Oh, this is just too fucking hilarious.
Check out this video of John Walsh on America's Most Wanted talking to Mark Foley about developing a sex offender database.
samedi 30 septembre 2006
Republicans: The Party of Liars
Oh, it just keeps getting worse for Administration of Liars. The first excerpt from Bob Woodward's new book is now up at Washington Post, and it's a doozy:
1) The lies George W. Bush is telling the American people about the state of affairs in Iraq:
2) The complete and utter lack of a strategy for Iraq:
3) The decision that one of the architects of Nixon's failed Vietnam policy should be the go-to guy on Iraq:
As if this weren't bad enough, don't miss the article linked to from this little sidebar:
As it turns out in the aftermath of Keith Olbermann's devastating indictment of how the Bush Administration dropped the ball on Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda in the leadup to the 9/11 attacks....
...., it's getting more difficult every day for the Bush Administration to continue to blame Bill Clinton for its own failings.
And this equally devastating article linked to in that teensy-weensy sidebar, so small that if you blink you won't even see it, would make it even more difficult -- if we didn't live in a nation of delusional morons:
There you have it, folks. The woman that many conservatives want to see run for president blew off warnings about a major Al-Qaeda attack coming because she, like George W. Bush, wanted to play with Really Big Weapons designed to fight a Soviet Union that no longer existed, and couldn't be bothered with the very serious threat that was right under our noses.
The 9/11 attacks happened for any of a number of reasons, NONE of them flattering to the Bush Administration, and none of which should give Americans ANY sense that this fucking moron is going to keep them safe:
Pick your poison, folks:
1) This Administration was too fucking stupid to understand the import of what Tenet was telling them (and this article shows that the medal given to George Tenet was clearly the ceremonial equivalent of hush money)
2) They were so beloved of Big Phallic Weapons that they decided to take the risk rather than tear themselves away from the X-Box-On-Steroids that is the Missile Defense System.
3) They deliberately ignored that information, figuring an attack on the U.S. would give them the excuse they needed to go into Iraq -- a goal that George Bush had had since before taking office.
So which one is it? Stupidity, stubbornness, or malice against the American people. And no, "honest mistake" isn't one of the options.
This is the president who is now promising to wage global war:
This is the president who is already beginning to frame all criticism of his policies as giving aid and comfort to the enemy, thereby laying the groundwork, on the day after Congress voted to give this lunatic complete, absolute power to decide who is an enemy combatant, to start rounding up dissenters:
This is the president who blew off warning after warning after warning -- and then sat in an elementary school classroom while people jumped out windows rather than be burnt to death -- because he wanted to play with Really Big Guns rather than listen to the people who were giving information he needed.
And this is the president who STILL -- five years later -- is refusing to listen to the people who know what they are talking about.
And we -- the American people who have never held him to account, and who have allowed our representatives to cravenly feed this lunatic's delusions -- will feel the inevitable result.
1) The lies George W. Bush is telling the American people about the state of affairs in Iraq:
In May, President Bush spoke in Chicago and gave a characteristically upbeat forecast: "Years from now, people will look back on the formation of a unity government in Iraq as a decisive moment in the story of liberty, a moment when freedom gained a firm foothold in the Middle East and the forces of terror began their long retreat."
Two days later, the intelligence division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff circulated a secret intelligence assessment to the White House that contradicted the president's forecast.
Instead of a "long retreat," the report predicted a more violent 2007: "Insurgents and terrorists retain the resources and capabilities to sustain and even increase current level of violence through the next year."
2) The complete and utter lack of a strategy for Iraq:
In the fall of 2003 and the winter of 2004, officials of the National Security Council became increasingly concerned about the ability of the U.S. military to counter the growing insurgency in Iraq.
Returning from a visit to Iraq, Robert D. Blackwill, the NSC's top official for Iraq, was deeply disturbed by what he considered the inadequate number of troops on the ground there. He told Rice and Stephen J. Hadley, her deputy, that the NSC needed to do a military review.
"If we have a military strategy, I can't identify it," Hadley said. "I don't know what's worse -- that they have one and won't tell us or that they don't have one."
3) The decision that one of the architects of Nixon's failed Vietnam policy should be the go-to guy on Iraq:
"Of the outside people that I talk to in this job," Vice President Cheney told me in the summer of 2005, "I probably talk to Henry Kissinger more than I talk to anybody else. He just comes by and, I guess at least once a month, Scooter and I sit down with him." (Scooter is I. Lewis Libby, then Cheney's chief of staff.)
The president met privately with Kissinger every couple of months, making him the most regular and frequent outside adviser to Bush on foreign affairs.
[snip]
Kissinger sensed wobbliness everywhere on Iraq, and he increasingly saw the situation through the prism of the Vietnam War. For Kissinger, the overriding lesson of Vietnam is to stick it out.
As if this weren't bad enough, don't miss the article linked to from this little sidebar:
As it turns out in the aftermath of Keith Olbermann's devastating indictment of how the Bush Administration dropped the ball on Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda in the leadup to the 9/11 attacks........, it's getting more difficult every day for the Bush Administration to continue to blame Bill Clinton for its own failings.
And this equally devastating article linked to in that teensy-weensy sidebar, so small that if you blink you won't even see it, would make it even more difficult -- if we didn't live in a nation of delusional morons:
On July 10, 2001, two months before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet met with his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, at CIA headquarters to review the latest on Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Black laid out the case, consisting of communications intercepts and other top-secret intelligence showing the increasing likelihood that al-Qaeda would soon attack the United States. The mass of fragments made a compelling case, so compelling to Tenet that he decided he and Black should go to the White House immediately.
Tenet called Condoleezza Rice, then national security adviser, from the car and said he needed to see her right away. There was no practical way she could refuse such a request from the CIA director.
[snip]
Tenet had been losing sleep over the recent intelligence. There was no conclusive, smoking-gun intelligence, but there was such a huge volume of data that an intelligence officer's instinct strongly suggested that something was coming.
He did not know when, where or how, but Tenet felt there was too much noise in the intelligence systems. Two weeks earlier, he had told Richard A. Clarke, the National Security Council's counterterrorism director: "It's my sixth sense, but I feel it coming. This is going to be the big one."
Tenet had the National Security Agency review all the intercepts, and the agency concluded they were of genuine al-Qaeda communications. On June 30, a top-secret senior executive intelligence brief contained an article headlined "Bin Laden Threats Are Real."
Tenet hoped his abrupt request for an immediate meeting would shake Rice. He and Black, a veteran covert operator, had two main points when they met with her. First, al-Qaeda was going to attack American interests, possibly in the United States itself. Black emphasized that this amounted to a strategic warning, meaning the problem was so serious that it required an overall plan and strategy. Second, this was a major foreign policy problem that needed to be addressed immediately. They needed to take action that moment -- covert, military, whatever -- to thwart bin Laden.
[snip]
Tenet and Black felt they were not getting though to Rice. She was polite, but they felt the brush-off. President Bush had said he didn't want to swat at flies.
As they all knew, a coherent plan for covert action against bin Laden was in the pipeline, but it would take some time. In recent closed-door meetings the entire National Security Council apparatus had considered action against bin Laden, including using a new secret weapon: the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone, that could fire missiles to kill him or his lieutenants. It looked like a possible solution, but there was a raging debate between the CIA and the Pentagon about who would pay for it and who would have authority to shoot.
Besides, Rice seemed focused on other administration priorities, especially the ballistic missile defense system that Bush had campaigned on. She was in a different place.
There you have it, folks. The woman that many conservatives want to see run for president blew off warnings about a major Al-Qaeda attack coming because she, like George W. Bush, wanted to play with Really Big Weapons designed to fight a Soviet Union that no longer existed, and couldn't be bothered with the very serious threat that was right under our noses.
The 9/11 attacks happened for any of a number of reasons, NONE of them flattering to the Bush Administration, and none of which should give Americans ANY sense that this fucking moron is going to keep them safe:
Pick your poison, folks:
1) This Administration was too fucking stupid to understand the import of what Tenet was telling them (and this article shows that the medal given to George Tenet was clearly the ceremonial equivalent of hush money)
2) They were so beloved of Big Phallic Weapons that they decided to take the risk rather than tear themselves away from the X-Box-On-Steroids that is the Missile Defense System.
3) They deliberately ignored that information, figuring an attack on the U.S. would give them the excuse they needed to go into Iraq -- a goal that George Bush had had since before taking office.
So which one is it? Stupidity, stubbornness, or malice against the American people. And no, "honest mistake" isn't one of the options.
This is the president who is now promising to wage global war:
The only way to protect our citizens at home is to go on the offense against the enemy across the world
This is the president who is already beginning to frame all criticism of his policies as giving aid and comfort to the enemy, thereby laying the groundwork, on the day after Congress voted to give this lunatic complete, absolute power to decide who is an enemy combatant, to start rounding up dissenters:
But Bush insisted Saturday that claims that the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq was helping foster anti-American terrorism were tantamount to buying "into the enemy's propaganda."
This is the president who blew off warning after warning after warning -- and then sat in an elementary school classroom while people jumped out windows rather than be burnt to death -- because he wanted to play with Really Big Guns rather than listen to the people who were giving information he needed.
And this is the president who STILL -- five years later -- is refusing to listen to the people who know what they are talking about.
And we -- the American people who have never held him to account, and who have allowed our representatives to cravenly feed this lunatic's delusions -- will feel the inevitable result.
This is why presidents should be curious enough to read history
We are about to repeat history. I don't usually post articles in their entirety, or near-entirety, but I'm making an exception this time because this op-ed piece in today's New York Times is a must-read:
IN the autumn of 68 B.C. the world’s only military superpower was dealt a profound psychological blow by a daring terrorist attack on its very heart. Rome’s port at Ostia was set on fire, the consular war fleet destroyed, and two prominent senators, together with their bodyguards and staff, kidnapped.
The incident, dramatic though it was, has not attracted much attention from modern historians. But history is mutable. An event that was merely a footnote five years ago has now, in our post-9/11 world, assumed a fresh and ominous significance. For in the panicky aftermath of the attack, the Roman people made decisions that set them on the path to the destruction of their Constitution, their democracy and their liberty. One cannot help wondering if history is repeating itself.
Consider the parallels. The perpetrators of this spectacular assault were not in the pay of any foreign power: no nation would have dared to attack Rome so provocatively. They were, rather, the disaffected of the earth: “The ruined men of all nations,” in the words of the great 19th-century German historian Theodor Mommsen, “a piratical state with a peculiar esprit de corps.”
Like Al Qaeda, these pirates were loosely organized, but able to spread a disproportionate amount of fear among citizens who had believed themselves immune from attack. To quote Mommsen again: “The Latin husbandman, the traveler on the Appian highway, the genteel bathing visitor at the terrestrial paradise of Baiae were no longer secure of their property or their life for a single moment.”
What was to be done? Over the preceding centuries, the Constitution of ancient Rome had developed an intricate series of checks and balances intended to prevent the concentration of power in the hands of a single individual. The consulship, elected annually, was jointly held by two men. Military commands were of limited duration and subject to regular renewal. Ordinary citizens were accustomed to a remarkable degree of liberty: the cry of “Civis Romanus sum” — “I am a Roman citizen” — was a guarantee of safety throughout the world.
But such was the panic that ensued after Ostia that the people were willing to compromise these rights. The greatest soldier in Rome, the 38-year-old Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (better known to posterity as Pompey the Great) arranged for a lieutenant of his, the tribune Aulus Gabinius, to rise in the Roman Forum and propose an astonishing new law.
“Pompey was to be given not only the supreme naval command but what amounted in fact to an absolute authority and uncontrolled power over everyone,” the Greek historian Plutarch wrote. “There were not many places in the Roman world that were not included within these limits.”
Pompey eventually received almost the entire contents of the Roman Treasury — 144 million sesterces — to pay for his “war on terror,” which included building a fleet of 500 ships and raising an army of 120,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry. Such an accumulation of power was unprecedented, and there was literally a riot in the Senate when the bill was debated.
