corrente

Tomorrow is another day. Soon, the SOTU... I can hardly wait...

Some kind soul gave it to Kos.. Say, how come we never read about this stuff in Pravda on the Potomac or Izvestia on the Hudson? Josh Marshall has the low-down on the, um, consultants behind the work.

And guess who's one of the co-signers? Why, Pennsylvani's own Rick Santorum. Slippin' and slidin'....

Naturally, Bush was out there torquing ("spin" is way, way too mild) the Iraqi elections hard, calling them a success a mere four hours after the polls closed, and about seven days before the votes were actually counted.

Here are words that are just a bit more sober. Rami G. Khouri, of the Beirut newspaper Daily Star and the Herald Trib, lays down some markers:

The following key political principles will determine if the election is another American-engineered farce or a meaningful stage in building a new, democratic governance system in Iraq:

-- Will it result in a legitimate, indigenously chosen Iraqi government, as opposed to the noncredible, foreign appointed interim authorities since April 2003?

If most Iraqis see the elected parliament and the new cabinet as legitimate governing authorities, this would finally spur more-rapid economic development and more-effective security forces that can slowly restore a sense of safety and normalcy to everyday life.

-- Will the newly elected parliament promulgate a credible constitutional power-sharing formula for national governance that is agreed to by all major segments of the citizenry?

Compromise transitional governance formulas cobbled together to date have consistently left one or more of the major demographic groups in Iraq quietly grumbling with worried dissatisfaction, formally demanding veto authority, threatening to abstain or secede, or even directly challenging the American occupation authority.

-- Will the election provide Iraqis with sufficient political legitimacy and security for them to work with the United States on a clear, realistic schedule for the departure of American troops? (Sorry, the other foreign troops are meaningless decoration.)

As long as American troops stay in Iraq, the governing authority in Baghdad will always be seen as a puppet that is installed, protected and manipulated by Washington.

It will be clear soon after the election whether most Iraqis view the new parliament and government as legitimate, according to the key criteria of liberating the country from foreign military management and forging a sensible power-sharing governance system that responds to all Iraqis' aspirations and identities.

The likelihood is that some, but not all, elements of this more hopeful scenario will happen, making this election an incremental but crucial step forward in a slow transition to an Iraq that is peaceful, democratic and -- most importantly -- liberated and sovereign.
(via SF Chronicle)

I just don't know. Call me bitter and cynical...

But didn't we just come off an election where the Florida voting rolls were rigged to eliminate eligible Democratic voters?

And didn't we just come off an election where Ohio Democratic voters stood in line for hours, and Republican voters breezed through?

And didn't we just come off an election where we really can't be sure what the vote totals were, because (Republican dominated) voting machine manufacturers have stuck us with bad technology that doesn't leave any kind of paper trail?

And didn't the Republicans in power scoff and sneer at every single one of these concerns?

It's more than a little hypocritcal for the Republicans to be torquing the triumph of democracy abroad, when at home they do everything possible to deny it to all citizens.

And it couldn't be, of course, that Negroponte and the rest of the operatives in the the Republican palace have shared any of their vote-rigging expertise with the Iraqis, could it? Of course not. Please refer all such complaints to the Department of No! They Would Never Do That!

Yes, the Iraqi people who voted were the winners—and probably the only honest players in a ugly game that's rigged in every way it can be.

Great photos, though.

John McKay of archy has a new website up and running called The Carnival of Bad History:

It's called The Carnival of Bad History and, yes, it's yet another blogging carnival. This one is dedicated to snotty dismemberments of bad history wherever it appears, in movies, fantasy novels, or speeches by our new Secretary of State. You're all invited to contribute, and, even if you don't, I hope you drop by and check it out.

So, if you have written a post which dissects, or corrects, or disinfects, some historical monstrosity or another and would like it included with a link back to your own original posting, well, nowz your chance to run off and join The Carnival.

For instance: I am not, despite what some of you may have been led to believe, Charles Algernon Swinburne. Swinburne, tragically, was eaten alive by a wild boar while picking golden pears in his backyard in Atlanta in 1971. Or maybe they were apples? Or maybe he was passed out drunk in a lawn chair? Hmmm, yes, well, anyway... if you would like to straighten out any recent historical misconceptions that have been eatin' at ya this is your chance to go to it.

Who can contribute? All you need is your own weblog or website and an opinion. You don't need to be a professional historian and you don't need to write mostly about history. If you write only one post on bad history in you entire life, send it to us. The only requirement is that it be an original piece of your writing (not a copy of someone else's article and not link-and-comment) and posted in the last month. Send the link to the post and a short summary to this month's host or to us (we'll forward it).

Additional submission guidelines/info are available via badhistory.blogspot.com. Or visit the links noted above.

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It's two! Two! Two hits in one!

America's largest brewing company, Anheuser-Busch, released its latest product last week -- a beer that contains caffeine.
(via WaPo)

And thereby not tank the possibilities for Iraqis to define a multi-ethnic democracy for themselves. (Love that "torque," Lambert, so much better than "spin.")

First step: try and view it as Iraqis might, from however many angles are required to do that.

There's overwhelming evidence that most Iraqis want some form of democracy; they want to make their own choices, and they want the country of Iraq to stay intact; even the Kurds have practical reasons for wanting to stay part of Iraq. A majority of Iraqis loathe the violence into which their country has been dragged; they loathe the chaos, the criminality, they loathe the outsiders, the beheaders, the suicide bombers, how could they not, what with those totalitarian warnings to the average Iraqi to do what the insurgents say, or else face heedless violence; surely that incredible al-Zarqawi leaflet which targeted democratic governance as the enemy and threatened death to all who disagree makes hash of his claims to speak for the Iraqi street, especially after this Sunday. And that is all to the good.

Yes, the outsiders don't make up all the insurgents, and what the insurgency shares with most Iraqis is a profound dislike and mistrust of the way the Bush administration has gone about "helping" Iraq. However, even though there is just as much overwhelming evidence that a huge majority of Iraqis are more worried that we plan to stay on our own terms and timetable than that we'll "cut and run," most of that majority don't want to be left with a broken country. Conclusion: it is highly likely that a majority of Iraqis will see this election as a genuine step forward, and that greatly hoped for turning point, away from the downward trajectory their society has found itself on, caught between the ruthless incompetence of this administration and the lethal violence of the insurgency.

No one should begrudge any Iraqi the perception that this election is a sign of hope, whether or not that sign is seen as symbolic. The invaluable Chris Allbritton, at Back To Iraq spent the day blogging the election in Baghdad and it isn't possible to read what he has observed and be unmoved on behalf of the Iraqi people, and that includes the Sunnis, who may have made a mistake in not participating more fully, but were faced with a set of horrifying choices.

The polling stations were housed in schools, by and large, and several rooms were taken over for the balloting. In each, the cardboard screens were held together with red tape, and then the ballot was dropped in those plastic bins you see on television. The ones I saw were all about three-quarters full.

It was a marked departure from Iraq's elections in the past, which Saddam won handily, of course.

“I feel like a free man,” said Muhammad Abad al-Badawi, a shopkeeper who had just finished voting. “For the last 35 years, we were electing nothing. They were fake elections.” He's supporting Allawi, “because he's a decent man” and he will fix the security situation.

But I have to say, it seems like he's already fixed it, at least for today. Today's highly restrictive measures are untenable, of course, and no one can live like this for long, but for a day, the insurgency was kept at bay.

Which is why, several of us journalists here are going to call this elections for the Iraqis. My friend Mitch and I were discussing this and regardless of who wins in the polls, the Iraqis won here and proved themselves—for a day, at least—stronger than the insurgency. And that's a very big symbolic victory. A huge one, in fact, and Iraqis should take great pride in themselves. When they had the opportunity, they stood up and were counted. The real losers were the Sunnis who didn't participate. They missed a golden opportunity to take part in a process that, while flawed, were the only game in town. I don't know what's going to happen next, and a civil war may still erupt, but if it does, the elected government—one elected by Shi'a and Kurds, for the most part—will have the moral high ground in it.

Read the whole post here, (and consider contributing to keep Chris and "Back to Iraq" going; this is the independent journalism we say we want, let's support it)

Those of us critical of this administration's Iraq policy need to be able to embrace the hopes of the Iraqi people, and I believe we do, despite our understanding that this election is not a sufficient step to end the nightmare that has descended on Iraq. It is not up to any American to decide the legitimacy of this election, it is up to the Iraqi people, and thus far, it appears, most, though not all, Iraqis are prepared to embrace it.

However, the gushing enthusiasm being voiced by the makers of this invasion and occupation and their apologists has almost nothing to do with any ability to look at the Iraqi reality from an Iraqi point of view. A harsh evaluation, I know, but remember the chaos that was allowed to descend on this country when the only source of possible order was the US invasion forces, remember their enthusiasm for the "flypaper theory," and the destruction of Falluja, remember their indifference to Abu Graib, remember how ready have been these same enthusiasts to blame Iraqis themselves for the mess created by the incompetence of the people who planned the invasion and carried out the occupation. In fact, what was Dick Cheney doing, if not that, when he recently claimed on the Imus show that the only mistake the administration made was in not realizing how degraded and damaged the Iraqi people had become under Saddam. As of Sunday, apparently we have finally managed to whip them into shape.

Neither the President nor his Secretary of State seems able to veil how thoroughly they see Iraq and its people as an instrument of their own grand strategic vision for nothing less than the entire world; may the Gods help us when funds are diverted from the Hubble telescope and they are able to turn that strategic vision on the universe, starting, presumably, with Mars, and ending with militarizing space. In the distorting lens of that vision, this is a triumph for the Iraqi people because they have proved themselves worthy of that great gift of democracy, freedom, and liberty bestowed on them by George W. Bush.

President Bush congratulated the people of Iraq today on their first free elections in decades, declaring that the balloting had been "a resounding success" whose effects would be felt throughout the Middle East and indeed the world.

"Today, the people of Iraq have spoken to the world, and the world is hearing the voice of freedom from the center of the Middle East," Mr. Bush said. He praised the Iraqi people for having rejected "the anti-democratic ideology of the terrorists."

"They have refused to be intimidated by thugs and assassins," Mr. Bush said in a brief White House appearance. "And they have demonstrated the kind of courage that is always the foundation of self-government."

Does anyone else think that perhaps the President might have restrained his impulse to speak for the Iraqi people, to interpret the meaning of their lives for them, not to mention defining the response of the rest of the world, and in both instances making a claim designed to buttress the President politically, i.e., the reference to his Middle East doctrine? This was a prime example of classic Dubya-speak - one part triumphalism, one part pretended realism, as in his acknowledgment "that the difficult days are not over," but actually just the same old dreamy optimism at other's expense, (because this president is incapable of doing anything differently than he's done before, young Americans will continue to impose a violent occupation on Iraq and its people), and one part cynical mendacity, as when the president pretends that America is not alone, and will not continue to be alone:

Mr. Bush reached out to other countries, and to the United Nations, with which he has often had an unsteady relationship. And he told the American people that their own sacrifices had been worthwhile.

"Across Iraq today, men and women have taken rightful control of their country's destiny, and they have chosen a future of freedom and peace," the president said. "In this process, Iraqis have made many friends at their side. The European Union and the United Nations gave important assistance in the election process.

"The American military and our diplomats, working with our coalition partners, have been skilled and relentless, and their sacrifices have helped to bring Iraqis to this day. The people of the United States have been patient and resolute, even in difficult days."

Be assured those words are all the reaching out that will ever be done.

Second Step: Understand that taking step one does not mean embracing the utterly callous chirping about a triumph of democracy and the moving bravery of Iraqis willing to lay down their lives to vote by people whose incompetence produced the insurgency, who paid no attention to examples of how the seeds of democracy are actually sewn, refused the advice of experts who know about such things, and are the very people responsible for the fact that Iraqis have had to face lethal risks in order to cast a vote and are now unembarrassed to claim credit for the genuine bravery of ordinary Iraqis, and the political acumen of quite a few of their leaders.

Third Step: Understand that the SCLM has been primed to reflect the point of view of the administration, which is intent on torquing the election, as they did the fall of Baghdad, the deaths of Saddam's sons, Saddam's capture, the transfer of sovereignty to Allawi last June, in order to portray it as a milestone in a coherent plan, a turning point away from the chaos into which Iraq has descended. Any Democrat, any pundit, any blogger who expresses doubts about that particular torque-age, or concerns of any sort, like the many different kinds of costs of this war, will be attacked in the same way that Howard Dean was when he refused to declare Saddam's capture a triumph that would change the dynamics of everything on the ground in Iraq. He was right, of course. That has never been admitted by the BigMacMedia, but they've stopped mentioning the incident, even though they're still happy to run video of the howl that wouldn't have been perceived as such had the network sound equipment worked properly.

James Wolcott was immediately on this case with his usual bracing mix of wit, elan, and disgust.

Barring catastrophic violence, the media was prepared to hail the elections as a triumphant day for Democracy. Despite all the talk about the Liberal Media playing spoilsport and wanting the elections to fail (a syndicated cartoon strip--State of the Union, by Carl Moore, the worst scrawler ever to pick up an eyeliner pencil and doodle in the dark, depicted "the liberal media" trying to stomp out the balloting in league with Arab tyrants and terrorists), the coverage yesterday was resolutely upbeat and near-ecstatic today.

Not only will that continue, but so will the SCLM continue to tolerate the blatantly unAmerican attacks by the righwing noise machine on all Americans who didn't vote for Bush or have been critical of any aspect of the Bush policy in Iraq, an attack that while pretending to be on behalf of the Iraqi people, will be on behalf of a rightwing agenda which is dependent on the political good fortunes of George W. Bush and the Republican party. The NYPost this morning features two prime examples of the genre, one by Deborah Orin, one by John Podhoretz, whose title, "Vindicated," pretty much gives the whole game away, both columns so disgusting I'm not sure I have the energy to quote from either one. In fact, I think I'll wait and make that discussion part of a separate post on how we on the left might respond to such attacks.

Something happened yesterday in Iraq that went beyond expectation, and at the very least tells us something important about the situation there. The credit for what happened can be apportioned with a fair amount of precision. The security arrangements worked, and for that the US military and the Iraqi security forces deserve much credit, although locking down a whole country is hardly the day to day answer for the severe security problems that will continue to plague hopes both for an acceleration in reconstruction and for the prospect of true sovereignty over their own country being put, at last, in the hands of the Iraqi people. For the resolute courage the Iraqi people showed yesterday, in the face of outrageous physical threats, the credit goes to them and to no one else. For the fact that a nation-wide election took place this January, the credit goes to Al-Sistanni, for insisting that the Bush administration abandon the Bremer plan, which would have had local caucuses appoint delegates to the assembly that would write the constitution. Let's not forget that the handover of sovereignty didn't spring fullblown from the brain of George Bush; that happened because Al-Sistanni was able to put 100,000 Iraqis in the street demanding an election as well as sovereignty, long months after Kofi Anan and the French had tried to get the Bush administration to advance their plans to do both. Had they done so at the time, other nations might well have joined our efforts in Iraq when that could have made a real difference. Instead, because of the egotism and the arrogance of Bush and his neo-con mentors, we found ourselves forced by a cleric of advanced years who rarely leaves his own study to finally do what many experts had been exhorting us to do, unfortunately too late for us, we, the American people, whose blood and fortunes have been splattered indiscriminately in the streets and on the highways of Iraq, to receive that international assistance which could have been ours, and is still dearly needed, not only by us, but by the Iraqi people as well. Most of all, what yesterday should have shown America is that the Iraqi people are equal to the task both of reconstructing their own country, and of avoiding a slide toward civil war. They were capable of this on the first day our troops entered Baghdad. What has kept their own competence from coming to the fore, from being made use of, has been the overwhelming incompetence of the American administration for whom rosy scenarios and flowery words are constantly substituted for hard-won realities. That the SCLM will not tell that story this week does not make it any less true.

UPDATE: And just because the SCLM won't tell that story doesn't mean that the left side of blogtopia (courtesy of "skippy") won't. I should have remembered to check out Swopa at Needlenose whose been consistently brilliant at keeping track and forcing us to remember all the various permutations of the disaster that has been the Bush policy in Iraq, and today, he's at it again with this post, "The elections Bush didn't want" which you can find here, though you'd do as well to scroll down from the top and read everything in between.

In fact, if we could just get our side of the blogisphere a bit better organized, maybe we'd find it useful for every liberal blog not merely to link to what Swopa sets out for the memory bank, but the actual post itself, in a sidebar, or somewhere, so anyone who tunes into any blog on the left would be forced to deal with it. Just a thought. But truly, at some point, if we're going to make a difference to people other than ourselves, all the energy and intelligence that shines forth from blogtopia is going to be organized in some way that will allow it to pierce through the rightwing noise machine and its echochamber, the SCLM.

David Benjamin examines the media's latest catchpenny coo: G.W. Bush.

