Editorial: New Orleans Betrayed
Editorial: An Opportunity for Darfur
Jennifer Mosess on New Orleans: The Catastrophe Is Not Over
'Plantation' Politics and Other Games
Deborah Howell: The Journalistic Ripples of a Radio Deal
Robert Kagan on Iran: It's the Regime, Stupid
Spencer Hsu's latest: Post-Katrina Promises Unfulfilled
Letters: Accountability, Attitudes and the Abramoff Affair
Waste and Ineffiency in Rebuilding New Orleans: from a New Orleans mayoral candidate
Dan Balz: Bush's Midterm Challenge
Md. Corrections Officer Shot by Prisoner Who Took His Gun Dies
Putting Maryland's Marriage Law on Trial
David Broder: When Partisan Venom Didn't Rule
FAIR Treatment For D.C. Voters
WaPo Foreign Service report: Some Palestinians See End of Secular Dream
Debate on Climate Shifts to Issue of Irreparable Change
More at Stake for Workers Than the 2007 Pay Raise
and a bonus editorial from yesterday: Mr. Abramoff's Meetings, Again
29 January 2006
26 January 2006
irony
MSNBC: U.S. posts wrong photo of ‘al-Qaida operative’
Yeah, well you spelled Roger Cressey's name wrong.
“It's embarrassing,” says NBC News terrorism expert Roger Cressy (sic). “It's a bit of a black eye, but it's not going to have any long-term impact on the CIA or its ability to fight the war on terror.”
larry johnson's latest
"When President George Bush is feeling political heat generated by questions about illegal domestic spying, secret overseas prisons, or prisoner torture, he seeks refuge in the solemn proclamation, 'we are at war.' The war excuse, which is usually accompanied by the elaboration that these excesses are necessary to protect the American people, does not hold water. If President Bush was serious about his insistence that we are at war, his Administration would be on a war footing. But, we are not.
If we were serious about this war there would be a supreme commander in charge of tracking down Bin Laden and the remnants of the Al Qaeda network. Instead, the NSC job for coordinating the war on terror has been held by seven different people since the President assumed office. General Wayne Downing, who held the post from October 2001 until September 2002, ultimately resigned in frustration after being repeatedly sand bagged and undercut by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Rather than impose order and discipline, President Bush has allowed the coordination function to atrophy.
Today there is no one individual or agency in charge of finding Bin Laden or dismantling Al Qaeda. This fact was highlighted by the recent attempt to kill Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's real number two honcho, with a military strike inside Pakistan. That attack was carried out under the direction of the CIA. US military forces operating in the area were not directly involved. Instead of a single, focused effort to destroy Al Qaeda, the CIA and the Department of Defense are pursuing separate tracks. A case can be made for having either organization in charge. I have no dog in that fight, notwithstanding my previous employment with the CIA. President Bush, despite his tough war talk, is sadly disengaged and has been unwilling to organize his Administration to win the war." [more here, and believe me, when I say more, I mean 'more': NO QUARTER: Bush and the War Red Herring]
Dear Mr. Speaker
January 25, 2006
The Honorable J. Dennis Hastert
Speaker of the House of Representatives
Dear Mr. Speaker:
We are writing to ask you to open an investigation into the role that the Alexander Strategy Group, a lobbying firm closely linked to Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff, played in crafting the Medicare Prescription Drug Act of 2003 and the budget reconciliation bill currently pending before Congress. The Medicare Prescription Drug Act, which has caused so much confusion and havoc since January 1, was a product of a corrupt legislative process. When the bill passed, we knew that Democratic members had been denied opportunities to offer amendments and that the vote had been held open for hours in the dead of night to twist arms. Afterwards, we learned that crucial cost estimates were illegally withheld from Democratic members; that the key Administration official responsible for writing the bill was simultaneously negotiating a high-paying job representing drug and insurance companies; and that the Republican chairman responsible for steering the legislation through Congress subsequently accepted a lucrative job in the pharmaceutical industry. We further learned about a Republican member who had alleged that a bribe had been offered him on the House floor. Recently, with the indictments of Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff, new questions have arisen about the role of the Alexander Strategy Group in this dishonest process. We know from lobby disclosure forms that the largest single client of the Alexander Strategy Group was the pharmaceutical industry, which paid the small firm over $2.5 million, including nearly $1 million in 2003 when the prescription drug law was being written. We also know from these records that the primary lobbyist for the drug industry at Alexander Strategy Group was Tony Rudy, who previously worked for both Mr. DeLay and Mr. Abramoff and who is identified as “Staffer A” in Mr. Abramoff’s indictment. And we know from multiple accounts in the news media that the Alexander Strategy Group has been deeply implicated in the scandals now sweeping through Washington. [full text of the letter here]"I don't know him"
I'd like to purchase a copy of a certain picture of President Bush
What picture is that?
You know, the one with the President and Jack Abramoff back in 2003...?