Nevertheless, at a tumultuous mass meeting in the center of Rome, Pompey’s opponents were cowed into submission, the Lex Gabinia passed (illegally), and he was given his power. In the end, once he put to sea, it took less than three months to sweep the pirates from the entire Mediterranean. Even allowing for Pompey’s genius as a military strategist, the suspicion arises that if the pirates could be defeated so swiftly, they could hardly have been such a grievous threat in the first place.
But it was too late to raise such questions. By the oldest trick in the political book — the whipping up of a panic, in which any dissenting voice could be dismissed as “soft” or even “traitorous” — powers had been ceded by the people that would never be returned. Pompey stayed in the Middle East for six years, establishing puppet regimes throughout the region, and turning himself into the richest man in the empire.
[snip]
In truth, however, the Lex Gabinia was the beginning of the end of the Roman republic. It set a precedent. Less than a decade later, Julius Caesar — the only man, according to Plutarch, who spoke out in favor of Pompey’s special command during the Senate debate — was awarded similar, extended military sovereignty in Gaul. Previously, the state, through the Senate, largely had direction of its armed forces; now the armed forces began to assume direction of the state.
It also brought a flood of money into an electoral system that had been designed for a simpler, non-imperial era. Caesar, like Pompey, with all the resources of Gaul at his disposal, became immensely wealthy, and used his treasure to fund his own political faction. Henceforth, the result of elections was determined largely by which candidate had the most money to bribe the electorate. In 49 B.C., the system collapsed completely, Caesar crossed the Rubicon — and the rest, as they say, is ancient history.
Hey Menendez! You've been had!
Yesterday Harry Reid tried to explain why Democrats like Bob Menendez felt compelled to vote to turn George W. Bush into the Dictator of America:
The problem is that Max Cleland in all likelihood DIDN'T lose because Saxby Chambliss painted a veteran who lost three limbs in Vietnam as allied with Osama Bin Laden. Instead, he quite possibly lost because the operation of the Georgia election in 2002 was outsourced to Diebold Corporation. Now a second whistleblower has come forward to say that workers were ordered by Diebold management to install "secret files" onto its voting machines before the 2002 election and after the machines were certified:
So if Reid is right, then Bob Menendez just threw his career away because he, like so many other Democrats, refuses to acknowledge that the voting system in this country has already been fixed to keep Republicans in power in perpetuity.
The problem is that Max Cleland in all likelihood DIDN'T lose because Saxby Chambliss painted a veteran who lost three limbs in Vietnam as allied with Osama Bin Laden. Instead, he quite possibly lost because the operation of the Georgia election in 2002 was outsourced to Diebold Corporation. Now a second whistleblower has come forward to say that workers were ordered by Diebold management to install "secret files" onto its voting machines before the 2002 election and after the machines were certified:
Top Diebold corporation officials ordered workers to install secret files to Georgia’s electronic voting machines shortly before the 2002 Elections, at least two whistleblowers are now asserting, Atlanta Progressive News has learned.
Former Diebold official Chris Hood told his story concerning the secret “patch” to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., for Kennedy’s second article on electronic voting in this week’s Rolling Stone Magazine.
Hood’s claims corroborate a second whistleblower who spoke with Black Box Voting and Wired News in 2003.
“With the primaries looming, [Chief of Diebold’s Election Division] Urosevich was personally distributing a ‘patch,’ a little piece of software designed to correct glitches in the computer program,” Rolling Stone Magazine reported.
"We were told that it was intended to fix the clock in the system, which it didn't do," Hood told Rolling Stone. "The curious thing is the very swift, covert way this was done."
"It was an unauthorized patch, and they were trying to keep it secret from the state," Hood told Rolling Stone.
"We were told not to talk to county personnel about it. I received instructions directly from Urosevich. It was very unusual that a president of the company would give an order like that and be involved at that level,” Hood told Rolling Stone.
The “patch” was applied to about 5,000 polling places in Fulton and DeKalb Counties in 2002, Rolling Stone reported.
Hood did not immediately return a text message from Atlanta Progressive News and his voicemail was not operational.
The second whistleblower, Rob Behler, was contracted to work with Diebold in the lead up to the 2002 Elections.
Two patches were applied in June and July 2002 respectively while Behler worked in the Diebold warehouse; another patch was applied in August 2002 after Behler left the warehouse, Wired News reported.
“Behler said Diebold programmers posted patches to a file-transfer-protocol site for him and his colleagues to apply to the machines,” Wired News reported.
Diebold officials first denied any patches were applied in an interview with Salon in 2003, according to Wired News.
"We have analyzed that situation and have no indication of that happening at all," Joseph Richardson, Diebold spokesperson, is reported to have told Salon at the time.
This story later changed.
[snip]
Where was Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox during all this?
Apparently, Diebold leadership asked employees to not let her office know about the patch or patches.
And Diebold first alleged this application of patches wasn’t going on.
However, Georgia Secretary of State Cathy Cox appears to have found out anyway.
And Diebold appears to have at some point acknowledged the patches existed.
At least one patch was approved by Kennesaw State University, who got a state contract to do so, according to Wired News.
And Diebold admitted to the Elections Assistance Commission about the “0808" patch, Garland Favorito said.
Cox wrote a letter after the 2002 Elections, asking Diebold to address a total of 29 problems with the functioning of their E-voting machines, technology, and procedures, Rolling Stone reported.
This list of 29 items was also brought up in a press conference by US Rep. Cynthia McKinney, her first major press conference on electronic voting.
Cox referred to the item of the mysterious patch as “The application/implication of the 0808 patch.”
“The state was seeking confirmation that the patch did not require that the system ‘be recertified at national and state level’ as well as ‘verifiable analysis of overall impact of patch to the voting system,’” Rolling Stone Magazine reports.
But shouldn’t they be seeking her confirmation and not the other way around?
Diebold’s reply to Cox’s letter, if one exists, has not been made publicly available, according to Rolling Stone.
“She [Cox] should be the one confirming it, not the vendor. She’s the one responsible for running elections in Georgia,” Favorito told Atlanta Progressive News.
“She appears to be trying to privatize the election system to the point where she’s trying to ask the vendor to determine if they’re in compliance, rather that using their own resources,” within the Office of the Secretary of State, Favorito said.
“They claim [as an excuse] to have changed the operating system and not the tabulating software. We believe the law says the systems have to be re-certified with a patch of any kind. The State did not certify those patches. The State took Diebold’s word,” Favorito said.
So if Reid is right, then Bob Menendez just threw his career away because he, like so many other Democrats, refuses to acknowledge that the voting system in this country has already been fixed to keep Republicans in power in perpetuity.
Alberto Gonzales places a horse's head into the Supreme Court's bed
The Bush Administration's consigliere, Alberto Gonzales, warns the Supreme Court not to interfere in the Administration's creation of the Fourth Reich:
Hmmmm....we'll keep that in mind when cases seeking to overturn Roe v. Wade and Griswold v. Connecticut make their way to the Court.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who is defending President Bush's anti-terrorism tactics in multiple court battles, said Friday that federal judges should not substitute their personal views for the president's judgments in wartime.
He said the Constitution makes the president commander in chief and the Supreme Court has long recognized the president's pre-eminent role in foreign affairs. "The Constitution, by contrast, provides the courts with relatively few tools to superintend military and foreign policy decisions, especially during wartime," the attorney general told a conference on the judiciary at Georgetown University Law Center.
"Respectfully, when courts issue decisions that overturn long-standing traditions or policies without proper support in text or precedent, they cannot -- and should not -- be shielded from criticism," Gonzales said. "A proper sense of judicial humility requires judges to keep in mind the institutional limitations of the judiciary and the duties expressly assigned by the Constitution to the more politically accountable branches."
Hmmmm....we'll keep that in mind when cases seeking to overturn Roe v. Wade and Griswold v. Connecticut make their way to the Court.
vendredi 29 septembre 2006
Republicans: Facilitators of Pedophiles
Yeesh. John has posted an instant message conversation between Florida Rep. Mark Foley (MAF54) and YET ANOTHER underage boy, this one from 2003, that was originally posted at ABC News. Apparently House Republicans knew about Foley's predilections for underage boys for over a year -- and not only did nothing, but kept him on as chair of the caucus for the protection of missing and exploited children.
Let me repeat that: Dennis Hastert, the Speaker of the House, protected a pedophile for over a year. Foley has been pulling this shit with House pages for years, and Hastert and the Republican leadership knew about it all along -- and did nothing.
Especially when he had THIS to say in response to a Fox News question as to whether Democrats are coddling terrorists:
The very same people who want control over YOUR sexual activities as a consenting adult think it's perfectly OK to make sexual overtures to teenagers -- IF you're a Republican. Don't you think that by any standard, that's taking the IOKIYAR rule just a bit too far?
Get this:
As I said in my last post about this -- listen to Republicans when they bleat about sex -- because they are telling you more about themselves than they are about anyone else.
Foley resigned today. And Hastert still hasn't updated his web site to take down the announcement about a community meeting he held on August 29 on "Keeping Kids Safe in Cyberspace."
Kind of makes you wonder with whom HE'S exchanging instant messages.
Let me repeat that: Dennis Hastert, the Speaker of the House, protected a pedophile for over a year. Foley has been pulling this shit with House pages for years, and Hastert and the Republican leadership knew about it all along -- and did nothing.
Especially when he had THIS to say in response to a Fox News question as to whether Democrats are coddling terrorists:
HASTERT: I think what they do is, they are so bent on protecting criminals and going through the process and not expediting these people who really want to take our lives, to murder us, and you know, we’ve seen it time and time again. We just saw it just now with the ms-13 gangs, trying to stop them from coming into the country and the liberal Democrats in the Senate blocked it.
ASMAN: But again “coddling terrorists.” You say democrats are doing that. That’s really tough language.
HASTERT: I’m saying what they’re doing is they’re not allowing us to prosecute these people. They’re not allowing us to — the 130 most treacherous people, probably in the world, and they want to put them and release them out in the public eventually.
The very same people who want control over YOUR sexual activities as a consenting adult think it's perfectly OK to make sexual overtures to teenagers -- IF you're a Republican. Don't you think that by any standard, that's taking the IOKIYAR rule just a bit too far?
Get this:
ABC News reported Friday that Foley also engaged in a series of sexually explicit instant messages with current and former teenage male pages. In one message, ABC said, Foley wrote to one page: "Do I make you a little horny?"
In another message, Foley wrote, "You in your boxers, too? ... Well, strip down and get naked."
Foley, as chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus, had introduced legislation in July to protect children from exploitation by adults over the Internet. He also sponsored other legislation designed to protect minors from abuse and neglect.
"We track library books better than we do sexual predators," Foley has said.
As I said in my last post about this -- listen to Republicans when they bleat about sex -- because they are telling you more about themselves than they are about anyone else.
Foley resigned today. And Hastert still hasn't updated his web site to take down the announcement about a community meeting he held on August 29 on "Keeping Kids Safe in Cyberspace."
Kind of makes you wonder with whom HE'S exchanging instant messages.
Tokyo Mart, Northbridge
Toothpick holdersA follow-up visit to Tokyo Mart, the biggest Japanese grocery shop in Sydney.I really could spend hours, no, make that days, in here. The first ten minutes were spent in the crockery aisle, pawing ceramic bowls, delicate tea cups and a fruit salad collection of colourful chopstick rests. Then it was a meander through the kitchen section, a wander along the vertical freezers and
Tokyo Mart, Northbridge
Toothpick holdersA follow-up visit to Tokyo Mart, the biggest Japanese grocery shop in Sydney.I really could spend hours, no, make that days, in here. The first ten minutes were spent in the crockery aisle, pawing ceramic bowls, delicate tea cups and a fruit salad collection of colourful chopstick rests. Then it was a meander through the kitchen section, a wander along the vertical freezers and
To see what the future of American journalism in the age of legalized torture looks like, take a look at Iraq
If George W. Bush's war in Iraq is bringing "American-style Democracy" to Iraq, then take a look, especially during a week which saw a newspaper ridiculing a journalist who received a terrorist threat because of what he dared to say, at what freedom of the press Bush-style looks like, because this is the future of journalism in America:
Thugs threatening journalists. Laws making criticizing officials illegal. You think it can't happen here? Think about what happened to Keith Olbermann this week. Think about how Rupert Murdoch's New York Post decided it was more important to ridicule and attack a journalist opposed to its political position than to respect the efforts of the FBI to apprehend a suspect. Think about "People should watch what they say." Think about how George W. Bush may now deem ANYONE, at ANY TIME, for ANY REASON as an enemy combatant. Then tell me it can't happen here.