So, what about journalism? Certainly, it's not the cutthroat tabloidism of Walter Burns' day. But is it literature -- or just pop fiction?

Go read the full article if you haven't already. Its a good one.: George W. Bush as the Media’s "Likable Protagonist"

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Saw part of Aliens last night. Now that's a nice relaxing movie to watch before bed. I think, next time, My Neighbor Totoro ...

There's a wonderful old Bob and Ray sketch from the Royal Palm Bar and Grill that reads in part:

[RAY] If that's for me, tell 'em I left an hour ago

[Telephone rings.]

The point being that Ray muffed his cue: He spoke his line before the telephone rang.

Doesn't all the Republican spin torque (back) on the Iraqi election remind you of that old Bob and Ray script? Even before the results were in, the Bush team knew exactly what they were going to say; they've played the expectations game masterfully.

Yet all we have to go on—besides Bush's word, of course—is guesstimates from Iraqi election officials (who must know what side their bread is buttered on), reports from reporters who can't leave their hotels, lots of bloviation by media whores paid policy advocates (back and plenty of media imagery. Sayeth Republican pollster Frank Luntz:

''Americans will watch the pictures over the next few days and you'll see support for the war increase,'' said Luntz. ''The pictures over the last few months have been negative. These are the first positive visuals and it will have an impact on American public opinion.''

Sheesh. 100,000 Iraqi civilian deaths for positive visuals...

Every time we've ever given Bush the benefit of the doubt on anything, he's fucked us. Of course, past performance is no guarantee of future results. But I'm not sanguine. Especially when the scripted spin so very, very obvious.

Paul Bremer and his Heritage Foundation incompetents in the Coalition Provisional Authority apparently lost at least $9B in Iraq.

How much is that? Well I'm sure you and I could buy a Ferrari for ourselves everyday for the rest of our lives and still not exhaust that sum.

Isn't it great that the adults are in charge?

It's all pretty amazing. I woke up this morning and turned on MSNBC and one of the bubbleheaded bleach blondes on there said something like "Well, the vote is going really well. I mean, well, forty people were killed and a hundred or so injured but, hey, that's a lot fewer casualties than we thought."

Has W dropped expectations so low that if the insurgents don't set off a thermonuclear warhead in downtown Baghdad the vote is a "resounding success?"

As for historical parallels, RDF, I don't think we ever had an "election" in the Philippines in the early 1900s but, if we did, that would be the closest thing I'm aware of to an analogous situation. We fought an insurgency there for decades after all and carefully installed government after government that was to our liking for the better part of a century.

I can't help but wonder what the hell is going to happen with this vote. It's going to take them two weeks to count it? Really? That smells to high heaven, doesn't it? What result do you want, Mr. Bush? Just let us know and we can get it for you!

I can't help but be very suspicious about the results when they're announced. I suspect the election will turn out just like we want it to -- and the Iraq Civil War will start in about six months. Of course, to be brutally honest, the Iraq Civil War's been going on for about a year now.

I do hope I'm wrong. However, unfortunately, I've been right about everything for more than two years so I'm guessing it's going to get a lot worse soon.

Like I said, I hope I'm wrong.

Who knows what the actual election looked like, who voted, and how the ballots were cast? Nobody. There were no observers, no credible news reports, and only “reports” from “officials.” See the latest issue of the Atlantic for how news is gathered on the ground there. I don’t have teevee, but I came damn close to drowning my last radio this morning when I heard these whores gushing about “historic moments” and “officials said.” Clueless bunch of twittering parrots huddled in a hotel, or otherwise “embedded.”

Prediction: No matter who was (s)elected today, there will be no buy-in from a large portion of the Sunnis and Kurds. A long civil war, fought mostly by Americans in a defensive position, defending whatever “government” emerges, all the while trying desperately to “Vietnamize”—er, I mean “iWaqize”—the responsibility for defending this “government.” And don’t think the Iranians are going to refrain from helping the Shiites consolidate power as much as possible. That means…another outpost of tyranny to invade?

I am not a happy person today. I think a drink is in order. Who's buying? Tom, any further historical paralells? The elections of 1923?

Back when we were all innocent, back in 2003, there was a site called "Media Whores Online," that performed much the same function that the nevertheless incomparable Daily Howler does today.

But the name did seem a little over the top. Didn't it? I mean, they weren't really whores, right? That was just a metaphor!

Well, come 2004, and all our innocence is lost. Yes, they really are whores. In fact, they're raking in so much servicing the VRWC by writing covert propoganda and disinformation, they forget how much money they're really making. Here's the all-too-typically sordid tale:

Maggie Gallagher apologized to readers for not disclosing a $21,500 contract with the Health and Human Services Department to help create materials promoting the agency's $300 million initiative to encourage marriage. She said it never occurred to her to tell readers about her work for the government. "I should have disclosed a government contract when I later wrote about the Bush marriage initiative. I would have, if I had remembered it. My apologies to my readers."
(via AP)

Pause a moment to savor that. Gallagher forget. You know, if Bush left $21,500 on the dresser for me, I'd remember it. Wouldn't you? Then again, my business isn't as, um, lucrative as Gallagher's ....

But citizens, take heart! Dear Leader is on the case, preserving the sanctity of your discourse:

"[Bush]All our Cabinet secretaries must realize that we will not be paying commentators to advance our agenda. Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet," Bush said at a news conference.

Which is a little masterpiece of obfuscatory qualification, isn't it? Here's what Inerrant Boy is not saying: "Columnists should never take money to produce covert propaganda." He's just saying cabinet secretaries should never pay them. So it's obviously OK for, oh, the RNC or any other organ of the VRWC to pay them. So, the Republican are going to shut down Maggie's house-that's-not-a-home, only to re-open it again a week or two later. Right?

But let's do a little math. How much is Bush spending to help his agenda stand
on its two hind legs on its own two feet?

The House Committee on Government Reform released a report on the use of taxpayer dollars for public relations campaigns. It found the administration spent a record $88 million on government-funded public relations contracts in 2004 — more than double the amount spent in 2000, according to the report prepared for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other Democrats.

Let's be generous and look at only the incremental increase over Clinton: say Bush has $50 million in "PR" money burning a hole in his pocket. And let's be even more generous and say he's spending most of it on the high-class Armstrong Williams ($250,000) rather than the low rent Maggie Williams
($21,500). So, do the math:

$50,000,000 / $250,000 = 200

So, Bush can budget for 200 Media Whores. That's a number that covers just about every winger talking head, isn't it? Of course, they can't all be part of the racket, right? That would be way too paranoid, wouldn't it...

Seems to me, then, that every single time a Democrat is being interviewed by a winger talking head, it would be a useful exercise to clarify the ground rules. Perhaps the Democrat could ask the talking head a simple question. Like this:

Before we go on, [Bill|Rush|Sean|Anne|Cokie ... N₂₀₀, are you now, or have you ever been, a paid policy advocate?

Probably that would get the Dems kicked out of the LWRM pretty fast. So? Shake the dust from your shoes, guys. And let the dead bury their dead.

Because spin just isn't intense enough.

Usage example: "I'd give the torque on this one a 9.8 on The Mighty Corrente Ten Point Torque-age Scale™."

Or: "Surprise! The wingers are totally torquing the Iraqi election results."

Or not a surprise.

Look, I'm sure that the turnout numbers are entirely trustworthy—I'm not even going to let the idea that the numbers are as solid as the numbers in a Republican swing state cross my beautiful mind.

But honestly. These guys are playing the expectations game so hard, you'd think that Inerrant Boy came in second in New Hampshire again. Which should be enough to tell us what's really going on, yes?

Anyhow, here's something that's closer to a bottom line:

The turnout appeared to follow predicted lines: High in the country's Shiite Muslim south and Kurdish north, where populations disenfranchised by the government of Saddam Hussein embraced the opportunity to gain power in Baghdad -- and low in areas dominated by the Sunni Arabs where the insurgency has been centered.
(via WaPo)

About what was expected, right? So why do I hear all these "history in the making" drums beating, anyhow? Looks kinda like the US election results in oh, about 1860, wouldn't you say?

Oh yeah. The early torque was that voting had approached 70%. Here's a little coverage, buried of course, on the methodolody behind those numbers:

There was no firm count of the number of people who voted, as Iraqi election officials in the evening backed away from an earlier estimate that turnout was approximately 72 percent. Sarid Ayar, spokesman for the electoral commission, said in the evening that the earlier numbers were "anticipations," and Reuter quoted him as "guessing" that maybe 8 million Iraqis voted, which would be a little over 60 percent of registered voters.

But gosh. The MWs just ate those numbers up, didn't they? I just wish the wingers were as good at fighting real wars as they are at fighting frame wars. But then, since they're all chickenhawks, they wouldn't have any idea about that, would they?

That's deaths not casualties.

Of course, just today, WaPo is using 10,000—the CW's estimate is an order of magnitude too low.

Nick Lewis has an excellent summary of why the LWRM is ignoring the numbers, originally developed by the Lancet, in the most recent Chronicle of Higher Education. The article is a must read, since it exhaustively explains and defends the methodology used in the studies:

In late October, a study was published in The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, concluding that about 100,000 civilians had been killed in Iraq since it was invaded by a United States-led coalition in March 2003. On the eve of a contentious presidential election -- fought in part over U.S. policy on Iraq -- many American newspapers and television news programs ignored the study or buried reports about it far from the top headlines.

The paper, written by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, and Baghdad's Al-Mustansiriya University, was based on a door-to-door survey in September of nearly 8,000 people in 33 randomly selected locations in Iraq. It was dangerous work, and the team of researchers was lucky to emerge from the survey unharmed.

Neither the Defense Department nor the State Department responded to the paper, nor would they comment when contacted by The Chronicle. American news-media outlets largely published only short articles, noting how much higher the Lancet estimate was than previous estimates. Some [covertly subsidized?] pundits called the results politicized and worthless.

Mr. Roberts and his colleagues now believe that the speedy publication of that data created much of the public skepticism toward the study. He sent the manuscript to the medical journal on October 1, requesting that it be published that month. Mr. Roberts says the editors agreed to do so without asking him why.

Despite the sprint to publication, the paper did go through editing and peer review. In an accompanying editorial, Richard Horton, editor of the The Lancet, wrote that the paper "has been extensively peer-reviewed, revised, edited, and fast-tracked to publication because of its importance to the evolving security situation in Iraq."


Mr. Garfield now regrets the timing of the paper's release because he believes that it allowed people to dismiss the research. "The argument is an idiotic one of, 'You're playing politics, so then the data's not true,'" he says.

Isn't this a case study that shows how Lakoff's frames work?

George Lakoff, an author and professor of linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley who calls himself a "cognitive activist," says this: "One of the fundamental findings of cognitive science is that people think in terms of frames and metaphors -- conceptual structures. The frames are in the synapses of our brains -- physically present in the form of neural circuitry. When the facts don't fit the frames, the frames are kept and the facts ignored."
( Kenny Ausubel, AlerNet

Here, it seems like a very odd definition of political is operating. "Political" means anything that would alter a frame—here, the frame that the US military is capable of fighting an urban insurgency without causing mass casualties. So, "not political" is whatever does not alter, or reinforces, an existing frame.

Which is interesting, because the bottom line is that facts can only be raised as issues when it doesn't matter. You'd think that the most important time to bring up new facts would be during an election, but no, that would be "political." Of course, elections are not really "political"—they are about national regeneration, feelings, etc.

Faugh...

Ann Coulter probably heard that tired chestnut about Canadians being Americans with health care and gun control, and concluding that their journalists must also be spineless morons, thus agreed to appear on CBC's "The Fifth Estate", ultimately providing posterity with this deathless exchange, which could sit comfortably alongside Monty Python's Dead Parrot Sketch:

Coulter: "Canada used to be one of our most loyal friends and vice-versa. I mean Canada sent troops to Vietnam - was Vietnam less containable and more of a threat than Saddam Hussein?"

Interviewer: "Canada didn't send troops to Vietnam."

Coulter: "I don't think that's right."

Interviewer: "Canada did not send troops to Vietnam."

Coulter (looking desperate): "Indochina?"

Interviewer: "Uh no. Canada ...second World War of course. Korea. Yes. Vietnam No."

Coulter: "I think you're wrong."

Interviewer: "No, took a pass on Vietnam."

Coulter: "I think you're wrong."

Interviewer: "No, Australia was there, not Canada."

Coulter: "I think Canada sent troops."

Interviewer: "No."

Coulter: "Well. I'll get back to you on that."

Interviewer [tag voiceover]: Coulter never got back to us -- but for the record, like Iraq, Canada sent no troops to Vietnam."
(via Rumor Control)

For more Canadian hijinx with Yankee blowhards, see Heather Mallick's account of her appearance on "The O'Reilly Factor."

So, SuperBowl Sunday is next Sunday.

Damn.

I was so hoping the pain would be over by now....

Reality breaks in as soon as you leave the bubble—even for Ashcroft:

The possibility that al-Qaeda or its sympathizers could gain access to a nuclear bomb is the greatest danger facing the United States in the war on terrorism, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Thursday.
(via CNN)

It's always seemed to me that that likeliest scenario is a loose nuke or a dirty bomb in a shipping container. After all, if it works for illegal aliens, why not for AQ and its ilk?

And what has Bush done about this? Aside from claiming that port security should be privatized. And treating Homeland Security as a pork barrel program?

Zip. Zilch. Zero. Nada. Feeling safer?

Just go read it.

You can follow the link to the pictures as well.

However, I warn you, they're not for the squeamish.

Local Dems, lefties and assorted progressives—scattered over five huge counties with mountains and deserts and with organizing headaches as a result—had a “D’oh!” moment today and thought “Why not start a blog just to keep us all in touch and organized?” Some folks want ways to get involved and remain anonymous—which I respect—and they could do this too on a blog.

Someone sent me an email about it and wanted to know the ins and outs but I know shit from shinola about this stuff, really, and with dialup my main means of access and all the time on the road I don’t think I could do it, anyway. Some of the other folks who write with me have better access to broadband and a lot more tech savvy.

But is there anybody already doing this locally as an organizing tool? If so, is it working? Any advice I can send to my co-conspirators and cellmates about giving this a try?

As scattered as we are, I think it’ll a hell of a lot more efficient than house parties and meetings, if less fun. And it might even let us organize better house parties and meetings, for that matter. It’d sure beat the shit out of phone trees for local GOTV. Any ideas, friends?

Everyone should go take a look at this chart. I've put it up on my door at work.

While I was googling to find the chart again, I stumbled across this idiotic post on a winger blog from October of 2003 about how we are "winning" in Iraq. Go read it if you want to get a good laugh.

And, speaking of moronic wingnuts, Insty is apparently up to his old tricks again, taking his cues from the Chimperor himself, he's put together another hilarious comic-book-like screed/indictment of "the left" -- yet again. Why the hell do people still read him? Is he really a law professor -- with "analytical skills" like that?

And, after cheerleading for this damned fool's errand in Iraq, just what sort of a idiot does he look like now? I always knew this war would turn out like this. That's why I was against it from the start.

Anyway, Max has got a great slapdown of Insty in this post.

As Max puts it:

Speaking of American casualties in Iraq, unlike Markos and other critics of the war, Reynolds has hyped every piece of duplicitous, discredited bullshit floating from the Pentagon down the Potomac. Few on the Internet can claim more credit for greasing the skids for this debacle of a war, nor for the attendant deaths of over 1,400 American soldiers.

"If you had your way, Saddam would still be in power." Yes, if I had my way, Saddam would probably still be in power. And ten thousand American families would not be suffering. That's an easy call.

Indeed.

UPDATE: Oliver Willis also takes Glenn down.

One other thing: Can you find the historical error in Glenn's post?

UPDATE 2: Kos also takes Insty down a few pegs. (He's also apparently been reading this blog or read my old one, he uses my trademarked phrase "fool's errand" to describe IraqWar Part II.)

Kos closes his post with this:

The faith-based lunatics taking up residence in the White House and the Pentagon have ample ideological company in Tennessee law schools and other hidey holes of the wingnut blogosphere.

But at the end of the day, whether they'll ever admit it or not -- we were right, they were wrong. Reality isn't being too kind to their side.

Heh.

Debasing the currency:

Bill Gates, the world's richest person with a net worth of $46.6 billion, is betting against the U.S. dollar.

``I'm short the dollar,'' Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., told Charlie Rose in an interview late yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. ``The ol' dollar, it's gonna go down.''

Gates reflected the views of his friend Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor who has bet against the dollar since 2002. Buffett said last week that the U.S. trade gap will probably further weaken the currency.

``Unless we have a major change in trade policies, I don't see how the dollar avoids going down,'' Buffett said in an interview with CNBC Jan. 19.

Gates in December joined the board of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the investment company that Buffett runs. Forbes magazine's list of billionaires ranks Gates, 49, No. 1. Buffett, 74, is second, with more than $30 billion. Almost all of it is in Berkshire stock.

