Republicans Anonymous

Return from Oblivion

2007-01-27T19:42:00.000-03:00

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Spinning Propaganda

2006-03-26T12:25:00.000-03:00

The Washington Post has this amusing article about the Lincoln Group's distaste for the "P" word:

The Word at War
Propaganda? Nah, Here's the Scoop, Say the Guys Who Planted Stories in Iraqi Papers
By Lynne Duke
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 26, 2006; D01

Oh, no, not at all -- the Lincoln Group does not do propaganda. Sure, the firm's been tarred by some in Congress, the media and the defense establishment for paying Iraqi newspapers to publish hundreds of "news" stories secretly written by U.S. troops.

But Paige Craig, the West Point dropout and former Marine intelligence specialist who is the Lincoln Group's president, says the practice is not propaganda. The word carries such baggage, such suggestions of mind control. So in an industry in which euphemism thrives, a more elegant word is deployed.

"We call it 'influence,' " says Craig, whose business has 12 U.S. government contracts totaling more than $130 million.

That's epitomizes the Bush League's entire philosophy - they really think words create reality rather than describing it. To paraphrase Shakespeare: Waterboarding by any other name would still be torture.

Dick Cheney's Undisclosed Location Revealed

2006-03-25T16:24:00.000-03:00

I expect Dick Cheney will be vacationing here. I mean, how could he resist?

Bush's Influence on the Military

2006-03-24T02:41:00.000-03:00

I cannot believe this level of pure hypocrisy is being reported without more comment:

Challenge for U.S.: Iraq's Handling of Detainees
New York Times
By EDWARD WONG
CAMP JUSTICE, Iraq — The blindfolded detainees in the dingy hallway line up in groups of five for their turn to see a judge, like schoolchildren outside the principal's office.

Each meeting lasts a few minutes. The judge rules whether the detainee will go free, face trial or be held longer at this Iraqi base in northern Baghdad. But Firas Sabri Ali, squeezed into a fetid cell just hundreds of yards from the judge's office, has watched the inmates come and go for four months without his name ever being called.
...
Such is the challenge facing the American military as it tries to train the Iraqi security forces to respect the rule of law. Three years after the invasion of Iraq, American troops are no longer simply teaching counterinsurgency techniques; they are trying to school the Iraqis in battling a Sunni-led rebellion without resorting to the tactics of a "dirty war," involving abductions, torture and murder.

The legacy of Abu Ghraib hampers the American military. The legacy of Abu Ghraib hampers the American military. But the need to instill respect for human rights has gained a new urgency as Iraq grapples with the threat of full-scale civil war and continuing sectarian bloodletting. It is not uncommon now for dozens of bodies, with hands bound and gunshot wounds to the heads, to surface across Baghdad on any given day.

The Americans are pushing the Shiite-dominated Iraqi forces to ask judges for arrest warrants, restrain their use of force and ensure detainees' rights.
(Emphasis added.)

Interestingly, W and his Bush League minions think asking US Judges for warrants is impractical in a post 9/11 world. The Bush League wants to lock up "enemy combatants" forever with no judicial review.

Recent Surge of Violence

2006-03-19T18:04:00.000-03:00

The phrase "recent surge of violence" has replaced "turning the corner" as the lead chiché in Iraq War reporting. EarlG of DemocraticUnderground.com notes this phrase has been used since 2003:

This morning I learned that Pentagon officials have said that force levels in Iraq would not be cut "anytime soon," apparently because of a "recent surge in violence" sweeping Iraq. But what struck me most about that news was votesomemore's response in this thread claiming that, "There is ALWAYS a 'recent surge in violence.'"

That got me thinking. Is there always a "recent surge in violence" in Iraq? I Googled the phrase, and discovered that the answer to the question is, well, yes.
(Source: Democratic Underground post "Recent Surge of Violence, March 4, 2006)

Thesaurus, anyone?

Another Bush League Torture Scandal

2006-03-18T17:53:00.000-03:00

More horror stories of Bush League incompetence and disregard for the law, human rights, or anything else:

Before and After Abu Ghraib, a U.S. Unit Abused Detainees
By ERIC SCHMITT and CAROLYN MARSHALL
As the Iraqi insurgency intensified in early 2004, an elite Special Operations forces unit converted one of Saddam Hussein's former military bases near Baghdad into a top-secret detention center. There, American soldiers made one of the former Iraqi government's torture chambers into their own interrogation cell. They named it the Black Room.
...
Placards posted by soldiers at the detention area advised, "NO BLOOD, NO FOUL." The slogan, as one Defense Department official explained, reflected an adage adopted by Task Force 6-26: "If you don't make them bleed, they can't prosecute for it." According to Pentagon specialists who worked with the unit, prisoners at Camp Nama often disappeared into a detention black hole, barred from access to lawyers or relatives, and confined for weeks without charges. "The reality is, there were no rules there," another Pentagon official said.

The story of detainee abuse in Iraq is a familiar one. But the following account of Task Force 6-26, based on documents and interviews with more than a dozen people, offers the first detailed description of how the military's most highly trained counterterrorism unit committed serious abuses.

It adds to the picture of harsh interrogation practices at American military prisons in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as well as at secret Central Intelligence Agency detention centers around the world.

The new account reveals the extent to which the unit members mistreated prisoners months before and after the photographs of abuse from Abu Ghraib were made public in April 2004, and it helps belie the original Pentagon assertions that abuse was confined to a small number of rogue reservists at Abu Ghraib.

The abuses at Camp Nama continued despite warnings beginning in August 2003 from an Army investigator and American intelligence and law enforcement officials in Iraq. The C.I.A. was concerned enough to bar its personnel from Camp Nama that August.

It is difficult to compare the conditions at the camp with those at Abu Ghraib because so little is known about the secret compound, which was off limits even to the Red Cross. The abuses appeared to have been unsanctioned, but some of them seemed to have been well known throughout the camp.
...
Many were initially reluctant to discuss Task Force 6-26 because its missions are classified. But when pressed repeatedly by reporters who contacted them, they agreed to speak about their experiences and observations out of what they said was anger and disgust over the unit's treatment of detainees and the failure of task force commanders to punish misconduct more aggressively. The critics said the harsh interrogations yielded little information to help capture insurgents or save American lives.
(Source: New York Times, March 18, 2006 [emphasis added.])

Long story short: there was widespread torture of Iraqi detainees by US troops. This was at least ignored - but more probably condoned and possibly expressly ordered by the top brass. Despite the mounting evidence, none of the persons responsible for either ordering, inciting or tolerating these war crimes will be investigated unless and until the Democrats regain control of at least one branch of Congress. America's reputation and honor have been permanently stained by W and his Bush League minions, yet the Republicans don't care.

US Launches Major Public Relations Offensive

2006-03-16T23:59:00.001-03:00

In an effort to reverse sliding poll number, W's Bush League minions conducted a massive military campaign calculated to make US voters think something effective was done:

US launches major Iraq offensive
The US military says it has launched its biggest airborne operation in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, targeting insurgents near the city of Samarra.
More than 50 aircraft and 1,500 Iraqi and US troops have been deployed in the assault, a military statement says.

A bomb attack on the al-Askari shrine in Samarra, 100km (60 miles) north of Baghdad, last month sparked widespread sectarian violence.

There are no independent reports of Thursday's offensive so far.

The US military said the assault, dubbed Operation Swarmer, was intended to "clear a suspected insurgent operating area" north-east of Samarra.

Helicopters were used to carry mostly Iraqi troops into Salahuddin province, where the Pentagon said at least 41 suspected insurgents had been arrested by the end of the day.

No missiles were fired or bombs dropped by the fixed-wing aircraft providing cover, the US military confirmed. It was unclear whether the suspected insurgents had offered resistance.
(Source: BBC News, March 16, 2006)

So, they rounded up "at least 41" Sunnis who will probably wind up tortured and killed by Negroponte-inspired Shi'ite death squads. I'm sure the right wing chorus is shouting from the rooftops how "the corner has been turned" yet again.

What utter bilge. Iraq's only hope for peace in the near term is for about a million troops to come in and stop the sectarian killing until the cycle of revenge damps out for awhile. Unfortunately, Iraq's misery will go on until Bush leaves office. Until then, El Busho will continue trying to "cover his bleeding ass with the flag of victory" while characterizing the death toll as "messy."

Child Abuse Cover-Up

2006-03-16T02:03:00.000-03:00

I don't know what angers me more: the rampant child abuse hellholes marketed as "boot camps for troubled teens" or the willingness of authorities to cover up the resulting deaths:

Pathologist: Teen Didn't Die From Illness
By MITCH STACY
The Associated Press
Wednesday, March 15, 2006; 7:07 AM

TAMPA, Fla. -- A pathologist who observed the second autopsy of a 14-year-old boy who was punched and kicked by guards at a juvenile boot camp said Tuesday the boy may not have died of a blood disorder as a medical examiner had ruled.

Dr. Michael Baden, who observed the new autopsy on behalf of the teen's family, said it was clear Martin Lee Anderson did not die from sickle cell trait, or from any other natural causes.
..
Anderson was sent to the Bay County Sheriff's Office boot camp on Jan. 5 for a probation violation. A surveillance video showed guards kicking and punching him after he collapsed while exercising on his first day at the camp, and he died at a hospital early the next day.
...
The second autopsy was ordered after the teen's parents questioned the findings of Bay County's medical examiner, and was conducted Monday by Hillsborough County Medical Examiner Vernard Adams.

"My opinion is that he died because of what you see in the videotape," said Baden, referring to the surveillance video.

Smart money says the county medical examiner knew full well this kid was beaten to death, but wanted to protect the county from a big lawsuit and ensure the officers were free to continue abusing the inmates. Call me a bleeding heart liberal, but I doubt beating an uncooperative kid senseless is an effective way of teaching him not to use violence against those he himself finds both frustrating and weaker.

Will Appeals Court Turn Justice On Its Head?

2006-03-15T02:59:00.000-03:00

Justice at the trial court level won - but that's only Round One:

Federal Witnesses Banned in 9/11 Trial
Judge Cites Misconduct By Lawyer; Prosecution Faces Major Setback
By Jerry Markon and Timothy Dwyer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 15, 2006; Page A01

A judge barred key government witnesses from testifying at the death penalty trial of Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, ruling yesterday that the misconduct of a federal lawyer had so tainted the proceeding that all evidence concerning aviation security must be stricken.
...
U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema issued her ruling at the close of an extraordinary hearing in Alexandria that centered on the conduct of Carla J. Martin, 51, a Transportation Security Administration lawyer who improperly shared testimony and communicated with seven witnesses. New evidence emerged that Martin was heavily involved in the case and had committed what Brinkema called other "egregious errors."

The most serious was telling a prosecutor that witnesses sought by defense attorneys had refused to meet with them. Relying on Martin's contact with the witnesses, prosecutor David J. Novak relayed the information to the defense. After hearing from those witnesses yesterday, Brinkema called Martin's information "a baldfaced lie."

"I cannot allow that kind of conduct to go without there being serious sanctions," Brinkema said as she struck the expected testimony and all of the evidence about aviation. "It would likely turn the criminal justice system on its head."
...
Yesterday's hearing featured only a brief appearance by the woman at the center of the controversy. Brinkema warned Martin that she could be held in criminal or civil contempt. In an unusual move, the judge read Martin a version of the Miranda warning given by police to criminal suspects as she took the stand at the start of the hearing.

Speaking agitatedly, Martin said she "very much" wanted to testify but that it was an "adversarial proceeding" and that she needed a lawyer. With that, Martin left the courtroom and did not return. Her attorney, Roscoe C. Howard Jr., later told the judge that Martin would not be available to testify. Howard, a former U.S. attorney in the District, declined to comment.
(Emphasis added.)

Now that Ms. Martin has been caught, I'm sure "the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of her actions." Had she gotten away with it, she would undoubtedly be on the fast track for promotion. As it is, maybe she can join Brownie's disaster preparedness consulting firm - or get a job with Bill O'Reilly's Special Police Squad.

Ethics? We Don't Need No Stinking Ethics!

2006-03-14T11:17:00.000-03:00

Can you say "prosecutorial misconduct?"

Judge Calls Halt to Penalty Phase of Terror Trial

By NEIL A. LEWIS
ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 13 — An angry federal judge delayed the sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui on Monday and said she was considering ending the prosecution's bid to have him executed after the disclosure that a government lawyer had improperly coached some witnesses.

Judge Leonie M. Brinkema said she had just learned from prosecutors that a lawyer for the Transportation Security Administration gave portions of last week's trial proceedings to seven witnesses who have yet to testify. In e-mail messages, the lawyer also seemed to tell some of the witnesses how they should testify to bolster the prosecution's argument that Mr. Moussaoui bore some responsibility for the deaths caused by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"In all my years on the bench, I've never seen a more egregious violation of the rule about witnesses," Judge Brinkema said before sending the jury home for two days. She said that the actions of the government lawyer, identified in court papers as Carla J. Martin, would make it "very difficult for this case to go forward."
(Source: New York Times)

Gee, you'd almost think they were more concerned with getting a death penalty verdict than with the concepts of justice and fair play. Admittedly, the Republican dictionary defines those terms as "whatever the President says; see fuehrerprincip", but still...

Bush League Diplomatic Efforts Fail Again

2006-03-12T12:09:00.000-03:00

The Republican "make special rules for US or we won't give you any money" school of diplomacy doesn't work well in a time when the US teeters on the edge of fiscal ruin.

U.S. Rethinks Its Cutoff of Military Aid to Latin American Nations

By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
SANTIAGO, Chile, March 11 — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice indicated Saturday that the United States would look for ways to resume military assistance to Latin American nations cut off from aid programs because of their refusal to shield Americans from the International Criminal Court.
...
Eliminating or reducing military assistance to countries like Chile and Bolivia that are seeking to combat terrorism or drug trafficking is "sort of the same as shooting ourselves in the foot," Ms. Rice told reporters on Friday as she traveled here for the inauguration of Michelle Bachelet as the new president of Chile.

Ms. Rice said, however, that the Bush administration had limited flexibility in restoring aid because a law enacted by Congress required the cutoff of military aid to countries that did not exempt American citizens from being brought before the court.

At least 30 countries have declined to enact an exemption, including 12 in Latin America and the Caribbean.

At the time the law was adopted, the Defense Department supported it on grounds that American military officials based overseas might be brought before the court. More recently, administration officials said Defense Department officials had become concerned about the loss of military cooperation with key allies.
(Source: New York Times [emphasis added.])

What the New York Times fails to mention is that the law forbidding military aid to countries failing to enact special rights for US citizens accused of things like human rights abuses was passed by Tom DeLay and Jesse Helms:

Congress and the Saddam Hussein Protection Act
by Douglass Cassel

The same day the House of Representatives recently voted not to pay an installment of our UN dues -- despite our legal obligation and prior commitment to pay -- it also passed a bill which attempts to achieve by legislation what the US could not achieve by negotiation, namely to strong arm our allies into exempting Americans from the International Criminal Court for genocide, serious war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Despite its politically irresistible title, the "American Service Members' Protection Act" does nothing real to protect our troops. As the American Bar Association pointed out to Congress, keeping GI's out of the International Criminal Court will merely relegate them to the less tender mercies of the courts of foreign potentates.

The ruse of protecting GI's is, for some, a cover for other agendas. For chief House and Senate sponsors Tom DeLay and Jesse Helms, the bill is a vehicle to pursue their broader ideological objective: a foreign policy based on unilateralism rather than on cooperation with other nations. If the bill seems calculated to offend other nations and to thwart our participation in UN peacekeeping, so much the better.
(Source: Commentaries, Northwestern University School of Law, Center for International Human Rights

"Due Process" Rights in Bizarroland

2006-03-11T19:41:00.000-03:00

Compare and contrast:

Judge Issues Secret Ruling in Case of 2 at Mosque
By JULIA PRESTON
New York Times, March 11, 2006
A federal judge issued a highly unusual classified ruling yesterday, denying a motion for dismissal of a case against two leaders of an Albany mosque who are accused of laundering money in a federal terrorism sting operation.

Because the ruling was classified, the defense lawyers were barred from reading why the judge decided that way.

On the other hand, if you're a former minion of Deadeye Dick Cheney:

Judge Tries Compromise on Briefs Libby Is Seeking
By NEIL A. LEWIS
New York Times, March 11, 2006
WASHINGTON, March 10 — A federal judge ruled on Friday that I. Lewis Libby Jr. was entitled to review a limited amount of information from highly classified intelligence documents in order to defend himself against charges that he lied about his role in disclosing the identity of a C.I.A. operative.

Confronted with a legal issue that has the potential to sabotage the prosecution of Mr. Libby, the judge, Reggie B. Walton, sought a compromise to allow the case to go forward.
...
Theodore V. Wells Jr., his chief defense lawyer, argued that Mr. Libby needed the President's Daily Briefs to refresh his memory and to add substance to his argument that he was "so focused on urgent national security matters, it is hardly surprising that he would later confuse, forget or misremember" conversations with reporters about Ms. Wilson.

To recap, Scooter Libby's defense team has the right to view documents only marginally releted to his alleged crime - but Yassin Aref's defense team cannot view critical evidence against their client's alleged crimes.

Live By Racial Profiling...