Ahmed al-Karbouli, a reporter for Baghdadiya TV in the violent city of Ramadi, did his best to ignore the death threats, right up until six armed men drilled him with bullets after midday prayers.
He was the fourth journalist killed in Iraq in September alone, out of a total of more than 130 since the 2003 invasion, the vast majority of them Iraqis. But these days, men with guns are not Iraqi reporters’ only threat. Men with gavels are, too.
Under a broad new set of laws criminalizing speech that ridicules the government or its officials, some resurrected verbatim from Saddam Hussein’s penal code, roughly a dozen Iraqi journalists have been charged with offending public officials in the past year.
Currently, three journalists for a small newspaper in southeastern Iraq are being tried here for articles last year that accused a provincial governor, local judges and police officials of corruption. The journalists are accused of violating Paragraph 226 of the penal code, which makes anyone who “publicly insults” the government or public officials subject to up to seven years in prison.
On Sept. 7, the police sealed the offices of Al Arabiya, a Dubai-based satellite news channel, for what the government said was inflammatory reporting. And the Committee to Protect Journalists says that at least three Iraqi journalists have served time in prison for writing articles deemed criminally offensive.
Thugs threatening journalists. Laws making criticizing officials illegal. You think it can't happen here? Think about what happened to Keith Olbermann this week. Think about how Rupert Murdoch's New York Post decided it was more important to ridicule and attack a journalist opposed to its political position than to respect the efforts of the FBI to apprehend a suspect. Think about "People should watch what they say." Think about how George W. Bush may now deem ANYONE, at ANY TIME, for ANY REASON as an enemy combatant. Then tell me it can't happen here.
The Day America Died
Actually, our country died on December 12, 2000, when a partison Supreme Court, instead of addressing the widespread disenfranchisement of voters, instead decided to give the presidency to George W. Bush.
But the final nail in the coffin of America was hammered in yesterday, when the Senate decided to give a president who has said on at least three separate occaisons that he could like to be a dictator and whose spokesman once said, "If you're not with us, you're against us" and "People shloud watch what they say, watch what they do" absolute and unilaterla authority to decide who is an enemy of the state.
And BOTH of my Senators went along with it.
I decided after the 2004 election that I would never again give one craven Democrat my vote. And if that means I'm like Cleavon Little in Blazing Saddles holding the gun to my own head, so be it. I had already decided that I would not vote for Paul Aronsohn for Congress in November, because he is the WORST kind of craven, finger-in-the-wind Democrat, and since that house seat is Republican already, it's not a loss. I was, however, planning to be a good soldier and vote for Bob Menendez despite his support for a flag-burning amendment because that Senate seat is Democratic, it's a tight race, and I do not want to lose that seat.
Mr. Menendez will now not get my vote, because he, along with Frank Lautenberg, voted yesterday for torture, for an end to habeas corpus, to allow President Bush to name anyone he doesn't like as an enemy combatant and put that person into a gulag forever -- to "disappear" people just the way Augusto Pinochet did.
Why on earth should I vote for people who go along with this?
Predictably, the people who still want desperately to believe that the entrenched Washington Democrats represent a viable alternative, are insisting that the courts will sort it out -- people like this diarist at Daily Kos:
Yup, real Americans with (D) after their names -- like Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez, right? Twelve Democrats caved in and voted to give George W. Bush dictatorial authority over all of us -- and two of them were Senators from New Jersey. Even Joe Lieberman's moral scold Mini-Me, Barack Obama, managed to break from his mentor (who predictably voted Yea) to vote against this travesty.
But not Frank Lautenberg and not Bob Menendez.
Why do these people insist on believing that the Bush Administration works in good faith on ANYTHING? Even the American people are starting to wise up -- but not Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez. It's more important to not "appear" to be "soft on terrorists" than to actually take the time and the effort to frame the case why voting to turn George W. Bush into a dictator doesn't keep anyone safe -- in fact, it puts us in even more danger. Even Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, who is no stranger to the Craven Political Whore tactic, said:
The terrorists did, in fact win on September 11. They frightened us into forgetting about history and believing that the greatest experiment in democracy in modern history could not be allowed to continue, that having the kind of dictatorial leader with whom history is littered, the kind whose societies ALWAYS crash and burn, was preferable to the liberty for which generations of Americans have died.
With this vote yesterday, the United States Senate -- including two New Jersey Senators with (D) after their names -- spit on the graves of every last one of them.
But the final nail in the coffin of America was hammered in yesterday, when the Senate decided to give a president who has said on at least three separate occaisons that he could like to be a dictator and whose spokesman once said, "If you're not with us, you're against us" and "People shloud watch what they say, watch what they do" absolute and unilaterla authority to decide who is an enemy of the state.
And BOTH of my Senators went along with it.
I decided after the 2004 election that I would never again give one craven Democrat my vote. And if that means I'm like Cleavon Little in Blazing Saddles holding the gun to my own head, so be it. I had already decided that I would not vote for Paul Aronsohn for Congress in November, because he is the WORST kind of craven, finger-in-the-wind Democrat, and since that house seat is Republican already, it's not a loss. I was, however, planning to be a good soldier and vote for Bob Menendez despite his support for a flag-burning amendment because that Senate seat is Democratic, it's a tight race, and I do not want to lose that seat.
Mr. Menendez will now not get my vote, because he, along with Frank Lautenberg, voted yesterday for torture, for an end to habeas corpus, to allow President Bush to name anyone he doesn't like as an enemy combatant and put that person into a gulag forever -- to "disappear" people just the way Augusto Pinochet did.
Why on earth should I vote for people who go along with this?
Predictably, the people who still want desperately to believe that the entrenched Washington Democrats represent a viable alternative, are insisting that the courts will sort it out -- people like this diarist at Daily Kos:
every day that we obsess over this meaningless kabuki bullshit farce, we lose another day that we can spend talking about shit that doesn't go right over the heads of the American people at best, or make us look like terrorist enablers at worst.
Shit like Iraq. Afghanistan. What Bush did to stop 9/11. Cronyism. Corruption. Healthcare. The economy the rest of us live in.
So please, PLEASE CALM DOWN!!! America isn't dead. The Constitution isn't dead. Nothing has changed.
There's a REASON they're doing this so close to the election. There's no big torture emergency out there: they just want a good distraction, and Bush wants to try some lame attempt at covering his ass in case there's a stiff-spined Democratic congress at his heels in 2007.
So get over it. Let the Republicans have their meaningless political theater. It changes absolutely nothing, and it will be struck down by the first, second and third courts that get their hands on it.
And then send some REAL Americans--the ones with (D)s after their names--to Congress. Because that's what REALLY matters here.
Yup, real Americans with (D) after their names -- like Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez, right? Twelve Democrats caved in and voted to give George W. Bush dictatorial authority over all of us -- and two of them were Senators from New Jersey. Even Joe Lieberman's moral scold Mini-Me, Barack Obama, managed to break from his mentor (who predictably voted Yea) to vote against this travesty.
But not Frank Lautenberg and not Bob Menendez.
Why do these people insist on believing that the Bush Administration works in good faith on ANYTHING? Even the American people are starting to wise up -- but not Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez. It's more important to not "appear" to be "soft on terrorists" than to actually take the time and the effort to frame the case why voting to turn George W. Bush into a dictator doesn't keep anyone safe -- in fact, it puts us in even more danger. Even Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, who is no stranger to the Craven Political Whore tactic, said:
“The only reason to worry about the politics of it is if you don’t understand it and don’t have the guts to stand up and defend your vote,”
The terrorists did, in fact win on September 11. They frightened us into forgetting about history and believing that the greatest experiment in democracy in modern history could not be allowed to continue, that having the kind of dictatorial leader with whom history is littered, the kind whose societies ALWAYS crash and burn, was preferable to the liberty for which generations of Americans have died.
With this vote yesterday, the United States Senate -- including two New Jersey Senators with (D) after their names -- spit on the graves of every last one of them.
If they'd talked to us here in NJ, we could have told them
The one good thing that Jim McGreevey did as governor of New Jersey was to address the $85 million in cost overruns perpetrated on New Jersey taxpayers by Parsons Corporation, the company perpetrated on us to perform motor vehicle inspections by Christine "The Air At Ground Zero Is Fine" Whitman when she was governor.
Cost overruns and mismanagement are nothing new for Parsons, and now the rest of the country joins New Jersey in shoveling millions of dollars into the pockets of this company that seems ineffective at anything other than getting government contracts.
If you hired a contractor to build an addition to your house, would you put up with having human waste dripping from the ceiling into your nice new family room? I didn't think so. So why are we as taxpayers having to put up with this kind of shoddy work for our tax dollars in Iraq?
How appropriate: Trust the U.S., and the U.S. will take a dump on you.
Remember when George W. Bush said he would run this company like a corporation? Well, he is -- he's running it like Parsons Corp.
(hat tip: Americablog)
Cost overruns and mismanagement are nothing new for Parsons, and now the rest of the country joins New Jersey in shoveling millions of dollars into the pockets of this company that seems ineffective at anything other than getting government contracts.
If you hired a contractor to build an addition to your house, would you put up with having human waste dripping from the ceiling into your nice new family room? I didn't think so. So why are we as taxpayers having to put up with this kind of shoddy work for our tax dollars in Iraq?
The contractor that botched construction of a $75 million police academy in Baghdad so badly that human waste dripped from the ceilings has produced shoddy work on 13 out of 14 projects reviewed by federal auditors, the top official monitoring Iraq's reconstruction told Congress yesterday.
In a House hearing on what has gone wrong with reconstruction contracts in Iraq, Parsons Corp. quickly became the focus, taking bipartisan heat for its record of falling short on critical projects. The Pasadena, Calif., firm was supposed to build facilities at the heart of the $21 billion U.S.-led reconstruction program, including fire stations, border forts and health-care centers. But inspectors have found a litany of flaws in the firm's work. The one project reviewed by auditors that was being constructed correctly, a prison, was taken away from Parsons before its completion because of escalating costs.
In a report released yesterday, inspectors found that the Baghdad Police College posed a health risk after feces and urine leaked through the ceilings of student barracks. The facility, part of which will need to be demolished, also featured floors that heaved inches off the ground and a room where water dripped so heavily that it was known as "the rain forest."
The academy was intended as a showcase for U.S. efforts to train Iraqi recruits who eventually are expected to take control of the nation's security from the U.S. military. But lawmakers said yesterday they feared it will become a symbol of a different sort.
"This is the lens through which Iraqis will now see America," Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said. "Incompetence. Profiteering. Arrogance. And human waste oozing out of ceilings as a result."
How appropriate: Trust the U.S., and the U.S. will take a dump on you.
Remember when George W. Bush said he would run this company like a corporation? Well, he is -- he's running it like Parsons Corp.
(hat tip: Americablog)
jeudi 28 septembre 2006
Projecting much, Rep. Foley?
The hits just keep on coming these days, folks.
Remember this: Whenever you hear a Republican Congresscritter or Senator bleat about gay marriage or gay sex practices, you can bet you're listening to a closet case. When you hear a Republican Congresscritter or Senator bleat about teenage sex and abstinence, you can bet you're listening to a pedophile.
These guys are so ashamed of themselves, what they think, what they do in secret, what they think about in the dead of night when the stress of living their lying lives of faux-virtue, that the only way they can cope is to try to pass laws to stop all the OTHER people from sinking into the perversion pits they feel they live in. That most of us go happily on our way, that we DON'T make advances at high school kids, that we don't fantasize about sex with children, that those of us who are gay are perfectly comfortable with that and those of us who are straight have gay friends and still manage to stay married, never occurs to them. Now it may in fact be that the Christian predicament is to be a betting chip between God and Satan while they play Skee-Ball in Keansburg and Satan gets bonus points for getting Christians to fall, but I think it's more a case of people who can't behave themselves without this punitive structure around them.