Oh, we deleted that.
awful
LAKE BUTLER, Fla. -- A family reeling from the deaths of seven children in a fiery crash on a Florida highway Wednesday afternoon was struck with more tragedy when the children's grandfather suffered a heart attack and died.
The grief may have been too much for 62-year-old Edwin Scott. A pastor of a church that the family attended said their grief is "unbearable." Upon hearing the news that all of his grandchildren were killed when a semi smashed into the family's car that had stopped for a school bus, Scott started feeling sick and vomiting. The children of both of his daughters were killed. [more at WBAL]
Hamas Calls For Jill Carroll’s Release
Alive in Baghdad: “Hamas joins those who ask to release American citizen Jill Carroll. Hamas is against the kidnapping of innocent people, of foreigners who are guests in the Arab countries, and those who introduce humanitarians services and help for the Arab people - and for any people in general - especially when they are not interfering in internal Arab affairs. We have declared many times we are totally against kidnapping civilians.”
Party Love Blinds Republicans to Ugly Truths
Margaret Carlson's latest
Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) -- I've long been searching for a unified theory to explain the Bush administration, and yesterday I got it. According to the New York Times, a soon-to-be-released scientific study of self-described Democrats and Republicans shows that partisan attachment in politics is akin to being smacked out in love.
Common sense vanishes. Rational parts of the brain go dark. The beloved can do no wrong.
The difference between falling in love and falling in line politically is that partisans never wake up and see that the lawn has grown weedy and the toothpaste cap is off. They stay infatuated to the point where countervailing information simply doesn't sink in.
In the study, Republican partisans didn't fault George W. Bush for supporting Enron Corp. Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lay even after he was indicted and his employees lost their pensions. Nor did committed Democrats turn up their noses at John Kerry for saying he would overhaul Social Security if elected, something a liberal would otherwise abhor.
Unpleasant Truths
This breakdown in rational thought explains the genius of presidential adviser Karl Rove, who has long understood the extraordinary resistance of the Republican base to unpleasant truths about Bush. The slightest rejoinder to almost any accusation placates them.
In a speech to the faithful at the winter meeting of the Republican National Committee last week, Rove resorted to his tried-and-true remedy, the specter of 9/11. ``Ruthless enemies'' require a commander-in-chief who understands ``the threat and the gravity of the moment America finds itself in,'' Rove said. Bush does but ``unfortunately, the same cannot be said for many Democrats.''
Yup, if Democrats, with ``their pre-9/11 world view,'' were in charge, we'd all be dead.
That's why so many Bush supporters expect weapons of mass destruction to turn up any day now. That's why they think Katrina went as well as could be expected. Some even believe Michael Brown, former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, did a heck of a job.
Unqualified Cronies
Brown and Harriet Miers, the withdrawn Supreme Court nominee, together dented Bush's base so little he didn't hesitate to ram through two more shockingly unqualified cronies, Julie Myers and Ellen Sauerbrey, to important posts though neither has a shred of relevant experience. (Myers heads the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency and Sauerbrey runs the State Department's refugee program.)
When it looked like privacy-loving conservatives might object to warrantless wiretapping, found to be illegal by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, Bush renamed the effort the Terrorist Surveillance Program and contended that everyone thought it was perfectly fine.
Too-much-in-love-to-see is the only explanation for the lack of outrage over so many ruinous initiatives. There's the prescription drug bill that costs $700 billion, not $400 billion, and drives seniors crazy figuring it out.
The ones most helped are the insurance companies, who finally got to privatize a piece of Medicare, and the drug companies, who deep-sixed bulk purchase discounts. Would this be happening if consumer groups had a private jet instead of Schering-Plough Corp.?
Puppy-Love Blind
You'd think there would be some Republicans sick or old or poor enough to fall out of love.
There's more: Two days ago, the Washington Post reported that a few Republicans went behind closed doors, took a bill that was supposed to recapture $26 billion for taxpayers from insurance companies and instead gave $22 billion of it back.
Is puppy love the reason so many Americans are blind to the incompetence and waste of Republicans -- who at a minimum are supposed to be good money managers -- running Iraq reconstruction?
Bush said it wouldn't cost much to invade, occupy and fix Iraq, and whatever it cost, oil revenue would pay for it. None of that is true.
Shrink-wrapped stacks of $100 bills are stuffed in backpacks and thrown off the back of trucks tooling around the country. California Democratic Representative Henry Waxman found that $12 billion was dispatched in ``cashpaks'' from the Federal Reserve in a shipment weighing 363 tons.
No-Bid, No Questions
It's an economy where bigwigs put down $1 million in cash for 20 armored BMWs and Land Cruisers that no one can find, of multimillion-dollar R&R houses with gold-plated chandeliers, of contractors like Halliburton Co., which practically write their own no-bid contracts. Independent reports claim Halliburton bilked the government out of $218 million on a $1.6 billion contract.
Last year, the inspector general for Iraqi reconstruction confirmed we were being robbed blind over there, but nothing happened.
There is no accountability. In one case, when an agent of the inspector general visited a hospital where American officials paid $662,800 to fix the elevator, he learned that a few days earlier the elevator had crashed and killed three people.
