Bond Villain or even Saturday morning Cartoon super-villain.

Blankenship made his fortunes destroying the UMW and blasting Appalachian Mountains to rubble , while devastating the local towns and their environs. His comapny is also reponsible for The worst Environmental disaster in the history of the continental US but they subsequently arranged a De facto purchase of the MHSA from the Bush administration, to get themselves off the legal hook. Massey's massive campagin contibutions led to payback from the adminsitration in the fornm of installation of a friendly MSHA director ( a former ME lobbyist) who let the company off with $100,000 slap on the wrist over the vehement objections of his lead investigators.

Because of this, his attack on the legislature was particularly scary because, since he'd neutered federal regulators, and Sucessfully manipulated of the State Supreme Court; the legislature was the only body left that could place meaningful restriction on the operation of his company to protect WV's environment from the ravages of Massey's famously eco-callous operations.

Moreover, the States are proving to be increasingly instrumental in protecting the nation's air and Water quality, as the EPA has all but abdicated its responsibilities. However, if Blankenship had been sucessful, he would have undoubtedly spawned imitators. I have no doubt if his Coup d'etat via campaign cash strategy worked, We would have seen it repeated all over the American West by other CEOS who'd immediately want to buy their own legislature in another small Population/resource rich state, and return to the golden days of the "paradise" so vividly described in Upton Sinclair's famous books.

Fortunately though, he failed. Utterly , abjectly, completely. NOW it's up to WV's safely Democratic Legislature to do the country a favor and metaphorically and legally put his head on a pike as a warning to any other corporate CEO with Dreams of creating his own Plutarchy.

Go get 'em boys (and girls-er women)!

Outrageous! A CEO's attempted hostile takeover of WV

2006-11-28T19:54:00.000-05:00

NPR this morning had a very important report about truly extraordinary thing is happening in one of the U.S.'s smallest and poorest states:

Don Blankenship, The CEO of Massey Energy, the WV coal giant, and all around corporate bad actor, is essentially attempting a Hostile takeover of the WV Legislature. Apparently the Democratically controlled state legislature hasn't been sufficiently solicitous of his corporation's interests so Blankenship has decided to replace the democratic majority (which has been in power since 1932) with his own hand-picked group of Republicans on whose campaigns he's already spent over $2 million dollars and promises to spend millions more.

In market as small as WV, where an average Statehouse campaign costs barely more than $10,000-$20,000; This money is an incredible advantage for his candidates. Worse yet, there is no limit on what he can spend on the effort, because Blankenship has found a loophole in WV campaign finance laws passed specifically to thwart him:
You see this is not the first time Massey Energy's CEO has bought an election in WV:

Back in '04, when his company had several huge regulatory appeals pending with the State Supreme Court ; Blankenship Bought himself a WV supreme Court justice by pouring contributions into a phony "child advocacy" 527 who's real aim was to replace a too-consumer friendly Democratic Justice with a puppet Republican with no judicial experience:

The sharpest ads, many of which ran in the Washington market, came from [a 527 called] "And For the Sake of the Kids," a group formed to "discuss" the perceived shortcomings of McGraw, according to its Web site. ...
The group raised $2.5 million, including $1.7 million from one donor: Don Blankenship, chief executive of Massey Energy Co. The coal company is one of the largest employers in the state, and it is expected to have several cases on appeal before the state Supreme Court. Blankenship,..., also privately financed mechanized calls to homes across the state in the last week of the campaign.
"It proves that West Virginia Supreme Court seats were for sale," said Beth White, a coordinator with West Virginia Consumers for Justice,

In response to his blatant purchase of a statewide office, after the 04 elections the WV Legislature cracked down hard on 527's, passing a law that limited individual contributions to them to no more than $1,000 per person. Apparently primarily in the hopes of shutting down Blankenship and his false fronts. Thus with both contributions to individual campaigns and shadowy 527's now severely limited. The legislators probably thought Blankenship's government-buying days were over.

Unfortunately for them, Blankenship discovered a novel ,and completely unprecedented, way around the laws.> Rather than contribute to any particular legislator's campaign per se, Blankenship has now effectively created a "shadow campaign" of his own for each candidate. Thus, without any coordination (wink, wink) from the candidate he runs his own "issue oriented" TV and Radio ads, prints his own bumper stickers and yard signs and buys his own billboards. Since he's spending his own money, he has no legal limits. Thus he's been able to spend millions for his chosen candidates and neither he or they have any worries about violating campaign finance rules. Even better his "shadow spending" allows Republicans to self- righteously claim to have taken a mere $1,000 from Blankenship and attack their Democratic opponents over THEIR contributors Neat huh?

Whether he'll succeed in making the WV legislature a wholly owned subsidiary of Massey Energy seems to be anybody's guess right now. It goes without saying that the people and environment of West Virginian have dark days ahead if he succeeds. But to me far more important than the question of whether we can stop him is, how the hell did we reach this point in the first place?

Well, it actually appears that Massey started big and is now working their way down the food chain. They started in 2000 with a De Facto purchase of the Mine Safety and Health Administration from the Bushco

That purchase seems to have be necessitated by the fact that shortly before the 2000 election Massey's gross negligence caused the worst environmental disaster ever in the continental US in 2000

in October of 2000, when 300 million gallons of coal slurry - thick pudding-like waste from mining operations - flooded land, polluted rivers and destroyed property in Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. The slurry contained hazardous chemicals, including arsenic and mercury.
"It polluted 100 miles of stream, killed everything in the streams, all the way to the Ohio River," says Spadaro, who was second in command of the team investigating the accident.
The slurry had been contained in an enormous reservoir, called an impoundment, which is owned by the Massey Energy Company. One night, the heavy liquid broke through the bottom of the reservoir, flooded the abandoned coalmines below it and roared out into the streams.
... investigators discovered the spill was more than an accident -- it was an accident waiting to happen.
During the investigation .. it came out that there had been a previous spill in 1994 ...an engineer working for the company said the problem had not been fixed, and that both he and the company knew another spill was virtually inevitable.

Luckily for Massey though, a new ,easily purchasable, administration had just taken over in Washington, one that already had many Millions of reasons to be grateful to Massey energy and the coal industry in general:

coal executives, threatened by Vice President Al Gore's green background ...raised a record $3.8 million dollars for the 2000 federal election, 88 percent went to the GOP. At the annual meeting of the West Virginia Coal Association a few months after Bush's inauguration, the group's director told 150 industry executives, "You did everything you could to elect a Republican president. [Now] you are already seeing in his actions the payback."
Massey Energy, Martin County Coal's parent company, gained a front-row seat to the new Bush administration when it invited James H. "Buck" Harless to join its board in 2001. Harless, a West Virginia coal and timber baron, had raised $275,000 for Bush's 2000 campaign, given $5,000 for the Florida recount, and contributed $100,000 to the president's inaugural fund. Bush nicknamed Harless "Big Buck" and invited him to join the administration's transition task force on energy. "We were looking for friends, and we found one in George W. Bush," Harless told The Wall Street Journal.

And what are friends for if not to De-rail major criminal and regulatory investigations agains their pals?

two days before President Bush's inauguration, [the investigation team] was abruptly assigned a new boss to lead the investigation. Immediately after taking charge, Thompson told the team that they had one week to conclude the investigation. ....[they]...had counted on having four or five more months to complete their work.
The new head of MSHA, a Bush appointee named Dave Lauriski, was a former mining industry mining executive ,..Spadaro [the lead investigator'] says Lauriski came into his office one day, and insisted he sign a watered down version of the report -- a version that virtually let the coal company and MSHA off the hook.
"He said , `I'm in a hard spot here and I need you to sign this report," recalls Spadaro. "I said...I'm never going to sign that report.'"
... in the end, Massey Energy was only cited for two violations, and had to pay approximately $110,000 in fines

So it appears now that Blankenship has been emboldened by his success at having successfully turned the federal watchdogs into lapdogs. So in order to "complete the set" and give himself an his company nigh- lassie faire levels of governmental oversight, he's taken aim at the only public institutions left that can force this energy giant to play nice: the State legislature and courts. Whether he succeeds or not nobody will know for another few weeks; but to me the outrage comes from the fact that they are even in a position to try. It's easy to dismiss this as an isolated incident in a small isolated state, but there are a LOT of small states, particularly in the West that have few people and a lot of exploitable resources. So, if Massey suceeds here, it is a virtual certainty that they or some other large coporation will employ this model elsewhere..

Update [2006-10-11 14:26:22 by Magorn]: For your further edification, Commentor Fiddling Nero has graciously provided A link to an incredible Vanity Fair Article that explains just who Don Blankenship is and how devastating his company has been for Mine workers nationwide, and the destruction Massey has wrought on WV's people and environment. A very good read.

GOP in Retreat! RNC pulling out of close races , abandoning hope

2006-09-29T18:47:00.000-04:00

It looks Like the once invincible Armies of Emperor NaRoveon, just metaphorically woke up outside the Gates of Moscow, looked around and said "holy crap it's cold!"

How else to explain the GOP's recent, and apparently panicked retreat from closely contested House and Senate races nationwide?

As Chronicled in today's Washington Post, the GOP is now abandoning races it once had high hopes for. Take Ohio's 6th:

Republicans, who regarded this seat -- carried narrowly by President Bush in 2004 -- as their most promising chance to take a congressional seat from the Democratic column...

Four months ago, state Sen. Charlie Wilson (D) was teetering on the edge of defeat in ..Today he is strolling toward Nov. 7, ...

No television ads for Wilson or his Republican opponent, state Rep. Chuck Blasdel, are airing.., the national party organization [is}nowhere to be found.

"We don't hear anything...We are very happy they are looking [elsewhere]"

actually it appears they aren't looking anywhere but at the coverage of their own posteriors:

Like any game, politics tends to be more fun on offense than defense. Republicans are not having much fun this election season....

A combination of an adverse national environment and the need to devote their resources to defending at-risk GOP incumbents gives the national party few opportunities to invest heavily in challengers, such as Blasdel, who face an uphill fight.

In other words they are so busy trying to hold on to what they have (and not doing a particularly good job of that either as we "50-state" Kos devotees know) that they are all buy abandoning any hopes of taking seats away from the Democrats. They are putting a brave face on it still, but privately they realize it's not a matter of if, but how many seats they lose this time:

While Democrats have targets around the country where they could gain a seat, Republicans have the barest handful.

Ask Republicans where they see takeover opportunities this fall and they will rattle off seats such as Georgia's 8th District -- held by Rep. Jim Marshall -- Iowa's 3rd or even the open at-large seat in strongly Democratic Vermont. But none of those races look particularly dire for Democrats at the moment, as many Republican strategists privately acknowledge.

And things apparently DO look dire enough for Republicans that the strain is starting to show on their formerly fierce and seemingly infallible campaign strategists. For example, in Oh-6, the Democratic nominee may owe his eventual victory, in a large part, to over-reaching by panicky Republicans trying for an early knock-out:

Republicans' optimism only increased after Wilson did not collect the necessary signatures to qualify for the primary ballot, necessitating a write-in candidacy.

Sensing opportunity, the Republican Congressional Committee poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the district in hopes of killing Wilson's candidacy. Television ads accused Wilson of supporting the dumping of raw sewage in the Ohio River, among other not-so-nice allegations.

A cunning plan, to be sure with one , ensy-teensy flaw: That it backfired spectacularly:

The strategy backfired. Wilson, who knocked on 40,000 doors and sent out 4,000 personal letters during the primary race, rolled up 66 percent of the vote, winning 4,500 votes more than the four Republican candidates combined.

"To do that is unheard of," said Noble County Democratic Party Chairman Larry Woodford. Republicans [he said]"saw the writing on the wall."

Now, I'm no highly paid political consultant or anything, but does anyone else see the thunderous stupidity in running attack ads against a write in candidate thereby boosting his name recognition to stratospheric levels? Maybe its just me, but that seems like what we laymen would call "a dumb move". It seems it also had something to do with the fact that Wilson is outpolling his opponent 49% to 25%.

And while the News everywhere may not be quite so good as Ohio-6 it's clear that the results there are part of a very encouraging nationwide trend. We have never had so many incredible candidates running all at once. We have never had the opposition so thoroughly tied in the public mind with an incredibly unpopular president and his disastrous war. And most importantly we have never had so many GOPer's in safe seats shoot themselves and their campaigns so devastatingly in the foot all at once. (Is the Obama Enemy's curse rubbing off on the Party?)

However as Ohio also showed us in '04 trends, by themselves don't mean a damned thing, without voter action to back them up. If we want to be the flood tide that sweeps away the Republican stranglehold on power, all the raindrops have to show up and do their part, no matter HOW hopeless or Secure the Dem candidates look where you live. NONE of this will do use any good unless we are all willing to Vote, contribute, and convince our friends and neighbors to do the same.

It's clear to me that we will not, in our lifetimes, have a better chance than right now to wake the country up from the nightmare we've been living in the last six years. The GOP is really on the ropes right now , but its not time to stop and congratulate ourselves. No, NOW is when we need to land that final punch to make sure this time we finish them once and for all. Money, volunteerism, or even good old fashion GOTV shoe leathering, can all help ensure that for once this decade we all may wake up Nov 7th without a hangover, or least one of the good "too much celebrating kind".

Killer Cronyism III: 1000's of American soldiers killed by bungling GOP loyalists in Iraq Hotlist

2006-09-29T18:45:00.000-04:00

Georgia10 already had a front pager on the basics of this explosive Book Excerpt from the Washington Post but with all due respect to her , I want to place this in larger frame as it's part and parcel of a much larger pattern.

For those who may have missed it the basics of this story are simple. Thousand of Middle east experts, academics and adventurers applied to the government to be part of the Iraqi reconstruction:

...but before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon. Applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration..

O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics:.. Two said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade

In other words, Bushbots got hired, regardless of expertise or experience and everyone else had to stay home. Not surprisingly these people made a total hash of the job and got a lot of people killed as a result. Nor is this the first time this has happened:

When I read this story something about it seemed depressingly familiar, and then I remembered : Oh yeah this reminds of nearly every other colossal failure the Administration has had since taking office. At the center of each of them seems to be someone who got a job based on their beliefs not their competence who then fails, spectacularly to DO the job for which they were hired

Let's see if we notice a pattern developing:

A)During Katrina, the complete failure of FEMA's evacuation efforts can be directly tied to a $100 million dollar Emergency Evacuation Services Contract given to Landstar Express, whose Chairman was diehard Bush loyalist and President of the US Chamber of Commerce.

Unfortunately, Landstar had neither experience nor equipment to perform such a contract, so when their services were needed they were reduced to googling travel agents to subcontract the job to 24 hours after Katrina hit. (meanwhile Greyhound, Trailways et.al. were standing by, offering their services gratis but couldn't get a call back from anyone at FEMA) (BTW Landstar got a new $400 Million dollar contract as reward for their Katrina efforts)

B) After the Sago Mine disaster, it was revealed that MSHA, the Mine Safety and Health Administration was being run by a former Coal industry lobbyist, who immediately gutted the safety enforcement division, altered the findings of several current investigations to be more industry friendly, installed his own tame investigators and tried to run off any remaining honest MSHA employees. Is it a shock therefore that three years later deadly conditions are found to exist at mines all over the country (and the killer mine had 250 citations in 2005 alone, but all resolved with a slap on the wrist)?

But bad as both of those examples are (and the Katrina evacuation fiasco's death toll may have been over 1,000) they pale in comparison to this latest revelation. It's no exaggeration to lay the deaths of 10's of thousands of Iraqis, and the majority of Coalition casualties at the feet of the CPA's incompetent reconstruction efforts:

Many of the basic tasks Americans struggle to accomplish today in Iraq -- training the army, vetting the police, increasing electricity generation -- could have been performed far more effectively in 2003 by the CPA....

the CPA was the U.S. government's first and best hope to resuscitate Iraq -- to establish order, promote rebuilding and assemble a viable government, all of which, experts believe, would have constricted the insurgency and mitigated the chances of civil war

So why did they fail so badly?

well lets see if the article gives us a few minor clues:

Many of those selected because of their political fidelity spent their time trying to impose a conservative agenda on the postwar occupation that sidetracked more important reconstruction efforts and squandered goodwill among the Iraqi people,

In other words the CPA turned out to b run largely by a Bunch of conservative ideologues trying to implement Grover Norquist's version of Utopia rather than doing their jobs and helping the Iraqis? Hmm I wonder how THAT could have happened:

.

To recruit the people he wanted, O'Beirne sought résumés from the offices of Republican congressmen, conservative think tanks and GOP activists.

He discarded applications from those his staff deemed ideologically suspect, even if the applicants possessed Arabic language skills or postwar rebuilding experience.

"I watched résumés of immensely talented individuals who had sought out CPA to help the country thrown in the trash because their adherence to 'the President's vision for was 'uncertain.' I.. advisory positions in Baghdad that were instead handed to prominent RNC [Republican National Committee] contributors."

Well, that'll do it, especially when those "standards" resulted in hiring decisions like these:

A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance -- but had applied for a White House job -- was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange.

The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children { Patrick Henry College- Ed. } were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a background in accounting.

and of these two who would YOU have put in charge of the Health care system for 50 million people in a war-torn country?

James K. Haveman,Jr. a 60-year-old social worker...had been the community health director for the former Republican governor of Michigan, John Engle, {and} a director of International Aid, a faith-based relief organization that provided health care while promoting Christianity in the developing world. Before his stint in government, Haveman ran a large Christian adoption agency in Michigan that urged pregnant women not to have abortions.

Or:

Frederick M. Burkle Jr., a physician with a master's degree in public health and postgraduate degrees from Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth and the University of California at Berkeley. Burkle taught at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, where he specialized in disaster-response issues, and he was a deputy assistant administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development, He had worked in Kosovo and Somalia and in northern Iraq after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. A USAID colleague called him the "single most talented and experienced post-conflict health specialist working for the United States government."

Any Guesses who replaced Whom after O'Beirne took over? Any guesses how that worked out for the Iraqis?

But the Title of this article was "Killer Cronyism", not "incompetent Elephants on parade". Thus I promised you blood and blood you shall have.

So why is this "killer" cronyism? Well Let me say it plainly J'acuse The CPA of the Murder of all the Soldiers who have died in roadside bombings and insurgent attacks, all the innocent Iraqi's caught in the Sunni-Shi'a Civil war, and all the victims of Zarqawi's suicide bombers.

Why? Because if they'd done their job even half competently, most of the troubles we've faced would be non-existent by now. If street-level security were better, people like Zarqawi wouldn't be able to operate at will. If more progress had been made in restoring the economy prominent Sunni and Shiite leaders might be convinced that there is more profit to be had in helping run the country than to divide it's bones, and most importantly the Insurgency would have by now run out of recruits.

People who are in a comfortable middle class rarely rise up in the streets to attack their "oppressors". Mob action occurs far more often among the hopeless, destitute, and dispossessed, in other words those who have nothing to lose.Read this secret cable sent form the US ambassador in Iraq last May. And ask yourselves whether the average Iraq has much left to lose at this point. In fact, thing are SO bad, says the Cable most Iraqis refuse to believe that the Americans could be so incompetent at reconstruction as they appear to be.

Therefore, they've concluded that Americans are deliberately withholding electricity supplies and running water for city neighborhoods as a form of collective punishment(just like Saddam used to do). Isn't that anger and suspicion precisely the thing that will gaurantee the loss of "heart and minds" to the US and drive people in to the arms of the insurgents? Ya, you betcha.

Now ask yourself what a COMPETENT group of Planners and specialists could have done with that same $19 Billion. How many less Insurgents would there be in THAT Iraq as opposed to the one we have now, how many less Iraqis and Soldiers would die every day?

Thus As I said before J'accuse the Bush Adminstration of turning another vital compnenet of governance over to ideologue and Kleptocrats who turned the most important mission of his presidency into yet another Patronage piggy bank, to be split among the loyalists. And therefore it is not unfair to lay at thier feet the lives of all those Iraqis and Americans who have paid in blood for the consequences of their malevolence and incomptence.

Time to ask: Why Does the GOP hate the democratic process?

2006-08-30T17:00:00.000-04:00

The time has come to ask, in all sober seriousness, What do the Republicans have against democracy? I mean they SAY they love Democracy with all their hearts. Indeed, You can hardly get the president to shut up about it. He seems to believe that once people go to a ballot box (and have are assigned a Color-Coded "revolution" brand (Orange, Purple Cedar, etc )all their problems disappear and the sky starts raining puppies and unicorns (neither of which are noted for their aerodynamic properties so even under the best of circumstances this is a messy proposition.).

In practice however, the GOP has been showing an increasing contempt for the democratic process both here and abroad, particularly when they don't like the results. Consider the following and see if maybe just maybe you don't see a trend there that's worth framing and getting people talking about:

1)Tom Delay's Texas two Step: Now any rational Observer of the saga I like to call "the Hammer gets nailed" knew that Tom Delay's chance of standing in the general election in November (or indeed not being under federal indictment by then) was about the same as Mel Gibson's chance of joining B'nai Brith.

Nonetheless Tom Delay ran in the Republican primary for his house seat and nary a word of protest was uttered by local party officials. Why? because apparently the Democratic process was entirely to messy for DeLay & Co. Tom didn't approve of the people actually willing to RUN to replace him. So he decided to win the election THEN resign and hand pick his successor on the ballot rather then letting the actual party faithful have a say in the matter.

Even though his plan was monkey-wrenched by a federal Circuit Courtpanel that had the Temerity to actually . Enforce Texas election law despite a furious lobbying campaign by his supporters (which will no doubt get them labeled "activist Judges" by the GOP) the Local party STILL can't be bothered to ask their member what they want. Instead they hold a secret closed door meeting to hand-pick who the write in candidate will be.

2) Bob "all Opposed Say" Ney: Like his career, his electioneering is almost the mirror image of Tom Delay's only on a smaller, more venial scale. As nearly any Washington observer with a pulse can tell you, when you are referred to as "Representative #1" both in the press and in a federal indictment, your political career isn't long for this world. Yet Ney ran in the primary, with his local party's blessing, again depriving the GOP rank and file of making any meaningful choice in their primary election. Worse yet, in Ney's case, There is a law that specifically requires a special primary in such a case, to preserve the right of voter to chose who they have on their ballot. However Ney is is carefully timing his withdrawal letter to try to circumvent the law and allow for a selection not another election.

3) Senator "Santorum" (ewww) : So you are Sitting Senator that's getting beaten Like a rented Mule in every election poll taken what do you do? Do you:

A) start seriously reconsidering your positions and try to re-connect with your constituents.

B) Start really appreciating all the little joys of being a Senator and the Beauty of Washington in the Summer as you spend your last days packing your office on capitol Hill OR

C) Call up your big-donor buddies and convince them to Create a third party Candidate from scratch to try to steal votes from your opponent?

This is a particularly egregious offense to Democracy for two reasons. First it is a neat-handed way to let all of Santorum's richest friends ignore campaign contribution limits, and effectively double-dip, More importantly however, but it also makes a complete mockery of the democratic process itself. NO ONE giving money to, or organizing for, Carl Romanelli actually wants him to win and be the next Senator from Pennsylvania , or cares about the causes or ideas he espouses.. Instead, they are hoping that his candidacy will ensure the victory of someone who stands for the diametric opposite of every Romanelli professes care about. In essence, they are using election rules to try to confuse and confound voters.

4) "Say it Ain't So" Joe Lieberman: Again, we see the Powers That Be, dissing the local voters, and not making any secret of it. Sure he has An apparent Gambling problem, and unfortunate penchant for Porn-star sounding Pseudonyms but the Republican voters of Connecticut went into the booth on election day and said "Alan You're the guy to lead us to victory come November". Unfortunately back in Washington he's been about as welcome as Jack Abramoff with a digital camera.

Not only has Bush refused to endorse him he's actually had his chief campaign strategist call Another party's candidate, and offer to help him (a Party of One , but a party nonetheless). Once again the actual voters are treated as sheep who will do and vote for whom they are told to, and whose input is neither accepted or desired by Party elders.

And of Course who could forget

5) Katherine "I'm not batshit Crazy, I just had Surgery to look that way" Harris: Again, the National and state GOP is trying to knock the duly selected party Nominee out of the race. Now granted Her campaign has become about as well run (and comically embrassing) as a Spinal Tap Tour and she is, personally speaking Joan Crawford level Crazy (yes that IS in the DSM-IV, thank you very much), I'll give them a pass on that one.

Worse yet, this is not Solely a domestic phenomenon either . In the last few years Bush and Company have not hesitated to Criticize and punish countries that have had perfectly free and fair elections that have had results we don't like. Bad as the Domestic shenannigans are, this is far far worse. At a minimum it is extremely damaging to our international credibility and leadership on human rights, I think.

But this diary is already a Monster so stay tuned for that in part II.

Yikes! Iraqi Army troops mutiny, attack, and loot British base.

2006-08-30T16:57:00.000-04:00

You know Our President frequently acuses the Media of Under--reporting the "good news" from Iraq, so in a gesture a bi-partisan goodwillI thought I'd Share This Story From Today's Washington Post about The British Army's handover of one of their bases in southern Iraq, to Iraqi Army.

So how'd that go?

Maj. Charlie Burbridge, said the last of 1,200 troops left Camp Abu Naji,...., after several days of heavy mortar and rocket fire by a local militia,... the Sadr-controlled Mahdi Army

"This is the first Iraqi city that has kicked out the occupier!" trumpeted a message ...that played on car-mounted ...."We have to celebrate this occasion!"...

The withdrawal sparked wide-scale looting at the base then intense clashes late Thursday between Iraqi army forces guarding the camp and unknown attackers... the situation worsened when the 2nd Battalion of the Iraqi army's 4th Brigade mutinied and attacked a local military outpost

Yep. We'll be out of there any day now, Cleary.

Even worse for our prospects of wrapping this up quickly is the reason the British handed over the base in the first place:

Sadr's Speaker vans weren't far off. The British commanders are trying to put the best face on it, but it's clear they feel that holding the base was simply too costly in the face of Militia attacks:

Burbridge acknowledged that constant shelling of the base in Amarah by militia forces, including 17 mortar rounds fired in recent days that wounded three people, were part of the reason the camp closed.

"By no longer presenting a static target, we reduce the ability of the militias to strike us," he said. But he rejected Sadr's claim that the British had been defeated and pushed out of Amarah. "It's very difficult to claim a victory without causing significant casualties."

Perhaps but in the "hearts and minds" of the locals, it apparently damn sure felt that way.

The mood was quite different in Amarah, where jubilant residents flocked to Sadr's office to offer their congratulations. Drivers in the street honked their car horns in celebration. Some prepared to take to the streets to rejoice.

"Today is a holiday in our province," said Abu Mustaffa, an unemployed 45-year-old from the city's al-Hussein district. "Thanks be to God!"

Meanwhile what happens to the British forces? Well this is where the story gets REALLY interesting. Basically the British have made the tactical decision to abandon the trappings of a First world cavalry unit, and trade them for for the tactics and equipment of a Somali warlord's militia:

Adopting tactics used by a British special forces unit in North Africa during World War II, 600 of the soldiers plan to slip soon into the marshlands and deserts of eastern Maysan in an attempt to secure the Iranian border.

The British soldiers, members of the Queen's Royal Hussars,{ and really who HASN'T wanted to be a Royal Hussar at some time in their life?-ed} are preparing to trade their heavy Challenger 2 tanks and Warrior fighting vehicles for lightweight Land Rovers, Burbridge said. They expect to become a flexible, mobile force with no fixed base and receive supplies by airdrops.

This would be an adaptation the tactics of the Famous Long Range Desert Group or "Mosquito Army" of WWII, who disrupted operations of the Italian Army all over North Africa.

However effective as those tactics were, in that war; the decision to use them now is an acknowledgement of a HUGE shift in the reality on the ground in Iraq.

The repositioning is the first public acknowledgment that forces from the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq have entered into guerrilla warfare to combat the insurgents and militias they have been fighting for more than three years.

re-Read the Bold text carefully. This is really important, as it represents a positively seismic shift in tactics from what we've been doing up until now.

Militarily speaking, Guerilla tactics are extremely effective at dislodging an occupying army, making ground simply too expensive to hold. You do NOT use those tactics when you ARE the occupying army because guerillas, by their very nature, cannot take and hold territory effectively.