Today's representative of Christian hypocrisy is Florida Rep. Mark Foley, who apparently had a correspondence with a 16-year-old male Congressional page that freaked the page out so much he alerted Congressional staffers because it gave him the creeps.
But here's the kicker: Mark Foley is the Co-chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children Caucus.
Just the way arsonists sign up to become volunteer firemen.
So next time you see a Republican ranting about sex, just remember: He's telling you more about himself than he is about you.
(hat tip: Americablog)
Remember this: Whenever you hear a Republican Congresscritter or Senator bleat about gay marriage or gay sex practices, you can bet you're listening to a closet case. When you hear a Republican Congresscritter or Senator bleat about teenage sex and abstinence, you can bet you're listening to a pedophile.
These guys are so ashamed of themselves, what they think, what they do in secret, what they think about in the dead of night when the stress of living their lying lives of faux-virtue, that the only way they can cope is to try to pass laws to stop all the OTHER people from sinking into the perversion pits they feel they live in. That most of us go happily on our way, that we DON'T make advances at high school kids, that we don't fantasize about sex with children, that those of us who are gay are perfectly comfortable with that and those of us who are straight have gay friends and still manage to stay married, never occurs to them. Now it may in fact be that the Christian predicament is to be a betting chip between God and Satan while they play Skee-Ball in Keansburg and Satan gets bonus points for getting Christians to fall, but I think it's more a case of people who can't behave themselves without this punitive structure around them.
Today's representative of Christian hypocrisy is Florida Rep. Mark Foley, who apparently had a correspondence with a 16-year-old male Congressional page that freaked the page out so much he alerted Congressional staffers because it gave him the creeps.
But here's the kicker: Mark Foley is the Co-chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children Caucus.
Just the way arsonists sign up to become volunteer firemen.
So next time you see a Republican ranting about sex, just remember: He's telling you more about himself than he is about you.
(hat tip: Americablog)
Mooncake Mania
With the height of the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival due on October 6, it's currently mooncake mania all over Chinatown. Mooncakes, rich in lard and the goodness of egg yolk, are exchanged between families, and it seems like the tins and the packaging get more and more elaborate every year.And Festival Addict says don't forget the Cabramatta Moon Festival on this Sunday.Related GrabYourFork posts:
Mooncake Mania
With the height of the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival due on October 6, it's currently mooncake mania all over Chinatown. Mooncakes, rich in lard and the goodness of egg yolk, are exchanged between families, and it seems like the tins and the packaging get more and more elaborate every year.And Festival Addict says don't forget the Cabramatta Moon Festival on this Sunday.Related GrabYourFork posts:
This is the Bush Administration's kind of guy
I swear, if Borat didn't exist, Sacha Baron Cohen would have to invent him.
Oh. OK.
Anyway, it looks like the Bush Administration has learned nothing about coddling dictators:
In other words, the Bush Administration promotes freedom and democracy everywhere -- except in the United States and in countries that have oil. If Saddam Hussein hadn't gotten too big for his britches where the Bush Family is concerned, he would still be heading the government in Iraq.
Oh. OK.
Anyway, it looks like the Bush Administration has learned nothing about coddling dictators:
When Vice President Dick Cheney came to this oil-rich Central Asian nation this spring he expressed admiration for what he called its “political development.” Yet just a day before his visit began, the authoritarian government effectively shut down the two most prominent American democracy organizations working here.
While American officials are negotiating to reverse the government’s decision, they have yet to complain about it publicly.
As President Bush prepares to receive the Kazakh president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, at a state dinner in Washington on Friday, the episode reflects the delicate balance the administration has struck with a country of growing strategic importance that has a record of corruption, flawed elections and rights violations, including the killings of two opposition leaders in the last year in disputed circumstances.
Critics here say the episode also illustrates the Bush administration’s willingness to sacrifice democracy, a centerpiece of its foreign policy, when it conflicts with other foreign policy goals.
“There are four enemies of human rights: oil, gas, the war on terror and geopolitical considerations,” said Yevgeny A. Zhovtis of the Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law, an organization that has received financing from the American Embassy and the National Endowment for Democracy. “And we have all four.”
The Bush administration has promoted democratic reforms in Kazakhstan for years, but it also appears eager to mollify a president who has been a comparatively moderate Muslim leader in Central Asia, who has allowed NATO aircraft headed to Afghanistan to fly over the country and sent a company of soldiers to Iraq, and who controls vast resources of oil and gas, much of it extracted by American companies.
In other words, the Bush Administration promotes freedom and democracy everywhere -- except in the United States and in countries that have oil. If Saddam Hussein hadn't gotten too big for his britches where the Bush Family is concerned, he would still be heading the government in Iraq.
Just wondering
Now that the House has approved a bill that gives George W. Bush the right to decide who qualifies as a terrorist, and allows him to imprison and torture such people for the rest of their lives, without charges and without trial, does that mean that House Republicans are willing to give a Democratic president the same power? Or does it mean that they already know that either a) George W. Bush has no intention of leaving office -- ever; or b) the fix is in on all elections in perpetutity?
And speaking of handing Osama Bin Laden over on a silver platter....
Keith Olbermann isn't going to be intimidated by conservative terrorists threatening him.
In this segment, he carefully lays out a devastating indictment of the Bush Administration's handling -- or lack of handling -- of the Al Qaeda threat. Go watch it. From Ari Fleischer being asked by a reporter on 2/27/01 to Sen. Carl Levin's statement of concern on 6/21/01 that the Administration's focus on missile defense was trivializing the threat from terrorists such as those who bombed the U.S.S. Cole, to former National Commission on Terrorism Chairman Paul Bremer saying in February 2001, "What they will do is stagger along until there's a major incident and then suddenly say, 'Oh my God, shouldn't we be organized to deal with this?'", Olbermann lays out his case methodically, relying on the facts to prove his damning point -- that is is George W. Bush, not Bill Clinton, who looked the other way. It is George W. Bush, not Bill Clinton, who had incidents like the Cole and Khobar Towers bombing behind him as a point of reference in formulating terrorism policy. It is George W. Bush, not Bill Clinton, who ignored documented warnings by Richard Clarke and Sandy Berger, of the immediate threat caused by terrorism. It is George W. Bush, not Bill Clinton, who responded to a Presidential Daily Briefing headlined "Bin Laden Determined to Strike In U.S." was met with the dismissive response, "OK, you've covered your ass now." It is on George W. Bush's watch, not Bill Clinton's, that an NSA intercept on September 10, 2001, following that August 6 PDB and numerous reports from FBI agents that Middle Eastern men were learning to fly commercial jetliners, but not take off or land, at flight schools across the country. And it is George W. Bush, not Bill Clinton, who, in the face of all of this history, STILL chose to continue with a photo-op in an elementary school even after hearing that the first plane had hit the World Trade Center, and who continued to sit in a classroom full of children for seven minutes after hearing that the second plane had hit.
To the wingnuts who for unexplained reason feel compelled to visit this blog: Watch this segment. Note the dates well. You may still want Bill Clinton to bear some of the blame for not doing enough to stop Osama Bin Laden, and he has shown that he is willing to shoulder the responsibility for that. But your guy, this appallingly ineffective president that you worship with a fervor even Jesus Christ himself would envy, is the one who had enough information to take action, and he STILL dropped the ball. And that's the charitable view. All the willful delusion in the world and all the white powder sent to a journalist who dares to speak the truth in an attempt to get him to shut up don't change that inescapable fact. Maybe the White House thinks that we're an empire and as a result we can create our own reality. But here outside the White House, this so-called empire is resembling the Fall of Rome every day, and cold, hard, facts form the true reality.
In this segment, he carefully lays out a devastating indictment of the Bush Administration's handling -- or lack of handling -- of the Al Qaeda threat. Go watch it. From Ari Fleischer being asked by a reporter on 2/27/01 to Sen. Carl Levin's statement of concern on 6/21/01 that the Administration's focus on missile defense was trivializing the threat from terrorists such as those who bombed the U.S.S. Cole, to former National Commission on Terrorism Chairman Paul Bremer saying in February 2001, "What they will do is stagger along until there's a major incident and then suddenly say, 'Oh my God, shouldn't we be organized to deal with this?'", Olbermann lays out his case methodically, relying on the facts to prove his damning point -- that is is George W. Bush, not Bill Clinton, who looked the other way. It is George W. Bush, not Bill Clinton, who had incidents like the Cole and Khobar Towers bombing behind him as a point of reference in formulating terrorism policy. It is George W. Bush, not Bill Clinton, who ignored documented warnings by Richard Clarke and Sandy Berger, of the immediate threat caused by terrorism. It is George W. Bush, not Bill Clinton, who responded to a Presidential Daily Briefing headlined "Bin Laden Determined to Strike In U.S." was met with the dismissive response, "OK, you've covered your ass now." It is on George W. Bush's watch, not Bill Clinton's, that an NSA intercept on September 10, 2001, following that August 6 PDB and numerous reports from FBI agents that Middle Eastern men were learning to fly commercial jetliners, but not take off or land, at flight schools across the country. And it is George W. Bush, not Bill Clinton, who, in the face of all of this history, STILL chose to continue with a photo-op in an elementary school even after hearing that the first plane had hit the World Trade Center, and who continued to sit in a classroom full of children for seven minutes after hearing that the second plane had hit.
To the wingnuts who for unexplained reason feel compelled to visit this blog: Watch this segment. Note the dates well. You may still want Bill Clinton to bear some of the blame for not doing enough to stop Osama Bin Laden, and he has shown that he is willing to shoulder the responsibility for that. But your guy, this appallingly ineffective president that you worship with a fervor even Jesus Christ himself would envy, is the one who had enough information to take action, and he STILL dropped the ball. And that's the charitable view. All the willful delusion in the world and all the white powder sent to a journalist who dares to speak the truth in an attempt to get him to shut up don't change that inescapable fact. Maybe the White House thinks that we're an empire and as a result we can create our own reality. But here outside the White House, this so-called empire is resembling the Fall of Rome every day, and cold, hard, facts form the true reality.
mercredi 27 septembre 2006
Weak-ass spineless Democrats are ready to vote to make Bush dictator
And they wonder why people like me don't want to give money or vote for their pussy-ass candidates?
Why the fuck should we, when they screw us over as badly as the Republicans do?
Jack Balkin:
Are you listening, Mr. Reid? Mrs. Clinton? Mr. Obama?
Why the fuck should we, when they screw us over as badly as the Republicans do?
Jack Balkin:
I am puzzled by and ashamed of the Democrats' moral cowardice on this bill. The latest version of the bill blesses detainee abuse and looks the other way on forms of detainee torture; it immunizes terrible acts; it abridges the writ of habeas corpus-- in the last, most egregious draft, it strips the writ for alleged enemy combatants whether proved to be so or not, whether citizens or not, and whether found in the U.S. or overseas.
This bill is simply outrageous. I doubt whether many Democratic Senators or staffs have read the bill or understand what is in it. Instead, they seem to be scrambling over themselves to vote for it out of a fear that the American public will think them weak and soft on terror.
The reason why the Democrats have not been doing very well on these issues, however, is that the public does not believe that they stand for anything other than echoing what the Republicans have been doing with a bit less conviction. If the Republicans are now the Party of Torture, the Democrats are now the Party of "Torture? Yeah, I guess so." Not exactly the moral high ground from which to seek office.
The Democrats may think that if they let this pass, they are guaranteed to pick up more seats in the House and Senate. But they will actually win less seats this way. For they will have proved to the American people that they are spineless and opportunistic-- that, when faced with a genuine choice and a genuine challenge, they can keep neither our country nor our values safe.
The current bill, if passed, will give the Executive far more dictatorial powers to detain, prosecute, judge and punish than it ever enjoyed before. Over the last 48 hours, it has been modified in a hundred different ways to increase executive power at the expense of judicial review, due process, and oversight. And what is more, the bill's most outrageous provisions on torture, definition of enemy combatants, secret procedures, and habeas stripping, are completely unnecessary to keep Americans safe. Rather, they are the work of an Executive branch that has proven itself as untrustworthy as it is greedy: always pushing the legal and constitutional envelope, always seeking more power and less accountability.