A year ago the inspector general reported there was no way of knowing what happened to almost $9 billion of $12 billion sent, an amount that has grown in the last year to $20 billion of $25 billion sent. Mission not accomplished.
As a columnist, I realize that whatever amount of corruption I expose, half my readers will block it out, although they may get a frisson of joy in the process. According to the study, the pleasure center of the brain is excited the moment when negative information about the beloved politico is being rejected. In the sometimes perverse way of love, I make happiest those who disagree with me most.
Karen Kwiatkowski: Neoconservatives Here To Stay
at The Huffington Post
I have recently received calls from reporters suggesting that the neocon power base in the Bush administration is weak and in decline, a political movement that is basically over. They cite the slow leak of neoconservative voices from the administration, with the 2003 departure of Richard Perle from the Defense Policy Board, Wolfowitz from Defense to the World Bank, Feith into the world of memoirs and money-making, Bolton to the UN backwaters, Scooter Libby indicted, New York Times' reporter Judith Miller fired. My former co-worker Larry Franklin will serve 12 years in prison for spying, and AIPAC is under a new microscope. Americans generally assess the Iraq occupation as a bad decision, badly executed, and a majority of the people in this particular democracy would like our troops home. We've never believed the US must maintain long-term military bases in Mesopotamia.
With all this, I see the neoconservatives as clear winners, clear leaders, and active on the bridge of our ship of state. The folks at AEI, PNAC, AIPAC, and the whole Christian evangelical Israel-first crowd will probably, if quietly and politely, agree with me. We have a United States National Security Strategy of preemption (including nuclear) against just about anyone the President says. We have successfully inserted into the American belief system the idea that an endless offensive war on terror is both rational and winnable. It is neither, of course. But as with Alice in Wonderland, words increasingly mean whatever the administration says they do. We have long term military bases in Iraq, and a goal of around 100,000 US military permanently stationed there, much as we had in Germany for over 50 years. It's all for the new perpetual yet shapeless and formless enemy. Much more obviously than during the Cold War, it's for for protection and preservation of major American industries and their beneficiaries.
The neoconservative platform, as implemented by US foreign policy, might be described as a perpetual revolution of "democracy," perpetual interference and intervention abroad and at home, and perpetual war. This idea may be inspiring to Bolsheviks. Megalomaniacs like Mao and Pol Pot certainly appreciated this language of endless, idea-driven "destructive chaos." Jeremy Bentham might appreciate what we have become here at home, as the President protects us by secretly and not so secretly spying on us.
Neoconservatism is a success, at least so far. It dominates and sets the agenda on American interventionism. It is heartily embraced by both Republican and Democratic leadership. Historically, it will be damned at best, and given due credit for its important role in the legal, financial, and ideological destruction of our constitutional republic. But that is then, and this is now.
President Bush told us just today that Hamas, parliamentary winners in the Palestinian election, advocates the destruction of Israel, the Palestinian democracy remains an evil enemy, and peace is not an option. In doing so, Bush helpfully illustrates that democratic peace theory is bunk. Hamas dropped that particular call during the campaign, but this fact is irrelevant. That Bush would make this statement today, without notes and from his heart, with obvious emotion, tells me that those who think neoconservatism is on the outs are deluding themselves. To borrow a phrase from Mr. Rumsfeld, those who prefer a constitutional republic, oppose empire, prefer peace to war, and defense to offense, still face a "long hard slog."
Regionalizing DHS
is a terrible idea. Restoring FEMA to a cabinet-level agency and disbanding DHS is a much better plan. The cronies at DHS have no business even attempting another disaster response... Katrina (before, during and after) exposed their incompetence.
NSA: Redacting with confidence: How to safely publish sanitized reports converted from Word to PDF
here, be careful... ya may get a cookie!
O-I-L
Go get it fellas! Nothing like deleting a known terrorist from our terror list so that we may bid on their now-open oil contracts.
Republicans' Breach of Contract
[note: don't ever make the mistake of taking a current Republican Senator or Congressman at their word]
MEMORANDUM
To: All Current House and Senate Republicans
From: No one in particular
Remember item #10 in your little "Contract With America" back in 1994? In case you've forgotten, let me remind you:
10. THE CITIZEN LEGISLATURE ACT: A first-ever vote on term limits to replace career politicians with citizen legislatorsWe all knew back then that this was a bait-and-switch scheme thrown in there to give Americans the impression you were committed to cleaning up Congress' culture of corruption. Now that you've spent the past 10 years embedding Republican corruption deep in the halls of Congress and perfecting the art of fleecing America, maybe its high time you Judases actually followed through on your promises. Cragg Hines agrees: [Is scandal so bad we need term limits? Some say yes] We'll all wait patiently for you to bring this to the floor.