2006-03-10T03:53:00.000-03:00

W and his Bush League minions have discovered they can't both fan people's fears of Muslims in general while simultaneously claiming that rich Muslims are trustworthy. So, they're going to Bush League playbook page 2 - the public concession that later turns out to be illusory:

Dubai firm pledges to transfer US ports
Thu Mar 9, 2006 9:47 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The state-owned Arab company Dubai Ports World pledged on Thursday to transfer operation of six U.S. port terminals to a U.S. entity, a move the White House said should settle a political firestorm surrounding the deal. But the U.S. Congress was skeptical.

Many lawmakers have demanded that the Dubai company be stopped from running the ports because of potential security risks, rebelling against President George W. Bush, whose administration approved the company's involvement in January.

"It does provide a way forward and resolve the matter ...," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said of the company's announcement.

The statement by Dubai Ports World's chief operating officer, Edward Bilkey, said that the company had decided to "transfer fully ... to a U.S. entity" the operation of North American ports terminals it had acquired from British-based

It currently sounds like Congress isn't going to fall for it this time:

"To simply say that the U.S. entity will be separate isn't enough. How will it be separate? How thick is the wall?" demanded New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer.

The company announcement is not clear enough, said Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairwoman of the Middle East subcommittee of the House International Relations panel.

"Is the ports deal dead? Will the U.S. entity be a mere shell company?" she asked. "Current congressional plans are to move forward with the appropriations language next week which kills the transaction. Just to make sure."

One House Republican leadership aide said on Thursday that because of the company's announcement, there could be a motion to strike the language reversing the deal in the House next week -- but noted that this would still require a vote.
(Reuters)

My prediction is that the Republican whitewashers will cave in, and the deal will proceed. The interesting thing will be whether the U.S. subsidiary is required to store its records in the U.S., where they fall within the jurisdiction of our courts. One of the big untold stories behind this deal was how the Dubai company was going to be allowed to keep its business records offshore - well hidden from those pesky trial lawyers. Hard to prove laws were knowingly violated by a Dubai government-owned company if all the records are stored in Dubai...

Now 1 Days Since Violating Federal Law

2006-03-09T02:35:00.000-03:00

I'm sure the Republicans in Congress will immediately start a wide-ranging investigation into how this could possibly ~~happen~~ have been reported:

Justice Dept. Report Cites F.B.I. Violations
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: March 9, 2006
WASHINGTON, March 8 — The Federal Bureau of Investigation found apparent violations of its own wiretapping and other intelligence-gathering procedures more than 100 times in the last two years, and problems appear to have grown more frequent in some crucial respects, a Justice Department report released Wednesday said.
(Source: New York Times)

Tom Sawyer, Eat your Heart Out

2006-03-08T11:33:00.000-03:00

When it comes to talking folks into whitewashing something, nlobody does it better than W and his Bush League minions:

Senate Panel Blocks Eavesdropping Probe
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 8, 2006; Page A03

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence voted along party lines yesterday to reject a Democratic proposal to investigate the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program and instead approved establishing, with White House approval, a seven-member panel to oversee the effort.

Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) told reporters after the closed session that he had asked the committee "to reject confrontation in favor of accommodation" and that the new subcommittee, which he described as "an accommodation with the White House," would "conduct oversight of the terrorist surveillance program." The program, which became public in December, has allowed the National Security Agency to monitor phone calls and e-mails between U.S. residents and suspected terrorists abroad without first obtaining warrants from a secret court that handles such matters.

The panel's vice chairman, Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), took a sharply different view of yesterday's outcome. "The committee is, to put it bluntly, basically under the control of the White House through its chairman," he told reporters. "At the direction of the White House, the Republican majority has voted down my motion to have a careful and fact-based review of the National Security Agency's surveillance eavesdropping activities inside the United States."

Oscars Honor Karl Rove

2006-03-07T02:20:00.000-03:00

Yes, the Best Song Award to It’s Hard Out There for a Pimp was an obvious homage to Karl Rove. After all, Mr. Rove makes his living convincing people to let Bush screw them...

Was Pat Tillman Hunting Quail?

2006-03-05T13:14:00.000-03:00

The New York Times reports that the Defense Department is opening a criminal investigation into the "friendly fire" death of Cpl. Pat Tillman. Here's the bit that caught my eye:

Col. Joseph Curtin, an Army spokesman, said that the scope of the new inquiry had yet to be defined but that investigators would look at whether the soldiers violated military law when they failed to identify their targets before opening fire on his position.
(Source: New York Times Army Ordered to Look Again at Battle Death, March 5, 2006 [emphasis added.])

Dick Cheney didn't identify his target before opening fire, and he wasn't even in a combat zone. Why prosecute grunt-level soldiers for the same type of mistake made by the Vice President of the United States? Is this yet another Bush League double-standard - the "It's OK for Rich White Guys to be Careless With Guns" rule for Deadeye Dick versus the "relentlessly prosecute any enlisted personnel generating unfavorable news stories" standard for folks actually putting their lives on the line?

Dick Cheney: Upper Class Twit of the Year

2006-02-19T13:57:00.000-03:00

Life seems more and more like a series of bad Monty Python sketch imitations. Consider Dick Cheney's Quail "hunt" in which one drives up to a batch of pen-raised birds and starts blasting away. Isn't this just a cheap imitation of the "shoot the rabbit" event in Monty Python's Upper-Class Twit of the Year sketch?

In the Monty Python sketch, the rabbits are staked to the ground and unable to move while the twits blast away. Near as I can tell, the quail "hunt" takes pen-raised birds and releases them in front of the hunters' sights. Calling this "hunting" is like driving to one of those spots where farm-raised trout are kept in artificial ponds for children to catch and calling it "fishing."

I'm surprised they don't clip the quails' wings and then load them on little skeet launchers for the hunters' enjoyment.

Billions for Big Oil, Not One Cent for Katrina Victimshttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

2006-02-14T02:12:00.000-03:00

W and his Bush League minions are pushing for billions more in giveaways to Big Oil:

U.S. Royalty Plan to Give Windfall to Oil Companies
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 — The federal government is on the verge of one of the biggest giveaways of oil and gas in American history, worth an estimated $7 billion over five years.

New projections, buried in the Interior Department's just-published budget plan, anticipate that the government will let companies pump about $65 billion worth of oil and natural gas from federal territory over the next five years without paying any royalties to the government.
...
Short of imposing new taxes on the industry, there may be little Congress can do to reverse its earlier giveaways. The new projections come at a moment when President Bush and Republican leaders are on the defensive about record-high energy prices, soaring profits at major oil companies and big cuts in domestic spending.

Indeed, Mr. Bush and House Republicans are trying to kill a one-year, $5 billion windfall profits tax for oil companies that the Senate passed last fall.

Moreover, the projected largess could be just the start. Last week, Kerr-McGee Exploration and Development, a major industry player, began a brash but utterly serious court challenge that could, if it succeeds, cost the government another $28 billion in royalties over the next five years.
(Source: New York Times, Feb. 14, 2006 [emphasis added.])

I wonder whether anyone else in the Gulf Coast region needs money as desperately as the highly profitable oil industry? Oh, yeah, almost forgot:

Hotel Aid Ends; Evacuees Seek Housing Again
By SHAILA DEWAN
NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 13 — Thousands of evacuees from Hurricane Katrina became transients again on Monday, wheeling their entire lives onto the street on luggage carts or dragging bulging garbage bags through hotel lobbies, when the federal government stopped paying their hotel bills.

In the largest single step in its phaseout of emergency housing assistance for victims of the hurricane, the Federal Emergency Management Agency ended the hotel payments for 12,000 families across the country, including 4,400 now living in New Orleans.

Most will get apartment rental assistance or trailers. Federal officials acknowledged Monday that hundreds of millions of dollars worth of mobile homes might never be used to house hurricane victims.
(Source: New York Times, Feb. 14, 2006)

I wonder which Republican Pioneer-level donor has the mobile home concession? No doubt that donor makes plenty of speeches condemning wasteful government spending and giveaways to the undeserving. Oddly, I've never heard any of them apply these talking points to giving away gas and oil owned by the American people for free to the oil companies, who then charge us massive sums to buy back our own gas and oil...

Double-Standard Deflects Persecution

2006-02-02T11:38:00.000-03:00

The only way to avoid prosecuting a right-wing T-Shirt wearer was to drop charges against Cindy Sheehan. The important principle the founding Fathers most sincerely believed in, protecting the Imperial President's Bubble, was preserved:

Late yesterday, after C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) had taken to the floor with an impassioned speech and his wife's T-shirt held aloft, Capitol Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer showed up at his office to apologize.

(Source: Washington Post , Feb 2, 2006)http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Repubs Begin Moving Away From "In Your Face" Corruption

2006-01-27T11:41:00.000-03:00

Looks like the light of public attention is making these cockroaches scurry back to the shadows:

Yesterday, the staff director of the Senate Republican Conference said that a K-Street-job-vacancies memo -- the heart of Congress's remaining involvement in the effort these days -- will no longer be distributed during high-level meetings hosted by the conference on Capitol Hill between lawmakers and lobbyists. Responsibility for the listings migrated from the House to the Senate several years ago, according to lobbyists.

While lobbyists and others could still obtain the information elsewhere, the change removes the formal involvement of lawmakers from the process and any implied encouragement by them to transform K Street into a Republican bastion.
(Source: Washington Post GOP Freezes Jobs List, a Vestige of the K Street Project, Jan 26, 2006.)

Note, please, that they're still doing it - just not quite so openly...

Government by Distraction

2006-01-25T11:41:00.000-03:00

Yet more evidence that the Republicans knew there was massive corruption in the Bush League's Coalition Provisional Authority (misnamed "CPA") and decided to launch an over-hyped investigation into the UN "Oil for Food" plan to distract the voters from their own, far more serious scandals:

Cash meant for Iraqis 'misused'

Large bundles of cash meant for Iraq's reconstruction were stashed in filing cabinets, handed over without receipts and gambled away, a report has found.

The audit, by US-appointed inspectors, paints a picture of the chaotic misuse of millions of dollars of funds.

The lack of oversight had a tragic outcome in one case, when a hospital lift, supposed to have been fixed, crashed killing three people.

The report said US post-war planning was limited by a desire for secrecy.

There were no detailed, overt preparations for the reconstruction of Iraq in the run-up to the 2003 invasion "to avoid the impression that the US government had already decided on [military] intervention", the report by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) said.

Nevertheless, the US has allocated billions of dollars to rebuilding Iraq, and large amounts have been raised through the sale of Iraqi oil.
(Source: BBC News, Jan 25, 2006 [emphasis in original])

Wasn't Hillary Clinton visiting Iraq during some of this? Maybe she should be investigated...

What the Bush Regime Looks Like to Others

2006-01-21T16:25:00.000-03:00

Bizarre ideological battles from the past, disdain for international law, claiming political opponents and moderates are traitors - is Karl Rove moonlighting in Iran?

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has steered his country of 70 million people on a sharply confrontational course with much of the outside world after only six months in office.

Tehran this month restarted activities that Western experts believe could lead Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb in coming years.

The nuclear drive has garnered the headlines and diplomatic attention, but "the problem is broader," U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried said in a Jan. 18 speech. "Not only is the regime in Tehran determined to develop nuclear weapons, it also supports terrorism. Not only does it support terrorism, the regime is hostile to democracy in principle. Ahmadinejad's bizarre remarks about destroying Israel remind one of another era."
(Source: Knight Ridder News Iran presents a pressing new challenge for the U.S.,Jan. 20, 2006)

It appears Iran's current president is as unpopular with the iranian public as the Bush regime is with US voters:

Instead, the administration's policy review, led by Rice, is considering new ways of reaching out to the Iranian people - many of whom despise the regime - through increased broadcasting into Iran and more cultural exchanges, a senior U.S. official said recently. He requested anonymity because the review isn't complete.
(Iran presents a pressing new challenge for the U.S.)

Massive NSA Wiretapping Both Illegal and Ineffective

2006-01-17T00:38:00.000-03:00

Why is it that W and his Bush League minions feel that if an action is morally repugnant and/or flat-out illegal, it must by necessity be highly effective? First, they went on a torture binge that yielded a bunch of bogus data. Now, it seems that their illegal wiretapping was a massive and expensive waste of time and resources, too:

Spy Agency Data After Sept. 11 Led F.B.I. to Dead Ends
By LOWELL BERGMAN, ERIC LICHTBLAU, SCOTT SHANE and DON VAN NATTA Jr.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 - In the anxious months after the Sept. 11 attacks, the National Security Agency began sending a steady stream of telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and names to the F.B.I. in search of terrorists. The stream soon became a flood, requiring hundreds of agents to check out thousands of tips a month.

But virtually all of them, current and former officials say, led to dead ends or innocent Americans.
...
President Bush has characterized the eavesdropping program, which focused on the international communications of some Americans and others in the United States, as a "vital tool" against terrorism; Vice President Dick Cheney has said it has saved "thousands of lives."

But the results of the program looked very different to some officials charged with tracking terrorism in the United States. More than a dozen current and former law enforcement and counterterrorism officials, including some in the small circle who knew of the secret eavesdropping program and how it played out at the F.B.I., said the torrent of tips led them to few potential terrorists inside the country they did not know of from other sources and diverted agents from counterterrorism work they viewed as more productive.

"We'd chase a number, find it's a school teacher with no indication they've ever been involved in international terrorism - case closed," said one former FBI official, who was aware of the program and the data it generated for the bureau. "After you get a thousand numbers and not one is turning up anything, you get some frustration."
(Source: New York Times Jan 17, 2005 [emphasis added.])

It appears the only reason W and his Bush League minions pushed this policy was to roll back the post-Watergate restrictions on the Imperial Presidency. The Bush regime cares nothing about our country, our beliefs, or our freedoms. They only care about maintaining and increasing their own power.

Bush Urges Foxes to Do a Better Job Guarding Chickens

2006-01-17T00:09:00.000-03:00

After having the pharmaceutical industry write their dream "Medicare Drug Coverage" plan, and tricking the Republican Congress into enacting Big Pharma's dream, W is shocked, SHOCKED to discover it isn't working well:

President Tells Insurers to Aid Ailing Medicare Drug Plan
By ROBERT PEAR

With tens of thousands of people unable to get medicines promised by Medicare, the Bush administration has told insurers that they must provide a 30-day supply of any drug that a beneficiary was previously taking, and it said that poor people must not be charged more than $5 for a covered drug.

The actions came after several states declared public health emergencies, and many states announced that they would step in to pay for prescriptions that should have been covered by the federal Medicare program.

Republicans have joined Democrats in asserting that the federal government botched the beginning of the prescription drug program, which started on Jan. 1. People who had signed up for coverage found that they were not on the government's list of subscribers. Insurers said they had no way to identify poor people entitled to extra help with their drug costs. Pharmacists spent hours on the telephone trying to reach insurance companies that administer the drug benefit under contract to Medicare.

Many of the problems involve low-income people entitled to both Medicare and Medicaid.
...
The Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said the mismanagement of the program had had "devastating consequences for seniors." In a letter signed by 34 other Democrats, Mr. Reid said, "We want to know why so many of our constituents have fallen through the cracks." Democrats had predicted many of the problems, he said.

The concern was bipartisan. Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, said many people had been "turned away at their pharmacies or told that they must purchase the drugs up front and seek reimbursement later."

"These are very vulnerable people who do not have the means to pay for their prescriptions and who cannot go without their medications," Mr. Gregg said.
(Source: New York Times Jan. 16, 2006)

Wow, a Republican plan that enriches large corporations while harming the poor - whoever would have guessed?

Fighting Terror With Terror

2006-01-14T15:15:00.000-03:00

The US has once again used bombs to "send a message" to terrorists - much like the terrorists use bombs to "send a message" to the US. Neither side seems to care much about the innocent folks trapped in the middle.

At first, the "liberal media" didn't seem to care about "collaterally damaging" (i.e. killing) a bunch of civilians:

U.S. Airstrike Targets Al Qaeda's Zawahiri

By Dafna Linzer and Griff Witte
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, January 14, 2006; Page A09

Ayman Zawahiri, the second-ranking al Qaeda leader and chief deputy to Osama bin Laden, was targeted by a deadly U.S. missile strike on a compound in Pakistan yesterday, but U.S. intelligence could not confirm whether he was killed, according to U.S. sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Acting on sensitive intelligence describing the whereabouts of Zawahiri and other top al Qaeda figures, the CIA ordered the airstrike by a Predator drone that fired an air-to-ground missile at the compound, nestled on the border with Afghanistan. The sources said more than a dozen people may have died in the attack. It was too early to confirm the identities of the dead, but U.S. military officials said Zawahiri may be among them.

However, the ends apparently don't justify the means if you fail to achieve those ends:

Pakistan Condemns Purported CIA Airstrike

By RIAZ KHAN
The Associated Press
Saturday, January 14, 2006; 1:06 PM

DAMADOLA, Pakistan -- Pakistan on Saturday condemned a purported CIA airstrike on a border village that officials said unsuccessfully targeted al-Qaida's second-in-command, and said it was protesting to the U.S. Embassy over the attack that killed at least 17 people.

Thousands of local tribesmen, chanting "God is Great," demonstrated against the attack, claiming the victims were local villagers without terrorist links and had never hosted Ayman al-Zawahri.