In adopting this strategy we've admitted, militarily at least, that we no longer control the country, the militias do.. The British have lowered their goals " from Pacifying the countryside and restoring civil order" to "trying to loosen the Militia's hold over the region". By any realistic measure that's a HUGE step backward. In fact a fair observer might even say it's a sign we are losing this war militarily, a previously unthinkable statement.

And the Official US reaction to this huge tactical shift and embarrassing base handover Debacle?:

Here is the featured soloist of the US Cemetary Whistling Choir giving his bravura rendition of Denial Ain't Just a river:

In Baghdad, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East said a new security plan was helping to curb violence in the capital. "I believe there is a danger of civil war in Iraq, but only a danger. I think Iraq's far from it," Gen. John P. Abizaid told the AP. "I think that there's been great progress in the security front here recently in Baghdad."

Megachurch Pastor Throws the Repub party out of his Temple!: the New Awakening?

2006-08-06T02:39:00.000-04:00

Without any context or clarification, the words of this sermon are both wise and heartening:

When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses," Mr. Boyd preached. "When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross."

But when you pull the camera back a bit and find out who, why, and when this story becomes stunning and even possibly seismic.

The speaker is the Rev. Gregory A. Boyd, the Pastor of a 5000-person Evangelical mega-church called Woodland Hills in St Paul Minn. And the why is even more interesting :

Rev. Boyd was asked frequently to give his blessing -- and the church's -- to conservative political candidates and causes.

After refusing each time, Mr. Boyd finally became fed up, he said. Before the last presidential election, he preached six sermons called "The Cross and the Sword" in which he said the church should steer clear of politics, give up moralizing on sexual issues, stop claiming the United States as a "Christian nation" and stop glorifying American military campaigns.

And it gets even better from there:

Now before we go any further, I think it's important to establish bona fides here. The Rev. Boyd is not a Lefty-progressive Pastor, nor even a recent convert to our side, No he's a real-deal social and political conservative:

Mr. Boyd says he is no liberal. He is opposed to abortion and thinks homosexuality is not God's ideal.

Nor was his sermon an especially popular one with his flock and speaking cost him dearly:

The response from his congregation at Woodland Hills Church here in suburban St. Paul -- packed mostly with politically and theologically conservative, middle-class evangelicals -- was passionate. Some members walked out of a sermon and never returned...By the time the dust had settled, Woodland Hills, which Mr. Boyd founded in 1992, had lost about 1,000 of its 5,000 members.Mr. Boyd gave his sermons while his church was in the midst of a $7 million fund-raising campaign. But only $4 million came in, and 7 of the more than 50 staff members were laid off, he said.

Mary Van Sickle, the family pastor at Woodland Hills, said she lost 20 volunteers who had been the backbone of the church's Sunday school.

And the reason these last gave for leaving is especially chilling given that they were the ones charged with teaching impressionable children:

"They said, `You're not doing what the church is supposed to be doing, which is supporting the Republican way,' " she said. "It was some of my best volunteers."

But the Right Rev. Boyd let fly anyway, and spoke some powerful truths:

In his six sermons, Mr. Boyd laid out a broad argument that the role of Christians was not to seek "power over" others -- by controlling governments, passing legislation or fighting wars. Christians should instead seek to have "power under" others -- "winning people's hearts" by sacrificing for those in need, as Jesus did, Mr. Boyd said.

Radical notion no? Christians acting like Jesus did in the Bible? It's just so crazy it Might work! But wait, there's more: (you might just want to sit down before reading this next bit)

America wasn't founded as a theocracy," he said. "America was founded by people trying to escape theocracies. Never in history have we had a Christian theocracy where it wasn't bloody and barbaric. That's why our Constitution wisely put in a separation of church and state.

"I am sorry to tell you," he continued, "that America is not the light of the world and the hope of the world. The light of the world and the hope of the world is Jesus Christ."

If you are still with me and Haven't passed out from shock, share my amazement instead. An Evangelical who has actually read his history and is willing to be totally honest about the role of religion in government both in this country and historically!

That's GOT to be some kind of Heresy right? I mean the arguments of nearly every speaker at " Justice" Sunday were based on that very premise! It just too truthy to be wrong! He's just damn lucky that Protestants can't make use of the Spanish Inquisition or I suspect there'd already be unexpected visitors in red robes knocking on his door.

Now, Now Steady on, mate or you'll never make it through this, especially the next part Where Boyd unloads Both Barrels on Right-wing Scare- and outrage- mongers:

Mr. Boyd lambasted the "hypocrisy and pettiness" of Christians who focus on "sexual issues" like homosexuality, abortion or Janet Jackson's breast-revealing performance at the Super Bowl halftime show. He said Christians these days were constantly outraged about sex and perceived violations of their rights to display their faith in public.

""Those are the two buttons to push if you want to get Christians to act,"

he said. And those are the two buttons Jesus never pushed."

OH yes. he Did. I b'lieve he just called out The entire religious Right. everyone from Tommy "the ~~hammer~~ Slammer" DeLay to Jimmy "the Creep" Dobson, and called them sinning punks, who manipulate believers for their own nefarious and un-Christian ends.

Yes, I know, WE already knew that, but unlike us the Rev Boyd wasn't just preaching to the Choir and some of what he said came as news to his flock:

Some Woodland Hills members said they applauded the sermons because they had resolved their conflicted feelings. David Churchill, a truck driver for U.P.S. and a Teamster for 26 years, said he had been "raised in a religious-right home" but was torn between the Republican expectations of faith and family and the Democratic expectations of his union.

When Mr. Boyd preached his sermons, "it was liberating to me," Mr. Churchill said.

....

"Most of my friends are believers," said Shannon Staiger, a psychotherapist and church member, d they think if you're a believer, you'll vote for Bush. it's scary to go against that."

Now , let be clear the Rev isn't signing himself up for a Move On memebership, or audtioning for a new version of Crossfire,:

Mr. Boyd said he never intended his sermons to be taken as merely a critique of the Republican Party or the religious right. He refuses to share his party affiliation, or whether he has one, for that reason. He said there were Christians on both the left and the right who had turned politics and patriotism into "idolatry."

But he's also honest enough to admit its more a sin of the right than left, by a wide margin:

He said he first became alarmed while visiting another mega-church's worship service on a Fourth of July years ago. The service finished with the chorus singing "God Bless America" and a video of fighter jets flying over a hill silhouetted with crosses.

"I thought to myself, `What just happened? Fighter jets mixed up with the cross?' " he said in an interview.

Because nothing says "all praise be to the Prince of Peace" like a Video of the latest and most lethal military technology (and apparently the display Mr. Boyd witnessed was subtle by Mega-church standards:)

Patriotic displays are still a mainstay in some evangelical churches. Across town from Mr. Boyd's church, the sanctuary of North Heights Lutheran Church was draped in bunting on the Sunday before the Fourth of July this year for a "freedom celebration." Military veterans and flag twirlers paraded into the sanctuary, an enormous American flag rose slowly behind the stage, and a Marine major who had served in Afghanistan preached that the military was spending "your hard-earned money" on good causes.

(wow. if reading that paragraph didn't cause certain parts of your anatomy to shrivel and retract, you either don't got 'em, or weren't reading carefully. )

But if the Right-on Rev. Boyd were the only one preaching this message this would be nothing more than a case of "4,000 down 150 million to go". However it appears that this Preacher is merely the tip of the spear, in a growing wave of discontent and revulsion at the extent that Republician Party has sought to entwine itself with Christian Churches.

But the upheaval at Woodland Hills is an example of the internal debates now going on in some evangelical colleges, magazines and churches. At least six books on this theme have been published recently, some by Christian publishing houses.

Randall Balmer, a religion professor at Barnard College and an evangelical, has written "Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America -- an Evangelical's Lament."

There is a lot of discontent brewing," said Brian D. McLaren, the founding pastor at Cedar Ridge Community Church in Gaithersburg, Md., and a leader in the evangelical movement known as the "emerging church," which is at the forefront of challenging the more politicized evangelical establishment.

In other words the emerging church would kinda rather like to be able to be More of a religious organization rather than a weekly political rally:

"More and more people are saying this has gone too far -- the dominance of the evangelical identity by the religious right," Mr. McLaren said. "You cannot say the word `Jesus' in 2006 without having an awful lot of baggage going along with it. You can't say the word `Christian,' and you certainly can't say the word `evangelical' without it now raising connotations and a certain cringe factor in people.

"Because people think, `Oh no, what is going to come next is homosexual bashing, or pro-war rhetoric, or complaining about `activist judges.' "

And you just want to grab their shoulder and give them a shake or a hug and say "yes! exactly! People like me who also consider themselves Christian aren't pissed at you personally, just about how too many of your brethren have allowed the term to become a registered trademark of the Republican party."

So are we Seeing the emergence of a "great awakening" by Evangelicals? Have they Hard to tell Yet, but it's very clear something big is happening. A storm of discontent seems to be brewing among the evangelical churches about their relationship with the Republican Party. It's possible that the disconnected between their aggressive lip-service to "Christian Values" while voting for an agenda that was anything but, has created too much cognitive dissonance, for even the most "faithful" to handle.

And the Good news is the Experience of "coming into the light" hasn't been all bad for pioneers like the Rev Boyd :

Mr. Boyd now says .. "I don't regret any aspect of it at all. It was a defining moment for us. We let go of something we were never called to be. We just didn't know the price we were going to pay for doing it."

In the end, those who left tended to be white, middle-class suburbanites, church staff members said. In their place, the church has added more members who live in the surrounding community -- African-Americans, Hispanics and Hmong immigrants from Laos.

This suits Mr. Boyd. His vision for his church is an ethnically and economically diverse congregation that exemplifies Jesus' teachings by its members' actions.

Okay maybe describing him a conservative might have been the wrong adjective earlier, perhaps we should give him the label "un-self-aware progressive" instead.

Either way he's a wise man, so I'll close this as I opened it with a thought from the Rev.:

One woman asked: "So why NOT us? If we contain the wisdom and grace and love and creativity of Jesus, why shouldn't we be the ones involved in politics and setting laws?"

Mr. Boyd responded: "I don't think there's a particular angle we have on society that others lack. All good, decent people want good and order and justice. Just don't slap the label `Christian' on it."

Can I get an Amen?

Secret CIA Report: We can't even Disrupt Al-Qaeda AT GITMO!

2006-07-18T20:12:00.000-04:00

Apparently, if we are bent on disrupting the activities of Al-Qaeda all over the world, we're going to have to start 80 miles off of Key West.

The Smoking Gun isn't known as a major font of investigative journalism, but today they dropped a doozy. Featured on their site is a 12 page Secret CIA report about terrorist organizations in prisons, and specifically how Al-Qaeda has created a highly efficent organization INSIDE CAMP X-RAY ITSELF!

The report, prepared in August 2002 by the CIA Counterterrorist Center's Office of Terrorism Analysis, concluded that while detainees at Guantanamo Bay facilities were organizing and communicating in accordance with al-Qaeda training methods, U.S. officials were hamstrung to counter these moves without the aid of "inside sources."

Little Tip for the fellas at Gitmo? This is going to come as shock to you, but it's awful hard to motivate someone to risk his life to help you when you are hooking electrodes up to his genitalia or "waterboarding" him every day. People seem to resent that for some reason.

On the Other hand Al-Qaeda seems to have no trouble at all recruiting:

The CIA report, notes that Guantanamo detainees enforced a code of conduct and sought to shield the identity of leaders through the use of surrogates. Additionally, inmates reportedly sought to "put their training into practice by establishing cellblock leaders and dividing responsibility among deputies for greeting new arrivals, assessing interrogations, monitoring the guard force, and providing moral support to fellow detainees, among other tasks."

Still its not really their fault, I mean, "No one could have anticipated" that a cellular terrorist network would spring up in a Prison of all places. After all it isn't like the report says that Al-Qaeda training manuals explicitly includes instruction on how to create prison networks or anything. Okay, so they do. But really that's no reason to believe they'd actually work now is it. I mean its not like there's any history of this sort of thing happening anywhere else in the world ever now is there?.

I mean, when the South African authorities jailed Mandela and all the other members of the ANC on Robben Island, it isn't like an ANC training school later nicknamed "Resistance University" sprung up there,

What?

Oh. never mind.

Well how about when the British made the decision to confine all suspected IRA and UDL terrorists to a prison called Long Kesh(aka "the Maze) why that worked out splendidly, there were absolutely no problems there at now were there?

Okay.

Bad example.

This report is pretty devastating to the whole raison d'etre for for this awful stain on our national honor. Gitmo was supposed to be necessary keep us safe, the excesses of Camp X-ray were supposedly for our protection. This was to be the place that Gen Richard Meyers once swore was filled only with " very, very dangerous people...these are the sort of people who would chew through a hydraulics cable to bring a C-17 down."

Yet, despite the incredible and often inhumane security that these men were subjected to; they've had no trouble at all setting up a complex organization and communications network, literally under the noses of the guards there. It's become a place that facilitates the activities of the bad guys, not prevents them.

And really, this isn't all that surprising to anyone who has ever worked with inmates or prisons before. Ask any corrections officer about the criminal gangs that operate with near impunity at most major state and federal facility. They are an almost inevitable by product of prison life. Prisoners have all the time in the world to think up ways to screw with their captors, and dominate each other. And even though they have incredibly limited resources, people tend to get amazingly resourceful in that situation. Prisoners wind up using things in ways their captors could never imagine until its too late.

IF you want a perfect example of this domestically, read This Story About how the Aryan Brotherhood's leaders sent Orders to chapters nationwide from their cells in a Colorado Supermax prison using cryptographic methods invented by Francis Bacon, library books, and even invisible ink made primarily from their own urine.

Even the CIA report itself concludes that

since such activities may be "constrained by countries' need to follow the rule of law and other typical investigative hurdles, it may be possible only to mitigate, not prevent, terrorist use of prisons for their own purposes.

The bottom line then is, all we really did by creating Camp X-ray was to lock up a whole lot of formerly innocent men, with a few dozen Al-Qaeda operatives adept at recruiting, training, and using them for their purposes. Indeed Some of the folks released from Gitmo who weren't militants when they were taken there have returned home and taken up arms against us. Apparently they were a little miffed at the whole "locked in a cage and tortured 3000 mile from home for no reason" thing. Go figure. Meanwhile by it's very existence, Gitmo has caused our country to all but abandon any claim we ever had to moral high ground on human rights.

Way to strike a crushing blow against our enemies in the "war on terror " guys.

Post Populace POUNDS Prevaricating PNAC Poppa Perle !

2006-07-18T17:55:00.000-04:00

You have to forgive the alliteration. That happens sometimes when I get giddy. It's not everyday that you get to watch Richard Perle get smacked around online by an angry mob of citizen-journalists. (got me so fired up, I almost wanted to storm the Bastille).

This glorious sight was brought to you by none other than the WashingtonPost.com and it's "live Online" chat feature.

As StevenD Has already brilliantly diaries The perpetually clueless Perle, was back beating the war drums again this time against Iran and North Korea (he's simply disgusted that Bush is negotiating with these countries and concludes that it's such a chick move that it must be Condi's Fault)

Today, the Post had him do a live Chat with its readers, and friends, let me tell you, 'tweren't a pretty sight. For sheer Schadenfruede fun, it even beat watching somebody take a wiffle bat to the nuts on America's Funniest Videotaped Injuries:

Now while reading the Transcript of this chat its very important to keep this disclaimer from the WaPo's website in mind:

Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

In other words the heavy-sack beating of Perle that follows is NOT the result of some sort of "deck-stacking" by our side. The Post's chat moderators go out of their way to try to "balance" chat comments from both sides of an issue. That there were so few questions supporting Perle, gives you an idea of how lopsidedly negative the response to this article really was.

It was so bad in fact, that felt the need to defend himself generally even before answering a single specific question:

I would like to state, in response to many inquiries, that No, I am NOT in fact Beelzebub, Lord of Lies, or any other demonic minion or incarnation of Satan. Yes, I DID sell my soul to him and swear to do his bidding on earth, but I don't really think that's relevant to the discussion of the geopolitical strategy outlined in this article.

Okay, not really.

What he really DID say however, was:

Many of your questions have stated or implied that I am recommending military action against Iran, or against Iran's nuclear weapons program. But nowhere in the article do I say that.

I do believe that we need--and do not have--a serious political strategy for Iran at the center of which would be vigorous support for the internal opposition to the dictatorship of the mullahs.

Hunh. Wonder why people would think that. I mean just because you've advocated that very position in nearly every OTHER public statement you've made in the last five years; that's no reason to think you are pushing for war here now is it?

and then the Inquisition of Perle got down to the nitty-gritty, and folks I've haven't recently been prouder of my fellow citizens than I was for the relentless cross examination that followed,

Phoenix, Ariz.: As we are so bogged down in Iraq I ask what military options are available? ... why should anyone give your words any attention after how ill informed you were about the outcome in Iraq? Was not democracy going to spring up spontaneously?

Excellent Question. Mr Perle?

Richard Perle: Speaking of ill-informed, can you find any statement from me that democracy would "spring up spontaneously?"

Whoa. I see you've decided to go with the ol "duck the important part of the question completely" gambit. A little defensive there, are we Buckaroo? And since you asked, I CAN find This statement that's close enough in my book:

"A year from now, I'll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush. "- Richard Perle American Enterprise Institute conference on September 22, 2003

Well it was only the second question of the Chat, maybe he was just getting warmed up.

let's try a more focused question:

Ft Myers, Fla.: Mr. Perle, there is a remarkable consistency between your assertions today on Iran, and your alliance with the Pentagon group four years ago who insisted that Iraq had WMD. Why should we give you and AEI yet another free pass?

Richard Perle: I don't know which "assertions" you have in mind. Do you believe that Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons?

Ahh that retrograde Amnesia can be such a bitch can't it, next time, wear a helmet when you go hunting with VPO Cheney. Well you may not know, Mr Perle, but I'm pretty sure Ft. Meyers meant:

When you insisted that Even one defector claiming Saddam had a weapons program was enough evidence to invade or when you later insisted the WMDs had simply been moved to Syria ); never mind that it had already been conclusively proven that they never existed at all

and along those same lines we GOT to give this guy mad props, he even signed his NAME to the question (which got another crappy non-answer)

Cripple Creek, Colo.: Sir, Who will you support in the coming civil war in Iraq, Shites, Sunnis or Kurds? Who was the first to come up with the hocum about the WMD's in Iraq? Thank you for your considered answers.

Sincerely, Jim Bailey

Rock on Jimbo! and frankly thereafter Perle went into terse non-Answer mode for the rest of the chat but that didn't stop the excellent questions from flowing:

Vienna, Va.: After reading your Outlook piece, I'm a little confused as to whether you are simply misguided as to the actual recent history of USA-Iran relations or simply one of those people who is tired of waiting for Armageddon and wants to bend the facts to speed things along....[long very readable recitation of indisputable facts]..So my question is this: Do you not actually understand Iran? Or are you a madman yourself, even worse than Ahmadinejad?

.......

Fairfax, Va.: You're closely associated with those who thought invading Iraq was a good idea. History isn't finished with it yet, but already it's clear it was poorly thought through. Did you draw any lessons from that experience that you bring to this latest set of policy recommendations on Iran?

Potomac, Md.: Why is Iran more dangerous than Pakistan? Pakistan has nuclear capabilities and a modern delivery system in the form of U.S.- supplied long-range F-16 jets. Pakistan is a proven non-proliferation violator....

.....

Santa Fe, N.M.: Ignominious retreat?

I'm wondering what you would prefer, Mr. Perle: yet another war without a clearly-defined objective?

And how do you propose to do that? Would we need a draft to bulk up the military? Would that be accomplished by redirecting funds now devoted to pork-barrel military equipment projects or by extending the US's indebtedness to China?

...

and the hits kept coming. Hell THIS is what passed for a pro-Perle question in this chat:

Washington, D.C.: I quite a fan of yours, but not in this case. Why do you say that agreeing to join the Europeans in the discussion -- if they first suspend enrichment -- is tantamount to caving in? The alternative is that we may be forced into a military strike on their nuclear facilities, which might sour otherwise friendly Iranians on us for another generation....why NOT give negotiations a chance?

Well, well ,well. I understand those folks joining an online chat at 11 am on a Monday are a self-selecting group. However, given the partisan battle ground the Live Online chats usually become when someone controversial is on, I was pleasantly stunned at how one-sided that conversation got in an awful hurry.

Perle and his cronies are up to their old tricks but it really does look like "that dog jest won't hunt no more". It appears that the Great PT Barnum was finally wrong afer all. There really IS a limit to the credulity of the American people, and I think they may have hit it in spades when it comes to reckless military adventures in the Middle East.

Open Mike reveals W's governing Philosophy : just gonna make it up

2006-07-18T17:54:00.000-04:00

The whole world (or at least the Media) seemed a-twitter yesterday about the fact that an open mike yesterday confirmed that our President's vocabulary extends to Anglo-Saxon vulgarities (one wonders why Bush's infamous F-ck Saddam We're taking him out!" quote never garners this sort of attention)

However, in focusing on the saltiness of the President's vocabulary (and his egregious, Alanis Morrisette level, misuse of the term Irony) a very important moment on that tape has been completely overlooked .

In a completely unguarded moment The underlying philosophical root of George W. Bush's governing style was revealed. From his very lips we heard him reveal the central guiding principle of his Geo-political strategy, indeed his very Presidency. Without further ado, I give you that principle:

Bush: No. Just gonna make it up

almost Zen is it not? In retrospect, it should have been so obvious, how could we have missed it?:

"I'm just gonna make it up".

Such an elegantly simple response to the vagaries of the world of sometime inconvenient facts is it not? Clearly, in hindsight, it is all pervasive part of Bush Strategy for dealing in every crisis that he has faced:

Look at Justifying the War with Iraq::

Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.

- Speech to UN General Assembly September 12, 2002

"We've discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical weapons across broad areas."

-Cincinnati Museum Center on Oct. 7, 2002

We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have.

-Radio Address February 8, 2003

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.

- Address to the Nation March 18, 2003

You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons, And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them."

- Interview with TVP Poland

Already, the Kay Report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations.

- State of the Union Address - 2004 1/20/2004

Brilliant! Nary a fact in sight! Bush wanted a war for which there was no justification. So he reached down deep inside of himself and "made something up".

In fact, making something up, wasn't so easy as it looked either. As Ron Suskind recently Pointed Out in the 1% solution: It took careful preparation:

Under this strategic model, reading the entire N.I.E. would be problematic for Bush: it could hem in the president's rhetoric, a key weapon in the march to war. He would know too much."

You see, it's so much harder to "make something up", when you have too many facts cramping your style.

Now I can see carpers and critics trying to asset that this strategy is flawed, that sooner or later the lies would be exposed, and then the president would be in real trouble. Oh ye of little faith, this philosophy is all purpose you see, when necessary a master such as Bush can merely make more things up to cover his previous inventions:

From Speech at Ft. hood Texas April 2005

" The toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad will be recorded, alongside the fall of the Berlin Wall, as one of the great moments in the history of liberty."

"Because of you, the people of Iraq no longer live in fear of being executed and left in mass graves. Because of you, freedom is taking root in Iraq. Our success in Iraq will make America safer, for us and for future generations. "

"From the beginning, our goal in Iraq has been to promote Iraqi independence"

"Iraqis have laid the foundation of a free economy, with a new currency and independent central bank, new laws to encourage foreign investment, and thousands of small businesses established since liberation"

But for a True Master of BS-fu, you needn't be limited to a single subject either. It works just as well Domestically as it does on foreign policy:

Watch it work On Social Security:

THE PRESIDENT: That's kind of sad, isn't it? Excuse me for interrupting. You've got younger Americans saying, don't count on Social Security. I guess the word is getting out -- slowly, but surely -- we've got a problem with Social Security, to the point where you've got some people saying, don't count on it. As a matter of fact, I saw a survey where it said younger workers feel like they're more likely to see a UFO than get a Social Security check. (Laughter.) Excuse me for interrupting.

On Domestic Disasters and incompetence like Katrina:

"I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees."

-on "Good Morning America," Sept. 1, 2005,

The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before.

-touring hurricane damage, Mobile, Ala., Sept. 2, 2005

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

-touring hurricane-ravaged Mississippi, Sept. 2, 2005

Heck this amazing philosophical tool can even handle major lawbreaking and scandals!

For example, the NSA wiretaps:

First, our international activities strictly target al Qaeda and their known affiliates. Al Qaeda is our enemy, and we want to know their plans. Second, the government does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval. Third, the intelligence activities I authorized are lawful and have been briefed to appropriate members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat. Fourth, the privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities.

We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans. Our efforts are focused on links to al Qaeda and their known affiliates. So far we've been very successful in preventing another attack on our soil.

You see? None of that turned out to be true, but didn't it sound good?

Clearly, we have wronged this President. I and so many others have been quick to dismiss him as a clueless, feckless, ill-informed lout. However it appears we've failed to see the subtleties of this man to fully appreciate that his every act conforms with his deepest held animating principle:

"Just gonna make something up"

DOJ really Said it! : "The president is always right"

2006-07-18T17:53:00.000-04:00

Old and Busted: Infallible Popes.

The New Hotness: Infallible presidents.

Move over Pope Bennie! there's a NEW inerrant Sheriff in Town!

Apparently there's to be no more mucking about with Speaking ex cathedra and thrones of St Peter when we need an infallible pronouncement, now we need only wait on Pearls to fall from "The Deciders'" lip, as he too is, apparently, "always right" as well.

Or so sayeth an apparently otherwise intelligent and

Senior DOJ official while testifying before congress yesterday When Our Man, Sen. Patrick Leahy grilled him on Gitmo and Hamdan

:

LEAHY: The president has said very specifically, and he's said it to our European allies, he's waiting for the Supreme Court decision to tell him whether or not he was supposed to close Guantanamo or not. After, he said it upheld his position on Guantanamo, and in fact it said neither. Where did he get that impression? The President's not a lawyer, you are, the Justice Department advised him. Did you give him such a cockamamie idea or what?

BRADBURY: Well, I try not to give anybody cockamamie ideas.

LEAHY: Well, where'd he get the idea?

BRADBURY: The Hamdan decision, senator, does implicitly recognize we're in a war, that the President's war powers were triggered by the attacks on the country, and that law of war paradigm applies. That's what the whole case --

LEAHY: I don't think the President was talking about the nuances of the law of war paradigm, he was saying this was going to tell him that he could keep Guantanamo open or not, after it said he could.

BRADBURY: Well, it's not --

LEAHY: Was the President right or was he wrong?

BRABURY: It's under the law of war -

LEAHY: Was the President right or was he wrong?

BRADBURY: The President is always right.

Now if this had been some obsequious WH poltical appointee, or RNC functionary, such a Kool-aid flavored statement might not have been so suprising, after all we EXPECT them to kiss the boss' ass, that's what they are there for.

However, this was Stephen Bradbury, the Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice. Moreover , Bradbury, a former Supreme Court Clerk (Thomas-natch) heads the Office Of Legal Counsel . The Office serves as the Executive Branch's Lawyer. They are the ones who advise not only the other Departments but the President himself on what is and is not legal, and what law, court judgments and opinions mean.

So what then is the Paragon of legal thinker's answer to what to do when he President obviously interprets the key holdings a Supreme Court Judgment? (as Leahy pointed out he so clearly did here) How does Bradbury correct him, and uphold the rule of law? The answer is he doesn't. Instead he apparently does whatever mental gymnastics are required to make the president right and the law and statutes wrong. He can do this because, by his own admission "The president is always right" ,

This is going too damn Far. I don't care how Unitary the executive is, its a Lawyer's JOB to tell a client when he has his head colorectally inserted legally speaking. The client is not a customer, and no matter how much they may not like it they are NOT alwys right, and it is our duty to the client and to our profession to set them straight.

Unfortunately Bush seems to have a strict, "invertebrates only" policy when it comes to hiring functionaries. It was one thing when the President surrounded himself with glassy eyed loyalists whose sole qualification for their jobs were the number of birthday cards they'd sent him proclaiming him the "bestest president ever". It worse when he packed his "spontaneous town Hall meetings" with carefully screened and meticulously selected loyalists. But THIS is going too far. . They can make all the image manipulating PR they want, But I draw the line at altering the Fabric of reality (or even the Corpus juris) to make this dolt infallible.

Suskind: W personally ordered Mentally Ill Terrorist be Tortured

2006-06-21T16:03:00.000-04:00

Ron Suskind's new Book is currently garnering media attention for its story of the Subway attack that wasn't, but there are FAR bigger Revelations in his book.