Incompetence: President Bush's defining characteristic
so says Harold Myerson:
Bush the Incompetent
Incompetence is not one of the seven deadly sins, and it's hardly the worst attribute that can be ascribed to George W. Bush. But it is this president's defining attribute. Historians, looking back at the hash that his administration has made of his war in Iraq, his response to Hurricane Katrina and his Medicare drug plan, will have to grapple with how one president could so cosmically botch so many big things -- particularly when most of them were the president's own initiatives.
In numbing profusion, the newspapers are filled with litanies of screw-ups. Yesterday's New York Times brought news of the first official assessment of our reconstruction efforts in Iraq, in which the government's special inspector general depicted a policy beset, as Times reporter James Glanz put it, "by gross understaffing, a lack of technical expertise, bureaucratic infighting [and] secrecy." At one point, rebuilding efforts were divided, bewilderingly and counterproductively, between the Army Corps of Engineers and, for projects involving water, the Navy. That's when you'd think a president would make clear in no uncertain terms that bureaucratic turf battles would not be allowed to impede Iraq's reconstruction. But then, the president had no guiding vision for how to rebuild Iraq -- indeed, he went to war believing that such an undertaking really wouldn't require much in the way of American treasure and American lives.
It's the president's prescription drug plan (Medicare Part D), though, that is his most mind-boggling failure. As was not the case in Iraq or with Katrina, it hasn't had to overcome the opposition of man or nature. Pharmacists are not resisting the program; seniors are not planting car bombs to impede it (not yet, anyway). But in what must be an unforeseen development, people are trying to get their medications covered under the program. Apparently, this is a contingency for which the administration was not prepared, as it has been singularly unable to get its own program up and running.
Initially, Part D's biggest glitch seemed to be the difficulty that seniors encountered in selecting a plan. But since Part D took effect on Jan. 1, the most acute problem has been the plan's failure to cover the 6.2 million low-income seniors whose medications had been covered by Medicaid. On New Year's Day, the new law shifted these people's coverage to private insurers. And all hell broke loose.
Pharmacists found that the insurers didn't have the seniors' names in their systems, or charged them far in excess of what the new law stipulated -- and what the seniors could afford. In California fully 20 percent of the state's 1.1 million elderly Medicaid recipients had their coverage denied. The state had to step in to pick up the tab for their medications. California has appropriated $150 million for the medications, and estimates that it will be out of pocket more than $900 million by 2008-09. Before Jan. 1 the Bush administration had told California that it would save roughly $120 million a year once Part D was in effect.
California's experience is hardly unique. To date at least 25 states and the District have had to defray the costs to seniors that Part D was supposed to cover. What's truly stunning about this tale is that, while officials may not have known how many non-indigent seniors would sign up of their own accord, they always knew that these 6.2 million seniors would be shifted into the plan on the first day of the year. There were absolutely no surprises, and yet administration officials weren't even remotely prepared.
No such problems attended the creation of Medicare itself in the mid-1960s. Then, a governmental agency simply assumed responsibility for seniors' doctor and hospital visits. But, financially beholden to both the drug and insurance industries, the Bush administration and the Repsublican Congress mandated that millions of Americans have their coverage shifted to these most byzantine of bureaucracies.
This is, remember, the president's signature domestic initiative, just as the Iraq war is his signature foreign initiative.
How could a president get these things so wrong? Incompetence may describe this presidency, but it doesn't explain it. For that, historians may need to turn to the seven deadly sins: to greed, in understanding why Bush entrusted his new drug entitlement to a financial mainstay of modern Republicanism. To sloth, in understanding why Incurious George has repeatedly ignored the work of experts whose advice runs counter to his desires.
More and more, the key question for this administration is that of the great American sage, Casey Stengel: Can't anybody here play this game?
Mr. Abramoff's Meetings
Yesterday's contribution from the Post:
"Any suggestion by critics or anybody else to suggest that the president was doing something nefarious with Jack Abramoff is absolutely wrong, and it's absurd," presidential adviser Dan Bartlett said on NBC's "Today" show. The best way to refute such "absurd" suggestions is to get all of Mr. Abramoff's dealings with the Bush White House and the Bush administration out in the open -- now.
25 January 2006
24 January 2006
f**k Diebold
from BRAD BLOG: "Diebold Blocks Alaska Voters From Viewing Election 2004 Results, Data!"
'It's impossible to say whether the correct candidates were declared the winner in all Alaska races from 2004'
first time for everything
Russ Feingold: Alito Would Be "Dangerous Addition" to Court, plans to vote against Alito's nomination.
23 January 2006
when Republicans rule you
you get shit like this
"'Any storm rated Category 4 or greater ... will likely lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching, leaving the New Orleans metro area submerged for weeks or months,' [New Docs Show Gov't Forewarned on Katrina]
exactly
Atrios
"Terrorist Surveillance Program"
So that's what they're calling it now. So, has every American citizen they've illegally spied on been a terrorist or been talking to one? Wow, that's a lot of terrorists. If all the people we're spying on are terrorists why couldn't they have gotten FISA warrants?
I know this little leap might be just a bit too complicated for the 101st Fighting Keyboarders and the gang at Fox and Friends, but...
