mercredi 31 mai 2006

They didn't tell us that "liberating the Iraqi people" meant liberating them from this mortal coil

Appalling:

U.S. forces killed two Iraqi women — one of them about to give birth — when the troops shot at a car that failed to stop at an observation post in a city north of Baghdad, Iraqi officials and relatives said Wednesday.

Nabiha Nisaif Jassim, 35, was being raced to the maternity hospital in Samarra by her brother when the shooting occurred Tuesday.

Jassim, the mother of two children, and her 57-year-old cousin, Saliha Mohammed Hassan, were killed by the U.S. forces, according to police Capt. Laith Mohammed and witnesses.

The U.S. military said coalition troops fired at a car after it entered a clearly marked prohibited area near an observation post but failed to stop despite repeated visual and auditory warnings.

"Shots were fired to disable the vehicle," the military said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press. "Coalition forces later received reports from Iraqi police that two women had died from gunshot wounds ... and one of the females may have been pregnant."

Jassim's brother, who was wounded by broken glass, said he did not see any warnings as he sped his sister to the hospital. Her husband was waiting for her there.

"I was driving my car at full speed because I did not see any sign or warning from the Americans. It was not until they shot the two bullets that killed my sister and cousin that I stopped," he said. "God take revenge on the Americans and those who brought them here. They have no regard for our lives."

He said doctors tried but failed to save the baby after his sister was brought to the hospital.


Way to win hearts and minds, George.

THREEPENNY OPERA tix available

I have two tickets for the Roundabout Theatre production THE THREE PENNY OPERA for Saturday, June 10, at 2 PM to sell.

The seats are mid-mezzanine right, row FF, seats 106 and 108.

These tickets cost me $86.25 each plus handling charges; I am willing to sell for $45 each; $90 for the pair.

The show is at Studio 54 in New York City and stars Alan Cumming, Jim Dale, Cyndi Lauper, Ana Gasteyer, and Nellie McKay. It features a new translation by Wallace Shawn, and is nominated for Tony Awards for Best Musical Revival.

If you'd like to buy these tickets (I take PayPal), please e-mail me at brilliantatbreakfast at gmail dot com.

Eight Random Facts About Me

Oh, dear Lord...at the risk of feeding the trolls, here goes:


1. I write "women's fiction" with flawed, angsty protagonists who tend to follow a "transgress/redemption" storyline -- pretty conventional stuff for an iconoclast.

2. For all that I'm opposed to it on principle, I have actually considered plastic surgery -- for about five minutes.

3. My dream house would be a fully restored, 1800-square-foot Craftsman bungalow full of Stickley furniture. Something like this. (But it's gotta have two bathrooms...)

4. I believe in reincarnation and have had experiences that can only be chalked up to past-life memories.

5. If I (God forbid) can't stay at my current job because of layoffs, my "dream second career" would be as a personal chef.

6. I march to my own drummer more than people think. Feminist bloggers dislike me because I can't see getting hot under the collar because John Aravosis called Sen. Pat Roberts a "Big girl". Mainstream Democrats dislike me because I refuse to support candidates from outside the district who are chosen by the party apparatchiks because they have cash. Maybe that's why I don't get a lot of traffic.

7. I fear death and often have the nagging thought, "What if the Christofascist Zombie Brigade is right?" Then I think about a model of reality that involves some great white alpha male who knocked up a virgin and had a son who was a god, whom he allowed to get nailed to a tree so that married men in the 21st century could be forgiven for theft, embezzlement, corruption, and pedophilia; and get off scott free -- and decide, "Naaah."

8. I REALLY, REALLY like Green Day.

OK, a couple of tags (I don't keep track of who got these before, so if you've done one of these, just ignore this).

ModFab
Spiiderweb
Fat Bastard
Jay
Lynn

The Prince of Tallahassee (hearts) the Swift Boat Liars

Peter Daou has a letter that Newt Gingrich Wet Dream Future Republican Presidential Nominee Jeb Bush wrote to one of the Swift Boat liars, praising his "willingness to stand up against John Kerry.

Sayeth Mr. Daou at Salon:

Exclusive: Love Letter from Jeb Bush to Swift Boat Liars - "As someone who truly understands the risk of standing up for something, I simply cannot express in words how much I value their willingness to stand up against John Kerry. Their efforts, like their service to their country, speak volumes about what matters most." - Jeb Bush, January 19, 2005....So let's get this straight: the value of "standing up to" (i.e. smearing) a man who volunteered to risk his life for America "cannot be expressed in words" because, like service to the nation, it "speaks volumes about what matters most." Yes it does, in the twisted view of America's far right, where vilifying war heroes like Murtha, Cleland, and Kerry is a noble cause. And slandering those who are disgusted by Abu Ghraib and Haditha is laudable. And sitting behind a computer cheering on and "supporting the troops" while they lie dead and dying in the streets of Baghdad is respectable. And impugning the integrity of the majority of Americans who want the troops to come home is commendable. Yes, it's a great mission to slime a decorated veteran.... in the twisted view of people whom Al Gore calls "renegade rightwing extremists."


These are the people that Jeb Bush can be expected to suck up to when he attempts to ascend to the Bush Family Throne.

Get ready.

Light if any blogging today

Up late last night doing campaign mailings; up early slapping stamps on postcards, up late tonight at a campaign meeting, so light blogging today.

Meanwhile, you can read all about how once again, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, as American foreign policy is to suck up to the very same Somali warlords we tried to arrest in the 1990's, resulting in 18 dead soldiers, one of whom was dragged through the streets on national television during the infamous "Black Hawk Down" episode.

This is the same short-sighted thinking that gave us Osama Bin Laden.

mardi 30 mai 2006

Georges Bar & Grill, King Street Wharf Sydney

Put lamb on a dinner menu, and hey, I know what I'm having.We had dinner at Georges Bar & Grill in trendy King Street Wharf the other night. I have to preface King Street Wharf with "trendy" because it always strikes me as so. There's always an underlying sense of flashiness about the place: in the architecture, in its patrons, in its uber chic logo.Nevertheless we join the trilling stilettoed

Georges Bar & Grill, King Street Wharf Sydney

Put lamb on a dinner menu, and hey, I know what I'm having.We had dinner at Georges Bar & Grill in trendy King Street Wharf the other night. I have to preface King Street Wharf with "trendy" because it always strikes me as so. There's always an underlying sense of flashiness about the place: in the architecture, in its patrons, in its uber chic logo.Nevertheless we join the trilling stilettoed

The rumbles about the Prince of Tallahassee's ascension to the throne continue

It is becoming impossible to believe that the "Jeb for President" rumblings are anything other than a trial balloon to see if Jeb Bush has anything approaching enough support so Republicans can steal an election for him and get away with it.

It started last week when President Thirty Percent said "Look, I think he'd be a great president," and Bush Family Fellater Elisabeth Bumiller made a parting shot across the bow on her way to book leave to speculate on a Jeb run in 2012:

No one, the president included, is suggesting that the younger Bush will run in 2008, and Governor Bush, whose second term is up in January, has adamantly ruled it out.

But Republican Party leaders continue to talk seriously about a continuation of the dynasty, a Bush III administration, with Jeb as a candidate in 2012 or 2016, when the memory of the current president's dismal poll ratings will be less of a factor. That, at least, is what happened the last time around: President George Bush's unpopularity at the end of his term in 1992 did not hurt his eldest son when he ran for president eight years later.


In other words, despite the fact that George W. Bush has managed to fuck up everything he's touched for the last five years, party leaders must be worried enough about the current stable of Republican hopefuls to believe that Governor Remove Terri Schiavo By Force is a viable contender. Or perhaps they're worried that they won't be able to steal the 2008 election and are counting on President Hillary so we can have a repeat of the LAST Clinton years, which resulted in everyone forgetting Bush Père's dismal approval ratings near the end of his term.

But now the Jeb meme has gone beyond the new form of "speculative journalism" that seems to have taken hold at the Grey Lady, and now Newt Gingrich is beating the Jeb drum:

Probably '08 is a little bit tricky, but " '12 or '16 isn't. And he's a young enough guy (53) that he has a great future," Gingrich said on the Political Connections television show airing today on Bay News 9. "I just think his natural, personal ability is so great that people are going to realize he is not his father and he's not his brother. He's a very unique, charismatic leader with extraordinary capabilities. ... Jeb Bush may well be the most innovative (governor) in the entire country."


If the Democrats had anything resembling a spine at all, I would love to see someone go at Jeb Bush the minute he starts beating the "family values" drum -- given that Jeb's wife is a smuggler, his daughter is a drug addict, his older son (the next Bush in line after Jeb for whom the Family has political ambitions) is a stalker, and his younger son has alcohol and anger management issues.

Can we make a deal, then? No more Clintons and no more Bushes? After all, this is NOT a monarchy, no matter how much the Bush Family might wish it were so.

On wounded journalists and faceless soldiers

I had planned to blog yesterday about the deaths of CBS cameraman Paul Douglas and sound man James Brolan, and the injuries to correspondent Kimberly Dozier yesterday, but wasn't sure what I wanted to say -- and I'm still not sure....because it troubles me that American soldiers are dying every day in Iraq, but it's only when journalists fall that the war really seems to "come home."

Marie Cocco writes about the response of returning soldiers to apathy that Americans feel about this war, as they obsess instead about the American Idol winner or about an injured racehorse or the Brangelina Baby.

