What Do the Bush Regime and the Ahmadinejad Regime Have in Common?

Mark Kleiman has the answer.

I first heard of David Hicks when I saw the documentary about his case at Full Frame Fest in 2004. It seems odd that someone who was deemed so much of a threat that he has spent the last five years at Gitmo has been able to plea bargain down to a 9-month sentence. Kind of makes you wonder just how much of a Big Bad Guy he really is.

I have no patience for people like this

The truth about what George W. Bush was should have been evident to anyone with open eyes. I knew what he was, and so did at least half the voting population, both in 2000 and again in 2004. So I really don't have any sympathy for those only NOW, after Bush has pretty much destroyed not just this country, but the entire WORLD, having their "come to Jesus" moment:

In 1999, Matthew Dowd became a symbol of George W. Bush’s early success at positioning himself as a Republican with Democratic appeal.

A top strategist for the Texas Democrats who was disappointed by the Bill Clinton years, Mr. Dowd was impressed by the pledge of Mr. Bush, then governor of Texas, to bring a spirit of cooperation to Washington. He switched parties, joined Mr. Bush’s political brain trust and dedicated the next six years to getting him to the Oval Office and keeping him there. In 2004, he was appointed the president’s chief campaign strategist.

Looking back, Mr. Dowd now says his faith in Mr. Bush was misplaced.

In a wide-ranging interview here, Mr. Dowd called for a withdrawal from Iraq and expressed his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s leadership.

He criticized the president as failing to call the nation to a shared sense of sacrifice at a time of war, failing to reach across the political divide to build consensus and ignoring the will of the people on Iraq. He said he believed the president had not moved aggressively enough to hold anyone accountable for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and that Mr. Bush still approached governing with a “my way or the highway” mentality reinforced by a shrinking circle of trusted aides.

“I really like him, which is probably why I’m so disappointed in things,” he said. He added, “I think he’s become more, in my view, secluded and bubbled in.”

In speaking out, Mr. Dowd became the first member of Mr. Bush’s inner circle to break so publicly with him.

He said his decision to step forward had not come easily. But, he said, his disappointment in Mr. Bush’s presidency is so great that he feels a sense of duty to go public given his role in helping Mr. Bush gain and keep power.

Mr. Dowd, a crucial part of a team that cast Senator John Kerry as a flip-flopper who could not be trusted with national security during wartime, said he had even written but never submitted an op-ed article titled “Kerry Was Right,” arguing that Mr. Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and 2004 presidential candidate, was correct in calling last year for a withdrawal from Iraq.

[snip]

In the last several years, as he has gradually broken his ties with the Bush camp, one of Mr. Dowd’s premature twin daughters died, he was divorced, and he watched his oldest son prepare for deployment to Iraq as an Army intelligence specialist fluent in Arabic. Mr. Dowd said he had become so disillusioned with the war that he had considered joining street demonstrations against it, but that his continued personal affection for the president had kept him from joining protests whose anti-Bush fervor is so central.

You know what, Mr. Dowd? Go Cheney yourself. Go home, look at yourself in the mirror, and think about how you were perfectly willing to let OTHER people's sons die in Iraq, but it was only when YOUR OWN flesh and blood went over to be sacrificed did it become an issue. If your son were a Santa Barbara oral surgeon, would you have turned against this president? I think not. So when you go to sleep tonight, think about the more than 3200 American families who have lost their sons and daughters and husbands and wives in Iraq. Think about the up to 650,000 Iraqis who have died because this president had to prove what a big swinging dick he had. Think about the 2900+ Americans who died on 9/11/01 a month after this president received a briefing memo telling him that an attack was imminent and then a month later sat in an elementary school classroom while people jumped to their deaths, then used that day to lie us into the aforementioned war.

How you can go to sleep at night at any time for the rest of your life, Mr. Dowd, I just don't understand. But don't come crying to me about how disappointed you are in this sociopath that many of us knew was a sociopath, because I don't give a shit how you feel. The damage has been done, and YOU helped enable him.

Is there ANYTHING AT ALL the Republicans haven't rendered completely FUBAR?

I just got back from a pilgrimage to Trader Joe's and Westwood Feed Co. in search of wheat-free and wheat gluten-free dry kibble for Queen Jenny and Maggie the Great White Squirrel Huntress. I have an unopened bag of Purine One Hairball and Healthy Weight formula, but I'll be damned if I'll give it to them after following the ever-spreading tainted pet food scandal on PatConnection.com. Between E Coli-tainted spinach, tainted peanut butter, mad cow disease, and now this, we are seeing in action the results of the Republican "make government small enough to drown in a bathtub" doctrine. This is what happens when you decide that regulation is bad and we should let market forces determine outcomes and when the FDA acts to protect corporations instead of people. Tell the over 2,600 people who have reported their pets dead from kidney failure from eating food containing wheat gluten imported from China that contains PLASTIC, for God's sake, about market forces and how we can't allow companies to be hurt by bad press.

Republican corporatism isn't new, it's just that after six years of an all-Republican government, we're seeing what laissez-faire corporatism looks like. But food safety, health care, and the middle-class job market aren't all that's been destroyed by this bunch; it looks like they fucked up even where they're supposed to be strongest -- national defense:

Two Afghanistan experts painted a sobering picture of the conditions there yesterday, arguing support among Afghans for NATO forces is plummeting, the U.S.-driven policy of poppy eradication is wrongheaded, and the war might not be winnable in its present form.

U.S. scholar Barnett Rubin and Gordon Smith, Canada's former ambassador to NATO, delivered their withering comments to a Commons committee only days after Canada's top military commander, Gen. Rick Hillier, touted progress being made there.

Hillier, the chief of defence staff, this week predicted Canadian troops in southern Afghanistan will soon see a rise in attacks from the Taliban. But he insisted on using the term "surge" rather than "offensive."

He also noted many Afghans are moving back into their homes in districts west of Kandahar following a Canadian-led NATO offensive last fall.

But Rubin, who has been to Afghanistan 29 times over more than two decades, said yesterday many Afghans are growing frustrated with the pace of Western efforts to stabilize the country.

"They're not at all happy. Support for both the international presence and the government has plummeted in the past year or so," he told the foreign affairs committee.

He said Afghans aren't seeing the results of promises by the United States and NATO, which took over the mission in 2003, to increase security, establish democracy and improve the economy. "The main complaint that I hear from Afghans is ... that we haven't delivered what they think we promised."

Perhaps it's because George W. Bush got bored with Afghanistan and needed the shiny new bauble of Iraq to hang on his codpiece. And now Afghanistan is about to be turned back over to the Taliban (where presumably we will once again give them a shitload of money for so-called poppy eradication).

So five and one-half years after the 9/11/01 attacks, we are about to lose Afghanistan, and we are bogged down in Iraq in perpetuity. This is a country that defeated Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese Emperoro in less time....and we can't handle Afghanistan and Iraq?

So once again, I ask: can anyone name ANYTHING this bunch hasn't completely fucked up?

A man is judged by the company he keeps

Unless he's a Republican.

Meet your Republican front-runner and his BFF:

Ex-Partner Of Giuliani May Face Charges
Kerik Counts Said To Include Deception During Cabinet Bid

Federal prosecutors have told Bernard B. Kerik, whose nomination as homeland security secretary in 2004 ended in scandal, that he is likely to be charged with several felonies, including tax evasion and conspiracy to commit wiretapping.

Kerik's indictment could set the stage for a courtroom battle that would draw attention to Kerik's extensive business and political dealings with former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who personally recommended him to President Bush for the Cabinet. Giuliani, the front-runner for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination according to most polls, later called the recommendation a mistake.

Kerik rose from being a warden and police detective to become Giuliani's campaign security adviser, corrections chief, police commissioner and eventual partner in Giuliani-Kerik, a security arm of Giuliani Partners, which Giuliani established after leaving office in 2001. Kerik resigned his positions in Giuliani's firm after he was nominated to the homeland security job.

The former mayor is not in any legal jeopardy, according to legal sources directly familiar with the investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the inquiry is ongoing. He and his consulting firm have cooperated in the FBI's long-running investigation of Kerik.

During a recent meeting, federal prosecutors told Kerik's attorneys that they are preparing to charge Kerik with filing false information to the government when Bush nominated him to the Cabinet, according to the legal sources.

Prosecutors are also prepared to charge Kerik with violating federal tax laws, alleging that he did not declare on his tax returns gifts he received while serving as New York's corrections commissioner, including costly renovations to an apartment he had bought, the sources said. The FBI is investigating loans Kerik received while he was in private business with Giuliani, the sources said, as well as information Kerik had omitted from a mortgage application.

Kerik turned down last month an offer to plead guilty to federal charges that would have required him to serve prison time. His attorney, Kenneth Breen, said in an interview that his client had done nothing wrong.

Of course he hasn't. Because everything is OK if you're a Republican, right?