For example:

Bush personally ordered the torture of a suspected terrorist mastermind who turned out to be nothing more than a mentally ill Al-Qaeda flunky, just to save face.

This amazing bit of news is courtesy of the WaPo's review of Suskind's book

When Abu Zubaydah. Was captured he.. [was] described as al-Qaeda's chief of operations [however] ..Zubaydah, his captors discovered, turned out to be mentally ill and nothing like [who]they supposed him to be... [he] also appeared to know nothing about terrorist operations; rather, he was the go-to guy for ...minor logistics [like} travel for wives and children"

That judgment was ... briefed to the President ...yet somehow, in a speech delivered two weeks later, President Bush portrayed Zubaydah as "one of the top operatives ..planning death and destruction on the US"

And when Zubadayah Couldn't deliver any info on terrorist plots:?

Well, Bush had already said it, and in the spirit of his adminstration's habit of "creating their own reality" it was now officially true, so when Zubaydah wasn't forthcoming with the details of plots he knew nothing about:

under White House and Justice Department direction, the CIA would make him its first test subject for harsh interrogation techniques.

And here's the Stunner. Bush Personally Ordered his torture, because he was worried about losing face:

"I said he was important," Bush reportedly told Tenet at one of their daily meetings. "You're not going to let me lose face on this, are you?" "No sir, Mr. President," Tenet replied. Bush "was fixated on how to get Zubaydah to tell us the truth," Suskind writes, and he asked one briefer, "Do some of these harsh methods really work?"

This question ranks only slightly below "Will no One rid me of this Meddlesome Priest?" as an obvious indirect command. Not Surprisingly, just like Henry Plantagenet's goons, the CIA took the hint and ran with it:

Interrogators did .. strapped Abu Zubaydah to a water-board, which reproduces the agony of drowning. They threatened him with certain death. They withheld medication. They bombarded him with deafening noise and harsh lights, depriving him of sleep

Now let's keep firmly in Mind all of this Torture (best to call things what they really are, I find) , was going on MONTHS after the CIA and the FBI had conclusive proof this guy was not merely insane, but actively suffering from multiple personality disorder:

CIA and FBI analysts, poring over a diary he kept for more than a decade, found entries "in the voice of three people: Hani 1, Hani 2, and Hani 3" -- a boy, a young man and a middle-aged alter ego. All three recorded in numbing detail "what people ate, or wore, or trifling things they said." Dan Coleman, then the FBI's top al-Qaeda analyst, told a senior bureau official, "This guy is insane, certifiable, split personality."

and it Bears repeating again

Abu Zubaydah also appeared to know nothing about terrorist operations; rather, he was al-Qaeda's go-to guy for minor logistics -- travel for wives and children and the like. That judgment was "echoed at the top of CIA and was, of course, briefed to the President and Vice President," {long BEFORE the torture was ordered-ED}

Amazingly, after being tortured for weeks and months, the crazy Al-qaeda flunky suddenly remembered anything his interrogators wanted him to remember. Zubaydah, gave up details of All KINDS of terrorist plots. Too bad they were, technically speaking, completely made up fantasies:

Under that duress, he began to speak of plots of every variety -- against shopping malls, banks, supermarkets, water systems, nuclear plants, apartment buildings, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty

And of Course

With each new tale, "thousands of uniformed men and women raced in a panic to each . . . target."

Wasting, of course, thousands of man hours, Millions of dollars, and letting who knows how many REAL plots go undetected because our law enforcement apparatus was occupied chasing fantasies?

This is normally the part where I throw in a concluding paragraph telling you what I think It all means, but frankly I can't do better than this sentence from Suskind's book:

"the United States would torture a mentally disturbed man and then leap, screaming, at every word he uttered."

The Smoking Cable: US Ambassador tells it like it REALLY is in Iraq

2006-06-20T13:24:00.000-04:00

To hear our Fearless Leader tell it; things In Iraq are going great and they're only getting better (in fact the future's so bright, he'll let Wallsten wear shades.)

Bush even went so far as to demonstrate the progress towards peace and stability in Iraq by sharply banking into Baghdad Airport for a quick, absolutely clandestine,(for security reasons), hello. He apparently wanted to see first hand how peaceful and prosperous, the insides of the most secure buildings in the Green Zone are, when 70,000 troops patrol the surrounding city.. An Boy Howdy, he was certainly impressed; he held up Iraq as the model for transforming the Middle East.

His Iraqi listeners however, could be forgiven for suspecting Bush had inhaled a little too much of the glue he used to put the model together however. A leaked secret State Dept cable from the US embassy in Baghdad paints a much grimmer picture of a Baghdad and the situation in Iraq, and puts lie to the Sunshine and flowers being offered by W.

Let's compare and contrast:

From Bush's speech to US troops:

We expect an Iraqi government to honor its traditions and its histories and its religious faiths. But we do expect the Iraqi government to honor the right of every man, woman and child to live in a free society. And when Iraq succeeds -- and it will -- the rest of the world, particularly in the Middle East, will see such a hopeful example of what's possible.

.....I believe the Iraqi government that's formed does respect human rights and human dignity.

Now Let's see what the Cable has to say

Beginning in March and Picking up in Mid-May Iraqi staff in the public Affairs section have complained that Islamist and/or Militia groups have been negatively affecting their daily routine. Harassment over proper dress and habits have become increasingly pervasive.

One Shiite who favors Western clothing was advised by an unknown woman in her upscale Shiite/Christian neighborhood to wear a veil and not drive at all Indeed, she said, some groups are pushing women to cover their faces completely A step not taken in Iran even at its most conservative

...

Another, A Sunni, said people in her middle class neighborhoods are harassing people and telling them to cover up and stop using cell phones...A female in the PAS Cultural section is now wearing a full abaya after receiving direct threats in May.

....

They also tell us that some Ministries, notably the Sadrist controlled Ministry of Transportation have been forcing females to wear the Hijab at work.

Staff members have reported that ti is dangerous fro men to wear shorts in public and that they no longer let their children play outside in shorts. People who wear jeans in public have come under attach from what staff members call Wahabis ( Uber-conservative hard line Sunnis -ed) and Sadrists( Uber-conservative hard line Shiites -ed)

okay Swing and a miss, but hey, he was just getting warmed up, he had a long flight, and the phrases "suppress human rights and "support Human rights" are so close. So let's give him another shot.

Showing the remarkable positive effects of the occupation W also highlighted the striking contrasts between the Iraq of today and Saddam's Iraq:

Saddam Hussein destroyed many of the institutions necessary for this society to succeed. It is clear that he was a selfish, brutal leader who was willing to sacrifice infrastructure and civil society in order to meet his narrow objectives. ...the Iraqi people have a chance to realize the great blessings of liberty because Saddam Hussein is no longer in power.

{ not Counting of course, the ones that were demolished by US firepower during "shock and Awe"}

Well, at least we fixed that, right? Hundreds of Billions of dollars in Halliburton contracts later why the infrastructure now is....is....is, well let's let the cable speak for itself:

Temperatures in Baghdad have already reached 115 degrees (46 C for the rest of the world that measures funny, and Goddamned Bloody Hot on the British Imperial Gin and Tonic scale -ed)

Employees all confirm that by the last week of May they were getting One hour of power for every six hours without

.....

The Central Baghdad neighborhood Bab Al Mu'atham has had no city power for over a month

Areas Near hospitals political Party headquarters (emph added) and the Green Zone have the best supply In some cases reaching 24 hours

The cable goes on to describe how fuel shortages (in IRAQ!) are so bad that lines for gas can last 12 hours or more and the black market price for gas is 4x the offical rate. And keep in mind this is happening in Baghdad, the Capital City conditions here are as good as they get anywhere.

And the Security Infrastructure is even worse. (after all, the power does work occasionally) Not only are embassy workers afraid to tell even their own families where they work but:

Personal safety depends on good relations with the "neighborhood" governments, who barricade streets and ward off outsiders. the central government, our staff say, is not relevant even local mukhtars have been displaced or co-opted by militias

The US is widely perceived as fully controlling the country and tolerating the malaise---

...{many believe} that the US is punishing populations as Saddam did. Otherwise the allocation of power and security would not be so arbitrary

Okay, no human rights, Not so much on the "great blessings of liberty" thing,. Well, at least W still has that whole "goal of a stable and unified Iraq" thing:

I met with the cabinet officials from all walks of life here in Iraq, and came away with the distinct impression that they are unified in serving the people of Iraq. They want to succeed. The faith and future of Iraq is in their hands, and our job is to help them succeed -- and we will

Well, While it can be said that the some Iraqi officals do want a unified Iraq, it should be noted that others are already actively engaged in ethnic cleansing:

{[describes a Kurdish woman forced from her home after 30 years through the use of an Antique law] Such uprootings may be a response to by new Shiite government authorities ti similar actions against Arabs by Kurds in other parts of Iraq (NOTE: An Arab Newspaper editor told us he is preparing an extensive survey of ethnic cleansing which he said is taking place in every Iraqi province as political parties and their militias are seemingly engaged in tit-for-tat reprisals all over Iraq. One editor told us the KDP (Kurdish Defense Party) is now planning to set up tent cities in Irbil to house Kurds being evicted from Baghdad.

And Lest the author of this cable be denounced as some gloomy liberal flunky at State who Hates America, lets compare the opening lines of Bush's speech:

You know, one of the things I try to do is put good people in place who accomplish hard jobs. And I can't think of two better leaders than Zal Khalilzad and General Casey to lead this important effort. (Applause.) I thank you all very much for your service to our country. Your sacrifice is noble and your sacrifice is important.

and the signature line of the Cable

KHALILZAD

I strongly urge you to read the whole memo. While it's only about six pages long, and focuses mostly on the troubles the Embassy is having with its own staff, it provides the clearest and most honest picture of what life is REALLY like in Iraq right now.

The embassy staff are very good proxies for ordinary Iraqis living under nearly the best possible conditions Iraq has to offer. Unfortunately, even for them, those conditions are bad and getting worse every day.

If you want to truly understand the anger, hatred and resentment the common people are feeling towards the US consider only this sentence, and imagine yourself in his place:

One collegue told us he feels "defeated" by circumstances, citing the example of being unable to help his two year old son who has asthma and cannot sleep in the stifling heat

If you are a parent, or even you aren't, its very easy to imagine how such a situation would first make you depressed and hopeless, then scared, and then finally very, very, angry at those who would hurt your child this way. Now consider that this kind of situation is happening every day in every city in Iraq, to hundreds more people.

As the memo noted earlier, WE are the ones being held responsible for these failures, they happen so often that people are convinced they are deliberate. Given this situation, and the infinite recruiting possibilities it provides the other side; does anyone seriously think that there exists a military solution to "defeat" the insurgency anymore?

Today's Supreme Court Decision: It's the exclsionary rule that got banged up

2006-06-15T14:49:00.000-04:00

Well the Alito Effect is starting at the Supreme Court. Sitting in O'Connor's vacated seat, he's proving a very different and far more right wing judge. Case in point. Today's Ruling on Knock and Announce rules when serving a search warrant

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that police armed with a warrant can barge into homes and seize evidence even if they don't knock, a huge government victory that was decided by President Bush's new justices
Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said Detroit police acknowledge violating that rule when they called out their presence at a man's door then went inside three seconds to five seconds later.

"Whether that preliminary misstep had occurred or not, the police would have executed the warrant they had obtained, and would have discovered the gun and drugs inside the house," Scalia wrote.

But suppressing evidence is too high of a penalty, Scalia said, for errors by police in failing to properly announce themselves

Knock and Announce, the rule at issue here, has been the rule for serving a warrant since the English common law stretching back Centuries.
However it wasn't until 1997 and Wilson V. Arkansas 514 US 927 (1997) that the US supreme Court formally recognized that the common law requirement was also part of the 4th Amendment. (Clarence Thomas of all people wrote the opinion) However the opinion recognized there would be times when knocking was not possible or wise, and declined to set any hard and fast rules.
Also in 1997, in Richards v. Wisconsin, 520 U.S. 385 (1997) found that there might be times when a No-knock warrant was okay, but said that this had to be considered on a case by case basis, and that blanket rules for when issuing No-knock warrants violated the Constitution.
But really what's at Stake here is FAR greater than the "knock and Announce" rule. The Court rules that the officers broke the law and the search was illegal Alito's opinion isn't attacking the "knock and Announce rule", it is taking square aim at a far more importtant part of our law: the Exclusionary Rule itself.

The Exclusionary Rule was first created for Federal Courts in1914 by Weeks v. US.232 US 383 and then expanded to the States in 1964 by Mapp v. Ohio. 367 US 643 (1961). and it says simply that Illegally obtained evidence . May NOT> be used at tiral, and that all evidence that was discovered based onthe illegally obtained evidence was similarly excluded. (Fruit of the Poisonous Tree).

The rule is absolute because the court recognized there was no other effective way to restrain police from engaging in illegal behavior and violating people's rights. (in the Mapp case for instance, officer entered a woman's home without a warrant, looking for a fugitive, searched her entire house, broke opena small locked box inthe basement and then charge her with possession of pornography)Thus, even decisive evidence, wrongly obtained, is worthless, to the police. As a result police are HIGHLY motivated to do things the right way.

However that whole "better to let 10 guilty men go free" line apparently doesn't sit well with Alito or Scalia . Therefore he basically says "eh the law could be clearer, and after all they guy's guilty so , no harm no foul" His ruling, recognizes the clear illegality of the police's action , but still allows the Evidence to be introduced. It is, I fear, the beginning of very long chipping away process that will not end well for us.

a HUGE story that got missed: the end of the 5th Amendment?

2006-05-17T21:40:00.000-04:00

A moment of silence for `the fightin'" 5th Amendment. It was badly wounded Friday

Of all the Amendments in the Bill of Rights, the 5th is the one with the most unsavory reputation. To many "Taking the 5th" has always been seen as the last refuge of the guilty weasel, a way to get off on a technicality. However, the 5th's weasel-protecting properties are a necessary consequence of the powerful protections it give us ordinary citizens against the power of the state.

Unlike nearly every other country in the world, in the US you cannot be forced to answer charges leveled against you, nor be compelled to give testimony before a tribunal. In the US if the State wants to charge you with a crime, it is THEY who must prove you did something wrong. You are not required to "prove" anything, much less your innocence.

All that however may have just changed. In a shocking but almost unnoticed development last week, A Federal Magistrate ruled a man can be held indefinitely because he failed to prove himself innocent:

A federal magistrate judge yesterday recommended rejecting a petition by the sole remaining enemy combatant being held on U.S. soil, finding that Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri had not offered persuasive evidence rebutting the government's allegations against him.

And of Course, that Shredder of the Constitution, the Black Widow of the Bill of Rights, the Global War On Terror was given as the reason for this latest insult to our fundamental civil rights

For those whose heads are too busy spinning from the constant onslaught of outrages manufactured by the administration to remember names, Al-Marri, a Qatari national and college student in Peoria Il., is the only "enemy combatant" still being held indefinitely in on us soil( the Military Brig where they are also holding Padilla).

But don't feel too bad for him. That whole being held in defiance of the law and due process? Apparently, according to the Magistrate, that is his fault for being unable to disprove the FBI's allegations against him: (allegations mind you, there are NO charges pending against Al-Marri )

Magistrate Judge Robert C. Carr of the U.S. District Court of South Carolina upbraided Marri for declining to address detailed allegations contained in a declassified government report outlining his alleged links to al-Qaeda.

"The petitioner's refusal . . . is either a sophomoric approach to a serious issue, or worse, an attempt to subvert the judicial process and flout due process," Carr wrote. "The petitioner has squandered his opportunity to be heard by purposely not participating in a meaningful way."

Excuse me, Mr. Pot? Shall I put that call though to Mr. Kettle now?

Yes the Judge is blaming the prisoner for failing to refute the FBI's Allegations against him. It's his remaining silent and taking advantage of his constitutional rights that's subverting the judicial process. Gotcha.

Oddly enough apparently NOT qualifying as "Subverting the Judicial process" in Judge Carr's Mind is The government's sneaky legal maneuver in this case:

Al-Marri was actually indicted for terrorism-related offenses in federal district court,... Motions were being heard...attorneys were preparing for trial,.

All of a sudden, federal prosecutors requested the presiding judge in the case to dismiss the indictment against al-Marri. The judge granted the request, but "with prejudice," which means that under the Sixth Amendment bar against double jeopardy, U.S. officials can now never bring those particular criminal charges against al-Marri again.([sic] NB: this is actually the 5th amendment protection, and more properly it's an estoppel issue not a double jeopardy one, but these are legal technicalities; the author's point is essentially correct-ED}

Once the order of dismissal was entered ..U.S. officials secured an official "enemy combatant" designation from President Bush and immediately transferred al-Marri to the same military brig in South Carolina

So to be clear here, Judge Carr, is denying Al-Marri's habeas petition (Charge Me or Release Me) because he failed to adequately refute charges he can never legally be tried on

And just for the record, those "Serious allegations" are, according to the affidavit accompanying his arrest warrant Lying to and FBI agent about making an overseas phone call, and using a fake name and social security number to open 3 bank accounts, and credit card fraudd. That's IT.

So WHY is he being held as an enemy combatant? Good question. As you can see the Affiidavit does also contains tons of references to 9/11, and known terrorists, but the link to this defendant are high tenuous and circumstantial. (Mostly, interestingly enough, involving details of numbers Al-Marri called from a disposable phone and payphone, wonder how they might have gotten those) frankly in my opinion, but few even rise to the level of admissible proof in a regular criminal trial. (besides when's the last time you saw a a terrorist with a mullet?)

Frankly the FBI had a MUCH stronger case that Al-Marri was a garden variety hacker and identity thief. And had they Proceeded with the original trial it'smore than likely they could have safely locked him away for 20-30 YEARS. Apparently , though making us safer AND honoring the law was too much to ask of our government.

Consider the incredible insult this case represents to everything we know about fairness and due process. The government, first investigates and arrests Al-Masri and charges him with several crimes. So far So good, everything working as it should.

However, right before Al-Masri has his constitutionally guaranteed trial to force the government to prove their case, the government instead drops all charges against him, dismissing them forever. Rather than being then allowed to go free, however, the nightmare begins instead. Al-Masri finds himself being arrested and taken to a military prison in South Carolina, charged with precisely nothing, all on the strength of the fact that George W. Bush signed a Paper declaring him a bad guy. The government essentially substitutes a signature on a sheet of paper for 200 years of legal tradition.

Unfortunately this is now only the first outrage in this case. After 3 long years lawyers for Al-Masri manage to file a "great Writ" of Habeas Corpus to force the government to either charge him, try him, and prove their case against him, OR let him go at once. However, the Judge denies his motion.

Why?

Well because the judge didn't feel Al-Marri sufficiently disproved the charges that have never been formally made against him. (the Judge apparently having been absent the day they discussed the Constitution in Law school) Then, in a final rhetorical twist that very nearly defines the phrase "adding insult to injury", he scolds Al Masri for attempting to "subvert due process"

I think I'd be angrier if I weren't in shock frankly. I became a lawyer because I actually truly believe in our legal system, and believe that despite all its obvious flaws it was one of the fairest in the world. However I feel like since Bush began his "unitary executive " rampage we've gone from living in a country that had a legal system that was the envy of the world, to one who's legal code was apparently written as a collaboration between Joseph Heller and Franz Kafka.

Update [2006-5-15 21:14:44 by Magorn]:

By popular demand: the 5th Amendment to the US Constitution (it's an action packed lil' bugger)

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

What's in it for the readers? Time to END the WH press Dinner

2006-05-03T15:47:00.000-04:00

There has been a great deal Sturm und Drang about the White House Press Corps Dinner, among Washington's chattering classes this week. Particularly they seem consumed with the performance of Our Hero Steven Colbert.

After first attempting to ignore him, and they pronounce him unfunny, the talking heads of cable have now settled on depleting our precious oxygen supplies to express their consternation, shock, and distemper that a Satirist had the general ill grace and temerity to make fun of the rich and powerful people he was speaking to. (That every word coming form his mouth was gospel truth only heightens the offense).

As usual though, The press is chasing exactly the wrong story and asking the wrong questions. Leave it to Dan "The Bulldog " Froomkin, the WaPo's finest reporter to ask the right one:

Why does this night exist at all?

The coziness of the dinner is a perfect example of what's gone wrong with access journalism. What's in it for the readers?

and he's just getting warmed up. Preach it Brother Froomkin:

Once upon a time, I imagine, there was great value in throwing a party where journalists and politicians could mingle and shmooze and celebrate the things they have in common.

And indeed, if the press and this particular White House had an even moderately functional professional relationship, then a chance to build personal relationships would be a nice bonus.

But it's not a functional professional relationship. From the president down to the freshest press office intern, this White House seems to delight in not answering even our most basic questions.

So the last thing in the world we need is a big party where the only appropriate mode of communication is sucking up.

Can I get an Amen?

I SAID can I get an Amen?

Ideally, every chance we get to talk to these people, we should be pumping them for information. And ideally we would be consistent in expressing our frustration with them -- not for personal reasons, not for partisan reasons, but because they're making it nearly impossible for us to do our job which is to inform the public on what's going on in the White House and why.,

Froomkin nails it in a Nutshell.

Events like the Dinner, and what it reveals about the incestuous, access-driven world of the Washington Media, are EXACTLY what drives us crazy about the mainstream media these days. They have incredible access to the powers that be, supposedly on our behalf. They are in a unique position to confront and challenge the Administration's lies and law-breaking. They should be our surrogates, demanding answers from our elected leaders. Instead, they do nothing. Why? Because it might jeopardize their access. It has gone from a means to an end , to an end in and of itself. Like cigarettes in prison, it has become the currency of the powerless. a way to establish a pecking order of the damned. In their race to show off their access, too many of the White House Press Corps have forgotten their basic job description, or what the access is supposed to be for.

Consider Dan's incredibly honest and self-critical account of his night at the Dinner:

I found myself sitting next to -- of all people -- Kristen Silverberg.

Now you may not know who Kristen Silverberg is, but I've been following her movement through Bush's inner circle for quite a while now. First she was a campaign worker, then a young aide in the chief of staff's office, then a high-level policy adviser.

Silverberg was considered the White House's ultimate rising star, and she really caught my attention when -- after Karl Rove was promoted to deputy chief of staff and moved downstairs into an office just down the hall from the Oval -- Silverberg moved into the highly karmic second-floor space that he vacated, and that before him had been occupied by Hillary Clinton.

Not long after that, however, she decided to follow Condoleeezza Rice to the State Department, where she now serves as assistant secretary for international organization affairs.

Now this seems to be a SOMEBODY worth talking to, no? A rise like that through the White House power structure certainly qualifies as meteoric to say the least. Add to that the eyebrow-raising fact that she left the WH for the State Department despite being a Rove protégé , and how she got to where she is right now is a big story by anyone's standards. Even better, Froomkin has been following it for about a year now and so it totally prepared to get the inside skinny. So sitting next to her was a HUGE score for him right? Nope:

In pretty much any other circumstance, if I had a chance to talk to Kristen Silverberg, I would grill her about Bush's plans for Iran, or about her mentor Karl Rove, or on the inner workings of the White House.

But here she was sitting next to me as the guest of a Washington Post White House correspondent, and it wouldn't have been appropriate.

So Instead they have to settle for small talk and banalities. Not to mention a frustrating face to face with the Lord of the Flies:

We ended up talking about Karl Rove, but only in the most general terms. I noted that she might be Rove's protege, but that -- according to my wife, at least -- Rove is my greatest muse. (He does seem to inspire some of my finer columns .)As a result, Silverberg very kindly offered to introduce me to my muse. I said I couldn't possibly. She insisted. And next thing I knew we were over at table 54, chatting with Rove himself.

If you read Froomkin as regularly as I do, you know that he has followed and exposed Rove like no other journalist in Washington. A head to head meeting between the two should have been an epic interview for the ages. But any hope of that was lost because of the setting:

Of course, what I wanted to do was ask him: Why did he lie to journalists about not having been one of the people who leaked Valerie Plame's identity to Robert Novak? What exactly did he tell the grand jury last week? How does he feel about getting kicked across the hall into a windowless office? (He's moving into Michael Gerson's old digs.) Is there any serious chance of a detente with the press?

But this was not the time. Instead, I went back to my table with Silverberg, still not talking about Iran.

And not only had I gotten nothing useful out of Rove -- but now I was beholden to Silverberg.

And that's exactly why these dinners are a huge mistake. They do nothing for the press, who are constrained by the rules of the event not to do any actual reporting. Therefore, they enlighten the readers not at all, and in fact, may do the exact opposite by spreading White House propaganda.

Thanks to their careful stage managing, the "big-hearted Bush with the great sense of Humor" stories dominated the next news cycle.

Unfortunately that image of the President isn't even remotely close to true. Compare all those "good fellow" Bush stories that ran the next day to this bit of news that only the now unfairly maligned USA today reported:

.

" 'Colbert crossed the line,' said one top Bush aide, who rushed out of the hotel as soon as Colbert finished. Another said that the president was visibly angered by the sharp lines that kept coming.

" 'I've been there before, and I can see that he is [angry],' said a former top aide. 'He's got that look that he's ready to blow.'

Hmm Maybe Colbert's routine wasn't quite long enough after all. Now it seems to me newsworthy that our president has so little emotional maturity and resilience that he almost lost his temper while absorbing Colbert's fairly mild criticism. However, of all the press in attendance, only one paper chose to cover that angle. Why?

Nor is this the first time. Bush's temper and the press' total lack of reporting on it, is a perfect example of what's wrong with the access game as played by WH press Corps. Inside the WH and around town, the figure of the Purple-faced expletive-spewing, short-tempered W is well known and often commented on. He is famous for blowing up at aides and underlings when they deliver bad news to him. In a wartime president this would seem to be a serious character flaw and cause for concern.

However instead of reporting on that, and risk getting a cold shoulder from White House sources, the Press corps dutifully feed America, W the genial, "Aw Shucks" "God-fearin" "g-droppin'" good ol Boy persona that Karl Rove turned this Yale-educated New Englander into during his first gubernatorial run.

In other words they are not only not doing their job, but have now become actively complicit in creating a lie, to further their own quests for status and access.

Worse yet, it's not like the Press's access actually does anything for them. sider this moment from Tuesday's Press Briefing, not 48 hours after this night of bonhomie and "relationship building"

"Q I'm asking you, based on a reporter's curiosity, could he stand under a sign again that says, 'Mission Accomplished'?

Now given that Tuesday was the third anniversary of that infamous day, when Bush announced an "end to Major Combat Operations", and things have gone so very badly since, (another 2000 dead 17,000 wounded)" This seems to a perfectly legitimate question to ask and deserving of an equally simple answer like :

"well obviously given everything we know today, if we had it to do all over again, we wouldn't have used that phrase, But Hindsight is always 20-20 and we believed that at the time"

Now let's Compare that to the answer McClellan gave (or more precisely didn't give):

MR. McCLELLAN: Now, Peter, Democrats have tried to raise this issue, and, like I said, misrepresenting and distorting the past --

{ What?? How did he get to Democrats from that question? And how on Earth can you "misrepresent" something as widely covered as that carrier speech?}

"Q This is not --

"MR. McCLELLAN: -- which is what they're doing, does nothing to advance the goal of victory in Iraq.

{ Which also does Nothing to ANSWER THE QUESTION YOU WERE ASKED}

"Q I mean, it's a historical fact that we're all taking notice of --

"MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think the focus ought to be on achieving victory in Iraq and the progress that's being made, and that's where it is. And you know exactly the Democrats are trying to distort the past.

{ Hmm I guess it must just be my Memory Hole is on the fritz again...I could have sworn Bush landed on a carrier and that "major combat operations are over" in Iraq. But if Scotty says it's a distortion....}

"Q Let me ask it another way: Has the mission been accomplished?

"MR. McCLELLAN: Next question.{ "I care so little for your insignificant punk reporter ass that I am not even going to bother evading your direct questions, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it"

So you can CLEARLY see how a night of making nice with the Administration paid off in the briefing room for those reporters can't you?

The press is supposed to have a professionally adversarial relationship with those in power. That doesn't mean there cannot be a wary friendship between reporters and their subjects, but it does mean that it must first be based on mutual respect. That Simply doesn't exist with this White House. The dynamic in Washington right now is far more like that of an abusive marriage.