Cocco attributes the apathy to the fact that the all-volunteer military means that fewer of us know someone who has actually served. I can recall a Thanksgiving dinner during the Vietnam war at the home of a family friend, in which the grace said before the meal prayed for the safety of one guest's son who was serving in Vietnam -- a son who as yet unbeknownst to anyone at the table, was already dead. When we later found out that he had been killed, it was the first time the Vietnam war seemed real to me.

And that was a war that was heavily covered -- warts and all -- on television.

Today, we get war sanitized for public consumption. The dead are brought home under cover of darkness. The wounded are tucked away at Walter Reade Medical Center, invisible to the yellow ribbon types who continue to pump dozens of gallons of Middle Eastern petrofuel into their gas-guzzlers all the while talking about turning the entire region into glass and then go home to watch the Yankees play baseball.

The war in Iraq has become something to which we've become accustomed, so we shrug it off.

For those of us who lived through the Vietnam era, there's a depressing sense of dejá vu about the whole thing. Already there are veterans of this war who are homeless. There are veterans who are suffering the kind of permanent emotional damage that will make it nearly impossible for them to live normal lives. And Congress continues to cut veterans' benefits as it shovels more and more of our tax dollars into the pockets of the already preposterously wealthy.

But these are just faceless young men and women, because the government and the military hide them away from our sight. We don't know them. It's only when we see a 23-year-old kid with no arms and a 14" scar running across his skull that we even think about what's happening in Iraq -- or when a face we're accustomed to seeing on the evening news is a casualty.

So while we're wishing Kimberly Dozier a quick recovery, and continue to hope that ABC correspondent Bob Woodward continues to recover, we ought also to think of the many faces we DON'T see on the evening news -- and once again demand that they be brought home.

dimanche 28 mai 2006

Pasar Senggol Indonesian Street Festival

Another weekend. Another festival.We made a quick jaunt to Frances Street in Randwick, in Sydney's east, for the Pasar Senggol Indonesian Street Festival. The skies were a little patchy at times, but that didn't stop the enthusiasm of families and friends out for a tasty day out.The Japanese stall at the start of the line was clearly not Indonesian. But the wafting smells of takoyaki and dorayaki

Pasar Senggol Indonesian Street Festival

Another weekend. Another festival.We made a quick jaunt to Frances Street in Randwick, in Sydney's east, for the Pasar Senggol Indonesian Street Festival. The skies were a little patchy at times, but that didn't stop the enthusiasm of families and friends out for a tasty day out.The Japanese stall at the start of the line was clearly not Indonesian. But the wafting smells of takoyaki and dorayaki

samedi 27 mai 2006

This is what it sounds like when doves cry

When you train men to be killers, then turn them loose in a war without reason, a war without end, a war without strategy, then redeploy them again and again and again, because you know that you don't have enough new recruits, this is what happens:

Witnesses to the slaying of 24 Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines in the western town of Haditha say the Americans shot men, women and children at close range in retaliation for the death of a Marine lance corporal in a roadside bombing.

Aws Fahmi, a Haditha resident who said he watched and listened from his home as Marines went from house to house killing members of three families, recalled hearing his neighbor across the street, Younis Salim Khafif, plead in English for his life and the lives of his family members. "I heard Younis speaking to the Americans, saying: 'I am a friend. I am good,' " Fahmi said. "But they killed him, and his wife and daughters."

The 24 Iraqi civilians killed on Nov. 19 included children and the women who were trying to shield them, witnesses told a Washington Post special correspondent in Haditha this week and U.S. investigators said in Washington. The girls killed inside Khafif's house were ages 14, 10, 5, 3 and 1, according to death certificates.

[snip]

Then one of the Marines took charge and began shouting, said Fahmi, who was watching from his roof. Fahmi said he saw the Marine direct other Marines into the house closest to the blast, about 50 yards away.

It was the home of 76-year-old Abdul Hamid Hassan Ali. Although he had used a wheelchair since diabetes forced a leg amputation years ago, Ali was always one of the first on his block to go out every morning, scattering scraps for his chickens and hosing the dust of the arid western town from his driveway, neighbors said.

In the house with Ali and his 66-year-old wife, Khamisa Tuma Ali, were three of the middle-aged male members of their family, at least one daughter-in-law and four children -- 4-year-old Abdullah, 8-year-old Iman, 5-year-old Abdul Rahman and 2-month-old Asia.

Marines entered shooting, witnesses recalled. Most of the shots -- in Ali's house and two others -- were fired at such close range that they went through the bodies of the family members and plowed into walls or the floor, physicians at Haditha's hospital said.

A daughter-in-law, identified as Hibbah, escaped with Asia, survivors and neighbors said. Iman and Abdul Rahman were shot but survived. Four-year-old Abdullah, Ali and the rest died.

Ali took nine rounds in the chest and abdomen, leaving his intestines spilling out of the exit wounds in his back, according to his death certificate.

The Marines moved to the house next door, Fahmi said.

Inside were 43-year-old Khafif, 41-year-old Aeda Yasin Ahmed, an 8-year-old son, five young daughters and a 1-year-old girl staying with the family, according to death certificates and neighbors.

The Marines shot them at close range and hurled grenades into the kitchen and bathroom, survivors and neighbors said later. Khafif's pleas could be heard across the neighborhood. Four of the girls died screaming.

Only 13-year-old Safa Younis lived -- saved, she said, by her mother's blood spilling onto her, making her look dead when she fell, limp, in a faint.

Townspeople led a Washington Post reporter this week to the girl they identified as Safa. Wearing a ponytail and tracksuit, the girl said her mother died trying to gather the girls. The girl burst into tears after a few words. The older couple caring for her apologized and asked the reporter to leave.

Moving to a third house in the row, Marines burst in on four brothers, Marwan, Qahtan, Chasib and Jamal Ahmed. Neighbors said the Marines killed them together.

Marine officials said later that one of the brothers had the only gun found among the three families, although there has been no known allegation that the weapon was fired.

Meanwhile, a separate group of Marines found at least one other house full of young men. The Marines led the men in that house outside, some still in their underwear, and away to detention.

The final victims of the day happened upon the scene inadvertently, witnesses said. Four male college students -- Khalid Ayada al-Zawi, Wajdi Ayada al-Zawi, Mohammed Battal Mahmoud and Akram Hamid Flayeh -- had left the Technical Institute in Saqlawiyah for the weekend to stay with one of their families on the street, said Fahmi, a friend of the young men.

A Haditha taxi driver, Ahmed Khidher, was bringing them home, Fahmi said.

According to Fahmi, the young men and their driver turned onto the street and saw the wrecked Humvee and the Marines. Khidher threw the car into reverse, trying to back away at full speed, Fahmi said, and the Marines opened fire from about 30 yards away, killing all the men inside the taxi.


I remember My Lai. I remember the grinning face of William Calley on the cover of Esquire surrounded by Vietnamese children. I remember thinking that he must have been a monster to do what he did.

I'm not going to excuse the Marines who committed these atrocities in Haditha. However, it is criminal that just as in Abu Ghraib, the grunts who snapped are going to bear the full brunt of responsibility, and the men who are safely ensconced in Washington, the ones who sent them there, who have refused to allow them to finish their tours of duty and leave, the ones who issue the stop-loss orders, are going to be able to grandstand about how awful it all is and how these guys are the exception, not the rule, are going to take NONE of the responsibility.

Marines are supposed to be highly-disciplined warriors. When that discipline breaks down, something has happened. Perhaps these are men who shouldn't have been soldiers in the first place. We already know that the Administration is pumping suicidal men full of antidepressants and sending them back out into the field. We know that they're so desperate for warm bodies that they'll recruit men with autism. Or perhaps, like trapped animals, they lashed out at whoever was near, to vent their rage and frustration at their ill-defined mission, at the futility of what they're doing, of the fact that they have no idea when it might be over and when they'll be sent home.

The mystery of Haditha is not that it happened, but that it took this long to happen.

(Note: One interesting aside to the WaPo article above: It refers to the attorney of "an attorney for a Marine officer with a slight connection to the case". That attorney's name is Paul Hackett. So far I'm unable to determine if this attorney is THE Paul Hackett of Ohio House and Senate run fame, but if it is, and he is handling this case in any way, this could get interesting.

vendredi 26 mai 2006

Hung Cheung, Marrickville

In ethnically diverse Marrickville, the Hung Cheung is a lone Chinese dragon amidst a gaggle of Vietnamese noodle houses. Housed on the site of a former petrol station, its neon signs beckon at the start of the Marrickville Road eating strip.Mud crab (market price)with ginger and shallots and double e-fu noodlesThis serving priced at $67.70We start with our family favourite, mud crab with ginger

Hung Cheung, Marrickville

In ethnically diverse Marrickville, the Hung Cheung is a lone Chinese dragon amidst a gaggle of Vietnamese noodle houses. Housed on the site of a former petrol station, its neon signs beckon at the start of the Marrickville Road eating strip.Mud crab (market price)with ginger and shallots and double e-fu noodlesThis serving priced at $67.70We start with our family favourite, mud crab with ginger

Forgetting who they work for

George W. Bush isn't the only one in Washington who's forgotten that government officials are OUR employees, not the other way around.

When it was OUR privacy rights -- our right to talk on the phone without being wiretapped; our right to do internet research without being monitored, our right to read books without our motivations being questioned -- Congress had no problem curtailing those rights rather than face accusations about being "soft on terrorists."

But when it's THEIR rights being trampled upon, suddenly there was a great hue and cry.