Smart money says some of W's Bush League minions wanted to kill a top-ranked al Qaeda member to distract voters from the various Republican scandals, took a chance, and failed. I wonder whether al Qaeda planted a false story with this very result in mind. After all, this incident sure will help al Qaeda recruiting efforts, weaken US-Pakistani relations, and put extremist religious fanatics one step closer to taking over Pakistan. Helping Taliban-style fanatics gain control of Pakistan's nukes - another Bush League policy triumph in the making!

Iraqi Civil War in 2007?

2006-01-11T13:21:00.000-03:00

It seems likely that W and his Bush League minions now know a terrible civil war is looming in Iraq - they just want to postpone it until after the US midterm elections.

Mr. Hakim criticized the United States and Sunni parties that encouraged the insurgency. Responsibility for the attacks, he said, rested "on the multinational forces and the political powers that declared publicly their support for terrorism."

"Our people will not be patient for much longer with these dirty sectarian crimes," he said.

Mr. Hakim's criticism of the United States referred to recent pressure from the American forces to rein in the Iraqi security forces, which are under Shiite control. American officials have cited growing evidence that Shiite leaders have carried out a program of torture and assassination against Sunni Arabs.
(Source: New York Times An Iraqi Leader Says No More Changes to Charter, Jan 11, 2006)

Before W's Excellent Iraq Adventure, anti-war activists reminded everyone about George Bush Sr's prediction of anarchy and civil war if Saddam Hussein was overthrown by US troops. Interesting that W and his Bush League minions will talk the news media into blaming those same anti-war activists for Bush's complete failure in "bringing democracy to Iraq."

"Payback" for Pat Robertson

2006-01-11T12:51:00.000-03:00

Looks like Israel isn't letting Pat "the Mouth" Robertson get away with his outrageous comments about Ariel Sharon:

Israel punishes US TV evangelist
Israel is pulling out of a $50 million deal with US TV evangelist Pat Robertson after he said Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine retribution.

Tourism Ministry spokesman Ido Hartuv said Israel would not sign a contract with Mr Robertson to build a biblical theme park by the Sea of Galilee.
(Source: BBC News, Jan 11, 2006)

Is it being unduly cynical to wonder whether both those deals were going to be cancelled anyway?

It is depressing to note how making really outrageous, hate-filled comments seems to be the road to the top of the evangelical Christian heap. Of course, that is what makes them Kristians rather than followers of Christ's word...

Things to Smile About

2006-01-08T12:19:00.000-03:00

Click on the link, see something to smile about

Look who's talking - with SPINICH on his tooth!

Once again we're back to a culture of permissiveness! Bush has turned into a damn hippy!

And, of course, Jon Carroll:

So what I can't get is the Bush administration's hysterical reaction to the revelations. A presidential spokesman named Trent Duffy said, "The fact that al Qaeda's playbook is not printed on Page One, and when America's is, it has serious ramifications."

(Al Qaeda's playbook? Does it sometimes seem to you that the government is being run by retired athletic directors?)

But seriously, can you envision a terrorist picking up the New York Times and saying, "My God, men, the government may have been listening in to our telephone calls. Quick, let's find another way to communicate." I think probably they've figured that part out by now. I think the idea that the New York Times somehow leaked super-duper secrets to the enemy is ludicrous.

Buying Black Gold as an Inflation Hedge?

2006-01-08T02:23:00.000-03:00

Remember when $60/barrel oil was considered expensive? Now, it's the new floor:

Oil prices rally by more than $1
Crude oil prices have rallied by more than $1 a barrel after sinking to four-and-a-half month lows on Thursday.

US light sweet crude jumped $1.42 to settle at $64.21 a barrel, while in London benchmark Brent crude rose $1.59 to $62.72.

Concern over geopolitical factors in the Middle East had helped drive up prices, experts said.

But a rise in the number of investors opting to move into the market was the main factor for the surge, they added.
(Source: BBC News, Jan 6, 2006.)

I can't help think this is linked to the euro-denominated Iranian Oil market (bourse) set to open in March. Using one's dollars to buy oil futures sure is a great way to hedge against inflation and also do a little currency speculation without much risk.

Reality vs. the Bush League: Heck of an Economy!

2006-01-06T23:13:00.000-03:00

Sounds like China has decided to pull the plug on W and his Bush League minions:

China signals reserves switch away from dollar
By Geoff Dyer in Shanghai and Andrew Balls in Washington
(Financial Times)
Published: January 5 2006 20:13 | Last updated: January 6 2006 02:43
China indicated on Thursday it could begin to diversify its rapidly growing foreign exchange reserves away from the US dollar and government bonds – a potential shift with significant implications for global financial and commodity markets.

Economists estimate that more that 70 per cent of the reserves are invested in US dollar assets, which has helped to sustain the recent large US deficits. If China were to stop acquiring such a large proportion of dollars with its reserves – currently accumulating at about $15bn (€12.4bn) a month – it could put heavy downward pressure on the greenback.

It sounds as though W's wonderful job managing the economy will soon rank right up there with Brownie's performance at FEMA. About the only thing propping up the Bush Economy has been foreign financing. If the Chinese stop buying, so will everyone else.

Meanwhile, Iran is about to take their own massive strike against the US dollar. They're going to open an oil market (a "bourse") using euros - meaning all those US "petro-dollars" currently tied up by folks buying and selling oil in US dollars will be converting them to euros. This will cause another massive run on the dollar:

Petrodollar Warfare: Dollars, Euros and the Upcoming Iranian Oil Bourse

by William Clark
(media monitors network)
"A successful Iranian bourse will solidify the petroeuro as an alternative oil transaction currency, and thereby end the petrodollar's hegemonic status as the monopoly oil currency. Therefore, a graduated approach is needed to avoid precipitous U.S. economic dislocations."
(Emphasis in original)

Yep, smart money says the dollar is headed straight down the toilet. This will in turn cause the price of all exports, including oil, to skyrocket. Suddenly that Prius is looking like a good investment:

Will the Iranian Oil Bourse Threaten the Dollar?

Tuesday, September 13, 2005
(The Trumpet)

Iran continues to push its weight around. Now it proposes to begin pricing oil in euros. Unfortunately, just about everyone would benefit—except the United States.

For half a century, the American dollar has been the reserve currency of the world. Seventy percent of all currency reserves are in American dollars.

This has a lot to do with the fact that oil, the most important commodity traded in the world, is mostly priced in U.S. dollars. The majority of countries, being oil importers, have to buy their oil in U.S. dollars. This, together with related economic considerations, encourages them keep most of their foreign currency in dollars.

The debt-burdened U.S. economy is dependent upon this high demand for its currency in order to remain afloat. The day this demand comes to end will portend disaster for the American economy.

There is a move underway, however, to effect just such a reversal of the dollar’s fortunes. In particular, the world’s second-largest producer of crude oil—and declared enemy of the United States—Iran, seeks to end the predominance of America’s currency.

Several weeks ago, Tehran reconfirmed that it plans to create a euro-based exchange in oil—to compete with the London and New York dollar-denominated oil exchanges, both American-owned.

The proposed March 2006 launch of the Iranian oil bourse (iob), if successful, would give the euro a foothold in the international oil trade, solidifying its status as an alternative oil transaction currency. This, in turn, could be a catalyst for a major currency flight from the dollar to the euro—and a disaster for America.

Another Rat Jumps the Bush League's Ship

2006-01-06T20:06:00.000-03:00

Daily Kos blogger SusanG notes that Bremer Says U.S. Didn't Expect Iraqi Insurgency. This is almost as weird as Reuters putting the story in their 'Entertainment" section because it came out in the course of an interview plugging Bremer's new book. Here's a link to the Reuters story:

Bremer says US did not expect insurgency in Iraq
Fri Jan 6, 2006 5:00 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Paul Bremer, who led the U.S. civilian occupation authority in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, has admitted the United States did not anticipate the insurgency in the country, NBC Television said on Friday.

Bremer, interviewed by the network in connection with release of his book on Iraq, recounted the decision to disband the Iraqi army quickly after arriving in Baghdad, a move many experts consider a major miscalculation.

When asked who was to blame for the subsequent Iraqi rebellion, in which thousands of Iraqis and Americans have died, Bremer said "we really didn't see the insurgency coming," the network said in a news release.
...
Bremer said he raised his concerns about the numbers and quality of forces with President George W. Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and senior military officials.

But he told NBC "there was a tendency by people in the Pentagon to exaggerate the capability of the Iraqi forces and I felt it was not likely we would have professionally trained forces to allow us to withdraw American forces in the spring of 2004."

Asked if he believes he did everything he could do in Iraq, Bremer replied, "I believe I did everything I could do ... The president, in the end, is responsible for making decisions," the network reported.

Wow, Bremer even blames President Bush - I guess those rumors about Lucifer opening up a ski resort in the Alternative Destination might be true...

Another "Borrow and Spend" Republican

2006-01-06T15:56:00.000-03:00

Arnold's got a great plan for California. Remember how he promised to bring back "financial responsibility" to a debt-ridden state? He's got a solution: BORROW MORE MONEY!!! I guess he's planning on paying back the loans by cutting taxes.

Schwarzenegger proposes huge spending in key speech
Thu Jan 5, 2006 9:21 PM ET
By Adam Tanner

SACRAMENTO (Reuters) - A year after picking a bitter fight with legislators that he ended up losing at the polls, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled a massive 10-year spending plan on Thursday aimed at winning back Californian support ahead of his November re-election effort.

Not that issuing more bonds is a new idea - Arnie first floated it as a way to solve California's budget deficit right after getting elected. However, those bonds were supposed to be paid off by lowering future spending, not raising spending:

New administration could find deficit bonds a strong option

By Ed Mendel
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

October 12, 2003

SACRAMENTO – Will incoming Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger deal with a projected state budget shortfall in the same way as outgoing Gov. Gray Davis, mainly through massive borrowing?
...
The speculation is that Schwarzenegger may propose $20 billion in bonds, perhaps with limits on future state spending and debt, that could solve the inherited budget problem and set a new course for the future.

So, what's the difference between a "tax and spend" liberal and a "borrow and spend" Republican? The old-fashioned concept of "fiscal responsibility" springs to mind...

Bush to Give Up 6% of Abramoff-Tainted Funds

2006-01-05T21:10:00.000-03:00

You just have to skip down to the Washington Post story's 10th paragraph to discover this fact. Lead:

Bush to Give Up $6,000 In Abramoff Contributions

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 5, 2006; Page A01

Republican Party officials said yesterday that President Bush will give up $6,000 in campaign contributions connected to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, joining an expansive list of politicians who have shed more than half a million dollars in tainted campaign cash.

Hey, sounds good - the President is giving up that tainted money. Except, of course, he didn't give up very much if you read the whole story. What Paul Harvey would call "page 2" comes in around the 10th paragraph:

Abramoff raised more than $100,000 for the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign, making him an honorary Bush "Pioneer." But the campaign is giving up only $6,000, which came directly from Abramoff, his wife and one of the Indian tribes the lobbyist represented. The money will be donated to the American Heart Association.
(Washington Post, Bush to Give Up $6,000 In Abramoff Contributions [emphasis added.])

I guess it would be too "reality-based" to expect the $100,000 figure to show up where it might get noticed by Joe Voter...

So Might reading the "Al Qaeda Determined to Attack America" Memo

2006-01-04T20:53:00.000-03:00

These people have no shame. They ignore all warnings of possible terrorist attacks before 9/11, and now claim that our safety can only be protected by becoming a totalitarian dictatorship where the executive branch can imprison anyone without charge and ignore any laws it finds inconvenient?

Cheney Says Eavesdropping Program Might Have Prevented 9/11

By William Branigin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 4, 2006; 4:15 PM

Vice President Cheney today offered a staunch defense of a secret government eavesdropping program, saying it might have been able to thwart the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks if it had been in place at the time.

They already had the authority to bug the 9/11 terrorists, they just didn't feel like using it. As Richjard Clark observed:

In June and July, intelligence indicated an increased likelihood of a major al Qida attack against US targets, probably in Saudi Arabia or Israel. In response, the interagency Counter-terrorism Security Group agreed upon a series of steps including a series of warning notices that an attack could take place in the US. Notices were sent to federal agencies (Immigration, Customs, Coast Guard, FAA, FBI, DOD, and State), state and local police, airlines, and airports.

In retrospect, we know that there was information available to some in the FBI and CIA that al Qida operatives had entered the United States. That information was not shared with the senior FBI counter-terrorism official (Dale Watson) or with me, despite the heightened state of concern in the Counter-terrorism Security Group.
(Source: MSNBC Richard Clarke 9/11 prepared testimony, March 24, 2004.)

Abramoff Scandal Linked to Delay's K Street Project

2006-01-04T14:34:00.000-03:00

Here's the message that needs to be repeated endlessly into the public's ears (like "Stepford" Scott McClellan at a press conference.)

Abramoff was among the lobbyists most closely associated with the K Street Project, which was initiated by his friend Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), now the former House majority leader, once the GOP vaulted to power. It was an aggressive program designed to force corporations and trade associations to hire more GOP-connected lobbyists in what at times became an almost seamless relationship between Capitol Hill lawmakers and some firms that sought to influence them.
(Source: Washington Post Case Bringing New Scrutiny To a System and a Profession, Jan 4, 2005 [emphasis added.])

Abramoff's key role in Tom DeLay's K-Street Project gives a nice, one-sentence response to the Republican propagandists squealing about alleged democratic inviolvement in this scandal. Tell us all about how a project designed to push Democrats out of the lobbying industry was influenced by Democrats...

Will Bush Tap Rummy's Phone?

2006-01-03T16:52:00.000-03:00

After all, we're tapping the phones of anyone making overseas phone calls that are also involved in bombing innocent people...

U.S. Airstrike on House Enrages Local Iraqi Officials
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 3 - United States warplanes dropped bombs on a home near Bayji Monday night that Iraqi officials said killed nine members of a family and wounded three more.

American military officials confirmed the attack today and said the bombs were dropped after an unmanned reconnaissance aircraft recorded three men planting a bomb next to a road about 9 p.m. After the men were tracked to a nearby building, United States warplanes bombed the structure with "precision guided munitions," the military said.

But enraged Iraqi officials in Bayji, about 150 miles north of Baghdad, said today the attack was unjustified and killed an innocent family. A preliminary investigation of the blast site indicated that the airstrike killed the wife of the home's owner, his daughter-in-law and seven other family members, including one son who worked for the police, said Maj. Muthanna al-Qaisi, a spokesman for the governor of the Saluhaddin province.
(Source: New York Times)

Now that the insurgency is in its "last throes" and there are thousands of trained Iraqi troops ready to take over security, isn't it about time to stop aerial bombardment of suspected insurgent positions? Or will Alberto Gonzales be announcing air strikes targeting suspected drug dealers' homes within the US during the coming year. After all, there's a war on drugs, too...

COINTELPRO, Here We Come!

2006-01-02T12:31:00.000-03:00

Looks like "Bubble Boy" Bush has designed a high-tech bubble-maintenance system:

NSA Gave Other U.S. Agencies Information From Surveillance
Fruit of Eavesdropping Was Processed and Cross-Checked With Databases

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 1, 2006; Page A08

Information captured by the National Security Agency's secret eavesdropping on communications between the United States and overseas has been passed on to other government agencies, which cross-check the information with tips and information collected in other databases, current and former administration officials said.

The NSA has turned such information over to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and to other government entities, said three current and former senior administration officials, although it could not be determined which agencies received what types of information. Information from intercepts -- which typically includes records of telephone or e-mail communications -- would be made available by request to agencies that are allowed to have it, including the FBI, DIA, CIA and Department of Homeland Security, one former official said.

At least one of those organizations, the DIA, has used NSA information as the basis for carrying out surveillance of people in the country suspected of posing a threat, according to two sources. A DIA spokesman said the agency does not conduct such domestic surveillance but would not comment further. Spokesmen for the FBI, the CIA and the director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, declined to comment on the use of NSA data.

The attorneys for the three Denver-area activists ejected from one of George Bush's ''Town Hall'' meetings need to determine whether it was their car's "No Blood for Oil" bumper sticker that got them ejected - or illegal government surveillance based solely on their political beliefs.

2006: A Critical Year in Constitutional Law

2005-12-31T11:55:00.000-03:00

Can the President of the United States unilaterally declare people to be "enemy combatants" without having to present any justification to anyone:

Padilla Lawyers Urge Supreme Court to Block Transfer
By NEIL A. LEWIS

WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 - Lawyers for Jose Padilla told the Supreme Court on Friday that it should not grant the government's emergency request to have him transferred from a military brig to civilian custody to face terrorism charges in a civil court.

The lawyers acknowledged that Mr. Padilla would prefer to be in civilian custody eventually. But they said it appeared that the only reason for the government's rush to move him was to bolster the administration's efforts to discourage the Supreme Court from reviewing the crucial underlying issue of whether President Bush had the authority to detain Mr. Padilla, an American citizen, as an enemy combatant for more than three years.
(Source: New York Times)

Can the President order the Executive branch to grab people off the street without a warrant and ship them off to third countries for questioning under torture? Does the President's proclamation that "we are at war" justify

Covert CIA Program Withstands New Furor
Anti-Terror Effort Continues to Grow

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 30, 2005; Page A01

The effort President Bush authorized shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, to fight al Qaeda has grown into the largest CIA covert action program since the height of the Cold War, expanding in size and ambition despite a growing outcry at home and abroad over its clandestine tactics, according to former and current intelligence officials and congressional and administration sources.
...
GST includes programs allowing the CIA to capture al Qaeda suspects with help from foreign intelligence services, to maintain secret prisons abroad, to use interrogation techniques that some lawyers say violate international treaties, and to maintain a fleet of aircraft to move detainees around the globe. Other compartments within GST give the CIA enhanced ability to mine international financial records and eavesdrop on suspects anywhere in the world.