Gates's $27 billion foundation in September received approval from China's foreign-currency regulator to invest as much as $100 million in the nation's yuan shares and bonds.
(via Bloomberg)

So, um, when Bush's Alpo Accounts go through, will it be OK if I put my money in Chinese bonds like Gates and Buffet can?

I'll pause for bitter laugher when you're done reading the excerpt:

The oath I will now ask Secretary Rice to repeat dates from that time.

Madam Secretary?

I, Condoleezza Rice, do solemnly swear...

RICE: I, Condoleezza Rice, do solemnly swear...

GINSBERG: ... that I will support and defend...

RICE: ... that I will support and defend...

GINSBERG: ... the Constitution of the United States...

RICE: ... the Constitution of the United States...
(via WaPo transcript)

[Pause.]
So, Madam Secretary, is it your view that torture is permitted by law, and rule by decree is permitted by the Constitution, as the nominee for Attorney General, Albert Gonzales, has proposed? (back)

Zack Exley. Go read.

Well, I really don't mean Halliburton; I mean their Cayman Islands subsidiary. But anyhow:

Halliburton Co. will pull out of Iran after its current contracts there are wound down, its chief executive said Friday.
Halliburton said in July that it had received a subpoena seeking information about operations in Iran of its Cayman Islands subsidiary, Halliburton Products & Services Ltd.

The company has argued that using a Cayman Islands subsidiary exempts it from a U.S.-imposed trade embargo against Iran, which is accused of seeking nuclear arms and funding terrorist networks.

Halliburton provided no details on when its current contracts in Iran would be completed or on the value of the work. The company generated about $80 million in revenue in Iran in 2003.
(via LA Times)

Gee, I wonder why Cheney's company is pulling out if Iran now? Could it be they know something we don't?

CNN's Judy Woodruff, doing her usual fine job of burying a turd in the sand, gets all forthcoming-like with former Bush administration dramatis personae Victoria Clarke. Clarke, the madam procuress of the Pentagon's Iraq war embed agenesis, is currently employed as a "public diplomacy"/psy-op, I mean "contributor", yes, contributor, contributor it is, with CNN. Whew. So, ahem, lets watch as the gals apply some greasy lipstick to the slippery liaison pig.

Partial transcript - Inside Politics - CNN:

(on camera): At the heart of this debate is the question of credibility. Are commentators influenced by being too cozy with politicians or by sizeable paychecks from government agencies?

The Democrats have demanded an investigation and want to outlaw what they call covert propaganda. President Bush realizes that pundit payola looks bad, which is why he's asked his cabinet heads to stop the practices.

Howard Kurtz, CNN's "RELIABLE SOURCES." (END VIDEOTAPE)

WOODRUFF: Thank you, Howard.

WOODRUFF: And joining me now with her take on all this, CNN contributor and former Pentagon spokeswoman, Torie Clark. You also, I want to say, worked for the first Bush administration...

TORIE CLARK, FMR. PENTAGON SPOKESWOMAN: I did.

WOODRUFF: ... in several capacity.

CLARK: A long time ago.

WOODRUFF: So you not only know how government works, you know how the press works. You worked for a newspaper here in Washington.

CLARK: A very long time ago, 25 years ago.

A very long time ago in a very far away land...



Oh yeah...I worked here and there, for some newspaper, yada-yada, long time ago...moving along.

A Bright Shining Line:

WOODRUFF: Well, now we're reading this week that the Bush administration has paid public relations firms something like $250 million to help push Bush proposals. They say this is double what the Clinton administration spent.

Now, is this -- is this tax payer money, you know, well spent? I mean, is it appropriate?

CLARK: Again, it's the reflection of the times in which information increasingly plays a very, very important role. There is nothing new about the United States government having outside consultants for a variety of things.

The Department of Defense has paid contractors for years to build planes and ships. This is another tool, if you will, that people in the government use.

But I do think people need to draw some pretty bright lines. The president has. The president has drawn a very bright line about what he thinks is appropriate and what he thinks is inappropriate. I think everyone in the government needs to take stock of that.

WOODRUFF: Were you ever aware when you worked in government, either first Bush administration or this administration, first term, of this kind of practice under way anywhere in the government?

CLARK: Never. Never. We were very aggressive.

I was very aggressive at the Pentagon about bringing people in to talk to groups, whether it was education leaders, labor leaders, religious leaders. Across the board we'd bring people in to talk to them and try to explain our positions and our views on things. But that was the extent of our outreach.

Ooops! Forgot to mention anything about that "first term" earlier. But ya gotta love how Woodruff slides that little reference to "this administration, first term" in there now. Without asking Clarke to explain what exactly it was she did during any of that, so very long ago, "first term". Ya know, back when Torie was aggressively throwing Kool Aide and Cakewalk parties for the giggly wide-eyed wowsers from CNN and, and.... Anyway, this professional bullshit media management PR weasel chitty-chat continues for a while and concludes as follows:

WOODRUFF: Very quickly, I want to clarify, you are a contributor for CNN.

CLARK: That's right.

WOODRUFF: So you're paid by CNN.

CLARK: That's right.

WOODRUFF: You don't have any affiliation with the Bush administration anymore?

CLARK: None. None whatsoever.

WOODRUFF: OK.

Stop it. I can hear your eyes rolling around out there.

CLARK: Thanks.

WOODRUFF: Torie Clark making it clear. Thank you very much.

CLARK: Good to see you.

WOODRUFF: It's always good to have you on. We appreciate it.

CLARK: Thanks.

WOODRUFF: Thank you.

See ya at the soda fountain after the game Torie! You go girl-friend! Anyway, you can read the transcript of the whole lame pathetic disingenuous who do they think they're kidding mess, in its entirety, for yourselves, right here: CNN - Inside Politics Jan 28, 2005.

You go to war with the best public relations huckster you can have:

the White House announced last week that Victoria Clarke, a Washington public relations executive with no experience in military affairs, was the nominee for the post. Clarke was selected to comply with the White House's insistence on women or minorities in high positions. Among her champions was Karen Hughes, President Bush's communications director and the person in charge of picking spokesmen, or spokeswomen, for cabinet agencies. ~ cached text link

Poise, praise and vantage points:

As press secretary for President George H.W. Bush's 1992 re-election campaign, Clarke witnessed history from vantage points like Air Force One and was broadly praised for her poise and professionalism during the campaign’s most difficult days. She was a close advisor to Arizona Senator John McCain from the earliest days of his Congressional career. As Assistant U.S. Trade Representative during the first Bush Administration, Clarke worked extensively with journalists from around the world and ran a comprehensive private sector liaison program. ~ Torie Bio

"a comprehensive private sector liasion program." Ha ha ha.... oh golly. But it's nice of CNN to invite Torie in from the cold and provide her a little desk in the corner where she can resume her praised organizing on behalf of cheery get-togethers and poised personal sector liaisons. And it sure is a good thing she's not hanging round those icky Bush administration flim flam drummers anymore. That would be so inappropriate.

Plus, she's not wearing those weird Babes In Toyland costumes on TV anymore. Remember that? When she was dressing up like she was going on tour with Herman's Hermits - or something. What the hell was that about anyway?

*

You know, I'd really like it if Howard Dean did for the Dems what Gingrich did for the Republicans—bring them to power by getting the message ruthlessly right.

The difference would be... Well, that Howard says things that are true. Just a little bit earlier than most other people, for which he was vilified by the media whores. But isn't a leader supposed to be just a little bit ahead of the pack?

This morning, I came out of the house in a rush, and just as I turned turned the corner out of my icy sidestreet onto 15th, I slipped on the curb and at the same time ran into a young man (goateed, a hipster, amazingly up at 6:00AM)—who steadied me so I didn't fall, and said, "You OK?"

So: I was about to slip and fall, and this young man picked me up. He didn't:

1. Hand me a Bible and tell me to read it.

2. Tell me a tax cut next April would solve all my problems.

3. Tell me that I should have put my money into a Personal Falling Down Account.

He just helped me in a neighborly fashion, even though he didn't know who I was.

I guess he wasn't a Republican.

Today's WaPo coverage is interesting: "Private accounts" in the headline, "personal accounts" in the lede, then the second paragraph uses "private accounts" as a synonym for "personal accounts"... So confusing. If phasing out Social Security was really a good idea, you'd think they wouldn't have to keep coming up with new names for what they want to do:

Bush's Social Security Plan to Settle on Private Accounts
Bush's advisers have settled on a proposal for structuring the personal accounts they hope to create in Social Security, while on Capitol Hill, Senate Democrats were launching an effort to defeat the plan altogether.

Under a plan recommended to Bush, the private accounts would resemble many company-sponsored retirement plans, with just a handful of investment options.
(via WaPo)

Wow, just a handful, huh? I wonder if they're going to be Republican contributors?

And hey, all the brokers in this handful of plans are going to outperform Social Security, right? As didn't happen in Chile, right? Oh, wait, I thought the government wasn't supposed to pick winners... Must... block... out... cognitive... dissonance...

Under the emerging Bush plan for Social Security, the default investment would be a "life cycle" account. It would begin with investments that have greater potential for both risk and reward and shift to safer bonds as a worker ages, officials in and outside the administration said.

So for this, we pay these guys a commission? Why? But in terms of that all important framing:

"Life cycle," huh? Yep, it's dog food!




What'll it be, Grandma? Cycle Puppy, Cycle Adult, Cycle Lite or Cycle Senior?

And Alpo or Cycle, it's still dog food.

UPDATE Kevin Drum has a nice paranoid bait and switch theory.

UPDATE 2: On topic Corrente backtrack: The Pinochet Plan

I think you all need one of these!

Okay, now that was exceptionally tacky.

I do apologize.

One of Dick Cheney's suspected secret undisclosed locations continues to smolder.

Agriculture Secretary and former Governor of Nebraska Mike Johanns to be offered to angry mountain as ritual human sacrifice. Johanns will be stripped naked, bonked on the forehead with a ball-peen hammer, and heaved into the ferment to appease the cow god Bos. An invitation only GOP sponsored luncheon and brief memorial service will follow the forfeiture ceremony. Shadow president Cheney could not be reached for comment but was beleived to be safely decomposing beneath a heap of Bush administration bullshit north of Sabillasville, Maryland.

Massive Manure Fire Burns Into Third Month

MILFORD, Neb.: [...]

Byproducts from the massive operation resulted in a dung pile measuring 100 feet long, 30 feet high and 50 feet wide that began burning about two months ago and continues to smolder despite Herculean attempts to douse it.

[...]

The Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality has informed Dickinson that his smoldering dung pile violates clean-air laws and is working with him to find the best solution to extinguish it, said agency spokesman Rich Webster.

[...]

No one is sure how the fire started, but a common theory is that heat from the decomposing manure deep inside the pile eventually ignited the manure.

Also see:
Annals Of The Ownership Society

*

Dionne at WaPo seems to have gotten the first interview with John Edwards since he stepped back from things to deal with Elizabeth's illness and decide what to do next.

I like it. I like Edwards anyway, voted for him in the (entirely meaningless) Tennessee primary, hated how he was used in the campaign. Put a populist Southerner on the ticket and then never send him to the South to campaign?? Feh. Not so bright.

But anyway, he's back, and what he's looking to do ties in nicely with what RDF's earlier post was talking about. After all, you can't make a rainbow without Sunshine...

What if the problem the Democrats face cannot be explained by all the careful calculations of the careful political calculators? What if their 2004 loss was not primarily about losing a few Catholics here and a few married women there? What if the Democrats' challenge is about passion, not positioning?

John Edwards is wagering a lot, maybe his whole political future, on that list of what-ifs. The 2004 vice presidential nominee, the guy with the dad in the mill who gave the most remembered stump speech of the Democratic primary campaign, will rejoin the debate with a new speech in New Hampshire on the first weekend in February. From the sounds of an interview at his Georgetown house earlier this week, Edwards intends to pick up where he left off in that "two Americas" discourse of his.

"It needs to be clear to the country what our core beliefs are, and the last thing we need is strategic maneuvering," Edwards says. "What people want to see is leadership and strength and conviction. This is about what's inside us. It's not about how we get to the right place."

[snip] But conviction politics has not been in vogue in progressive circles. This era's two great center-left politicians, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, have been resolute Third Wayers, tacking carefully between left and right. The Third Way was a tacit admission of conservatism's momentum.

Moral issues matter, Edwards says, but Democrats won't look moral by getting into a bidding war over how often they can invoke the name of God. Instead, Democrats should speak with conviction about an issue that has always animated them: the alleviation of poverty. "I think it is a moral issue; it's something we should be willing to fight about and stand up for," he says.

Edwards, who is planning to set up a center to study ways to alleviate poverty, is enough of a politician to insist that he wants to advocate not only on behalf of the destitute but also for those just finding their footing on mobility's ladder. But he offers the unexpected claim that the very voters who have strayed from the Democrats would respond forcefully to the moral imperative of aiding the poor.

Over at Common Dreams, Danny Glover and Bill Fletcher, Jr. outline a strategy that seems very similar to the ones that have been emerging here at corrente:

What the Neo-Rainbow Needs A neo-Rainbow electoral strategy needs:

(1) to build an identifiable, accountable organization that operates inside and outside the Democratic Party;

(2) to have people of color in its core leadership, and a base among African-Americans and Latinos (not to the exclusion of others);

(3) to have a united-front approach to growth, encompassing diverse constituencies;

(4) to be pro-equality populist in its politics, embracing the struggles for racial, gender and economic justice as the cornerstones of democracy;

(5) to support a change in US foreign policy toward what can be called a democratic foreign policy;

(6) to root itself among working people and their issues, and develop a ground-up approach, involving ward and precinct organizations and a targeted effort to build political power in key strategic zones.

They go on to discuss each of these strategies in detail. The whole thing’s at Visualizing a Neo-Rainbow

It seems to me that Dr. Dean was and is doing most of these things except #2 and maybe #3. Could that have been the problem? I know that #6 is where it starts.

CLEVELAND -- Joining the animated fray, the United Church of Christ today (Jan. 24) said that Jesus' message of extravagant welcome extends to all, including SpongeBob Squarepants - the cartoon character that has come under fire for allegedly holding hands with a starfish.

"Absolutely, the UCC extends an unequivocal welcome to SpongeBob," the Rev. John H. Thomas, the UCC's general minister and president, said, only partly in jest. "Jesus didn't turn people away. Neither do we."

For that matter, Thomas explained, the 1.3-million-member church, if given the opportunity, would warmly receive Barney, Big Bird, Tinky-Winky, Clifford the Big Red Dog or, for that matter, any who have experienced the Christian message as a harsh word of judgment rather than Jesus' offering of grace.

The UCC's welcome comes in the wake of laughable accusations by James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, that the popular SpongeBob and other well-known cartoon characters are crossing "a moral line" by stressing tolerance in a national We Are Family Foundation-sponsored video that will be distributed to U.S. schools on March 11, 2005.

Later, an assistant to Dobson called SpongeBob's participation in the video "insidious."

Thomas said, on the contrary, it is Dobson who is crossing the moral line for sending the mistaken message that Christians do not value tolerance and diversity as important religious values.

"While Dobson's silly accusation makes headlines, it's also one more concrete example of how religion is misused over and over to promote intolerance over inclusion," Thomas said. "This is why we believe it is so important that the UCC speak the Gospel in an accent not often heard in our culture, because far too many experience the cross only as judgment, never as embrace."

Dobson, despite his often-outrageous viewpoints, is arguably one of the most oft-heard religious voices in popular culture today. Through his Focus on the Family media empire, Dobson produces daily commentaries that appear widely on television and radio stations across the United States, often times as "public service announcements."

Meanwhile, the UCC's recently released 30-second paid television commercial - produced to underscore the denomination's belief that Jesus didn't turn anyone away - has been rejected by two major television networks for being "too controversial."

"Resistance to our message is formidable," Thomas says, "because we're cutting against the prevailing grain of a society that is afraid of the stranger, suspicious of difference and easily seduced by narrowly defined theological boundaries."
(via United Church of Christ)

Indeed.

(And a hearty) Heh.

I'm all out of snark. My country is run by torturers. And not relucant torturers. Enthusiastic ones. How could that happen? It's evil.

Were any of these items on the list that Rummy approved?

Female interrogators tried to break Muslim detainees at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay by sexual touching, wearing a miniskirt and thong underwear and in one case smearing a Saudi man's face with fake menstrual blood, according to an insider's written account.
(via AP)

And did the interrogators enjoy their work?

Were they, um, Christians? It's hard to tell:

The female interrogator wanted to "break him," Saar adds, describing how she removed her uniform top to expose a tight-fitting T-shirt and began taunting the detainee, touching her breasts, rubbing them against the prisoner's back and commenting on his apparent erection.

The detainee looked up and spat in her face, the manuscript recounts.

The interrogator left the room to ask a Muslim linguist how she could break the prisoner's reliance on God.