USA Today, which is becoming less and less "McPaper" every day, notes:

Now we know what it takes to make Congress mad enough to stand up for constitutional rights.
When the government snoops on your phone calls and records without warrants, lawmakers barely kick up a fuss. But when the target is a fellow congressman — one under investigation for taking a bribe, no less — they're ready to rumble.

Witness the bipartisan frenzy set off after the FBI searched the Capitol Hill offices of Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., on Saturday. The FBI had a court order. According to an FBI affidavit, he was videotaped taking $100,000 in cash from an investor working undercover for the FBI. Agents found $90,000 of it stuffed in his freezer at home, the affidavit said.

Never mind all that. Leaders of the House of Representatives are appalled. They say the search violated the Constitution's separation of powers, "designed to protect the Congress and the American people from abuse of power."

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who rarely agree on anything, demanded that the Justice Department return the "unconstitutionally seized" documents. House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said the episode raised "profoundly disturbing" questions. He set a hearing for Tuesday to ask: "Did the Saturday night raid of Congress trample the Constitution?"

If only those leaders were as profoundly disturbed about executive branch incursions on the rights of average citizens. You certainly have to wonder where they've been for the past several years while the Bush administration ran roughshod over the legislative branch and launched anti-terror programs of questionable legality.
[snip]

So now the leadership swings into action because the FBI searched a Capitol Hill office for evidence of criminal activity?


If there's one thing more disgraceful than the performance of this president and the people around him for the last five years, it's that of the branch of government on Capitol Hill. From grandstanding on gay marriage, to the Schiavo fiasco, to the continued attempts to pass ANWR drilling, to the rampant corruption, it seem astounding that anyone would send ANY of these people back to Washington this November.

LIHOP? Or sheer incompetence?

For more than four years now, there have been people who said I was crazy because I have believed ever since the night of the 9/11 attacks that something stank royally about the official story. Not as many think it's crazy as did then, which says something about the nasty habit of reality encroaching on even the most dearly-held illusion.

It all started on the night of 9/11, when Larry Kudlow was on CNBC, grinning from ear to ear and crowing gleefully about how these attacks meant an end to any talk of a Social Security lockbox, because those dollars would now be used for defense. I listened to this clearly very happy guy, turned to Mr. Brilliant and said, "My God, they did it."

Since then, there has evolved the "LIHOP" and "MIHOP" camps ("Let it" vs. "Made it" happen on purpose), divided only in their view of the degree of Administration involvement in/complicity in the 9/11 attacks. I've long been in the LIHOP camp. This isn't because I don't believe the Bushistas aren't evil enough to architect a terrorist attack for their own political and financial benefit. In fact, I believe we may very well see MIHOP from this bunch before either this November's election or the 2008 election, whichever one presents a greater threat to their continued power. But from where I'm sitting, the 9/11 attacks are clearly a case of "Let's let it play out." You just have to put on a bit TOO much tinfoil for 9/11 to be a MIHOP scenario.

I don't think even the Bushistas banked on the World Trade Center collapse. My hunch is that they did some cost-benefit analysis of a few planeloads of people and 1993-attack-level casualties in the Twin Towers, and decided that the potential benefits in terms of consolidation of presidential power, the war in Iraq they wanted, and tons of taxpayer cash shoveled into the pockets of Bushista friends was worth it.

While the news media are once again sniffing around the Clintons' underwear drawers, they have paid almost no attention to Administration shill Judith Miller's bombshell of last week; that over the July 4 weekend in 2001, her sources were telling her that people in the intelligence community were worried about an Al Qaeda attack:

“I had begun to hear rumors about intensified intercepts and tapping of telephones. But that was just vaguest kind of rumors in the street, indicators…I remember the weekend before July 4, 2001 in particular, because for some reason the people who were worried about Al Qaeda believed that was the weekend that there was going to be an attack on the US or on major American target somewhere. It was going to be a large, well-coordinated attack. Because of the July 4th holiday, this was an ideal opportunistic target and date for Al Qaeda. My sources also told me at that time that there had been a lot of chatter overheard -- I didn’t know specifically what that meant -- but a lot of talk about an impending attack at one time or another. And the intelligence community seemed to believe that at least a part of the attack was going to come on July 4th. So I remember that, for a lot of my sources, this was going to be a ‘lost’ weekend. Everybody was going to be working; nobody was going to take time off. And that was bad news for me because it meant I was also going to be on stand-by and I would be working too.

“I was in New York, but I remember coming down to D.C. one day that weekend, just to be around in case something happened… Misery loves company, is how I would put it. If it were going to be a stress-filled weekend, it was better to do it together. It also meant I wouldn’t have trouble tracking people down -- or as much trouble -- because as you know, some of these people can be very elusive.

“The people in the counter-terrorism (CT) office were very worried about attacks here in the United States, and that was, it struck me, another debate in the intelligence community. Because a lot of intelligence people did not believe that Al Qaeda had the ability to strike within the United States. The CT people thought they were wrong. But I got the sense at that time that the counter-terrorism people in the White House were viewed as extremist on these views.

“Everyone in Washington was very spun-up in the CT world at that time. I think everybody knew that an attack was coming –- everyone who followed this. But you know you can only ‘Cry wolf’ within a newspaper or, I imagine, within an intelligence agency, so many times before people start saying there he goes -- or there she goes -- again!

“Even that weekend, there was lot else going on. There was always a lot going on at the White House, so to a certain extent, there was that kind of ‘Cry wolf’ problem. But I got the sense that part of the reason that I was being told of what was going on was that the people in counter terrorism were trying to get the word to the President or the senior officials through the press, because they were not able to get listened to themselves.

“Sometimes, you wonder about why people tell you things and why people…we always wonder why people leak things, but that’s a very common motivation in Washington. I remember once when I was a reporter in Egypt, and someone from the Agency gave me very good material on terrorism and local Islamic groups.

“I said, ‘Why are you doing this? Why are you giving this to me?’ and he said, ‘I just can’t get my headquarters to pay attention to me but I know that if it’s from the New York Times, they’re going to give it a good read and ask me questions about it.’ And there’s also this genuine concern about how, if only the President shared the sense of panic and concern that they did, more would be done to try and protect the country.

“This was a case wherein some serious preparations were made in terms of getting the message out and responding, because at the end of that week, there was a sigh of relief. As somebody metaphorically put it: ‘They uncorked the White House champagne’ that weekend because nothing had happened. We got through the weekend… nothing had happened.

“But I did manage to have a conversation with a source that weekend. The person told me that there was some concern about an intercept that had been picked up. The incident that had gotten everyone’s attention was a conversation between two members of Al Qaeda. And they had been talking to one another, supposedly expressing disappointment that the United States had not chosen to retaliate more seriously against what had happened to the Cole. And one Al Qaeda operative was overheard saying to the other, ‘Don’t worry; we’re planning something so big now that the US will have to respond.’

“And I was obviously floored by that information. I thought it was a very good story: (1) the source was impeccable; (2) the information was specific, tying Al Qaeda operatives to, at least, knowledge of the attack of the Cole; and (3) they were warning that something big was coming, to which the United States would have to respond. This struck me as a major Page One-potential story.

“I remember going back to work in New York the next day and meeting with my editor Stephen Engelberg. I was rather excited, as I usually get about information of this kind, and I said, ‘Steve, I think we have a great story. And the story is that two members of Al Qaeda overheard on an intercept (and I assumed that it was the National Security Agency, because that’s who does these things) were heard complaining about the lack of American response to the Cole, but also… contemplating what would happen the next time, when there was, as they said, the impending major attack that was being planned. They said this was such a big attack that the US would have to respond.’ Then I waited.

[snip]

“It was very strange…it was a strange feeling to have written a series that virtually predicted this, and to have had not a single other reporter call, not a single other newspaper follow-up on some of the information that we had broken in that series. At the time of the series, which was published in January 2001, we had information about chemical and biological experiments at Al Qaeda camps. We had gotten the location of the camps, we had gotten satellite overhead of the camps. I had interviewed, in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda-trained people who said that they were going to get out of the ‘prison’ in Afghanistan and go back and continue their jihad. They had talked about suicide bombings. We had Jordanian intelligence say that attempts to blow up hotels, roads and tourist targets in Jordan over the millennium was part of the Al Qaeda planned attack. And yet I guess people just didn’t believe it. But I believed it. I believed it absolutely, because I’ve covered these militants for so long. There was nothing they wouldn’t do if they could do it.”


After the 9/11 attacks, we heard a lot of "How could anyone have known?" Condoleeza Rice baldfacedly lied and said "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile."

(Other links to the Judith Miller story here and here.)

In the case of a crime, one has to ask: Who benefitted?

Who benefitted from the 9/11 attacks, indeed?

On 9/10/2001, our issue of Newsweek arrived, with a photograph of George W. Bush on the cover and an expose of the 2000 election shenanigans inside. His approval ratings were hovering at around 50%. Jim Jeffords had defected from the Republican Party, throwing control of the Senate to Democrats. Many were saying that this presidency was over already.

Then the 9/11 attacks played out, and ever since then, George W. Bush has been sitting bestride the world like a self-appointed colossus; an obedient Congress giving him everything he wanted: War in Iraq. Cuts to social programs. Gutting of privacy rights in the Consitution. Near-dictatorial authority.

Who benefitted?