If the Democrats do not stand up to the President on this bill, if they refuse to filibuster it or even threaten to filibuster it, they do not deserve to win any additional seats in the House or in the Senate. They will have delivered a grievous blow to our system of checks and balances, stained America's reputation around the world, and allowed an obscenity to disfigure the American system of law and justice. Far worse than a misguided zealot is the moral coward who says nothing and allows that zealotry to do real harm.
Are you listening, Mr. Reid? Mrs. Clinton? Mr. Obama?
If the torture bill goes through, you and I will be branded as terrorists
We already know that the wingnuts want to see all liberals lined up and summarily executed without trial. That's why they support giving George W. Bush the right to brand anyone he wants as a terrorist -- maybe then he'll shoot us all and we'll shut up so we can't intrude on their little whiny-ass titty baby delusions.
I have letters printed in my local newspaper fairly often. Most of the response I get is by phone, and most of it is positive. Occasionally people respond in writing. Sometimes they write letters, sometimes they send me religious tracts, one person from all the way in Missouri sent me a political cartoon of Cindy Sheehan with the word TRAITOR scrawled across it in Sharpie pen.
What a bunch of cowards right-wing Americans are. They're so spooked by the events of September 11 five years ago that they want this country to turn into a totalitarian, Soviet-style authoritarian society, complete with gulags for dissenters. They wake up in the morning afraid. They live in fear. They go to bed afraid -- afraid of Muslims. Afraid of gays. Afraid of people who disagree with them.
And what do cowards do? They try to make others afraid, then laugh at them when they succeed.
Forgotten in the relentless drumbeat of "Crazy Muslims Are Coming To Kill You" is the fact that not long after the 9/11 attacks, anthrax was sent to a number of people -- all with Democratic ties, leanings, or otherwise in opposition to the Bush Administration. The Department of Health and Human Services determined that the anthrax was of domestic origin, and no one has ever been arrested for this crime.
In the aftermath of the anthrax attacks, people were understandably afraid of receiving correspondence from people they don't know. I myself received a letter of unkonwn origin at that time and took it to my local police, who reassured me that I had done the right thing.
Everyone was afraid of the anthrax attacks at the time, but of course now Ann Coulter jokes about being the anthrax terrorist. So it's hardly surprising that when Keith Olbermann is understandably freaked out about receiving a envelope that contains some white powder AT HIS HOME ADDRESS, the bullies in the right-wing media think it's hilarious.
Editor and Publisher:
These are the people who want to give George W. Bush the authority to round up everyone who disagrees with him and brand them as enemy combatants, then throw them in a prison for the rest of their lives without charges and without trial. They want to do this, ostensibly, because they are afraid of terrorists. Yet if someone makes a terroristic threat against a news personality who disagrees with the president, suddenly it's a joke.
These people are disgusting. They are disgusting, and they are un-American. Whoever sent this envelope, whoever backs torture as a policy, whoever backs the silencing of dissent -- these are the true traitors to America. And the head traitor is sitting in the White House.
I have letters printed in my local newspaper fairly often. Most of the response I get is by phone, and most of it is positive. Occasionally people respond in writing. Sometimes they write letters, sometimes they send me religious tracts, one person from all the way in Missouri sent me a political cartoon of Cindy Sheehan with the word TRAITOR scrawled across it in Sharpie pen.
What a bunch of cowards right-wing Americans are. They're so spooked by the events of September 11 five years ago that they want this country to turn into a totalitarian, Soviet-style authoritarian society, complete with gulags for dissenters. They wake up in the morning afraid. They live in fear. They go to bed afraid -- afraid of Muslims. Afraid of gays. Afraid of people who disagree with them.
And what do cowards do? They try to make others afraid, then laugh at them when they succeed.
Forgotten in the relentless drumbeat of "Crazy Muslims Are Coming To Kill You" is the fact that not long after the 9/11 attacks, anthrax was sent to a number of people -- all with Democratic ties, leanings, or otherwise in opposition to the Bush Administration. The Department of Health and Human Services determined that the anthrax was of domestic origin, and no one has ever been arrested for this crime.
In the aftermath of the anthrax attacks, people were understandably afraid of receiving correspondence from people they don't know. I myself received a letter of unkonwn origin at that time and took it to my local police, who reassured me that I had done the right thing.
Everyone was afraid of the anthrax attacks at the time, but of course now Ann Coulter jokes about being the anthrax terrorist. So it's hardly surprising that when Keith Olbermann is understandably freaked out about receiving a envelope that contains some white powder AT HIS HOME ADDRESS, the bullies in the right-wing media think it's hilarious.
Editor and Publisher:
Here is the Post item, which appeared under the headline, "Powder Puff Spooks Keith."
*
MSNBC loudmouth Keith Olbermann flipped out when he opened his home mail yesterday. The acerbic host of "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" was terrified when he opened a suspicious-looking letter with a California postmark and a batch of white powder poured out. A note inside warned Olbermann, who's a frequent critic of President Bush's policies, that it was payback for some of his on-air shtick.
The caustic commentator panicked and frantically called 911 at about 12:30 a.m., sources told The Post's Philip Messing. An NYPD HazMat unit rushed to Olbermann's pad on Central Park South, but preliminary tests indicated the substance was harmless soap powder. However, that wasn't enough to satisfy Olbermann, who insisted on a checkup. He asked to be taken to St. Luke's Hospital, where doctors looked him over and sent him home. Whether they gave him a lollipop on the way out isn't known. Olbermann had no comment.
These are the people who want to give George W. Bush the authority to round up everyone who disagrees with him and brand them as enemy combatants, then throw them in a prison for the rest of their lives without charges and without trial. They want to do this, ostensibly, because they are afraid of terrorists. Yet if someone makes a terroristic threat against a news personality who disagrees with the president, suddenly it's a joke.
These people are disgusting. They are disgusting, and they are un-American. Whoever sent this envelope, whoever backs torture as a policy, whoever backs the silencing of dissent -- these are the true traitors to America. And the head traitor is sitting in the White House.
"No" means "No".
It doesn't mean "Maybe." It doesn't mean "I'll think about it." It means no. It means no, I will not give you another chance to fuck it up.
I'm talking, of course, to John Kerry, who is again making noises about running in 2008:
You know what, John? Fuck you. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Unfinished business? Whose fault is that? Even Kristen Breitweiser was disgusted with you by the end of your campaign because you didn't even fucking try.
Good Lord, is this the best the Democrats can do? Hillary Clinton, who still supports the Iraq war, and John Kerry, who thinks we should let him try again? I hear rumblings about Barack Obama, who is at this point little better than a moral scold in the mold of his mentor Joe Lieberman.
Is this really the best we can do?
If that's the case, then we might as well shutter the whole damn country and put up a sign that says "Gone Fishin'". Because between craven Democrats like John Kerry and Republicans salivating for torture, the America I grew up in is already gone.
I'm talking, of course, to John Kerry, who is again making noises about running in 2008:
ABC's Teddy Davis reports: During a learning class held at C-SPAN's studios on Tuesday, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said he's "pretty much feeling" what you need to feel to run for President.
Since losing the 2004 presidential election, Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) has been actively laying the groundwork to run again. These comments put him rhetorically one step closer.
KERRY: ". . . You just gotta make the judgment. You also have to make the judgment, which I’m pretty much feeling, I'm saying that I have something to say, I have some unfinished business from the last round, I don't like what they did, I don't like how they framed it, and I don't like what they're doing for the country today, and I think we can do better. . . "
You know what, John? Fuck you. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Unfinished business? Whose fault is that? Even Kristen Breitweiser was disgusted with you by the end of your campaign because you didn't even fucking try.
Good Lord, is this the best the Democrats can do? Hillary Clinton, who still supports the Iraq war, and John Kerry, who thinks we should let him try again? I hear rumblings about Barack Obama, who is at this point little better than a moral scold in the mold of his mentor Joe Lieberman.
Is this really the best we can do?
If that's the case, then we might as well shutter the whole damn country and put up a sign that says "Gone Fishin'". Because between craven Democrats like John Kerry and Republicans salivating for torture, the America I grew up in is already gone.
Taka Tea Garden, Sydney
Roasted peas and gyokuro teaHow much do you love your green tea?If you're not sure of your response, the test is easy. Try the green tea healthy lunch set at Taka Tea Garden.I'd always been intrigued by the lunch counter at Taka Tea Garden at World Square (for some reason marked as Rosa Tea House above the door despite all the Taka Tea Garden brochures inside). Sure the tins of loose tea leaves
Taka Tea Garden, Sydney
Roasted peas and gyokuro teaHow much do you love your green tea?If you're not sure of your response, the test is easy. Try the green tea healthy lunch set at Taka Tea Garden.I'd always been intrigued by the lunch counter at Taka Tea Garden at World Square (for some reason marked as Rosa Tea House above the door despite all the Taka Tea Garden brochures inside). Sure the tins of loose tea leaves
The day people stop responding to this is the day it will stop
Everyone complains about campaign ads this time of year -- they're too negative. They don't focus on the issues. They don't tell me anything.
The problem is that they work. The ad still regarded as the mother of all negative ads is still the "Girl with a Daisy" ad that Lyndon Johnson ran against Barry Goldwater in 1964:
If you look at that ad now, it's tame by today's standards. It doesn't mention Goldwater, it doesn't poke fun at Goldwater, it doesn't even make any claims about Goldwater -- but coming as it did on the heels of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Kennedy Assassination, it didn't need to.
In 2004, the theme was terrorism, but the influence of the Daisy ad was clear in this fearmongering ad released by the Bush campaign:
-- except that the opposition candidate was mentioned by name.
The 2004 election also saw this little gem by the so-called "Swiftboat Veterans for Truth":
The best response to this ad came from the brilliant minds at the late and lamented Morning Sedition, who came up with this still-hilarious parody:
(Just as an aside: When I started this blog, I seriously considered calling it "John Kerry took my shoe".)
Taken to their extreme, negative ads look like this little gem from wackjob Vernon Robinson:
Now I know that the wingnuts among you are going to post in the comments about "The Hitler ad that Moveon.org ran", so I'll cut you off at the pass. In 2004, Moveon.org had a contest called "Bush in 30 Seconds" in which they invited people to submit campaign ads. At first, they posted all the entries on the Moveon.org site, and out of 1500 entries, TWO of them compared George W. Bush to Hitler. The right wing latched onto these two ads and squealed like the WATBs they are until Moveon.org pulled the ads from their site. Yet to this day, the meme of "Moveon.org ran ads comparing Bush to Hitler" persists, even though it is patently false.
In case you're interested in which ad won the contest, an ad which WAS released to the media (except that CBS refused to run it), you can see it here.
Today the New York Times reports on how the legacy of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove is in full flower in this year's midterm election campaigns:
It's interesting that Republicans bleat like sheep and scream "Negativity!" when Democratic ads point out things like slavish support for even the most misguided Bush policies (hat tip to MyDD for this):
...and yet they freely admit that things a candidate wrote in a student newspaper in the 1960's are fair game. (If that's the case, then LET'S go back and revisit George W. Bush's wasted youth, then, shall we?)
I happen to love this Jim Webb ad. I love it because it in no way distorts George Allen's support for the Iraq war. It doesn't even use the "macaca incident." It simply points out the facts, then shows the candidate saying what he would do differently. And I'm quite certain that Allen's campaign is crying foul -- because when you point out a Republican's failings about policy, that's negative campaigning. But hiring a bunch of guys to act as so-called "independent agents" to tell lies about a soldier's record, well, that's perfectly OK.
I'd like to see more ads like this one, because ads like this can educate a public that by and large isn't paying attention to the very real differences between candidates. There isn't much you can do in 30 seconds, and that's one reason why attack ads that play to the reptilian brain are so effective. It's easier to tap into fear and anxiety in a short time than it is to give concrete information. But this ad shows us that it can be done.
But the real responsibility for putting an end to ads that attack a candidate based on lies, innuendo, and what people may have done 30 years ago, lies with voters. As long as negative ads work, we will continue to see them year after year.