Still, let's not remember those halcyon days (or were they Halcion® days?) when Big Tough Ol' Bernie was the Real Man's Choice to head the Department of Homeland Security:

"Bernie Kerik is one of the most accomplished and effective leaders of law enforcement in America," Bush said in announcing his decision at the White House.

"In every position, he has demonstrated a deep commitment to justice, a heart for the innocent and a record of great success. I'm grateful he's agreed to bring his lifetime of security experience and skill to one of the most important positions in the American government."

[snip]

"Bernie is a very good operational person, he knows how to run the operation. What he needs to learn and what he's going to need help with is the Washington bureaucracy," former New York Police Commissioner Howard Safire told FOX News.

Mark Green, in Blazing Saddles, the remake

Well, not exactly. But remember that scene in Blazing Saddles where Cleavon Little holds the gun to his own head and says, "Nobody move or the n----- gets it!"?

Right now Air America management is like that Cleavon Little character.

Yesterday I was at home in the morning waiting for the plumber to come and let me know how many arms and legs it was going to cost to replace the toilet and vanity in the upstairs bathroom, and I took advantage of the opportunity to check into the "Sammy Cam", the camera that runs sometimes during Air America's Sam Seder Show. The most interesting thing about Sammy Cam is what you hear during the commercial breaks.

Yesterday what we heard after the show was something that had been rumored for a while, but has now been pretty much confirmed: If you thought that Air America under Stephen and Mark Green would somehow be different from the way it was under Danny Goldberg; that they would recognize the value of the talent to the Air America product, that they would realize it takes a while for radio shows to build a listener base and make a profit, well, guess again.

Because a little slip yesterday told us what Sam Seder has been alluding to all week: Once again, Air America management is putting the gun to its own head and cancelling one of its best shows.

I and other loyalists to Air America and to the old Morning Sedition crew have expended a great deal of energy over the past year lobbying with AAR to get Marc Maron back on the air. When those efforts failed, we for the most part adopted Sam Seder as the next best thing. And now it looks like they're doing it again. For whether it was accidental or not (and I have my doubts), the Sammy Cam was left on yesterday after the show, and temporary producer Dan Pashman mentioned something about doing a promo next week to tune into the final two Sam Seder shows.

So now we know. And now we know that any illusions we had that the new ownership would stop the relentless march of AAR down the road to a 12-hour lineup of progressive utopians with no sense of humor (® Maron); and its transformation into a hybrid of the most corporatist aspects of National Public Radio and the most insufferable self-righteousness of Pacifica, punctuated with commercials for Ovaltine, schemes to get rich quick in the foreclosure market, and baldness cures; have been broken on the rocks of continued mismanagement. We've already seen signs that Air America is simply a vanity project for Mark Green -- just as it was for Danny Goldberg, who promptly upon joining the company peppered the airwaves with ads for his own Artemis Records label and gave Artemis artist Steve Earle his own radio show. Ads for Green's latest book pepper the network's airwaves, and I have a feeling I know who is going to take over that 9 AM to noon timeslot. (Hint: he wrote this book.)

Melina has a long history in the broadcast industry, and puts it all into a larger perspective (including, for some reason, parrots, which actually now that I think about it may be appropriate). Meanwhile, it looks increasingly that all we can do is look back in sorrow AND in anger -- at what could have and should have been.

Your pet -- and you -- may still be at risk

The tainted wheat gluten from China that has sickened and killed pets across the country may not be limited to wet pet foods. It may be in kibble as well -- or even in the human food supply -- and the FDA ain't talking:

In an FDA press conference this morning, a reporter asked the FDA’s Dr. Stephen Sundlof if people could be feeding unsafe food to their pets right now, because the FDA won’t reveal the name of a company - that makes dry “kibbled” food as well as “wet” pet food - that received wheat gluten from the same source Menu did.

The response? “It is possible, but I think we’ve been following every lead that we can. My sense is that we have gotten most of it under control.”

As soon as we have any information, he assured reporters at a press conference this morning, we’ll notify the public. Except for the name of the company, it seems.

How about the numbers? asked another attendee. You’re still saying only 15 confirmed deaths, but some reports are in the thousands. How do you explain the discrepancy?

Dr. Sundlof said FDA can’t confirm any cases beyond those first few in Menu’s test labs, even though they have received over 8800 additional reports, because “We have not had the luxury of confirming these reports.” They’ll work on that, he said, after they “make sure all the product is off the shelves.”

He pointed out that in human medicine, the job of defining what constitutes a confirmed case would fall to the Centers for Disease Control, not the FDA… and there is no CDC for animals.

Updated: Karen Roebuck of the Pittsburg Tribune-Review, who broke the story earlier this morning that melamine, not aminopterin, had been found in the tested foods, asked if any of the wheat gluten had found its way into the human food supply.

The response: “At this point we are not aware that any of that went into human food.” They do know the company that supplied the contaminated wheat gluten, and are tracking its shipments, but they aren’t disclosing the name of the company.

Wow.

Great find, via Bush Failed and C&L -- Excerpts from George W. Bush's speech before the Wisconsin VFW, August 21, 2000:

Our men and women in uniform love their country more than their comfort. They have never failed us, and we must not fail them. But the best intentions and the highest morale are undermined by back-to-back deployments, poor pay, shortages of spare parts and equipment, and rapidly declining readiness.

We are going to restore morale in the United States Military, and treat American soldiers, sailors, and air men and marines with the respect they that they have earned. American soldiers must have confidence that if asked to serve and sacrifice, the cause will be worthy and our support for them total.

As commander-in-chief I will give our military a clear sense of mission. America will be involved in the world. But that doesn?t mean our military is the answer to every difficult foreign policy situation. It does not mean our military is a substitute for clear strategy. A generation shaped by Vietnam must remember the lessons of Vietnam. When America uses force in the world, the cause must be just, the goal must be clear, and the victory must be overwhelming.

Strike three, you're out, George.

More:

As President, I will return the VA to the principle that it has a Duty to Assist veterans who seek service-related disability benefits. The old policy required the VA to assist veterans with their claims and that will be our policy again. In my Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs will act as an advocate for veterans seeking benefit claims, not act as an adversary. Veterans who once stood in the line of fire to protect our freedom should not have to stand in the line of a bureaucracy that is unwilling to help them in their claims.

Yes, well, guess again.

Over the last several years, the services have found it more and more difficult to retain the best people. Our men and women in uniform and their families are the foundation of America?s military readiness. Yet in a survey last year of more than a thousand officers and enlisted personnel, more than half said they were dissatisfied ? and intended to leave the service when their current term of enlistment was up. I don?t care what?s said in a political campaign, these are signs of a military in decline and we must do something about it.

The reasons are clear. Lack of equipment and material. Undermaning of units. Overdeployment. Not enough time for family. Soldiers who are on food stamps, and soldiers who are poorly housed. Dick Cheney and I have a simple message today for our men and women in uniform, their parents, their loved ones, their supporters ? Help is on the way!

Yes it is....as soon as every fucking Republican and every wussy corporatist tool Democrat is thrown out of office.

Great moments in progressive blogging

I guess this kind of insight is what has made Atrios an alpha dog in progressive Blogtopia (® Skippy)

Thainatown, Sydney

Yentafo noodle soup

"You should try Thainatown," I told a friend who'd confided he was sick of his usual dinner haunts.

"I said I feel like Thai food, not Chinese," he said, rolling his eyes.

"I said Thainatown, not Chinatown."

And that's the cutest thing about this little Thai eatery. Just saying the name to someone new makes you want to smile. Especially if you deliberately throw in a fake

Everything Republican is Rotten to the Core

This is what happens when people who think belief in Jesus excuses everything they do get into power:

The head of the federal office responsible for providing women with access to contraceptives and counseling to prevent pregnancy resigned unexpectedly yesterday after Medicaid officials took action against him in Massachusetts.

The Health and Human Services Department provided no details about the nature of the Massachusetts action that led to Dr. Eric Keroack's resignation.

Five months ago, Keroack was chosen by President Bush to oversee the department's Office of Population Affairs and its $283 million annual budget. The pick angered Planned Parenthood and other abortion-rights groups that viewed him as opposed to birth control and comprehensive sex education. Keroack had worked for an organization that opposes contraception.

"Yesterday, Dr. Eric Keroack alerted us to an action taken against him by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' Office of Medicaid. As a result of this action I accepted his resignation," Dr. John Agwunobi, assistant secretary for health, said in a statement last evening.

Massachusetts Medicaid officials did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Keroack's office oversees family planning services provided through the Title X program. Services include breast and cervical cancer screening . Services are given on a sliding scale based on income, and no one is refused service based on inability to pay.

Keroack told his staff in a letter yesterday that he became aware of the action being taken against his private medical practice in Massachusetts. He said he immediately hired a lawyer to initiate an appeal. He did not elaborate on why the action was taken.