Contrary to the notion that no one had a clue that anything like the 9/11 attacks might occur, there were plenty of clues at the highest levels of Washington, and even in the offices of the New York Times that something heinous was in the works. And still, men who became hijackers were at flight schools, learning to fly a plane but not land or take off. All 19 men were permitted to buy tickets and get on the planes.

So which is it? Did people at the highest levels of the Administration know that something was in the works -- even if they didn't know the exact details -- and decide to just let it play out because the potential benefits were great enough that it was worth the risk? Or were they so incompetent that they couldn't see the Big Neon Signals that we were going to be attacked? And if they decided to let it play out, who knew and who didn't? Was the president in the loop? Think about George W. Bush sitting in a classroom for seven minutes after being told that the country had been attacked. Think about the expression on his face. Had he been told to keep quiet? Did he realize that there were things going on in his Administration over which he had no control? Or was he a man realizing that all the speculation about what might happen was now real -- and that it was far worse than any of the speculated scenarios had anticipated?

The most charitable explanation is incompetence -- and if that's the case, why are we trusting this guy to keep us safe from terrorists? And why on earth did we elect him to a second term?

jeudi 25 mai 2006

Recipe: Apple, rhubarb and ginger crumble

Winter arrived in Sydney this week with a bone-chilling shiver. Antipodeans don't like the cold. Not unless it's amber and comes in a schooner.So I was more than pleased when an invite to dinner this week promised a heart-warming offer of home-cooked pizza. Rather than bring an obligatory box of choccies, I took a couple of apples and a block of butter with me--the intent to rustle up a thank you

Recipe: Apple, rhubarb and ginger crumble

Winter arrived in Sydney this week with a bone-chilling shiver. Antipodeans don't like the cold. Not unless it's amber and comes in a schooner.So I was more than pleased when an invite to dinner this week promised a heart-warming offer of home-cooked pizza. Rather than bring an obligatory box of choccies, I took a couple of apples and a block of butter with me--the intent to rustle up a thank you

And speaking about the job market.....

...Bob Herbert weighs in on the "retraining myth":

For an unnecessarily large number of Americans, the workplace has become a hub of anxiety and fear, an essential but capricious environment in which you might be shown the door at any moment.

In his new book, "The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences," Louis Uchitelle tells us that since 1984, when the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics started monitoring "worker displacement," at least 30 million full-time workers have been "permanently separated from their jobs and their paychecks against their wishes."

Mr. Uchitelle writes on economic issues for The Times. In his book, he traces the evolution of that increasingly endangered species, the secure job, and the effect that the current culture of corporate layoffs is having on ordinary men and women.

He said he was surprised, as he did the reporting for the book, by the extensive emotional fallout that accompanies layoffs. "There's a lot of mental health damage," he said. "The act of being laid off is such a blow to the self-esteem. Layoffs are a national phenomenon, a societal problem — but the laid-off workers blame themselves."

In addition to being financially strapped, laid-off workers and their families are often emotionally strapped as well. Common problems include depression, domestic strife and divorce.

Mr. Uchitelle's thesis is that corporate layoffs have been carried much too far, that they have gone beyond a legitimate and necessary response to a changing economy.

"What started as a necessary response to the intrusion of foreign manufacturers into the American marketplace got out of hand," he writes. "By the late 1990's, getting rid of workers had become normal practice, ingrained behavior, just as job security had been 25 years earlier."

In many cases, a thousand workers were fired when 500 might have been sufficient, or 10,000 were let go when 5,000 would have been enough. We pay a price for these excesses. The losses that accrue to companies and communities when many years of improving skills and valuable experience are casually and unnecessarily tossed on a scrap heap are incalculable.

"The majority of the people who are laid off," said Mr. Uchitelle, "end up in jobs that pay significantly less than they earned before, or they drop out altogether."

At the heart of the layoff phenomenon is the myth, endlessly repeated by corporate leaders and politicians of both parties, that workers who are thrown out of their jobs can save themselves, can latch onto spiffy new jobs by becoming better educated and acquiring new skills.

"Education and training create the jobs, according to this way of thinking," writes Mr. Uchitelle. "Or, put another way, a job materializes for every trained or educated worker, a job commensurate with his or her skills, for which he or she is appropriately paid."

That is just not so, and the corporate and political elite need to stop feeding that bogus line to the public.

[snip]

The most provocative question raised by Mr. Uchitelle is whether the private sector is capable of generating enough good jobs at good pay to meet the demand of everyone who is qualified and wants to work.

If it cannot (and so far it has not), then what? If education and training are not the building blocks to solid employment, what is? These are public policy questions of the highest importance, and so far they are being ignored.


Yesterday I blogged on the clubby nature of corporate boards of directors, and how this small cadre of cronies vote each other's huge pay packages. This is the flip side of the largesse being bestowed upon executives, and mass layoffs and pay squeezes are how corporations pay for these huge pay packages.

The retraining myth is just that -- a myth. A 40-year-old laid-off auto worker who goes to community college to learn computer programming or accounting is going to find himself as an entry-level 40-year-old priced out of the entry-level jobs he seeks, in fields that are rapidly being outsourced to the cheaper workforces in other countries. Not everyone has an entrepreneurial nature, and not everyone is capable of starting up a small business, especially when most small businesses fail.

The value system of the American worker is just that -- work. And with more companies shutting more workers out of the workforce, a society needs to have an alternative. And the current capitalist model does not have one.

How dumb do you have to be to do this?

Mr. Brilliant and I are both at the age when employers start the process of putting you out to pasture. If you're working, you're no longer on a track. If you aren't working, it's ever-more-difficult to get employers to not dismiss you immediately as "too old."

Before I started at my current job over five years ago, I endured a completely humiliating interview process at a media outlet, the name of which I won't repeat here. The Human Resources guy conducted a very conversational interview which included a lot of cultural references that in retrospect I realized were designed to get a handle on my age. When I was passed on to the Web development group, which consisted of two guys in their 20's, I knew immediately that my experience didn't matter, my skills didn't matter, my talents didn't matter. I was an "old broad", and therefore "didn't fit in." The interview was over before it began.

When I hear about some of the advice given to twentysomething job seekers: Turn off your cell phone...No eating during the interview...Wear a suit...No earrings in your nose -- and then see how workers on the shady side of 50 are treated, it's no wonder that American companies think they can't find quality American workers.

How dumb do you have to be to start a blog about your workplace -- AND NAME THE ACTUAL WORKPLACE????

Apparently it's quite prevalent:

ON the first day of his internship last year, Andrew McDonald created a Web site for himself. It never occurred to him that his bosses might not like his naming it after the company and writing in it about what went on in their office.

For Mr. McDonald, the Web log he created, "I'm a Comedy Central Intern," was merely a way to keep his friends apprised of his activities and to practice his humor writing. For Comedy Central, it was a corporate no-no — especially after it was mentioned on Gawker.com, the gossip Web site, attracting thousands of new readers.

"Not even a newborn puppy on a pink cloud is as cute as a secret work blog!" chirped Gawker, giddily providing the link to its audience.

But Comedy Central disagreed, asking him to change the name (He did, to "I'm an Intern in New York") and to stop revealing how its brand of comedic sausage is stuffed.

"They said they figured something like this would happen eventually because blogs had become so popular," said Mr. McDonald, now 23, who kept his internship. "It caught them off guard. They didn't really like that."

This is the time of year when thousands of interns and new employees pour into the workplace from college campuses, many bringing with them an innocence and nonchalance about workplace rules and corporate culture.

Most experienced employees know: Thou Shalt Not Blab About the Company's Internal Business. But the line between what is public and what is private is increasingly fuzzy for young people comfortable with broadcasting nearly every aspect of their lives on the Web, posting pictures of their grandmother at graduation next to one of them eating whipped cream off a woman's belly. For them, shifting from a like-minded audience of peers to an intergenerational, hierarchical workplace can be jarring.

Companies are beginning to recognize the schism and, prodded by their legal and public relations departments, are starting to adopt policies that address it.


I suppose everyone who does this thinks he/she is the next Wonkette or Jessica Cutler and they have visions of fat book contracts dancing in their heads. For a lucky few, the book contracts and Comedy Central writing gigs may in fact materialize. But for the vast majority, workblogging qualifies you for nothing but the unemployment line.

I occasionally make references to the kind of work I do and the nature of my workplace, but I would never DREAM of airing workplace laundry on this blog. And I don't understand the mindset that would think this is cute. Maybe it's just a generational thing, but this strikes me as mind-bogglingly dumb. People often don't realize that what you post on the Web is forever, and that future employers may very well see what you've written. I often worry about that myself. I hope never have to go job-hunting again, but if I do, I may very well have locked myself out of any conservative-supporting company because of this blog. But that's a far cry from airing the laundry of your current employer in a public forum -- by name.

Something is seriously wrong with the way collegians are being prepared for the workplace, if they can't see that this is just not a very high-percentage move.

The Bush Administration equivalent of the horse's head in the bed

Sounds like the Busheone family is sending a message to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, after the latter questioned The Family's power to search Congressional offices at will:

House Speaker Dennis Hastert is demanding a "full retraction" of an ABC News report that he is being investigated in connection with the Jack Abramoff corruption probe.

The report Wednesday night prompted the Justice Department to take the highly unusual step of denying on the record that the Illinois Republican is the subject of a probe.

"Speaker Hastert is not under investigation by the Justice Department," spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said.

Usually, when queried by reporters, the Justice Department neither confirms nor denies the existence of an investigation.