The problem is that they work. The ad still regarded as the mother of all negative ads is still the "Girl with a Daisy" ad that Lyndon Johnson ran against Barry Goldwater in 1964:
If you look at that ad now, it's tame by today's standards. It doesn't mention Goldwater, it doesn't poke fun at Goldwater, it doesn't even make any claims about Goldwater -- but coming as it did on the heels of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Kennedy Assassination, it didn't need to.
In 2004, the theme was terrorism, but the influence of the Daisy ad was clear in this fearmongering ad released by the Bush campaign:
-- except that the opposition candidate was mentioned by name.
The 2004 election also saw this little gem by the so-called "Swiftboat Veterans for Truth":
The best response to this ad came from the brilliant minds at the late and lamented Morning Sedition, who came up with this still-hilarious parody:
(Just as an aside: When I started this blog, I seriously considered calling it "John Kerry took my shoe".)
Taken to their extreme, negative ads look like this little gem from wackjob Vernon Robinson:
Now I know that the wingnuts among you are going to post in the comments about "The Hitler ad that Moveon.org ran", so I'll cut you off at the pass. In 2004, Moveon.org had a contest called "Bush in 30 Seconds" in which they invited people to submit campaign ads. At first, they posted all the entries on the Moveon.org site, and out of 1500 entries, TWO of them compared George W. Bush to Hitler. The right wing latched onto these two ads and squealed like the WATBs they are until Moveon.org pulled the ads from their site. Yet to this day, the meme of "Moveon.org ran ads comparing Bush to Hitler" persists, even though it is patently false.
In case you're interested in which ad won the contest, an ad which WAS released to the media (except that CBS refused to run it), you can see it here.
Today the New York Times reports on how the legacy of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove is in full flower in this year's midterm election campaigns:
For Republicans, it was the leading edge of a wave of negative advertisements against Democratic candidates, the product of more than a year of research into the personal and professional backgrounds of Democratic challengers.
“What do we really know about Angie Paccione?” an announcer asks about a Democratic challenger in Colorado. “Angie Paccione had 10 legal claims against her for bad debts and campaign violations. A court even ordered her wages garnished.”
For Democrats, it was part of a barrage intended to tie Republican incumbents to an unpopular Congress, criticize their voting records, portray them as captives to special interests and highlight embarrassing moments from their business histories.
In Tennessee, Democrats attacked Bob Corker, a Republican candidate for Senate, saying his construction company had hired illegal immigrants “while he looked the other way.”
The result of the dueling accusations has been what both sides described on Tuesday as the most toxic midterm campaign environment in memory. It is a jarring blend of shadowy images, breathless announcers, jagged music and a dizzying array of statistics, counterstatistics and vote citations — all intended to present the members of Congress and their challengers in the worst possible light. Democratic and Republican strategists said they expected over 90 percent of the advertisements to be broadcast by Nov. 7 to be negative.
[snip]
While Democrats have largely concentrated their efforts on the political records of Republicans, the Republicans have zeroed in more on candidates’ personal backgrounds.
Representative Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said his investigators had been looking into prospective Democratic challengers since the summer of 2005.
“These candidates have been out there doing other things — they have never seen anything like this before,” Mr. Reynolds said of the Democratic challengers.
“We haven’t even begun to unload this freight train,” Mr. Reynolds said.
Democrats are learning just how deeply the Republicans have been digging. John Yarmuth, a Kentucky Democrat who is running for a House seat, has spent much of the past few days trying to explain editorials unearthed by Republican researchers and spotlighted in new advertisements. Mr. Yarmuth wrote the editorials for his student newspapers, and in them he advocated the legalization of marijuana, among other things.
It's interesting that Republicans bleat like sheep and scream "Negativity!" when Democratic ads point out things like slavish support for even the most misguided Bush policies (hat tip to MyDD for this):
...and yet they freely admit that things a candidate wrote in a student newspaper in the 1960's are fair game. (If that's the case, then LET'S go back and revisit George W. Bush's wasted youth, then, shall we?)
I happen to love this Jim Webb ad. I love it because it in no way distorts George Allen's support for the Iraq war. It doesn't even use the "macaca incident." It simply points out the facts, then shows the candidate saying what he would do differently. And I'm quite certain that Allen's campaign is crying foul -- because when you point out a Republican's failings about policy, that's negative campaigning. But hiring a bunch of guys to act as so-called "independent agents" to tell lies about a soldier's record, well, that's perfectly OK.
I'd like to see more ads like this one, because ads like this can educate a public that by and large isn't paying attention to the very real differences between candidates. There isn't much you can do in 30 seconds, and that's one reason why attack ads that play to the reptilian brain are so effective. It's easier to tap into fear and anxiety in a short time than it is to give concrete information. But this ad shows us that it can be done.
But the real responsibility for putting an end to ads that attack a candidate based on lies, innuendo, and what people may have done 30 years ago, lies with voters. As long as negative ads work, we will continue to see them year after year.
Okay, here it is
John Aravosis has loaded up the declassified section of the National Intelligence Estimate.
While the right can try the blurb-whore method of selective excision and simply quote this:
...the rest of the report is far more sobering. If you read on after the above, you find this:
The most devastating part for the Bush Administration is the contention that the Iraq War is making the situation worse:
The Bush Cultists will seize upon the last sentence of the first paragraph as reason to continue fighting in Iraq in perpetuity, but the report states clearly that "the underlying factors fueling the spread of the movement outweigh the vulnerabilities". As long as our presence in Iraq is fueling the jihadists, they will not perceive themselves to have failed.
The other part of this report that jumped right out at me was item 3: "the slow pace of real and sustained economic, social, and political reforms in many Muslim majority nations". Exhibit A on this front is George W. Bush's good friends the Saudi Royal Family, whom we have propped up for years. Rather than continuing to prop up autocratic regimes in the Middle East while giving lip service to Democracy, the most constructive policy would be to institute a Marshall-type plan to get this country off of Middle Eastern Oil once and for all, and stop this hypocrisy of bombing Middle Eastern countries to smithereens and torturing its citizens -- and then setting up puppet regimes led by people like Unocal shill Hamid Karzai and the series of clowns the Bush Adminstration has put up in Iraq.
Perhaps if we stop acting like an invading horde, we won't be perceived as an invading horde.
While the right can try the blurb-whore method of selective excision and simply quote this:
United States-led counterterrorism efforts have seriously damaged the leadership of al-Qa’ida and disrupted its operations
...the rest of the report is far more sobering. If you read on after the above, you find this:
We also assess that the global jihadist movement—which includes al- Qa’ida, affiliated and independent terrorist groups, and emerging networks and cells—is spreading and adapting to counterterrorism efforts.
The most devastating part for the Bush Administration is the contention that the Iraq War is making the situation worse:
The Iraq conflict has become the “cause celebre” for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement. Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.
We assess that the underlying factors fueling the spread of the movement outweigh its vulnerabilities and are likely to do so for the duration of the timeframe of this Estimate.
• Four underlying factors are fueling the spread of the jihadist movement: (1) Entrenched grievances, such as corruption, injustice, and fear of Western domination, leading to anger, humiliation, and a sense of powerlessness; (2) the Iraq “jihad;” (3) the slow pace of real and sustained economic, social, and political reforms in many Muslim majority nations; and (4) pervasive anti-US sentiment among most Muslims—all of which jihadists exploit.
The Bush Cultists will seize upon the last sentence of the first paragraph as reason to continue fighting in Iraq in perpetuity, but the report states clearly that "the underlying factors fueling the spread of the movement outweigh the vulnerabilities". As long as our presence in Iraq is fueling the jihadists, they will not perceive themselves to have failed.
The other part of this report that jumped right out at me was item 3: "the slow pace of real and sustained economic, social, and political reforms in many Muslim majority nations". Exhibit A on this front is George W. Bush's good friends the Saudi Royal Family, whom we have propped up for years. Rather than continuing to prop up autocratic regimes in the Middle East while giving lip service to Democracy, the most constructive policy would be to institute a Marshall-type plan to get this country off of Middle Eastern Oil once and for all, and stop this hypocrisy of bombing Middle Eastern countries to smithereens and torturing its citizens -- and then setting up puppet regimes led by people like Unocal shill Hamid Karzai and the series of clowns the Bush Adminstration has put up in Iraq.
Perhaps if we stop acting like an invading horde, we won't be perceived as an invading horde.
mardi 26 septembre 2006
The silly season
This amateur homemade ad (read: you'll never see it on TV) needs to be a wee bit slicker, but damn if it isn't an effective slam not just on Tom "Mini Me" Kean, Jr., but on the whole of Republican governing since 1980:
Toby's Estate, Chippendale
There is something infinitely satisfying about cupping your hands around a big bowl of steaming coffee. Size does come into it, but it's also the comfort factor (and Parisien nuances) of slowly sipping at a coffee receptable the size of a small soup tureen.There is no doubt that Toby's Estate have their own legion of coffee fans. The queue at their stall at the Good Living Growers Market
Toby's Estate, Chippendale
There is something infinitely satisfying about cupping your hands around a big bowl of steaming coffee. Size does come into it, but it's also the comfort factor (and Parisien nuances) of slowly sipping at a coffee receptable the size of a small soup tureen.There is no doubt that Toby's Estate have their own legion of coffee fans. The queue at their stall at the Good Living Growers Market
"...I could do more good for my soldiers and their families out of uniform"
Let's see the Fox News gasbags and the trashmouths in the right call General John R.S. Batiste "anti-American":
Oh, they will. They will call him a traitor, and a "cut-and-runner", the same way they likened Max Cleland -- a man who left three out of his four limbs in Vietnam -- to Osama Bin Laden in 2002. They will call him a "cut-and-runner" as they have Illinois Senate candidate Tammy Duckworth -- who lost both legs in Iraq.
What's so emotionally wrenching about watching Batiste's testimony is recognizing the degree of discipline and obeisance to authority that is required of these career military men -- and realizing how difficult it must have been for Batiste to decide to turn on his commander-in-chief.
If this were the kiind of banana dictatorship George W. Bush seems determined to turn it into, we would be seeing a military coup in this country. But that's not the way our military operates. Instead we have men like Gen. Batiste being willing to sacrifice their careers in order to save their men. We owe him no less than to listen and heed what he has to say.
Oh, they will. They will call him a traitor, and a "cut-and-runner", the same way they likened Max Cleland -- a man who left three out of his four limbs in Vietnam -- to Osama Bin Laden in 2002. They will call him a "cut-and-runner" as they have Illinois Senate candidate Tammy Duckworth -- who lost both legs in Iraq.
What's so emotionally wrenching about watching Batiste's testimony is recognizing the degree of discipline and obeisance to authority that is required of these career military men -- and realizing how difficult it must have been for Batiste to decide to turn on his commander-in-chief.
If this were the kiind of banana dictatorship George W. Bush seems determined to turn it into, we would be seeing a military coup in this country. But that's not the way our military operates. Instead we have men like Gen. Batiste being willing to sacrifice their careers in order to save their men. We owe him no less than to listen and heed what he has to say.
When your country is governed by petulant adolescents
Keith ups the ante.
Transcript excerpt:
Don't believe him? Check out what Richard Ben-Veniste said yesterday on The Situation Room on CNN:
This is stunning. First, we have Wolf Blitzer repeating the Republican talking point that 9/11 was Clinton's fault by broaching the notion that Bill Clinton should have invaded Afghanistan before leaving office. Can you imagine the squawking by Republicans if Clinton had done that? Clinton was handed the Somalia disaster by George Herbert Walker Bush, and knew the problems a new Administration has in dealing with an inherited crisis. So instead, the outgoing Clinton Administration did the right thing and handed the new Bush Administration the plans and intelligence they would need to mount an attack -- AND THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION CHOSE NOT TO DO ANYTHING.
Let's repeat that: George W. Bush had the information he needed, and CHOSE NOT TO DO ANYTHING.
So can we stop the "Clinton caused 9/11" bullshit now?
Second of all, Ben-Veniste's account shows the president on whose watch the 9/11 attacks took place cracking jokes about being pussy-whipped by his daughters.
No one is going to defend Bill Clinton for having an extramarital dalliance when he knew by then that the right wing was loaded for bear. Or for Dawg. But Olbermann is absolutely right: if there was a distraction, it was the distraction of Republicans turning an extramarital dalliance, and a president testifying about sex WITHIN THE DEFINITION OF SEX AS SET FORTH BY THE JUDGE IN THE PAULA JONES CASE, into an impeachment.