Well, I know that sounds pretty bad, at least from a PR standpoint. But let's be reasonable. After all, how could a Muslim be relying on God? Not possible. We have the word on that from Rummy's deputy, General William Boykin:

“Well, you know what I knew—that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol.”

So, that's cleared up. Phew. My faith was shaken for a moment. But now I'm all right.

There's a rumor going around that the Times actually did some reporting yesterday, and discovered, that as with so much else that emanates from the winger replicants infesting the West Wing, what we in the reality-based community intended as vicious, over-the-top parody turns out to be the sober truth.

"Alp Accounts", anyone? That was the Chilean experiene with privatization.

I knew when Bush started duck speaking about "doing the math" on Social Security that we'd be in trouble. Of course, if He were any good at math he wouldn't have had to keep getting bailed out of failing businesses by his, um, owners....

These guys make it too easy:

Salon has confirmed that Michael McManus, a marriage advocate whose syndicated column, "Ethics & Religion," appears in 50 newspapers, was hired as a subcontractor by the Department of Health and Human Services to foster a Bush-approved marriage initiative. McManus championed the plan in his columns without disclosing to readers he was being paid to help it succeed.

Why should we be surprised that the same people whose idea of religion is persecuting others and spreading hate, also think that ethics means misrepresenting oneself in print while secretly ripping off the taxpayer? Is there any virtue they haven't prostituted by now?

People are starting to notice:

The White House announces a press conference in the morning. After the announcement comes the news that 31 Americans died in a chopper crash in Iraq (6 others died today in seperate incidents). The president takes the podium fresh with the knowledge of that tragedy--and radiates a cheerful disposition bantering with the press about senior citizens and their faulty memories. ... Imagine if Bill Clinton had been chirpy and chipper having just received the news of 31 soldiers dying in the theater of combat--Rush Limbaugh would have devoted three hours to it, and Fox News would have dragged Dick Morris out of the all-you-can-eat buffet for his "expert analysis."

When Bush did address the soldiers' deaths, he said that we "weep and mourn" when Americans die, but as he was saying it his hand was flatly smacking downwards for emphasis, as if he were pounding the table during the business meeting, refusing to pay a lot for a muffler. The steady beat of his hand was at odds with the sentiments he was expressing--he didn't look or sound the least bit mournful or sombre. And why should he? Death doesn't seem to be a bringdown for him.
(James Wolcott has noticed, and Kosackia noticed him noticing)

For those of you following along at home (and for alert Corrente readers), Wollcott has noticed one of Bush's troubling symptoms—Shallow affect; Callousness and lack of empathy—symptoms which, taken in the aggregate, add up to the DSM's criteria for a sociopath (back).

Of course, torturing small animals in childhood is another sign of lack of empathy, so it isn't surprising that Bush, a deeply troubled individual, blew up frogs with firecrackers (back) when he was boy. Nor should it be surprising, today, that Bush is sponsoring policies that authorize torture. It's all part of the same package.

It dawned on me when I was writing the partial list of grievances in a different post that there was a fine model for listing grievances, and it might be time to do a little comparison:

… The history of the present King… is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny... To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

Gun control. Universal health care. Help me out here, readers.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

Redistricting.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

DeLay forcing the Texas Dems to flee to New Mexico?

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

I think this one is still in the pipeline except for rule by decree.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

Again, in the works, except for the “exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within” part.

I skipped over a few here…

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

Military-industrial complex. Halliburton.

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States.

That one’s more for the Iraqis. Skipped a few more…

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences.

Guantanamo. Torture. War on Drugs. Skipped a few more…

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments.

Congressional rule changes in ethics and procedures. More skipping…

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

You’re either with us or against us. Then a couple more for the Iraqis:

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

Skipped the bit about “merciless Indian savages.” Could insert “terrorists”? Then:

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people….

And so, if we were to meet and draft a declaration that ended as above, what would our list of grievances be in 2005? I suspect it would be longer that theirs in 1776. Readers? Grievances? I can take all of the grievances and put them in a new post, a la the Declaration... I'm sure it's been done, but what the hell?

DHS is piloting RFID tags for visitors to the US:

The US Department of Homeland Security has decided to trial RFID tags in an effort to make sure only the right sort of people get across US borders.

The controversial US-VISIT scheme for those visiting the US from abroad already fingerprints holidaymakers on their way into the country and is now adding RFID to the mix in order to improve border management, the department said.

The trials will start at a "simulated port" in the spring and will then be extended to Nogales East and Nogales West in Arizona; Alexandria Bay in New York; and Pacific Highway and Peace Arch in Washington by the end of July.

The testing phase will continue until the spring of next year. The exact way RFID will be used with the travellers is not yet known.

RFID chips will be used to track both pedestrians and vehicles entering the US to automatically record when the visitors arrive and leave in the country.
(From silicon.com via Kossackia )

But don't worry! I'm sure this technology will never be used domestically! Say, for internal passports. Or something.

The other thing, though... How does this work, exactly? How do they make sure our guests and their RFIDs stay together? Do they put the RFID on an ankle bracelet? Make the guests wear special beanies with the RFIDs in the propellor? Inject the RFIDs under the skin?

This is a powerful statement. I found it in one of those "odd news o' the day" wrapups in this obscure California rag:

(via North County CA Times)

Cable news pioneer Ted Turner used an appearance before a group of television executives to criticize the Fox network as a "propaganda voice" of the Bush administration and to compare Fox News Channel's popularity to Adolf Hitler's rise to power in Germany before World War II.

Turner, 66, in a speech Tuesday before about 1,000 people at the National Association of Television Programming Executives targeted "gigantic companies whose agenda goes beyond broadcasting" for timidity in challenging the Bush White House.

"There's one network, Fox, that's a propaganda voice for them," Turner said. "It's certainly legal. But it does pose problems for our democracy when the news is 'dumbed-down."'

Turner stepped down as vice chairman of AOL Time Warner in May 2003.

During a wide-ranging hour-long question-and-answer session moderated by former CNN anchorman Bernard Shaw, Turner called it "not necessarily a bad thing" that Fox ratings top CNN and other cable news networks.

"Adolf Hitler was more popular in Germany in the early 30s than ... people that were running against him," Turner said in remarks videotaped by conference administrators. "So, just because you're bigger doesn't mean you're right."

Fox, of course, had a response, which was of the level of civility and rational discourse for which we love them so much:

Fox News in New York issued a statement Tuesday saying, "Ted is understandably bitter having lost his ratings, his network and now his mind -- we wish him well."

When you can't dispute a man's points, or his accuracy, or his truthfullness, there's always comebacks suitable for a grade-school playground to fall back on. Whenever I picture a Fox News executive board meeting it's with Rupert Murdoch surrounded by Nelson Muntz, Stan Cartman and [fill in name of your favorite ignorant, bigoted cartoon bully here.]

But Ted's right, you know. I can see why Fox doesn't want to argue him on the merits of his case.

They’re intent on destroying Social Security.

They’re in absolute denial that invading iWaq was a criminal mistake, while they make plans for the next illegal invasion.

They’re guilty of international war crimes and a long list of domestic crimes.

They approve of torture.

They’ve hijacked the language in a way that would make Orwell shiver.

The list goes on and on.

Now, we’re back to protecting what’s left of the wilderness (again):

Citing a need for domestic energy, the government plans to open for exploratory drilling thousands of acres on Alaska's North Slope that have been protected for decades because of migratory birds and caribou.

The Bureau of Land Management has concluded that oil and gas exploration in the northeastern corner of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska can be conducted with "minimal impact" on the area's wildlife. via The Associated Press

They’re supposed to sign off on it this week. Don’t know if they have or not. If it’s not already too late, it might be time to drop a line to Gale Norton: Gale_Norton@ios.doi.gov

The birds and caribou and Native people will thank you.

It's a Red Letter Day—I agree with Dick Cheney. In the abstract, at least:

"The story of the camps remind us that evil is real and must be called by its name and must be confronted," Cheney said at a forum in Krakow, where he spoke before attending an anniversary program at the concentration camps here. "We are reminded that anti-Semitism may begin with words but rarely stops with words and the message of intolerance and hatred must be opposed before it turns into acts of horror."
(via Houston Chronicle)

Of course, Cheney, Bush, and the POTL will muzzle the "message of intolerance and hatred" that comes every day from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and the rest of the Republican Noise Machine when hell freezes over—the kulturkampf is too useful to the Republicans politically.

Still, I agree with Cheney that evil is real. How could anyhow read the history of the Holocaust—in fact, human history—and not be aware of the human capacity for evil?

But let's ask ourselves the question: What do the Foundders who wrote our Constitution think about evil and how to confront it? And does what the Republicans are doing to the Constiution make for more evil in the world, or less?

James Madison writes in Federalist #51:

Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure. There are but two methods of providing against this evil: the one by creating a will in the community independent of the majority that is, of the society itself; the other, by comprehending in the society so many separate descriptions of citizens as will render an unjust combination of a majority of the whole very improbable, if not impracticable. The first method prevails in all governments possessing an hereditary or self-appointed authority. This, at best, is but a precarious security; because a power independent of the society may as well espouse the unjust views of the major, as the rightful interests of the minor party, and may possibly be turned against both parties. The second method will be exemplified in the federal republic of the United States. Whilst all authority in it will be derived from and dependent on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority. In a free government the security for civil rights must be the same as that for religious rights. It consists in the one case in the multiplicity of interests, and in the other in the multiplicity of sects. The degree of security in both cases will depend on the number of interests and sects; and this may be presumed to depend on the extent of country and number of people comprehended under the same government.
(via Federalist Papers)

For Madison, evil was to be minimized through the separation of powers: Powers in conflict, doing small evils, are to be preferred to powers united, capable of doing great evil.

I wonder what Madison would think of today's One Partei State?

I wonder what Madison would think of Gonzales's theory of Rule by Decree?

I wonder what Madison would say about the theocracy proposed by the VRWC?

UPDATE Alert reader Shystee comments:

Wow.

This James Madison guy seems to believe diversity ensures freedom and good government. What is he, some bleeding heart Politically Correct librul pandering to minority special interests?

What yammering point will the Republican Framing Machine come up with next to keep its army of winger replicants frothing and stamping?

What's next after "privatization private personal account" doesn't poll well either?

1. Mad Money Accounts? (E. Saunders)

2. What-Happens-in-Vegas-Stays-in-Vegas Accounts?

3. Welfare for Brokers Accounts?

4. Alpo Accounts? (RDF)

Readers?

UPDATE I've been going with "Alpo Accounts" (short, sweet, alliterative, tells the story) but alert reader J. Hill has come up with a breathtakingly cynical pre-emptive strike:

Freedom Accounts

... Because freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.

Readers?

UPDATE

5. Faith-based accounts (alert reader sashax)
6. Douchebag account"—Not Guaranteed to clean you out, but that's the intent.... (granny insanity)

And alert reader ck has a comment on strategic semantics:

I have to say Ix-Nay on "Freedom Accounts" -- not that it isn't clever and witty; but because Freedom is Dear Leader's favorite word, and since our usage of it is snarky and ironic -- Dear Leader is liable to adopt it as his own.

Seriously -- just as SCLM needs to be replaced with LRWM, all of our counter-attacks need to be direct and flame-thrower-in-the-face, rather than ironic and indirect.

Alpo Accounts still has my vote.

Readers?

This story would be funny, if it weren't so unfunny. Come to think of it, the same could be said of this president's notion of what reforms are necessary to remake America into a forward-looking, twenty-first century version of itself, that ownership society which sprang, full-blown, from the conjoined brains of Newt Gingrich and Frank Luntz, and of which this story is an almost iconic example:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 21 - The Environmental Protection Agency said on Friday that it would shield operators of large livestock operations from prosecution from air pollution violations if they participated in a new program to collect emissions data from their farms.

The information gathered from the participants would be used to determine which of the thousands of factory farms, known as animal feeding operations or A.F.O.'s, violate the Clean Air Act or other environmental laws.

The voluntary program is a stark departure from the current strategy of focused prosecutions. As an inducement to join it, the agency assures operators that they will not be sued for current violations during the program's two years of monitoring.

"This is one of the most important compliance agreements we will do this year," the agency's acting administrator for enforcement and compliance, Thomas V. Skinner, said. "It will allow us to reach the largest number of A.F.O.'s in the shortest period of time and ensure that they comply with applicable clean air standards." (read the rest HERE)

Got that? The US government is going to reward operators of industrialized livestock farms who have failed to operate within current environmental standards with a guarantee they will not be prosecuted for those violations, in exchange for cooperating in a two year program that will measure just how badly they are fouling the environment.

There is no reason on God's green earth, other than the greediest of profit motives, for the existence of these large-scale livestock operations, whether cattle feedlots, or pork factories, or pountry concentrations camps. The animals live a terrible, utterly inhumane existence while alive, the antibiotic-drenched meat they invariably produce, because you can't keep animals in those kind of dispicable circumstances without over-medicating them against disease, is not healthy for humans, and the foul effect on the air, the earth, and all water that comes anywhere near these industrial cesspools is almost impossible to describe to anyone who hasn't experienced it. Nor are these factory farms even efficient; the reasons the meat produced costs less in your local supermarket has more to do with systems of distribution stacked against smaller producers than with any cost-effectiveness of such large-scale, industrialized animal husbandry. Perhaps saddests of all, the only local support for such facilities usually comes from potential employees who are desperate for the rotten, often dangerous, invariably non-union jobs that come with the meat packing facilities often located nearby.

You want a values issue that can unite red-blooded red state voters with us blue-veined liberal elites? There is one here. Go talk to an old-fashioned hog farmer in North Carolina about the impact on the life of his family, on the life of his community, ask him what happened to his own land, to the air he breathes, to the rivers and lakes that used to grace his life; no, don't talk about environmentalism, talk about large-scale factory farming, talk about the impact of corporations on family farms, and talk about why you, who may live in a city, care; you'll find out how many more values you share with that hog farmer, and I think there's a real good chance he and his family will find out how many more values they share with you than with George W. Bush, whose playtime ranch, devoted entirely, apparently, to the raising of sagebrush, will never be in danger of having a feedlot located nearby.

In a related development, also reported in the NYTimes:

Meat Packing Industry Criticized on Human Rights Grounds

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

Published: January 25, 2005

or the first time, Human Rights Watch has issued a report that harshly criticizes a single industry in the United States, concluding that the nation's meat packing industry has such bad working conditions that it violates basic human and worker rights.

In a report issued today, Human Rights Watch, often echoing Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle," found that jobs in many beef, pork and poultry plants were so dangerous that the industry violated international agreements promising a safe workplace.

Noting that the industry's injury rate was three times that of private industry over all, the report describes plants where exhausted employees slice into carcasses at a frenzied pace hour after hour, often suffering injuries from a slip of the knife or from repeating the same motion more than 10,000 times a day. The report describes workers being asphyxiated by fumes and having their legs cut off and hands crushed.

"Meat packing is the most dangerous factory job in America," said Lance Compa, the report's author. "Dangerous conditions are cheaper for companies - and the government does next to nothing."

The report also concluded that packing companies violated human and labor rights by suppressing their employees' efforts to organize by, for example, often firing employees who support a union. The report asserted that slaughterhouse and packing plants also flouted international rules by taking advantage of workers' immigration status - in some plants two-thirds of the workers are illegal immigrants - to subject them to inferior treatment.

"Every country has its horrors, and this industry is one of the horrors in the United States," said Jamie Fellner, director of United States programs for Human Rights Watch. "One of the goals of Human Rights Watch is to promote the understanding that workers rights are human rights. The right to organize and the right to have a safe place to work are human rights no less than the right not to be tortured."

Industry officials denied that they violated workers' rights, saying that the number of injuries was declining and that packing companies did their utmost to make their plants safe. The industry also asserted that packing companies did not violate laws allowing workers to unionize and did not treat workers more harshly because of their immigration status.

J. Patrick Boyle, president of the American Meat Institute, said the report was "replete with falsehoods and baseless claims."

"In fact, there are so many refutable claims and irresponsible accusations contained in this 175-page report that it would take another 175 pages to correct the errors," Mr. Boyle said.

The report, "Blood, Sweat and Fear: Workers' Rights in U.S. Meat and Poultry Plants," focuses on Omaha for beef, Tarheel, N.C, for pork and Northwest Arkansas for poultry.

In his research, Mr. Compa, who is a professor of industrial and labor relations at Cornell University, focused on three companies: Tyson Foods, Smithfield Foods and Nebraska Beef. He spent more than a year preparing the report and based it on interviews with workers, company responses, regulatory reports, judicial rulings and court testimony.

"Nearly every worker interviewed for this report bore physical signs of a serious injury suffered from working in a meat or poultry plant," the report said. "Meat and poultry industry employers set up the workplaces and practices that create these dangers, but they treat the resulting mayhem as a normal, natural part of the production process, not as what it is - repeated violations of international human rights standards."