Citing the department's denial, Hastert's spokesman, Ron Bonjean, released a statement saying the ABC report was "absolutely untrue."

"We are demanding a full retraction of the ABC News story," Bonjean said.

However, ABC News posted a statement on its Web site late Wednesday standing by the story.

The network said law enforcement sources told ABC that the Justice Department denial meant only that the speaker was not a formal "target" or "subject" of the probe, not that he wasn't under investigation.

[snip]

ABC News, citing "high-level official sources," reported that the FBI is investigating a letter Hastert wrote three years ago urging then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton to block an Indian casino that would have competed with casinos operated by other tribes, which were represented by Abramoff.

Hastert's letter, the details of which were widely reported during news coverage of the Abramoff case, was written shortly after a fund-raiser for the speaker was held at the lobbyist's Washington restaurant, where Abramoff and his clients made contributions to Hastert.

A source involved with the Abramoff case told CNN that Justice Department officials have asked Abramoff about the fund-raiser, which netted $75,000 for Hastert days before he wrote the letter. However, the source said it is unclear if the Justice Department is actively pursuing an investigation of Hastert or simply checking out the details of the fund-raiser.

[snip]

The ABC News report came just hours after Hastert and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi demanded that the Justice Department return materials it seized over the weekend during a search of the office of Rep. William Jefferson, a Louisiana Democrat who is the subject of a separate federal corruption probe. (Full story)

Hastert has been outspoken in his criticism of the FBI's search of Jefferson's office, saying it violated the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches.

Asked if Hastert believed the leak to ABC News was retaliation for his criticisms of the Jefferson search, Hastert's senior aide said, "You'll have to ask someone else that."


This is entirely consistent with the way the Bushistas work -- cross them, and you will be extremely sorry.

Hastert would seem to be an unlikely champion for a Democratic House member whose petty bribery is already being inflated by conservative media to be equal in heinousness to the far-ranging Abramoff scandal. But Hastert knows that if the precedent is set for the executive branch to search Congressional offices at will, he and a whole lot of his compatriots on the Republican side of the fence could find themselves in very big trouble in the future.

So the White House has sent him a message: mess with us, and we'll whack your kneecaps.

So how does it feel to have an executive branch which gets its management techniques from gangster movies?

mercredi 24 mai 2006

Just when you think it can't get any weirder

Now this is just hilarious.

Via ThinkProgress comes this link to the web site for Tom DeLay's defense fund. It seems that DeLay's folks don't realize that "Stephen Colbert", the character enacted by Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report, is a PARODY of a conservative interview host.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't direct anyone to a defense site for the likes of Tom DeLay, but this is just too funny for you to miss. Make sure you click the video link on the home page. It's Colbert's interview with Robert Greenwald, creator of the film The Big Buy: Tom DeLay's Stolen Congress.

But it gets better: These morons are promoting this interview in an e-mail*:

Hollywood Pulls Michael Moore Antics on Tom DeLay
Colbert Cracks the Story on Real Motivations Behind the Movie


Hollywood liberal and Michael Moore wannabe Robert Greenwald (known for his attacks on Wal-Mart and Fox News) crashed and burned on Comedy Central's The Colbert Report (watch it at http://www.defenddelay.com) when promoting his new attack on Tom DeLay.


Colbert is getting so meta he's giving me a headache.

*a JPG of the e-mail is available at ThinkProgress. You'll need to download it and view it in a picture viewer, so you can zoom in and make the text readable.

(hat tip: Americablog)

Paddy Maguires, Haymarket

Time is relative. Your perception of time expands and contracts depending on how much fun you're having. Or how much pain you're in.We've had lunch at Paddy Maguires a number of times, but this was the first time we'd dined in a large group. Seven of us had headed over for a celebratory lunch, and after ordering and paying for our meals at the bar, we nursed drinks as we all anxiously stared at

Paddy Maguires, Haymarket

Time is relative. Your perception of time expands and contracts depending on how much fun you're having. Or how much pain you're in.We've had lunch at Paddy Maguires a number of times, but this was the first time we'd dined in a large group. Seven of us had headed over for a celebratory lunch, and after ordering and paying for our meals at the bar, we nursed drinks as we all anxiously stared at

He who owns the media determines the truthiness

It looks like Philadelphia newspaper readers are about to see their papers changed to wingnut house organs:

Former Philadelphia Inquirer Editor Robert Rosenthal, who spent 22 years at the paper, said the sale to a local investors group could prove problematic.

[snip]

In addition, Rosenthal called the leader of the investment group, Brian Tierney, a "fierce advocate who is used to getting his own way....I can't imagine a guy like Brian Tierney taking a back seat and letting things get in the paper that he is unhappy with," Rosenthal told E&P just hours after the deal was announced. "He was a very fierce advocate for his clients, there was nothing subtle about him -- elbows and knees."

Tierney served as national head of Catholics for Bush in 2000 and has been active in other Republican campaigns. He served as chairman of Sam Katz's unsuccessful run for mayor of the city in 2003, and has represented Sunoco and other large companies. According to the Inquirer, he has donated over $200,000 to Republican candidates in recent years. One of the other leading members of the purchase group, Bruce Toll, has also been a key Republican funder in he state, but two other investors have given to Democrats.

On Tuesday, Tierney vowed to not impose his partisan views on the newspaper and keep it independent of pressure from business interests, with his co-owners signing a pledge to that effect.


That pledge isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

Americans still believe that what they see on network TV news and in newspapers is factual -- so when you have consolidation of the media into fewer and fewer hands, all of them led by businessmen with conservative leanings, the likelihood that Americans will receive unfiltered information is virtually nil.

Interesting that this article is from Editor and Publisher, which has itself just been taken over by a consortium that includes the Carlyle Group.

Every now and then, the House of Representatves does something right

Amazing.

The Pet Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act passed yesterday by a vote of 349-24.

The bill requires state and local officials to take into account service and companion animals when making evacuation plans in the event of emergency. No plan, no FEMA money.

Nice!

Only the most churlish animal-hater could have been unmoved by the horrific footage of dogs and cats left behind during the post-Katrina evacuation. Some 600,000+ pets died or were left without shelter. Organizations such as Noah's Wish have done wonderful work, and Eric Rice's work has been nothing short of amazing. To add to the trauma of people losing their homes and all their belongings, the trauma of losing their beloved companion animals -- when transport can be made available -- is just cruel.

So I'm glad to see that with the exception of 24 representatives -- all but one of them Republican, including my district's Scott Garrett -- the House realized that when people lose everything, their pets are as important as any other family member.

The bill now moves on to the Senate, where the unlikely tag team of Sens. Ted Stevens of Alaska and NJ's own Frank Lautenberg are offering up a similar version.

And lest you think that the post-Katrina animal situation has been resolved, guess again:



(Hat tip: Jazz)

The rotten core of American capitalism

While Republicans have been successful at getting Americans to blame their economic woes on Mexicans, the myth of "corporate executives get paid well because of the skills they bring to the companies they lead" has continued unabated, even though CEO pay is nearly 500 times that of the average worker.

Today's New York Times, taking a break from speculation on the Clinton marriage, shows just how the clubby atmosphere of corporate boards helps executives help themselves -- and their friends -- to huge wads of corporate cash, at the same time as they're jettisoning health care coverage and workers:

The discussion inevitably turns to the changes at Home Depot under its chief executive, Robert L. Nardelli. A growing source of resentment among some is Mr. Nardelli's pay package. The Home Depot board has awarded him $245 million in his five years there. Yet during that time, the company's stock has slid 12 percent while shares of its archrival, Lowe's, have climbed 173 percent.

Why would a company award a chief executive that much money at a time when the company's shareholders are arguably faring far less well? Some of the former Home Depot managers think they know the reason, and compensation experts and shareholder advocates agree: the clubbiness of the six-member committee of the company's board that recommends Mr. Nardelli's pay.

Two of those members have ties to Mr. Nardelli's former employer, General Electric. One used Mr. Nardelli's lawyer in negotiating his own salary. And three either sat on other boards with Home Depot's influential lead director, Kenneth G. Langone, or were former executives at companies with significant business relationships with Mr. Langone.

In addition, five of the six members of the compensation committee are active or former chief executives, including one whose compensation dwarfs Mr. Nardelli's. Governance experts say people who are or have been in the top job have a harder time saying no to the salary demands of fellow chief executives. Moreover, chief executives indirectly benefit from one another's pay increases because compensation packages are often based on surveys detailing what their peers are earning.

[snip]

Since hiring Mr. Nardelli, 58, the board has awarded him more than $87 million in deferred stock grants and $90 million in stock options, according to an analysis by Brian Foley, a compensation consultant in White Plains. Mr. Nardelli's salary, bonuses and a company loan make up most of the rest of his $245 million compensation.

Even last year, when Home Depot's stock was unchanged, the board raised his salary 8 percent, to $2.164 million, and increased his bonus 22 percent, to $7 million.

[snip]

I.S.S. claims there is a "disconnect" between Mr. Nardelli's pay and Home Depot's performance. "Moreover, poor compensation design, a lucrative employment agreement, and arguably egregious compensation practices call into question the fitness of the company's Compensation Committee members to serve as directors," the advisory firm said in a report it issued two weeks ago.

The board disagrees, saying that it based Mr. Nardelli's pay and bonus last year on the company's "outstanding operating performance," his "continuing success in developing a new foundation for long-term growth" and his "continuing superior leadership," according to a statement from the company.