You want to blame anyone for 9/11? Blame Congressional Republicans, blame the gasbags on the right who whipped Americans into a frenzy over a blue dress -- and blame the arrogance of the Bush Administration, who decided, like a rebellious teenager, that anything the Clinton Administration thought was important was by definition unimportant.
When this bunch took office, we heard a lot of noise about how now the grownups were in charge. Grownups? This bunch has been acting like the three-year-old, standing amidst the shards of the broken vase and the water on the carpet, blaming the family dog. They've been acting like the sullen teenager who, after bringing the car home with a dent in the side, insists that he has no idea how it happened.
George W. Bush has been blaming others for his failings all his life. The so-called news media, with the exception of Keith Olbermann, has been allowing him to continue to do for over five years now. It is time that we, the American people, do what Barbara and George Herbert Walker Bush never did with this kid: hold him accountable for his actions.
Transcript excerpt:
It is not important that the current President’s "portable public chorus" has described his predecessor’s tone as "crazed."
Our tone should be crazed. The nation’s freedoms are under assault by an administration whose policies can do us as much damage as Al-Qaeda; the nation’s "marketplace of ideas" is being poisoned, by a propaganda company so blatant that Tokyo Rose would’ve quit. Nonetheless.
The headline is this: Bill Clinton did what almost none of us have done, in five years. He has spoken the truth about 9/11, and the current presidential administration.
"At least I tried," he said of his own efforts to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden. "That’s the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They had eight months to try; they did not try. I tried."
Thus in his supposed emeritus years, has Mr. Clinton taken forceful and triumphant action for honesty, and for us; action as vital and as courageous as any of his presidency; action as startling and as liberating, as any, by anyone, in these last five long years.
The Bush Administration did not try to get Osama Bin Laden before 9/11.
The Bush Administration ignored all the evidence gathered by its predecessors.
The Bush Administration did not understand the Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S."
The Bush Administration… did… not… try.—
Don't believe him? Check out what Richard Ben-Veniste said yesterday on The Situation Room on CNN:
BLITZER: All right. You, in your questioning in your investigation, when you were a member of this commission, specifically asked President Bush about efforts after he was inaugurated on January 20, 2001, until 9/11, eight months later, what he and his administration were doing to kill bin Laden, because by then it was certified, it was authorized. It was, in fact, confirmed that al Qaeda was responsible for the attack on the USS Cole in December of 2000.
BEN-VENISTE: It's true, Wolf, we had the opportunity to interview President Bush, along with the vice president, and we spent a few hours doing that in the Oval Office. And one of the questions we had and I specifically had was why President Bush did not respond to the Cole attack. And what he told me was that he did not want to launch a cruise missile attack against bin Laden for fear of missing him and bombing the rubble.
And then I asked him, "Well, what about the Taliban?" The United States had warned the Taliban, indeed threatened the Taliban on at least three occasions, all of which is set out in our 9/11 Commission final report, that if bin Laden, who had refuge in Afghanistan, were to strike against U.S. interests then we would respond against the Taliban.
BLITZER: Now, that was warnings during the Clinton administration...
BEN-VENISTE: That's correct.
BLITZER: ... the final years of the Clinton administration.
BEN-VENISTE: That's correct.
BLITZER: So you the asked the president in the Oval Office -- and the vice president -- why didn't you go after the Taliban in those eight months before 9/11 after he was president. What did he say?
BEN-VENISTE: Well, now that it was established that al Qaeda was responsible for the Cole bombing and the president was briefed in January of 2001, soon after he took office, by George Tenet, head of the CIA, telling him of the finding that al Qaeda was responsible, and I said, "Well, why wouldn't you go after the Taliban in order to get them to kick bin Laden out of Afghanistan?"
Maybe, just maybe, who knows -- we don't know the answer to that question -- but maybe that could have affected the 9/11 plot.
BLITZER: What did he say?
BEN-VENISTE: He said that no one had told him that we had made that threat. And I found that very discouraging and surprising.
BLITZER: Now, I read this report, the 9/11 Commission report. This is a big, thick book. I don't see anything and I don't remember seeing anything about this exchange that you had with the president in this report.
BEN-VENISTE: Well, I had hoped that we had -- we would have made both the Clinton interview and the Bush interview a part of our report, but that was not to be. I was outvoted on that question.
BLITZER: Why?
BEN-VENISTE: I didn't have the votes.
BLITZER: Well, was -- were the Republican members trying to protect the president and the vice president? Is that what your suspicion is?
BEN-VENISTE: I think the question was that there was a degree of confidentiality associated with that and that we would take from that the output that is reflected in the report, but go no further. And that until some five years' time after our work, we would keep that confidential. I thought we would be better to make all of the information that we had available to the public and make our report as transparent as possible so that the American public could have that.
BLITZER: Now, you haven't spoken publicly about this, your interview in the Oval Office, together with the other commissioners, the president and the vice president. Why are you doing that right now?
BEN-VENISTE: Well, I think it's an important subject. The issue of the Cole is an important subject, and there has been a lot of politicization over this issue, why didn't President Clinton respond?
Well, we set forth in the report the reasons, and that is because the CIA had not given the president the conclusion that al Qaeda was responsible. That did not occur until some point in December. It was reiterated in a briefing to the -- to the new president in January.
BLITZER: Well, let me stop you for a second. If former President Clinton knew in December...
BEN-VENISTE: Right.
BLITZER: ... that the CIA and the FBI had, in his words, certified that al Qaeda was responsible, he was still president until January 20, 2001. He had a month, let's say, or at least a few weeks to respond.
Why didn't he?
BEN-VENISTE: Well, I think that was a question of whether a president who would be soon leaving office would initiate an attack against a foreign country, Afghanistan. And I think that was left up to the new administration. But strangely, in the transition there did not seem to be any great interest by the Bush administration, at least none that we found, in pursuing the question of plans which were being drawn up to attack in Afghanistan as a response to the Cole.
BLITZER: Now, as best of my recollection, when you went to the Oval Office with your other commissioners, the president and the vice president did that together. That was a joint interview.
BEN-VENISTE: At the request of the president.
BLITZER: Did the vice president say anything to you? Did he know that this warning had been given to the Taliban, who were then ruling Afghanistan, if there's another attack on the United States, we're going to go after you because you harbor al Qaeda? And there was this attack on the USS Cole.
BEN-VENISTE: The vice president did not at that point volunteer any information about the Cole.
BLITZER: So what's your -- did the president say to you -- did the president say, you know, "I made a mistake, I wish we would have done something"? What did he say when you continually -- when you pressed him? And I know you're a former prosecutor, you know how to drill, try to press a point.
BEN-VENISTE: Well, the president made a humorous remark about the fact that -- asking me whether I had ever lost an argument, and I reminded him that -- or I informed him that I, too, had two daughters. And so we passed that.
He made his statement about the state of his knowledge, and I accepted that as a given, although I was surprised considering the number of people who continued on, including Richard Clarke. So that information was there and available, but the question of why we did not respond to the Cole, I think it was an important lapse, quite frankly.
I think that we would have sent a message to the Taliban and we would have sent a message to al Qaeda. It could have conceivably -- I don't know the answer to this, but conceivably it could have had an affect on whether Sheikh Mullah and -- Omar.
BLITZER: Mullah Mohammed Omar, the leader of the Taliban.
BEN-VENISTE: Omar, right -- would have continued to harbor bin Laden and al Qaeda in their country.
This is stunning. First, we have Wolf Blitzer repeating the Republican talking point that 9/11 was Clinton's fault by broaching the notion that Bill Clinton should have invaded Afghanistan before leaving office. Can you imagine the squawking by Republicans if Clinton had done that? Clinton was handed the Somalia disaster by George Herbert Walker Bush, and knew the problems a new Administration has in dealing with an inherited crisis. So instead, the outgoing Clinton Administration did the right thing and handed the new Bush Administration the plans and intelligence they would need to mount an attack -- AND THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION CHOSE NOT TO DO ANYTHING.
Let's repeat that: George W. Bush had the information he needed, and CHOSE NOT TO DO ANYTHING.
So can we stop the "Clinton caused 9/11" bullshit now?
Second of all, Ben-Veniste's account shows the president on whose watch the 9/11 attacks took place cracking jokes about being pussy-whipped by his daughters.
No one is going to defend Bill Clinton for having an extramarital dalliance when he knew by then that the right wing was loaded for bear. Or for Dawg. But Olbermann is absolutely right: if there was a distraction, it was the distraction of Republicans turning an extramarital dalliance, and a president testifying about sex WITHIN THE DEFINITION OF SEX AS SET FORTH BY THE JUDGE IN THE PAULA JONES CASE, into an impeachment.
You want to blame anyone for 9/11? Blame Congressional Republicans, blame the gasbags on the right who whipped Americans into a frenzy over a blue dress -- and blame the arrogance of the Bush Administration, who decided, like a rebellious teenager, that anything the Clinton Administration thought was important was by definition unimportant.
When this bunch took office, we heard a lot of noise about how now the grownups were in charge. Grownups? This bunch has been acting like the three-year-old, standing amidst the shards of the broken vase and the water on the carpet, blaming the family dog. They've been acting like the sullen teenager who, after bringing the car home with a dent in the side, insists that he has no idea how it happened.
George W. Bush has been blaming others for his failings all his life. The so-called news media, with the exception of Keith Olbermann, has been allowing him to continue to do for over five years now. It is time that we, the American people, do what Barbara and George Herbert Walker Bush never did with this kid: hold him accountable for his actions.
lundi 25 septembre 2006
Tomodachi, Broadway
Chicken katsudon $9.50Deep-fried chicken with egg and topped with spring onionServed with steamed rice and miso soupTomodachi means friend in Japanese, and so it seemed apt that Saffron and I lunch there the other week.It helped that we both love all things Japanese. And it definitely helped that our lunch was speedy and most delicious.Deborah had the chicken katsudon, a cavernous square-shaped
Tomodachi, Broadway
Chicken katsudon $9.50Deep-fried chicken with egg and topped with spring onionServed with steamed rice and miso soupTomodachi means friend in Japanese, and so it seemed apt that Saffron and I lunch there the other week.It helped that we both love all things Japanese. And it definitely helped that our lunch was speedy and most delicious.Deborah had the chicken katsudon, a cavernous square-shaped
The larger significance of Chris Wallace's interview with the Big Dawg
Arianna Huffington cautions those of us who have been waiting for someone to finally stand up to Fox News that while we may applaud that Bill Clinton slapped around that snivelling little rat-faced git Chris Wallace yesterday, it's "Clintonism" and the entire DLC mindset that got us into this mess:
What can we learn from what happened?
More specifically, what can Bill Clinton learn? That the bipartisan love-in he's been engaged in over the last several years has resulted in jack-squat.
After providing President Bush cover for his disastrous handling of Katrina, after trying to get himself adopted by George Bush, Sr., after giving Laura Bush the keynote slot at his Global Initiative Conference, after going along with Rupert Murdoch's fundraiser for Hillary -- after all that, he got exactly nothing.
All of Bill Clinton's tireless "bipartisanship" has been of no benefit to him, of no benefit to the country, and has only benefited George Bush and the right-wing.
I'm glad the Chris Wallace interview is flying all over the internet, but I really hope that one person who will watch it over and over again is Bill Clinton. And that on the fifth or sixth viewing it might occur to him that the more cover he gives Bush and his cronies, the more they're able to increase and entrench their power. Power they use to destroy everything that Clinton purports to stand for.
Taking the "high-road" has a nice sound to it, but Clinton shouldn't fool himself -- and insult the rest of us -- by thinking that the time he's spent traveling that elevated path has made the world a better place. Or made the gang at Fox News hate him any less than they did the day he left office.
dimanche 24 septembre 2006
What Bill Clinton Left Out
A glaring omission from Bill Clinton's correction of the wingut delusion that he refused to go after Al Qaeda and that his handling of the Somalia episode in 1993 gave Osama Bin Laden the impression that we were weak was the fact that Bill Clinton inherited the Somalia mess from George Herbert Walker Bush, who launched the intervention in Somalia on December 4, 1992 -- just weeks before leaving office:
Well, as we know now, he was wrong, and the troops were NOT home by the time of Clinton's inauguration in January 1993. Perhaps Clinton's friendship with Bush Sr. as a result of their work on tsunami relief is why he left it out, or perhaps he wanted to live, unlike the current president, by the traditional presidential unwritten code of not trashing your predecessor.