Will 2006 be the year that the United States affirms the principles of justice this country has always stood for, or will this be the year we begin moving from a democracy to a paramilitary dictatorship?

Ethics and the ''Justice'' Department

2005-12-30T14:08:00.000-03:00

Pop quiz for the DC Bar's ethics committee:

You're a lawyer for the Department of Justice newly assigned to find out who told the news media about President Bush's warrantless wiretaps. However, this requires you to act in a way which supports actions by the administration that were almost certainly illegal.

Is an ethical attorney required to withdraw from the leak investigation? Are attorneys conducting an inquiry regarding who revealed illegal governmental activities subject to prosecution as accessories after the fact? Discuss.

Two Steps Back

2005-12-29T23:32:00.000-03:00

It seems that the only Iraqi security forces ready to take over for US troops can't be trusted to do their work unless monitored...by US troops:

US army aims to clean up Iraqi police
Thu Dec 29, 2005 12:52 PM ET
(Reuters)
By Alastair Macdonald

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. army in Baghdad plans to deploy large numbers of troops with Iraqi special police units to try to curb suspected sectarian militia activity among the police, a senior U.S. military official said on Thursday.

"We're going to try to wrap ourselves around them," the official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The lines are blurred now and it's not easy to determine that some operation tonight was directed ... by the MoI (Interior Ministry) or ... by some people in uniform ... who are part of somebody's posse," he said.

"We're trying to control that."

So, either from lack of training or excessive loyalty to their respective sectarian militias, Mr. Bush's assurances about Iraqi forces ready to operate without US ground support are simply not true. Same old same old...

Do Your City Police Use 500lb Bombs?

2005-12-29T13:20:00.000-03:00

W and his Bush League minions keep telling us how Iraqis are retaking control of their country and how things are getting better. Why, then, does the US need to use 500lb bombs in law enforcement activities?

Ten killed in US air strike on Iraqi village
(Reuters)
Thu Dec 29, 2005 9:42 AM ET

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. fighter jets dropped two 500-pound bombs on a village in northern Iraq, killing 10 Iraqis they suspected of planting explosive devices on a nearby road, the U.S. military said on Thursday.

The incident occurred on Tuesday in a small village near the town of Hawija, 50 km (30 miles) southwest of Kirkuk, the military said.

The pilots were flying a routine patrol when they saw three men digging holes by the side of major road and planting bombs in them, a statement said.

When they heard the planes overhead, the men jumped in a car and fled. They were soon joined by another car as the jets tracked them. They drove the cars into the village and tried to hide by parking between two buildings, the statement said.

The pilots then dropped two 500-pound laser-guided bombs.

"They were able to destroy the vehicles while causing only minimal damage to surrounding structures," the military said.

U.S. soldiers later raided the village and found assault rifles, a machine gun and bomb-making equipment in houses near the site of the air strike. They said they also found a bomb by the side of the road where the men were first spotted.

If the US press release is accurate, it's nice that insurgents planting roadside bombs were stopped. However, where were the Iraqi police? Where were the US troops? What does it say about law enforcement in Iraq generally when suspects must be bombed from the air because no ground forces are close enough to catch them?

Then there's the civilian population's inevitable reaction. How would YOU feel if suspected drive-by shooters in your home town were taken out with a tactical airstrike with "only minimal damage to surrounding structures?" Would you feel happy about the cops getting "tough on crime" or frightened at the thought of 500lb bombs hitting nearby?

Bush League Says Targeting Mosques Doesn't Target Muslims

2005-12-29T01:35:00.000-03:00

Just how stupid and hypocritical can W and his Bush League minions get?

U.S. Says It Didn't Target Muslims
Mosques Among Sites Monitored For Radiation

By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 29, 2005; Page B01

Faced with angry complaints, U.S. officials yesterday defended an anti-terrorism program that secretly tested radiation levels around the country -- including at more than 100 Muslim sites in the Washington area -- and insisted that no one was targeted because of his or her faith.

One official knowledgeable about the program explained that Muslim sites were included because al Qaeda terrorists were considered likely to gravitate to Muslim neighborhoods or mosques while in the United States.

Then there's this gem. The "Justice" Department claims it is unconstitutional for the judiciary to rule against him:

U.S. Defends Conduct in Padilla Case
Supreme Court Asked To Overrule 4th Circuit

By Jerry Markon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 29, 2005; Page A04

A federal appeals court infringed on President Bush's authority to run the war on terror when it refused to let prosecutors take custody of "enemy combatant" Jose Padilla, the Justice Department said yesterday, as it urged the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.
...
The Justice Department brief said the 4th Circuit had mischaracterized the events of Padilla's incarceration and engaged in "an unwarranted attack on the exercise of Executive discretion." Prosecutors accused the court of going so far as to "usurp" Bush's authority as the nation's commander-in-chief and his government's "prosecutorial discretion."

Apparently the Bush League argues it is unconstitutional to place any limits on the President's authority.

Tax Cuts Trump Supporting the Troops

2005-12-27T15:34:00.000-03:00

W and his Bush League minions mouth talking points about "supporting the troops" when they're talking about sending them into harm's way. However, Republicans really don't want to put their money where Bush's mouth is:

A Political Debate On Stress Disorder
As Claims Rise, VA Takes Stock

By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 27, 2005; Page A01

The spiraling cost of post-traumatic stress disorder among war veterans has triggered a politically charged debate and ignited fears that the government is trying to limit expensive benefits for emotionally scarred troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

In the past five years, the number of veterans receiving compensation for the disorder commonly called PTSD has grown nearly seven times as fast as the number receiving benefits for disabilities in general, according to a report this year by the inspector general of the Department of Veterans Affairs. A total of 215,871 veterans received PTSD benefit payments last year at a cost of $4.3 billion, up from $1.7 billion in 1999 -- a jump of more than 150 percent.

Cutting veterans' benefits so that Paris Hilton can get another tax cut - how very Republican.

Last Throes of the Neocon's Iraq Dreams

2005-12-27T13:43:00.000-03:00

Well, things look grim for the Bush League's minion and manipulator Ahmed Chalabi:

Chalabi Lacks Votes Needed to Win Spot in Iraqi Assembly

By Ellen Knickmeyer and Naseer Nouri
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, December 27, 2005; Page A18

BAGHDAD, Dec. 26 -- Unexpectedly low support from overseas voters has left Ahmed Chalabi -- the returned Iraqi exile once backed by the United States to lead Iraq -- facing a shutout from power in this month's vote for the country's first full-term parliament since the 2003 invasion.

Rebounding violence, which included bombings, assassination attempts and other attacks, claimed at least 19 lives in Iraq on Monday, including that of an American soldier. Eight members of a single Iraqi SWAT team were wiped out in what Iraqi authorities described as an hour-long shootout with better-armed insurgents.

Insurgent attacks up, Chalabi out, Sunni minority claiming electoral fraud by Shi'ites - I blame the media for failing to parrot whatever "good news" from Iraq gets broadcast to the receiver between Bush's shoulder blades for regurgitation.

Merry Christmas, Endangered Species!

2005-12-24T14:49:00.000-03:00

Few people deserve time in Club Fed more than this guy:

Probe of lobbyist ties Pombo to web of Indian money
Lawmaker allegedly helped Abramoff's clients on key issue

Richard A. Serrano, Judy Pasternak, Los Angeles Times

Saturday, December 24, 2005

Mashpee, Mass. -- Everybody got something.

The Mashpee Wampanoags, famed for greeting the Pilgrims at Plymouth, will probably be named a nationally recognized tribe -- a designation they've sought for 30 years to benefit from federal aid programs.

Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist embroiled in a Washington corruption scandal, and his firm championed the Indians' cause and pocketed tens of thousands of dollars in tribal money.

And Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Tracy, chairman of the influential House Resources Committee, landed a lucrative source of political donations: the small group of American Indians whose ancestral lands are about as far from his Northern California district as one can get in the United States.

The trifecta of money, politics and power that quietly came together over the last several years has attracted the attention of a federal law enforcement task force investigating the burgeoning Abramoff scandal.

Cheerful Non-Demoninational Gift Day!

2005-12-23T16:30:00.000-03:00

Another Bush League Pawn Threatened

2005-12-22T19:26:00.000-03:00

Bad enough to be sent to Iraq in the first place with inadequate armor and a murky mission - then this happens:

US says case closed in shooting of Italian agent
Thu Dec 22, 2005 4:22 PM ET

ROME (Reuters) - Italian magistrates have placed a U.S. marine under official investigation for murder over the killing of an Italian agent in Iraq earlier this year, judicial sources said on Thursday.

But the United States immediately said it considered the issue closed after a joint Italian-U.S. investigation, even though the two governments disagreed on the conclusion of that probe.

The Marine may have gotten spooked and fired outside protocol - but it should be George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld in the dock, not yet another low-level fall guy.

Turn the Corner, Find Brick Wall

2005-12-22T13:10:00.000-03:00

Well, the Iraqi elections turned out about as expected for a government run with advice from Republicans:

Iraq parties unite to reject poll

Sunni Arab and secular parties in Iraq have united to reject the results of last week's parliamentary elections, saying there was widespread fraud.

Representatives from 35 parties issued a statement threatening to boycott the new parliament if their complaints were not properly investigated.

Iraq's election commission says it has received complaints, but does not think the overall results will be affected.

The final results are expected to be announced at the beginning of January.
(Source: BBC News)

At best it sounds like we've successfully replaced a secular dictatorship that hated the US oppressed its people with a Theocracy that hates the US and will oppress its people. Not a great deal to show for $300 billion and 30,000 - 100,000+ dead.

Our Corrupt MBA President

2005-12-21T22:14:00.000-03:00

Interesting backdrop to today's pyrotechnics: it looks like the professionals are reasserting themselves:

The military's struggle with detainee abuses highlighted the clash between the JAGs and the civilian lawyers over the past two years; the military lawyers had strongly cautioned that approving extreme interrogation tactics could cause confusion in the field and could lead to abuses and public relations problems. Their concerns were shelved by civilian lawyers, who advocated the Bush administration's position that interrogators should have more flexibility in questioning suspected terrorists.

Memos the JAGs wrote explaining their concerns became public after prison abuses were reported last year, and Senate Armed Services Committee members expressed frustration that the military lawyers -- who accurately predicted the problems that would arise -- had been largely shoved aside.
(Source: Washington Post Pentagon Studies Raising Military Lawyers' Rank, Dec. 21, 2005 [emphasis added.])

And this:

Revolt of the Professionals

By David Ignatius

Wednesday, December 21, 2005; Page A31

The national security structure that the Bush administration created after Sept. 11, 2001, began to crumble this month because of a bipartisan revolt on Capitol Hill. Newly emboldened legislators forced the administration to accept new rules for the interrogation of prisoners, delayed renewal of the Patriot Act and demanded an investigation of warrantless wiretapping by the National Security Agency.

President Bush has bristled at these challenges to his authority over what has amounted to an undeclared national state of emergency. But the intelligence professionals who have daily responsibility for waging the war against terrorism don't seem particularly surprised or unhappy to see the emergency structure in trouble. They want clear rules and public support that will allow them to do their jobs effectively over the long haul, without getting second-guessed or jerked around by politicians. Basically, they don't want to be left holding the bag -- which this nation has too often done with its professional military and intelligence officers.

W and his Bush League minions may claim to be "grownups" - but so were Enron's Ken Lay and Adelphia's John Rigas. We need to replace the current Corrupt CEO President with real professionals...

Name the Location

2005-12-21T01:05:00.000-03:00

Here's an interesting quote:

"This election is completely false. It insults democracy everywhere. Everything was based on fraud, cheating, frightening people and using religion to frighten the people," he said. "It is terrorism more than democracy."

Was the speaker from:
a) Florida
b) Ohio
c) Iraq
d) Somewhere with Diebold voting machines,
or
e) other

Answer:

C: Iraq

Sunni, Secular Groups Demand New Vote
Claims That Iraqi Ballot Was Rigged Threaten to Derail Government, Boost Insurgency

By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, December 21, 2005; Page A23

BAGHDAD, Dec. 20 -- Sunni and secular political groups angrily claimed Tuesday that last week's Iraqi national election was rigged, demanded a new vote and threatened to leave a shambles the delicate plan to bring the country's wary factions together in a new government.
...
And Saleh Mutlak, who headed an independent Sunni slate, said: "I don't think there is any practical point for us for being in this National Assembly if things stay like this.

"This election is completely false. It insults democracy everywhere. Everything was based on fraud, cheating, frightening people and using religion to frighten the people," he said. "It is terrorism more than democracy."

Mutlak said he had expected his slate to capture 70 parliament seats, but he said it seemed likely to win fewer than 20, according to the preliminary results.

Sounds like the Republican party's vision of democracy is indeed taking hold in Iraq.

Political Investigations?

2005-12-20T22:58:00.000-03:00

Here's an interesting exercise called "Connecting the Dots."

Dot #1:

Three Were Told to Leave Bush Town Meeting

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 30, 2005; Page A04

Three Denver residents yesterday charged that they were forcibly removed from one of President Bush's town meetings on Social Security because they displayed a bumper sticker on their car condemning the administration's Middle East policies.

The three, all self-described progressives who oppose Bush's Social Security plan, said an unidentified official at an event in Denver last week forced them to leave before the president started to speak, even though they had done nothing disruptive, said their attorney, Dan Recht.

Dot #2:

FBI Papers Show Terror Inquiries Into PETA; Other Groups Tracked

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 20, 2005; Page A11

FBI counterterrorism investigators are monitoring domestic U.S. advocacy groups engaged in antiwar, environmental, civil rights and other causes, the American Civil Liberties Union charged yesterday as it released new FBI records that it said detail the extent of the activity.

I wonder whether the three people opposing the Bush Social Security Destruction Plan spoke or sent e-mails about going to Bush's speech? Was the NSA listening without a warrant? Did the FBI grab their e-mail correspondence using a "business records" warrant on their ISP? Sure would be interesting to find out - assuming the ACLU is still around come 2006...

Liberal Press Covers for Bush During Election

2005-12-20T13:23:00.000-03:00

The New York Times apparently knew W and his Bush League minions were violating federal law before the 2004 elections, and covered it up for as long as they could:

The initial Times statements did not say that the paper's internal debate began before the Nov. 2, 2004, presidential election — in which Iraq and national security questions loomed large — or make any reference to Risen's book, due out Jan. 16.

But two journalists, who declined to be identified, said that editors at the paper were actively considering running the story about the wiretaps before Bush's November showdown with Democratic Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts.

Top editors at the paper eventually decided to hold the story. But the discussion was renewed after the election, with Risen and coauthor of the story, reporter Eric Lichtblau, joining some of the paper's editors in pushing for publication, according to the sources, who said they did not want to be identified because the Times had designated only Keller and a spokeswoman to address the matter.

"When they realized that it was going to appear in the book anyway, that is when they went ahead and agreed to publish the story," said one of the journalists. "That's not to say that was their entire consideration, but it was a very important one of them."
(Source [via Atrios/Eschaton]: LA Times Critics Question Timing of Surveillance Story, Dec. 20, 2005 [emphasis added.])

So, those evil liberal media elitists at the New York Times kept the story a deep, dark secret until they found out it was going to come out anyway? I wonder whether they planned for the story to come out just after the so-called "Patriot" Act's renewal vote? Or maybe releasing the story when they did was more to distract us from their failure to publish it before Mr. Bush's "accountability moment" last November.

Bush League's Political Tactics Inspire Shi'ites

2005-12-20T12:53:00.000-03:00

It's always dangerous for a slim majority to cram its controversial policies down a minority's throat:

Later on Tuesday, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani called for a new government that includes all ethnic, religious and political groups.

He said Iraq could not "be governed by a majority that ignores the minority".
(Source: BBC News Sunni bloc rejects Baghdad vote, Dec 20, 2005 [emphasis added.])

Just another example of US-style politics overseas:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 - With tensions rising in the Capitol, Senate Democrats threatened on Monday to derail a $453 billion military spending bill over an Arctic oil drilling dispute, just hours after the House approved the measure in an all-night session that also included passage of a $40 billion budget-cutting bill.
(Source: Washington Post Democrats Threaten to Derail Budget Bill, Dec 20, 2005.)

Why are the Republicans so intent upon destroying this country?

George Bush Has Gone Plumb Loco

2005-12-19T01:57:00.000-03:00

How else to explain his belief that "we have a strong ally" and also his belief that withdrawing US troops would "hand Iraq over to enemies." The BBC reports:

US President George W Bush has told Americans that Iraq is now a strong ally against terror and a force for democracy in the Middle East.

He went prime-time TV to defend the continuing US role in Iraq, rejecting the view that the war there was "not worth another dime or another day".