Why aren't we arresting or otherwise detaining all of these terrorists?The Devastation We Inflict
From TomDispatch, 2 letters from Vietnam vets on the 'madness' [his perfect word choice] in Iraq
Dear Tom, Although I'm sure we occasionally execute some innocent person after years on Death Row, we as a nation go to great lengths not to execute any innocents. Only the worst of murderers seem to reach death row. So it seems quite ironic that we accept seeing some men apparently planting a bomb on the side of a road in Iraq via a video from a Predator drone and, using that information, decide to drop a 500-pound bomb on a house where they might be hiding, a house where we don't have a clue if there are other people. Killing innocent women and children is okay, 'just' collateral damage… If this is 'okay,' then why wasn't what Lt. Calley did in Vietnam okay? Similarly, why were Hiroshima and Nagasaki okay, but My Lai wasn't? Somehow, when our soldiers shoot innocents at close range we are appalled, but when it is done via bombs or artillery it's 'okay.' At about the same time My Lai occurred, I was flying as a crew chief/gunner on a Chinook [helicopter]. Passing a small village I thought I heard a single shot directed at my helicopter. Or maybe it was just 'blade pop.' Looking into the village, I could see women and children in the streets in what I'd call a 'pastoral scene.' I elected not to 'return fire,' though by my unit's rules of engagement I could have done so. About an hour later we happened to fly past that village again. There was no one in sight, but there were numerous bomb craters in the rice paddies and where homes had been. My guess is that someone else received fire, or thought they received fire, returned fire, and the pilots called for an air strike. I doubt any of the people in the village had time to flee from the attack. Never ever have I heard anything about that event, just My Lai... I'm not guiltless. At about the same time, flying low level -- like 20 feet AGL [Above Ground Level] at 140 mph -- we passed a family tending a tapioca field. As we came by, a young boy of 12 or so picked up his hoe and pointed it at us like a weapon. I tried to swing my M-60 around and shoot him, but we were going too fast. At the time, I would have felt it was a good shoot as he was "practicing" shooting us down. Now, with young sons of my own, I'm appalled I could have been so callous.That is what drives me to blog.People here got really worried about a flashlight at a Starbucks (which might have been a bomb). Had it been a bomb, which it wasn't, it would have weighed about 1/500th of what we routinely drop in residential neighborhoods in Iraq. It's like most people don't seem to realize what devastation we inflict there on a frequent basis. Today, for example, someone I know sent me some "feel good pictures" about our troops in Iraq. You know: old ladies holding up "Thanks, Mr. Bush" signs, smiling kids. Pictures she said that "just don't make the news." For "don't make the news," how about some pictures of kids that our bombs have eviscerated? Pictures of the sort that are found in Where War Lives, a Photographic Journal of Vietnam by Dick Durrance (intro by Ron Kovic).
We should be the bright light to the world, spending our tax monies on cures for malaria, not on killing innocents.
Have we no shame?
From the bottom of my heart I wish to thank those who, like yourself, are trying to bring an end to this war madness.
Wade Kane
free Jill Carroll
OK, enough is enough. No more honoring some stupid embargo on pleas for Jill's life. From Reuters:
'I hope that you heard the conviction in Jill's voice when she spoke of your country. That was real,' 'She is not your enemy. When you release her alive, she will tell your story with that same conviction.'my creative/innovative/off-the-wall/totally wacko recommendation for a new counter-insurgency strategy later, if word of Jill's safe release is not received soon. And a pre-emptive warning to fellow 'liberals', you may be left wondering if I've lost my mind. In the meantime: A Tribute to Jill Carroll
Blair better step it up
and get in the game, or Britain's diplomacy with Straight-Shootin' Putin will suffer mightily. It is moments like this that test the mettle of foreign leaders. The time is right for honest dialogue and a quick, simple explanation... failing to do so is plainly not an option, since this little 'operation' could negatively affect Russia's relationship with nearly every Western country.
The Bush Reich
from E&P.
Why should anyone be surprised? This is simply what they do.
By E&P Staff Published: January 22, 2006 11:30 PM ET NEW YORK Florida Republican Party officials on Saturday called security to eject reporters listening to Gov. Jeb Bush speak to several hundred party activists in Tallahassee. Reporters had been trying to listen through an open door. Five hotel security staffers and a sheriff's deputy led reporters away from where they could hear the governor in the middle of a speech, according to a report by the St. Petersburg Times' political editor, Adam Smith. "I apologize for that if I'm indirectly responsible, which I'm not," Bush said after addressing Republican activists. "I would have loved to have you in there. . . . I wouldn't have said anything different if you were there." The party's executive director explained that party leaders merely wanted to keep their party functions private.
nah, never heard of him
"Jack is directly involved in the Republican party and conservative movement leadership structures and is one of the leading fund raisers for the party and its congressional candidates." [c/o TPM]
Period. End of story.