The WH smacks reporters around, shows obvious contempt for them, and attacks them for bias when they have anything even slightly negative (even if true) to say. Instead of hitting back, standing their ground and demanding the truth, the press decides that the problem is them maybe they are just too shrill and mean. It's even worse that they'll then play "the loving spouse" and dutifully laugh at all the president's jokes and applaud his wit in public forums like this.
They seem to believe that maybe just maybe if they go out of their way to be extra deferential to the WH in their reporting; if they just try a little harder to be nice, they will be liked and respected again.

Anybody who's ever seen a Lifetime Movie of the Week knows how THAT story always ends.

They even sold our History! Smithsonian 's secret deal with Showtime

2006-04-26T21:03:00.000-04:00

We all know Satayana's Famous warning about those who forget their history; but I wonder what special damnation waits for those who sell it off to the first megacorporation that cuts a check?

Thanks to a secret, no-bid deal cut in the beginning of this year, the complete terms of which they refuse to release, The Smithsonian, "the Nation's Attic", has become Showtime's Candy Store instead.

As part of a near-exclusive deal with Showtime Networks, the Smithsonian Institution is restricting filmmakers' access to its scientists and archives...., Now most filmmakers will not have in-depth use of Smithsonian materials unless they are creating work for the Smithsonian/Showtime unit.

Which means effectively that $800 million a year in taxpayer funds we spend on the venerable institution has just become another form of corporate welfare:

To understand what an utter outrage this deal is you must first understand the incredible depth and breadth of the institution and its archives. First, the Smithsonian is not a single museum but 15 separate museums covering almost every imaginable subject from the Famous Air and Space museum to the National Zoo to the newly opened American Indian Museum. And even that only scratches the surface of what the Institution really is. The institute's archives hold millions of historical

documents, and photographs, miles of film ( 8 million feet in the anthropology archive alone), and thousands of hours of recordings that are unique and able to be found nowhere else in the world. And all of it, every last treasure, was just made off-limits without permission from the Smithsonian's corporate partner Showtime.

Or to quote noted firebrand Documentarian Ken Burns:

"History's just been made for sale to an inside deal," said Ken Burns, the Emmy-winning producer of the documentaries "Baseball" and "The Civil War."

Or to put it even more bluntly:

I was horrified that the Smithsonian would even contemplate a deal that would give a for-profit broadcaster the right of first refusal," said Nina Gilden Seavey, an Emmy-winning filmmaker and director of the Documentary Center at George Washington University. "It is a fire sale of the nation's history."

It is important to understand the contract term "right of first refusal" and what it effectively does to anyone wishing access to the Smithsonian. . Effectively it means that from now on anybody who wants to do ANYTHING about the Smithsonian, its collections, or even staff has to offer to sell Showtime the finished product:

Jeanny Kim, the vice president for media services at Smithsonian Business Ventures, said the filmmakers who were doing "more than an incidental treatment" of a subject mainly from Smithsonian materials or wishing to focus on a Smithsonian curator or scientist would first have to offer the idea to Smithsonian/Showtime. Otherwise, the archives could not be used

Not only is this an outrageous enrichment of a private company at public expense, but it is literally allowing a corporation to spin our history as it sees fit. According to the deal, to get access to the Archives, Filmmakers MUST sell their final products to Showtime if Showtime wishes to purchase them. However there are no control on what Showtime does once the film is in their possession, whether or if they ever air it, and what edits they may chose to make before doing so. They are now free to spin pieces of the historical record anyway they find convenient and no one can effectively rebut them. It almost goes without saying that this is an unbelievably dangerous idea.

Worse yet, Showtime is a only a tiny part of the Communications Giant Viacom. Viacom's other holdings include: CBS, dozens of Local TV and Radio Stations , 20 different cable channels (including MTV and all its demon-spawn), Simon and Schuster publishers, King World Distributors, etc. and it would be utterly naïve to believe that they have no plans for leveraging their access to the Smithsonian's collections for corporate synergy purposes. Those things they find helpful or profitable can be promoted and those they find unhelpful can be suppressed (for example inconvenient historical records that contradict a Blockbuster Biopic made by Paramount, might never see the light of Day if Viacom decided releasing them would hurt the Box office gross)

We have fought hard to save other National treasures like ANWAR, and staked out the principle that sacrificing our natural heritage for short term corporate profits was a bad idea.

That principle has Never been more imperiled than by this back room, still-secret deal that effectively turns over millions or unique and irreplaceable historical records, knowledge and artifacts to a giant entertainment company. If you stood Up for ANWAR it's time to stand again and not let a giant Mega-corporation take sole ownership of your History.

Update [2006-4-19 8:0:8 by Magorn]:
Read this Diary on this deal as well, the author has an excellent sense of what this deal means in a larger context

DeLay's Defense: The Hammer becomes St. Tom the Dumbass

2006-04-10T22:28:00.000-04:00

Good-bye Tommy "the Hammer" Delay, we Hardly Knew ye. We THOUGHT we knew you. The scheming, ruthless operative without heart or scruples who built a Republican majority by nearly single handedly destroying civility, bi-partisanship, ethics or decency in American politics.

Oh but we were so Wrong. You were nothing but a good , decent, principled, if slightly naive man who was led astray by Bad Companions (all of whom conveniently, have already plead guilty). You weren't an evil prick at all, but in fact the Noble Moor undone by a trio of Casio's and their ruthless ambitions.

At least that's what Former DeLay Aide and Current MPAA lobbyist John Feehery would have us believe. This Sunday the Washington Post published his utterly shameless attempt to re-write history on the Front page of their Op-ed section.

To me it signals that Ol' TD is in a LOT more trouble than we previously assumed and He's already laying the groundwork for a Bernie Ebbers "nobody tells me nothin'" style defense

Today, everyone wants to know what Tom DeLay knew and when he knew it. And I can't answer those questions.

But I do know that Tom DeLay achieved great things for the Republican majority, the Congress and for the country. He also created great controversy caused in part by his own aggressive nature, in part by his political enemies, and in part by rogue members of his own staff.

What precisely those "great things" were, strangely, are not mentioned. However, note how already in the opening paragraphs he's already starting to shift the blame away from Delay, who is, in his words at most only partly to blame for his own woes. No more than a third really, the rest is the fault of evil aides and of course, political enemies.

In fact, when you really look at it TOM isn't to blame at all, merely his aggressive nature. See? He's like one of those unfortunate Type A souls who identify their greatest flaw in job interviews as "working TOO hard"

You see, Tom wasn't evil, he just had evil friends

It's a Meme that Feehery will hit early and often in this oversized mash-note. Watch the subtle deflection of blame for this early example of Tom's propensity for slander and character assassination:

It was my first week as Tom DeLay's communications director in late 1995. And we were already in crisis.

On the House floor, DeLay had gotten into a shoving match with a Wisconsin Democrat named Dave Obey. I had no idea what had happened.

While I worked the phones trying to figure out the details, our press secretary, Tony Rudy, wasn't waiting for the facts. He started telling reporters that Obey had called Tom an obscenity too graphic to print in this newspaper.

Later, I asked Tom if it was true.

No, he said, he had never actually heard Obey utter the alleged insult. I called reporters to tell them we couldn't confirm the rumor.{ NB. "couldn't confirm rather than "to tell them my own guy said it was a complete crock} But, of course, it was too late. The rumor had come in part from our own office. And I had my crash course in spin control as played by some members of Team DeLay.

(Historians may wish to note, even at this early date we see a fully formed fossil of the Big Lie, the workhorse of the Republican dirty-tricks playbook)

See? it wasn't Tom Delay who slandered another member of Congress after physically assaulting him, no no. It was Team Delay, particularly, his Evil Aide Tony Rudy.

Of course, the Feehery fails to mention why Good Tom the Honorable, didn't immediately set the record straight and fire Rudy. Ya know, the thing which it seems any honest man would have done in his place? Maybe like our president, his flaw is also he's too darn loyal to people that let him down. He wouldn't want to hurt their feelings by telling them they screwed up after all. Remember, "there is no "You F*'ed Up" in Team".

And let it be noted that Feehery, pulls no punches in identifying other Bad Companions of Mr. Delay's as well, who led him astray. As it happens there were Three:

The overwhelming majority of DeLay's staffers were professional, honest and working in Congress for the right reasons. But Tom prized the most aggressive staffers and most often heeded their counsel. As it turned out, three of them went over the line, abused the trust of House members and seemingly broke the law. A former hockey player, Tony Rudy was DeLay's enforcer; he wasn't evil, but lacked maturity and would do whatever necessary to protect his patron. Ed Buckham, DeLay's chief of staff, gatekeeper and minister, constantly pushed DeLay to be more radical in his tactics and spun webs of intrigue we are only now beginning to unravel. And Michael Scanlon, who, in my experience, was a first-class rogue and a master of deception.

Now, I'm sure this will come as a total shock to you, but it just so happens that these three just happen to be same three aides who have either plead guilty or are facing federal criminal charges. And I' absolutely certain that Feehery's public denunciation of these men exclusively of all Delay's aides has nothing to do with the fact that they are all now cooperating with federal authorities to provide evidence against Good St. Tom.

And notice how Feehery tries to erase the OTHER radioactive elephant in the room with a flick of a paragraph:

In those early days, Jack Abramoff was not a significant presence in our office; we knew him mainly as a friend of Buckham's.

See? In Feehery's desperate attempt at retro-hagiography he reduces the footprint of incredibly guilty slimeball Jack Abramoff. Gone is the uber-fundraiser/fixer who greased the wheels of The Hammer's Machine. Nowhere to be found is the man Tom Delay embraced, golfed with and famously called his "Good and dear friend". Instead he's no more than a friend of Ed Buckham, Delay's aide.

In the Most Shameless, moment of the article (and trust me this was a hard choice given it's contents), Feehery even tries to rehabilitate the Sleaziest thing Tom Delay ever did (and trust me this was a hard choice given his career).

Apparently DeLay's outrageous deep-sixing of a DOJ human rights investigations into the Northern Marianas's Slave-labor Sweatshops WASN'T a blatant example of "Money Talks Politics" NO, to our collective shock Tom Delay protected those Dickensian factories out of principle.

in early 1997 to meet with government officials of Saipan, who were fighting hard to keep Congress and the Clinton administration from imposing minimum-wage and other labor laws. As a former small-business owner, DeLay hated minimum-wage laws and other government mandates, so it was a pretty easy sell.

Oh the Poor Poor Bugman! I imagine that he was forever scarred by having to fork over a whole $4.50 every hour to his minions who only had to risk cancer and the ability to reproduce to spray his wonderful Chemicals! especially when he could have gotten twice as many Mexicans for the same price!

To heear Feehery tell it, one can almost see DeLay pacing in his Congressional offices fuming at these horrible indignities, looking Ahab-like for revenge on this federal behemoth that had so hindered his right to capitalism. Suddenly! There in the Sky someone is calling for help with Adam Smith's Invisible Hand Beacon.

"quick Feehery! the Federal Government is preparing to

spoil the Free market paradise that is the Northern

Marianas Islands! To the Bat(sh*t) Jet!"

"What? we Don't have a BatJet? Well see if Buckham's

friend, what's his name? Abramoff! see if he can get us

one."

"Holy happy coincidences, he just happened to be

planning a trip there himself boss! You'll have to

suffer with 5-star hotel accommodations and endless

rounds of Golf on the nearby resorts, but It's for

a good cause!"

Oddly, also absent from Feehery's fantasy are any mention of the OTHER labor abuses by the NMI Factories. He never really explains Tom's support for practices such as : forcing female workers into sexual slavery, Locking employees into their dorms at night or even forcing pregnant workers to have abortions. But that too I'm sure had something to do with his deeply felt conservative principles.

There is more of this Glurge, but this being a Monday and wanting to spare your potentially delicate digestive systems I think I'll stop with one more excerpt. In the interests of fairness; I hereby warm those who might be diabetic or already feel their gorge rising to avoid it altogether.

Apparently, worried that he was being too subtle or insufficiently obsequious up to this point Feehery closes his article thusly:

Yet, watching him announce his resignation last week brought me great sadness -- sadness that a politician so gifted could take such a fall. DeLay was an amazing legislator, probably the most talented this town has seen since Lyndon Baines Johnson. But like all great men, Tom DeLay had great talents and one great weakness. In his case, it was some staff members run amok. In the end, that weakness forced him to step down.

Why he's not even Shakespearian, he's positively Erupidean is wot he is! Here all this time I thought what laid him low was his lack of ethics, or his wanton disregard for the law, or his reckless willingness to put the good of his party and donors over the good of the country.

Silly Me.

Apparently the truth is it was that nightmare of the HR departments everywhere; Bad Staffers Gone Wild, that laid the great man out. The Poor bugger, all that talent at judging and manipulating and controlling people, and he's brought down by his inability to judge, or control his own staff. It's bloody Ironic it is. Not to mention a complete non-sequitur

Isn't it odd that after 10 years on the Hill and literally thousands of stories with millions of words written about Delay and his operation, this is the very first we've heard of Tom's weak willed nature and his propensity to be dominated by his overbearing staffers?

So what's really going one here?

Well, I will make no claim to psychic powers but I DO have a legal education, and I'm seeing the beginnings of a now-familiar pattern emerging. Like the great corporate CEO's Tom held up for contributions and doled out billions in favors to, Delay seems to be laying the framework for a Dumbass Defense.

Like Healthsouth's Richard Srcushy and Worldcom's Bernie Ebbers and of course Enron's Ken Lay, Delay is trying to reposition himself from ruthless, brilliant, Master of the Universe , to mildly retarded simpleton who was lied to by untrustworthy underlings, all of whom conveniently have already been convicted of crimes.

It's become the fashionable defense of last resort among the incredibly guilty, this season and to me it says volumes that Delay is already laying the groundwork for it.

New GAO report: Abstinence-only strings on AIDS money costing lives

2006-04-07T10:49:00.000-04:00

W's Theocratic pandering is starting to have a body count. Last year, largely as a sop to hard-right religious groups, (many of whom once regarded AIDS as God's punishment), Bush added some unprecedented strings to all US AIDS-prevention money:

President George W. Bush's...AIDS relief plan requires that two-thirds of funds for preventing sexual HIV transmission be used to promote "ABC" programs -- abstain, be faithful or use a condom.

Would you be shocked if I told you this has been a total disaster?

According to GAO audit; thanks largely to those conditions, the money the US is spending on AIDS prevention is doing more harm than good:

An audit by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, Congress's audit and investigative arm, found the spending requirement limited the ability of U.S. workers to address prevention priorities of the countries they serve.

"Seventeen of 20 country teams reported that fulfilling that spending requirement ... presents challenges to their ability to respond to local prevention needs," the GAO audit said.

Once upon a time, it Looked as IF AIDS prevention may have been the one decent thing that W did during his presidency.

In fact, disloyal citizens who haven't recently used their memory hole may recall that in the 2003 State of the Union Address Bush Promised to spend a whopping 15 billion dollars over 5 years to fight the spread of AIDS in the third world.

Given that nearly 20 million have died from AIDS so far in the world and another 30 million are infected in Africa alone, this actually seemed like W was, for once, doing the right thing (as opposed to the Right-wing thing). I for one was cautiously optimistic

DOH!

Fast forward three years. Not only has Bush failed to deliver anywhere NEAR the funds he promised (or even ask for them in his budgets), but thanks to those "ABC" conditions Bush attached to the funding; what we HAVE spent has actually HURT not helped global prevention efforts:

Three countries interviewed by GAO investigators reported that they had to cut back programs to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission. One country reported it had to cut investment in medical and blood safety activities.

And the Country that was facing a severe Condom shortage? Fuhgetaboutit: (after all why would we want our AIDS-prevention money going to the cheapest and most effective way to fight AIDS?)

Another said the ABC spending requirement had complicated efforts to address a condom shortage.

"To reserve funding to procure condoms, the team was required to cut funding for other programs in the 'other prevention' program area and to shift funds from the care category," the report said.

And it's not Just those whacky bi-partisan moonbats at the GAO who think so either. In fact, the same message is being heard from many different experts:

Dr. Paul Zeitz, director of the Washington-based Global AIDS Alliance said the large earmark requirement for abstinence-only forces people on the ground to under fund critical programs.

"The Bush policy on AIDS prevention is unworkable the way it's currently being implemented. The policy is essentially doing more harm than good"

"more Harm than good". Chew on that for a moment. Then consider the enormity of the crime of placing ideological restrictions on money desperately needed to save lives. Its no exaggeration to say that literally millions of lives hang in the balance right now.

Here in America, it's easy to forget there is a pandemic raging, outside. Here, it's easy to forget about AIDS. Thanks to new treatments and drugs, it is no longer an automatic death sentence anymore, people live for decades after becoming HIV+ with no obvious ill effects. If it hasn't affected you personally, it's easy to believe the problem is nearly solved.

It is a VERY different story in the rest of the world however; particularly Africa. Those anti-viral drugs that are SOP here cost more per dose than many people make in a month. Even with Drug give-0away programs and cheaper "counterfeit" AIDS drugs, very few people can sucessfully take them. Those drugs have to be taken daily for YEARS, in a precise regimine, and carefully adjusted over time. In countries where healthcare access is nearly non-existant to start with, the brutal truth is a single person often simply isn't worth that many resources.

As a result, The worldwide statistics on AIDS casualties are staggering:

Since the start of the epidemic 25 Million have died worldwide from AIDS

80% of the worlds current AIDS cases live in Africa

Right now, in Africa alone, there are 30 Millionpeople infected with the AIDS virus

There are already 11 Million "AIDS orphans" in Africa

I try to be open-minded; I try not to hate those I disagree with poltically. I try desperately to tell myself that they are people of good will, and we just have honest disagreements about what's best for our country. I even try, from time to time to put myself in their shoes, and see the world from their eyes. After all, not too long ago, you would have considered me one of them in many ways.

But this time, I'm too angry, too baffled, to even try.

Try as I might, I cannot even imagine what kind of mind it would take, how ideologically twisted you would have to be, to be look at the cataclysmic impact that AIDS has had on the Third World and have the response that W and his administration did.

How can you face a crisis of this proportion and say: "Well Yes, certainly we have to do something about this disease, but what I'm really more concerned about is appearing to condone pre-marital sex . I mean it's all well and good to try to protect people from a sexually transmitted disease; but we can't make it seem like it was okay for them to be having sex in the first place." :

"After all, THAT would be Immoral"

WH Staffers caught impersonating Secret Service agents-Again! +Update on the D3 Case

2006-03-22T12:44:00.000-05:00

Do you Remeber the Denver Three? Those three Ordinary folks folks who were thrown out of a Bush Rally because they committed the horrible crime of having the wrong Bumper Sticker on their car ? Well they are back in the News again it's bad news for the White House

As you may recall, The person who threw them out of the rally, and threatened to arrest them falsely claimed to be a Secret Service Agent (Thereby committing a federal Crime). You may also remember that the Whitehouse described the culprit only as a "local volunteer". Then they refused to any more questions from reporters or Lawyers for the D3.

There have been two big new developments in the case this week:

a Secret Service investigation has positively identified the mystery man as a WH Staffer, thereby proving the WH lied to protect him.

But that's only the begining of the Bad news for the WH. This story now goes beyond the "one misguided staffer" excuse because, 2 MORE WH staffers have been caught red-handed doing it AGAIN this week!:

Let's Start with Further Proof that Scotty MC'C is a Lying weasel: (these days that's the Liberal blogger's equivalent of pre-warm-up stretches):

When Asked about the Man who committed several crimes and blatantly violated the Denver Three's civil rights to boot (42 USC$1983 is the phrase that Pays here.)

Scotty the Weasel would say only this:

MR. McCLELLAN: ... My understanding that a volunteer at this event -- and let me -- I need to back up before that. We use a lot of volunteers at events to help us in a number of different areas because you obviously have -- you tend to have a lot of people come into the event, a lot of logistical support that you need, and so we do rely on volunteers to help in a lot of different ways at events.

Now, in terms of this issue, my understanding is a volunteer was concerned that these three individuals were coming to the event solely for the purpose of disrupting it.

Got it? All nice and Clear now? The offending goon was merely an overzelous local yokel. Case closed. Except, well, not so much.

as the Denver Post is reporting The "overzealous yokels" in question refuse to say who they worked for when asked by the D3's lawyer:

In their lawsuit, Weise and Young claim that White House event staffers Michael Casper and Jay Bob Klinkerman detained them and ejected them from the event at the Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum. However, Casper and Klinkerman say they don't need to reveal whom they worked for because of a "qualified immunity." { I've frankly never heard of such a thing in a civil lawsuit before; I strongly suspect they made it up}

And of course that sort of gives away the store because why would a mere Volunteer have "qualified immunity" to refuse to reveal who it was they weren't working for? But lest there be any doubt, A new Secret Service report confirms their employment:

A White House staff member was responsible for asking three people to leave President Bush's town-hall meeting in Denver a year ago, a U.S. Secret Service agent said during an internal investigation of the event.

So much For Scotty McC's "Magic Volunteer" theory, as the report now makes clear, WH staffers paid for by you and me are impersonating Law-enforcement personnel for the purpose of policing presidential rallies to ensure the ideological purity of attendees. In other words, The Bubble is tax-payer funded.

Not only that, but apparently, lying to people at Random about who they are and who they represent is Far from being a fluke or an aberration these days. As This story in the Mississippi Sun Herald makes clear, Impersonating Secret Service agents, and even Journalists is now SOP for WH Staff:

There was a whirlwind of activity in the days prior to President Bush's arrival at a home on the beach in Gautier last week,...The reason for all the fuss was kept a secret even from the family that received Bush. They didn't know it was prelude to a presidential visit until the day Bush arrived. But one part of the preparation for the President's arrival involved two government agents posing as journalists.

Well they STARTED posing as journalists but the two men, Really WH PR staffers were so inept they couldn't even decide who they were impersonating:

Jerry Akins, who received Bush, mentioned that on the Friday before Bush arrived, two men approached him identifying themselves as members of the media.

He said the men told him they were with Fox News out of Houston, Texas, and were on a "scouting mission" for a story on new construction. ....But after the president left Akins' home, the two men again approached Akins and let him know they were not media after all, but were with the governmental entourage.

Akins said the two showed him blue porcelain lapel pins that contained the Presidential seal and another government official confirmed the two were with the government entourage and not the media. Akins assumed they were Secret Service agents...Akins said he saw no problem with what happened, and agents laughed about their fooling him.

Well I'm glad they had themselves a hearty chuckle over these whacky hijinks. Mr. Akins may have seen nothing wrong with their actions I'd be a hell of a lot more irate (not mention litigious) if I found that unspecified government agents had gained access to MY house under false pretenses.

What strikes me most is how utterly stupid and unnecessary the subterfuge was. It's almost as if lying is a reflex that they fall into by default. What would have been so hard about identifying themselves properly at the outset and told the homeowner what they were doing? After all Mr. Akins appears to have been delighted to have W. visit

There are longstanding rules about government agents not impersonating Journalists, (not even on NOC) and they exist for very good reason. Such impersonations not only destroy the credibility of journalists, but they can also make their job a lot harder by reducing the willingness of people to trust them and endanger their lives by causing them to be seen as potential agents of an enemy and therefore a target. That the WH staffers would violate them, more of less on a lark, lets you know how callously the current WH disregards any law they find inconvenient

Book Those Neo-Nazi Nymphet Rockstars! Anatomy of our broken news media

2006-03-02T15:14:00.000-05:00

For a Snark addict like myself, this is a story that's got it all: Twin blond 12 year old WhitePower rock-stars, White supremacist Record Moguls, A white-trash catfight that involves a former Playboy Playmate and the Stupidest Sentence Ever Uttered by Human Vocal Cords. The Problem is, as I prepared to do a fun little "let's all point and laugh" diary about this Article, I was struck by a deadly serious realization. The fact that I'm even know about these girls illustrates every damn thing that is wrong with what we derisively call our modern "news Media".

But, I'm getting ahead of myself, and there is a bit of Pointing and laughing (or screaming) to be done so that the sheer awfulness of the media treatment of this story can be properly appreciated.

So let's begin at the beginning. Meet Lamb and Lynx Gaede; Neo Nazi Rockers and the scariest twelve year old girls you'll ever meet:

These creepy little moppets together form the band Prussian Blue, the Teeny-pop sensation of the Hate-rock world. The twins got their start as Nazi-Rockers at the tender age of 9 years old, being discovered by a real celebrity of the Neo-Nazi World. Let's call it their Aryan Idol moment:

The origins of Prussian Blue date from a 2001 National Alliance event ..There the girls met William Pierce, who ran the group, long the nation's foremost neo-Nazi organization. Pierce, ...the pseudonymous author of The Turner Diaries, a notorious work of speculative-race-war fiction that reputedly inspired Timothy McVeigh.... At Eurofest the twins sang an a cappella rendition of Brutal Attack's "Ocean of Warriors" (Men and women of valor / Willing to die to reach Valhalla...). Recognizing in these two dirndl-clad moppets a PR dream come true, Pierce suggested that they record a CD for ...Resistance Records..

But being only nine they new very little about music(hey it didn't stop Bittney or Jessica so why should it slow them down?), and so needed a year to learn how to actually sing and play instruments. But they were quick studies and after a crash course in music a studio was booked and a record was born:

They recorded "Fragment of the Future". The album includes a cover of "Panzerlied," an old Wehrmacht battle hymn (featuring a rhythm track of marching jackboots), and "The Lamb Near the Lane," a folksy collaboration between Lamb and convicted Order thug David Lane, who, [is] sentenced to 190 years on charges of racketeering and civil rights violations. "Sacrifice," is Lamb's baby. She wrote the music and the words, which pay homage to her personal heroes, including Bob Matthews and Rudolph Hess.

On "Victory Day," , the girls apply their tremulous voices to a heartfelt ode to "a great war, a bloody but holy day."

Sadly there was no follow-up to their smash debut effort. Mr. Turner passed away and Manager Mom April had a falling out with the his successor at Aryan Nation Inc. It seems that while She apparently had no problem with her pre-pubescent daughters being pen-pals with incarcerated violent felons, she still had her standards. Lynn was reportedly scandalized to discover that the New Boss' Ex-Playmate (Erika Snyder)girlfriend had stripped for black men early in her career. She And tried force an emergency board meeting to wrest power away from them, but insttead she was booted from the label.

The Equal oppurtunity Stripper, Erika, for her part, "seriously questioned" April's commitment to ~~Sparkle Motion~~ The White Power Movement. As Erika later said, in an aneurysm- inducing sentence,: "A lot of people get into Racism for the Wrong reasons".

(Thus Louis Black's immortal Sentence "If it weren't for that horse..." has finally been surpassed for utter mind-boggling stupidity)

Well whether she's a racist for the right reasons or not, April has taken great care that her home schooled daughters have learned their catechism of hate properly. Listen to then expound on Political science:

"People want to depict everything that happened in World War II Germany as marching around killing Jews," April says. "They don't want to understand how the whole ideology of National Socialism is really a beautiful thing. I mean, it really is."

History and Current events:

The Gaedes don't really believe all those stories about the Holocaust. ...

Concentration camps? Sure, but only because the Jews were working against the interests of the state, just like what the American government did to the Japanese and is doing now to Muslims. "I don't deny that Jewish people died and were rounded up and put into camps," she elaborates. "But I don't think it's as drastic as they say." Gas chambers? April and the girls aren't buying it.

and Moral Philosophy:

I'm sure the Germans killed a lot of people," April concedes. "But Stalin killed a lot of people, and the U.S. government killed a lot of people, too. Look, the lies concerning Adolf Hitler have become so bizarre. But think about it: He was a human being. Even if you believed in the Final Solution, he'd still be a human being. The man's been vilified.

If you have the stomach for it, there's a lot more of the same spew in the article. Suffice it to say these girls are the frighteningly happy and freshly scrubbed product of a seriously twisted upbringing.

And that, Dear Reader is where the Media gets involved and makes things so much worse. You see, this is the part of the story where Lamb and Lynx go from being obscure teen idols of the New Hitler Youth set, to legitimately famous media-made celebrities. How?

They got on TV dummy.

First it was a Primetime Live: Story That had all the depth and context of an "Action News 5 special report":

Thirteen-year-old twins Lamb and Lynx Gaede have one album out, another on the way, a music video, and lots of fans.