It's obvious that "superior leadership" is some variant of "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours."

American workers have been like sheep in recent years, meekly accepting the pay cuts, the cuts in health care coverage, the long hours, the anxiety about taking vacations lest we be perceived as dispensable -- while the CEOs and Boards of Directors of the companies for which they work form a private club of reward-for-nonperformance.

It's astounding to me that in a country where hard work and honesty are supposed to be what's rewarded, so many workers still defend these practices. Perhaps they are laboring under the delusion that someday they too might be invited into that exclusive club.

Buddhist Multicultural Festival

Buddhist candle lighting ceremonyOn our race around the Sydney CBD, we briefly paused at the Buddhist Multicultural Festival during Saturday's Amazing Flickrace. However with a brief to photograph portrait examples of the seven deadly sins, we didn't photograph much here. Do you know how futile it is looking for examples of lust, gluttony and wrath amongst a gathering of Buddhists? =)On my way

Buddhist Multicultural Festival

Buddhist candle lighting ceremonyOn our race around the Sydney CBD, we briefly paused at the Buddhist Multicultural Festival during Saturday's Amazing Flickrace. However with a brief to photograph portrait examples of the seven deadly sins, we didn't photograph much here. Do you know how futile it is looking for examples of lust, gluttony and wrath amongst a gathering of Buddhists? =)On my way

mardi 23 mai 2006

The difference between right and left Blogtopia (&#153 Skippy)

Remember during the Tom DeLay fracas, when right-wing bloggers were falling all over themselves justifying DeLay's corruption and insisting that Ronnie Earle was just a partisan Democrat on a witch hunt?

Here on the left side of the blogosphere, we think accountability is for all. A sampling, in re the case of one William Jefferson, Democrat of Louisiana:

Atrios: "If true, lock him up."

Trent Dlugosh: "On this blog I have been very hard on Republican lawmakers who break the law. Now it's time to do the same when a Democrat goes bad.

Louisiana Representative William Jefferson needs to do the right thing and resign. The news this weekend is pretty amazing."

John Aravosis: "Can't say I feel sorry for the guy."

Matt Stoller at MyDD: "Having Democrats with ethical problems is a bad situation. Ethically challenged are weakened dramatically, since mostly everyone has leverage over them, including Republicans and journalists. They also weaken the party, since the entire leadership of the party must make a choice about whether to throw them under the bus or stand behind their ethical transgressions."

Pam: "It doesn't matter that this guy has a (D) behind his name, he's part of the festering, oozing sore of DC corruption."

Quote of the Day

DarkSyde, at Daily Kos:

And right now I'd take that clenis and a few juicy headlines, along with the unparalleled peace and prosperity that came with it, over stacks of wounded and planeloads of flag draped American coffins faster than you can say impeachment.

If I didn't know this was serious, I'd think it was a joke

This is what the right has been reduced to, in digging turds out of their hopsack: Censuring Jimmy Carter.

It's worth a look....it plays like a parody, but it's real.

Pathetic.

Marriage between a man and a woman is inviolate -- unless you're a Republican

Funny how many divorces there are among the Republican contenders for the presidency in 2008 -- even as all of them pontificate on gay marriage and how it violates the "sanctity" of hetero sexual marriage. I've never really understood that particular leap of logic. I went to a gay wedding last summer and I'm still married. Of course, my wedding was a civil ceremony conducted by a family friend who happens to be a Presbyterian minister, so it doesn't have the Imprimatur of Jesus, but still....I went to a gay wedding, and the world didn't come to an end.

I am no great fan of the Clintons, but the scrutiny given their marriage has always baffled me, given that Republicans seem to think that for OTHER PEOPLE to stay together is of paramount importance. I suppose we can say that the 2008 campaign has now officially begun, with the obligatory sinister New York Times hatchet piece on the Clinton marriage:

When the subject of Bill and Hillary Clinton comes up for many prominent Democrats these days, Topic A is the state of their marriage — and how the most dissected relationship in American life might affect Mrs. Clinton's possible bid for the presidency in 2008.

Democrats say it is inevitable that in a campaign that could return the former president to the White House, some voters would be concerned or distracted by Mr. Clinton's political role and the episode that led the House to vote for his impeachment in 1998.

"There's no question that it's a complicated candidacy for a lot of voters because of the history of that relationship and what they've been through," said Leon E. Panetta, Mr. Clinton's chief of staff from 1994 to 1997. "They've been through a lot of challenges as a couple, though in the end if you're with them together, you know there's something there that basically bonds them."

The dynamics of a couple's marriage are hard to gauge from the outside, even for a couple as well known as the Clintons. But interviews with some 50 people and a review of their respective activities show that since leaving the White House, Bill and Hillary Clinton have built largely separate lives — partly because of the demands of their distinct career paths and partly as a result of political calculations.

The effect has been to raise Senator Clinton's profile on the public radar while somewhat toning down Mr. Clinton's; he has told friends that his No. 1 priority is not to cause her any trouble. They appear in the public spotlight methodically and carefully: The goal is to position Mrs. Clinton to run for president not as a partner or a proxy, but as her own person.

Many of those interviewed were granted anonymity to discuss a relationship for which the Clintons have long sought a zone of privacy. The Clintons and, for the most part, their aides declined to cooperate for this article and urged others not to cooperate as well. Their spokesmen, Jay Carson (his) and Philippe Reines (hers), provided a statement about the relationship:

"She is an active senator who, like most members of Congress, has to be in Washington for part of most weeks. He is a former president running a multimillion-dollar global foundation. But their home is in New York, and they do everything they can to be together there or at their house in D.C. as often as possible — often going to great lengths to do so. When their work schedules require that they be apart they talk all the time."

Since the start of 2005, the Clintons have been together about 14 days a month on average, according to aides who reviewed the couple's schedules. Sometimes it is a full day of relaxing at home in Chappaqua; sometimes it is meeting up late at night. At their busiest, they saw each other on a single day, Valentine's Day, in February 2005 — a month when each was traveling a great deal. Last August, they saw each other at some point on 24 out of 31 days. Out of the last 73 weekends, they spent 51 together. The aides declined to provide the Clintons' private schedule.


I will never defend how Bill Clinton blew his opportunity to build a resurgent Democratic Party, nor will ever defend Hillary Clinton's vote for the Iraq war. But their marriage is their own damn business, not mine.

I'm all for couples making their own rules and creating a model of marriage that works best for both of them. I've seen many couples trying to duplicate their parents' marriage in a world very different from the one in which their parents built their families. I've seen women who refuse to date perfectly acceptable men because said men earn less than they do. I've seen couples have children because their parents expected them to, not because they wanted children all that badly.

For most of the time Mr. Brilliant and I have been together, I've been the higher earner, and neither of us have had a problem with that. We never had children, and don't miss it. I still do most of the house stuff, largely because it rarely occurs to Mr. B. to do it. What I don't do, doesn't get done. We don't live in a showplace, but so what? Our life, our rules. We've been together for 23 years, we still enjoy each other's company, and we aren't sitting on two decades of resentment. It's not the way someone else might live, but it works for us.

And so it is with the Clintons. That they have not been the traditional political couple; the alpha-male man with the meek, submissive wife looking adoringly at him, has galled conservatives since Bill Clinton first set foot on the public stage. Here is a ridiculously charismatic man, who attracts women like bees to honey, and he didn't marry the pretty cheerleader with the big boobs, he married the owlish, bookish, smart girl. The reaction of Republicans to Bill Clinton has always reminded me of that of the fat, pimply kid in high school who resents that the captain of the football team got all the girls -- and is still angry 30 years later.

Those who choose to fit themselves into the conventional marital box don't much like it when other couples try to make their own path, perhaps because it reminds them that they, too, could have built a life their own way.

The obsession with the Clinton marriage has nothing to do with curiosity about a high-profile couple. After all, where are the speculative articles about the Bush marriage? Where are the questions about why Laura Bush looks like she's on thorazine all the time? Where is the speculation about why Laura Bush seems to be more liberal than her husband? After all, Hillary was perceived as being more liberal than hers. Where is the speculation about the fact that Laura Bush killed her boyfriend in an automobile accident and how it relates to her husband's history of substance abuse? And why doesn't the press wonder why a president like George W. Bush, who seems to want everyone else to procreate as much as possible, has knocked up his wife only once?

The reason is that Laura Bush is a traditional political wife, and is therefore not a threat to the established order.

But whatever one may say about the unorthodox Clinton marriage (and like most marriages, none of us knows what the dynamic is, despite all the speculation), they have managed to stay married and have at the very least an intellectual bond, something that serves a couple well when the looks start to go. They have reared a child who is now poised and successful young lady who has emerged unscathed from eight years of her adolescence in which she was the butt of cruel remarks by the likes of Rush Limbaugh.

While Patrick Healy breathlessly speculates about the Clintons in an above-the-fold story that would be more at home in the pages of Us Magazine, the Republican field is permitted by the press to hide its own multiple divorces and sexual peccadillos while they beat the marriage drum for everyone else.

As Atrios notes, here is a story you DIDN'T see in the Times today:

Washington, DC, May 23 - Republicans say it is inevitable that some voters would be concerned and even distracted by the numerous personal indiscretions of the various candidates likely to seek the office of president, and express concern about whether they would be likely to repeat such behavior while in the White House.

While former New York mayor Rudi Giuliani's popularity increased after the events of September 11, pushing his personal issues into the background, Republicans worry he would bring to the White House the kind of activities which marred his tenure at Gracie Mansion.