The vague wording of the AUMF can't reasonably be read to implicitly trump FISA. ... the proper way to handle that -- which the administration rejected -- would have been to seek changes in the law, not to do a stealthy end run around the legislative process. In such an amorphous, long-running conflict as the war against terrorism, it's critical to ensure that limits are in place to prevent the executive branch from overreaching.[read the full Washington Post editorial: The President's End Run]
memo to Ahmadinejad
you ain't seen nothin' yet. For the sake of your country and your people... drop your nuclear ambition, make your pursuit of scientific breakthrough transparent to the international community, lighten your rhetoric towards Israel and 'the West' and stop playing parlor games with the media, or I have a bad feeling that what you see immediately to your West will seem like child's play. Seriously.
22 January 2006
Bush nominee broke law
Jan. 23, 2006 | A judge nominated by President Bush to one of the highest courts in the nation apparently violated federal law repeatedly while serving on the federal bench. Judge James H. Payne, 64, who was nominated by Bush in late September to join the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Denver, issued more than 100 orders in at least 18 cases that involved corporations in which he owned stock, a review of court and financial records shows.
Federal law and the official Code of Conduct for U.S. judges explicitly prohibit judges from sitting on cases involving companies in which they own stock -- no matter how small their holdings -- in order to uphold the integrity of the judicial system. (Judges' financial filings typically don't differentiate ownership between the judge and immediate family members.) The clear-cut, objective standard aims to prevent even the appearance that a judge may be taking into consideration his or her personal financial interests.
Payne's financial filings show holdings of up to $100,000 in SBC Communications stock, up to $50,000 in Wal-Mart stock and up to $15,000 in Pfizer stock, among others, while he presided over lawsuits involving the companies or their subsidiaries. In fact, it appears that since he was appointed by Bush in 2001 as a federal district judge in Oklahoma, Payne has been sitting inappropriately on at least one case at any given moment for nearly his entire federal judgeship. [read the full article at Salon.com]
Super Bowl XL
There may be 6 minutes left in the NFC Championship game, but this one is over. Here's your boring matchup for Superbowl XL.
VS
VS
bad news for Richard Hatch
yeow
PROVIDENCE, R.I., Jan. 20 - Reality television met its match when it found Richard Hatch. He was the "naked fat guy" who speared fish and killed rats as a tropical island castaway in the first season of "Survivor." He was the man with a plan from the get-go to get rid of the other 15 castaways, and with Machiavellian mojo, he pulled it off and won a million dollars. Now, six years later, Mr. Hatch is starring in a different kind of survival contest. He is on trial for failing to pay taxes on his million-dollar windfall, charged in a 10-count indictment with tax evasion, filing false income tax returns, wire fraud, bank fraud and mail fraud. He faces up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine.
so.... ask for them
USNews.com reports:
Contact the CIA's Public Affairs Office and ask for copies. They're unclassified and you paid for them.A Tangled Web wovenAt the CIA, what gets put up online--and what doesn't
By postal mail: Central Intelligence Agency Office of Public Affairs Washington, D.C. 20505
By phone: (703) 482-0623 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., US Eastern time
By fax: (703) 482-1739 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., US Eastern time (please include a phone number where we may call you)
TIME: When George Met Jack
pictures don't lie. Does your President?
White House aides deny the President knew lobbyist Abramoff, but unpublished photos shown to TIME suggest there's more to the story
unintended consequences
of a politically-driven War of Choice
Isle losing medevac transport to Iraq war The Army has long supplied Oahu's only helicopters for health emergencies
the conscientious Pentagon
I won't hold my breath waiting for a similar dose of reality from the White house.
Michael Isikoff's column in next week's Newsweek:
The Other Big Brother The Pentagon has its own domestic spying program. Even its leaders say the outfit may have gone too far.
good idea, we need more of this
from William Rivers Pitt
George W. Bush's delivery of the State of the Union address will take place on Tuesday, January 31, a little more than a week from now. It is my strong belief that every single Democrat present in the House chamber for the speech should, at a predetermined moment, stand up and walk out. No yelling. No heated words. Every Democrat should simply stand silently and leave. Crazy, I know. Crazy, and possibly the best idea ever put before a body of Democrats since the New Deal. Understand this, congressional Democrats, and understand it well: you are not dealing merely with a body of political opponents in the GOP. You are dealing with a group of people that want you exterminated politically. The days of walking the halls of the Rayburn Building, sharing a bourbon with a colleague from the other side of the aisle, and hammering out a compromise are as dead as Julius Caesar. Collegiality is out. Mutual respect is out. They want you gone for good. Erased. Destroyed.
President Forgetful
Short memory you have there Mr. President
WASHINGTON - Although President Bush says he doesn't recall meeting convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the two have reportedly turned up in photos together.I've attended dozens and dozens of meetings during the past 4, 5, 6 years. And I have to say, I remember each and every of them. I find it simply impossible to believe that you have no recollection of meeting Poison Jack
The Washingtonian has seen five photos of the President with Abramoff or his family. One photo shows the President and Abramoff shaking hands at a meeting in the Old Executive Office Building, where a bearded-Abramoff introduced Bush to several of the lobbyist’s native-American clients.Abramoff was named a “pioneer” in the Bush presidential campaign, collecting more than $100,000, in $2,000 maximum increments, for his campaign in 2004. Bush has returned $6,000 of Abramoff’s contributions, the part that would represent the legal limit for Abramoff; his wife, Pam; and a client.