They may remind you of another famous pair of singers, the Olsen Twins, and the girls say they like that. But unlike the Olsens, who built a media empire on their fun-loving, squeaky-clean image, Lamb and Lynx are cultivating a much darker persona. They are white nationalists and use their talents to preach a message of hate.

(Can't you just hear the synthesizer riff in the background turn Dark and disapproving? And don't you just know the Correspondant will come on after the segement and talk to the Anchor with a brow furrowed by Deep Concern? )

Basically the piece was standard bit of Phone-it-in TV Newsmag reporting.

First they get their facts wrong:

Known as "Prussian Blue" -- a nod to their German heritage and bright blue eyes --

No Sorry the real reason is far darker and more offensive:

the name Prussian Blue refers to a chemical residue that Holocaust deniers claim should have been detected in greater concentrations on the walls of the gas chambers if all those rumors of Zyklon B were true.

Just a leetle Different No?

Then they run the Disapproving Quote from a talking head:

"It really breaks my heart to see those two girls spewing out that kind of garbage," said Ted Shaw, civil rights advocate and president of the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund -- though Shaw points out that the girls aren't espousing their own opinions but ones they're being taught.

and then a touch of False Equivalency lest they be accused of , ya know, having an opinion on whether racism is right or wrong:

On that point, April Gaede and Ted Shaw apparently agree.

"Well, all children pretty much espouse their parents' attitudes," she said. "We're white nationalists and of course that's a part of our life and I'm going to share that part of my life with my children."

See? She's Not a monster. In her heart she's merely a Good Mom.

In the wake of this interview of course, the Geades were shunned by their community and took a good long look at the twisted creatures they had allowed themselves to become. Meanwhile the rest of the Media, sensing, not a whit of actual news value in this story, and having national and international crises to cover, ignored it completely.

Yeah. Right. As IF.

Primetime mainstreamed us!" April marvels. "I don't think a white-pride band has ever gotten this kind of media attention before. I mean, these two girls have become some of the most powerful people in white nationalism."

Can You say "val-i-dation" I though you could. Instead of perhaps forcing April to confront how badly she had poisoned the minds of her offspring and warped their childhoods; Primetime Live's little puff piece had bestowed upon this twisted little clan the secular imprimatur of Celebrity. They MUST be good people, since after all they're famous. The reaction from the rest of the media pack didn't help puncture that feeling either. No sooner had the Phosphors faded off the TV screen, that the producer pack started calling and sucking up:

The morning after the Primetime debut, the Gaedes' phone wouldn't stop ringing.. "The call-waiting was like beep-beep-beep," April reports. "Every single news thing that you've ever heard of called us."

In the Carny Sideshow that passes for the Mainstream Media these days, it seems these two particular freaks we a must have:

Dr. Phil's people left a message, she says. And Paula Zahn's. Newsweek. Good Morning America. Elle Girl. The Los Angeles Times.

booker for Maury even sent Flowers,though the Gaedes would really fall for something like that. April ignored them all, planning to lie low for a while.

She relented only for Teen People (the girls begged her), especially after, she says, someone at the magazine offered to do an "as told to" piece that April could see before it went to press.

YEP. you read that right, Teen People, apparently running low on Hunky guys they could profile to sell zit cream, decided to essentially violate all rules of journalistic ethics and offer to do a "fluff job " (in the porn industry sense of the word,) on a pair of Pre-teen Hatemongers.

Of course it wasn't all ego-stroking and roses. There was some negative reporting:

The news wasn't all good, however. April's ex-husband Kris Richard Lingelser was soon enjoying a bit of limelight, too, telling Inside Edition he was planning to sue for custody of his daughters.{Though strangely no one asked him where his outrage at thier upbringing was before there were TV cameras to talk to}

Then the Teen People story was killed after the terms of the offer were reported in the press.

Apparently there still IS a bit of vestigial shame left somewhere at People-at least when they get caught.

Ironically in the midst of all this adulation, like the deluded Wignuts of Freeperville April STILL thinks she's the victim of media bias:

April doesn't expect a fair shake from the mainstream press. Jews are disproportionately represented in the media, she says. But all publicity is good publicity.

That last sentence, to sum up this overly long rant is the key to understanding the probably terminal sickness that now afflict our Mainstream Media outlets. They aren't even trying to inform anymore, they are even attempting to explain. Why Should they bother when Titillating and scandalizing is so much easier? A good shocking segment on photogenic Neo-Nazis will put far more eyeballs on the screen than an investigative piece on faulty intelligence that took three weeks to piece together.

Worse yet, the the more a story is hyped the better it is for all involved. Each successive story gets a hype boost from the one previous, while requiring little or no original reporting. This virtually guarantees a Pack mentality among reporters and producers. Watch the Hype machine in motion:

1) An enterprising Primetime Live identifies these girls as the prefect target of a fluff pieces and shoots the story, slaps a quick edit on it and airs it; but only (after endless "you won't believe this" promos running during other TV Shows.

2) Seeing the segment; a hack Teen People editor, senses a trend decides that the girls are a "must have" and offers the mother any deal she wants just so long as he gets the story to slap on his front page to leverage the exposure they got on ABC to sell his magazine.

3) After the mini-scandal about People's obsequieos offer to the twins gets leaked; Inside Edition sees its chance, and dispatches a reporter to grab a few disapproving quotes from the father which they can run as "a world wide exclusive".

4) Some other media Outlet now has Free reign to run a "controversy erupts around Nazi-Singers" ( no need to give any more background than that since at this point they are already almost a household name, at least to Daytime TV watchers)

5) Finally we come to one of the bigger daily or newsweekly rags who have an actual journalistic reputation to protect, but who also desperately want 'in' on this story. At this point in the Story Cycle, they can go all _meta and do a story on the controversy about whether the Teen Nazi Story is being over hyped by the media.

6) Whereupon ABC news gets to do a follow up piece....

You get the idea . And what makes matters worse is, Like April Gaede, the subjects of these stories quickly become media Savvy enough to realize their value to the media outlets and start demanding concessions to further promote their agenda and celebrity. ABC et al wanted a titillating Freak show to put on during sweeps, and they Mom obliged, knowing she'd get what SHE wanted too: a a wider audience for her messages of hatred and intolerance, and Free marketing for her kids.

In fact, capitalizing on their fame, Prussian Blue is working on another album, but they are keeping the location secret because they have had a few threats of violence lately. As mom April says:

"You wouldn't believe how intolerant some people can be"

FBI wants to track your movements with your phone- another warrantless spy program exposed

2006-02-17T09:42:00.000-05:00

Now we all already know that "we're the Government-you can trust us " is already one of the Three Great Lies (the other two being "the Check is in your Mouth " and "I promise not to cum in the mail"-{ or something like that}).

But it's worth noting that the FBI has recently been making routine use of another scary intelligence gathering capability they Double-secret promised to NEVER use without a warrant; the ability to Track you through your cellphone:

But the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice have seized on the ability to locate a cellular customer and are using it to track Americans' whereabouts surreptitiously--even when there's no evidence of wrongdoing. { And therefore no warrant either-ed}

A pair of court decisions in the last few weeks shows that judges are split on whether this is legal. One federal magistrate judge in Wisconsin on Jan. 17 ruled it was unlawful, but another nine days later in Louisiana decided that it was perfectly OK.

Which is a bit of a reversal from the solemn promise then FBI Director Louis Freeh made to Congress in 1992:

Several privacy-based spokespersons have criticized the wording

Of the definition regarding this long-standing requirement, alleging

That the government is seeking a new, pervasive, automated "tracking"

Capability. Such allegations are completely wrong. ...

information obtained from "true" tracking devices, which can

Require a warrant or court order when used to track within a private

Location not open to public view. .. Even when such generalized location information, or Any other type of "transactional" information, is obtained from communications service providers, court orders or subpoenas are required and are obtained....

we are prepared to add a concluding phrase to this definition to explicitly clarify the point: except that such

Information (call setup information) shall not include any information that may disclose the physical location of a mobile facility or service beyond that associated with the number's area code or exchange."

Now you may be unaware of this, but if your cell phone was made after about 2000, it broadcasts a signal that uniquely identifies you and identifies your location to within a few feet; or even inches. The FCC has required every phone sold since 2002 be able to do this.

Now to be fair, the primary reason for this requirement was altruistic. The FCC wanted police and firefighters to be able locate cellular 911 callers who were unable to give their location, just as they can with landlines. As a result, The FCC made it mandatory for all cell phones to have either GPS or E911 technology that allows them to be precisely located and tracked. (Oh and by the way you cannot turn this feature off and it may work even when your phone is off )

Well, back in the simplier more civil liberty-friendly 90's, even the ability to "triangulate" a cell phone's location to within a block or two by comparing signal bounce rates off local cell towers so alarmed privacy advocates that, there was ferocious opposition to letting law enforcement access this information. In fact; the `94 law probably wouldn't have passed without Director Freeh's emphatic promises about judicial safeguards and compromises as the wording.

Well, as they say around Washington, "that statement is no Longer operable" or in the vernacular of the Playground: "psyche!"

Our new Privacy hatin' FBI has thought nothing of making routine use of these signals, with nothing more than a subpoena

( According to the EFF's Amicus Brief in one such case:

Last month, the court denied a Justice Department request to monitor a cell phone's location. The ruling revealed that the DOJ has routinely been securing court orders for real-time cell phone tracking without probable cause and without any law authorizing the surveillance.

I suppose we should be grateful that they are even seeking subpoenas anymore. The Question is, for how long? Until now, the case law has been crystal clear on this In U.S. v. Karo 468 US 705 (1984-appropriately enough) The court emphatically ruled that:

The monitoring of a beeper in a private residence, a location not opened to visual surveillance, violates the Fourth Amendment rights of those who have a justifiable interest in the privacy of the residence. ....The result is the same where, without a warrant, the Government surreptitiously uses a beeper to obtain information that it could not have obtained from outside the curtilage of the house.

Unfortunately this administration has a strange case of amnesia when it comes to legal precedents they don't like

Despite this case, the Government has asserted in recent cases that warrants are never required since we voluntarily tell the government where we are when we use these phones. as recently Argued in this case:

A cell phone user voluntarily transmits a signal to the cell phone company and thereby assumes the risk that the cell phone provider will reveal to law enforcement the cell site information."

This is an EXTREMELY scary position to stake out because he is in effect trying to undermine the fact that a cell phone user has "a reasonable expectation of privacy" about their location. The government is essentially trying to claim the unlimited right to track ANY person for ANY Reason at all, ANY Where. If you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy, then thee is no limit to the search the government can conduct at its whim.

So far, fortunately only one Court, in Louisiana, has agreed with them on this issue and two-one in New York and the Other in Wisconsin have shot the government down. That means it's still early in this fight, and since the battle is being fought openly in the courts rather than in secret we have a better chance of fighting back.

But fight back we need to. Everyday I feel like we're sliding further from a citizens of free country with civil liberties, and closer to becoming residents of Bentham's Panopticon. Worse yet, as the last five years have made clear, those who should be the inmates are currently running the asylum

(kudos to Declan McCullagh for staying on top of this story)

99.80% Error rate! NSA Leaks destroy legal defenses of wiretaps!

2006-02-07T10:49:00.000-05:00

It seems that enough is enough even for the super-spooks. Someone at NSA has Come forward and given the Washington Post unprecedented detail about the operation of the warrantless wiretap program.

Intelligence officers who eavesdropped on thousands of Americans in overseas calls ...have dismissed nearly all of them as potential suspects , according to accounts from current and former government officials ...

The Bush administration refuses to say -- in public or in closed session of Congress -- how many Americans in the past four years have had their conversations recorded or their e-mails read...Two knowledgeable sources placed that number [at]...about 5,000 [of those] Fewer than 10 a year...have aroused enough suspicion... to justify interception of their domestic calls, as well.{which without a doubt requires court order}

This is BIG, because it effectively destroys the already dubious legal arguments put forward to defend the program:

Up until now the Government's argument has gone something like this "well Yes we don't have a warrant, but the Fourth amendment only requires probable cause , not a warrant and trust us, we've always probable cause before wiretapping, so the Fourth Amendment is safe and sound. Sleep tight...and uhh...don't mumble so much when you talk on the phone."

BZZZZT! As Alex Trbek would say, " No Sourrey, that's not a correct answer"

Yah see, finding that pabable cause exists is a TWO pronged test, and as of today's revelations, the NSA wiretaps Utterly fail the second part:

National security lawyers, in and out of government, said the washout rate raised fresh doubts about the program's lawfulness under the Fourth Amendment, because a search cannot be judged "reasonable" if it is based on evidence that experience shows to be unreliable.

Bingo! give that reporter a Giant Cigar! That's right Kids, no matter how much probable cause, reasonable suspicion, or even reasonable probability (I think I just made that one up), the government can show, it don't mean a thing unless they can also satisfy a judge that the source of the information is reliable.

Or if you prefer your legalese straight up without a chaser:

The second part of the two part test was most famously described in the landmark case of Aguilar vs. US 378 US 108(1964) :

[for Probable cause to issue a warrant to exist] the magistrate must [Also] be informed of some of the underlying circumstances relied on by the person providing the information and some of the underlying circumstances from which the affiant concluded that the informant,....is creditable or his information reliable

In plain English this is an easy distinction to understand. Consider this example:

A random person walks up to a police officer and alleges drugs are being sold at a nearby house. The officer seeks a warrant based on the statement to raid the house? Is it there enough probable cause to issue a warrant?

Now suppose that person is not random but the police officer's regular snitch, who has provided hundreds of reliable tips in the past and is willing to state on the record he saw the drugs with his own two eyes.

The difference is obvious. Both requests for warrants are based on the same evidence; a statement by an eyewitness to illegal activity. However, with one you have no way of measuring the credibility of the witness, but in the second you do. This is exactly why the Court requires both prongs to be satisfied before probable cause exists.

And right now that second prong is a BIG problem for the government:

The minimum legal definition of probable cause, said a government official who has studied the program closely, is that evidence used to support eavesdropping ought to turn out to be "right for one out of every two guys at least."

Compare that to the hit rate of 1 in every 500 or so. As it works now, there is simply no way to argue this program is legal under existing law., and its pretty clear Bush's boys knew that from the get go.

Those who devised the surveillance plan, the official said, "knew they could never meet that standard -- that's why they didn't go through" the court that supervises the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA.

and even if we were to spot them some lower standard of evidence (which they argued for despite without any constitutional justification), they STILL fall woefully short:

Michael J. Woods, who was chief of the FBI's national security law unit until 2002, said in an e-mail interview that even using the lesser standard of a "reasonable basis" requires evidence "that would lead a prudent, appropriately experienced person" to believe the American is a terrorist agent. If a factor returned "a large number of false positives, I would have to conclude that the factor is not a sufficiently reliable indicator and thus would carry less (or no) weight."

This may explain why the government has so rarely actually tried to get actual warrants based on these wiretaps:

Hayden said the government goes to the intelligence court when an eavesdropping subject becomes important enough to "drill down," as he put it, "to the degree that we need all communications."

Yet a special channel set up for just that purpose four years ago has gone largely unused,. Since early 2002, when the presiding judge of the federal intelligence court first learned of Bush's program, he agreed to a system in which prosecutors may apply for a domestic warrant after warrantless eavesdropping on the same person's overseas communications. The annual number of such applications, a source said, has been in the single digits.

That high Washout rate may have something to do with the fact that event he agents working the project acknowledge it's basically BS:

Other officials, said the prevalence of false leads is especially pronounced when U.S. citizens or residents are surveilled. No intelligence agency, ... believes that "terrorist . . . operatives inside our country," as Bush described the surveillance targets, number anywhere near the thousands who have been subject to eavesdropping.

Let that one sink in for a sec. They are tapping THOUSANDS of Phones and E-mail, even though they know only the smallest fraction of them are even potentially valid targets. In fact, supporters of the program, rather than try to deny this fact instead have tired to set an incredibly low threshold for deeming it a success:

Contributors to the technology said it is a triumph for artificial intelligence if a fraction of 1 percent of the computer-flagged conversations guide human analysts to meaningful leads.

By which they don't even mean finding actual bad guys trying to attack us but rather

Even unwitting Americans, they said, can take part in communications -- arranging a car rental, for example, without knowing its purpose -- that supply "indications and warnings" of an attack.

That's right, checking to make sure the Ford Escort you rented to visit Aunt Millie isn't an integral part of some obscure terrorist plot is precisely the sort of thing we should be devoting our limited manpower and resources to no?

The legal justifications for this program were always at best, a tiny fig leaf to try to lend the slightest appearance of decency to a naked power grab. As of today's revelations of the real scope of the wiretaps and the incredibly minuscule number of hits, it isn't even that anymore. It's time we started saying it emphatically. This program IS and always has been illegal. Period.

Update [2006-2-7 7:47:28 by Magorn]: I should Clarify one item in this diary. The 5,000 number only represents those actively eavesdropped on for an extended period of time. The raw number of intercepted communications/ scanned e-mail however, numbers in the 100,000's if not millions. see this diary for more detail

--------

At Least SOMEBODY at the WaPo Gets it!: (but the Editor STILL doesn't)

2006-01-25T22:38:00.000-05:00

Dan "the Man" Froomkin, Wapo.com's blogger extraordinaire is back from paternity leave and he came back swinging. His brilliant comments today
in his weekly online chat prove there is at least ONE person at the Post who really GETS it when it comes to the Howell controversy.

Asked about the Controversy, Froomkin, who had himself been the target of Howell's poison pen (sparking a Post Blog explosion all its own) Pulled no punches:

I think washingtonpost.com's comment cutoff was a mistake. It's a big paradigm shift for people used to controlling every word that appears in their newspapers -- but online, a little loss of control pays off big time.

We should glory in the passion of our readers. We should listen to what they have to say, respond to their concerns, and if necessary correct their misimpressions. In short, we should empower the reader, not shut the reader up -- even temporarily.

Dan also lays the wood to Howell in no uncertain terms:

On the specific underlying issue, it's worth pointing out that the flashpoint for all this was a flatly inaccurate statement by the ombudsman -- that was then left uncorrected and unaddressed for several days

So much for Debbie's "poor me, I was just misunderstood" fig leaf.

Then he cuts the legs out from under Jim Brady's excuse about getting the vapors from all the naughty words and unkind things the readers were saying:

Furthermore, the fact is that the over-the-top abusive comments were in a tiny minority. From what I can tell, the vast majority of posts were passionate, articulate, reasoned, interesting.

In fact, the quality of the discourse in washingtonpost.com blog comments and Live Onlines (and in my e-mails) is extraordinary. It enriches our site enormously.

Well imagine that, a reporter who actually values the opinions of readers. And then almost a coup de grace he actually praises the readers for being PO'ed about Howell's column. As far as he's concerned, getting Angry when the Post prints BS is a good thing.

Preach it Brother!:

The Web offers great newspapers the opportunity to correct their mistakes quickly and effectively. When we don't, I'm actually quite happy to see people getting angry.

Can I get an Amen?

It's almost as if he values accuracy, and is concerned with the Post's credibility or something. Strange. Also a Pity the editor couldn't find it in himself to care about such things. (too preoccupied with the potty-mouths in the peanut gallery apparently)

Well its about Damn Time. It's refreshing to see somebody at the Wapo.com finally stand up and speak the truth to power, even if the power is his own boss.

In fact, I think Froomkin's one mistake today, was a misplaced faith that his boss Jim Brady, editor of the Washington Post.com and the man responsible for shutting down the blogs, actually GOT it.

In his Chat Froomkin (The Post.com's former #2 editor BTW) said of his boss :

The good news is that my understanding is that comments will be back soon. I think Jim Brady understands better than most that when you're lucky enough to matter so much to people that they want to engage with you, let them!

Perhaps. But as it happened Brady was at the very same time having his own online Chat today (on a panel with the writers of Buzz Machine, firedoglake; PressThink and Instapundit). And I must say he was showing precious few signs of the enlightenment Froomkin ascribed to him.

During the Chat, both panelists and chatters made good points which framed the controversy excellently:

Seattle, Wash.: The Post's dramatic over-reaction to some critics has, in effect, broadly painted all Democrats on the left as vulgar. Last night, one of the sillier TV pundits characterized blog reaction to Howell's column as "organized terrorism." What can The Post do to tamp down this sort of dangerous mischaracterization, and how can readers who care enough to participate in the dialogue trust that they won't again all be treated as barbarians when they disagree?

Jay Rosen: I think it would have been wise if Deborah Howell, in her latest piece, "The Firestorm Over My Column," had elected to share with readers not only the rude, crude and disgusting things sent her way, but some of brilliant and inspired ones that made her think, caused her to question herself, or introduced problems she had never considered before....

Jane Hamsher: The post.com should be thrilled by the passion and intelligence and civility exhibited by the vast, vast majority of commenters.

Over at Kos, someone compared an archived version of the original comments on the "Maryland Moment" blog with the ones that were restored and found only ten that were deemed so "offensive" that they had to be deleted. That's a 99% civility rate. I think most people who run a public board would think that was remarkable.

Sadly though, Brady responded to all this thoughtfulness by pulling a Scotty McC and clinging to his now thoroughly discredited original story with a death grip.

Jim Brady: I have made this point countless times, but to no avail. The cached posts you see don't include any of the posts we removed. Simple as that. When we saw them, we took them down, which means they weren't live and thus not on that cached page. So analyzing that page and drawing conclusions is faulty.

however mere minutes later that lie is put to rest once and for all :

[ in response to another query on the same subject]

Jame Hamsher:..

Are you saying that these messages, which you are saying you pulled, never appeared on the blog?

Jim Brady: Not at all. They were there and we removed them. And thus they would not appear in a cached page, which is essentially a snapshot in time. If they weren't live at the moment the page was cached, you wouldn't see them.

Ahh but if they WERE then We WOULD have now wouldn't we?

Then a panelist cut to the chase and asked the million dollar question:

Jane Hamsher: Jim, Jane here. I'm just wondering, did you filter messages before they were seen publicly or after? We know that posts were removed and then restored at various times over the last week. But what is puzzling is that some messages with profanity were restored while others with strictly appropriate political content were not. Can you explain?

Apparently not, because he never even attempted to respond to that question, instead he ignored it completely even after Hamsher asked it again and included a Link to the specific comments (the KOS diary natch.)

After Jim Ducked that question Hamsher tried another, this time asking for an answer to the simple factual question of precisely HOW MANY nasty posts there were (an issue it's fair to say, was central to justifying the action) .

This time Brady doesn't ignore her but instead turns on her with a nasty personal attack (ironically the very thing he complained about readers doing)

Jane Hamsher: There is a big difference between "several" and "hundreds." Is it a "dozen" as Strauss said, or "hundreds" as Brady said in the Hugh Hewett interview?

I think Jim Brady owes us some specifics.

Jim Brady: I don't know the exact number, but I can assure you it was more than dozen. I removed about 50 myself.

And, Jane, since you obviously don't want to discuss the topic at hand and would instead prefer to play Columbo, let me pose a question to you: I looked at your blog last night in preparation for this, and in addition to all the nice things you had to say about me, I noticed that you often link to "WaPo" articles that are critical of the Bush Administration and give them your implied endorsement. But then when we publish something that doesn't fit into your worldview, we're called "shills of the GOP." Which is it? You can't have it both ways, but you seem to want to.

Can it really be so that the editor of the largest online newspaper in the country is so clueless about blog culture as to believe that linking to an article means you are giving it an "implied endorsement"?

Brady then continued his forthcoming ways by brushing off questions about why Howell, who had started the feces-storm with her lazy reporting, wasn't participating in the Chat:

Jim Brady: Deborah has chosen for the time being not to any live discussions, but we've talked about it, and you'll see her on here at some point.

ah well. there it is then. The Post lets Howell publish a poor poor pitiful me Column but then lets her hide under the desk rather than face the people she insulted in it. So much for that whole "valuing interactivity thing

Well Since Jim Never did get off his talking points and into a real discussion, I think I'll let this participant speak for me:

Artesia, N.M.: Jim Brady, you're trying to define the primary issue as civility -- as if it's a shock that people use bad language. But the primary issue is credibility. The Post's ombudsman relayed a blatantly false Republican talking point, offered a late and grudging limited "apology", and then you shut down a forum that showed your customers were angry about it. Stop acting like you never heard bad language before and start addressing the actual issue.

Update [2006-1-25 17:6:13 by Magorn]:
Be sure to also Read this Diary which contains some interesting inside information from Hamsher about how Brady manipulated the Chat

Republicans Unveil New Ethics Plan. No. Really. Seriously

2006-01-25T22:36:00.000-05:00

Since apparently nobody can find the old one, House Republicans redefined the word Chutzpah today and Unveiled a New Ethics Bill

Described here in completely neutral language by the WaPo

House Republicans moved to seize the initiative for ethics reform Tuesday with a comprehensive package of changes including the banning of privately sponsored travel like that arranged by convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.{ shocker}

The package also includes a virtual ban on gifts,{ didn't we HAVE one of these Already?} except for inconsequential items like baseball caps,{ soon to be Made of SOLID GOLD} and a provision that will affect few people: elimination of congressional pensions for anyone convicted of a felony related to official duties. { all other felony convictions are apparently Hunky-dory with them}

Strangely the Earth Did NOT, I repeat Not, open up and swallow the Republican Caucus whole, after they introduced the legislation.

But this Smarmy exercise in message muddling wasn't done yet, as apparently the Republicans were trying to set some sort of Olympic record for keeping a straight face:

House Speaker Dennis Hastert Showing reporters exactly how large he believes his testicles are for daring to use the words "Republicans" and "Ethics" in the same sentence

The Bill was an expected montage of silly half-measures and partisan gamesmanship:

Members of Congress [currently are limited to] only those gifts valued at under $50, with a ceiling of $100 from any one individual in a year. {which strangely didn't stop Abramoff from handing out thousands of dollars of swag with little or no hindrance}

Hastert and Dreier said their gift ban would be "significantly stronger" { but Just as loophole ridden and useless}

[However they said it] would not prevent members from accepting a baseball hat or a T-shirt from visiting middle-school students. ( because their only concern besides Puppies and flowers is protecting those poor middle school kids whose Dreams and hopes would be Simply CRUSHED if they Couldn't give a T-shirt to congressman}

Hastert went on to further tempt the Almighty to smite him down by saying :

"I know that fact-finding trips are important,{ Hell I'd gotten my handicap down to a 4 thanks to those ST. Andy's weekends} but private travel has been abused by some," Hastert, R-Ill., told a news conference.

And he is of course very about the corrupting influence of large contributions---going to the other side

Hastert said ethics reform should also include the issue of spending by tax-exempt partisan groups known as 527s. In the last election such groups spent $544 million, according to one estimate, and tended to favor Democrats.

Which of Course has Precisely nothing to do with accepting Difts and trips from lobbyists, but hey, nothing like a bracing non-sequitur or two to further muddle an issue eh wot?

And for a rousing Lie De Force finale, Hastert went on to Deny that this legislation was somehow belated or a knee-jerk reaction to current news:

Hastert, at his news conference, shrugged off criticisms that he had put off action on lobbying reform and was only responding when his own party faced a crisis.

"A year ago most people around Congress couldn't tell you who Jack Abramoff was," he said.

{"Hell we were getting so many bribes in those days we didn't even bother to try to remember Names. We just took the money, passed the bills and ---oh hell did I say that out loud?"}

Which is a touch like saying the Titanic has some minor structural damage.

But passing Even this ~~Pathetic Figleaf~~ bill won't be easy. Before the reciever was even cold on the Conference call; senior Republicans were reverting to their true form and defending the status Quo at the trough:

Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., who is running to succeed DeLay as majority leader, put out a statement that "many trips are truly educational, and I believe a complete ban on all private travel would be an overreaction that doesn't get to the root of the problem."

{ "which is, of course, that we are a bunch of corrupt good Ol' Boys who are completely dependant on illegal Corporate contributions to continue to hold power on the Hill", he Didn't go on to say but should have.}

Folks, Sometimes the Res Ipsa Loquitor "The thing speaks for itself." This is one of those times, Mostly because I'm feeling a touch naseous now from the stench of hypocrisy coming off the article. We Can't let this one slide

Cronyism kills Again!: BushCo gutted MSHA enforcement, forced out Whistle blowers

2006-01-09T12:02:00.000-05:00

Deep in your soul, you knew it was his fault. And you were right.