"My attorney feels confident that misunderstandings have occurred and that upon further review of the facts during the appeals process, this action will be reversed," he wrote. "However, the appeals process will present a significant distraction to my ability to remain focused on my duties."

So let's see....contraception is immoral, but Medicaid fraud (which presumably is what this is about) is perfectly OK.

I wish someone would explain to me exactly what the moral code of Republicans is...because I'll be damned if I can figure it out.

Cracks in St. Rudy's halo

Looks like Saint Rudy isn't going to be able to ride the corpses of 2900+ people to the White House after all, at least not if people like Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son died in the World Trade Center, have anything to say about it:

"If Rudolph Giuliani was running on anything but 9/11, I would not speak out," said Sally Regenhard, whose firefighter son was among the 343 FDNY members killed in the terrorist attack. "If he ran on cleaning up Times Square, getting rid of squeegee men, lowering crime — that's indisputable.

"But when he runs on 9/11, I want the American people to know he was part of the problem."

Such comments contradict Giuliani's post-Sept. 11 profile as a hero and symbol of the city's resilience — the steadfast leader who calmed the nerves of a rattled nation. But as the presidential campaign intensifies, criticisms of his 2001 performance are resurfacing.

Giuliani, the leader in polls of Republican voters for his party's nomination, has been faulted on two major issues:

• His administration's failure to provide the World Trade Center's first responders with adequate radios, a long-standing complaint from relatives of the firefighters killed when the twin towers collapsed. The Sept. 11 Commission noted the firefighters at the World Trade Center were using the same ineffective radios employed by the first responders to the 1993 terrorist attack on the trade center.

Regenhard, at a 2004 commission hearing in Manhattan, screamed at Giuliani, "My son was murdered because of your incompetence!" The hearing was a perfect example of the 9/11 duality: Commission members universally praised Giuliani at the same event.

• A November 2001 decision to step up removal of the massive rubble pile at ground zero. The firefighters were angered when the then-mayor reduced their numbers among the group searching for remains of their lost "brothers," focusing instead on what they derided as a "scoop and dump" approach. Giuliani agreed to increase the number of firefighters at ground zero just days after ordering the cutback.

More than 5 1/2 years later, body parts are still turning up in the trade center site.

"We want America to know what this guy meant to New York City firefighters," said Peter Gorman, head of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association. "In our experiences with this man, he disrespected us in the most horrific way."

The two-term mayor, in his appearance before the Sept. 11 Commission, said the blame for the death and destruction of Sept. 11 belonged solely with the terrorists. "There was not a problem of coordination on Sept. 11," he testified.

And Saint Rudy's reputation as Mr. No Tolerance For Crime Of Any Sort has taken a hit as well, as Giuliani's memory is about as good as Alberto Gonzales':

Rudolph W. Giuliani told a grand jury that his former chief investigator remembered having briefed him on some aspects of Bernard B. Kerik’s relationship with a company suspected of ties to organized crime before Mr. Kerik’s appointment as New York City police commissioner, according to court records.

Mr. Giuliani, testifying last year under oath before a Bronx grand jury investigating Mr. Kerik, said he had no memory of the briefing, but he did not dispute that it had taken place, according to a transcript of his testimony.

Mr. Giuliani’s testimony amounts to a significantly new version of what information was probably before him in the summer of 2000 as he was debating Mr. Kerik’s appointment as the city’s top law enforcement officer. Mr. Giuliani had previously said that he had never been told of Mr. Kerik’s entanglement with the company before promoting him to the police job or later supporting his failed bid to be the nation’s homeland security secretary.

In his testimony, given in April 2006, Mr. Giuliani indicated that he must have simply forgotten that he had been briefed on one or more occasions as part of the background investigation of Mr. Kerik before his appointment to the police post.

He said he learned only in late 2004 that the briefing or briefings had occurred, after the city’s investigation commissioner reviewed his own records from 2000. To this day, Mr. Giuliani testified, he has no specific recollection of any briefing or the details of what he was told. But he said he felt comforted because the chief investigator had cleared Mr. Kerik to be promoted.

“He testified fully and cooperatively,” a statement from Mr. Giuliani’s consulting firm said of the former mayor’s grand jury appearance. The statement added: “Mayor Giuliani has admitted it was a mistake to recommend Bernie Kerik for D.H.S. and he has assumed responsibility for it.”

Mr. Kerik pleaded guilty last summer to improperly allowing the company, Interstate Industrial Corporation, or its subsidiaries, to do $165,000 worth of free renovations on his Bronx apartment in late 1999 and 2000. The company has denied paying for the work, and has disputed any association with organized crime. But the two brothers who run it have been indicted in the Bronx on charges they lied under oath about their dealings with Mr. Kerik.

There is no evidence that Mr. Giuliani knew about the apartment renovation before promoting Mr. Kerik to police commissioner. But the top investigator who briefed Mr. Giuliani in 2000, the transcript shows, was aware that Mr. Kerik’s brother and a close friend had been hired by an affiliate of the company, which for years had been struggling to secure a city license.

For Mr. Giuliani, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president and who has done well in early polls, his history with Mr. Kerik looms as a likely issue in the campaign. His own aides have anticipated that questions are likely to arise about Mr. Giuliani’s judgment in, among other things, promoting Mr. Kerik for one of the country’s most important national security posts.

Outside of New York City, Giuliani is only known as the stolid, calming presence who walked up Broadway in the aftermath of the attacks, getting in front of the microphone and keeping the public informed after the President of the United States had spent seven minutes after the attacks sitting in an elementary school classroom not knowing what to do, followed by a flight out west like Brave Sir Robin running away. It's hardly surprising that Giuliani was able to recast his image when the video proof was there, especially after George W. Bush was able to recast himself from Brave Sir Robin who Ran Away to Hot Military Stud simply by throwing his arm around a fireman and then invading a country that had nothing to do with the attacks.

But many people have forgotten, and outside of the New York metro area, many never knew, just how deeply in the doghouse Giuliani was until an atrocity transformed him into a hero. By the time his marital problems became public and he announced his intention to end his marriage via press conference before even telling his wife, New York had had quite enough of Rudy Giuliani, as Jeffrey Feldman, a city resident, reminds us:

Almost from the start of his first term, and right up to the morning of September 11, 2001, Giuliani's reign was dominated not by talk of his patriotism, but by troubling discussions of racial profiling, police shootings of unarmed black men, and abuses of power to justify anti-crime policies that seem to terrorize substantial portions of New York City's diverse population.

Unfortunately, the violence in Giuliani's New York has been effectively hidden behind high-impact PR patriotism designed to sell Giuliani to American voters.


To recover the reality of violence and controversy that surrounded Giuliani as an elected official, we need only return to the media discussion that dominated the national airwaves just prior to 2001.

Even A Martian Could See It
March 15, 2000. Unarmed, off-duty security guard Patrick Dorismond is shot dead by undercover police officer Anthony Vasquez. Desmond is a Haitian immigrant. In follow up investigations, the record shows that Vasquez attempted to lure Desmond into a drug by by inquiring about purchasing marijuana. Amidst murky details and rising concern over the number of unarmed black men gunned down by New York police, Mayor Rudy Giuliani releases the Patrick Desmond's juvenile records, claiming as justification for what happened. When questioned about the illegality of releasing sealed juvenile records, Giuliani claims that such restrictions do not apply to dead men. At Desmond's funeral in Brooklyn, thousands of protesters clash with local police--frustrated by the cycle of police violence against black men to have emerged during Giuliani's 7 years as mayor.

The Violence of Zero-Tolerance
In the days leading up to September 11, 2001, the Rudy Giuliani campaign collapsed in a perfect storm of allegations against the mayor: police brutality, marital infidelity, cruelty to his own family members. In the end, he pulled out of his Senate bid against Hillary Clinton, blaming a bout with prostate cancer as the culprit. The man who built a career out of taking on the mob and arresting squeegee men on street corners was brought down by a common affliction easily cured by out-patient treatment.

But six years later, his cancer seems only to have made him stronger--and more adept at building a strong wall of patriotic myth to shield him from reliving the controversies over police violence and abuse of power that plagued him in the past.

But to quote Bob Beckel, even a "martian" can see that the campaign image of Giuliani as a hero standing on the smoldering rubble of the World Trade Center is a calculated political strategy designed to mask the mayor's actual past--a past which puts him at the center of a cloud of violence and one of the most troubling and deadly chapters in the history of America's urban centers.

For those unfamiliar with the police shooting of Patrick Dorismond, you can read about it here. And read about the mayor's response to the shooting of the unarmed Amadou Diallo here, in a surprising paper published by, yes, the Cato Institute.

It's inescapable that the underlying theme of the Giuliani years prior to the 9/11 attacks was a racial tension between minority communities and the law enforcement community that Giuliani championed that was not only constantly at a low, rolling boil, but that spilled over all too often, as in the Dorismond, Diallo, and Louima cases. And for all that people like me speculate on the likelihood of the Bush Administration declaring martial law and cancelling elections, the one Republican who has actually requested a term extension is Rudy Giuliani.