Sources say the photographs are being kept safe. Abramoff would tell prosecutors, if asked, that not only did he know the President, but the President knew the names of Abramoff’s children and asked about them during their meetings. At one such photo session, Bush discussed the fact that both he and Abramoff were fathers of twins.
Halliburton: delivering contaminated diseased water to America's troops
Halliburton Cited in Iraq Contamination
"The level of contamination was roughly 2x the normal contamination of untreated water from the Euphrates River,"
21 January 2006
irrational and pathetic
according to a newly-released poll... more Americans feel that terrorism is a greater risk to their personal safety than disease, environmental catastrophe and natural disasters combined.
click to enlarge picture
20 January 2006
14 Constitutional scholars and former government officials
sent this letter to Congress, concerning the President's illegal domestic spying operation.
In conclusion, the DOJ letter fails to offer a plausible legal defense of the NSA domestic spying program. If the administration felt that FISA was insufficient, the proper course was to seek legislative amendment, as it did with other aspects of FISA in the Patriot Act, and as Congress expressly contemplated when it enacted the wartime wiretap provision in FISA. One of the crucial features of a constitutional democracy is that it is always open to the President—or anyone else—to seek to change the law. But it is also beyond dispute that, in such a democracy, the President cannot simply violate criminal laws behind closed doors because he deems them obsolete or impracticable
Larry Franklin heads to jail
right where he belongs.... bummer.
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (Reuters) - A former Pentagon analyst was sentenced to 12 years and seven months in prison on Friday for passing U.S. defense information to two pro-Israel lobbyists and for sharing classified information with an Israeli diplomat.
Lawrence Franklin, who previously worked as an analyst in the office of the secretary of defense, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis. Franklin had pleaded guilty in October to sharing the information and also to illegally possessing classified documents.
Franklin had faced up to 25 years in prison. His sentence could be further reduced because of his cooperation with the government which is still prosecuting a case against the two remaining defendants in the case -- former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel lobbying group.
19 January 2006
17 January 2006
swing and miss
Here's strike 2 for Bobby Slots.
Maryland's General Assembly has overridden another veto by impotent Governor Robert Ehrlich: Maryland Raises Minimum Wage By $1
Viktor Bout: still flying
despite...
"Our targeted sanctions are exposing and isolating the core elements of the Bout financial empire and illicit arms pipeline," said Juan Zarate, the Treasury's Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes. "The Treasury remains committed to fulfilling our international obligations to sanction the former Charles Taylor regime by taking aggressive action against Bout front companies and agents."
careful what you blog
What's the fuss? On the front page of today's Washington Post: Teens' Bold Blogs Alarm Area Schools
Happy Birthday Ben Franklin
... he doesn't look a day over 260.
Remembering Ben Franklin on his 300th Birthday
Remembering Ben Franklin on his 300th Birthday16 January 2006
a common mistake
E.J. Dionne: I underestimated the viciousness of the right wing. Murtha and the Mudslingers
wrap up
Way too busy to blog... so let's send a shout out to Martin Luther King, Jr. And in his honor, I'm gonna drop a shitload of links and go sleep with my wife. In no particular order:
Walter Cronkite says: it's "time for U.S. to leave Iraq"
Updated today, the Project on Defense Alternatives webpage and reports: "Iraq Withdrawal and Exit Strategies & Plans"
The New Children of Terror, a chapter from the book The Making of a Terrorist by James Forest at Brookings.
Confused Republicans don't understand separation of Church and State
Someone mail a copy of The Pentagon's New Map to the Iranian President please.
Iran issues stark warning on oil price: "'Any possible sanctions from the west could possibly, by disturbing Iran's political and economic situation, raise oil prices beyond levels the west expects,' "Check out the pervs monitoring Britain's CC television cameras (hat tip to Bruce Schneier) Its hard times for editorial cartoonists nowadays:
Kevin Kallaugher, known as KAL to Sun readers, concluded a 17-year run as the paper's editorial cartoonist Friday after accepting a buyout as an alternative to an uncertain future. But Kallaugher has no intention of retiring.Chomsky says "There is no war on terror" Dick Marty, head of the European investigation into the secret CIA prisons says that our current strategy to fighting terrorism is illegal. Straight-shootin' Putin attempts to moderate the Iran Nuclear Crisis. This is pretty fascinating: Bird Can Mimic Others in Context to Apparently Signal Alarm They needed a study to figure this out... ? Profit-Driven Corporations Can Make Management Blind to Ethics In a perfect world... today's editorial in The Washington Post:
Political long shot that it may be, a national ban on the general manufacture, sale and ownership of handguns ought be enacted. It would not pacify kids or adults with violent tendencies, and it might not curb general criminal activity markedly. But it might well save thousands of lives. Handgun exceptions could be made for federal, state and local law enforcement and military agencies; collectors of antique firearms; federally licensed handgun sporting clubs with certain safety procedures; security guard services; and licensed dealers, importers or manufacturers that are determined to be meeting those needs.Focusing on 'Success' In Iraq, today's column by Brent Scowcroft
The stakes -- for the United States and for the world -- are enormous. Iraq lies in the center of a region critical to the well-being of the global system. It is surrounded by states intensely concerned about the nature and future of that country and its government. A failed Iraq could be a catastrophe for the Middle East and a calamity for the world. At the moment such an outcome would be inevitable without the U.S. presence.