When you saw the faces of the grieving families, the tragic pictures of the bodies being hauled to the surface, and W's sanctimonious mug pontificating from the podium, you knew the whole thing stunk somehow. Mine explosions? dead workers? Did we fall into a time warp back to 1920 somehow? Didn't we have rules about worker safety to prevent this sort of thing?

Well the answers in reverse order are: yes we did once; and politically, yes we have.

Welcome to the New Gilded Age, a place where MSHA engineers can be canned for having the temerity to demand that large politically connected corporations play by the same safety rules as everyone else; and where politically connected foxes are given the job of protecting the chicken coop.

This is a story you may already know but it's time to take another look at it in light of recent events. Its the story of whistleblower Jack Spadaro

Spadaro's Story Starts with the largest Mine Disaster in US History:

On Oct. 11, 2000, in Inez, Ky.,..a coal-waste reservoir the size of 306 Olympic-size swimming pools sprang a leak. Within six hours, 300 million gallons of thick sludge had flooded out of the Big Branch Refuse ...Ten days later, an inky plume appeared in the Ohio River. On its 75-mile path of destruction, the sludge obliterated wildlife, killed 1.6 million fish, ransacked property, washed away roads and bridges, and contaminated the water systems of 27,623 people. ...the EPA declared the spill the largest environmental catastrophe in the history of the southeastern United States...The Inez disaster was almost 30 times larger than the infamous Exxon Valdez tanker spill,

Jack Spadaro, head of MSHA's Mine Safety Institute, was brought in to investigate, and he As later he told 60 Minutes uncovered evidence that the "accident" was really the result of gross negligence on the part of the Coal Company:

During the investigation carried out by Spadaro and his colleagues, it came out that there had been a previous spill in 1994 at the same impoundment. The mining company claimed it had taken measures to make sure it wouldn't happen again, but an engineer working for the company said the problem had not been fixed, and that both he and the company knew another spill was virtually inevitable.

Unfortunately soon after, W got elected/selected/appointed, and someone decided to put the brakes on the investigation

(quoting the Atlantic monthly article again)

two days before President Bush's inauguration, Spadaro and his team were abruptly assigned a new boss to lead the investigation. Immediately after taking charge, Thompson told Spadaro's team that they had one week to conclude the investigation. ....Spadaro...had counted on having four or five more months to complete their work.

And then the Whitewash began in earnest:

The new head of MSHA, a Bush appointee named Dave Lauriski, was a former mining industry mining executive ,..Spadaro says Lauriski came into his office one day, and insisted he sign a watered down version of the report -- a version that virtually let the coal company and MSHA off the hook.

"He said , `I'm in a hard spot here and I need you to sign this report," recalls Spadaro. "I said, `You'd best take my name off that report because I'm never going to sign that report.'"

... in the end, Massey Energy was only cited for two violations, and had to pay approximately $110,000

Spadaro, for complaining publicly about the whitewash, and starting an IG investigation of no-bid MSHA contacts given to Lauriski cronies , was harassed and then railroaded out of the agency over a disputed $22.50 in Cash advance fees on his government issued credit cards:

[MSHA] deputy assistant secretary, John Caylor threatened to fire him if he didn't stop raising questions about the no-bid contracts.

Just one month after Caylor's threat, Spadaro's government credit card and travel records were audited. It turned out he had used his government credit card to take out cash advances when he needed money to entertain dignitaries and students at the academy. The processing fees for those 13 cash advances totaled $22.60. ... Spadaro was told that his abuse of the credit card was a "serious offense."

If this charge had been anymore trumped up, they would have needed to bring out Ol' Live Weasel Toupe Himself to tell Spadaro he was fired.

Now I know you will be shocked to learn this, but it seems as if Massey Energy had a lot of friends in the new Bush Administration:

Massey Energy, Martin County Coal's parent company, gained a front-row seat to the new Bush administration when it invited James H. "Buck" Harless to join its board in 2001. Harless, a West Virginia coal and timber baron, had raised $275,000 for Bush's 2000 campaign, given $5,000 for the Florida recount, and contributed $100,000 to the president's inaugural fund. Bush nicknamed Harless "Big Buck" and invited him to join the administration's transition task force on energy. "We were looking for friends, and we found one in George W. Bush," Harless told The Wall Street Journal.

And that was only part of a larger industry-administration love fest:

coal executives, threatened by Vice President Al Gore's green background and his pledge to increase taxes on fossil fuels, thought they could get a better deal with the Republicans--when they raised a record $3.8 million dollars for the 2000 federal election, 88 percent went to the GOP. At the annual meeting of the West Virginia Coal Association a few months after Bush's inauguration, the group's director told 150 industry executives, "You did everything you could to elect a Republican president. [Now] you are already seeing in his actions the payback."

Hmm. So they gave Bushco something, and they wanted something in return. I thought that translated as "Quid Pro Quo", but my Latin must be rusty because THAT would be Illegal.

So what the hell does all this have to do with the Sago Mine Disaster? I'd argue everything. the Sago Mine had an Appalling safety record and had been cited for significant safety violations 208 times in 2005 alone and even more significantly almost 3x the number of citations they had in 2004. In other words, the mines operators were showing increasingly flagrant contempt for the safety rules and regulations that MSHA set down. And why not? The firing of Spadaro proved that they had Friends at the Top of the Agency, and it would remain their toothless lapdog for as long as W was in office.

This isn't the First time That negligence by Bush's business cronies have killed the very people they are supposed to be saving. I'd also lay money it won't be the last. The real question is, when will it be enough?

How many more pictures of pain, loss, and tragedy, will it take before the outrage starts in earnest?

Update [2006-1-5 15:27:42 by Magorn]:
Read Vyan's Diary from this morning for even more excellent commentary on the Bushco Gutting MSHA and almost all of the other safety and regulatory agencies.

Marines Betrayed and a father's eloquent outrage

2006-01-09T11:57:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, the WaPo ran a letter from the Father of Marine killed in Iraq starkly titled A Life Wasted. The letter is an epitaph for his son that also asks hard questions about the war killed him:

The words "hero" and "patriot" focus on the death, not the life. They are a flag-draped mask covering the truth that few want to acknowledge openly: Death in battle is tragic no matter what the reasons for the war. The tragedy is the life that was lost, not the manner of death. Families of dead soldiers on both sides of the battle line know this. Those without family in the war don't appreciate the difference.

Moving as the letter is alone, the tragedy of the loss is compounded when you consider this report that says his Son was killed by our supposed allies:

The families of those who died are being told that on Aug. 1, six Marine snipers from the 3/25 were killed, and it appears they were set up and ambushed.

Two days later, 14 Marines from the 3/25 were sent to arrest the insurgents who killed the snipers, but their vehicle was blown up, killing all of them.

It now appears that they also may have been set up.

What can you possibly say to a father who has lost his son because his elected leaders are incompetent, or bent on sacrificing his son for their fever dreams of empire?

Mr. Schroder eloquently shows how empty words are in face of such pointless grief:

Early on Aug. 3, 2005, we heard that 14 Marines had been killed in Haditha, Iraq. Our son, Lance Cpl. Edward "Augie" Schroeder II, was stationed there. At 10:45 a.m. two Marines showed up at our door. After collecting himself for what was clearly painful duty, the lieutenant colonel said, "Your son is a true American hero."

Since then, two reactions to Augie's death have compounded the sadness.

At times like this, people say, "He died a hero." I know this is meant with great sincerity. We appreciate the many condolences we have received and how helpful they have been. But when heard repeatedly, the phrases "he died a hero" or "he died a patriot" or "he died for his country" rub raw.

"People think that if they say that, somehow it makes it okay that he died," our daughter, Amanda, has said. "He was a hero before he died, not just because he went to Iraq. I was proud of him before, and being a patriot doesn't make his death okay. I'm glad he got so much respect at his funeral, but that didn't make it okay either."

This has become the favorite dodge of the of the Flag-waving Right. They try to ignore the ugly realities and mounting costs of this war by covering everything with a red white and blue haze of high-sounding words and pretend that dying in battle is somehow glorious and noble (as if Wilfred Owen hadn't killed that Lie nearly 90 years ago with Dulce et Decorum est)

but to the families affected, he hollowness of the words and gestures are made obvious by their loss:

At Augie's grave, the lieutenant colonel knelt in front of my wife and, with tears in his eyes, handed her the folded flag. He said the only thing he could say openly: "Your son was a true American hero." Perhaps. But I felt no glory, no honor. Doing your duty when you don't know whether you will see the end of the day is certainly heroic. But even more, being a hero comes from respecting your parents and all others, from helping your neighbors and strangers, from loving your spouse, your children, your neighbors and your enemies, from honesty and integrity, from knowing when to fight and when to walk away, and from understanding and respecting the differences among the people of the world.

and then Mr. Schroeder attempts a little quiet heroism of his own:

This leads to the second reaction. Since August we have witnessed growing opposition to the Iraq war, but it is often whispered, hands covering mouths, as if it is dangerous to speak too loudly. Others discuss the never-ending cycle of death in places such as Haditha in academic and sometimes clinical fashion, as in "the increasing lethality of improvised explosive devices."

I am outraged at what I see as the cause of his death. For nearly three years, the Bush administration has pursued a policy that makes our troops sitting ducks.

Though it hurts, I believe that his death -- and that of the other Americans who have died in Iraq -- was a waste. They were wasted in a belief that democracy would grow simply by removing a dictator -- a careless misunderstanding of what democracy requires. They were wasted by not sending enough troops to do the job needed in the resulting occupation -- a careless disregard for professional military counsel.

and his Son had apparently been having the same questions about the war:

n our last conversation, Augie complained that the cost in lives to clear insurgents was "less and less worth it," because Marines have to keep coming back to clear the same places. Marine commanders in the field say the same thing. Without sufficient troops, they can't hold the towns. Augie was killed on his fifth mission to clear Haditha.

And Schroeder has been no passively grieving father, he's been extremely active in trying to get the real story of just what happened to his son that day, and what's he forced the military to admit, and uncovered on his own destroys the myth that we are making "progress in Iraq" (from the second linked article):

six Marine snipers were killed in a firefight just outside of Hadithah. The Marines said they were on an intelligence-gathering mission, but family of the fallen and Schroeder say insurgents may have infiltrated Iraqi security and betrayed the Marines.

"What we have heard from Marines is that the six snipers who were killed on Aug. 1 were set up," said Schroeder.

Schroeder said it was the mission of his son and 13 other Marines to capture the insurgents who killed the snipers.

The amphibious assault vehicle carrying Augie Schroeder was blown up and all 14 Marines on board were killed.

Paul Schroeder said his son and the others were also betrayed by Iraqi forces who were supposed to be working with the Marines.

"The two incidents of Aug. 1 and Aug. 3 are tied together, all in an effort to get insurgents who were either part of the Iraqi security forces or who were told by Iraqi security forces where they had their opportunities," said Schroeder.

The military has been its usual forthcoming self about this:

NewsChannel5 spoke with Maj. Shenandoah Sanchez, who investigated the events.

"All details pertaining to the incident are still classified," he said.

But Lt. Col. Mike Brown, also with the 3/25, said the investigation, "was about how the people responsible were ultimately found."

Brown told NewsChannel5, "The fact these men were compromised is a part of the investigation."

Brown declined to say who they were and if they were captured.

Can You imagine what you'd do if this was your son? Not only is he killed, a grief that's almost unimaginable, but then you find out he was lured to his death by the very people his president is embracing as the solution to the Iraq quagmire. What would you do?

Well Paul Schroeder has a suggestion for all of us:

Two painful questions remain for all of us. Are the lives of Americans being killed in Iraq wasted? Are they dying in vain? President Bush says those who criticize staying the course are not honoring the dead. That is twisted logic: honor the fallen by killing another 2,000 troops in a broken policy?...

But their deaths will not be in vain if Americans stop hiding behind flag-draped hero masks and stop whispering their opposition to this war. Until then, the lives of other sons, daughters, husbands, wives, fathers and mothers may be wasted as well.

This is very painful to acknowledge, and I have to live with it. So does President Bush.

are ya ready to stop whispering?

Not Again! New DOD Spy agency quietly given incredible powers

2005-12-21T11:11:00.000-05:00

I know it's getting overwhelming. It's so hard to summon the adrenaline for another go at outrage and disbelief. This last month has been like a two minute drill of scandals,indictments, and constitutional crises. I understand wanting to throw up you hands and say "It's all too much"

But even so This Washington Post Story Deserves special attention and cannot be allowed to be overlooked:

The Pentagon's newest counterterrorism agency, charged with protecting military facilities and personnel wherever they are, is carrying out intelligence collection, analysis and operations within the United States and abroad

CIFA is a three-year-old agency>whose size and budget remain secret. It has grown from an agency that coordinated policy and oversaw the counterintelligence activities of units within the military services and Pentagon agencies to an analytic and operational organization with nine directorates and ever-widening authority.

In the immortal words of Astro the Dog: "ruh-roh!"
If you care about civil rights there few words that will make you go into insta-pucker mode with fear faster than :"rapidly Expanding" or "ever widening authority" when used to describe an Intelligence agency. The third scariest is "recently Granted MAJOR new authority"

Guess what Phrases best Describe the mysterious CIFA?

A former senior Pentagon intelligence official, familiar with CIFA, said yesterday, "They started with force protection from terrorists, but when you go down that road, you soon are into everything . . . "

and he DOES mean Everything. This little agency started to physically protect bases from terrorist attack, has taken a nearly existentially broad view of its mission:

Its Directorate of Field Activities (DX) "assists in preserving the most critical defense assets, disrupting adversaries and helping control the intelligence domain," [According to an offical fact sheet"].

Those roles can range from running roving patrols around military bases and facilities { So Far so good... } to surveillance of potentially threatening people or organizations inside the United States. { Holy crap batman!}

And they've got sorts of interesting capabilities one doesn't usually find in say your average asset security operation:

Another CIFA directorate, the Counterintelligence and Law Enforcement Center, "identifies and assesses threats" to Defense personnel, operations and infrastructure from "insider threats, foreign intelligence services, terrorists, and other clandestine or covert entities," according to the Pentagon.

And what the Hell precisely does THAT mean? Well here's the bit (and you knew it was coming) where the spying on the nuns and the Quakers and the gays comes in:

CIFA manages the Pentagon database that includes Talon reports, consisting of raw, unverified information picked up by the military services on suspicious activities that could involve terrorist threats. The Pentagon acknowledged last week that the Talon database contained reports on peaceful civilian protests and demonstrations that should have been purged long ago under Defense Department regulations.

ooopsie. Wonder how those got there. S' a good thing we have so much trust in the integrity of our government built up, or we might get really pissed at a thing like that.

And Folks, I hate to tell you this, but we only just started with the Scary:

A third CIFA directorate, Behavioral Sciences, "has 20 psychologists and a multimillion-dollar budget," and supports both "offensive and defensive counterintelligence efforts," ...

Well That's Certainly no reason to be breaking out the extra-strength-Depends or anything. I can't image what would be upsetting to anyone about a hyper-secret agency with a team of behavioral psychologists and a multimillion dollar black budget!! .Just like I'm sure the term "offensive Counter-intelligence Operations" is merely an Oxymoron and doesn't mean anything like "pre-emptive war".

So really, there's nothing to worry about at all. And even if there was; that's what our whole system of Check and Balances is about. We can certainly cont on our representatives in Congress to keep a close eye on them, and make sure they don't get out of hand Right?

[The former senior Pentagon offical Noted that] "there ha[s] been no congressional oversight of CIFA," [and] that the Defense Department "is too big, too rich an organization and should not be left unfettered. They rush in where there is a vacuum."

A former senior counterterrorism official, also familiar with CIFA, said, "What you are seeing is the militarization of counterterrorism."

You'll excuse me while I go change into my brown trousers.

I wish that was the worst of it.; but astute readers not hiding under their desks may recall I said something about them becoming even MORE powerful recently. What came before was a mere palate cleanser of fear and paranoia. Here's the main course:

CIFA's authority is still growing. In a new move to centralize all counterterrorism intelligence collection inside the United States, the Defense Department this month gave CIFA authority to task domestic investigations and operations by the counterintelligence units of the military services.

Roughly translated into English that means: "we're all screwed"

Okay to be a touch more precise:

The tasking authority allows CIFA to assign Defense counterintelligence organizations "to execute a specific mission or conduct a function falling within that organization's charter," ...CIFA's new authority will give the agency the ability to propose missions to Army, Navy and Air Force units, which combined have about 4,000 trained active, reserve and civilian investigators in the United States and abroad.For example, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) has 1,935 "federally credentialed special agents," according to its Web site.

In other, other words A secret government agency with no congressional oversight is now in total control of the actions of ALL the investigative Units and personnel in all 5 branches of the armed forces and DOD. This amounts to nearly 5,000 agents in all. Worse yet, most of these investigators are designated as "federal special agents" which means that they have the exact same powers or arrest and investigation as FBI agents.

To put this in perspective, this is nearly half as many as the very large and publicly accountable FBI has to assign to ALL of its cases:

the FBI recently disclosed it has about 11,000 special agents overall, about 4,929 of whom are assigned to terrorism investigation.

Are you feeling queasy yet? It is possible to contemplate the fact that a massive new federal agency 5,000 investigators, and unknown budget and unbelievably expansive powers can be created with one short internal DOD memo(likely classified at that) under the current interregnum:?.

I know we are hip deep in a near-Constitutional crisis already, but this too is in desperate need of the Strong disinfectant of sunshine. Remember, presidents and administrations may come and go, but government agencies once established, are eternal. If this is allowed to stand, it will be decades before anything meaningful can be changed about this agency. The time to scream is Right NOW before they are allowed to gather any bureaucratic momentum

Spies Gone Wild II: CIA has 3000+ Detainees and no Oversight

2005-12-11T19:52:00.000-05:00

Yesterday , Condi, eyes flashing, jaw set in semi-steely pose emphatically claimed US personnel are (and have always been) forbidden from inflicting "inhumane, cruel or degrading" treatment on detainees;

Well. that Settles that then.

Except, well, while I hate to be impolite, I feel compellled to bring up this account of the CIA's "Snatch and Grab squads: that appeared in Sunday's WaPo:

Members of the Rendition Group follow a simple but standard procedure: Dressed head to toe in black, including masks, they blindfold and cut the clothes off their new captives, then administer an enema and sleeping drugs. They outfit detainees in a diaper and jumpsuit for what can be a day-long trip.

Now If Condi doesn't call getting your clothes cut off, a tube jammed up your ass, and stuffed into a Depends for 12 hours "degrading", I'd hate to ask what she DOES call it. (mostly because I'm afraid the Answer is: "foreplay")

That Condi is lying isn't exactly news. But What IS important is what the Masri Scandal tells us about what's become of the CIA since the BushCo cowboys co-opted it:
For those who may have come in late to this story; a brief recap of how the US got caught with its proverbial testicles in the national zipper courtesy of the CIA:

In May 2004, the White House dispatched the U.S. ambassador in Germany, [Daniel R. Coats] to pay an unusual visit to that country's interior minister. ...Coats informed the German minister that the CIA had wrongfully imprisoned one of its citizens, Khaled Masri, for five months, and would soon release him, the sources said. There was also a request: that the German government not disclose what it had been told even if Masri went public.

You think they drew straws at the embassy to decide who got to deliver that message? Maybe they just went ahead and hired This guy:

Um yeah, listen, we've gone ahead and kidnapped and tortured one of your citizens, by mistake, so we're going to need you to betray him and pretend the whole thing never happened, yeah, that'd be great, thanks so much"

But of Course we had solid if, mistaken evidence identifying Masri as a dangerous terrorist that justified this extraordinary kidnapping torture episode, Right? Right? Well, in point of technical fact: No:

Masri was held for five months largely because the head of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center's al Qaeda unit "believed he was someone else," one former CIA official said. "She didn't really know. She just had a hunch."

SO how the hell did we get in a Situation where the "hunches" of an over-eager CIA agent can blossom into an international scandal that severely strained the US relationship with its oldest allies?

Welcome to the Brave New world of the BushCo CIA.

and there are MANY more potential Masri's being held by US waiting to blow up in our faces:

The CIA inspector general is investigating a growing number of what it calls "erroneous renditions,"...One official said about three dozen names fall in that category; ...The list includes several people whose identities were offered by al Qaeda figures during CIA interrogations, officials said. One turned out to be an innocent college professor who had given the al Qaeda member a bad grade,

"Erroneous Renditions", Such a lovely term for kidnapping and torturing someone by mistake. Whoopsie. Our Bad. Sorry about those beatings, and that waterboarding and all.

And That 3 Dozen Figure is only the tiny top of VERY large Iceberg:

The CIA, working with other intelligence agencies, has captured an estimated 3,000 people, including several { Alleged -ed} key leaders of al Qaeda, in its campaign to dismantle terrorist networks. It is impossible to know, however, how many mistakes the CIA and its foreign partners have made....there is no tribunal or judge to check the evidence against those picked up by the CIA. The same bureaucracy that decides to capture and transfer a suspect for interrogation-- a process called "rendition" -- is also responsible for policing itself for errors.

The WH also announced a massive new hiring of Foxes to guard our nation's vulnerable henhouses....

But to Say the CIA has little oversight is a massive understatement. It comes closer to the truth to say that Since the 9/11 they've gone Rogue. They've been given unlimited funding, a carte blanche on methods, zero oversight, and are accountable to no one,:

In the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the CTC was the place to be for CIA officers wanting in on the fight. The staff ballooned from 300 to 1,200 nearly overnight.

"It was the Camelot of counterterrorism," a former counterterrorism official said. We didn't have to mess with others -- "and it was fun."

Yeah, beating the hell out innocent people is such hoot. I must have missed the bit in the Arthurian legends where Lancelot and the boys kidnapped random peasants and worked them over in the backroom with rubber hoses; silly me.

Of course, in this Golden Age of counterrorism, who can be blamed if the quality of the work product itself was allowed to slip a tad?

Thousands of tips and allegations about potential threats poured in after the attacks. ...CIA officers passed along every tidbit. The process of vetting and evaluating information suffered greatly, ..

{ you know that boring stuff that's the CIA's actual job and all}

"Whatever quality control mechanisms were in play on September 10th were eliminated on September 11th," a former senior intelligence official said.

As with nearly everything else wrong with this country, this change in culture at the CIA started at the direction of the WHIG Cowboys, and their simple-minded boss at the WH:

Bush ...signed a top secret presidential finding six days after the 9/11 attacks. It authorized an unprecedented range of covert action, including lethal measures and renditions, disinformation campaigns and cyber attacks against the al Qaeda enemy.

W wanted him some "bad guys" gotten by whatever means necessary; and unfortunately he found himself a kindred Spirit in a particularly wacky CIA operations chief who had apparently OD'ed on too many Spy movies:

J. Cofer Black, a professorial former spy who spent years chasing Osama bin Laden, was the CTC's director. With a flair for melodrama, Black had earned special access to the White House after he briefed President Bush on the CIA's war plan for Afghanistan....

Colleagues recall that he would return from the White House inspired and talking in missionary terms

And that as we all now know is never a good thing, particularly when the Missionary has Guns, Planes, and Secret prisons at his disposal. (Recall that this is also the guy who famously ordered CIA Agent Gary Shroen to bring him Osama's head in a box of Dry ice (scroll down, this being CNN it runs after the Missing White Girl story).

Now not suprisingly some veteran CIA types questioned whether he was the right guy to provide sober, thoughful stewardship of the CIA's extraordinary new powers:(heretics and unbelievers all!)

Others criticized Black's CTC for embracing a "Hollywood model" of operations, as one former longtime CIA veteran called it, eschewing the hard work of recruiting agents and penetrating terrorist networks. Instead, the new approach was similar to the flashier paramilitary operations that had worked so well in Afghanistan,{ or at least so it appeared at the time-ed}

But Black had the approval of the only people whose opinion really mattered:

[his tactics].. played well at the White House, where the president was keeping a scorecard of captured or killed terrorists.

You read that Right, apparently Little Georgie was keeping score of how many bodies the CIA was bringing back. It appears in his simple-minded worldview; it actually meant something when current AQ members were captured and killed. He was apparently completely misunderstood the cellular nature of modern terrorist organizations, and their potential to recruit new members (greatly enhanced by these self-same ham-handed tactics by the US no less)

and Black himself, a professional who should have known better, how does he defend his actions?:

Black, ~~now in the private security business~~,{Vice President of Blackwater} declined to comment.

But while Cofer may be thankfully gone from the agency (forced out when he crossed Darth Rummy) his legacy lives on in the equally fanatic underlings he left behind.

The woman behind the "hunch" that Snatched up an innocent man?:

The person most often in the middle of arguments over whether to dispatch a rendition team was a former Soviet analyst with spiked hair that matched her in-your-face personality who heads the CTC's al Qaeda unit,.. Her name is being withheld because she is under cover....She earned a reputation for being aggressive and confident, just the right quality, some colleagues thought, for a commander in the CIA's global war on terrorism. Others criticized her for being overzealous and too quick to order paramilitary action.

Ya think?

That's right. The person now in charge of destroying AL-Qaeda isn't someone from a Middle Eastern desk, not a terrorism expert, or even an analyst who has spent years immersed in the nuances of the Muslim mind. Nope. Instead we got a genuine dinosaur Cold Warrior for that job (and we know what a fantastic job those folks did in predicting the collapse of the Soviet Union).

And the Masri case proves that the " Snatch `em all and let God sort `em out, mentality at the top took very little time to filter down the ranks:. When Macedonian police detained a man whose name was similar to a 9/11 Hijacker's that's all a local Junior agent needed:

the deputy chief, a junior officer, was excited about the catch and about being able to contribute to the counterterrorism fight, current and former intelligence officials familiar with the case said.

"The Skopje station really wanted a scalp because everyone wanted a part of the game," a CIA officer said

Who knew Verucah Salt grew up to be a CIA agent? ("daddy, I want a terrorist. NOW".)

Thanks to the leadership from the WH our national security Went from a deadly serious busines to a contact sport. "Playing the Game" and running up the score took priority of such real world concerns as gathering useable intelligence, respecting our diplomatic relations with other countries, or actually stopping the bad guys.

Guys like Masri? Eh. just unfortunate collateral damage:

there was no evidence Masri was not who he claimed to be -- a German citizen of Arab descent traveling after a disagreement with his wife.

{However the CTC Director)ordered Masri captured and flown to a CIA prison in Afghanistan.

This Cowboy Culture also led the CIA to believe it could simply "erase" any mistakes it made, and avoid unpleasant international repercussions. When the CIA got around to figuring out they had the wrong guy-- all these brave, macho sooper-cool spies suddenly started behaving like drunk 16 year olds trying to sneak their parent's car back into the garage after they'd wrecked it.

At the CIA, the question was: Now what? ... Someone suggested a reverse rendition: Return Masri to Macedonia and release him. "There wouldn't be a trace. No airplane tickets. Nothing. No one would believe him," one former official said.

It took the combined efforts of the last remaining grown up in the CIA (George Tenet- now gone) and Colin Powell's State Department (now in the hands of Yes-bot Condi) to force the CTC to reluctantly admit the operation even to Masri's own government; thus avoiding a potential diplomatic disaster ten times large than the one they'd already created.:

Once the mistake reached Tenet, he laid out the options to his counterparts, Rice and Dept. Sec. State Armitage..[Armitage and tenant]...argued [the Germans] had to be told,...

"You couldn't have the president lying to the German chancellor" "

now There's an odd notion: the President obligated to tell the truth? Why that's just crazy talk!.

And apparently admitting it even happened was hard enough. no Way was the CIA gonna say sorry :

The CIA argued for minimal disclosure of information. The State Department insisted on a truthful, complete statement. The two agencies quibbled over whether it should include an apology, according to officials.

probably for the best, I'm not sure Hallmark even makes a "So Sorry I Kidnapped and Tortured your Citizen" Line of Cards

And if the Masri case is everything that's wrong with the CIA in a microcosm, then Mr. Masri's closing statement on the ordeal could also stand in for the current state of world opinion about the US:

"I have very bad feelings" about the United States, he said. "I think it's just like in the Arab countries: arresting people, treating them inhumanly and less than that, and with no rights and no laws."

Should We Cue up Lee Greenwood Now?

Spies Gone Wild! Pt 1. CIA screw up damages major terror investigation

2005-12-11T19:41:00.000-05:00

Sometimes the Term ClusterF*ck just doesn't seem strong enough.