A US military pullout now, he said, would "hand Iraq over to enemies".
(Source: BBC News Bush hails Iraqi anti-terror role, Dec 18, 2005 [emphasis added.])

Interestingly, a US military pullout is likely to be one of the first things a democratically-elected Iraqi government will demand:

But Saleh al-Mutlak, a Sunni Arab nationalist who stood in the parliamentary election and has spoken up for insurgent views, said Americans were not welcome in Iraq and should leave.

His comments echoed those of outspoken Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who accused the Americans on Saturday of peddling their own agenda and disregarding Iraqis.
(Source: Reuters Cheney visits Iraq amid calls for US pullout, Dec 18, 2005)

If the Shiite and Sunni extremists agree that the US troops must go (undoubtedly so their respective militias can fight it out for supremacy) it is going to be very difficult to put together a government that will ask the US to stay...

Tales of the Imperial President

2005-12-17T22:31:00.000-03:00

George Bush claims he can't be bothered to seek warrants from the special FISA court specifically created to hear such requests speedily and secretly. Meanwhile, his "Justice" Department continues to claim that Jose Padilla's appeal to the Supreme Court is now moot even though they claim he is still an enemy combatant and they still have the right to lock him up without charges:

In a brief filed late Friday, the administration argued that Mr. Padilla's indictment last month by a federal grand jury has given him the "very relief" he sought when he filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in federal court. Any Supreme Court decision now on his petition, which a federal appeals court rejected in September, "will have no practical effect" on Mr. Padilla, the brief said.

Jose Padilla's lawyers argue that

The government should not be allowed to claim the case is moot, the brief said, because the administration has not withdrawn Mr. Padilla's designation as an enemy combatant and has refused to foreclose the prospect of sending him back to military detention if he is acquitted in a civilian trial.

The lawyers told the Fourth Circuit that in its treatment of Mr. Padilla, "the government has repeatedly altered its factual allegations to suit its goals, and it has actively manipulated the federal courts to avoid accountability for its actions."
(Source: New York Times Justices Are Urged to Dismiss Padilla's Case, Dec. 18, 2005 [emphasis added].)

Manipulation of the facts seems to be the Bush league's answer to just about everything, from pre-war Iraq intelligence distortions to environmental concerns:

'The Republican War on Science,' by Chris Mooney
Political Science

Review by JOHN HORGAN
Published: December 18, 2005

Last spring, a magazine asked me to look into a whistleblower case involving a United States Fish and Wildlife Service biologist named Andy Eller. Eller, a veteran of 18 years with the service, was fired after he publicly charged it with failing to protect the Florida panther from voracious development. One of the first species listed under the Endangered Species Act, the panther haunts southwest Florida's forests, which builders are transforming into gated golf communities. After several weeks of interviews, I wrote an article that called the service's treatment of Eller "shameful"...

My editor complained that the piece was too "one-sided"... On the other hand, the reality was one-sided, to a startling degree. An ardent conservationist, Eller had dreamed of working for the Wildlife Service since his youth; he collected first editions of environmental classics like Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring." The officials who fired him based their denial that the panther is threatened in part on data provided by a former state wildlife scientist who had since become a consultant for developers seeking to bulldoze panther habitat. The officials were clearly acting in the spirit of their overseer, Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, a property-rights advocate who has questioned the constitutionality of aspects of the Endangered Species Act.
(Source: New York Times [emphasis added.])

What Liberal Media Bias???

2005-12-16T13:43:00.000-03:00

President Bush has admitted defeat in Dick Cheney's plan to keep torture legal. However, many of the "liberal" media's headline writers portrayed Mr. Bush's defeat on this issue either neutrally or as a "deal on torture" with McCain. Reading the article gave the true picture in most cases, but folks just scanning the headlines wouldn't realize that a Republican Congress handed their Republican President a major policy defeat.

Here's a sampling of the headlines:

Christian Science Monitor: Congress moves toward clear policy against torture (The article doesn't seem to mention how bitterly "Darth" Cheney fought against McCain's bill.

Reuters: White House, McCain in deal on torture measure (What deal? The president was forced to accept McCain's bill after bitterly opposing it.)

Associated Press: Deal on Torture Clears Way for Defense Bills (Nothing to see here, move on...)

New York Times: President Backs McCain Measure on Inmate Abuse (That's funny - didn't he oppose it until just recently?)

BBC: White House backs torture ban law (after fighting it for weeks...)

Some newspapers crafted headlines accurately portraying the Cheney/Bush administration's defeat on this issue:

Washington Post: President Relents, Backs Torture Ban

L.A. Times: McCain Wins Agreement From Bush on Torture Ban

Chicago Tribune: Bush OKs McCain's torture ban
President reverses opposition to amendment against `cruel, inhuman, degrading' tactics

Making the World Safe for Theocracy

2005-12-13T00:57:00.000-03:00

I'm not sure how helping Iran take over in Iraq helps our country's interests:

Posted on Mon, Dec. 12, 2005

Iran gaining influence, power in Iraq through militia

By Tom Lasseter

Knight Ridder Newspapers

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The Iranian-backed militia the Badr Organization has taken over many of the Iraqi Interior Ministry's intelligence activities and infiltrated its elite commando units, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

That's enabled the Shiite Muslim militia to use Interior Ministry vehicles and equipment - much of it bought with American money - to carry out revenge attacks against the minority Sunni Muslims, who persecuted the Shiites under Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein, current and former Ministry of Interior employees told Knight Ridder.

The officials, some of whom agreed to speak only on the condition of anonymity for fear of violent reprisals, said the Interior Ministry had become what amounted to an Iranian fifth column inside the U.S.-backed Iraqi government, running death squads and operating a network of secret prisons.

Somehow, I doubt W and his Bush League minions planned on replacing Saddam Hussein with Ayatollah Khomeini's heirs. That's the problem with reality - sometimes it bites.

Mr. President, Apologise to "Old Europe" NOW

2005-12-11T16:58:00.000-03:00

The news then:

But in a sign of the open rifts within the Council, the French and Russian foreign ministers both received applause when they said there was no justification yet for a war with Iraq.

These unusual and undiplomatic displays caused German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, current council president, to ask for order inside the chamber. (Source: BBC News Arms report deepens UN split, Feb. 19, 2003.)

The pundits then:

CHARLES KUPCHAN (a former director for European affairs on the National Security Council under President Clinton): I think in the first instance, it makes clear that there is a broad difference in how the U.S. is approaching the process of the U.N. and how the French are going about it. I think for the U.S. there is a decision probably last summer that said we need to go to war against Iraq. And then the Bush administration said let's go to the U.N. to build support for it.

I think the French said, let's go to the U.N. and see if we can find a way to avoid war. War is a last resort. It may come. We will be there if the proof of weapons of mass destruction is there. But we don't see that proof yet...

...most Security Council members are lining up behind France, not with the United States. World opinion is generally saying we want more evidence that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. Even Americans are saying President Bush has yet to make the case.

And so I think if the U.S. goes down this route without broader support at the U.N. not just the French but other key members in the Security Council, it will essentially be... to say we are putting ourselves above the law and I think that what we will see is a real undermining of the sense of multilateralism of shared interests that has held the west together over the last few decades.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Babbin, your response.

JED BABBIN (former deputy undersecretary of defense in the first Bush administration): Well, frankly multilateralism is what got us into this pickle to start with. We listened to our so-called multi-lateral partners in 1991 and did not remove Saddam then...This is not an issue of multilateralism. This is an issue of a direct threat. I also wanted to remark mainly Mr. Kupchan is saying there is no evidence of weapons of mass destruction. On the contrary, there is enormous evidence, and if Mr. Blix had made a serious inspection in the places where we have good reason to believe that the bad stuff is, he would have found things.
(Source: PBS Newshour Resisting War France suggests it might veto any new U.N. resolution authorizing military action against Iraq. Jan 21, 2003 [emphasis added.])

Too bad the French weren't as bold in telling the truth as W and his Bush League minions were about hiding it:

French Told CIA of Bogus Intelligence
The foreign spy service warned the U.S. various times before the war that there was no proof Iraq sought uranium from Niger, ex-officials say.

By Tom Hamburger, Peter Wallsten and Bob Drogin, Times Staff Writers

PARIS — More than a year before President Bush declared in his 2003 State of the Union speech that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear weapons material in Africa, the French spy service began repeatedly warning the CIA in secret communications that there was no evidence to support the allegation.

The previously undisclosed exchanges between the U.S. and the French, described in interviews last week by the retired chief of the French counterintelligence service and a former CIA official, came on separate occasions in 2001 and 2002.

Bush and his minions KNEW they were lying about the Iraq WMD threat and invaded anyway. Sounds like an illegal war of aggression to me...

Shooting The Messenger - Again

2005-12-10T14:06:00.000-03:00

When W and his Bush League minions get news they don't want to hear, they ignore it:

Staff Opinions Banned In Voting Rights Cases
Criticism of Justice Dept.'s Rights Division Grows

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, December 10, 2005; Page A03

The Justice Department has barred staff attorneys from offering recommendations in major Voting Rights Act cases, marking a significant change in the procedures meant to insulate such decisions from politics, congressional aides and current and former employees familiar with the issue said.

Disclosure of the change comes amid growing public criticism of Justice Department decisions to approve Republican-engineered plans in Texas and Georgia that were found to hurt minority voters by career staff attorneys who analyzed the plans. Political appointees overruled staff findings in both cases.

Score one for El Busho in The Bush League's ongoing battle against reality...

On Padilla and Torture

2005-12-09T12:19:00.000-03:00

More and more, it's looking like Dick Cheney's "fight evil with evil" approach to al Qaeda was a waste of time, money, and reputation:

Senator probes Justice Dept handling of Padilla
Thu Dec 8, 2005 7:08 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter on Thursday said he was launching a formal inquiry into Justice Department treatment of an American charged by the government after being held by the military for more than three years as an "enemy combatant."

"I'm making a formal inquiry of the Department of Justice as to why they're handling (Jose) Padilla as they have," Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, told reporters. He said he may hold a committee hearing on the matter.

A U.S. appeals court on November 30 delayed Padilla's transfer to a civilian jail, saying the government must explain why it used different facts to justify his military detention from those included in last month's indictment, which charged him with conspiracy to murder and aiding terrorists abroad.
...
"I think there's a real question raised when you hold a citizen for three and a half years on a charge that he's going to explode a dirty bomb, and then, when the Supreme Court is considering taking jurisdiction of the case, to withdraw. That troubles me," Specter said.

Senator Spector should already know why the 'Justice" Department changed their tune:

This torture of top al-Qaida leaders may also cause problems for the government were there to be a trial for the alleged "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla. The tip that led to Padilla's initial detention on a material witness warrant in May 2002 came from intensive CIA interrogations of Zubaida, a close associate of Osama Bin Laden. In December 2003, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ordered that Padilla be released from military custody and either charged in federal court or released. However, any prosecution of Padilla could be very problematic for the government, because the case for his guilt rests mostly (if not entirely) on secret interrogations of al-Qaida leaders, which now appear to have involved torture. If a criminal case is ever brought against Padilla, his lawyers are sure to challenge this crucial evidence on a number of grounds, including reliability and the fact that it was procured with torture in a way that "shocks the conscience."
(Source: Phillip Carter, Slate Tainted by Torture - How evidence obtained through coercion is undermining the legal war on terrorism.May 14, 2004)

Evidence gained through torture is often unreliable:

Qaeda-Iraq Link U.S. Cited Is Tied to Coercion Claim
By DOUGLAS JEHL (New York Times)

WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.

The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.

The new disclosure provides the first public evidence that bad intelligence on Iraq may have resulted partly from the administration's heavy reliance on third countries to carry out interrogations of Qaeda members and others detained as part of American counterterrorism efforts. The Bush administration used Mr. Libi's accounts as the basis for its prewar claims, now discredited, that ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda included training in explosives and chemical weapons.

The fact that Mr. Libi recanted after the American invasion of Iraq and that intelligence based on his remarks was withdrawn by the C.I.A. in March 2004 has been public for more than a year. But American officials had not previously acknowledged either that Mr. Libi made the false statements in foreign custody or that Mr. Libi contended that his statements had been coerced.

So - all this time and taxpayer money wasted in the name of "defending the homeland against terror" and what was achieved? The destruction of our reputation for honesty and justice, desperately-needed allies shying away from cooperation, al Qaeda trumpeting our hypocrisy on their recruiting posters, and some sound bites of how we're "getting tough" on terrorists by becoming a terrorist nation ourselves. Another triumph for our CEO President.

Jesus Bans Focus on the Family organization

2005-12-09T11:59:00.000-03:00

Pity it's only humor, but I'm sure God would confirm this report if he was asked:

Jesus Bans "Christian" Group
Shocking announcement sends militant Focus on the Family organization into crazed tailspin

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Friday, December 9, 2005

In an astonishing but not completely unexpected announcement, Jesus H. Christ, vice president and CFO of All That Is Inc., appeared today on a large tortilla at a roadside taco stand in Zacatecas, Mexico, to announce that, effective immediately, the pseudo-Christian group Focus on the Family, led by Dr. James Dobson and best known for its blazing hatred of gays and its fear of glimpsing the human female nipple during nationally televised sporting events, is effectively banned from His Divine Beneficence.

Bush Administration to http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifOutsource 100% of Torture

2005-12-08T11:54:00.000-03:00

Extraordinary renditions (kidnapping suspects and shipping them off to other countries known to use torture) will continue - but the US promises that its own people won't be doing the "harsh" interrogating:

Posted on Wed, Dec. 07, 2005

Cruel treatment banned everywhere, Rice says, signaling policy shift

By Warren P. Strobel and Drew Brown

Knight Ridder Newspapers

KIEV, Ukraine - In what appears to be a major shift in U.S. policy on detainees, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday that U.S. forces operating overseas are prohibited from mistreating suspected terrorists.

Previously, the Bush administration had argued that its obligation to uphold a ban on "cruel, inhumane and degrading" practices under the Convention Against Torture, a United Nations treaty, applied only to U.S. territory.

"As a matter of U.S. policy, the United States' obligations under the CAT (Convention Against Torture), which prohibits cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment - those obligations extend to U.S. personnel wherever they are, whether they are in the United States or outside of the United States," Rice said during a stop in Kiev.

Remember when Don Rumsfeld said US personnel observing torture had no duty to interfere, only to object? The nationality of the person waterboarding you has little if any effect on the resulting suffering - and we're still seeing no real effort made to ensure the people being "harshly questioned" actually know anything.

The CIA inspector general is investigating a growing number of what it calls "erroneous renditions," according to several former and current intelligence officials.

One official said about three dozen names fall in that category; others believe it is fewer. The list includes several people whose identities were offered by al Qaeda figures during CIA interrogations, officials said. One turned out to be an innocent college professor who had given the al Qaeda member a bad grade, one official said.

"They picked up the wrong people, who had no information. In many, many cases there was only some vague association" with terrorism, one CIA officer said.
(Source: Washington Post, Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake Dec. 4, 2005 [emphasis added.])

Murtha for President!

2005-12-07T20:05:00.000-03:00

Read the whole thing on the Washington Post's website, but - WOW!

Rep. Murtha Holds a News Conference to Respond to President Bush's Speech

Courtesy FDCH eMedia
Wednesday, December 7, 2005; 2:46 PM

DECEMBER 7, 2005

SPEAKER: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE JOHN MURTHA (D-PA)

MURTHA: Let me start by going through a timeline and then get to what the president said.

In May 1, 2003, the president declared it was a major -- end of major operations. Then he sent John Hamre to Iraq. John Hamre was undersecretary of defense in the Clinton administration. And he found all kinds of problems. He said: You got three months, three critical months to get this thing under control if you want to control the security; 12 months at the most, but three months are crucial, the first three months.
...
MURTHA: I went there -- now this was July (2003) that Hamre made his report and it was a very prescient report. I mean, it was a very accurate report about the predictions of what was going to happen. And we have a copy of it here for you.

In August 16th, I went to Iraq, from August 16th to the 20th. When I came back, I said to Secretary Rumsfeld: We require immediate attention of body armor. They said they were prepared. They said they had what they needed.

Forty thousand troops didn't have body armor. They needed armored Humvees. They needed jammers and Kevlar blankets they asked for. This was all levels of people in Iraq at the time.

And then I wrote to the president on September 4th and I said, "I believe you have miscalculated the magnitude of the effort we are facing. We should energize, Iraqitize and internationalize this effort."
...
Now, you remember, I wrote to the president in September 4th of 2003. I got a letter back in April 6th, 2004. The president didn't write back. I received a response from a deputy undersecretary -- paints a totally rosy, unrealistic picture, saying 200,000 Iraqis -- now, hear what I'm saying -- 200,000 Iraqis under arms, reconstruction projects and 70 percent of Iraqis feel -- or 2,200 reconstruction projects -- 70 percent of Iraqis feel life is good.
...
...Now, you'll see a document that's in this package here that told me six months before -- well, in the victory document he says we have 212,000 people trained now, Iraqi security people. Last year, we had 96,000.

Yet, they wrote to me six months before the last year's statement that said they had 200,000. Now, why don't I believe them when they say anything? ...
...