Giuiliani's behavior led to a judge barring the presence of Judith Nathan, with whom he began having an affair during his last term as mayor, from the mayoral home. The judge's order also criticized Giuliani for the emotional harm he inflicted on his children.

Twice-married Virginia Senator George Allen faces questions over claimed sadistic treatment of his siblings and his fondness for confederate memorabilia despite his having grown up in California. While divorce alone may not disqualify him from the ballot in Republican voters' eyes - they overlooked it in 1980 when Ronald Reagan became the first, and only, divorced man to be elected president - it is still expected to impact his standing with conservative religious voters. Senator McCain of Arizona is in a similar position.

Thrice-married former Speaker of the House New Gingrich also concerns Republicans as he gears up for a potential presidential run. Gingrich, currently 62, began dating his geometry teacher, and future wife, while he was still in high school. He later served her divorce papers at her hospital bed where she was receiving treatment for cancer. He divorced his second wife after it was revealed that he had been having a long-running affair with a staffer 23 years younger than him during the Clinton impeachment saga.


In the topsy-turvy world of sucking up to Christian Conservatives, working to sustain a long-term marriage by making your own rules is bad; extramarital affairs are perfectly OK among Republicans -- as long as you leave your wife and marry your mistress. Then at least you're married....and marriage is inviolate.....isn't it?

lundi 22 mai 2006

Republicans are unpopular, so NOW the MSM decides to wake up about voting machines

It's about freakin' time:

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the voting booth, here comes more disturbing news about the trustworthiness of electronic touchscreen ballot machines. Earlier this month a report by Finnish security expert Harri Hursti analyzed Diebold voting machines for an organization called Black Box Voting. Hursti found unheralded vulnerabilities in the machines that are currently entrusted to faithfully record the votes of millions of Americans.

How bad are the problems? Experts are calling them the most serious voting-machine flaws ever documented. Basically the trouble stems from the ease with which the machine's software can be altered. It requires only a few minutes of pre-election access to a Diebold machine to open the machine and insert a PC card that, if it contained malicious code, could reprogram the machine to give control to the violator. The machine could go dead on Election Day or throw votes to the wrong candidate. Worse, it's even possible for such ballot-tampering software to trick authorized technicians into thinking that everything is working fine, an illusion you couldn't pull off with pre-electronic systems. "If Diebold had set out to build a system as insecure as they possibly could, this would be it," says Avi Rubin, a Johns Hopkins University computer-science professor and elections-security expert.

Diebold Election Systems spokesperson David Bear says Hursti's findings do not represent a fatal vulnerability in Diebold technology, but simply note the presence of a feature that allows access to authorized technicians to periodically update the software. If it so happens that someone not supposed to use the machine—or an election official who wants to put his or her thumb on the scale of democracy—takes advantage of this fast track to fraud, that's not Diebold's problem. "[Our critics are] throwing out a 'what if' that's premised on a basis of an evil, nefarious person breaking the law," says Bear.

Those familiar with the actual election process—by and large run by honest people but historically subject to partisan politicking, dirty tricks and sloppy practices—are less sanguine. "It gives me a bit of alarm that the voting systems are subject to tampering and errors," says Democratic Rep. William Lacy Clay, who worries that machines in his own St. Louis district might be affected by this vulnerability. (In Maryland and Georgia, all the machines are Diebold's.)


"A bit of alarm"??? This should be setting the hair on fire of everyone who cares about the integrity of the right of franchise in this country.

So what would it take to rig an election once machines are certified? All you need to do is send "authorized technicians" into select precincts, perhaps once exit polls are starting to show, oh, say, a Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives, to "install a software update" which just happens to take every "n"th vote for the Democratic candidate and count it as a vote for the Republican.

Washington Democrats, the DNC, DLC, DCCC and DSCC have all been curiously silent on this issue for the last six years, even though there is at least some evidence that vote tampering played a role in the 2000 and 2004 presidential races, as well as the 2002 midterm elections. Whether it's because they and the Republicans are really all on the same team, or willful technological ignorance, or simply no time to deal with it, this is a very real problem, and pretending it doesn't exist is a sure path a generation of elections just like 2000 and 2004.

The Amazing Flickrace

So I didn't get to the Surry Hills Festival on Saturday, but I did have much fun at the first ever Sydney Photobloggers Amazing Flickrace.Randomly allocated to 5-person teams on the day, we tore open envelopes to discover our team challenge was to photograph 7 human portraits that embodied the 7 deadly sins spanning 7 different locations around the Sydney CBD. Our time limit was four hours. Our

The Amazing Flickrace

So I didn't get to the Surry Hills Festival on Saturday, but I did have much fun at the first ever Sydney Photobloggers Amazing Flickrace.Randomly allocated to 5-person teams on the day, we tore open envelopes to discover our team challenge was to photograph 7 human portraits that embodied the 7 deadly sins spanning 7 different locations around the Sydney CBD. Our time limit was four hours. Our

Nedrenaline and the netroots

Ned Lamont's 33.5% showing at Connecticut's Democratic Party convention on Friday is a shot across the bow at the Democratic hackocracy. Whether Lamont can actually beat an entrenched incumbent like Joe Lieberman remains to be seen, but what does NOT remain to be seen is that this is a race that the netroots will be using as a test case to wield its muscle.

It's disheartening that the Democratic Party would view a group of people, many of them young, who have enthusiasm for the political process, as pesky flies to be swatted out of the way. But that's exactly what's happening, as the established hacks cling to the commission-based consultants who have done nothing but lose them elections. As reported at firedoglake, this clubbiness is so strong that Chuck Schumer, head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, won't commit to supporting Lamont over Lieberman if the former wins the primary and the latter decides to run as an independent:


Question: I’m curious: Is the DSCC taking a position where it will unconditionally support the eventual nominee of the Connecticut Democratic Party?

Schumer: We haven’t taken a position on that yet. . . (interrupted by crosstalk with staff over timing for a vote). What we do is. . . we are an organization of incumbents, and while we certainly find challengers who go up against incumbents, we support incumbents, so I know I didn’t answer your question, but we are supporting Lieberman at this point. Our general rule, and I don’t think there’s been an exception, is that we support the Democrat against the Republicans. We expect Lieberman will win, but if he doesn’t and Ned wins, my guess is we will support him. We haven’t taken a position on that but we’ve almost never deviated. I do not know of a time that the Democrats have deviated and not supported the Democrat.

Question: Would that hold if Senator Lieberman decided to run as an Independent?

Schumer: I think we’ll have to, you know, cross that bridge when we come to it, because it hasn’t happened. Will Senator Lieberman be pledging to vote for Harry Reid for Leader? Will he be running as a Democrat but on a different line? I don’t know; I’d have to give it. . . If it’s a Democrat versus a Republican, there’s no complicating factor. We’d, you know, almost always vote for the Democrat. In this situation we expect Lieberman to win. I don’t think. . . So, you know, we’ll have to weigh that when we come (sic). Our goal is first and foremost to elect a Democratic Senate. We think there’s a moral imperative there, given everything else, and I suppose that would guide our decision.

Question: So Senator, there’s a possibility that if Senator Lieberman runs as an Independent, and there’s another Democratic nominee, that the DSCC would be supporting the Independent?

Schumer: I’m not saying that there is a possibility. I’m saying we haven’t even begun to look at it yet.

Question: I hate to harp on this, but this is something that is big in the blogosphere. If the race does tighten, and Ned Lamont does make it a race, how committed is the DSCC to committing resources to Senator Lieberman since Senator Lieberman hasn’t committed to running as a Democrat?

Schumer: I think Senator Lieberman has committed to running as a Democrat to us. That’s me, and he has to Senator Reid.


For the Democrats, it's about the club; it's not about leadership or about building a party. This is why, instead of a resurgent Democratic Party built during eight years of a popular Democratic presidency, we had a party in ruins, unable to articulate a stand on anything, with no bank from which to draw when the 9/11 attacks blindsided the hacktocracy and forced it to march in lockstep with whatever the Bush Administration wanted to do; something Joe Lieberman continues to do even now that the Administration has been largely discredited.

Krugman, today:

Mr. Lieberman isn't the only nationally known Democrat who still supports the Iraq war. But he isn't just an unrepentant hawk, he has joined the Bush administration by insisting on an upbeat picture of the situation in Iraq that is increasingly delusional.

Moreover, Mr. Lieberman has supported the attempt to label questions about why we invaded Iraq and criticism of the administration's policies since the invasion as unpatriotic. How else is one to interpret his warning, late last year, that "it is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be Commander-in-Chief for three more critical years, and that in matters of war we undermine Presidential credibility at our nation's peril"?

And it's not just Iraq. A letter sent by Hillary Clinton to Connecticut Democrats credited Mr. Lieberman with defending Social Security "tooth and nail." Well, I watched last year's Social Security debate pretty closely, and that's not what happened.

In fact, Mr. Lieberman repeatedly supported the administration's scare tactics. "Every year we wait to come up with a solution to the Social Security problem," he declared in March 2005, "costs our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren $600 billion more."

This claim echoed a Bush administration talking point, and President Bush wasted little time citing Mr. Lieberman's statement as vindication. But the talking point was simply false, so Mr. Lieberman was providing cover for an administration lie.

There's more. Mr. Lieberman supported Congressional intervention in the Terri Schiavo affair, back when Republican leaders were trying to manufacture a "values" issue out of thin air.