Case in point: the CIA most recent Adventures in "extraordinary rendition" and secret prisons. Not only have they trashed a century of U.S. credibility on human rights; Not only have they stretched relations with long time allies to or even beyond the breaking point; but in some cases they've actually HURT efforts to prevent new terrorist attacks. This is my first two-parter but I think the subject deserves to be looked at in more depth than a single diary can reasonably accommodate. Today the incredible story of how one CIA operation actually hurt efforts to identify and disrupt terrorist activities. Tomorrow we'll look into more depth about how post 9/11 the CIA's been given an impossible mission and blank check to fulfill the mandate, and what a dangerous combination that's become.

First let's look at This story of CIA incompetence in yesterday's WaPo. It details how one CIA snatch and grab, and their amateurish efforts to cover it up, actually derailed a MAJOR anti-terror investigation:

In March 2003, the Italian national anti-terrorism police received an urgent message from the CIA about a radical Islamic cleric who had mysteriously vanished from Milan a few weeks before. The CIA reported that it had reliable information that the cleric, the target of an Italian criminal investigation, had fled to an unknown location in the Balkans.

Only that wasn't exactly, well, "within the realm of objective accuracy":

In fact, according to Italian court documents and interviews with investigators, the CIA's tip was a deliberate lie, part of a ruse designed to stymie efforts by the Italian anti-terrorism police to track down the cleric. The strategy worked for more than a year until Italian investigators learned that Nasr had not gone to the Balkans after all.

Now WHY in the Multi-planar HELLS of the religion of your choice would they DO such a thing?:

Well basically, because the CIA had him and didn't want to share:

he was abducted off a street in Milan by a team of CIA operatives who took him to two U.S. military bases in succession and then flew him to Egypt, where he was interrogated and allegedly tortured by Egyptian security agents before being released to house arrest.

Be clear here. This wasn't a case of two agencies accidentally stepping on each other's toes. The CIA had to know the Italians were investigating this guy or they wouldn't have passed them that phony tip to throw them off. In other words they played a major ally for a sucker just so they could be the ones to bring this guy (who incidentally has never been charged with anything)

So never mind all that National sovereignty crap, so much for any notion International cooperation, Apparently What the CIA wants the CIA thinks it can have no matter what the long term consequences. To their credit, this time the "host" country isn't taking this lying down. Thanks to an actually independant judiciary, Italian prosecutors have, ove rthe objections of thier own Federal government (who are Bushco Stooges) done what no criminal justice system in this country has had the cojones to do; File criminal charges:

Since July, prosecutors and judges in Milan have issued arrest warrants charging 22 alleged CIA operatives, including the head of the CIA Milan substation, with kidnapping and other crimes. "The kidnapping of Abu Omar was not only a serious crime against Italian sovereignty and human rights, but it also seriously damaged counterterrorism efforts in Italy and Europe."said Armando Spataro, the lead prosecutor in Milan.

And it's clear the prosecutor isn't engaging in hyperbole, theItalian Cops are pissed:

Italian anti-terrorism police said they were close to arresting Nasr at the time he disappeared. They had him under regular surveillance, with wiretaps on his home telephone, as part of an investigation into a network of Islamic extremists in northern Italy. His disappearance meant that Italian authorities lost a valuable window into the Islamic underground, prosecutors say....

And what has the US had to say for itself? Well apparently we handed our "ally" Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi an autographed copy of the Tom Delay Criminal Indictment Playbook, from which he ran the old "Biased prosecutor Blitz":

After meeting with U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales in Washington in early November,[Justice Minister Roberto] Castelli questioned whether the prosecution was politically motivated, calling the lead prosecutor a leftist "militant" whose work needed to be reviewed carefully.

Yeah because that worked So well against Ronnie Earle didn't it?

Worse yet, our motives in this case may not have had anything to Do with preventing terrorism:

some European counterterrorism officials and outside experts to speculate that Nasr was abducted as a favor to the Egyptian government.

See, Egypt was less than pleased with some of his poltical activities, but couldn't get at him because Italy had granted him poltical Asylum. So while they vigorusly deny this, the CIA may actually have made Nasr a human Thank you gift to the Egyptian government for all those other messy torture and rendition cases of our they'd handled.

There's more to this incredible saga of monumental incompetence; If you want to be disgusted and amused read this Story from July about the actual kidnapping. It features unbelievably sloppy spy-craft, and $100,000 luxury hotel bills.

However, bad as all this is, its just tip of the iceberg. Incredible damage to our national reputation and foreign policy is being done by a completely unaccountable CIA that's been handed Carte Blanche to do whatever it wants , spend whatever it wants, and piss off whoever it wants just so long as they pretend to be making progress in the "war on Terra".

The scope of their actions is staggering. So far they've snatched over 3,000 people, and subjected many of them to torture and interrogation without having to justify their actions to *any * executive, judicial or legislative body. As a result serious mistakes have been made, lives have been ruined, people have even died; but nobody's been held accountable. Tune in Tomorrow we'll examine how the hell this could have happened.

W's Bubble Running out of Air: The incredible Shrinking base:

2005-11-30T22:55:00.000-05:00

My favorite Journalist at the WaPo Online, Dan Froomkin Asked a great question the other day:

When was the last time that Bush spoke in a forum open to citizens who are representative of the diverse array of views in the country?

and the Answer is scary:

not since last October's presidential debates, and not often before then, either.

Consider that for a second.

It has been more than a Full year since the president put himself in a position to even potentially hear a dissenting viewpoint, or a complaint about his leadership.

But the Bubble by itself isn't news anymore. Thanks to Froomkin and others we've known about The WH's manipulative efforts to create pretty pictures for the evening news while vigilantly protecting W from the dangers of dissenting viewpoints, unhappy citizens and disagreeable bumper stickers for sometime

What is news is that the Bubble around the president has shrunk severely recently. He's having a harder and harder time finding loyal crowds to speak in front of and his team is running to safer and safer locations

Here's how bad its gotten:

During last year's campaign, White House advance teams began screening audiences at Bush events to insure that only supporters were allowed in. After the election, that policy gave way to a new, "invitation only" approach, in which tickets to so-called public events were distributed largely by Republican and business groups. Now Bush is in phase three, where almost everyone he appears before is either on the federal payroll or a Republican donor.

And He's not exaggerating. Consider W's most recent public appearances:

President Bush's safety zone these days doesn't appear to extend very far beyond military bases, other federal installations and Republican fundraisers.

-[today], Bush gives a speech on the war on terror -- at the United States Naval Academy. Then he attends a reception for Republican party donors.

-[Yesterday], he visits a U.S. Border Patrol office, then attends a Republican fundraising lunch.

-[Monday] he spoke at an Air Force base and a Republican fundraiser.

-Before leaving the country on his recent trip to Asia, Bush made one last speech -- at an Air Force base in Alaska

-A few days before that, he spoke at an Army depot in Pennsylvania.

-When he delivered a speech on Nov. 1 about bird flu, it was to an audience of National Institutes of Health employees

SO lets review: He's now speaking infront of a) paid audiences who will expect to be paid back. b0 People whose paychecks he signs, and who he can fire at will and c) People who face jail time/ dishonrable discharge if they aren't nice to him.

I believe this is more from necessity than choice. As his poll numbers have made like Greg Louganis on the 10m platform; it's become impossible to find enough fantatic supporters without obvious mental defects and/or Drooling issues. Consider what happened the last time they tried a "phase Two" approach:

The last speech Bush gave that was not explicitly controlled by the White House was in downtown Norfolk on Oct. 28. It wasn't exactly a random group. About half the crowd was in uniform, and more than 70 military members sat on risers on the stage behind him. But some tickets were available to the public through the local Chamber of Commerce.

The result: Bush got heckled. As Tamara Dietrich wrote in a column for the Hampton Roads Daily Press: "[A] man stood up in Chrysler Hall, yanked open his shirt to expose his 'Dump Bush' T-shirt in full view of shocked members of Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network seated nearby and cried, 'War is terrorism! Torture is terrorism!' before he was hustled out by security people.

Not exactly the warm fuzzy visual they were looking for.

Gone are the days when his advance team could hand out tickets to local loyalists and party chairmen and ensure giant crowds of Cheering, worshipful, Glassy-eyed supporters; but not anymore. Those Stepford crowds have simply ceased to exist. W's most precious commodity was the Blind faith so many on the right were willing to place in him. It seems like at long last that well has dried up.

What makes this Story so remarkable is how the President himself seems utterly untroubled by this reversal of fortune. It begs the question how much of the real situation he truly understands. This is s not the first time a President has been so unpopular with the American people that he barely dared to venture outside the Whitehouse, But it may be the first time the President himself is unaware of this fact. Consider What a Defense official told Seymour Hersh recently :

Four decades ago, President Lyndon Johnson, who was also confronted with an increasingly unpopular war, was limited to similar public forums. 'Johnson knew he was a prisoner in the White House,' the former official said, 'but Bush has no idea

Can this really be so? Can W really be so far gone that he doesn't even recognize his own tricks as illusions anymore?

I'll leave you with the same question Dan Froomkin used to open his article:

What does it say about the president of the United States that he won't go anywhere near ordinary citizens any more? And that he'll only speak to captive audiences?

By the way, anybody know where we left our copy of the 25th Amendment?

It's sinking! Chief Rat on the SS WHIG strapping on his life vest

2005-11-21T04:43:00.000-05:00

Don Rumsfeld has been called many things: Clueless Detached, Arrogant, Evil, Incompetent, a Power Mad Warmonger, even a Kung-fu Master of 1,000 syles But the most consistently applied adjective of all is Survivor.

Whatever his moral flaws as a human being, or indeed a chordate life form, it must be said that he is a bureaucrat par excellence. . Dandy Don always keeps his sails trimmed close to the wind and his ass firmly covered in memoranda and directives, all of which clearly show that no matter how much it seemed like he was in charge, whatever went wrong cleary isn't HIS fault

So, it'll come as no shock to you to find out that In an interview with the WaPo Rumsfeld reveals that he never really thought this whole "Iraq thing" was a great idea to begin with; and he has the memo to prove it:

If only he could show us the memo.

"It's still classified, I suppose?" says Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, looking toward his assistant.

"It's still classified," Lawrence DiRita replies, "along with a lot of the underlying planning."

Rumsfeld nods, apparently disappointed. He is interested in sharing the memo because the memo, as he outlines it, demonstrates that his critics are utterly mistaken. He did not dash heedless and underprepared into Iraq. Rumsfeld foresaw the things that could go wrong -- and not just foresaw them, but wrote them up in a classically Rumsfeldian list, one brisk bullet point after another, 29 potential pitfalls in all. Then he distributed the memo at the highest levels, fed it into the super-secret planning process and personally walked the president through the warnings.

...

"It was just on the off-chance we'd end up having a conflict. We didn't know at that stage."

See? We all wrong about Don, unlike those clueless idiots at the WH; he foresaw all the things that could go wrong, and actually wrote them down and warned W about them. So, clearly the resulting fiasco had nothing to do with him right? Right? Hello?

But then, of course Donny has a memo. Guys like him always do; Two, in fact, one for and one against. That way once things are over the appropriate one can trotted out to vindicate his forseight and wisdom.

Fortunately, David Von Drehle is an excellent writer and reporter and didn't take the bait for a microsecond, instead he engaged in a rarely seen journalistic maneuver called "putting things in context":

Some might quibble with Rumsfeld's description of the historical moment. At the
time he wrote the memo, dated October 15, 2002, Congress had recently voted to
give President Bush complete authority to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein.
A White House spokesman had just confirmed that invasion plans were on Bush's
desk -- detailed plans, we now know, which Rumsfeld had been shaping and
hammering and editing for much of the previous year.

In other words, there was far more than an "off-chance" of conflict. All that remained to be done was for the president to reach his official decision. The train was loaded, its doors were shut, and it was ready to leave the station.

Adding a rarely seen degree of difficulty to his feat, our reporter hero then actually examines the motives of Rumsfeld's sudden revelations:

It seems awfully helpful of him to want to share a classified memo written expressly for the president of the United States, who was wrestling with his awesome power to wage war.

But then you wonder: Why did Rumsfeld write that memo, at that moment, and why is he flagging it now?....

Maybe Rumsfeld's memo was written not just for its moment, but also for the future, as proof that he remained sober even in an atmosphere of neoconservative enthusiasm for the war. Although classified, the memo keeps surfacing in this context, always putting a little distance between Rumsfeld and the audacious gamble in Iraq. Five weeks before the invasion, as others were promising a cakewalk, Rumsfeld and his memo surfaced in the New York Times. It surfaced again with Woodward. And now here it is again.

In other words as the fecal matter has begun to impact the rotating assembly of the air-circulation device, Rumsfeld has assiduously sought to clarify his enthusiasm, and indeed support for the actions taken via the US military in the Iraqi theatre.

Well, its a darn good thing Donny has that memo because other wise it certainly seemed like He was the one screwing up

When Army generals called for more troops to occupy the soon-to-be-leaderless country, Rumsfeld pushed for fewer.

When, during the pre-invasion planning, the State Department sent a team of Iraq experts to the Pentagon to help prepare a major reconstruction effort for the aftermath, Rumsfeld turned some of them away.

He cut the time for training National Guard units, including the ones that wound up photographing themselves with naked prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.

He dominated news briefings and congressional hearings like a tank rolling through small-arms fire, and he gloried in the hand-wringing of weaker souls. Behind the scenes, Rumsfeld and his civilian staff bulldozed skeptical generals and smashed rival bureaucracies in the planning and execution of the invasion

But perceptions can be so misleading. This was Never the Don Rumsfeld show, far from it. In fact, you may be shocked to learn that Rumsfeld was never even consulted on whether this war was a good idea or not: (quoting an earlier interview with the now discredited Bob Woodward)

For there comes a point when even the secretary of defense must realize that "it's not your decision or even your recommendation," Rumsfeld reflected with Woodward. By which he meant the Iraq war wasn't Don Rumsfeld's decision or recommendation.

As if to underline the point, Rumsfeld also told Woodward that he couldn't recall a moment,... when Bush asked whether his defense secretary favored the invasion. Nor did Rumsfeld ever volunteer his opinion.

Amazing that. All that hard work preparing and planning this attack, and not once did anyone bother to stop and say "hey Don, what do you think? Is this whole war thing a good idea"?

And such a pity too, I'm sure he would have been simply bursting with wise counsel that could have helped us avoid all the mistakes we've made. If only someone had thought to ask the Secretary of Defense what he thought about going to war. (Hell, he might have even given them a memo)

This no-so subtle ducking and covering on the part of the SecDef is the surest sign yet that the S.S. Iraq is broken beyond repair and taking on water fast. While W, and Dick are insisting that the bilge pumps are working just fine, and anybody who says otherwise is a traitor and saboteur, the Head Rat in Charge is quietly slipping into his life vest early to avoid the rush. Nobody in Washington has ever had a finer-tuned sense of political meteorology than Don Rumsfeld, he IS the Ultimate survivor, and that means knowing EXACTLY when to get out too

"The ramparts of Washington are littered with the bleached bones of people who said Donald Rumsfeld was not going to survive,"[Assistant Sec Def Lawrence] DiRita says happily. At 73, Rumsfeld is the oldest person ever to run the Pentagon, having also been the youngest when he was appointed for his first tour in 1975. Yet, apart from a slight hearing loss that can seem to wax or wane depending on whether he likes what he is hearing, he bears little sign of age.

Well he's proving that he's still certainly athletic enough to Jump ship isn't he?

GAO Nails FDA on Plan B! Wingnut Pressure trumped science

2005-11-15T13:24:00.000-05:00

There is strange news from Washington today, it's so shocking that I want you to sit down. According to a New report from the Government Accountability Office: the FDA ignored scientific data and made a politically motivated decision on over-the-counter sales of Plan B Contraceptives.:

A congressional audit released Monday cited "unusual" steps in the FDA's initial rejection of over-the-counter emergency contraception, including conflicting accounts of whether top officials made the decision even before scientists finished reviewing the evidence...

[the Report raises]the most serious questions to date about agency credibility

Well I know this comes as a terrible surprise to you all. It barely seems possible that political ideology was able to trump science, especially in this administration. Its not like There is Video of an FDA appointee bragging about killing Plan B on white House orders or anything; but the Report lends itself to no other conclusion

First for those in the class who didn't do the assigned reading, a brief recap on why this issue has gotten so huge:

In December 2003, FDA's scientific advisers overwhelmingly backed over-the-counter sales of the Plan B brand for all ages. They cited assessments that easier access could halve the nation's 3 million annual unintended pregnancies.

And since ensuring the safety of drugs and food is FDA's only mandate, and everybody wants to reduce unwanted pregnancies, when FDA's scientists overwhelmingly said it was safe, it was approved of course. Right?

Well no, actually:

Conservatives who consider the pill tantamount to abortion intensely lobbied the Bush administration to reject nonprescription sales, saying it would increase teen sex.

{ these being the same fine upstanding folk who also

oppose a cervical cancer vaccine for the same reason}

In May 2004, FDA leaders rejected the nonprescription switch, saying there was no data proving anyone under 16 could safely use the pills without a doctor's guidance

Which the FDA always worries about when approving drugs like this...except of course that they never had before.:

The age rationale was novel; FDA never before required special teen evidence for birth control [and] could have extrapolated data from older teens showing no effect on sexual behavior. ....the women's health chief resigned in protest

Now, faced with these concerns, the durg's maker opted to roll with the punches and tried diplomatic compromise. "worried about younger kids?, Well fine" sez the maker of the Drug, "we'll just sell it to those over 16:"

Maker Barr Laboratories reapplied, seeking to sell Plan B with age limits similar to those required for cigarettes: Females 16 or older could buy it without a prescription but younger teens would continue to need a doctor's note. In August, FDA leaders postponed a decision indefinitely, saying it wasn't clear how to enforce an age limit.

Well THAT didn't fly. After all, the FDA reasoned, it's one thing to let teen girls buy cancer causing addictive substances that we know will hurt them, but a perfectly safe, over the counter drug? Why that's just crazy. What if it fell into the wrong hands?.

The FDA for its part is not taking this lying down. following the release of this damning report the FDA immediately ~~overhauled it proceedures to remove a hint of political influence~~, attacked the messenger.

In a stunning display of the new: "I know you are but What am I?" PR technique pioneered last week by the president. An FDA Spokeswoman criticized the report and questioned the integrity of the investigative process apparently while maintaining a straight face:

In a statement, the FDA stood by its rejection and said the audit "mischaracterizes facts."

"We question the integrity of the investigative process that results in such partial conclusions," the agency said.

Yes She really DID just go there. But perhaps she has a point. I don;t see how you can reach the conclusion that this decision was politicized based on such flimsy evidence as:

_Minutes of a Jan. 15, 2004, meeting show that Dr. Steven Galson, then acting drug chief, told employees that rejection was "recommended" because of the young-teen question even though they hadn't finished reviewing the science. Other FDA officials told investigators that they, too, were informed a decision had already been made.

Now to be fair, Galson claims, he hadn't completely Killed the Plan B before reviewing the science, it was only mostly dead:

Galson denied making a final ruling until he had reviewed his employees' evidence a few weeks prior to the May rejection, although GAO said he did acknowledge that he was "90 percent sure" as early as January.

Because if there is one thing that is the Hallmark of good science, its reaching a conclusion before reviewing data.

And then of course, was the completely coincidental fact that the poltical appointees at the FDA somehow managed to override the chain of command on this particular decision:

There was unusual involvement from high-ranking officials. During a Feb. 18, 2004, meeting, reviewers told then-Commissioner Mark McClellan there was no evidence to back Galson's concerns about young teens. Minutes show McClellan questioned those conclusions.

_Three FDA directors who normally would have been responsible for signing off on the drug's fate did not do so. They weren't asked to, and Galson did instead, because they were known to disagree with the decision.

And THIS of Course simply can't be believed because there has NEVER been a pattern in this Administration of "fixing facts and data around the policy" and We've NEVER heard of analysts being pressured by their bosses to change conclusions based on a desired political outcome.

Well they've been caught red-handed caving to pressure from the radical right on this issue. The real question is will it make any difference? Does this administration even have a blush reflex anymore?

And if Not, do the Dems have the intestinal fortitude to run on this in '06? Yes, it will piss the wingnuts off, but since they'd tattoo 666 on their foreheads before they'd vote democratic, I hardly see how losing them will matter overmuch. And its NOT really about a Woman's right to choose, though that's certain a huge part of it for our base. The real traction on this issue will come from a vast scared American middle that relies on the FDA to have the technical knowledge and integrity to protect them against dangers they can't even begin to understand. If we show them how much that integrity has been undermined by these political hacks, I think we'll get a VERY strong surge for our side.

W's Message Machine Breaks: ANOTHER WH photo-op disaster

2005-11-10T14:07:00.000-05:00

Are you a little blue because there wasn't as much under the Fitzmas Tree as you were hoping?

Did you go to bed last Wednesday night dreaming of a Frogmarch Karl Indictment Figure with the real metal handcuffs, only to have to settle for a Scooter Libby without any of the treason charges accessory pack?

Well cheer up little camper, even if it isn't obvious, Fitz's investigation has done some serious damage to the WH and it's getting worse every day.

It Seems that KR is so busy scuttling around trying to save his own skin, that he's neglecting his other duties like expertly running the WH's Image Manipulatron-5000. Apparently, in his absence, apparently the amateurs have been trying to do it for themselves. ( he told them NEVER to push the RED button)

And the results would be horrifying if they weren't so side-splittingly, pee-your-pants and blow- coke-out-your-nose-funny

Witness W's disastrous visit to Howard U last week:

Before we start: Yes THAT Howard U. The Harvard of Historically Black Colleges, The birthplace of the Civil Rights Legal Brain trust, the Alma Mater of Thurgood Marshall, and home to student body that, if recent polls are to believed, like him about the same as they like their milk; which is to say 2%.

Not the First place you'd think would be well disposed to give the president a real warm welcome to be sure.

But apparently desperate times call for desperate measures.

Ol' Georgie is a uniter not a divider after all, and he was bound and determined to show that he was down with his African American Peeps. He'd show that nasty Kanye West he was wrong. HE did too care about Black People.

So, our hero bravely ventured out of NW DC, for a photo-op of him nodding attentively while some random black people spoke, and then he'd join them for dinner and eat their unique native foods:

It was Soul Food Thursday at Howard University last week, and many students were looking forward to their favorite meal: fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, collard greens and cornbread. At lunchtime, however, students discovered that much of the campus had been locked down and that the school's cafeteria was off limits.

Apparently, many of them did not know that President Bush and first lady Laura Bush had arrived for a "youth summit" at the Blackburn Center, where the dining hall is located. Stomachs began to growl, tempers flared, and, eventually, a student protest ensued.

Okay lets pause the film strip right there for second and consider the staggering bone-headedness of the WH advance team. Whatever sycophant empty suit is currently running the WH PR dept while KR is scurrying around trying to find an alibi big enough to cover his ass; arranged a Presidential visit on Soul Food Night!

Someone was capable of thinking it was a good Idea for W to be shown proclaiming his concern and understanding for the problems facing African Americans while tucking into a big ol' mess of Fried Chicken and greens!

Holy God! I'd hate to think what would have happened if watermelon had been in season!

And then to make matters worse, W was scheduled to enjoy this sumptuous repast , during the main dinner hour while actual black people, which is to say, Howard U's own Students were locked out of the dining hall.

OH yeah, this was gonna go over well.

Fortunately, some incredibly sensitive soul came up with a Brilliant plan to calm tensions:

But the visit went from bad to worse. On a day when the U.S. Senate passed a resolution paying tribute to civil rights icon Rosa Parks, who died last week, campus security guards were telling students that if they wanted to eat they'd have to come back when the president and first lady were gone, then go to a service door at the rear of the dining hall and ask for a chicken plate to go.

Wipe your eyes a couple times, shake your head and blink really quickly. Nope. It's still there. Yes you really did just read that.

On the very day that mighty Miss Rosa was lying in state at the Capitol, on the Very Day that every Howard U student had a moment to reflect on the civil rights pioneers who had gotten them where they were today, and the indignities suffered by their parents and grandparents during segregation; on THAT day, they were told they had to go around to the REAR of the cafeteria and get food at the SERVICE Entrance.

"What is 'Exactly the Same policy used by Segregated Lunch counters in South'"? okay I'll take 'Incredibly Offensive" for $2000 Alex"

The Students, as you might imagine, reacted with calm grace and decorum to these developments:

During the protest, dozens of students locked arms around a flagpole in the Quadrangle, a designated forbidden zone at the center of the campus, and refused to move despite warnings from campus security that Secret Service rooftop snipers might open fire on them.

This was of course because Bull Connor has passed on and nobody could remember where he'd put the firehoses apparently.

And through it all Incurious George soldiered on, with the vapid obliviousness that's become his trademark in recent weeks:

What might have been a public relations coup for Bush -- a visit to a historically black college to show concern for at-risk youths -- ended up as another Katrina-like moment, with the president appearing spaced-out, waving and smiling for television cameras while students were trying to break through campus security to get to the cordoned-off cafeteria.

Wow. Wowie Wow Wow. What an unmitigated, utter DISASTER for a White House that's had an increasingly long string of them lately. Apparently Patty Fitz's little investigation had has become a 10lb bag of sand poured directly into the fine-tuned well-oiled machine that Was the White House Message Machine. Their unstoppable juggernaut has not only jumped the tracks; it's headed straight for the cliffs.

Republicans have got to be looking at that the WH in dismay and wondering "Can't anybody there (besides Karl) play this game?"

The Death of Roe v. Wade, abortion is only the tip of the iceberg.

2005-11-10T13:58:00.000-05:00

There's a lot of Talk about whether the New Supreme Court nominee will vote to uphold or overturn Roe V. Wade but almost nobody who hasn't read the opinion realizes that it's about a hell of a lot more than abortion. It really about bodily autonomy in all it's forms. Take that away and things could be very different. I'm not usually an alarmist but Consider this:

Roe V. Wade held that a woman's fundamental right to privacy trumped any compelling state interest in protecting a fetus until at least the 2nd trimester (it's very important to read the text of these decisions, there are many who fundamentally misunderstand what Roe really said)
Suppose Alitio is the critical 5th vote to "overturn" Roe, thus making Abortion subject to regulation on a state by state basis, but also finding that states can regulate all phases of a woman's pregnancy without Constitutional impediment.

Now lets look at what some of those states have passed into law:
Several Red states have passed laws stating unequivocally that "life begins at conception". This used to be nothing more than an election year sop thrown to their conservative base, but in a post Roe world, it suddenly has huge significance. If life begins at conception then by definition, the state now also has a compelling interest in protecting that life and the mother has no counterbalancing constitutional right to privacy.

In order to vindicate their interests in protecting those unborn lives, a state could theoretically require weekly pregnancy tests of every woman of child bearing age. If anyone tested positive, they could immediately ban their consumption of alcohol, cigarettes, caffeine, or whatever else they chose, in order to "protect the life of the fetus" . (if you think I'm exaggerating, look at several prosecutions of mothers who have had what prosecutors decided was inandequate pre-natal care) And it gets worse:

Now I don't know about you, but I've never heard of a pregnancy test that is capable of detecting pregnancy at the moment of conception. Even the fastest ones usually require a week or two. and THAT means that those poor fetal lives have 1-2 weeks in which the state cannot detect their presence and protect them. Therefore, a state could, if it wished to be absolutely vigilant in protecting those fetuses (Fetii?), simply skip the pregnancy test and make it illegal for ANY woman of Childbearing age to indulge in any of these vices.

And that would be the tip of the iceberg, because, when passing a law that impinges on a fundamental right, the law is subject to "strict scrutiny" by the court which means for the law to be valid the state is required to show:

1) A Compelling State Interest: that is, that the state has an important interest to protect

2) Least Restrictive Means: That the law passed vindicates that interest by the least restrictive means possible

Now where a fundamental right is NOT involved the law is subject only to the "rational basis test" which means that the state merely has to show only that the law had some rational basis for being passed OR the Court can find a conceivable rational basis for the law whether or not there is any evidence this really was the basis for the law. It's an incredibly low standard that lets nearly ANY law passed stand unless it infringes a constitutional right

In other words, if Roe goes away, Margaret Atwood could look tame compared to what comes next.

Harriet ! you got some 'Xplaining to do!: Miers' shady deal and nomination killer?