The whole speech is brilliant. Here's the part to e-mail Senator Lieberman:

Well, why would I say "collapse"? I mean, who told you "collapse"? The Bush administration tell you "collapse"?
...
You see, this is the problem. They got all these thousands of people out there talking this way and they say there's going to be a collapse, they say there's going to be more insurgencies, they say there's terrorist activity. That doesn't mean it's so.

I've seen damn little things that they have said was true turned out to be true. That's my problem.

Bush's Special Relationship with God revealed

2005-12-07T15:11:00.000-03:00

From the second-best source of investigative reporting on the planet:

Voice Of God Revealed To Be Cheney On Intercom

December 7, 2005 | Issue 41•49

WASHINGTON, DC—Telephone logs recorded by the National Security Agency and obtained by Congress as part of an ongoing investigation suggest that the vice president may have used the Oval Office intercom system to address President Bush at crucial moments, giving categorical directives in a voice the president believed to be that of God.

I know the Onion portrays itself as satire rather than straight news, but one has to take them seriously after their breaking the Bush Seeks U.N. Support For 'U.S. Does Anything It Wants' Plan...

Reuters: US "renditions" on shaky legal ground

2005-12-06T15:13:00.000-03:00

Can you say "War Crimes Tribunal?"

Lawyers say US "renditions" on shaky legal ground
Tue Dec 6, 2005 10:25 AM ET

By Mark Trevelyan, Security Correspondent

BERLIN (Reuters) - Secret U.S. transfers of terrorist suspects are open to challenge under several statutes of international law, despite Washington's most robust defense yet of their legality, human rights lawyers said on Monday.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended the practice of "rendition", which she defined as transporting terrorist suspects from one country to another "to be questioned, held or brought to justice".
...
Human rights lawyers said some of the cases which have come to light amounted to "disappearing people", a practice recognized as illegal for decades since its widespread use by Latin American governments in the 1970s.

"If we're actually taking people, abducting them and then placing them in incommunicado detention, which appears to be the case, we would be actually guilty then of a disappearance under international law, in addition to a rendition," said Meg Satterthwaite of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law.

Too bad they're reverting to a "dueling talking heads" style in reporting this - but at least they're reporting it.

Meanwhile, George Bush just told a big lie. He said the United States does not secretly move terrorism suspects to foreign countries that torture to get information. Condoleeza Rice is a bit more accurate:

"The United States has not transported anyone, and will not transport anyone, to a country when we believe he will be tortured. Where appropriate, the United States seeks assurances that transferred persons will not be tortured," Rice said.
(Source: Reuters, supra.)

Reuters was nice enough to present the counter-argument:

(Meg Satterthwaite of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law noted) "It's kind of absurd to say that we don't know that they're at a risk of torture, or that we believe that X or Y government would not torture this individual, when we know through our own State Department reports that myriad people have been tortured in the same facilities, same locations."

Reality vs. The Bush League: Human Rights Respected?

2005-12-04T13:57:00.000-03:00

The Bush League's message as spouted by Condoleeza Rice and Scott McClellan:"Trust us, we're the US Government?"

Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern told the New York Times that Ms Rice told him in Washington that she expected allies to trust that America does not allow rights abuses.
...
On Friday White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that the US does not violate human rights.

"When it comes to human rights, there is no greater leader than the United States of America, and we show that by holding people accountable when they break the law or violate human rights," he said.
(Source: BBC News Rice 'to talk tough on CIA claim', Dec. 4, 2005)

Reality paints a different picture:

Wrongful Imprisonment: Anatomy of a CIA Mistake
German Citizen Released After Months in 'Rendition'

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, December 4, 2005; Page A01

In May 2004, the White House dispatched the U.S. ambassador in Germany to pay an unusual visit to that country's interior minister. Ambassador Daniel R. Coats carried instructions from the State Department transmitted via the CIA's Berlin station because they were too sensitive and highly classified for regular diplomatic channels, according to several people with knowledge of the conversation.

Coats informed the German minister that the CIA had wrongfully imprisoned one of its citizens, Khaled Masri, for five months, and would soon release him, the sources said. There was also a request: that the German government not disclose what it had been told even if Masri went public. The U.S. officials feared exposure of a covert action program designed to capture terrorism suspects abroad and transfer them among countries, and possible legal challenges to the CIA from Masri and others with similar allegations.
..
The CIA inspector general is investigating a growing number of what it calls "erroneous renditions," according to several former and current intelligence officials.

One official said about three dozen names fall in that category; others believe it is fewer. The list includes several people whose identities were offered by al Qaeda figures during CIA interrogations, officials said. One turned out to be an innocent college professor who had given the al Qaeda member a bad grade, one official said.

"They picked up the wrong people, who had no information. In many, many cases there was only some vague association" with terrorism, one CIA officer said.
(Emphasis added.)

The next step for W and his Bush League minions is to find some low-level operatives and charge them with "misinterpreting" Rumsfeld's and Cheney's orders.

Note that many of these innocents were picked up after they were identified "by al Qaeda figures during CIA interrogations." In other words, torturing the "high value" al Qaeda folks yielded bad intelligence. One can speculate an al Qaeda cell agreeing upon some mutually disliked but innocent person for them to identify as their leader if captured. If that person suddenly "disappears" - the rest of the group knows their buddy was grabbed by the CIA.

Al Qaida Recruits Rodents

2005-12-01T15:57:00.000-03:00

Russian squirrel pack 'kills dog'
BBC News
Dec. 1, 2005

Squirrels have bitten to death a stray dog which was barking at them in a Russian park, local media report.

Passers-by were reportedly too late to stop the attack by the black squirrels in a village in the far east, which reportedly lasted about a minute.

They are said to have scampered off at the sight of humans, some carrying pieces of flesh.

A pine cone shortage may have led the squirrels to seek other food sources, although scientists are sceptical.

Attack of the Folks Formerly Known As Insurgents

2005-12-01T12:52:00.000-03:00

The folks Don Rumsfeld tells us don't deserve to be called "insurgents" are so despirate, they're stepping up their attacks:

Insurgent 'attack' on Iraqi city
BBC News
Dec. 1, 2005

Insurgents attacked US bases and government offices in Ramadi, in central Iraq, and then dispersed throughout the city, reports say.

Heavily-armed insurgents fired mortars and rockets at the buildings and then occupied several main streets, residents told news agencies.
...
(US Marines spokesman)Captain Pool accused the militants of exaggerating the scale of the attack.

"This is clearly a sign of how desperate insurgents have become," he said.
...
Residents told the Reuters news agency earlier that hundreds of heavily armed men in masks had for a time patrolled the main streets of the city and set up checkpoints...

What a Great Program

2005-11-30T15:02:00.000-03:00

Tom Toles explains how W's Guest Worker Program should work

Bush Seeking Iran's Help in Iraq

2005-11-29T18:19:00.000-03:00

Bush's new "cut and run" policy: Give Iraq to the Shiites:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- U.S. President George W. Bush has authorized the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad to meet Iranian officials to help secure Iraq after the Pentagon starts withdrawing troops, Newsweek reported on Monday.

In the December 5 issue of Newsweek, which hit news stands on Monday, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said he had explicit permission from Bush to begin a diplomatic dialogue with Iran about Iraq.

"I've been authorized by the president to engage the Iranians as I engaged them in Afghanistan directly," said Khalilzad, a former U.S. envoy to Afghanistan. "There will be meetings, and that's also a departure and an adjustment."
(Source: Reuters US Iraq ambassador to discuss Iraq with Iran, Nov. 28, 2005.

Back in October, Bush was singing a very different tune:

Third, we're determined to deny radical groups the support and sanctuary of outlaw regimes. State sponsors like Syria and Iran have a long history of collaboration with terrorists, and they deserve no patience from the victims of terror. The United States makes no distinction between those who commit acts of terror and those who support and harbor them, because they're equally as guilty of murder. (Applause.) Any government that chooses to be an ally of terror has also chosen to be an enemy of civilization.
(Source: White House Web Site: President Discusses War on Terror at National Endowment for Democracy, Oct. 6, 2005 [emphasis added.])

If Iran is a sponsor of terrorism, and we're seeking to cooperate with them, doesn't that make the US an "enemy of civilization" according to President Bush?

Say Good-Night, Duke

2005-11-28T17:34:00.000-03:00

Hyper-patriot and Republican Randy "Duke" Cunningham seems to be on the leading edge of the Republican Party's efforts to re-establish a two-party system of government in these United States via self-destructive behavior:

SAN DIEGO – Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham resigned from Congress Monday morning after pleading guilty to conspiring to take bribes in exchange for using his influence to help a defense contractor get business.

"I was not strong enough to face the truth," Cunningham said in a news conference outside the federal courthouse, his voice breaking. "The truth is I broke the law, concealed my conduct and disgraced my office."
(Source: San Diego Union Tribune Cunningham pleads guilty, resigns from Congress, Nov.28, 2005.)

Give him his due: there isn't anything in his statement about "overzealous junkyard dog prosecutors trying to criminalize politics." Maybe he can get a job writing resignation-under-cloud-of-corruption speeches for the Abramoff scandal's participants...

A System of Men, Not Laws

2005-11-27T14:11:00.000-03:00

Because you can't have freedom and a justice system based on the "rule of law" unless you also maintain the right to ignore those principles whenever they're inconvenient:

The government says a secret and unilateral decision-making process is necessary because of the nature of the evidence it deals with. Officials described the approach as a practical one that weighs a mix of often-sensitive factors.

"Much thought goes into how and why various tools are used in these often complicated cases," Tasia Scolinos, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said on Friday. "The important thing is for someone not to come away thinking this whole process is arbitrary, which it is not."
(Source: New York Times In Terror Cases, Administration Sets Own Rules, Nov. 27, 2005.)

In other words, the Bush Administration feels that grabbing anyone they want, anywhere they want, questioning them via torture and imprisoning them without appeal is fully justified by the simple phrase: "Trust Us, We're The Government."

Timeless Lessons

2005-11-26T03:23:00.000-03:00

Which world government is this referring to?

...the government's lies and attempts to cover up the disaster - and the angry public reaction to them - have underscored how brittle government credibility is...

Katrina?

Iraq?

Click here for the answer.

Winning Hearts and Minds

2005-11-25T23:51:00.000-03:00

Why do they hate America? Here's the news from Bahrain:

But although Mr Al Nuaimi knew he was being released, he said his ordeal in captivity did not end until the moment he stepped off the plane that brought him to Bahrain.

He claimed he was denied a shower on his last day in captivity, was not allowed to use the toilet in private on the plane, had his ankles and wrists shackled with handcuffs chained to his waist during the journey and made to wear goggles to block his vision and hearing.
...
"On the night before coming home, I needed a bath because I couldn't pray before I bathed," he said.

"But when I asked the guard, they refused to let me have a shower. They said 'today is not the day for showers'.

"I said: 'Are you trying to fight my religion? You're stopping me from praying because you're stopping me from showering'.

"All human beings need showers every day. There's no such thing as 'this is not a shower day'.

"So I had to take a shower in my cell, getting everything wet."
...
Mr Al Nuaimi said he did not eat or drink throughout the flight because he could not use the toilet, which he said detainees were being forced to do in front of cameras and under observation.

After asking, Mr Al Nuaimi said he was taken to the toilet by guards, but claimed he was being photographed and watched.

He said he could see flashes of light reflected off the lenses of his goggles coming from the side of the plane where he had previously seen people sitting.

"I felt like my bladder was going to explode," he said.

"The people were in front of me and they wanted me to go to the toilet in front of everyone.

"I yelled: 'Do you think that we are animals?'
...
In addition, he claimed that detainees were assaulted during the flight.

"Throughout the whole journey, every five or 10 minutes, soldiers would come up and jump on us with their full weight, pulling the shackles on our legs and checking our hands," he said.

"They claimed they wanted to be sure we were not going to escape and that we were secured."

When he asked for tissue to wipe his eyes when they started watering, he said he was at first allowed, but later refused for "security reasons".

In addition, he said that the guards were unable to take off the detainees' handcuffs when they got here because there was a problem with the keys.

"They are professionals at putting people in cages, but don't know how to let them out," he said.
(Source: Gulf Daily News I was sad to leave my friends behind, Nov 26, 2005.)

How many recruits did al Qaida pick up from that one article?

Rove's Anonymous Phone Calls?

2005-11-25T19:52:00.000-03:00

Yeah, and the Richard Nixon Used Car Emporium is having a sale this weekend...

Iraqi Official Says He Received Call From Resistance Leader
By EDWARD WONG
Published: November 25, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 25 - A senior aide to Iraq's president said today that some insurgent groups had contacted him to discuss joining in the American-backed political process.
...
Because of the sketchy details provided by the general, it was difficult to assess the significance of the calls. In the last year, some politicians have announced that they were in touch with various insurgent groups, only to have serious doubts later raised about the importance and legitimacy of those contacts.

One notable example involved Aiham al-Samarraie, the former electricity minister, who asserted months ago that he was talking to several insurgent groups. The groups he named then posted statements on Web sites calling Mr. Samarraie a liar and demanding that he be killed. Mr. Samarraie, who is running for Parliament in the Dec. 15 elections, still says he has ties to certain factions in the insurgency.

I'll believe it when the insurgents contact al Jazeera, and not before. (Much like I'd immediately believe Bill O'Reilly if he announced he had proof that Bush wanted to bomb al Jazeera's offices in Qatar.)

Reality vs. The Bush League: The Chalabi Diaries

2005-11-25T13:37:00.000-03:00

Here's an interesting quote:

Cheney poked his finger in Powell's chest outside a principals meeting in the White House, according to a senior administration official, and yelled: "It's all YOUR fault. If you had let us put Chalabi in charge none of this would have happened."
(Source: Joseph Galloway Knight Ridder Washington Bureau `Dishonest and reprehensible' words from Dick Cheney, Nov. 23, 2005.

Bringing "democracy" to the Middle East by installing yet another CIA-created puppet?

Working under this extraordinary transfer of secret authority, Rendon assembled a group of anti-Saddam militants, personally gave them their name -- the Iraqi National Congress -- and served as their media guru and "senior adviser" as they set out to engineer an uprising against Saddam. It was as if President John F. Kennedy had outsourced the Bay of Pigs operation to the advertising and public-relations firm of J. Walter Thompson.
(Source: Rolling Stone The Man Who Sold the War - Meet John Rendon, Bush's general in the propaganda war [emphasis added.])

Maybe the reason why democracy hasn't taken off in the Middle East is because W and his Bush League minions think "democracy" means "US-installed puppet dictatorship." This used to work in the 1950s - and it would have kept working, too if it weren't for those darned 1960s student activists.

Reality vs. The Bush League: Mars Delusions

2005-11-24T14:35:00.000-03:00

Remember George Bush's ~~plan to destroy NASA~~ oops, I mean "Vision for Space?" The one where we cut funding of the Hubble Space Telescope in favor of visions for expensive and purposeless manned missions? The one requiring billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars at a time where Mr. Bush was trying to "drown the beast" with tax cuts? Now that the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina maxed out the credit cards, guess which agency's funding is getting cut?

Bush's Space Plan in Danger
Shuttle Program's Deficit May Mean Far Fewer Flights

By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 24, 2005; Page A01

A large deficit in NASA's troubled shuttle program threatens to seriously delay and possibly cripple President Bush's space exploration initiative unless the number of planned flights is cut virtually in half or the White House agrees to add billions of dollars to the human spaceflight budget.

Sources familiar with ongoing negotiations between NASA and the White House say the administration has no intention of spending extra money to deal with a shortfall that some space experts say could exceed $6 billion from 2006 to 2010, when NASA plans to retire the shuttle for good.
...
Initially, Congress expressed suspicion that the initiative was either a grandiose but empty gesture or a risky project that would cannibalize established NASA programs to raise the needed funding. Last year, it took an eleventh-hour arm-twist by then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) to win passage of NASA's $16.1 billion budget, but this year lawmakers easily passed the 2006 budget -- for the full $16.5 billion the White House requested.

Now, Congress' worst fears have come true: Mr. Bush's "Let's cut the Hubble Telescope so we can go to Mars" program is now shown to be a trojan horse aimed at destroying NASA. Bush's true plan was clear: first use the development costs as an excuse to gut NASA's useful and popular programs; second, claim the Mars trip was too expensive and cut that as well; and third, close down NASA completely and shift the civilian work to "private enterprise" while handing off military satellite launches to the US Air Force.

For those not paying attention, part 2 just started. I believe part 3 is scheduled for just after the 2006 elections - probably timed for the first deficit reports in 2007.

People claim Mr. Bush is stupid because he promises one thing and then immediately does things designed to make the original promise unachieveable. If one instead assumes Mr. Bush intends the obvious consequences of his actions and has no qualms about lying to achieve them, it is much easier to see where we're actually going.

This fits in well with appointing John Bolton to the UN. The only rational excuse for this appointment was to create an excuse for the US to pull out of the UN. Mr. Bolton has set about creating just such an excuse:

The assembly's decisions on budgets are taken by consensus and allow the United States, which pays 22 percent of the budget, to block them. Privately, EU members, who collectively pay some 35 percent of the budget, fear the Bolton plan might backfire, with developing nations rejecting all reform plans.

In interviews and comments to reporters in the past two weeks, Bolton has warned the United States might bypass the United Nations if it does not undergo radical changes.
(Source: Reuters EU rejects US tactics on UN reform, Nov. 23, 2005 [emphasis added.])