It's easy to look at Giuliani on 9/11/01 and be grateful that when the president was so completely unable to cope, SOMEONE stepped up to the plate. But Giuliani must be looked in the larger context of his time as mayor, and the more you examine his autocratic leadership style, the less appealing a choice he becomes.

The Daily Knut

No, I'm not going to do this daily; just when I need a good shot of Teh Cute.

More of Teh Cute at Knut's Blog.

(Does anyone else think that the German tendency to make compound words is charming when the result is "Eisbärbaby"?)

More on Circuit City

While 3400 Circuit City employees are going to be replaced by lower-cost workers, here's a fun fact about the company from the article:

Chief Executive Officer Philip Schoonover was paid $8.52 million in fiscal 2006, including a salary of $975,000.

Want to know to which party Circuit City donates? No surprise here, either. Circuit City Stores, Inc.'s Political Action Committee gave $22,500 to Republicans and $2500 to Democrats.

Perhaps knowing that its rival CompUSA was closing 126 locations gave Circuit City the courage to fire most of its so-called "overpaid" $10/hour employees. After all, there are going to be a bunch of booted CompUSA employees flooding the market soon, if they aren't unemployed already.

Debunking Bush's "Iraqi bloggers"

When I heard about Bush quoting "Iraqi bloggers" in his speech to the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, I knew he wasn't talking about Riverbend. I did find it interesting, however, that while the Administration pooh-poohs bloggers, when it is in its interest to quote them, all of a sudden blogs become equivalent to so-called "real" journalism.

But as it turns out, not only are two so-called bloggers Bush quoted complete and utter tools, and the quotes Bush read are from March 5 and repringed on the Wall Street Journal's editorial page on the 7th.

Greg Mitchell at Editor & Publisher cites two more recent posts from the very same bloggers:

March 24, from correspondent Sahar

The loss of state-supplied electricity has made private generators a necessity. Every 50-100 homes are supplied with power from a generator, situated “around the corner” or “down the road” from where you live. The noise generated by these machines has contaminated our very lives. (Not to mention the smoke and fumes that are killing us).

They supply us with a little power for six hours only, the rest of the day we have to switch on our own tiny house generators, which are just as noisy and smelly. (Those of us that can afford them)

The noise from explosions and fighting and cocky nobodies shooting live ammunition into the air to satisfy their sick inner hunger for power is just the cream topping on the cake.

How to sleep properly? How to work properly? How to study?? How to rest, think and achieve?

This war is cultivating a very resilient strain here in Iraq. Should we be thankful?


March 18 by Sahar

Every time I tell myself that my next blog will be a pleasant story of days of old, I am confronted with a different story that needs to be told.

A friend of mine called me to tell me the bad news. Her brother had been kidnapped, and the ransom set at $100,000. For any Iraqi, such an amount spells disaster.

Selling all they could sell, the whole extended family pitched in to save the poor man. They told the abductors that they couldn’t manage more than 20,000. Surprisingly, the criminals said “OK, have a woman bring the money to …..”. After leading her on a merry dance, a boy of sixteen or seventeen approached her, took the money and said, “We will contact you”. And that was the last they saw of them.

Two weeks later, their women combing the hospitals and then the morgues, had found no trace of Hani.

They were told to speak to the contractor. “The one who is in charge of burying all the unidentified bodies we get.”

So they asked around, and were directed to an ordinary looking man, who was not at all surprised to hear of their dilemma. “Yes, I’m in charge of burying the bodies that are not claimed. There is no room for all these bodies in the morgues. You must identify him first, and I will direct you to his grave.”

“ How can we identify our brother??”

“Don’t worry; I’m well set up!” He walks towards a really posh car, opens the door, takes out the latest laptop, and sets it on the bonnet. “I have here photos of all the bodies I bury. Each one is given a number that is engraved on the headstone of his grave in Nejef. Browse.”

True enough, Iyman said, her sister started looking through hundreds of photographs, of the head and shoulders of people killed in the streets, without their folks knowing about them; but didn’t find her brother’s photo.

“Try Abu Haider, or any of the others.” The contractor advised. “They are just as conscientious as I am.”

[Later] “We found his picture! We have his number! His face was all bruised and there was a hole drilled in his forehead! Oh, Sahar! He died in pain! His hands were tied above his head!”

They went to the wilderness that was being used as burial ground, on the outskirts of the city of Nejef. But there was no trace of Hani’s grave. They inspected each and every grave, each and every headstone for his number. But it was not there. They looked in all the graveyards, not just this one, but the number was not to be found.

The Bush economic plan is working perfectly -- as planned

George W. Bush, during his speech to the National Cattlemen's Beef Association -- people he called "environmentalists":

I'm going to talk a little bit about two big priorities: one, how to keep this economy strong so people can make a living; and secondly, how this country needs to stay resolved and firm in protecting the security of our country. (Applause.) And I appreciate you giving me a chance to come over and visit.
Let me talk about how to keep this economy growing. You know, one of the main jobs of government is to create the conditions for economic growth. A main job of government is not to try to create wealth. The fundamental question we've got to ask here in Washington is, what do we need to do to encourage investment and risk-takers, and to encourage entrepreneurship? And I believe the heart of good economic policy is keeping people's taxes low. (Applause.)

The reason I say that is there's a fundamental debate in Washington, when you really get down to it, and the debate is who best to spend your money. And I believe a cattleman can spend their money better than the government can. Now, obviously, we need some amount of money here, and that's called setting priorities. But beyond that, the best way to keep this economy growing is to let you keep more of your own tax money. The tax cuts we passed are working.

And for cattle ranchers and others of the Bush family's friends, cronies, and campaign contributors, and for everyone else in the top 1%, the tax cuts ARE working -- to concentrate more wealth in their hands while making the poor even poorer. If you loved 1928, you love 2007:

Income inequality grew significantly in 2005, with the top 1 percent of Americans — those with incomes that year of more than $348,000 — receiving their largest share of national income since 1928, analysis of newly released tax data shows.

The top 10 percent, roughly those earning more than $100,000, also reached a level of income share not seen since before the Depression.

While total reported income in the United States increased almost 9 percent in 2005, the most recent year for which such data is available, average incomes for those in the bottom 90 percent dipped slightly compared with the year before, dropping $172, or 0.6 percent.

The gains went largely to the top 1 percent, whose incomes rose to an average of more than $1.1 million each, an increase of more than $139,000, or about 14 percent.

The new data also shows that the top 300,000 Americans collectively enjoyed almost as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans. Per person, the top group received 440 times as much as the average person in the bottom half earned, nearly doubling the gap from 1980.

Prof. Emmanuel Saez, the University of California, Berkeley, economist who analyzed the Internal Revenue Service data with Prof. Thomas Piketty of the Paris School of Economics, said such growing disparities were significant in terms of social and political stability.

“If the economy is growing but only a few are enjoying the benefits, it goes to our sense of fairness,” Professor Saez said. “It can have important political consequences.”

Last year, according to data from other sources, incomes for average Americans increased for the first time in several years. But because those at the top rely heavily on the stock market and business profits for their income, both of which were strong last year, it is likely that the disparities in 2005 are the same or larger now, Professor Saez said.

He noted that the analysis was based on preliminary data and that the highest-income Americans were more likely than others to file their returns late, so his data might understate the growth in inequality.

The disparities may be even greater for another reason. The Internal Revenue Service estimates that it is able to accurately tax 99 percent of wage income but that it captures only about 70 percent of business and investment income, most of which flows to upper-income individuals, because not everybody accurately reports such figures.

The Bush administration argued that its tax policies, despite cuts that benefited those at the top more than others, had not added to the widening gap but “made the tax code more progressive, not less.” Brookly McLaughlin, the chief Treasury Department spokeswoman, said that this year “the share of income taxes paid by lower-income taxpayers will be lower than it would have been without the tax relief, while the share of income taxes for higher-income taxpayers will be higher.”

Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., she noted, has acknowledged that income disparities have increased, but, along with a “solid consensus” of experts, attributed that shift largely to “the rapid pace of technological change has been a major driver in the decades-long widening of the income gap in the United States."

Others argued that public policies had played a role in the shift. Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, an advocacy group for the poor, said that the data understates the widening disparity between the top 1 percent and the rest of the country.

He said that in addition to rising incomes and reduced taxes, the equation should take into account cuts in fringe benefits to workers and in government services that middle-class and poor Americans rely on more than the affluent. These include health care, child care and education spending.

“The nation faces some very tough choices in coming years,” he said. “That such a large share of the income gains are going to the very top, at a minimum, raises serious questions about continuing to provide tax cuts averaging over $150,000 a year to people making more than a million dollars a year, while saying we do not have enough money” to provide health insurance to 47 million Americans and cutting education benefits.