The report said that many companies pressured injured workers not to file worker compensation when they are injured as a way to save the companies money on medical bills and worker compensation payments.

Gary Mickelson, a spokesman for Tyson Foods said: "We're disappointed by the report's misleading conclusions, but not surprised given the author's extensive ties to organized labor. Ensuring our team members are treated fairly is an integral part of the way we do business."

Dennis Treacy, Smithfield's vice president for environmental community and government affairs, faulted the report for focusing on labor violations from nearly a decade ago.

"They make no mention of the current situation of our plants or anybody else's," he said. "We're proud of our plants."

He said worker safety was one of Smithfield's highest priorities and that the company was appealing a National Labor Relations Board decision finding dozens of labor law violations against workers trying to unionize its Tar Heel pork-processing plant in 1997.

The Human Rights Watch report describes Smithfield's violations during that 1997 unionization drive, including firing pro-union workers, stationing police officers at plant gates to intimidate workers and orchestrating an assault on union supporters.

Human Rights Watch called on federal safety officials to increase enforcement and to slow the line speed in packing plants to reduce the number of repetitive stress injuries. The group urged state officials to enforce worker compensation laws more vigorously, and it urged companies not to fire and intimidate workers seeking to unionize.

Officials from Nebraska Beef did not respond to inquiries about the report (LINK).

To be fair, when Bill Clinton was Governor of Arkansas, Tyson Foods was a welcome employer. But it is also true, in a state with one of the constitutionally weakest state governments, Governor Clinton got the first environmental legislation ever in the state's history passed. And as President, Clinton's appointees to the NLRB were pro-union. Paul Bremer, President Bush's personal choice for the Presidential Medal of Freedom made sure that Saddam's anti-union decrees stayed on the books in Iraq, even while he was passing new laws, though neither he nor a single person on the interim governing council had been elected by even a single Iraqi, that would give free reign to international corporations to privitize Iraq's state industries. We will not pretend that

There was a very specific reason for that odd formulation in thie president's inaugural last Thursday:

We will encourage reform in other governments by making clear that success in our relations will require the decent treatment of their own people. America's belief in human dignity will guide our policies, yet rights must be more than the grudging concessions of dictators; they are secured by free dissent and the participation of the governed. In the long run, there is no justice without freedom, and there can be no human rights without human liberty.

Stay tuned and I'll explain it to you.

Recent entries:

1 ~ Dubya's Dubious Second Inaugural:
posted by Leah A - 5:16 PM

2 ~ Forgive me, W, for I have sinned:
posted by Lambert - 10:21 PM

3 ~ Alpo Accounts: Bush to push "issue" in the SOTU:
posted by Lambert - 10:35 PM

4 ~ Unquenchable fire from Heaven:
posted by Lambert - 10:55 PM

5 ~ Just another day at the office:
posted by Tom - 11:35 PM

*

Frank Rich - via New York Times (no login required)

Forget Armor. All You Need Is Love

JAN. 30 is here at last, and the light is at the end of the tunnel, again. By my estimate, Iraq's election day is the fifth time that American troops have been almost on their way home from an about-to-be pacified Iraq. The four other incipient V-I days were the liberation of Baghdad (April 9, 2003), President Bush's declaration that "major combat operations have ended" (May 1, 2003), the arrest of Saddam Hussein (Dec. 14, 2003) and the handover of sovereignty to our puppet of choice, Ayad Allawi (June 28, 2004). And this isn't even counting the two "decisive" battles for our nouveau Tet, Falluja. Iraq is Vietnam on speed - the false endings of that tragic decade re-enacted and compressed in jump cuts, a quagmire retooled for the MTV attention span.

But in at least one way we are not back in Vietnam. Iraq hawks, like Vietnam hawks before them, often take the line that to criticize America's mission in Iraq is to attack the troops. That paradigm just doesn't hold. Americans, including those opposed to the war, love the troops (Lynndie England always excepted). Not even the most unhinged Bush hater is calling our all-volunteer army "baby killers." This time, paradoxically enough, it is often those who claim to love the troops the most - and who have the political power to help alleviate their sacrifice - who turn out to be the troops' false friends.

There was, for instance, according to the Los Angeles Times, "nary a mention" of the Iraq war or "the prices paid by American soldiers and their families" at the lavish Inauguration bash thrown for the grandees of the Christian right by the Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition at Washington's Ritz-Carlton. This crowd cares about the troops much the way the Fifth Avenue swells in the 1936 Hollywood classic "My Man Godfrey" cared about the "forgotten men" of the Depression - as fashion ornaments and rhetorical conveniences.

[...]

In this same vein, television's ceremonial coverage of the Inauguration, much of which resembled the martial pageantry broadcast by state-owned networks in banana republics, made a dutiful show out of the White House's claim that the four-day bacchanal was a salute to the troops. The only commentator to rudely call attention to the disconnect between that fictional pretense and the reality was Judy Bachrach, a writer for Vanity Fair, who dared say on Fox News that the inaugural's military ball and prayer service would not keep troops "safe and warm" in their "flimsy" Humvees in Iraq. She was promptly given the hook. (The riveting three-minute clip, labeled "Fair and Balanced Inauguration," can be found at ifilm.com, where it has seized the "most popular" slot once owned by Jon Stewart's slapdown of Tucker Carlson.)

The poundin' of the drums, the pride and disgrace
You can bury your dead, but don't leave a trace
Hate your next-door neighbor, but don't forget to say grace
~ Barry McGuire, Eve Of Destruction

*

Douglas J. Feith plans to spend more time with family. Yeah, ok, sure. Spend it on an ice flow off the coast of Antartica why don't ya.

Rumsfeld policy adviser to quit this year
WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's top policy adviser said Wednesday he has informed Rumsfeld that he will leave his Pentagon position sometime this summer.

Douglas J. Feith, the undersecretary of defense for policy and a driving force behind the Bush administration's strategy for fighting the global war on terror, said in an interview that he decided it was time he devoted more time to his family. He has four children.

"I informed the secretary that I plan to leave in the summer," he said.

He offered no specific resignation date and stressed that he was leaving on his own terms.

Heh. Someones been digging up this lunatics backyard?

"Feith's Gestapo" - falshback:

[1] - "Powell thought Cheney had the fever. The vice president and Wolfowitz kept looking for the connection between Saddam and 9/11. It was a separate little government that was out there — Wolfowitz, Libby, Feith and Feith's 'Gestapo office,' as Powell privately put it… Powell thought that Cheney took intelligence and converted uncertainty and ambiguity into fact. It was about the worst charge that Powell could make about the vice president. But there it was." ["Plan of Attack," Bob Woodward] ~ DNC

[2] - Powell felt Cheney and his allies -- his chief aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz and undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith and what Powell called Feith's "Gestapo" office -- had established what amounted to a separate government. ~ Left Coaster

*

So long mom, I'm off to grease a palm:

Network anchors head to Iraq for election
But fewer journalists willing to take on dangerous assignment

The big-name anchors are staging their own Iraq invasion this week, with NBC's Brian Williams, CBS's Dan Rather, Fox News's Shepard Smith and CNN's Anderson Cooper among those planting the network flag in the days before Sunday's tension-filled elections. But the temporary airlift comes at a time when major news organizations are having trouble persuading reporters to take on the high-risk assignment on a longer-term basis.

"The people who have experience there are exhausted," says Marjorie Miller, foreign editor of the Los Angeles Times. "It's terribly dangerous in ways that other wars haven't been. You could always get killed by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Here, just by being a westerner, you're perceived, or fear you're perceived, as a partisan. Reporters don't want to be seen as partisan at a cost of their lives."

Tim McNulty, the Chicago Tribune's assistant managing editor for foreign news, agrees. "The pool of people willing to go has steadily shrunk over the last two years," he says. "The number of people who have spent a good deal of time there have said they've done their time and are not eager to go back. . . . If they say no, I don't ask the reasons."

Draft the Fighting 101st Keyboarders into action. Give em all cute little fanny packs and Power Line blogger action patches to sew onto their Serengeti Safari-shirt sleeves. They can follow Dan Rather around and make sure he isn't doctoring his minibar tab.

*

James Wolcott sez:

Imagine if Bill Clinton had been chirpy and chipper having just received the news of 31 soldiers dying in the theater of combat--Rush Limbaugh would have devoted three hours to it, and Fox News would have dragged Dick Morris out of the all-you-can-eat buffet for his "expert analysis."

When Bush did address the soldiers' deaths, he said that we "weep and mourn" when Americans die, but as he was saying it his hand was flatly smacking downwards for emphasis, as if he were pounding the table during the business meeting, refusing to pay a lot for a muffler. The steady beat of his hand was at odds with the sentiments he was expressing--he didn't look or sound the least bit mournful or sombre. And why should he? Death doesn't seem to be a bringdown for him. There isn't the slightest evidence that he experiences the anguish LBJ did as casualties mounted in Vietnam. His record as chief executioner in Texas is of a man for whom the death of another is an administrative detail, a power exercise. As Sister Helen Prejean wrote in The New York Review of Books:

"As governor, Bush certainly did not stand apart in his routine refusal to deny clemency to death row petitioners, but what does set him apart is the sheer number of executions over which he...presided. Callous indifference to human suffering may also set Bush apart. He may be the only government official to mock a condemned person's plea for mercy [Karla Faye Tucker's], then lie about it afterward, claiming humane feelings he never felt. On the contrary, it seems that Bush is comfortable with using violent solutions to solve troublesome social and political realities."

Comfortable, hell, he's downright enthusiastic about it. He's so cocky now that he can't even fake a semblance of sorrow after hearing news that would have made most presidents turn ashen.

Yet another appallingly embarrassing moment from the Chimperor.

Sigh.

From Kossacks in Democracy now we at last get some serious analysis of Da Bush Code—the Biblical language in Bush's inaugural speech:

MATT ROTHSCHILD: Well, there are a lot. Here is one. Bush talked about the -- this was probably the creepiest section in the whole speech -- the untamed fire of freedom, where Bush was almost rubbing his hands together when he said, “This untamed fire will burn those who fight its progress.” That's pretty lurid, isn't it? Anyway, he talked about the untamed fire of freedom in a passage that included the phrase, "hope kindles hope." And this echoes a couple passages in Jeremiah. “I will kindle an unquenchable fire in the gates of Jerusalem.” Or, “I will kindle a fire in her towns that will consume all who are around her.” This is just all over the place. I mean, Bush talked about the day when the captives are set free. In Ephesians, it says, "He led the captives free.” The closer you look at it, the more you can see these parallels, and they are very disturbing to me.

Um.

Remember how whenever we give Bush the benefit of the doubt, we lose? Remember how whatever Bush does, it is always an order of magnitude worse than the most cynical among us could ever have imagined?

So why, when Bush talks about "untamed fires" "in towns," do I think of dirty bombs or loose nukes destroying Blue State cities, as a result of blowback from Iraq? (Reckless indifference to the nightmare scenario, back)

I mean, just because the ungodly, gays, blacks, liberals, Democratic voters, and users of public tranportation and other Socialistic practices live in the cities... Well, that wouldn't be a reason for God, acting through the person of George Bush, to cleanse them, would it?

Of course not. Sorry. I don't know what came over me. I'm going to go back to sleep now.

Nice to see the Kossacks picking up the tyranny meme at last (back).

Grandma says Arf!

Bush plans to push the [privatization private personal accounts] issue in his State of the Union address next week
(via AP)

Yep, just like the YABL's about WMDs in the SOTU before Whack. They cry crisis, crisis, but there is no crisis...

Anyhow, the WMD YABLs just violated the Ninth Commandment: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." And let's be reasonable! Who can count up to nine? Especially one of those budget-balancing math-sters-of-their-domain Republicans! And heck, in today's America, everybody lies, at least when there's money a manifestation of God's grace involved.

But I'm hoping that violating the Fifth Commandment, "Honor thy father and thy mother," will have just a little more resonance at the margin. After all, Throw Mama from the train wasn't a big hit in the Red States, now was it?

Yes, I have occasionally much too often referred to Dear Leader, the Chosen One, as "he," rather than "He," and so failed to abase myself before His Godly nature.

Readers, can you find it in your hearts to forgive me? If W won't, will you?

And speaking of Reverential Capitals—that's not Reverential Capitols, though given the sheer magnitude of today's Beltway fluffery, it might as well be—Rolling Stone's blog has a nice piece of exegesis on His Ascension Day inaugural speech. Cracking Da Bush Code:

Call me crazy, but there's another force to which I've heard people of Bush's ilk ascribe these same exalted powers of salvation. That force usually goes by the name of Jesus.

"Freedom is the permanent hope of mankind," Bush proclaimed, "the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul."

Freedom, Mr. President? Or Christ?

"We have lit a fire," Bush said, "a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world."

Liberty? Or The Word?

According to Bush, freedom is an "ancient hope that is meant to be fulfilled." History, he said, "has a visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of Liberty."

Make no mistake. Those telling Capital Letters are not my editorializing. They're in the White House transcript. If the "Author of Liberty" is God, what did God author if not The Word. And if the word in this case is "liberty," then it would seem "liberty" is just another synonym for "Jesus."
(via Rolling Stone)

Nice little tuneup for the SOTU, eh? FTF...

Four years ago, despite the bitterness left behind by the manner in which the 2000 presidential election was decided, despite the "winner's" inability to find a graceful way to acknowledge the extraordinary circumstances that had brought him to the Presidency, or even an ungraceful way, swept up in the grandeur of that peaceful transfer of power without which no democratic republic can long endure, I was able to acknowledge the surprising power of the first Bush inaugural address, and to feel some hope that he actually meant some tiny fraction of what he was saying.

Nunca mas, as they have had occasion to say in Argentina.

Bush made it easy last Thursday; everything about his second inaugural address, its grandiosity, its simple-minded diction and biblical intimations, the insistent refusal to acknowledge complexity, its wildly overstated and pitifully under-defined ambitions, its ahistorical smugness, struck me as downright preposterous. (I started this post on the day of the inaugual, the on-going illness I have mentioned kept me from finishing it until now, so the post itself has expanded as I've observed other responses to Bush's speech. If you missed the Farmer's brilliantly funny, angry, and more promptly published response last week, please, do yourself a favor and check BACK here.)

I've been amazed at the credulity with which the speech was received; yes, there were some reservations expressed at the practical implications and applicability of such a pure statement of American idealism, but rather less comment willing to point out that the speech's efficacy as a statement of policy could be measured in inverse proportion to its almost demented insistence that ideas exist in some ethereal space untouched by anything as gritty and unpleasant as a fact. Instead, once again we were asked to wonder at the poetic eloquence of Michael Gerson's prose, and if we happened to be liberals, admonished not to get too picky about the fathoms-deep divide between Bush's rhetoric and the reality of his policies, lest we peg ourselves, once again, as outside the great and grand ideas upon which our republic stands. Chris Suellentrop, for instance, writing in Slate, parses the speech to bolster his own praise for it as a wonderful piece of oratory, credits it with announcing a second Bush doctrine, (the first, preemptive war, this second, the peaceful pursuit of democracy everywhere, and nary a hint the two doctrines might contradict one another), then proceeds to question the validity of the speech's central thesis, which strikes Chris as being as simple-minded as the formulation by "some" on the left, that 9/11 was caused by poverty, and then finishes by warning liberals -- well, unlike Mr. Suellentrop, I shall let him speak for himself:

The abolition of tyranny is a worthy goal for an American government, even if it is unattainable. Liberals, who will be inclined to quarrel with Bush's message, should have no objections to the values Bush identified as the guiding principles for his second administration. The issue is whether he really has any intention of promoting democracy in Russia, China, and the Mideast when promoting it comes into conflict with other economic and security interests of the United States. There is much reason for skepticism here, such as Bush's policy in relation to Saudi Arabia, Tibet, and Chechnya during his first term. But rather than criticizing Bush's speech, Democrats should nod vigorously and then hold him to it.

Really now, Suellentrop, when has George W. Bush ever been held to account for anything he's said as President; in order for that to happen we'd have to have a whole other kind of journalist than the likes of you.

Similar remarks could be heard on the cable news chat shows from people like Andrea Mitchell and Howard Fineman - Bush's inaugural address was a rhetorical triumph whose only problem was that he'd laid out such an ambitious foreign policy that now he could and would be criticized whenever he might seem not to be backing democrcy anywhere in the world; like Chris Sullentrop, all these commentators appeared to accept the notion that values exist exclusively in the words used to describe and define them.

I think it probable that George W. Bush believes he meant every word that his speechwriters cooked up for him, although I think it just as probable that he also enjoys the malicious pleasure of believing that his ringing claims of idealism are a thumb in the eye of elite liberals. In fact, one of the most unremarked upon aspect of his stint as President is Bush's odd relationship to words. No, not those tiresome Bushisms, although Mark Crispin Miller has shown us brilliantly how revealing they are of Bush's true self. What I refer to is this President's strangely reverent approach to his own language, in which I include rhetoric supplied to him by his speechwriters; once he states a fact or an idea, once he promises this or that policy, it's as if what he has said is now true, by the sheer force of the fact that he's proclaimed it so.