And let's not forget that Mr. Lieberman showed far more outrage over Bill Clinton's personal life than he has ever shown over Mr. Bush's catastrophic failures as commander in chief.

On each of these issues Mr. Lieberman, who is often described as a "centrist," is or was very much at odds not just with the Democratic base but with public opinion as a whole. According to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, only 40 percent of the public believes that we were right to go to war with Iraq.

Mr. Lieberman's tender concern for the president's credibility comes far too late: according to a USA Today/Gallup poll, only 41 percent of Americans consider Mr. Bush honest and trustworthy. By huge margins, the public believed that Congress should have stayed out of the Schiavo case. And so on.

Mr. Lieberman's defenders would have you believe that his increasingly unpopular positions reflect his principles. But his Bushlike inability to face reality on Iraq looks less like a stand on principle than the behavior of a narcissist who can't admit error. And the common theme in Mr. Lieberman's positions seems to be this: In each case he has taken the stand that is most likely to get him on TV.

You see, the talking-head circuit loves centrists. But a centrist, as defined inside the Beltway, doesn't mean someone whose views are actually in the center, as judged by public opinion.

Instead, a Democrat is considered centrist to the extent that he does what Mr. Lieberman does: lends his support to Republican talking points, even if those talking points don't correspond at all to what most of the public wants or believes.


It's no accident that whenever you see a Democrat on the Sabbath Gasbag shows, it's always either Joe Biden or Joe Lieberman. Biden is a constant guest because he's a publicity hound and his tendency to make grand pronouncements that make no sense means he makes for good television, and Lieberman can be relied on to not rock the boat.

I'm seeing here in the 5th District of New Jersey what happens when upstarts dare to buck the party machine. Here, the county Democratic organization brought in a Clintonista from outside the district, rented him an apartment in which to hang his hat, and pushed the 2004 candidate out of the race. My own guess is that since Paul Aronsohn is not just a Clintonista with access to Clintonista cash but a former PR flack for a major pharmaceutical company in the state, the party sees him as a cash cow for the machine. But when said party apparatus is throwing county candidates off the party line in 20 towns in the district because they did not outright endorse the party boss' Designated Guy, it's clear that something in the system is very, very broken.

We've already seen the same situation in Ohio, where a dynamic, charismatic candidate, Paul Hackett, was forced out of the race against the Republican incumbent, Mike DeWine, by the aforementioned Chuck Schumer, so that the hacktocracy's guy, Sherrod Brown, could run virtually unopposed -- as if giving primary voters a choice were a BAD thing. Meanwhile, according to the latest Rasmussen poll, Brown has a hair-thin 44/41 lead in the latest Rasmussen poll -- hardly enough of a margin to win, especially when the kind of electoral shenanigans for which Ohio is now famous are taken into account. My guess is that when the votes are counted (or not counted, as is more likely, given Secretary of State Ken Blackwell's reputation), Mike DeWine will retain his Ohio Senate seat.

This is why the Lamont/Lieberman race is so important. A Lamont win in the primary
against arguably the most entrenched of entrenched incumbents would signal that if the old nexus of corporate cash and hack politicians isn't dead, its days are numbered.

The one caveat in this high-stakes race is that Lamont is from an old-money guy, and so is able to use his own funds to compete with the hacktocracy's unholy alliance with lobbyist cash; something a guy like Paul Hackett, or Camille Abate here in the NJ 5th, is unable to do without help.

I'm not convinced that the walls of Jericho surrounding the Do-Nothing Democrats are ready to fall yet, but provided the Republic lasts long enough (which is already in doubt, given the Administration's beleaguered state and dictatorial leanings), I do think we will ultimately prevail and throw every last fucking one of them out and replace them with people who have not forgotten that the job of our representatives in Washington is to serve the voters, not their own political ambitions.

This is exactly the kind of situation the netroots seeks to fix in supporting candidates like Ned Lamont.

dimanche 21 mai 2006

This is almost enough to make me hopeful for the future

Here is Jean Rohe's New School graduation speech. You can read how she went about writing it at HuffPo.

If all the world were peaceful now and forever more,
Peaceful at the surface and peaceful at the core,

All the joy within my heart would be so free to soar,

And we're living on a living planet, circling a living star.

Don't know where we're going but I know we're going far.

We can change the universe by being who we are,

And we're living on a living planet, circling a living star.

Welcome everyone on this beautiful afternoon to the commencement ceremony for the New School class of 2006. That was an excerpt of a song I learned as a child called "Living Planet" by Jay Mankita. I chose to begin my address this way because, as always, but especially now, we are living in a time of violence, of war, of injustice. I am thinking of our brothers and sisters in Iraq, in Darfur, in Sri Lanka, in Mogadishu, in Israel/Palestine, right here in the U.S., and many, many other places around the world. And my deepest wish on this day--on all days--is for peace, justice, and true freedom for all people. The song says, "We can change the universe by being who we are," and I believe that it really is just that simple.

Right now, I'm going to be who I am and digress from my previously prepared remarks. I am disappointed that I have to abandon the things I had wanted to speak about, but I feel that it is absolutely necessary to acknowledge the fact that this ceremony has become something other than the celebratory gathering that it was intended to be due to all the media attention surrounding John Mc Cain's presence here today, and the student and faculty outrage generated by his invitation to speak here. The senator does not reflect the ideals upon which this university was founded. Not only this, but his invitation was a top-down decision that did not take into account the desires and interests of the student body on an occasion that is supposed to honor us above all, and to commemorate our achievements.

What is interesting and bizarre about this whole situation is that Senator Mc Cain has stated that he will be giving the same speech at all three universities where he has been invited to speak recently, of which ours is the last; those being Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, Columbia University, and finally here at the New School. For this reason I have unusual foresight concerning the themes of his address today. Based on the speech he gave at the other institutions, Senator Mc Cain will tell us today that dissent and disagreement are our "civic and moral obligation" in times of crisis. I consider this a time of crisis and I feel obligated to speak. Senator Mc Cain will also tell us about his cocky self-assuredness in his youth, which prevented him from hearing the ideas of others. In so doing, he will imply that those of us who are young are too naïve to have valid opinions and open ears. I am young, and although I don't profess to possess the wisdom that time affords us, I do know that preemptive war is dangerous and wrong, that George Bush's agenda in Iraq is not worth the many lives lost. And I know that despite all the havoc that my country has wrought overseas in my name, Osama bin Laden still has not been found, nor have those weapons of mass destruction.

Finally, Senator Mc Cain will tell us that we, those of us who are Americans, "have nothing to fear from each other." I agree strongly with this, but I take it one step further. We have nothing to fear from anyone on this living planet. Fear is the greatest impediment to the achievement of peace. We have nothing to fear from people who are different from us, from people who live in other countries, even from the people who run our government--and this we should have learned from our educations here. We can speak truth to power, we can allow our humanity always to come before our nationality, we can refuse to let fear invade our lives and to goad us on to destroy the lives of others. These words I speak do not reflect the arrogance of a young strong-headed woman, but belong to a line of great progressive thought, a history in which the founders of this institution play an important part. I speak today, even through my nervousness, out of a need to honor those voices that came before me, and I hope that we graduates can all strive to do the same.


In 1955, the American Friends Service Committee published a pamphlet called Speak Truth to Power, which proposed a new approach to the Cold War. Today, the presence of young people willing to think for themselves and not give credence to what this government tells them gives me hope that perhaps we may not be doomed after all.

At a time when it's all too tempting for succeeding generations to blame the baby boomers for everything, those of us who have continued to fight for truth and social justice for the last 30 years welcome the opportunity to work with a new generation to restore this country to the one we remember from our childhoods -- one of hope and opportunity, not the wasteland of fear and loathing that conservatives and religious lunatics have made it into over the last 25 years.

Bush to middle-class teens: Go Cheney Yourselves

The latest round of tax cuts may have made Bush's base -- the haves and the have-mores -- very happy, but if you are a teenager trying to save money for college, you just got screwed:

The $69 billion tax cut bill that President Bush signed this week tripled tax rates for teenagers with college savings funds, despite Mr. Bush's 1999 pledge to veto any tax increase.

Under the new law, teenagers age 14 to 17 with investment income will now be taxed at the same rate as their parents, not at their own rates. Long-term capital gains and dividends that had been taxed at 5 percent will now be taxed at 15 percent. Interest that had been taxed at 10 percent will now be taxed at as much as 35 percent.

The increases, which are retroactive to the first day of the year, are expected to generate nearly $2.2 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, which issues the official estimates.


Teenagers can't vote, and they don't donate money to Republicans, so they are an easy target. This kind of tax increase, at a time when college is becoming increasingly unaffordable for middle-class families, is yet another way Republicans are consciously, deliberately and systematically eliminating the middle class.

During the 2004 campaign, I used to say "If you liked 1905, you're going to love 2005." In 1913, the richest 1% of Americans -- the "robber barons" and the tycoons -- received 18% of U.S. income. Today, that percentage receives 15% of U.S. income. This latest round of tax cuts is likely to bring the new robber barons even closer to that 18% thresshold.

So while Americans are obediently looking at the busboy at the local Applebee's, the guy nailing shingles to their neighbors' roof, and the guy down the street blowing grass clippings onto a tarp, and saying "HE's the problem!", perhaps they should look at the tax policy that Republicans are ramming through with alarming speed. Because while you're looking at Mexicans, George Bush's base is lifting the wallet out of your back pocket.