A major issue likely to be debated in Congress in the year ahead is whether reversing the Bush tax cuts would slow investment and, if so, how much that would cost the economy.

This notion that businesses need huge government incentives to do what businesses do, while workers should have no incentive to become educated because the jobs for the more educated just aren't there, is fascinating to me. Will businesses only invest and expand if the government shovels cash into CEO pockets? And if so, isn't that a fundamental problem with the capitalist model?

If 2007 resembles 1928, then watch out for 2008.

This is where all those fired Circuit City employees are going to end up working

Just like the wingnuts who defend Wal-Mart up as the American Ideal of business, the company's notion of ethics seems mostly about the personal lives of the company's employees, but also to enforcing secrecy about the company's operations:

The investigator flew to Guatemala in April 2002 with a delicate mission: trail a Wal-Mart manager around the country to prove he was sleeping with a lower-level employee, a violation of company policy.

The apparent smoking gun? “Moans and sighs” heard as the investigator, a Wal-Mart employee, pressed his ear against a hotel room door inside a Holiday Inn, according to legal documents. Soon after, the company fired the manager for what it said was improper fraternization with a subordinate.

Wal-Mart, renowned to outsiders for its elbows-out business tactics, is known internally for its bare-knuckled no-expense-spared investigations of employees who break its ironclad ethics rules.

Over the last five years, Wal-Mart has assembled a team of former officials from the C.I.A., F.B.I. and Justice Department whose elaborate, at times globetrotting, investigations have led to the ouster of a high-profile board member who used company funds to buy hunting equipment, two senior advertising executives who took expensive gifts from a potential supplier and a computer technician who taped a reporter’s telephone calls.

The investigators — whose résumés evoke Langley, Va., more than Bentonville, Ark. — serve as a rapid-response team that aggressively polices the nation’s largest private employer, enforcing Wal-Mart’s modest by-the-books culture among its army of 1.8 million employees.

Bitchslapped by his best friends

Even the Saudis have now had quite enough of C-Plus Caligula's Iraq adventure:

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia told Arab leaders on Wednesday that the American occupation of Iraq is “illegal,” and he warned that unless Arab governments settle their differences, foreign powers like the United States would continue to dictate the region’s politics.

The king’s speech, at the opening of the Arab League summit meeting here, underscored growing differences between Saudi Arabia and the Bush administration as the Saudis take on a greater regional leadership role, partly at American urging. The Saudis seem to be emphasizing that they will not be beholden to the policies of their longtime ally.

[snip]

Last week, the Saudi king abruptly canceled his appearance at an April White House dinner planned in his honor, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday. The official reason given for the cancellation was a scheduling conflict.

Mustapha Hamarneh, director of the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan, said the Saudis are sending Washington a message. “They are telling the U.S. they need to listen to their allies rather than imposing decisions on them and always taking Israel’s side.”

In his speech on Wednesday, the king said: “In the beloved Iraq, the bloodshed is continuing under an illegal foreign occupation and detestable sectarianism. The blame should fall on us, the leaders of the Arab nation, with our ongoing differences, our refusal to walk the path of unity. All that has made the nation lose its confidence in us.”

King Abdullah has not publicly spoken so harshly about the American-led Iraq war before and his remarks suggested that his alliance with Washington may be less strong that Bush officials have been hoping.

Gee, ya think? Count the Bush family's relationship with the House of Saud as yet one more thing that the Family Fuckup has wrecked. George Herbert Walker Bush spent years building his relationship with the House of Saud, only to watch his son destroy it, because the Saudi royal family doesn't seem to get it that loyalty to the Bush family trumps everything.

I have seen America's future, and it pays seven bucks an hour

This is what corporatism hath wrought:

A new plan for layoffs at Circuit City is openly targeting better-paid workers, risking a public backlash by implying that its wages are as subject to discounts as its flat-screen TVs.
The electronics retailer, facing larger competitors and falling sales, said Wednesday that it would lay off about 3,400 store workers_ immediately - and replace them with lower-paid new hires as soon as possible.

The laid-off workers, about 8 percent of the company's total work force, would get a severance package and a chance to reapply for their former jobs, at lower pay, after a 10-week delay, the company said.

Analysts and economists said the move is an uncertain experiment that could backfire for the chain. The risks: Morale could sink and customers could avoid the stores. Also, knowledgeable customer service is one of the few ways Circuit City can tackle competitors that include Wal-Mart Stores Inc., they say.

"This strategy strikes me as being quite cold," said Bernard Baumohl, executive director of The Economic Outlook Group. "I don't think it's in the best interest of Circuit City as a whole."

While other companies, such as Caterpillar Inc., have introduced two-tiered wage systems, where newer workers make less, firing workers and offering to rehire them at a lower wage is very rare.

"I don't think you're going to find too many examples," of this, said Ken Goldstein, labor economist for the Conference Board, a business research group. "That certainly has not been a trend we've seen."

Circuit City, the nation's No. 2 consumer electronics retailer behind Best Buy Co. Inc., says the workers being laid off were earning "well above the market-based salary range for their role." They will be replaced with employees who will be paid at the current market range, the company said in a news release.

"We haven't done something called (a) wage management initiative before," said company spokesman Jim Babb. "All companies at one time or another need to go through and make sure their cost structure works with market conditions."

The company's stock rose 35 cents, or 1.9 percent, to close at $19.23 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Yup....treat your employees like dirt by firing them and then "allow" them to "apply" for their jobs back at 1/3 less pay.

I don't know about you, but Circuit City will never again get a penny of MY business. It's time to stop supporting companies that pull shit like this.

Rowda Ya Habibi, Newtown

It's almost three years on, and the prices still haven't changed at Rowda Ya Habibi.

And just like the prices, the decor hasn't changed at all either. There's still the takeaway style servery out the front, the granite-style tables out the back, and the steep staircase--that has everyone hanging onto the bannister--leading you precariously to the cushion rooms upstairs.

Nothing has changed

On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog

I've been extraordinarily lucky in that my online life has been rich, productive, and most importantly, safe. Friends that started online and then crossed over into real life have been exactly as advertised. I've never been stalked, and despite some rather vehement disagreements with what I write, I've never been threatened.

Others haven't been so lucky, and there are people online who think the so-called anonymity of being online means they can indulge their worst impulses, their own Dark Passenger, as Jeff Lindsay's Dexter Morgan character might say.

Via Paul the Spud at ShakesSis comes this blog entry from someone not so lucky. ShakesSis has herself been the recipient of some horrifically nasty e-mails and comments, especially in the aftermath of the Edwards campaign brouhaha, and reading the kind of threats Kathy Sierra has received, and the level of violence implied, makes me wonder just what kind of people are walking around out there.

This is an extreme example of the Coulterization of discourse. The right wing loves to say that there is no difference between Ann Coulter and Michael Moore, as if political speech, even rabble-rousing political speech, is the same as wishing the New York Times building had been bombed, calling for the leaders of countries we don't like to be killed, and other charming utterances from the Blonde Bomb. Or worse, they say that Coulter is "just joking", which is undoubtedly what the perpetrators of comments like "fuck off you boring slut... i hope someone slits your throat and cums down your gob" would say in the unlikely event that law enforcement actually finds the commenter's IP address and pays them a visit.

Those so threatened by a point of view, whether it's about politics, technology, or anything else, that they feel graphic depictions of sexual mutilation and murder that they would like to perpetrate on the author of such points of view are appropriate, I have to wonder if such people should be walking the streets.

On the internet, nobody may know you're a dog, but as soon as you cross the line into death threats, everybody should know you're a criminal.



The above cartoon by Peter Steiner has been reproduced from page 61 of July 5, 1993 issue of The New Yorker, (Vol.69 (LXIX) no. 20)only for nonprofit edicational purposes and complies with the copyright law of the United States as defined and stipulated under Title 17 U. S. Code.

Spreading freedom and democracy, Bush Administration-style

This is what Americans are dying for:

Off-duty Shiite policemen enraged by massive bombings in the northern town of Tal Afar went on a revenge spree against Sunni residents there on Wednesday, killing at least 45 men execution-style, police and hospital officials said.

The policemen began roaming the town's Sunni neighborhoods on foot early in the morning, shooting at Sunni residents and homes.

A senior hospital official in Tal Afar said at least 45 men between the ages of 15 and 60 were killed with a shot to the back of the head and four others were wounded. He spoke on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

Police said dozens of Sunnis were killed or wounded, but they had no precise figures. The shooting continued for more than two hours, the officials said.

Army troops later moved into the Sunni areas to stop the violence and a curfew was slapped on the entire town, according to Wathiq al-Hamdani, the provincial police chief and his head of operations, Brig. Abdul-Karim al-Jibouri.