For Bush, language has the power to embody that which it describes, whether or not what he says is true at the time, or will ever actually become true. And language has the power to disembody that which was previously claimed as true, but has now become inconvenient. That belief in the coporeal power of language is sustained by the generalities in which the President's speech writers cast what pass for his ideas.

The internal contradictions of his inaugural address were on view right at its beginning:

On this day, prescribed by law and marked by ceremony, we celebrate the durable wisdom of our Constitution, and recall the deep commitments that unite our country. I am grateful for the honor of this hour, mindful of the consequential times in which we live, and determined to fulfill the oath that I have sworn and you have witnessed.

At this second gathering, our duties are defined not by the words I use, but by the history we have seen together. For a half century, America defended our own freedom by standing watch on distant borders. After the shipwreck of communism came years of relative quiet, years of repose, years of sabbatical - and then there came a day of fire. (LINK for the text of the address)

Having invoked "the deep commitments that unite our country," he immediatly goes on to clearly imply that those deep commitments were, in fact, on "sabbitical" during the eight years of the Clinton administration, and quite possibly the four years of his father's. Thus does this President divide, even while he is invoking that which unites us, aided in this feat by the vague definition of what that "that" might be, no matter the strained rhetorical flourish of "America standing watch on distant borders." And thus do Bush's scriptwriters divert our attention away from the inconvenient fact of exactly on whose watch "came" that "day of fire," while attempting, no doubt, to draw an echo from Lincoln's great second inaugural, with its genuinely biblical sweep, and the tragic simplicity of its famous, "...and the war came." Without success; instead of a Lincolnesque moment, we got the typical graceless, ungenerous Dubya stump speech moment in which all blame for mistakes made accrues to everyone but the man who insists that he is in command, and the typical neo-con moment in which history is used to turn history on its head.

No one at the White House appears to have noticed that Lincoln wasn't attempting to obscure responsibility:

On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

The war came, not out of the blue, not like a tsunami, unexpected, inexplicable, unaccountable; the war came because men willed it to come, including that man among men, Abraham Lincoln.

When I referred to the president's writers cooking up this inaugural address, I meant to suggest something more than flippant disrespect for their concotions; many of the points given to the President were carefully derived to answer specific persistent criticisms of George W's foreign policy, without having to mention any of them. So, in answer to the many critiques of the Bush neo/con policy of waging preventive wars, the president noted on Thursday that the task of spreading freedom around the world will not be primarily the "task of arms," and to preempt the likely and often made charge that the neocon/Bush vision is an imperial one that embraces a Pax Americana to be imposed on the world, ready or not, Mr. Bush asserted, "America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way." And how will this be accomplished?

We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: The moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right. America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies.

Well, that's mighty white of you, Mr. Bush, but really now, when has any American post-WW 2 administration ever made such a pretence. Yes, America has often looked the other way when faced with the depredations of human rights carried on by allies deemed necessary at the time, often wrongly, but pretend the oppressed welcome their oppression? Who does this president think he is? Noam Chomsky? Howard Zinn? The closest I can come to such an attitude actually being expressed was that part of the human rights policy of the Reagan administration defined by Jeanne Kirkpatrick, which posited that traditional authoritarian rulers, like Somoza in Nicaragua, or the Argentine junta, were tolerable in the context of the cold war because such leaders, while not democratic and sometimes despotic, were a bullwark against Marxist insurgents, who would bring a far worse kind of anti-democratic regime than these ancien ones. But now I'm making an observation historical in nature, like the copious warnings about Bin Ladin's desire to strike on American soil were historical in nature, according to our new Secretary of State to be, and we know what this administration does when faced with anything "historical." (The correct answer, "nothing." )

Who could be surprised, then, that this inaugural address, like the President it celebrates, is more comfortable with eternal verities than with historical ones, no matter his prior statement that "our duties are defined not by the words I use, but by the history we have seen together?" Nowhere to be found in the text are specific references to what has happened in the four years of Bush's first term, no mention of Iraq, or invasion, or occupation, or preemption, or Saddam, no talk of the crucial nature of democracy in the Middle East, or the Bush roadmap for peace between Palestinians and Israelis, certainly not of torture, nothing about Al Queda, or the war on terror, or even any mention of terrorists and terrorism itself. Understandably, considering that there are almost no specific successes to be pointed to. So the president and his speechwriters content themselves with a big think, strategic vision; at the heart of the speech is this idea, elucidated through-out the rest of the speech.:

We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

What liberal, what American today, would disagree? This is hardly a remarkable formulation, having been the commanlity which has linked the foreign policy of the United States under all post-WW 2 administrations stretching back even to FDR, though he didn't quite make it into the post-war era. That is not how it is presented in Bush's inaugural, however. No indeed. Instead, in an ahistoricism that is truly astounding, it is Bush's personal brush with greatness, 9/11, that is referenced as the point of discovery for this idea.

We have seen our vulnerability - and we have seen its deepest source. For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny - prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder - violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders, and raise a mortal threat. There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom.

edit

America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our Nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time.

Not to pick nits, but the Declaration of Independence does not say that the dignity and rights of mankind derive from its image having been made in the image of God, and of his son, Jesus, which is surely the unspoken reference being made here. The Declaration locates the inalienable rights of mankind in mankind's own ability to reason from observation and to thus arrive at the self-evidentiary nature of the truth that mankind was endowed by its "creator," whether that be any particular God, or a long line of DNA, with such rights.

We know that even if Bush is unaware of historical precedents, his speechwriters are, when nothing less than Harry Truman's enunciation of what became "the Truman doctrine" in front of a joint session of congress in 1948 is echoed in a line like this one:

So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.

But what post-war President would have the arrogance to pronounce our ultimate goal to be the ending of world tyranny? To have such an expansive goal is to have no goal at all. "Freedom" and "liberty" are everywhere in this inaugural address, but nowhere defined, contextualized, or even tied securely to historical reality. In the United States of Bush, Roosevelt's Four Freedoms, Truman's committment to the United Nations, the Berlin Airlift, the Declaration of Human Rights, the Marshall Plan, the formation of NATO, Kennedy's Peace Corps, his Alliance for Progress, his steps toward a Test Ban Treaty, the interventions in Korea and VietNam, Jimmy Carter's emphasis on human rights, the intervention against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and many other policies, some wise, some which proved to be both hypocritical and deeply unwise, simply don't exist.

Has there ever been an administration so besotted with its own arrogance?

In contrast, here is Truman speaking to that joint session of congress to ask that an emergency appropriation be made in response to a plea for help from the elected government of Greece:

I am fully aware of the broad implications involved if the United States extends assistance to Greece and Turkey, and I shall discuss these implications with you at this time. One of the primary objectives of the foreign policy of the United States is the creation of conditions in which we and other nations will be able to work out a way of life free from coercion. This was a fundamental issue in the war with Germany and Japan. Our victory was won over countries which sought to impose their will, and their way of life, upon other nations.

To ensure the peaceful development of nations, free from coercion, the United States has taken a leading part in establishing the United Nations, The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom and independence for all its members. We shall not realize our objectives, however, unless we are willing to help free peoples to maintain their free institutions and their national integrity against aggressive movements that seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes. This is no more than a frank recognition that totalitarian regimes imposed upon free peoples, by direct or indirect aggression, undermine the foundations of international peace, and hence the security of the United States.

The peoples of a number of countries of the world have recently had totalitarian regimes forced upon them against their will. The Government of the United States has made frequent protests against coercion and intimidation in violation of the Yalta agreement in Poland, Rumania, and Bulgaria. I must also state that in a number of other countries there have been similar developments.

At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one. One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression. The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio, fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms.

I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.

I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way.

I believe that our help should be primarily through economic and financial aid which is essential to economic stability and orderly political processes.

The world is not static, and the status quo is not sacred. But we cannot allow changes in the status quo in violation of the Charter of the United Nations by such methods as coercion, or by such subterfuges as political infiltration. In helping free and independent nations to maintain their freedom, the United States will be giving effect to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

Now I'm aware that our policy in Greece did not, in the end, produce democratic governance. But in order to get a sense of how different is the rhetoric of this President from the rhetoric that has come before him, I would still recommend you read Truman's remarkable speech, along with his 1949 inaugural address, both of which are rooted in the historical struggle then going on, and yet still manage to honor, in the way their own arguments are made, the great democratic principles that both speeches seek to protect. Reading them will explain why President Bush's essentially phony rhetoric is not to be applauded.

In Part 2, (I know, I can't believe there's a Part 2 either), I'll be comparing and contrasting how this president uses his own religion, compared with previous presidents, and how liberals might be able to field the current assault on their own values being carried on by the real elites in this country.

Commander Fabulous burns the Punditto-Head Payola bridge. Oh, sure:

AP:

Bush Orders an End to Hiring Columnists

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Wednesday ordered his Cabinet secretaries not to hire columnists to promote their agendas after disclosure that a second writer was paid to tout an administration initiative.

The president said he expects his agency heads will "make sure that that practice doesn't go forward."

"All our Cabinet secretaries must realize that we will not be paying commentators to advance our agenda. Our agenda ought to be able to stand on its own two feet," Bush said at a news conference.

[...]

Bush also said the White House had been unaware that the Education Department paid commentator and columnist Armstrong Williams $240,000 to plug its policies. That contract came to light two weeks ago.

Bush said there "needs to be a nice independent relationship between the White House and the press, the administration and the press."

Yes, as long as it's "nice". Snicker, snicker, smirk.

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Let's not say "privatepersonal accounts"—Let's say Alpo Accounts! And Bush is going to hit the road in favor of them.

Following the example—readers, I'm not making this up—of none other than The Mighty Clenis™:

Right after my State of the Union, I think I'm going to four or five states to continue to address this issue. You know, I can remember President Clinton doing the same thing on Social Security.
(via White House transcript)

Um, at these rallies, will the [cough] President of all the people (back) continue His practice of requiring citizens to sign a loyalty oath (back) before entering The Presence?

NOTE A tip of the ol' Corrente hat to RDF for "Alpo Accounts"!

Remember the Bush "tell" that Froomkin discovered (back)—whenever He says "of course," you know He's lying?

Well, it was in action again at His latest scripted press conference:

"[BUSH] And so I -- the notion that somehow we're not making progress I just don't subscribe to. I mean, we're having elections. And I think we need to put this moment in history in proper context. That context, of course, starts with whether or not the world would be better off with Saddam Hussein in power, and whether or not America would be more secure. After all, I've always felt the Iraqi theater is a part of the war on terror."
(via White House transcript)

And I just love the "I've always felt..." part. Isn't it fabulous? It's so fabulous I've got to break into song:

Feelings, Wo, Wo, Wo ...

Now I feel better! Or not.

From Harper's Index - Jan., 2005:

Revenue generated by Halliburton under CEO Dick Cheney from business deals with Iraq under Saddam Hussein: $30,000,000 [Colum Lynch, Washington Post (N.Y.C.) ]

Estimated revenue generated by Halliburton last year through subsidiaries in Iran: $63,506,000 [Halliburton (Houston, Tex.) ]

Minimum number of countries with a greater capacity to produce nuclear weapons than Iraq at the time of the U.S. invasion: 35 [International Atomic Energy Agency (Vienna) ]

Average black-market price in Baghdad of a DVD showing the beheading of a foreigner or Iraqi "collaborator": 50c [Richard Beeston (Baghdad) ]

SourcesNumber of U.S. terrorism trials brought before a jury since September 11, 2001: 1 [U.S. Department of Justice ]

Number of terrorism convictions resulting: 2 [U.S. Department of Justice ]

Number of them dismissed in June due to a "pattern of mistakes" by the prosecution: 2 [U.S. Department of Justice ]

Percentage of poor Americans who lived in the suburbs in 1959 and last year, respectively: 17,39 [Harper's Research ]

Ratio of the number of poor Americans living in cities to the number who live in suburbs: 21:20 [Harper's Research ]

LIAR:

"Clearly we do have evidence, historical and otherwise, about the relationship to the Al Qaeda network to what happened on September 11," [...] "We will begin to lay out that evidence and we will do it with friends, allies and the American people and others." ~ Condoleezza Rice, [CNN Sept 22, 2001]. ABC News Online

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I'm sure the wowsers at Newsweek will love it and locate a nice warm slot on the shelf for it. Right next to their copy of The Bell Curve.

The Difference Between Politically Incorrect and Historically Wrong
By Adam Cohen - Published: January 26, 2005

If you're going to call a book "The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History," readers will expect some serious carrying on about race, and Thomas Woods Jr. does not disappoint. He fulminates against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, best known for forcing restaurants and bus stations in the Jim Crow South to integrate, and against Brown v. Board of Education. And he offers up some curious views on the Civil War - or "the War of Northern Aggression," a name he calls "much more accurate."

The introduction bills the book as an effort to "set the record straight," but it is actually an attempt to push the record far to the right. More than a history, it is a checklist of arch-conservative talking points. The New Deal public works programs that helped millions survive the Depression were a "disaster," and Social Security "damaged the economy." The Marshall Plan, which lifted up devastated European nations after World War II, was a "failed giveaway program." And the long-discredited theory of "nullification," which held that states could suspend federal laws, "isn't as crazy as it sounds."

It is tempting to dismiss the book as fringe scholarship, not worth worrying about, but the numbers say otherwise. It is being snapped up on college campuses and, helped along by plugs from Fox News and other conservative media, it recently soared to No. 8 on the New York Times paperback best-seller list. It is part of a boomlet in far-right attacks on mainstream history that includes books like Jim Powell's "FDR's Folly," which argues that Franklin Roosevelt made the Depression worse, and Michelle Malkin's "In Defense of Internment," a warm look back on the mass internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. ~ New York Times (registration not required).

So where would one expect reactionary revisionist crank like this to come from? Well, where else but --- Regnery Publishing:

The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History
by Thomas E. Woods Jr. | Regnery Publishing, Inc.; Paperback - 256 pages (December 2004) ~ stinky link

Something calling itself the California Literary Review (established in 2004 by someone called Paul Comstock) laps it up; and Wood pats himself on the back:

The praise for the book in conservative and libertarian circles, though, has been so gratifying that I’m frankly unconcerned about the left’s reply. On the year-end McLaughlin Group, I was beyond thrilled to see Pat Buchanan name me the most original thinker of 2004. It’s also appealed to a wider range of conservatives than I expected: Gary Bauer, for instance, included it in his top five books of 2004. ~ link

Pat Buchanan and Gary Bauer eh? Gee, I can hardly wait for Sam Francis to weigh in with a snappy roman salute.

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for the Mark of the Beast is upon you.

Co. to Advertise on Neb. Man's Forehead

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - A Web-page designer who auctioned off the use of his forehead for advertising space is letting it go to his head.

Andrew Fischer, 20, of Omaha, who put his forehead for sale on eBay as advertising space, received $37,375 on Friday to advertise the snoring remedy, SnoreStop.

That should nudge the rapture index a little closer to the midnight hour:

The result is workers who are little more than peasants and presidents of companies who are more and more like kings. It will be these "kings" who usher in the world dictator to protect their wealth and power. Expect all commerce, buying and selling, to be controlled by a mark on the right hand or forehead of every person who wants to participate in the economy. Only those people with the mark will be able to buy and sell, but the consequences of taking the mark is eternal damnation (Rev 14:9-11). ~ rapture ready

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Found this item via American Politics Journal Newswire.

snip:
[David Corn] - But before we get to that, let me provide another reason why non-Republicans are right to suspect the worst of self-righteous Republicans. Of all the media coverage I absorbed of the inauguration nothing peeved me as much as several short paragraphs that appeared in a Washington Post piece on the inaugural balls. Here they are:

Though there was no official poem for the occasion, impressionist Rich Little, emceeing the Constitution Ball at the Hilton Washington, did provide a bit of inaugural doggerel.

The gist of it was: "Let's get together, let bitterness pass, I'll hug your elephant, you kiss my ass!" And the crowd went crazy.

Little said he missed and adored the late President Ronald Reagan and "I wish he was here tonight, but as a matter of fact he is," and he proceeded to impersonate Reagan, saying, "You know, somebody asked me, 'Do you think the war on poverty is over?' I said, 'Yes, the poor lost.' " The crowd went wild.

More, including how Newt Gingrich unloaded his second wife. See: David Corn.com

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Travelling... But it's good to sleep again in my tiny room under the stairs.

Now if only there weren't all these people tromping up and down, chanting something... What... E-A-G.... I dunno. Maybe it would have been better to have had my heart broken right away, instead of waiting for another two weeks....

Oh, and a great find by Tresy here. You know, I used to like _____ when he wrote about economics, but lately...

Here.

Increased oil prices bring on the Rapture. Why am I not surprised?