Classic Bush League MO: set an obvious course directly for your goal while telling blatant lies (a.k.a: "spinning") about your intentions.

Do As We Say, Not As We Do

2005-11-23T15:05:00.000-03:00

Ambassador John Bolton generates sound bites for the US public:

Bolton said the General Assembly has "essentially not made progress" since President Bush and other world leaders convened a U.N. summit in September to endorse a platform of changes, including proposals to increase scrutiny of spending practices and to create a human rights council that would exclude rights abusers. He said that continued resistance to change in the organization would drive the American public away from the United Nations.
(Source: Washington Post Bolton Admonishes U.N., Nov. 23, 2005 [emphasis added.])

Maybe the UN could model their spending practices on the highly successful US Coalition Provisional Authority model:

U.S. Accuses Pair of Rigging Iraq Contracts

By Charles R. Babcock and Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, November 18, 2005; Page A01

A U.S. official working in Iraq accepted $546,000 in illegal payments for steering more than $13 million in contracts last year to an American businessman, the Justice Department alleged in the first criminal corruption case arising from Iraq reconstruction.

...
...federal auditors have found that the CPA was lax in overseeing billions of dollars in Iraqi funds from the sale of oil and cash transferred from the United Nations.

"There's more to come" in the way of criminal charges, Ginger Cruz, the deputy special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, said in an interview yesterday. Stein and Bloom have not been indicted by a grand jury, and Cruz said the investigation is continuing. She said her office is looking into 50 other potential criminal cases on the spending of U.S. and Iraqi funds in the war zone.

If anyone is qualified to criticize fraudulent contracts, it is the Bush Administration:

Halliburton Allegations Are Sent to Justice Dept.
No-Bid Contracts In Iraq Are at Issue

By Renae Merle
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 19, 2005; Page A15

An investigative arm of the Pentagon has sent an Army Corps of Engineers whistle-blower's allegations of wrongdoing against Halliburton Co. to the Justice Department.

Bunnatine H. Greenhouse was removed from her position as the Corps of Engineers' top procurement official in August after raising concerns over the volume of Iraq-related work given to the Houston-based oil-services giant without competition.

If these matters had been investigated with the Bush Administration's cooperation and in a timely manner, the US could raise these charges and be taken seriously. Instead, John Bolton's lecture sounds more like a demand for the UN to send more business to Halliburton and other Bush cronies.

Were I at the UN, I would respond by accepting Mr. Bolton's demand to "create a human rights council that would exclude rights abusers" by excluding the US from any such human rights counsel based upon Guantanamo Bay prisoner abuse, torture advocacy, kidnapping suspects for torture without trial, and the CIA's secret prison system.

Outsourcing Goebbels

2005-11-19T03:37:00.000-03:00

Tom Tomorrow's web site linked to this must-read article:

Rendon is a leader in the strategic field known as "perception management," manipulating information -- and, by extension, the news media -- to achieve the desired result. His firm, the Rendon Group, has made millions off government contracts since 1991, when it was hired by the CIA to help "create the conditions for the removal of Hussein from power." Working under this extraordinary transfer of secret authority, Rendon assembled a group of anti-Saddam militants, personally gave them their name -- the Iraqi National Congress -- and served as their media guru and "senior adviser" as they set out to engineer an uprising against Saddam. It was as if President John F. Kennedy had outsourced the Bay of Pigs operation to the advertising and public-relations firm of J. Walter Thompson.
(Source: Rolling Stone The Man Who Sold the War - Meet John Rendon, Bush's general in the propaganda war)

So the Iraqi National Congress was created out of whole cloth by a CIA-funded PR firm during the Bush-1 Administration? The CIA ran a secret disinformation campaign to topple Saddam Hussein - and when the lies got too outrageous for them, Cheney brought in Doug Feith to finish the job from the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans?

Bad Sign for Tom DeLay

2005-11-18T20:54:00.000-03:00

The Texas Republican Party just settled a case involving the same type of charges Tom DeLay faces:

In signing the pact, the party promised not to keep spending corporate funds for these purposes. In exchange, it avoided prosecution for election law violations, unlike DeLay, whose lawyers contend that state law allows such uses of corporate funds or is unconstitutionally vague.
(Source: Washington Post Texas Republicans Agree to Limit Use of Corporate Funds, Nov. 18, 2005.

Why would the Texas Republican Party sign a pact to stop spending corporate money if they agreed with Tom DeLay's position? And if they don't agree with Tom DeLay, maybe a jury won't, either.

Meanwhile, former DeLay Congressional Aide Michael Scanlan has entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors.

Scanlon, 35, once a senior aide to former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), was charged with conspiring with Abramoff -- identified as "Lobbyist A" in the court papers -- in a scheme in which the lobbyist would direct tribes to hire Scanlon's public relations company without telling them that Scanlon had agreed to kick back 50 percent of the profits to Abramoff.

The charge was detailed in a court document known as a "criminal information" -- a process that often precedes a plea-bargain arrangement with a cooperating witness. Officials familiar with the investigation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Scanlon has agreed to plead guilty and cooperate in the ongoing bribery and public corruption investigation of Abramoff, members of Congress and executive branch officials.
(Source: Washington Post Scanlon Charged With Conspiracy to Bribe Officials, Cheat Indian Tribes, Nov. 18, 2005,)

Pity they're not after Tom DeLay:

The government officials were not named in the court papers filed by U.S. prosecutors in the District, but details of the gifts and legislative favors provided by an official identified as "Representative #1" match the alleged actions of Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Administration Committee.

On the other hand, Tom DeLay got a trip to Scotland from Abramoff, too, so maybe there'll be more indictments soon.

More PlameGate Indictments?

2005-11-18T15:44:00.000-03:00

Sounds like Mr. Woodward's super-secret source's "Oh yeah, I just remembered..." defense didn't sit well with the prosecutor:

Fitzgerald to Convene New Grand Jury in Leak Case
Filings Suggest Additional Charges

By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, November 18, 2005; 1:30 PM

The federal prosecutor investigating the leak of a CIA operative's identity says he plans to present information to a new grand jury, a sign that he is considering additional charges in his two-year-old probe.

Sounds like this old Irish ballad needs an update:

Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell And Dean
(written by Bob Warren)
sung by The CREEP (Mr. G. Records, G-826, c1973)

We're Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell and Dean
The way we've been treated is really obscene
To think that a bug worth hardly a shrug
Could end up by getting us tossed in the jug

We all got the gate for no reason or rhyme
You'd think we'd committed some horrible crime
Our minds may be dirty, but our hands are clean
We're Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell and Dean

...

It just isn't fair to take all of the blame
When all we were doing was playing the game
Now all of Washington's caught in between
Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell and Dean
(Source: The creep - Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell and Dean

I wonder if any copies still exist?

Pond Scum Pretending to be Patriots

2005-11-18T14:27:00.000-03:00

Sounds like using fake patriotism as a shield for corruption isn't limited to the White House:

He said that while many occupation officials had come to Iraq for legitimately patriotic reasons, it was obvious that others had different goals. "My impression was that there were a lot of unscrupulous people pretending to be patriots there who were trying to get contracts for their friends," Mr. Dwight said.
Source: New York Times Issuing Contracts, Ex-Convict Took Bribes in Iraq, U.S. Says, Nov. 18, 2005 [emphasis added])

Another interesting question is how a convicted felon got a job handing out government contracts in the first place:

A North Carolina man who was charged yesterday with accepting kickbacks and bribes as a comptroller and financial officer for the American occupation authority in Iraq was hired despite having served prison time for felony fraud in the 1990's.
(Ex-Convict Took Bribes in Iraq.)

I wonder how many al Qaida operatives got hired by the Bush Administration to run the C.P.A. due to a failure to run background checks?

Admitting Bush Played Into Osama's Hands is Defeatist?

2005-11-17T21:00:00.000-03:00

Bush's "Excellent Iraq Adventure" was apparently about as big a blunder as Pickett's Charge:

Robin Wright writes in The Washington Post about Michael S. Doran, who ended up on the National Security Council staff in charge of the Middle East after writing a defining piece in Foreign Affairs magazine -- " Somebody Else's Civil War."

"Osama Bin Laden had 'no intention of defeating America,' Doran wrote. 'War with the United States was not a goal in and of itself but rather an instrument designed to help his brand of extremist Islam survive and flourish among the believers.'

"Al Qaeda wanted Washington to dispatch U.S. troops to the Islamic world, so Muslims would turn on governments allied with the United States -- and provoke their collapse, Doran explained. 'Americans, in short, have been drawn into somebody else's civil war.'

"That argument is at the heart of U.S. policy in the Islamic world, which has shifted from President Bush's first-term focus on fighting terrorism to the second's emphasis on democracy as the salve to extremism."
(Source: Dan Froomkin Cheney Unleashed, Washington Post, Nov.17, 2005. [Page 5])

To repeat: Michael S. Doran's 2002 article notes that "Al Qaeda wanted Washington to dispatch U.S. troops to the Islamic world, so Muslims would turn on governments allied with the United States -- and provoke their collapse..." (Source: Robin Wright An Eye for Terror Sites, Washington Post, Nov. 17, 2005 [emphasis added.])

W and his Bush league minions exploited the country's post-9/11 anger to do precisely what Osama Bin Ladin wanted - they invaded a Middle Eastern country and started killing lots of civilians. Now, various Mid-East governments are destabilized, just as Osama planned. What is Bush's plan to counter this trend? He's having Dick Cheney call people names! Isn't it reassuring that the adults are back in charge?

Here's Your ''Ticking Time Bomb'' Scenario

2005-11-17T19:04:00.000-03:00

Torture supporters constantly bring up "ticking time bomb" fantasy scenarios. Well, it looks like one of those time bombs just went off:

The soldiers counted 166 Sunni Arabs and three Shiite Arabs after asking each prisoner to identify his sect, the reporter, Alisha Ryu, said. The soldiers also found instruments of torture hidden behind ceiling panels in rooms on the first floor. One such device was a metal rod with a ball on the end, similar to a medieval mace.

The discovery of the prisoners has prompted a furious outcry from Sunni Arab leaders, who have long accused the Shiite-led government of abducting and torturing or killing Sunnis.
(Source: New York Times U.S. and Iraqis to Widen Inquiry on Prison Abuse, Nov. 17, 2005.)

Setting up torture chambers starts a time bomb ticking - it is only a matter of time before the public relations bomb goes off:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi man told on Thursday how he was tortured along with hundreds of other detainees in an Interior Ministry building similar to a secret bunker at the center of a prisoner abuse scandal.

"There was an average of 800 prisoners at any one time in a building controlled by the Wolf Brigades (Interior Ministry special forces)," the man, who asked that he only be identified by his initials H.H., told Reuters.
(Source: Reuters Iraqi says he was held with hundreds in secret jail, Nov. 17, 2005.

This in turn makes it very understandable when Iraqi guards seen as death squads.

To repeat: the real problem with torture is that it is both immoral AND ineffective - but it relieves the torturers' feelings of helplessness and frustration. Like so many Bush League solutions, it gives the impression of doing something useful while actually making the problem worse. (Example: worried about another 9/11? Invade Iraq! It may strengthen terrorists worldwide and decrease our ability to defend ourselves - but it looks like you're doing something effective.)

Iraqi Death Squads: Negroponte's work?

2005-11-17T14:55:00.000-03:00

Juan Cole's site Informed Comment links to this report of possible Iraqi death squads:

BAGHDAD -- Among the varied armed security men on Baghdad's streets these days, you can't miss the police commandos. In combat uniforms, bulletproof vests and wrap-around sunglasses or ski masks, they muscle through Baghdad's traffic jams in police cars or camouflage-painted pickup trucks, clearing nervous drivers from their path with shouted commands and the occasional gunshot in the air.

One such group, the Volcano Brigade, is operating as a death squad, under the influence or control of Iraq's most potent Shia factional militia, the Iranian-backed Badr Organization, said several Iraqi government officials and western Baghdad residents.
(Source: Newsday Iraqi guards seen as death squads, Nov. 16, 2005.)

I'm sure former US Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte's prior involvement with Central American death squads is completely unrelated:

Negroponte supervised the construction of the El Aguacate air base where Nicaraguan Contras were trained by the U.S., and which some critics say was used as a secret detention and torture center during the 1980s. In August 2001, excavations at the base discovered 185 corpses, including two Americans, who are thought to have been killed and buried at the site.

Records also show that a special intelligence unit (commonly referred to as a "death squad") of the Honduran armed forces, Battalion 3-16, trained by the CIA and the Argentine military, kidnapped, tortured and killed hundreds of people, including U.S. missionaries. Critics charge that Negroponte knew about these human rights violations and yet continued to collaborate with the Honduran military while lying to Congress.
(Source: Wikipedia, John Negroponte)

It seems obvious that Dick Cheney's crowd attended therapy over the years. They're no longer ashamed about who they are, they're now openly advocating the need for illegally kidnapping, torturing and disposing of ~~communists~~ oops, I mean "terrorists." They probably credit South American death squads as a major factor in making the world "safe for democracy." I suppose in a sick, twisted way they're right: once you kill everyone that doesn't vote the way you want them too, (a.k.a. the Salvador Option) the dictatorship can safely conduct "democratic" votes, reassured that nobody valuing their lives would dare oppose their demands.

Knight Ridder News Exposes Bush's Lies

2005-11-17T04:36:00.000-03:00

Pity they bury the good stuff so deep in the article, but at least it's there:

ASSERTION: In his speech, Bush noted that "more than a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate - who had access to the same intelligence - voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power."

CONTEXT: This isn't true.

The Congress didn't have access to the President's Daily Brief, a top-secret compendium of intelligence on the most pressing national security issues that was sent to the president every morning by former CIA Director George Tenet.

As for prewar intelligence on Iraq, senior administration officials had access to other information and sources that weren't available to lawmakers.

Cheney and his aides visited the CIA and other intelligence agencies to view raw intelligence reports, received briefings and engaged in highly unusual give-and-take sessions with analysts.

Moreover, officials in the White House and the Pentagon received information directly from the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an exile group, circumventing U.S. intelligence agencies, which greatly distrusted the organization.

The INC's information came from Iraqi defectors who claimed that Iraq was hiding chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs, had mobile biological-warfare facilities and was training Islamic radicals in assassinations, bombings and hijackings.

The White House emphasized these claims in making its case for war, even though the defectors had shown fabrication or deception in lie-detector tests or had been rejected as unreliable by U.S. intelligence professionals.

All of the exiles' claims turned out to be bogus or remain unproven.

War hawks at the Pentagon also created a special unit that produced a prewar report - one not shared with Congress - that alleged that Iraq was in league with al-Qaida. A version of the report, briefed to Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and top White House officials, disparaged the CIA for finding there was no cooperation between Iraq and the terrorist group, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence disclosed.

After the report was leaked in November 2003 to a conservative magazine, the Pentagon disowned it.

In fact, a series of secret U.S. intelligence assessments discounted the administration's assertion that Saddam could give banned weapons to al-Qaida.
(Source: Knight-Ridder Washington Bureau, In challenging war's critics, administration tinkers with truth, Nov 16, 2005 [emphasis added.])

Dick "Torture Boy" Cheney's big lie offensive doesn't seem to be getting quite as much media echo as usual... how sad.

Is Bob Woodward Part of a Cover-Up?

2005-11-16T05:56:00.000-03:00

Has Bob Woodward been recruited to clear Scooter Libby by falsely claiming to have received advance knowledge of Valerie Plame's identity? If he's telling the truth - was there a conspiracy of silence to wait until after any indictments before revealing this new information to the prosecutors? It's tin foil hat time for sure with this one:

Woodward Was Told of Plame More Than Two Years Ago

By Jim VandeHei and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, November 16, 2005; Page A01

Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward testified under oath Monday in the CIA leak case that a senior administration official told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her position at the agency nearly a month before her identity was disclosed.

In a more than two-hour deposition, Woodward told Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald that the official casually told him in mid-June 2003 that Plame worked as a CIA analyst on weapons of mass destruction, and that he did not believe the information to be classified or sensitive, according to a statement Woodward released yesterday.
...
It is unclear what prompted Woodward's original unnamed source to alert Fitzgerald to the mid-June 2003 mention of Plame to Woodward. Once he did, Fitzgerald sought Woodward's testimony, and three officials released him to testify about conversations he had with them. Downie, Woodward and a Post lawyer declined to discuss why the official may have stepped forward this month.
...
Woodward's statement said he testified: "I told Walter Pincus, a reporter at The Post, without naming my source, that I understood Wilson's wife worked at the CIA as a WMD analyst."

Pincus said he does not recall Woodward telling him that. In an interview, Pincus said he cannot imagine he would have forgotten such a conversation around the same time he was writing about Wilson.

"Are you kidding?" Pincus said. "I certainly would have remembered that."

Pincus said Woodward may be confused about the timing and the exact nature of the conversation. He said he remembers Woodward making a vague mention to him in October 2003. That month, Pincus had written a story explaining how an administration source had contacted him about Wilson. He recalled Woodward telling him that Pincus was not the only person who had been contacted.