Props to Chuck Hagel for finally finding his balls and voting to start putting an end to this madness. And as for Joe Lieberman, who co-sponsored Thad Cochran's defeated amendment to strip the withdrawal date of March 31, 2008 out of the bill, well, he said the bill would "snatch defeat from the jaws of progress in Iraq."

Got to love that lowering of the goal posts for his one true love, George W. Bush:

Hey Connecticut voters (except Melina and AHA): Are you happy now?

Actually, it's all Bill Clinton's fault. Or maybe Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's

Oh, good grief:

He may look cute and cuddly but Knut, the world’s most famous polar bear cub, stands accused of conspiracy to murder.

As thousands of wellwishers flocked to Berlin Zoo to coo and sigh over his antics, few were aware of the tragedy that unfolded only a cage or two away. Yan Yan, the zoo’s most popular resident until Knut’s arrival, died suddenly aged 22.

A gift from the Chinese leadership to Helmut Kohl, the former German Chancellor, Yan Yan spent much of her time lying on her back chomping at bamboo shoots and was, by all accounts, a happy panda. Heinrich Kloes, the zoo’s chief bear curator, said there that had been no signs of illness.

But something changed on Monday, days after Knut’s introduction to tumultuous crowds, and Yan Yan lay down and died. The cause of death has yet to be determined but already fingers are being pointed at three-month-old Knut.

The mass circulation Bild newspaper does not believe in coincidences. “Panda Yan Yan dies in Berlin Zoo”, said its front-page headline. “Because of Knut?”

Up to 30,000 people a day have been queueing for a glimpse of the cub, who has been bottle-fed by keepers since his mother, a surly ex-East German circus animal, rejected him.

As many visitors were unable to see Knut through the crowds, they moved on to pay their respects to Yan Yan. Flashbulbs popped from dawn to dusk. That, according to Bild, may have been too much for Yan Yan to bear. “She seemed restless and intimidated,” the newspaper said. The verdict: fatal stress induced by Knut, or at least by his fans.

Breaking: Bush Waves Penis in Persian Gulf

That's what the headline for this story SHOULD be:

U.S. Navy Flexes Muscles in Persian Gulf

By JAMES CALDERWOOD and JIM KRANE
The Associated Press
Tuesday, March 27, 2007; 8:46 PM

ABOARD THE USS JOHN C. STENNIS -- American warplanes screamed off two aircraft carriers Tuesday as the U.S. Navy staged its largest show of force in the Persian Gulf since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, launching a mammoth exercise meant as a message to the Iranians.

The maneuvers with 15 warships and more than 100 aircraft were sure to heighten tensions with Iran, which has frequently condemned the U.S. military presence off its coast and is in a faceoff with the West over its nuclear program and its capture of a British naval team.

While they would not say when the war games were planned, U.S. commanders insisted the exercises were not a direct response to Friday's seizure of the 15 British sailors and marines, but they also made clear that the flexing of the Navy's military might was intended as a warning.

"If there is strong presence, then it sends a clear message that you better be careful about trying to intimidate others," said Capt. Bradley Johanson, commander of the Stennis.

Indeed. Pot, kettle, etc.

As loyal as a golden retriever, Tony Blair laid the groundwork today for a retaliatory strike against Iran for the latter's capture of a British navy crew, and now we have war games Last week it was a Russian source stating that "the US and its allies would attack once a battle-ready force of 150,000 troops reached the Gulf." Scott Ritter has been warning of the Administration's plans to attack Iran for the last two years.

Bush is now like a cornered animal. His narcissism is in full flower and was in full evidence today as he made remarks about Tony Snow's illness that made it all about him. His White House is falling apart. His loyal consigliere is headed for at best resignation and quite possibly prison. His Iraq war in in a shambles. Representatives of his party who are up for election next year are abandoning him in droves. But George W. Bush is one mean and vindictive little son of a bitch -- said bitch being his mother:

George W. may not have been as academically inclined as his father, but, according to Tom Craddick, a state representative from Midland who has known the Bushes for years, "George was strong and opinionated, like his mother. She's more of a forceful person than George W.'s father is. George W. says he got his mother's mouth." A prominent Republican is less kind: "Barbara Bush is an exceedingly vindictive, nasty individual with a very high opinion of herself. She's always been that way."

Anyone who had read anything about George W. Bush would have known what he was, the kind of man he was. Bush hasn't changed one iota; it's just that more and more, we see the mask of the affable, bumbling towel-snapper fall and the gargoyle within emerge. The problem is that this gargoyle has the entire United States Military at his disposal at the same time as he has proven to be exactly the kind of chronic fuckup he was always told he was. And if it takes lashing out at another Middle Eastern country, perhaps destroying the entire Middle East in the process, to deal with the knowledge that he has fucked up on an unprecedented scale, well, that's what he's going to do.

Oh, shit....part II.

Now it's Tony Snow:

Presidential spokesman Tony Snow's surgery to remove a small growth showed that his cancer has returned, the White House said Tuesday.

Snow, 51, had his entire colon removed in 2005 and underwent six months of chemotherapy after being diagnosed with colon cancer. A small growth was discovered last year in his lower right pelvic area, and after months of monitoring, tests now show that it has grown slightly. It was removed Monday.

Doctors determined that it was cancerous, and found during the surgery, which was exploratory, that his cancer had metastasized, or spread, to his liver, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

She said Snow is comfortable and feeling fine after his surgery and has pledged to aggressively fight the disease with an as-yet-to-be-determined chemotherapy treatment course. He will be in the hospital recovering from the surgery, a major procedure, for about a week.

"He said he's going to beat it again," Perino said in an emotional morning briefing with White House reporters. "When I talked to him, he was in very good spirits."

Now if we were like Rush Limbaugh, we would accuse the White House of timing this announcement as a distraction from l'affaire Gonzales. If we were like Katie Couric, we would say that "some say" the timing was suspicious. But since we still have our souls and our humanity, we know that cancer makes its own time, and it is never a good time for cancer. So we will just say that our wishes are for Tony Snow, like Elizabeth Edwards and every other cancer patient, to somehow make it through, and our thoughts are with both families today.

A POSTSCRIPT: I don't know enough about Tony Snow's previous bout with colon cancer to know if he had undergone screening previously, but just as Elizabeth Edwards' cancer should prompt every woman over the age of 40 to get a baseline mammogram if she hasn't already done so and every woman who's been putting it off for years to make an appointment; so Snow's cancer should prompt everyone who is 50 or over to make an appointment for a colonoscopy. I am the biggest wuss in the world where medical procedures in the world are concerned and I was terrified about it. Mine showed one small polyp, which was removed, and I have to go in again in three years. And you can bet that by mid-2009, I'll have had another one. These screenings are not foolproof, but right now they're the best tool we have.

When cancer patients refuse to just go away quietly

If you've ever taken the journey of being a cancer patient's family member, you know how difficult it is. First you have a routine test that shows something not-quite-right. Then more tests. Then still more tests. And you know that the more the tests escalate, the more likely the news is to be bad. Then the news hits not just the person with cancer, but the entire family, like a ton of bricks, and you ask "What now?" If the cancer is aggressive, and the person gets sicker, not only may you have to deal with friends who back away because they just don't know what to say and because this visible evidence of mortality is frightening, but you find yourself fighting that impulse in yourself.

This is a journey that Tata is going through right now, and while I've posted this before, if you are NOT reading her diaries from Virginia, where her father is at home under hospice care, you owe it to yourself to click over right now and read them. This is how we all wish we would cope when cancer enters our family -- together as a family, with all the attendant laughter and tears and bickering and cooking and generally trying to make sense of it all. It's true that nothing brings even the most dysfunctional family together quite like cancer.

It's still terrifying to watch someone you know and love deteriorate. First there's the helplessness, that there's this beast of an illness that often seems to beat whatever you try to throw at it. But behind that, there's this nagging feeling that you're looking in a mirror at your own future. That future might be tomorrow, it might be decades from now. It might be cancer, it might be Alzheimer's, it might be getting wiped out by a piece of ice falling off a truck on Route 17, it might be another disease. If you're very lucky, it might be a heart attack in your sleep when you're 95 after having spent a lovely day outdoors on one of those early spring days when the ground is damp from just-melted snow and it's an unseasonable 70 degrees. But as I read somewhere recently, life is a cruise ship we all get on with the certainty that it's going to sink.

Most cancer patients choose to fight. They fight using conventional medicine, they fight using alternative treatments, but they fight. They fight because we all want to live. It's just that most of us fight within the confines of our own families, workplaces, and circle of friends. The rest of the world doesn't know of this fight, nor does it care.

Then someone like Elizabeth Edwards comes along, figuratively singing "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going", and because her husband is a presidential candidate, we are unable to completely turn away, because whether we like it or not, Elizabeth Edwards has brought cancer into everyone's family. For some, it brings back memories of journey's taken. I suspect that (along with some strange mandate to give credence to the ravings of Rush Limbaugh) is part of what drove the mean-spiritedness of Katie Couric's questios on 60 Minutes.