2005-10-25T10:16:00.000-04:00

Poor Poor Harriet, she's been W's faithful "work wife for all these years, and even sent him all those Cute little Puppy cards to show him she thought he was the "best governor ever". And all she ever wanted in return was a lifetime appointment to the highest and most prestigious judicial body in the land. Really was that so much to ask?

Well apparently, some ungrateful Wingnuts think so. ( Who do they think shut that Guy up about the president's TANG admission anyway?) For some reason they are pissed off that W didn't nominate Attila the Hun (don't try telling them he's dead ) or at the very least Judge Roy Moore

Fortunately for them and sadly for her , Sunday's Philly Inquirer digs up the scandal that will allow W to try again:

Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers collected more than 10 times the market value for a small slice of family-owned land in a large Superfund pollution cleanup site in Dallas where the state wanted to build a highway off-ramp.

and that's just the beginning of this deliciously ironic story:
You see, in proof that there is poetic (or at least ironic) justice in this world; it seems that Harriet got this sweetheart deal thanks to a healthy dose of cronyism courtesy of the Texas bench:

The payment came after a judge, who received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Miers' law firm, appointed a professional associate of Miers and an outspoken property-rights activist to the three-member panel that determined how much the state should pay.

Now mind, you thanks to Texas' uniquely politcal system of selecting judges these sorts of conflicts of interest are so common that it's nearly impossible to refer to the Texas "justice" system without reverting to air quotes. However, even Texas-style judical corruption is rarely this blatant:

The resulting six-figure payout to the Miers family in 2000 came despite the state's objections to the "excessive" amount and to the process used to set the price. The panel recommended paying nearly $5 a square foot for land that was valued at less than 30 cents a square foot.

for those of you playing along at home, that's a mark-up of nearly 1500%. And 50x the state's initial offer for the land:

The condemnation case in Dallas began in April 1999, after the Miers family rejected the state's initial offer of $5,900 for a half-acre of their land and a subsequent offer of $27,000.

The land, at North Westmoreland Road and Interstate 30 in west Dallas, was one of several parcels that Miers' father purchased in the area after World War II. The market value for the entire 18.74-acre lot, according to state tax records, was $244,890. It is vacant and brush-covered. ....

Commercial real estate experts in the area say the nearly $107,000 awarded in court for the land was unusually high.

"Industrial land in that area is generally sold around $1 or $2 per square foot," said George Roddy, owner of Roddy Informational Services, which has researched commercial real estate in Texas for 35 years. What Miers was paid was closer to $5 per square foot.....

which is pretty good Considering the land was also contaminated with toxic chemicals:

The market value of the Mierses' land may have been depressed because it is located within a federal Superfund site that was contaminated by an old lead smelter. The smelter crushed and recycled batteries - and spewed toxic lead dust on surrounding properties - for 50 years until it closed in 1984.

The Mierses' property is about a mile away from the site of the smelter, which has since been torn down.

So the state was looking for a small slice of completely empty unusable, land and even increased their initial offer by 1000% to try to get the land by consent. However, then City Councilwoman Harriet decided to take her chances in Court instead. But the record shows it really wasn't much of risk after all:

First she'd paid good money for the Judge:

Campaign finance reports in Dallas show that Miers' law firm, Locke Purnell Rain & Harrell, had contributed at least $5,000 to Evans' political campaigns between 1993 and 2001. That included a $3,000 contribution in 1998, the year before the Miers condemnation case landed in Evans' court.

And she was pretty tight with the "independent commissioner" he appointed:

Texas law says that in condemnation cases, a judge must appoint three "disinterested" special commissioners to hear evidence, determine the "injury or benefit" of the state's action to the property owner, and rule on what, if anything, the state should pay for the property.

But there was an accumulation of shared interests - dating back years - among several of the parties that assembled in state District Judge David Evans' courtroom to settle the Miers case.

One of the three commissioners whom Evans appointed to hear the case was Peggy Lundy, a professional associate and political ally of Miers.

In an interview Thursday, Lundy said she and Miers worked closely together on a commission set up to restructure Dallas' municipal court system.

"That's where I got to see her up close and see how terrific she is," Lundy said. {the Best Lawyer ever?-ed.}...

"I had a nice, professional relationship with her," Lundy said.

Lundy added that she recruited Evans to run for judge and served as the treasurer of his first campaign and as an adviser to several others.

Evans also appointed one of his campaign contributors, Cathie Adams, to work on Miers' case. At the time, she was president of the Dallas Eagle Forum, a politically active conservative organization that touts its "pro-family" agenda.

Adams said in an interview Thursday that she believed Evans picked her as a commissioner because of her strong views against the government's "taking of land."

"I don't like it," she said of condemnation, or eminent domain, proceedings. Such cases should be "rare," Adams added, and only if the government is willing to pay a stiff price

Now to be fair that award was later reduced somewhat, But it seems that Just like her Texas and DC bar dues Harriet clean forgot to send the money back:

Mediation in 2003 reduced the award from $106,915 to $80,915, but Miers, who controls the family's interest in the land, has not reimbursed the state for the $26,000 difference, even after Bush nominated her for the Supreme Court.

...

Scott Young, the Dallas lawyer who represented the Miers family in the case, never signed the settlement papers, and Miers never repaid the difference.

"I don't know why... it has been as long as it has," Young said. And, he said, "the state hasn't been pressing us" for the money.

And that of course seems totally normal. Why I know when I owe the government money, they are totally lackadaisical about getting to from me as well:

"Your taxes? Do you owe us money?, Oh I guess you do! . Gee we'd totally spaced on that, thanks though"

So why should we care about a decades old land deal ?(haven't I heard that phrase somewhere before?) well see:

Supreme Court justices, unlike other government officials, define potential conflicts of interest for themselves and are responsible for policing their own ethics.

"If Harriet Miers is confirmed, she'll be entrusted to make a large number of unreviewable decisions about which cases to sit on," said Douglas T. Kendall, executive director of Community Rights Counsel, a public-interest law firm in Washington. Kendall said the fact that Miers raised no red flags in the face of "clearly disturbing facts" in the land-condemnation case doesn't say much for her ethical acumen.

So there we have it. The silver bullet that kills the Miers Nomination with a minimal loss of face for the administration. A few horrified looks, a few declarations of how "shocked" they were to discover that Harriet "failed to use better judgment" , and out the door she goes. The only question is, who fires it first: the Left or the Right?

No immunity for Cheney : Bork DOJ memo says VP can be indicted

2005-10-20T12:30:00.000-04:00

This is all a game of "What if " right now. But is a gloriously gleeful game that raises all sorts of interesting legal and philosophical questions. For Cheney the 1st question has always been "can he even BE indicted?"

He is after all the Co Vice President. Well the good news is:" Yes He Can".

IF Ol' Tricky Dick Cheney were to find himself staring at the business end of an indictment this week, he Won't be able to shake it off simply by invoking executive privilege to save his sorry hide. At least that is conclusion reached in 1973, in an official DOJ opinion written nearly 25 years ago. which was again endorsed by the DOJ in 2000

Of course conservatives will immediately attack the validity of the memo since it was written by none other than Noted Liberal Moonbat, Robert Bork---yes THAT Robert Bork:

Let's take a look:
(from the 2000 memo)

Office of Legal Counsel ("OLC") prepared a comprehensive memorandum in the fall of 1973 that analyzed whether all federal civil officers are immune from indictment or criminal prosecution while in office, and, if not, whether the President and Vice President in particular are immune from indictment or criminal prosecution while in office...

The OLC memorandum concluded that all federal civil officers except the President are subject to indictment and criminal prosecution while still in office; the President is uniquely immune from such process.

...

And the memo has already been used against a sitting Vice president specifically:

On October 5, 1973, less than two weeks after OLC issued its memorandum, Solicitor General Robert Bork filed a brief in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland that addressed the question whether it would be constitutional to indict or criminally try a sitting President. Then-Vice President Agnew had moved to enjoin, principally on constitutional grounds, grand jury proceeding against him. See SG Brief at 3. In response to this motion, Solicitor General Bork provided the court with a brief that set forth "considerations based upon the Constitution's text, history, and rationale which indicate that all civil officers of the United States other than the President are amenable to the federal criminal process either before or after the conclusion of impeachment proceedings.

As had the OLC memorandum, the Solicitor General's brief began by noting that "[t]he Constitution provides no explicit immunity from criminal sanctions for any civil officer."....In light of the textual omission of any express grant of immunity from criminal process for civil officers generally, "it would require a compelling constitutional argument to erect such an immunity for a Vice President." Id.

And the memo proved there was no such compelling argument to be made:

[t]he President's immunity rests not only upon the matters just discussed but also upon his unique constitutional position and powers . . . . There are substantial reasons, embedded not only in the constitutional framework but in the exigencies of government, for distinguishing in this regard between the President and all lesser officers including the Vice President.

The brief therefore determined that "[c]ertainly it is clear that criminal indictment, trial, and even conviction of a Vice President would not, ipso facto, cause his removal; subjection of a Vice President to the criminal process therefore does not violate the exclusivity of the impeachment power as the means of his removal from office." Id. at 13.

In fact, they concluded we could get along just fine without him:

Although the office of the Vice Presidency is of course a high one, it is not indispensable to the orderly operation of government. There have been many occasions in our history when the nation lacked a Vice President, and yet suffered no ill consequences. And, as has been discussed above, at least one Vice President successfully fulfilled the responsibilities of his office while under indictment in two states.

Id. at 18 (citation omitted). The brief noted that the Vice President had only three constitutional functions: to replace the President in certain extraordinary circumstances; to make, in certain extraordinary circumstances, a written declaration of the President's inability to discharge the powers and duties of his office; and to preside over the Senate and cast the deciding vote in the case of a tie in that body. Id. at 19. None of these "constitutional functions is substantially impaired by [the Vice President's] liability to the criminal process." Id.

In other words the WH may have some other tricks up its sleeve but hiding behind executive or constitutional privilege ain't gonna work.

Now if we could just make with the indictin' and frog-marchin' and whatnot.....

Frist Fraud worth Over 6 Million!

2005-10-02T12:25:00.000-04:00

Happy Schadenfreude Day!

While Tommy the Hammer is staring down the wrong side of a criminal indictment, new and damaging information continues to dribble out about the Republican Leader of the other chamber, and friends it looks like he is in deep shit.

It seems that Bill "I play a doctor on videotape" Frist's little "Martha problem"

ain't so little after all:

A new analysis by [the] Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights has found that Senator Frist made between $2 and $6 million by selling his HCA holdings just before stocks plummeted in the face of a bad earnings report.

Martha, as you may recall went to the slammer for a mere $50,000 in ill-gotten profits. And all she did was sell the stock based on insider knowledge, Dr. Bill May have done a whole lot more:

In addition, overly rosy earnings projections made by HCA executives just as Frist and HCA insiders were disposing of the stock en masse, point to a cover-up by insiders intent on keeping stock prices high until a disappointing earnings report surfaced.

And that, dear friends points to MUCH more serious crimes like Market manipulation, and fraud which will get you into a whole lot more trouble than simple insider information charges.

Put, simply the Boys in HCA boardroom were running a multi-billion dollar version of the famous Pump and Dump scam that lowlife boiler room operators use to pump up the value of obscure penny stocks. They put out an incredibly optimistic earnings report to attract investors and drive the stock price up, just as they were all planning to dump their own holdings, thus netting them millions of extra dollars. The fact that Frist chose to sell his portfolio at the very same time, and himself snagged an extra $2-6 mil on the sale now becomes highly suspicious.

Especially because as his earlier trust documents reveal (there's a direct link to them in the article but my work filter is blocking access to the site); Bill Frist used to LOVE him some HCA stock:

Frist trust agreements made public today by Consumerwatchdog.org also show that since the founding of his trust, Senator Frist directed trustees not to sell his HCA stock. Each of the Senator's trust agreements acknowledged their high concentration in HCA stock, and specifically relieved trustees `from any obligation the Trustee might otherwise have to diversify the investments

This is HUGE. First, it shows that until the sudden decision to sell all of his HCA stock Frist hadn't allowed his trustees to part with so much as a single share. Secondly, it proves his trust wasn't really blind at all.

A blind trust is supposed to work like this: you put your assets into the trust, and the trustee are supposed to manage those asets according to the normal rules of investments. They can buy whatever they think is appropriate, and sell off whatever is prudently necessary to keep a nice, safe, balanced portfolio for their client. The beneficiary of the trust is not supposed to know anything about these transactions, or his specific holdings, just a general idea of his total worth.

But that is NOT what happened here. Here Frist told his trustees that they were to ignore the basic rules and duties of a Trustee and not sell ANY of his major asset, the HCA stock. This meant that Frist not only had a massively unbalanced and undiversified portfolio (a cardinal sin to most financial planners), but he could easily track his holdings since his trustees weren't allowed to dispose of them.

This makes his sudden attack of conscience about conflicts of interest, and decision to sell the stock HIGHLY suspicious.

Update [2005-9-28 15:32:37 by Magorn]:
HOW suspicious? Well, Look at >this stock chart

(thanks to Devin for finding it, and hosting it)

Note the strange rise that occurs in June after a general decline in April and May. Now keep in mind that the date of Frist massive sell off is somewhere between July 1-9, After the mysterious increase

Now click this chart

Less than a week after Frist has completed his stock dump, on July 15th, HCA stock loses 9% of its Value in One Day.

When you factor this into the timing of the dump, suddenly it seems like the Frist probe could be sailing him into very deep and troubled waters indeed.

Update [2005-9-28 14:58:36 by Magorn]:
Best one liner of the Scandal now goes to Rep. Rahm Emmanuel of Ill: "Bill Frist has this all upside down, he thought Terri Schiavo could see and his trust was blind."

6 Billion bullets: US forces fire 250,000 Bullets per Dead enemy

2005-09-27T12:21:00.000-04:00

Yes you read that Right, and No, it's neither a typo nor a joke. The Number comes from an Independent UK Story

US forces have fired so many bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan - an estimated 250,000 for every insurgent killed - that American ammunition-makers cannot keep up with demand. As a result the US is having to import supplies from Israel.{which will be totally non-controversial in the Arab World, and not at all supporting their theories that we invaded Iraq to help Israel, I'm Sure}

And if that number beggars common sense and seems completely improbable; try this one on for size:

A government report says that US forces are now using 1.8 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition a year. The total has more than doubled in five years, largely as a result of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as changes in military doctrine.....US forces [have]expended around six billion bullets between 2002 and 2005

We're popping so many caps it seems, That even the Gun loving good ol' USA can't make enough

three government-owned, contractor-operated plants that produce small- and medium-calibre ammunition.... Though millions of dollars have been spent on upgrading the facilities, they remain unable to meet current munitions needs in their current state. "

..."Also, commercial producers within the national technology and industrial base have not had the capacity to meet these requirements. As a result, the Department of Defense had to rely at least in part on foreign commercial producers to meet its small-calibre ammunition needs."

Now to be fair the 250,000 rounds per insurgent thing is a bit of a gimmick derived from dividing the the total number of insurgents the US has claimed to kill (20,000) by the number of rounds expended by the entirre us armed forces this year. And as the military points out this includes those used in training

However, as John Pike, director of the Washington military research group GlobalSecurity.org, (who derived the 250,000 number notes:

Pointing out that officials say many of these bullets have been used for training purposes, he said: "What are you training for? To kill insurgents."

But this number is just a sideshow to the larger point, which is staggering if you stop to ponder it for a minute:

We've fired 6,000,000,000 bullets during this war!! each and every one of which is capable of taking a life, of richoeting and hitting an unintended target, of catching an innocent person in the cross fire, of killing a fellow soldier by friendly fire. 6 BILLION bullets. That's roughly one bullet for every single person on earth.

It's so many, even the disposal of the toxic lead left behind becomes a non-trivial issue. If I recall correctly a Military issue .223 Cal M-16 bullet is about 100 Grains. Multiply 100 *6,000,000,000 and convert at the ratio of (1 grains = 0.00228571429 ounces) and you get:

60,000,000 POUNDS of lead or 30,000 TONS of lead fired in the form of bullets at our enemies.

{thanks to a Commentator who corrected my math on this)

Is there any better symbol of the Staggering cost and futility of this war than 6 BILLION empty shell casings? It puts all the larger questions of the war into a digestible nutshell. How many Bullets will be enough? When will we have shot our guns enough to "win" the war; and what is the final tab in lives and dollars going to be at the end of the day?

And all we know now is that we've fired 6 billion bullets and we haven't come anywhere close to hitting the target.

When Cronyism Kills!: FEMA Subcontracted out NO evacuation to incompetent Bush-backer

2005-09-23T17:03:00.000-04:00

Chalk a few hundred more bodies onto the count of what Grover Norquist and his "privatization at all costs" ideology has cost this country

Today's Today's Chicago Tribune tells the story of Thousands of Motorcoaches Offered to FEMA The day after Katrina hit NO. Unfortunately, FEMA didn't return their phone calls :

Peter Pantuso of the American Bus Association said he spent much of the day on Wednesday, Aug. 31, trying to find someone at the Federal Emergency Management Agency who could tell him how many buses were needed for an evacuation, where they should be sent and who was overseeing the effort.

"We never talked directly to FEMA or got a call back from them," Pantuso said.

But as bad as that is the WHY of it is far, far, worse:

Pantuso, eventually learned that the job of extracting tens of thousands of residents from flooded New Orleans wasn't being handled by FEMA at all.

Instead the agency had farmed the work out to a trucking logistics firm, Landstar Express America, which in turn hired a limousine company, which in turn engaged a travel management company.

Mad yet? You will be:

This story follows a depressingly familiar script:

1)A vital government service is taken away from the Government employees who have handled it competently and efficiently for years and farmed out to a barely qualified, but politically well connected private company with for a huge sum of money:

Landstar, {a} Jacksonville company ... held a federal contract that at the time was worth up to $100 million annually for disaster transportation

and Landstar was Well Connected:

Landstar Express is a subsidiary of Landstar System, a $2 billion company whose board chairman, Jeff Crowe, also was chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, one of the nation's premier business lobbies, from June 2003 until May 2004.

Yes THAT US Chamber of Commerce, the one that's Spent millions creating/supporting Bushco policies

2) After taking a huge amount of government money; do nothing but count your profits. Don't worry about acutally performing on your contract until its too late:

Though it was well-known that New Orleans, much of it below sea level, would flood in a major hurricane, Landstar, ... did not ask its subcontractor, Carey Limousine, to order buses until the early hours of Aug. 30, roughly 18 hours after the storm hit,

But then, calling Carey Limousine a "subcontractor" gives Landstar WAY too much credit, as it implies some sort of prior business arrangement. The reality is far far worse:

[Sally Snead a senior Carey Vice president] said Landstar turned to her company for buses Sunday after learning from Carey's Internet site that it had a meetings and events division that touted its ability to move large groups of people. "They really found us on the Web site," Snead said.

THEY FOUND THEM ON THE WEB!!!!! DURING THE HURRICANE!!!! THAT was the extensive and thorough planning and vetting process Landstar used before deciding to award this company a "subcontract" to do this vitally important job!

Let that sink in for a good few minutes. Deep cleansing breaths. Get that blood pressure down. Ready? Okay:

In other words:

this Company signed a $100 Million contract to provide disaster relief services and then did precisely, and exactly, NOTHING to prepare to actually provide those services should they be needed.

Even when the largest hurricane in a decade is headed straight for the most vulnerable and poorest city in America, they do NOTHING. It's Only DURING the Hurricane on Sunday while New Orleans is being ripped apart that somebody at the company remembers "oh Yeah, I think we're supposed to do something when Hurricanes hit".

Then, and only then they leap into action and apparently assign some office flunky the job of Asking Jeeves "how do I get thousands of people the hell out of Dodge during an Apocalypse?". They follow this decisve and bold actions with an extremely crack and efficient phone call to a few places to do some price shopping before finally deciding what to do. (It's amazing they didn't try to rent 1000 buses on Priceline first)

Give the "Subcontractor" credit, they DID try to help:

Snead said she tapped Transportation Management Services of Vienna, Va., which specializes in arranging buses for conventions and other large events, to help fill an initial order for 300 coaches.

"It's like taking your phone book and dividing it in half and saying, `You take half and I'll take half,'" Snead said.

But while they are desperately seeking a few hundred buses (and lets just acknowledge how woefully inadequate 300 buses would have been for 80,000 people); Literally thousands of buses are ready and standing by, with drivers, waiting for someone to tell them where to go:

Unbeknownst to them, two key players who could reach the owners of an estimated 70 percent of the nation's 35,000 charter and tour buses had contacted FEMA seeking to supply coaches to the evacuation effort.

The day the hurricane made landfall, Victor Parra, president of the United Motorcoach Association, called FEMA's Washington office "to let them know our members could help out."

and Fema's lightning fast and oh-so-brilliant response?:

Parra said FEMA responded the next day, referring him to an agency Web page labeled "Doing Business with FEMA" but containing no information on the hurricane relief effort.

So let's review one last time: Flood waters rising, 10's of thousand of trapped an desperate people Stuck in New Orleans.

FEMA, not only is not springing into action, they've actually subcontracted that whole rescuing people thing out.

The Subcontractor takes the decisive actions of hiring thier own subcontractor, a Limo Company at the last minute. They scarmble as best they can to scrounge up a few hundred buses.

Meanwhile Thousands of huge Motor coaches are ready, willing and able to rush to the disaster site and effect a rescue, but every time they are offered, FEMA gives the caller the modern equivalent of the Voice mail. Thanks to "privatization" nobody is able to connect the offer to the desperate need.

Back in New Orleans, dozens, perhaps even hundreds of desperate people needlessly die, hundreds more are raped and assaulted while waiting in the dark for rescue.

AND for this spectacularly incompetent performance when lives were on the line, what can we expect for Landstar? Indictments? Civil court suits? A cancellation of all government contracts? The CEO doing the perp walk?

Boy you really haven't been paying attention in the last five years have you?

In a regulatory filing last week, Landstar Express said it has received government orders worth at least $125 million for Katrina-related work. ..... Landstar's regulatory filing also said that because of Hurricane Katrina, the maximum annual value of its government contract for disaster relief services has been increased to $400 million

In this story we see the basic Republican SOP in full and glorious action: larceny masquerading as ideology. Vital government Functions and trusts are treated as nothing more than fat piggy banks to be raided by corporate allies and campaign supporters. That these jobs are important and people will die if they aren't done well, never seems to trouble either the public or private members of the Kleptocratic administration.

Its an sequence of events that we've seen repeated everywhere from Iraq (Halliburton, Custer-Battles, Blackwater etc. ad nauseam) to Kuwait, to our very own Gulf Coast. Rarely however has it been so nakedly obvious what happened and rarely have the consequences been so utterly disastrous as they were for those tens of thousands of people trapped by Katrina, and abandoned by their own government. If this isn't enough to wake people up to the utter ruin that Bushco has made of our once powerful country, what will be?

Bob Novak Playing enforcer for Busch Co- Again!

2005-09-23T13:48:00.000-04:00

Some people just never learn, or they simply believe themselves to be untouchable .
Bob Novak is Exhibit A. Leaving aside the stomach-churning question of who'd want to touch Bob Novak voluntarily; its clear he believes himself above the law and any standards of journalistic decency. Rabid Rabbie clearly hasn't learned one damn thing from Plamegate (then again why should he? He hasn't done any time at the DC Hilton-at least not yet)
Bob "the Human Toad" Novak once again he uses his weekly column to play Karl Rove's legbreaker, and warn the increasingly disenchanted super-rich that used to make up W's base that they'd better get back in line or else.
The column starts deceptively. At first, it reads as though Novak is joining the growing chorus of Bush critics on the Right:

ASPEN, Colo. -- For two full days, George W. Bush was bashed. He was taken to
task on his handling of stem cell research, population control, the Iraq war
and, especially, Hurricane Katrina. The critics were no left-wing bloggers. They
were rich, mainly Republican and presumably Bush voters in the last two
presidential elections.

But then this IS Bob Novak we're talking about. And Novak isn't reporting on this bashing to make a political point about how deep the Doo-doo really is that W's in. Instead he's really expressing his sense of outrage and betrayal that is should come at an illuminati-esque private gathering of the mega-rich sponsored by a very wealthy investment banking firm:

The Bush-bashing occurred last weekend at the annual Aspen conference
sponsored by the New York investment firm Forstmann Little & Co. Over 200
invited guests, mostly prestigious, arrived Thursday night (many by private
aircraft) and stayed until Sunday morning for more than golf, hikes and gourmet
meals

Can't you almost see them putting on funny robes and singing a rousing chorus of The StoneCutter's Song?

Now even though this event was strictly off the record, it appears that Mr. (and i use the honorific only for lack of an alternative) Novak doesn't think that all promises of confidentiality are created equal (after all THIS one doesn't help the WH so what good is it?):

All discussions are off the record," admonished the conference's printed
schedule. Consequently, I will refrain from specifically quoting panelists and
audience members. But the admonition says nothing about personal
conversations outside the sessions. Nor do I feel inhibited in quoting myself.
Even if I am violating the spirit of secrecy rules, revealing criticism of Bush
by this elite group, and the paucity of defense for him, is valuable in
reflecting the president's parlous political condition

However despite his explanation as to why he breaking the rules, as you read further, it becomes clear that Novak isn't Reporting so much as informing on his fellow participants. He is reporting their private disloyalty to his superiors and doing it in a public way so they'll know they've been ratted out.

In the classic tradition of all tattle-tales, he of course, he invents his own version of events where he is perfectly virtuous protagonist beset by evil-doers:

...the first panel, on stem cell research, consisted solely of
scientists hostile to the Bush administration's position. In the absence of any
disagreement, I took the floor to suggest there are scientists and bioethicists
with dissenting views and that it was not productive to demean opposing views as
based on "religious dogma." The response was peeved criticism of my intervention
and certainly no support....
I felt constrained to argue against
implications that Hurricane Katrina should cause the president to rediscover
race and poverty. My comments again generated more criticism from the
audience and obvious exasperation by Charlie Rose. Indeed, after the closing
dinner Saturday night, the moderator made clear he was displeased by my
conduct.
{"See I stuck up for you Georgie but all them other kids said
Mean things about you, behind your back even"

And then Novak invents a conveniently anonymous silent majority who secretly agree with him but lack his manly courage to stand up and be counted:
But during a break, one of the president's closest friends -- who had
remained silent -- thanked me profusely for my comments. That set a pattern.
Throughout the next two days, men and women who were mute publicly thanked me
privately for speaking up. When I said nothing during one panel discussion, some
people asked me why I was silent
Quite the hero isn't He?
Our Man Bob wants the WH to know was fighting the good fight, while those other wishy-washy conservatives cowered in their Posh hotel rooms. But cowardly as the W supporters were; Bob wants you to know that the impudent curs, who dared Question the Great Man (by which of course Novak means Rove not W) were far more gutless when confronted with his awesomeness:

U.S. News & World Report disclosed this week, with apparent disdain,
that presidential adviser Karl Rove took time off from the Katrina relief effort to be at Aspen. He was needed as a counterweight
.
Because saving lives and reconstructing homes is all well and good, but confronting heresy and ideological impurity is far more important. Rove apparently agreed with that assessment (I wonder if Novak used the Bat-signal to summon him to the conference when he saw how badly it was going?0 Since he seemed to spend most of his time doing some very pointed Meme-making ; including a very nasty swipe at Cindy Sheehan-(she must be really pissing him off )

But Novak seem to want to make sure that Uncle Karl knows that even though all those other kids are acting nice now, they were being bad when he wasn't in the room.:
I settled in for serious fireworks, expecting Bush-bashers to assault his
alter ego at the conference's final session. However, direct confrontation with a senior aide must have been more difficult than a remote attack on the president.
But then Bob switches from tattletale to Scary Mode. He makes an unmistakable and very pointed threat to all the infidels at the conference:
It would be a shame if Rove returned to Washington without informing George W. Bush how erstwhile friends have turned against him.
About as subtle as a Mack Truck our Robbie Boy is, isn't he? In his eyes the WH has been the victim of an intolerable lese majesty, from the very people this WH cares most about, and he is taking it upon himself (or more likely taking orders from Uncle Karl) to warn the perpetrators that they've been noticed, named and identified, and they'd better hop quickly back in line or else
But let's never let it be said that the Douchebag of Liberty lacks a sense of humor. After all he was also able to write this in the column and not expire in a fit of evil cackling:
I do not see myself as a defender of the Bush presidency, and I am sure the White House does not regard me as such
Defender? Well perhaps not. Enforcer? Yep.