It should also be noted that in his smackdown of snivelling little rat-faced git Chris Wallace, he explained what he did after the Cole bombing in 2000:
And yet, the incoming Administration, the people who WERE empowered to do something about the Cole bombing, not only did absolutely nothing, but DEFENDED doing absolutely nothing. As John Amato notes:
This from the Administration which claims everything it's done since 9/11/01 has been exactly that -- responding tit-for-tat, and which has made it very clear that there is no amount of dead Middle Eastern civilians that can be reached to make us "even."
The Cole was in the past. The August 6 PDB was "a historical document." Why on earth would anyone think Condi Rice has one iota of a clue what the hell she's doing?
Deteriorating security prevents the UN mission from delivering food and supplies to the starving Somalis. Relief flights are looted upon landing, food convoys are hijacked and aid workers assaulted. The UN appeals to its members to provide military forces to assist the humanitarian operation.
With only weeks left in his term as president, George Bush responds to the UN request, proposing that US combat troops lead an international UN force to secure the environment for relief operations. On December 5, the UN accepts his offer, and Bush orders 25,000 US troops into Somalia. On December 9th, the first US Marines land on the beach.
Bush assures the American people and troops involved that this is not an open ended commitment; the objective is to quickly provide a secure environment so that food can get through to the starving Somalis, and then the operation will be turned over to the UN peacekeeping forces. He assures the public that he plans for the troops to be home by Clinton's inauguration in January.
This US-led United Task Force (UNITAF) is dubbed "Operation Restore Hope."
Well, as we know now, he was wrong, and the troops were NOT home by the time of Clinton's inauguration in January 1993. Perhaps Clinton's friendship with Bush Sr. as a result of their work on tsunami relief is why he left it out, or perhaps he wanted to live, unlike the current president, by the traditional presidential unwritten code of not trashing your predecessor.
It should also be noted that in his smackdown of snivelling little rat-faced git Chris Wallace, he explained what he did after the Cole bombing in 2000:
I worked hard to try and kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since. And if I were still President, we’d have more than 20,000 troops there trying to kill him....The entire military was against sending Special Forces into Afghanistan and refueling by helicopter and no one thought we could do it otherwise. We could not get the CIA and the FBI to certify that al Qaeda was responsible while I was President. [Not] until I left office.
And yet, the incoming Administration, the people who WERE empowered to do something about the Cole bombing, not only did absolutely nothing, but DEFENDED doing absolutely nothing. As John Amato notes:
Rice admits that the Bush administration didn’t want to retaliate for the Cole bombing, despite Clarke’s prodding:CLARKE: I suggested, beginning in January of 2001, that … there was an open issue which should be decided about whether or not the Bush administration should retaliate for the Cole attack [which occurred in October 2000].
Unfortunately, there was no interest, no acceptance of that proposition. And I was told on a couple of occasions, "Well, you know, that happened on the Clinton administration’s watch." I didn’t think it made any difference. I thought the Bush administration, now that it had the CIA saying it was al Qaeda, should have responded.
…
RICE: I do not believe to this day that it would have been a good thing to respond to the Cole, given the kinds of options that we were going to have. … We really thought that the Cole incident was passed, that you didn’t want to respond tit-for-tat. …Just responding to another attack in an insufficient way we thought would actually probably embolden the terrorists — they had been emboldened by everything else that had been done to them — and that the best course was to look ahead to a more aggressive strategy against them.
This from the Administration which claims everything it's done since 9/11/01 has been exactly that -- responding tit-for-tat, and which has made it very clear that there is no amount of dead Middle Eastern civilians that can be reached to make us "even."
The Cole was in the past. The August 6 PDB was "a historical document." Why on earth would anyone think Condi Rice has one iota of a clue what the hell she's doing?
I told you so
I've been saying for years that the next battleground for the Christofascist Zombie Brigade after they get their way on abortion is contraception. I hate it when I'm right. This article is from the Chicago Tribune, which requires a login. So go to Bugmenot.com, type in "chicagotrubune.com", and get a user ID and password.
OK, now I have to take a break so you can absorb the stunning level of dumbassedness of that statement by Joseph Scheidler. Contraception causes abortion. Something designed to PREVENT CONCEPTION causes abortion. Got that? That's what we're dealing with, folks -- this is the Republican base.
All right, let's continue:
Do we really want morons like this deciding policy on anything, let alone deciding what other people can do with their bodies?
98% of women report using contraception. 91% believe in access to contraception.
Now consider this: Funding for family planning programs has already been cut to the bone. If Republican Congressional leaders kowtow to their demands (and there's no reason to believe they won't), then access to contraception will be virtually eliminated for poor women (and men). The result will be more unwanted pregnancies for women too poor to afford the babies that Republicans and these so-called Christians want to force them to have.
Here, from the same article, is Rev. Thomas Euteneuer, president of Human Life International, insisting that chemical contraception is the same as abortion:
Now that's the scary part. I've been making the point for years that the logical extension of this is requiring women to send their used sanitary products to authorities for microscopic examination, and prosecution if fertilized eggs are found on them. Because since up to 40% of fertilized eggs never implant for any number of reasons, the minute you decide that a fertilized egg is the same as a person, you open up that door, as preposterous as it sounds.
Pam reported on Friday on these people who want to control YOUR body in the name of "protecting marriage" and "human life":
Mote, beam, eye, etc.
I am 51 years old and haven't had a period since July 2005. This issue no longer affects me. But I know that there are people who read this blog who are younger, or who are male. If you are a women who hasn't reached menopause, or are a straight male, this issue affects you. It's time to wake up, stop saying "Oh, they'll never go that far", and realize that oh yes, they will. And they are. Right now. And if you don't believe me, ask The Biting Beaver about her experience trying to get Emergency Contraception in rural Ohio.
Emboldened by the anti-abortion movement's success in restricting access to abortion, an increasingly vocal group of Christian conservatives is arguing that it's time to mount a concerted attack on contraception.
Their voices were raised in Rosemont on Friday and Saturday at an unusual anti-abortion meeting that drew 250 people from around the nation to condemn artificial birth control. Experts at the gathering assailed contraception on the grounds that it devalues children, harms relationships between men and women, promotes sexual promiscuity and leads to falling birth rates, among social ills.
"Contraception is more the root cause of abortion than anything else," Joseph Scheidler, an anti-abortion veteran whose Pro-Life Action League sponsored the conference, said in an interview.
OK, now I have to take a break so you can absorb the stunning level of dumbassedness of that statement by Joseph Scheidler. Contraception causes abortion. Something designed to PREVENT CONCEPTION causes abortion. Got that? That's what we're dealing with, folks -- this is the Republican base.
All right, let's continue:
No one knows how many supporters Scheidler and his colleagues have, but conservative leaders are watching to see if the anti-contraception rhetoric gains traction.
Of special interest is how closely evangelical Christians are willing to align themselves with traditional Catholics on the issue. The Catholic Church long has opposed contraception, but evangelicals generally embraced its use--until recently, some argue.
"It is clear there is a major rethinking going on among evangelicals on this issue, especially among young people" disenchanted with the sexual revolution, said Rev. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. "There is a real push back against the contraceptive culture now."
Whether or not Mohler is right about young people, the sympathetic sentiments of a key leader in the nation's largest Protestant denomination adds fuel to the debate.
"I think it's great that more pro-life people are finally speaking up about it," said Helen Mazur, 27, who flew in from Philadelphia with her husband for the conference, called "Contraception is Not the Answer."
"It's always been a touchy subject, but you have to stand strong on your beliefs. Contraception is the root cause of the explosion of the amount of abortions in the world," Mazur said.
"It's new to some aspects of the pro-life world, and it's old news in other parts of the pro-life world. It's just beginning to be embraced more fully by the whole pro-life world," said Mary Turner, 42, of La Crosse, Wis.
Do we really want morons like this deciding policy on anything, let alone deciding what other people can do with their bodies?
98% of women report using contraception. 91% believe in access to contraception.
Now consider this: Funding for family planning programs has already been cut to the bone. If Republican Congressional leaders kowtow to their demands (and there's no reason to believe they won't), then access to contraception will be virtually eliminated for poor women (and men). The result will be more unwanted pregnancies for women too poor to afford the babies that Republicans and these so-called Christians want to force them to have.
Here, from the same article, is Rev. Thomas Euteneuer, president of Human Life International, insisting that chemical contraception is the same as abortion:
Chemical contraception doesn't prevent abortions, it causes abortion," he said in an interview. "If we believe life begins at the moment of conception, we have to defend it against [this] chemical attack."
Euteneuer was referring to the possibility that hormonal birth control, including the pill, the patch, injections and some IUDs, might prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in a womb. Scientific evidence suggests that this occurs infrequently, if at all, and that birth control works primarily by preventing a woman from ovulating.
But there is no way to prove that interference with implantation doesn't occur, which disturbs anti-abortion supporters.
Now that's the scary part. I've been making the point for years that the logical extension of this is requiring women to send their used sanitary products to authorities for microscopic examination, and prosecution if fertilized eggs are found on them. Because since up to 40% of fertilized eggs never implant for any number of reasons, the minute you decide that a fertilized egg is the same as a person, you open up that door, as preposterous as it sounds.
Pam reported on Friday on these people who want to control YOUR body in the name of "protecting marriage" and "human life":
Porn: Promoted, Not Accepted. AgapePress is trumpeting the latest Harris poll, which was commissioned by Morality in Media. According to this survey, 73% of U.S. adults disapprove of viewing pornographic websites.
When posed with the question: “Do you consider it to be morally acceptable to view pornographic websites and videos?” — 21 percent of the 997 respondents said “yes,” 73 percent said “no,” 4 percent said “not sure,” and 2 percent refused to answer. Findings also revealed that older female Americans are more likely to consider viewing pornography unacceptable, whereas younger male Americans are more likely to consider it acceptable. “It is disturbing that so many younger males think it is morally acceptable to view pornography,” said Robert W. Peters, president of Morality in Media. “Since males are vulnerable to visual depictions of sex, however, perhaps it should not come as a surprise.”
So does this mean that the 21% are responsible for all that porn consumption out there? And if so, what slice of it is all those fundies who watch porn in hotel pay-per-view? Maybe the 73% disagree because they need to flog themselves after surfing to XXX.com sites. After all, a recent ChristiaNet Poll found that a whole lot of good evangelicals are ordering up porn and participating in “sexual sin,” including — shock! — the leaders of the flock.
The people who struggle with the repeated pursuit of sexual gratification include church members, deacons, staff, and yes, even clergy. And, to the surprise of many, a large number of women in the church have become victim to this widespread problem. Recently, the world’s most visited Christian website, ChristiaNet.com, conducted a survey asking site visitors eleven questions about their personal sexual conduct. (http://www.christianet.com) …”The poll results indicate that 50% of all Christian men and 20% of all Christian women are addicted to pornography,” said Clay Jones, founder and President of Second Glance Ministries whose ministry objectives include providing people with information which will enable them to fully understand the impact of today’s societal issues. 60% of the women who answered the survey admitted to having significant struggles with lust; 40% admitted to being involved in sexual sin in the past year; and 20% of the church-going female participants struggle with looking at pornography on an ongoing basis.
As we say here all the time, these are the folks who fixate on your sexual proclivities because they have sex on the brain to such a degree that it turns into a pathology.
Mote, beam, eye, etc.
I am 51 years old and haven't had a period since July 2005. This issue no longer affects me. But I know that there are people who read this blog who are younger, or who are male. If you are a women who hasn't reached menopause, or are a straight male, this issue affects you. It's time to wake up, stop saying "Oh, they'll never go that far", and realize that oh yes, they will. And they are. Right now. And if you don't believe me, ask The Biting Beaver about her experience trying to get Emergency Contraception in rural Ohio.
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