And remember... The people who believe this are running the country. With the results that you see.

In the deepest of deep red states, too: Alabama. What will we tell the children?

Boy Scout volunteer Tom Willis knew something was wrong when he saw that 20 youngsters on the list for a scouting program all had the same last name: Doe.

And "Cervenka" for the Girl Scouts?

Willis said it appeared someone was listing fake members to boost enrollment, perhaps to bring in more funding from agencies like the United Way or to make paid Boy Scout recruiters look better.

Well, I'm sure they had "faith" that the rolls would actually grow to be in reality (heh) what they said they were...

"It was just so blatant. They didn't even try to make up names," said Willis, a dentist from Decatur and a former Eagle Scout who serves on the board of the Greater Alabama Boy Scout Council, which runs scouting programs in northeastern Alabama.

"I would say the numbers are probably inflated 30 to 40 percent in our council," Willis said.

The Greater Alabama Council has a strong reputation nationally. In 2002, it received an award for a program that used fishing to bring in new members. The council claimed 10,000 new Scouts that year, and tax forms show it had revenue of $6.5 million, including $100,709 in government grants. In a United Way funding application, the group said it served almost 120,000 youths and adults in 2003.

Yet longtime scout volunteer Larry Cox said he got used to seeing paperwork from council headquarters in Birmingham that listed the names of youngsters who had dropped out of scouting or had never been part of the organization.

The problem, Cox said, is with a few people at the council office, not the volunteers who lead activities such as camping trips and Pinewood Derby car races.

"They always said it was because our paperwork had problems, but we knew it wasn't," Cox said. "It seemed to be very broad."

Cox said the idea that someone would overstate membership goes against what the Boy Scouts are supposed to stand for: "Being trustworthy and having integrity is one of the prime points of the Scouting oath."
(via AP)

Yes. Kinda like the oath of office, or the oath you take when you join the Texas Air National Guard...

Just like DC should be glad to pick up the tab for Bush's coronation, eh?

Six months after a runway at the Las Cruces airport was closed due to damage incurred during an August campaign stop by President George W. Bush, it’s still unknown who is going to pick up the tab for repairs.
(via Las Cruces News)

It's kinda like a royal progress concept, you dig? When the citizens are permitted to kiss the hem of Inerrant Boy's garment, they are naturally expected to stump up. Being able to fork over the cash is, after all, a sign of their Godliness.

What a surprise!

The FBI said Tuesday the possible terrorist plot reported against Boston by a tipster last week was a false alarm, which Mexican authorities said could have been motivated by revenge or might have been a joke.

"There were in fact no terrorist plans or activity under way," an FBI statement said. "Because the criminal investigation is ongoing, no further details can be provided at this time."
(via AP)

From Pandagon to here. Go read, and add his new site to your bookmarks and your blogrolls.

Though if privatizing Social Security was such a good idea in the first place, you'd think the Republican Framing Machine wouldn't have to burn the midnight oil to keep inventing new names for it (Josh Marshall)

So I thought I'd Google "personal account" and this is what I got:



Hey, I love it! The top hit is what you get from a broken PayPal account!

Picture it: You go to access your privatized retirement Alpo Account and what do you get? A message that says "We are sorry this page cannot be displayed."

And the second hit is Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air, which is where your money will have gone.

(Actually, Into Thin Air is a chilling story of two privatized (!) Mount Everest expeditions, where both leaders and a lot of climbers died, basically because of hubris and the profit motive. Which still sounds about right.)

That Republican Framing Machine does great work, doesn't it?

NOTE I like "Alpo Account." Thanks, RDF!

Well, the inaugural speech is over and the right-wing reviewers have spoken:

Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, found the oratory “somewhere between dreamy and disturbing.” “This world is not heaven,” noted Noonan. “It’s earth.”

Patrick Buchanan, the former right-wing presidential candidate, said Bush had asserted a right “to intervene in the internal affairs of every nation on earth and that is, quite simply, a recipe for endless war. And war is the death of republics.”

But don’t worry. The spinmeisters are on top of things.

Startled by reaction to what one well-known Republican described as the president’s “God-drenched” speech, the White House has discouraged speculation that Bush is embarking on a crusade to spread democracy around the globe.

In a series of briefings, officials spoke of an acceleration of existing strategy and portrayed the speech as a “rhetorical institutionalisation” of the anti-terrorist policies the administration has been pursuing in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Attribution—Times of London

What, pray tell, is “an acceleration of existing strategy” if not “more bad wars faster”? Or “alienating allies at breakneck pace”? I’m also confused as to how one goes about institutionalizing rhetoric. But, whatever. I smell an ’06 disaster for the GOP, myself. The sick nature of this administration is going to slowly, then quickly, become obvious to those who’ve been duped. GOPers will be leaving the tent quicker than DeLay can trap ‘em inside with the malathion.

And in completely related news, our local party chair elections have been scheduled for March 3rd. One of our most outspoken locals has begun a group we’re calling “Democrats Making Change” outside of the official party structure and is running for the post. We're meeting weekly at a local cafe. It's a start. Another local has already elected a left-wing party chair, young, well-spoken and very active. Onward to ’06, when we’ll mop the floor with deflated neocons and take back the congress of the people. Arrrghhhh...

Guess who?

American liberals called the Brownshirts "conservative," because the Brownshirts were obviously not liberal. They were ignorant, violent, delusional, and they worshipped a man of no known distinction. Brownshirts' delusions were protected by an emotional force field. Adulation of power and force prevented Brownshirts from recognizing implications for their country of their reckless doctrines.

Like Brownshirts, the new conservatives take personally any criticism of their leader and his policies. To be a critic is to be an enemy.

(via Alterman)

Michael Moore? Noam Chomsky? Answer here.

Now that the winger replicants are all using "private accounts" because they discovered that the word they invented, "privatization," didn't poll well doesn't capture the full glory of the concept....

Would a better word be "Retirement Risk Account"? How about "Mad Money"? Readers?

Riggsveda has a selection of good stuff to read today: Tidbits

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Leave no institution uncudgeled. Self described "Christian" coalition discouraged at pace of national renewel efforts. In it's continuing crusade to bludgeon as many people as possible into submission the "Arlington Group" (yet one more special interest collective of freedom hating right-wing-nut cross lighters), has vowed to withhold support for the Bush administration's efforts to destroy the traditional family institution of social security unless it makes an equally fanatic effort to destroy attempts by gay people to participate in the traditional family institution of marriage.

(From yesterday I think. But I didn't get to make a smart-ass comment about it then - so...):

Backers of Gay Marriage Ban Use Social Security as Cudgel

WASHINGTON, Jan. 24 - A coalition of major conservative Christian groups is threatening to withhold support for President Bush's plans to remake Social Security unless Mr. Bush vigorously champions a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

[...]

...the Arlington Group, is increasingly impatient.

In a confidential letter to Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's top political adviser, the group said it was disappointed with the White House's decision to put Social Security and other economic issues ahead of its paramount interest: opposition to same-sex marriage. ~ NYTimes (log in not required)

*

Condi-liar flashback; playing politics with national security:

"Clearly we do have evidence, historical and otherwise, about the relationship to the Al Qaeda network to what happened on September 11," [...] "We will begin to lay out that evidence and we will do it with friends, allies and the American people and others." ~ Condoleezza Rice, [CNN Sept 22, 2001]. ABC News Online

*

U.S. President George W. Bush tried to bully Canadian officials on missile defence during his visit last month by linking Canada's participation to future protection from the United States, the Washington Post reported Sunday.

The newspaper quoted an unidentified Canadian official who was in the room as saying Mr. Bush waved off their attempts to explain how contentious the issue is for Prime Minister Paul Martin's minority government.

“[Bush] leaned across the table and said: ‘I'm not taking this position, but some future president is going to say, Why are we paying to defend Canada?' ” the official was quoted as saying.

“Most of our side was trying to explain the politics, how it was difficult to do,” he said.

But Mr. Bush “waved his hands and remarked: ‘I don't understand this. Are you saying that if you got up and said this is necessary for the defence of Canada, it wouldn't be accepted?' ”
(via A.P.)

Classy, eh?

I'm so frequently embarrassed by W these days.

What a jerk.

Sigh.

Despite Lord Protector of the Realm George W. Bush's recent inaugural elucidation of prepared bromides on behalf of bestrewing "liberty" and "freedom" around the tortured planet, and the gushing mickey mouse club media encomium that followed, it seems fairly reasonable to conclude that any such lofty salutations on the part of the imperious blitzkrieg banderillos occupying the newly christened timocracy amounts to little more than so much fermented public relations tommyrot.

I don't believe for a moment that a sneering self aggrandizing fluke like George W. Bush believes any of the romanticized claptrap about liberty and freedom that he peddles. Furthermore, Bush is little more than a conductive comportment, a well polished PR point man for a long ago preordained objective. He is essentially a Bush family farm implement and a useful distraction. A kind of lightning rod bolted to the top of the barn where he can wave his appendages around and squint into any storm like some cracker barrel divine in the hopes that nothing will disturb the military industrial bucket shop or news managers or sheep dipper backchannel notionals running Poppy and Uncle Dicks milking operation in the stalls below. America is the Bush family business and we are its mooing herd. New pastures are its want. New pastures full of scarecrows and glistening barbed razor wire and crisscrossing pipelines pumping petrodollars into the pockets of imperium.

The Great Game


Norbizness posted some recent background information on some of the new pastures of freedom and liberty the Bush family collective has been plowing around in recently: See Do As I Incoherently Say, Not As My Allies Do for the complete rundown. Including the following on Uzbekistan:

Uzbekistan: Eyewitnesses said that during the past two weeks police have physically abused independent Muslim men in detention to coerce confessions. Officers beat men, hit them on the ears and genitals, burned them with lit paper and cigarettes, stuck metal pins under their fingernails, and anally raped male detainees with bottles and other objects. One man was stripped naked and beaten "until pulpy."

More: Uzbekistan/Amnesty International reports.

Khanabad military base located just north of the Afghan border:

By May 2002, a thousand American soldiers from the Tenth Mountain Division and a squadron of F-15E fighter jets were deployed there. Russian sources claim that Uzbekistan has leased the base to the United states for twenty-five years. The Pentagon denies this but refuses to say how long the lease actually is. [...] The Pentagon has given Vice President Cheney's old company, the Kellogg Brown & Root subdivision of Halliburton, an open-ended contract to provide logistics for the Khanadad base-... [source: Sorrows of Empire, Chalmers Johnson; pp 184]

"The Great Game II"


1998: Dick Cheney, speaking to the Panhandle Producers and Royalty Owners Association annual meeting:

"You've got to go where the oil is. I don't think about it [political volatility] very much," ~ Multinational Monitor

Again, via Norbizness:

Azerbaijan: The 61-page report, "Crushing Dissent: Repression, Violence and Azerbaijan’s Elections," documents hundreds of arbitrary arrests, widespread beatings and torture, and politically motivated job dismissals of members and supporters of the opposition following the October 15 presidential election, which was widely condemned by the international community as fraudulent.

The Azerbaijan Trade and Cultural Center/USACC:

US-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce According to the official web site (http://www.usacc.org/), United States-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce (USACC) is an "independent, non-profit American organization, whose purpose is to facilitate business and cooperation between the American people and the people of Azerbaijan." USACC is a nonprofit corporation in the District of Columbia and is recognized as a 501 (c)(6) tax-exempt organization under the Internal Revenue Code. [...] The USACC also owns and operates The Azerbaijan Trade and Cultural Center,...

ATCC Officers include - Honorary Council of Advisors: James Addison Baker III, Lloyd Bentsen, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Bruce Dick Cheney (resigned November 2000), Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, John Sununu. Vice-Chairman of the Board: James A. Baker IV. Board of Directors: Richard Armitage (resigned February 2001). "Board of Trustees": Richard N. Perle. (Among others)

Winter 1996

Announcing The US-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce - The United States-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce (USACC) has just been established in Washington, D.C. Their goal is to promote and advance the development of business and commerce between the US and Azerbaijan. The Chamber will facilitate the entry of US businesses into Azerbaijan's market, serve as a liaison between them and the Azerbaijani government, as well as help Azerbaijani businesses connect to markets here in the US.

The Chamber extends deep appreciation to the following companies which have contributed to its establishment: Amoco, BP America, Chevron, Exxon, Mobil, Occidental, Panalpina, and Unocal. ~ AZER

Ethnic Cleansing and Burma/Myanmar

In 1996, Cheney lobbied to lift sanctions under the U.S. Freedom Support Act against aid to Azerbaijan (the oil-rich former Soviet republic in the Caucasus), which had been motivated by concerns over Azerbaijani ethnic cleansing of the Abkhazians. Cheney claimed that the sanctions were largely the result of biased lobbying by Armenian Americans, but in 1997 Brown and Root bid on a major Caspian project from Azerbaijan International Operating Company. On a related front, Halliburton supported overturning the Massachusetts "Burma Law," which discouraged the state government from awarding contracts to companies doing business in repressive Burma (Myanmar). ~ [Source: American Dynasty, Kevin Phillips; 9pp 173-174.]

More on Burma and Halliburton and Cheney's lobbying efforts to lift sanctions against Azerbaijan (on behalf of Halliburton/Brown & Root Caspian project and the Azerbaijan International Operating Company.) - May 2001/Multinational Monitor

Feb. 1997

Some of the most knowledgeable and experienced business leaders working in Azerbaijan will be participants at the conference. T. Don Stacy, Chairman and President of Amoco Eurasia Petroleum Company and Co-Chair of USACC, will open the conference. The keynote address, entitled "U.S. Strategic Interests in Azerbaijan and the Caucasus," will be given by U.S. Senator Robert Byrd. The luncheon keynote speaker will be Dick Cheney, former Secretary of Defense under President Bush. - SOCAR (State Oil Company Of Azerbailan Republic), Major Trade Conference Washington, D.C. On February 18, 1997 - AZER

2003
1- Uzbekistan: Pentagon's Foriegn Military Financing (FMF) fund provides money for weapons and training to countries such as Israel, Jordon, Colombia, India, Pakistan Turkey among others. Appropriations for such outlays are in the billions of dollars. Pentagon requested Over 4 billion in 2003. Uzbekistan received 8.75 million from this 2003 budget. (and 1.2 million from the State Departments International Military Education and Training (IMET) program. [source: Sorrows of Empire, Chalmers Johnson; pp 137]

2- Azerbaijan:

The Department of Defense at first proposed that Azerbaijan also receive an IMET grant of $750,000 and an FMF grant of $3 million in 2003 as part of the war on terrorism but later admitted that the funds were actually intended to protect U.S. access to oil in and around the Caspian Sea." [source: Sorrows of Empire, Chalmers Johnson; pp 137]

Bu$hCo: Emboldening "freedom" and "liberty" in Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan: Human Rights Fact Sheet

For much of the 1990's Kyrgyzstan was described as an "island of democracy" in a region with corrupt and repressive political leaders. But after the country's first decade of independence following the breakup of the Soviet Union, its government, under President Askar Akaev, appeared to tighten its grip on power at the expense of fundamental rights.

Kyrgyzstan, a country of 4.75 million people with few natural resources, received minimal attention from the United States government prior to the Bush administration's declaration of a global campaign against terrorism and the decision to base U.S. troops at Kyrgyzstan's Manas airbase.

Kyrgyzstan's human rights record has steadily worsened since 2000, the year of presidential and parliamentary elections. Official actions in the past year indicate that the government's new relationship with the U.S. may have emboldened it, allowing it to suppress political opposition leaders without fear of diplomatic consequence.

Minibars of Freedom:

The biggest of the bases is located on thirty seven acres at the formerly civilian Manas International Airport, nineteen miles west of Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. [...] Kyrgyzstan initially leased Manas for a year, but President Akayev assured American officials that he was willing to renew the lease for as long as necessary. American military headquarters in Kyrgyzstan are not actually located at the base but in downtown Bishkek at the local Hyatt Regency, where the military also set up an employment office to hire local workers. [source: Sorrows of Empire, Johnson; pp 183-184]

So, it's all about oil and oligarchs and power. And ringing the globe with outposts of strategic military might. In a kind of "Great Game II" of Risk. And that's what it's always has been about.

You can trust your ass to the men who sell you gas.

*

George Will has announced his choice for DNC chair: Martin Frost. Isn't that precious?

I always love it when the Republican shills, hacks, and whores give well-meaning advice to the Dems on how to revive their fortunes. It's cute, and even kind of innocent—as long as you ignore the advice completely, since after all what would the advice be, but another in an endless series of well-funded mind fucks disinformation campaigns?

Johnny Carson died today.

I grew up watching him and have missed him a lot since he retired.

I know this isn't exactly earth-shattering news but the news does bring back quite a flood of happy memories for me.

What a shame.