For the record, I don't think that's what's driving Limbaugh; I think Limbaugh's ravings are proof that John Edwards joins Barack Obama as the Democratic candidate that scares him (and his American Idiot^TM audience) to death, because either one of them could defeat any of the three Republican front-runners. Imagine how a good-looking, successful man loving his wife even through cancer will look against the thrice-married Rudy Giuliani or the twice-married John McCain. It's enough to make you think the Republicans will put up Mitt Romney just so they can compete on the sick wife playing field.

The battle that John and Elizabeth Edwards face together is just another facet of what is making this campaign so interesting. Bill Maher asked John Edwards just a few weeks ago whether he felt he was at a disadvantage being the white guy in the race. In retrospect, that joke seems kind of poignant, because now the Edwards campaign is, instead of being the least interesting one in the race, yet another representation of the many faces of the American family -- the one dealing with illness. Not to get all Katie Couric here, but that is undoubtedly comfortable "for some."

Walter Shapiro in Salon:

Embedded in Couric's smarmy comment was the implication that any public figure afflicted with an incurable disease has an obligation to climb on an ice floe and sail off to oblivion so that TV viewers in the prized 18-to-35-year-old demographic do not have to acknowledge their own mortality. Or that, at least, Elizabeth Edwards, whose breast cancer has recurred, owes it to the world to spend her remaining years offstage with their two small children, Emma Claire, 8, and 6-year-old Jack.

It will be weeks, perhaps months, before we begin to get an accurate measure of the political ramifications of Elizabeth Edwards' health. The issues raised by the candor and determination she and her husband have shown are too unprecedented to be unraveled by instant polls or interviews with oft-quoted political experts.

One theory is that voters crave presidential candidates with unblemished medical charts and problem-free lives, whose emotional burdens rival those of the contestants on "America's Next Top Model." That would rule out all three Republican front-runners, since John McCain and Rudy Giuliani have had their own brushes with cancer and Mitt Romney's wife suffers from multiple sclerosis. Another theory is that Elizabeth Edwards has touched something deep in the American psyche and pretty soon we will see supportive bumper stickers that read, "I Know Someone with Cancer -- and I Vote."

Voters and campaign contributors will, of course, offer the final verdict on the Edwards campaign. But so far the public arguments raised against the former North Carolina senator's continuing his presidential campaign, with his wife's fervent participation, are flimsy.

[snip]

On the surface, a far more substantive concern is that Edwards would find it difficult to function as president if Elizabeth's health dramatically deteriorated. In truth, however, people become president at a time in their lives when fate inevitably requires them to face up to health crises and the death of the people they love. Unless they amend the Constitution to allow callow 17-year-olds to run, this will always be a major risk in electing a president.

During a few short months at the start of his presidential candidacy, John Kerry endured the death of his mother and surgery for prostate cancer. In 1994, with Bosnia in flames and healthcare reform headed for a cliff, Bill Clinton had to confront the death of the most pivotal figure in his life, his mother, Virginia Kelley. As soon as Clinton left the funeral in Arkansas, he flew to Brussels for a NATO summit.

Being distracted by personal life is part of the terrible burden of the presidency. Both Nancy Reagan and Betty Ford were diagnosed with breast cancer while their husbands were in the White House. In her autobiography, "The Times of My Life," Betty Ford writes about her first night in the hospital for a mastectomy, "Jerry says he's never been so lonely as he was going home to the White House that night. He was more upset than I."

But many of these human details have been airbrushed out of remembered history. No one links the death of Clinton's mother to the way that his presidency almost fell apart in 1994, climaxing with the Gingrich Revolution. No one connects Kerry's personal travails with his maladroit presidential campaign. Betty Ford is remembered for her honesty at a time when breast cancer was a taboo topic, but Gerald Ford is remembered for pardoning Nixon.

Presidential races are often about more than control of the levers of power and the policy direction of the nation. Prior campaigns forced the nation to confront questions about religion, divorce and career-minded first ladies. This time around, especially for the Democrats, everything is on the table: race (Barack Obama), gender (Hillary Clinton), Hispanic heritage (Bill Richardson) and now cancer (the Edwardses). In an election cycle in which the Democrats are poised to surmount age-old political prejudices, outmoded views about the proper conduct of people with cancer deserve to be jettisoned, whether or not John Edwards ever makes it to the White House.

If voters in polls weren't already giving indications that the Holy Trinity of So-Called Values Issues -- guns, gay marriage, and abortion -- were less important than usual, this array of Democratic candidates would shake many people into realizing that a new day really is dawning, and what we're seeing on the campaign trail is something truly extraordinary.

It's an ill wind that blows no good, and whether voters decide that John Edwards is the candidate best-equipped to represent Democratic values in November 2008 or not, the presence of John and Elizabeth Edwards on the campaign trail gives voice to the over 1.4 million people who will be diagnosed with cancer just this year, including the over 178,000 women who will find themselves fighting Elizabeth Edwards battle against breast cancer. The time is long past for cancer patients to just go away quietly lest they upset those who want to think it can't happen in their families. It can. And in millions of families every year, it will.

"There's no 5th amendment privilege against testifying before meanies"

Josh Marshall sorts out Department of Justice White House Liaison Monica Goodling's decision to invoke the 5th Amendment rather than testify before the House Judiciary Committee:

I'm obviously not a lawyer. But I think these good folks may be on to something. (TPM Reader TB identifies himself as a lawyer.) Certainly there's no 5th amendment privilege against testifying before meanies. So the alleged partisanship of the committee doesn't fly. And in any case, the committee doesn't prosecute you for perjury. Unless I'm completely forgetting how this works, all they can do is make a referral to the Justice Department. (Maybe they can hand it to Gonzales next time he comes to testify.) And the most sensible defense against a perjury trap, I would have thought, would be to tell the truth. After all, to the best of my knowledge Goodling hasn't testified on this subject before -- so it's not like they can trap her into contradicting previous sworn testimony.

p>In any case, if you look at the letter Goodling's attorney sent the committee, the essence of his argument is that the committee has relinquished its legitimacy as an investigative forum and that she has thus unilaterally decided that she will refuse to testify. (As part of the argument for not testifying, Goodling's lawyer notes that "it is not uncommon for witnesses who give testimony before the Congress to face criminal investigations and even indictments for perjury, false statements, or obstruction of congressional proceedings.") It amounts to a sort of witness's nullification.

Interestingly, or perhaps revealingly, at the end of the letter, John Dowd, Goodling's attorney asserts that "we have advised Ms. Goodling (and she has decided) to invoke her Constitutional right not to answer any questions."

This is more than a semantic point. The constitution says nothing about a right not to answer questions. The actual words are that no one "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself" -- or in the more modern parlance, your right against self-incrimination. This is why you lose your 'right not to answer questions' as soon as you're granted immunity.

So again, look at what the Goodling letter claims. The argument throughout almost all of it is that the committee is too hostile to her for her to answer its questions. On this point, let me put this out to the lawyers in our audience, of whom there are quite a few. Take a look at the Goodling letter and let us know whether you think this holds up as grounds for asserting a 5th Amendment privilege against not testifying.

Now, one more point. Above I said 'almost' the whole argument. On page two of the letter, Goodling's lawyer asserts as the fourth reason for her refusal to testify that "it has come to our attention that a senior Department of Justice official has privately told Senator Schumer that he (the official) was not entirely candid in his report to the Committee, and that the official allegedly claimed that others, including our client, did not inform him of certain pertinent facts."

His name isn't stated. But this appears to be a reference to Deputy Attorney General McNulty, the subject of this post from earlier this evening. Here we finally appear to have a bad act that Goodling believes or at least claims may expose her to criminal prosecution -- lying to Congress by proxy by intentionally misinforming an official about to testify before Congress.

Just watching this from the outside, it looks as though that is the bad act she's afraid to testify about or -- and somehow I find this more believeable -- she's afraid of indictment for perjury because she has to go up to Congress and testify under oath before the White House has decided what its story is. And yeah, I'd feel like I was in jeopardy then too.

TPM has been at the forefront of reporting on the firings of these U.S. attorneys, doing the job that the press used to do before guys like Chris Matthews started their Adoration of the Codpiece and it became more important to get a patronizing nickname and get invited to the right parties than to serve a role to make sure the government was doing the work of the People. If you haven't yet bookmarked TPM (and yes, Mom, I'm talking to you, among others), you should make a point of checking in there to keep up with the latest on the Administration's attempt to use the federal Judiciary as its political arm to try to ensure its perpetual power.

Around the Blogroll and Elsewhere for Monday, March 26

Cernig on how American neocons are using the capture of 15 U.K. seamen by Iran as an excuse for the war in Iran they want so badly.

Via Hoffmania: Somehow I can't imagine Katie Couric moderating a panel show like this one. Check out how Bolton looks like he's going to cry when he gets smacked down. Brian Williams, take note.