So, one week after Scooter's indictment this other White House official suddenly decides to mention that they outed Valerie Plame to Bob Woodward before Scooter opened his mouth? And Woodward claims to have mentioned Valerie Plame's ID to Walter Pincus before Novak's column came out - but Mr. Pincus denied it? This has a very nasty smell to it... and it smells like these folks were at a minimum jerking the special prosecutor around.

Torture Doesn't Work - More Data

2005-11-15T20:04:00.000-03:00

This is from a July, 11, 2005 interview:

the law enforcement community has been outraged by some of the allegations of coercion and abuse in interrogations, because the F.B.I., in particular, it's not just a moral or ethical issue with them, they feel that you get bad information from suspects when you coerce it or you, you know, abuse them or even torture them. You can get information out of people under those circumstances but not necessarily reliable information, and so they feel that this kind of method is just not worth it...
...
...(T)here is a top psychologist who works with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service named Michael Gelles. And in the Church report there is material from him in which he talks about this strange dynamic that takes place sometimes in interrogations, where people who are interrogating someone who is resistant become more and more frustrated, and they begin to lose touch with what's legal and what's ethical, because they basically become emotionally invested in getting the information out of someone. And this is called force drift. And Michael Gelles warns in this report that he fears this is what was happening with the SERE techniques that were being used in Guantanamo. People were losing their basic common sense about where to draw the line.
Source: Democracy Now Methods Developed by U.S. Military for Withstanding Torture Being Used Against Detainees at Guantanamo Bay, July 11, 2005 [emphasis added.])

To summarize: torture isn't an efficient method of gaining accurate information, but it helps relieve the interrogator's frustration. This can never be moral, ethical or justifiable.

Democrats Sell Out Detainees

2005-11-15T14:15:00.000-03:00

Looks like Democrats have bought into the "bleeding heart liberal judges are keeping the military from doing its job" Republican talking point:

A bipartisan group of senators reached a compromise yesterday that would dramatically alter U.S. policy for treating captured terrorist suspects by granting them a final recourse to the federal courts but stripping them of some key legal rights.

The compromise links legislation written by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), which would deny detainees broad access to federal courts, with a new measure authored by Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) that would grant detainees the right to appeal the verdict of a military tribunal to a federal appeals court. The deal will come to a vote today, and the authors say they are confident it will pass.
(Source: Washington Post Senators Agree on Detainee Rights, Nov. 15, 2005.)

To repeat: that bastion of human rights, the United States of America, reserves the right to kidnap and ~~torture~~ interrogate using cruel, inhuman and degrading methods anyone in the world if they first unilaterally declare them an "enemy combatant." Only after significant periods of imprisonment and mistreatment are such decisions reviewed - and the military itself reviews those decisions via "military tribunals." These tribunals observe no firm rules, and have a reputation for convicting people despite significant evidence of innocence. Even if a tribunal finds a detainee innocent, there is no guarantee those innocent detainees will ever be released:

I can understand why a lot of people were scraped up from the battlefield and brought to Gitmo, because we didn't know what we had, but we didn't have any real mechanisms to sort them out. And I think once we started sorting them out, we'd already stated publicly that we had "the worst of the worst." And it was a little hard to go against that and say, well, maybe some of them aren't quite the worst of the worst, and some of them are just the slowest guys off the battlefield.
(Source: Lt. Col. Thomas Berg from an interview on FrontLine titledWhat Do We Know About the Guantanamo Detainees?

How has this country sunk from "human rights" to "might makes right" in such a short time? W and his Bush league minions have much to answer for - and the Hague's War Crimes Court would be a good place to get those answers.

Write Your CongressCritter

2005-11-15T13:55:00.000-03:00

Send them this:

The GOP, of course, has done nothing of the sort. As lackeys of the big-business, wealthy-investor class (or charter members of it), congressional Republicans have done everything in their power to make the lives of working folks worse. They've resisted an increase in the minimum wage; they've squeezed Medicaid; they've championed tax cuts for the richest Americans and a plan to make Social Security checks less reliable.

But the Democrats have done little better. Earlier this year, they joined with Republicans in service to the big banks, passing a bankruptcy bill that forgives less debt and makes it harder for folks struggling with big bills to dig themselves out of debt.

The bankruptcy legislation — which banks and credit card companies had made a priority, handing out campaign contributions like they used to give out free toasters for new accounts — was a particularly shameless bit of exploitation. Banks have spent years stuffing mailboxes with solicitations for credit cards, cultivating people they knew were bad credit risks. When those same customers ran into trouble with their credit card bills, the banks insisted on kicking them in the shins. Congressional Democrats helped supply the steel-toed boots.
(Source: Cynthia Tucker Anxious working class is largely overlooked by Congress, Universal Press Syndicate via WorkingForChange.com Nov. 15, 2005.)

Politicians think large campaign contributions are more important than voter anger, based largely on the idea that political advertising funded by those large donations is what swings elections. Donations to liberal PACS like Moveon.org work on the donation source issue - but we also need to end the "voters are too lazy to pay attention" truism. Writing your Congresscritters regularly is a good place to start.

So Much for Self-Regulation

2005-11-15T03:14:00.000-03:00

Making a brief side-trip from detailing the Bush Admininistation's moral and ethical degeneracy, here's proof that another of their treasured ideological postulates is flat out wrong. So-called self-regulation, the theory under which corprations can be trusted to "do the right thing" because of market pressures, is simply not true:

WASHINGTON--Regulations like Sarbanes Oxley have morphed ROI from "return on investment" to "risk of incarceration" for senior executives, according to a panel of security executives speaking at a conference here.

Proving monetary return for security spending is a challenge. However, when senior executives know they risk liability if they don't comply with regulations, they will be quicker to approve spending, said the panelists addressing the Computer Security Institute's annual conference on Monday.
(Source: ZDNet ROI: Risk of incarceration?, Nov. 14, 2005 [emphasis added.])

Odd, and having the foxes in charge of designing chicken house perimeter defenses seemed like such a good idea. After all, the foxes SAID the defenses were "world class" and that they'd tell us if anyone breached the chicken house's security.

Blame It On the Dick

2005-11-15T02:28:00.000-03:00

According to the BBC, Dick "Torture Boy" Cheney may get thrown to the wolves:

There is a feeling on the part of the president, according to people very close to him, that the president got unwise political advice and rosy predictions of how a war and post-war in Iraq would play out
Tom DeFrank
Journalist
(Source; BBC News Tough times for US vice-president, Nov. 14, 2005.)

Sounds like Mr. Cheney's political enemies are setting him up to resign ~~to put in the annointed 2008 candidate~~ er, I mean~~to spend more time with his family~~, no, I really meant for health reasons.

It also sounds like Condoleeza Rice may succeed at a task where Colin "Colon" Powell failed, breaking the Cheney/Rumsfeld grip on foreign policy and letting some reality in:

"There is also some feeling on the part, not only of the president but also some of his closest political advisers, that the Cheney national security operation got a little too ambitious and became too independent of the Bush and state department national security apparatus, and some aides very close to the president are determined that that will not continue."
(Supra

Unfortunately for W, his Bush League minions don't want to go down in history as being the ones to blame for the worst presidency in this country's history. Rumsfeld, for example, is polishing his CYA memos off and ready to rumble. All we need to do is keep the pressure on, and they'll turn on each other like petty criminals in a cheap police drama.

Rummy Rewrites History

2005-11-13T16:02:00.000-03:00

Looks like Donald Rumsfeld feels his personal place in history trumps loyalty to his fellow Bush League minions:

Wrestling With History
Sometimes you have to fight the war you have, not the war you wish you had

By David Von Drehle (Washington Post)

Sunday, November 13, 2005; Page W12

If only he could show us the memo.

"It's still classified, I suppose?" says Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, looking toward his assistant.

"It's still classified," Lawrence DiRita replies, "along with a lot of the underlying planning."

Rumsfeld nods, apparently disappointed. He is interested in sharing the memo because the memo, as he outlines it, demonstrates that his critics are utterly mistaken. He did not dash heedless and underprepared into Iraq. Rumsfeld foresaw the things that could go wrong -- and not just foresaw them, but wrote them up...
"It would have been probably October of '02, and the war was March, I think," of the following year, Rumsfeld explains. "I sat down, and I said, 'What are all the things that one has to anticipate could be a problem?' And circulated it and read it to the president -- sent it to the president. Gave it to the people in the department, and they planned against those things. And all of the likely and unlikely things that one could imagine are listed there. It was just on the off-chance we'd end up having a conflict. We didn't know at that stage."

Some might quibble with Rumsfeld's description of the historical moment. At the time he wrote the memo, dated October 15, 2002, Congress had recently voted to give President Bush complete authority to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein. A White House spokesman had just confirmed that invasion plans were on Bush's desk -- detailed plans, we now know, which Rumsfeld had been shaping and hammering and editing for much of the previous year.

In other words, there was far more than an "off-chance" of conflict. All that remained to be done was for the president to reach his official decision. The train was loaded, its doors were shut, and it was ready to leave the station.
(Emphasis added.)

Do these people spend so much time listening to their own ~~propaganda~~ "spin" that they honestly believe anyone actually mentioning the truth is "rewriting history?" Or are they just cynical liars that believe "history is a pack of lies written by the winners" and therefore think anyone contradicting their various lies is thus "rewriting history."

Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunters. ~African Proverb

Will Scooter Roll Over on Cheney and Rove?

2005-11-13T02:54:00.000-03:00

Looks like the Washington Post isn't afraid of the White House any more:

Libby May Have Tried to Mask Cheney's Role

By Carol D. Leonnig and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 13, 2005; Page A06

In the opening days of the CIA leak investigation in early October 2003, FBI agents working the case already had in their possession a wealth of valuable evidence. There were White House phone and visitor logs, which clearly documented the administration's contacts with reporters.
...
To critics, the timing suggests an attempt to obscure Cheney's role, and possibly his legal culpability. The vice president is shown by the indictment to be aware of and interested in Plame and her CIA status long before her cover was blown. Even some White House aides privately wonder whether Libby was seeking to protect Cheney from political embarrassment. One of them noted with resignation, "Obviously, the indictment speaks for itself."

In addition, Cheney also advised Libby on a media strategy to counter Plame's husband, former ambassador Wilson, according to a person familiar with the case.

"This story doesn't end with Scooter Libby's indictment," said Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), giving voice to widespread Democratic hopes about the outcome of Fitzgerald's case. "A lot more questions need to be answered by the White House about the actions of [Cheney] and his staff."

Scooter's Valerie Plame lies are a great lead-in to his involvement in pre-war intelligence cooking. As Seymoure Hersch reported in 2003:

SELECTIVE INTELLIGENCE
Donald Rumsfeld has his own special sources. Are they reliable?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2003-05-12
Posted 2003-05-05
They call themselves, self-mockingly, the Cabal—a small cluster of policy advisers and analysts now based in the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans. In the past year, according to former and present Bush Administration officials, their operation, which was conceived by Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, has brought about a crucial change of direction in the American intelligence community. These advisers and analysts, who began their work in the days after September 11, 2001, have produced a skein of intelligence reviews that have helped to shape public opinion and American policy toward Iraq. They relied on data gathered by other intelligence agencies and also on information provided by the Iraqi National Congress, or I.N.C., the exile group headed by Ahmad Chalabi. By last fall, the operation rivalled both the C.I.A. and the Pentagon’s own Defense Intelligence Agency, the D.I.A., as President Bush’s main source of intelligence regarding Iraq’s possible possession of weapons of mass destruction and connection with Al Qaeda. As of last week, no such weapons had been found. And although many people, within the Administration and outside it, profess confidence that something will turn up, the integrity of much of that intelligence is now in question.
...
A Pentagon adviser who has worked with Special Plans dismissed any criticism of the operation as little more than bureaucratic whining. ... He added, “I’d love to be the historian who writes the story of how this small group of eight or nine people made the case and won.”
...
There was a close personal bond, too, between Chalabi and Wolfowitz and Perle, dating back many years. Their relationship deepened after the Bush Administration took office, and Chalabi’s ties extended to others in the Administration, including Rumsfeld; Douglas Feith, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy; and I. Lewis Libby, Vice-President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff. For years, Chalabi has had the support of prominent members of the American Enterprise Institute and other conservatives. Chalabi had some Democratic supporters, too, including James Woolsey, the former head of the C.I.A.
(Source: New Yorker Selective Intelligence, May 12, 2003 [emphasis added.])

Sure will be interesting to see whether Scooter's "close personal ties" with his buddies stands up to jail time - or whether El Busho issues a pardon after the 2006 elections...

Iraq, Beacon of Democracy?

2005-11-13T02:38:00.000-03:00

The Arab world doesn't seem impressed by Iraq's "one less man, one less vote" approach to democracy:

Some delegates to the meeting saw Egypt's objections as a reflection of the Arab world's growing irritation with what some say is the lecturing tone of American calls for democracy. United States involvement in Iraq plays a part in that: the Arab world is not persuaded by the administration's portrayal of Iraq, which Secretary Rice visited on Friday, as a beacon for democracy.

Rather, they say, Iraq represents the perils of imposing democracy from outside. Its violence is widely seen as offering a cautionary tale rather than an inspiration, American officials acknowledge.
(Source: New York Times Meeting of Muslim Nations Ends in Discord, Nov. 13, 2005 [emphasis added.])

I guess Karen Hughes gets added to the list of failed Bush League cronies promoted past their level of incompetence.

The Bush That Cried Nuke!

2005-11-13T00:04:00.000-03:00

W and his Bush League minions claimed the US could "go it alone" in the Middle East. Thanks to their many lies about Iraq, we are now forced to "go it alone" whether we have the money and resources or not:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New evidence suggests Iran has made significant progress in its pursuit of nuclear weapons and that should strengthen the case for increasing international pressure on Tehran to end the program, U.S. and European officials say.
...
Nuclear experts have been saying for months that the fact that U.S. claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities proved largely false is fueling doubts about intelligence on Iran.
(Source: Reuters US says new evidence of Iran nuclear arms ambition, Nov. 12, 2005 [emphasis added.])

Too bad Mr. Bush hasn't read the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

Bush Ignores Facts About Iraq War Intelligence Stovepiping

2005-11-12T23:43:00.000-03:00

Mr. Bush apparently wants this bit of history rewritten:

Prelude to a Leak
Gang fight: How Cheney and his tight-knit team launched the Iraq war, chased their critics—and set the stage for a special prosecutor's dramatic probe.
By John Barry, Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball

...Cheney had long distrusted the apparatchiks who sat in offices at the CIA, FBI and Pentagon. He regarded them as dim, timid timeservers who would always choose inaction over action. Instead, the vice president relied on the counsel of a small number of advisers. The group included Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and two Wolfowitz proteges: I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, and Douglas Feith, Rumsfeld's under secretary for policy. Together, the group largely despised the on-the-one-hand/on-the-other analyses handed up by the intelligence bureaucracy. Instead, they went in search of intel that helped to advance their case for war.

Central to that case was the belief that Saddam was determined to get nukes—a claim helped by the Niger story, which the White House doggedly pushed...
(Source: Newsweek, Oct. 31, 2005 [emphasis added.])

Only the rigid "scripting" of W's public appearances by his Bush League minions keeps questions like "How can you claim your administration didn't distort pre-war Iraq intelligence when Vice President Dick Cheney set up the Office of Special Plans for the express purpose of distorting such intelligence?

Another Bush Lie Exposed

2005-11-12T23:14:00.000-03:00

Newsweek reports on one of Mr. Bush's classic lies. Back when they thought the journalists would keep the political version of the mob's "omerta" code of silence, they said:

... on Bush's behalf, McClellan in 2003 said that any staffer found to have been "involved" in the leak would be booted.

Now, of course, Mr. Bush is breaking that promise:

Briefly facing American reporters, Bush fielded only five questions. But four were on a single issue: the fate of Karl Rove, his top White House aide, who has been named—but not indicted—in the federal leak probe. Bush gave lawyerlike answers. "The investigation on Karl, as you know, is not complete," he said, "and, therefore, I will not comment about him and/or the investigation."
(Source: Newsweek Wherever Bush travels, questions about Rove follow, Nov. 14, 2005.)

Mr. Bush's deference to the investigation fails to explain why his position changed from firing staffers "involved" in the Plame affair to those "convicted" of illegal activities.

Karl Rove's grand jury testimony establishes Mr. Rove's "involvement" in publicizing Valerie Plame's CIA status. Scott McClellan said anyone "involved" would be fired. Was Mr. McClellan lying then or is Mr. Bush breaking his word to the American people now?

Mr. Bush apparently feels that loyalty to his minions outweighs his duty of honesty to the voters. Small wonder there's so much cronyism and corruption coming to light - Mr. Bush seems to prize such "values" above honesty and fair-dealing.

Q: How is Bush's War Planning Like Torture?

2005-11-12T20:32:00.000-03:00

A: Neither one works. Bush's glorious plan to ~~destroy Saddam's WMDs~~ - oops, I mean win the war on terror seems to be going badly. Iraqi terrorists are expanding their range:

"This exporting of terrorism is a concern not only for Jordan, but for everyone," said Tahir Masry, a former Jordanian prime minister. "We're worried that another Afghanistan is under development in Iraq."
(Source: Seattle Times Jordan attack indicates spread of Iraq violence, Nov. 12, http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif2005.)

Juan Cole's blog Informed Comment has the details on how Bush's "Pax Americana" is turning the Middle East into anarchy central.