hurricane digital memory bank
cool
The Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University and the University of New Orleans organized this project in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History and other partners. Supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, it builds on prior work by CHNM to collect and preserve history online, especially through the ECHO project and the September 11 Digital Archive.
exactly
Josh Marshall (via Atrios), referring specifically to having 'serious' foreign policy discussion regarding the most sensible and effective ways of dealing with the Iran Nuclear Crisis hits the nail on the head.
"theissue is politics because they have no idea what to do about the situation. "
15 January 2006
reality check
from today's New York Times:
Nothing in the national consensus to combat terrorism after 9/11 envisioned the unilateral rewriting of more than 200 years of tradition and law by one president embarked on an ideological crusade.
14 January 2006
15yr old kid who was shot by the Fla SWAT team yesterday
and there you have it
AMERICABlog just bought General Clark's cell phone records for 90 friggin bucks
13 January 2006
why did ABC News pull their headline on Jeffrey Smith?
eh?
"Should the president's view be sustained, it would be a dramatic expansion of presidential authority affecting the rights of our fellow citizens that undermines the checks and balances of our system,"
pretty straight forward
from TPMCafe:
"For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president's men. If convicted, they'll have plenty of time to mull over their sins. Martin van Creveld, a professor of military history at the Hebrew University, is author of Transformation of War (Free Press, 1991). He is the only non-American author on the U.S. Army's required reading list for officers."
sorry Mr. Governor
you lose... and this session has only just begun
Md. Legislature Overrides Veto on Wal-Mart Bill: Maryland lawmakers bucked the will of the state's Republican governor and the nation's largest retailer yesterday, voting to become the first state to effectively require that Wal-Mart spend more on employee health care. In a veto reversal that was closely watched nationally, lawmakers in the Democrat-led General Assembly voted largely along party lines for a measure that legislatures in more than 30 states are considering replicating. ~ The Senate voted 30-17 for the bill after a filibuster attempt by Republicans. The House followed last night with an 88-50 vote that handed Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) a defeat early in the legislative session on a bill he argues is an unwarranted government intrusion into business.Ehrlich can make some fascinatingly up-is-down arguments sometimes. I'd like to know... where is Gov. Ehrlich's outrage about the NSA + Baltimore City Police's unwarranted government intrusion into the PERSONAL LIVES of his own citizens?
yo-yo
Man, am I glad I'm not a Katrina evacuee: "yesterday, a federal judge in New Orleans ordered FEMA to allow hurricane evacuees in that city to stay in subsidized hotel rooms until March 1, extending a Feb. 27 deadline FEMA set Monday."
The State of the News Media 2005
By the Project for Excellence in Journalism
from the conclusion:
The challenge for traditional journalism is whether it can reassert its position as the provider of something distinctive and valuable - both for citizens and advertisers. The press continues to thrive financially because, while the audience collected in any one place may be smaller, it is still the largest venue available to advertisers. The trend lines, however, make clear that this, too, should not be taken for granted. Somehow journalism needs to prove that it is acting on behalf of the public, if it is to save itself. [view the entire report here]
gaggle of CRS reports
Reimbursement of Local Private Nonprofit Organizations Under the Stafford Act
HUD's Reponse to Hurricane Katrina
Federal Spending by Agency and Budget Function, FY01-05
Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Legislation for Disaster Assistance, FY89-05
U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel
Supreme Court Nominations, 1789 - 2005: Actions by the Senate, the Judiciary Committee, and the President
Declarations of War and Authorizations for the Use of Military Force: Historical Background and Legal Implications
Authorization For Use Of Military Force in Response to the 9/11 Attacks (P.L. 107-40): Legislative History
"why's my face on TV?"
Michael Hamlin, the piece of shit who killed NYTimes reporter David Rosenbaum outside of his Washington DC home, asked this stupid question of Metropolitan police after security cameras captured his picture while he was trying to use Rosenbaum's credit card. According to District Police Capt. C.V. Morris, Hamlin rang up $1,300 in charges on Rosenbaum's credit card in the week following his death. [CNN: Confession in reporter's slaying]
Give Me Liberty Or Let Me Think About It
Michael Kinsley's latest in The Washington Post
Is the enemy in the war on terrorism really worse, justifying greater violations of civil liberties and human rights, than the enemy in World War II was?
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