Spiiderweb blogrolls Foreign Policy Watch. No 19-year-old has any business being this smart, this perceptive, and this serious.

My Left Wing gives Katie Couric a much-deserved smackdown.

Another Christofascist Zombie is tempted by Satan and falls over at Pam's House Blend.

Cannon Fodder

Further proof that the Bush Administration's reverence for human life ends at birth -- and certainly doesn't extend to the soldiers that Captain Codpiece loves to use as props as he petulantly whines about mean old Democrats:

Last November, Army Spc. Edgar Hernandez, a communications specialist with a unit of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, had surgery on an ankle he had injured during physical training. After the surgery, doctors put his leg in a cast, and he was supposed to start physical therapy when that cast came off six weeks later.

But two days after his cast was removed, Army commanders decided it was more important to send him to a training site in a remote desert rather than let him stay at Fort Benning, Ga., to rehabilitate. In January, Hernandez was shipped to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., where his unit, the 3,900-strong 3rd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, was conducting a month of training in anticipation of leaving for Iraq in March.

Hernandez says he was in no shape to train for war so soon after his injury. "I could not walk," he told Salon in an interview. He said he was amazed when he learned he was being sent to California. "Did they not realize that I'm hurt and I needed this physical therapy?" he remembered thinking. "I was told by my doctor and my physical therapist that this was crazy."

Hernandez had served two tours in Iraq, where he helped maintain communications gear in the unit's armored Bradley Fighting Vehicles. But he could not participate in war maneuvers conducted on a 1,000-square-mile mock battlefield located in the harsh Mojave Desert. Instead, when he got to California, he was led to a large tent where he would be housed. He was shocked by what he saw inside: There were dozens of other hurt soldiers. Some were on crutches, and others had arms in slings. Some had debilitating back injuries. And nearby was another tent, housing female soldiers with health issues ranging from injuries to pregnancy.

Hernandez is one of a dozen soldiers who stayed for weeks in those tents who were interviewed for this report, some of whose medical records were also reviewed by Salon. All of the soldiers said they had no business being sent to Fort Irwin given their physical condition. In some cases, soldiers were sent there even though their injuries were so severe that doctors had previously recommended they should be considered for medical retirement from the Army.

Military experts say they suspect that the deployment to Fort Irwin of injured soldiers was an effort to pump up manpower statistics used to show the readiness of Army units. With the military increasingly strained after four years of war, Army readiness has become a critical part of the debate over Iraq. Some congressional Democrats have considered plans to limit the White House's ability to deploy more troops unless the Pentagon can certify that units headed into the fray are fully equipped and fully manned.

Salon recently uncovered another troubling development in the Army's efforts to shore up troop levels, reporting earlier this month that soldiers from the 3rd Brigade had serious health problems that the soldiers claimed were summarily downgraded by military doctors at Fort Benning in February, apparently so that the Army could send them to Iraq. Some of those soldiers were among the group sent to Fort Irwin to train in January.

After arriving at Fort Irwin, many of the injured soldiers did not train. "They had all of us living in a big tent," confirmed Spc. Lincoln Smith, who spent the month there along with Hernandez and others. Smith is an Army truck driver, but because of his health issues, which include sleep apnea (a breathing ailment) and narcolepsy, Smith is currently barred from driving military vehicles. "I couldn't go out and do the training," Smith said about his time in California. His records list his problems as "permanent" and recommend that he be considered for retirement from the Army because of his health.

Another soldier with nearly 20 years in the Army was sent to Fort Irwin, ostensibly to prepare for deployment to Iraq, even though she suffers from back problems and has psychiatric issues. Doctors wrote "unable to deploy overseas" on her medical records.

It is unclear exactly how many soldiers with health issues were sent to the California desert. None of the soldiers interviewed by Salon had done a head count, but all agreed that "dozens" would be a conservative estimate. An Army spokesman and public affairs officials for the 3rd Infantry Division did not return repeated calls and e-mails seeking further detail and an explanation of why injured troops were sent to Fort Irwin and housed in tents there during January.

The soldiers who were at Fort Irwin described a pitiful scene. "You had people out there with crutches and canes," said an Army captain who was being considered for medical retirement himself because of serious back injuries sustained in a Humvee accident during a previous combat tour in Iraq. "Soldiers that apparently had no business being there were there," another soldier wrote to Salon in an e-mail. "Pregnant females were sent to the National Training Center rotation" with the knowledge of Army leaders, she said.

[snip]

But injured soldiers from the brigade were not just shuttled to California; some were sent on to Iraq. Earlier this month Salon reported that on Feb. 15, shortly after returning from Fort Irwin to Fort Benning, 75 injured soldiers from the 3rd Brigade lined up for screenings at the troop medical clinic. Some of the soldiers there that day described cursory meetings with a division surgeon -- meetings designed to downgrade their health problems, the soldiers said, so that they could be deployed to the war zone. Records for some of those soldiers show doctors had previously concluded that those soldiers could not wear body armor because of serious skeletal and other injuries.

A military official knowledgeable about the training in California in January and the medical processing of the injured soldiers at Fort Benning in February told Salon that commanders were taking desperate actions to meet an accelerated deployment schedule dictated by President Bush's so-called surge plan for securing Baghdad. "None of this would have happened if we had just slowed down a little bit," the military official said. "A lot of people were under a lot of pressure at that time."

That this president continues to paint Democrats and those Republicans with a conscience as unwilling to "support the troops" while his military leaders are sending injured soldiers to Iraq is unconscionable. This president has shown that there is, indeed, a "tipping point of evil" beyond which the crimes, the callous disregard for the soldiers he leads, the truth, and the law, become so heinous that it becomes impossible to hold him accountable for it.

George W. Bush may very well have not just defined, but relishes in having gone beyond that point.

Insurance: a legal scam

Fresh on the heels of Friday's news that Blue Cross of California routinely cancelled policies when policyholders became ill or pregnant comes this article in the New York Times about how the purveyors of long-term care are similarly collecting premiums for years and then setting up roadblocks to payouts when the time comes:

Interviews by The New York Times and confidential depositions indicate that some long-term-care insurers have developed procedures that make it difficult — if not impossible — for policyholders to get paid. A review of more than 400 of the thousands of grievances and lawsuits filed in recent years shows elderly policyholders confronting unnecessary delays and overwhelming bureaucracies. In California alone, nearly one in every four long-term-care claims was denied in 2005, according to the state.

“The bottom line is that insurance companies make money when they don’t pay claims,” said Mary Beth Senkewicz, who resigned last year as a senior executive at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. “They’ll do anything to avoid paying, because if they wait long enough, they know the policyholders will die.”

In 2003, a subsidiary of Conseco, Bankers Life and Casualty, sent an 85-year-old woman suffering from dementia the wrong form to fill out, according to a lawsuit, then denied her claim because of improper paperwork. Last year, according to another pending suit, the insurer Penn Treaty American decided that a 92-year-old man had so improved that he should leave his nursing home despite his forgetfulness, anxiety and doctor’s orders to seek continued care. Another suit contended that a company owned by the John Hancock Insurance Company had tried to rescind the coverage of a 72-year-old man when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease four years after buying the policy.

[snip]

Inside the large Conseco headquarters in Carmel, Ind., scores of employees receive the flood of documents and calls that arrive each day. At times, according to depositions and interviews, that deluge became so overwhelming that documents were lost, calls went unreturned and mistakes occurred.

Some employees describe vast mailrooms where documents appear and disappear. One call-center representative said he was afforded an average of only four minutes to handle each policyholder’s call, no matter how complicated the questions. Employees said they were instructed not to say when the company was behind in processing paperwork, even when the backlog extended to 45 days. Workers were prohibited from contacting each other by phone, although such calls might have quickly resolved obstacles, according to depositions.

Conseco, asked in detail about the company’s policies, declined to respond.

When companies sell insurance policies and then don't pay claims, that's called a scam. And at least so far, it's all perfectly legal. Is this what conservatives call "market forces at work"? Preying on elderly people who may not have the capacity to read the small print, or changing the rules in midstream, and then refusing to pay after tens of thousands of premiums have been received?

For me, this is no longer an abstract issue. With no children in the picture to handle my care in my old age (assuming I make it that long), things like long-term care become important when you get north of 50. I know that the younger you are when you buy a policy, the lower the premiums. But when there's a very strong possibility that no matter how young you are when you buy the policy and how promptly you pay the claim, the companies that sell this type of insurance turn out to be in the business of blocking claims rather than playing them, I wonder just how wise the purchase of such policies is -- and what is the alternative when nursing homes are likely to cost $100,000/year by the time I need one.

While presidential candidates are talking about health insurance availability for all, they might consider also addressing the nature of the entire insurance industry, the business model of which is akin to a Mob protection racket -- only with fewer ethics, because they don't even provide the promised protection