Remember how, during Iran Contra, Ollie North wanted an "off the shelf" covert operations capability that was exempt from Congressional oversight? (Federation of American Scientists)

Well, as part of Bush's dirty war against 1.5 billion Muslims (back) Rummy's going to get the Secret Army that Ollie always wanted. Sweet! They call it "Strategic Support Branch." Sounds like some sort of high-tech jock strap....

Anyhow, Barton Gellman at WaPo does some actual reporting on the Strategic Support Branch:

The Pentagon, expanding into the CIA's historic bailiwick, has created a new espionage arm and is reinterpreting U.S. law to give Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld broad authority over clandestine operations abroad,
(via WaPo)

Hmmm... Where did we recently hear the doctrine that the Executive—let's reserve the word "President" for officials who actually govern lawfully—could rule by decree by interpreting the law as desired? Why, from Albert Gonzales! (back) Gee, the dots are starting to look awfully connected. It's like these guys are all in it together, or something, isn't it?

Naturally, we didn't hear a peep about Rummy's Secret Army during the election, even though it's been operating for two years:

Military and civilian participants said in interviews that the new unit has been operating in secret for two years -- in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places they declined to name [Iran, of course; North Korea? China?!]

And lest you think this is "only" about intelligence, No. Rummy wants operations, too:

Perhaps the most significant shift is the Defense Department's bid to conduct surreptitious missions, in friendly and unfriendly states, when conventional war is a distant or unlikely prospect -- activities that have traditionally been the province of the CIA's Directorate of Operations.

Sheesh. Wonder how much it Rummy's Secret Army costs and how big it is? Oh, wait. I'm just a citizen. That is not for such as me to know. Sorry, I'll go shopping now.

Naturally, the whole thing was set up by taking money Congress appropriated for one purpose, spending it on another, and not telling Congress (just like the $700 million Bush "reallocated" from Afghanistan to Whack, eh?)

Pentagon officials said they established the Strategic Support Branch using "reprogrammed" funds, without explicit congressional authority or appropriation.

We pause here to note Article I section 9 of the United States Constitution:

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.
(via FindLaw

Oh well....

And naturally, Rummy expects to run his Secret Army without Congressional oversight, forever:

Pentagon officials emphasized their intention to remain accountable to Congress...

[cough]

...but they also asserted that defense intelligence missions are subject to fewer legal constraints than Rumsfeld's predecessors believed. That assertion involves new interpretations of Title 10 of the U.S. Code, which governs the armed services, and Title 50, which governs, among other things, foreign intelligence.

There they go again! Thinking they're the judicial branch, as well as the executive branch! (Madison's definition of tyranny (back)

Under Title 10, for example, the Defense Department must report to Congress all "deployment orders," or formal instructions from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to position U.S. forces for combat. But guidelines issued this month by Undersecretary for Intelligence Stephen A. Cambone state that special operations forces may "conduct clandestine HUMINT operations . . . before publication" of a deployment order, rendering notification unnecessary. Pentagon lawyers also define the "war on terror" as ongoing, indefinite and global in scope. That analysis effectively discards the limitation of the defense secretary's war powers to times and places of imminent combat.

So, there you have it, folks! Rummy has a Secret Army, created by "reinterpreting" US law, exempt from Congressional oversight, paid for with money off the books, and operating ... forever. So much for our form of Constitutional Government. Will the last person to leave shut down the voting machines?

But not to worry. Rummy's Secret Army will obviously be formed from the best of the best—top leadership, top individual contributors; the creme de la creme.

Right?

Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Let's look at the leadership:

Col. George Waldroup, an Army reserve officer who commands the Defense Intelligence Agency's Strategic Support Branch, is described by associates as a colorful Texan who refers to himself in the third person, as "GW."L

That's a troubling symptom... In fact, Waldroup sounds a just little like Bernard Kerik, of blessed memory, doesn't he? But wait—let's look at Waldroup's qualifications; what could they be?

Waldroup spent most of his working life as a midlevel manager at the INS, where he became embroiled in accusations that he participated in deceiving a congressional delegation about staffing problems at Miami International Airport in June 1995. The Justice Department inspector general's office, which concluded its probe the following year, quoted in its report sworn statements from subordinates that Waldroup, then assistant district director for external affairs, helped orchestrate a temporary doubling of immigration screeners on the day of the visit, instructed subordinates not to discuss staff shortages and physically confronted a union leader to prevent him from reaching members of Congress. Waldroup told the investigators that he was following an order from a superior in Washington to withhold information.

During the investigation, according to the inspector general's final report, Waldroup refused to disclose the password to his e-mail files, refused to sign an affidavit summarizing his testimony and, in a subsequent interview, "stated that he would not answer any questions" because "he wished to protect himself from exposure to criminal sanctions." The authors of the Justice Department report found insufficient evidence to file charges but said they were troubled by "recurrent failures to provide documents."
(via WaPo

OK! Creating Potemkin villages for Congress, union busting, failure to provide documents... I'd say that qualifies him! He'll fit right in!

Now let's look at the troops. Surely there's still some hope that Rummy's Secret Army won't be a complete, um, clusterfuck? (The military's precise technical term, back)

Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Internal Pentagon briefings describe Strategic Support Branch members as experienced intelligence professionals with specialized skills, "military operations backgrounds," and the training to "function in all environments under adverse conditions." But four special operations soldiers who provided information for this article, directly or through intermediaries, said those assigned to work with them included out-of-shape men in their fifties...

Those would be the old Republican operatives from the CPA...

and recent college graduates on their first assignments.

And those would be either the young Republican operatives from the CPA (remember the backpackers from the American Enterprise Institute) or new graduates from a "Christian" madrassa (like Patrick Henry [cough] college, parachuted into the unit by Rummy's deputy, winger loon Jerry "Allah is Satan" Boykin (back).

"They arrived with shiny black kneepads...

I'm not making this up!

...and elbow pads...

Honest, I'm not!

... and shiny black helmets," said one special forces officer who served with Waldroup's men in Iraq. "They brought M-4 rifles with all the accoutrements, scopes and high-end [satellite equipment] they didn't know how to use." An older member of Waldroup's staff "became an anchor because of his physical conditioning and his lack of knowledge of our tactics, techniques and procedures. The guy actually put us in danger."

Another special forces officer, who served with the augmentation team members in Afghanistan, said some of the intelligence officers deployed with his unit were reluctant to leave their base and spoke only to local residents who ventured inside.

Yep, CPA guys—just like the Green Zone. They must think they know how to win a war!

So, we're trashing the Constitution, and all for a black ops unit that's led by Yet Another Narcissistic Sociopath and staffed with the same clueless winger operatives who brought us Iraq. Blowback, anyone?

I somehow managed to miss the excellent blog known as The Beast until somebody on an Atrios comment thread pointed to this post.

The 50 Most Loathesome People In America

50. Ann Coulter
Crimes: Coulter plummets down the list as she slips into irrelevance. As her columns degenerate further into absurd, incoherent attacks against her own personal paranoid fantasy of fanged, drooling, Saddam-loving liberals who hate America and childish France-bashing, we find our outrage slowly giving way to a baffled “I can’t believe I used to go out with you” feeling. Her arguments are ridiculous, her vitriol forced, her hatchet face even harder to look at. Still, she insulted a one-armed war veteran, called reports of the hundreds of tons of missing munitions in Iraq false, claimed Wesley Clark was pro-infanticide, and blamed Abu Ghraib on the presence of women in the armed forces—they’re not all like you, Ann—and on and on. It’s just not worth debunking someone who has no credibility in the first place.

Smoking Gun: Has credibility in the minds of more people than we can stomach acknowledging.

Punishment: Skull crushed with rock.

Go read. Number 3 might make you go "ouch".

NOTE: There's been some technical problems in Xanastan recently. Blogger had me down on a no-babbling-for-YOU list off and on and my email, for reasons completely unknown, will send but not receive for the last several days. Anybody been trying to get hold of me, I'm not ignoring you, I've just gone deaf. I just got about three days worth come through so things may be improving. Off to do some research on how email works with Firefox because Outlook Express is about outta here.

Via Trish Wilson a practical anger management program the whole family can enjoy.

Anger Management

When you occasionally have a really bad day, and you just need to take it out on someone, don't take it out on someone you know, take it out on someone you don't know.

It all started one day when I was sitting at my desk and remembered a phone call I had forgotten to make. I found the number and dialed it. A man answered, saying, "Hello." I politely said, "This is Chris. May I please speak with Robin Carter? "

Suddenly, the phone was slammed down on me. I couldn't believe that anyone could be so rude. I tracked down Robin's correct number and called her. I had transposed the last two digits of her phone number.

After hanging up with her, I decided to call the 'wrong' number again. When the same guy answered the phone, I yelled, "You're an asshole!" and hung up. I wrote his number down with the word 'asshole' next to it, and put it in my desk drawer. Every couple of weeks, when I was paying bills or had a really bad day, I'd call him up and yell, "You're an asshole!" It
always cheered me up.

Continues... see link above. Its hilarious - at least I think so - so go read the whole thing. You don't want to miss the grand finale.

*

When war was war and women wore flannel skirts:

Jody: Jack, oh, dahling! I understand he was hiding WMDs?
Jack: Yes, well, Jody...
Jody: Jack!, they're very dangerous!
Jack: Yes, well...
Jody: Oh, Jack...!
***KISS***
Jack: Feeling better now Jody?
Jody: Oh, Jack...

The End.

*

[QUESTION] If you could be a fly on the wall: upon which inauguration ball wall would you most like to crawl?

#1- Jenna and Barbara's Crown Royal 8-Ball = 46% - 82 votes. No surprise here. I figured this would be the big winner. I still have a hangover and can't breath through my right nostril.

#2- Fabulous AWOL "Mainstream" Media Ball = 12% - 21 votes. Not too surprised this one finished second. Highlights of the evening: White House press corp karioke with John King. Wolf and Judy's mainstream media disco dance party room. Bill O'Reilly grabbing Amy Robach by the ankles and holding her upside down and shaking her like an empty can of spray paint so he could look up her skirt and everyone else could hear that little metal ball-bearing rattle around inside her head. Strawberry daquari chug-a-lug with Tom Friedman.

#3- WMD Dodge Ball = 11% - 19 votes. I'm surprised anyone could find it. I couldn't. But thanks for looking.

#4- [The] Prosperity Thru Peonage Privatizers Ball = 9% - 16 votes. A good place to take down names. But eventually degenerated into little more than a drunken sulk, an evening of stale cigarettes, cheap shots of tequilla, and watching John Fund and Stephen Moore play video Keno. Yuck.

#5- Clownhall PowerLine PR Masquerade Bloggers Payola Ball = 8% 14 votes. Terrible food. Terrible music. No good looking women. Dorks. Like trick or treating at a Star Trek convention with Dennis Miller. Coat please.

#6- Cost Plus Jingo Bus Bombs Away Codpiece Ball = 7% - 13 votes. Great door prizes. Hi, my name is Diego Garcia, what was the address of that safe house in Kazakhstan?

#7- Tea Dance Tories Log Cabin Tiara Ball = 5% - 9 votes. A little surprised this one didn't get a bigger attendance. At least for the Margaret Thatcher drag queen look-a-like competition. Then again, watching Ken Mehlman tossing a beach ball around in a muscle shirt and a pair of sequined cutoffs was pretty disturbing. Weird lighting too. Taxi!

#8- Grand Old Pecksniff Power Ball = 2% - 3 votes. Cigars. Old smelly furniture. Two hundred year old scotch. Bob Novak. William Buckley. Five thousand dollar a night escorts... etcetera etcetera etcetera.

#9- Pirates of Penance Anchors Away Absolution Ball = 1% - 2 votes. A little surprised this event didn't draw more attention. Just for the special effects and the free hallucinegenics. Lots of action in the parking lot. I actually got layed at this one. Heh.

#10- Dotheboys Hall Rote Skolar Ball = 1% - 1 vote. One vote? Pissed off school teacher? Someone who actually read Nicholas Nickleby? Anyway... sniffing acetone off of freshly printed ditto machine handouts while sitting around on little tiny chairs lined up against the wall. ~ Topic of discussion: How to phonetically spell acetone without angering local busybody parents or annoying really annoying senior citizen groups.

*

I met a nutjob at the library this morning, ranting and raving about getting the US out of the UN. I’ve met these types before, old Birchers and suchlike. But, after I clubbed him to the ground with a copy of Das Kapital, I got to thinking. Leah has been posting on framing our values, and how we can hook it so it’s simple and straightforward, but comprehensive and based on what's worked before. The ravings of this neo-Bircher made me remember that MLK always framed the struggle for justice and freedom and an end to poverty in GLOBAL terms, not simply national ones. The IWW is a GLOBAL union. We talk about GLOBAL warming. The Bu’ushites are concerned with maintaining American dominance, spreading “freedom and democracy” at the point of a gun, and on their own terms, which are mainly to support their thirst for oil and minerals. Maybe it’s time we started speaking more globally. Tresy’s relocation to Canada, Rob’s British passport, our friend Yank in London, all make this a global frame. Maybe that’s one approach that needs more air.

I searched around for the right words, and thought of Carl Sagan, and then found that Tad Daley has some thoughts on exactly this meme in his anti-inaugural address:

The picture taken by the Voyager spacecraft from beyond Pluto shows our planet as a tiny speck, almost completely lost in the glare of the Sun. Carl Sagan wrote of this photograph: " Look at that dot. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of lived out their lives. ... Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot."

We advocate a global policy agenda that reflects the truth of Earth from space. We compare the radiant blues and greens of our fragile planet to the blackness of the cosmos, and recognize the infinite preciousness of our lonely home. We insist that the Whole Earth is perhaps something greater than the sum of its parts.

We believe that the pursuit of "vital national interests" ought to be accompanied by a calculus of transnational interests. We suspect that an expanded ethic of planetary patriotism and allegiance to humanity may be no less than the Great Story of the 21st Century.

We stand in the tradition of what the great psychologist Erik Erikson called an "all-human solidarity." We see the first glimmerings of what the great political scientist Robert C. Tucker calls an "ethic of specieshood." We are the vanguard of what Voltaire called "the party of humanity."

Whole thing at: An Alternative Inaugural Presidential Address

How can blogs help create this “all-human solidarity” on this little blue pea in space? Before Bushco makes it a smoking cinder? And you know what I heard on the radio this morning driving into town? A "newsperson" (I forget which) saying something like "Christian conservatives have issued notice today that certain cartoons contain immoral messages..." and, as I switched stations to public radio, I longed for the day I would hear an announcer say "Godless socialists issued notice today that the revolution is here..." Global problems--solved by religion? Or caused by religion? And how to make the struggle both local and global? Ugh. I'm headed for home, a bottle of stout and the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.

Who's to say the Norwegians aren't right?

President Bush's "Hook 'em, 'horns" salute got lost in translation in Norway, where shocked people interpreted his hand gesture during his inauguration as a salute to Satan.

That's what it means in the Nordics when you throw up the right hand with the index and pinky fingers raised, a gesture popular among heavy metal groups and their fans in the region.
(via AP)

Or found in translation, eh?

UDDATE Alert reader Iggy shares the following:

According to the Daily News, it's official sign language for "bullshit."

"Texans recognized Jenna's "Hook 'em horns" hand sign as a show of support for the University of Texas' Longhorns football team.

"But deaf people who use American Sign Language easily identified the sign for "bulls-!"

"One of the eight official signers for the inauguration - who interpreted the President's address on the West Front of the Capitol - yesterday confirmed to me the bovine expletive."

...the mainstream media bullshit riveter

Well, I was wondering how the hero worshipers and official statement readers and giddy go-getters in the radio and television "news" racket were going to kick off CAKEWALK 2 ~ THE WORLD, and now I know. Today, Jan. 20, 2005, was the inaugural pre-game bonfire and CAKEWALK-2 pep rally hootenanny. Hip hip hooray.

"Those rosy scenarios are what keep us going in this business." - Chris Mathews, Hardball; Jan. 20th 2005.

Yes, those rosy scenarios sure do make it fun to be a cable tv "news" bullshit artist and get paid a lot of money to be a cable tv "news" bullshit artist. One day Chris Mathews can tell his grandchildren that grandpa buttered his bread with rosy scenarios and bullshit. Yes little grandchildren, you are so lucky, for grand daddy has left you a manor house built from rosy scenarios and bullshit.

Ah, the media. Fattened for the slaughter on lovin' spoonfulls of creamy repetitious Bush administration sanctioned public relations miracle whip. Whipped to a fine peak. Sure does beat having to commit actual honest reporting or critical journalism. Welcome to the house that Rosy Scenario built.

But grandpa, Rosy Scenario wasn't real...

SHUT UP KID! Eat your bullshit and miracle whip.

It's a good thing we have an endless springwell of bubbly intellectually dishonest historical hokum and psy-op pundit payola babble and wave after wave of massaged public relations happy-talk to keep us all sane and informed year after year after shined up intellectually dishonest year. Thank god CNN and MSNBC and FOX and NPR and so on.... are all on the job. Keeping America safe for high paid right wing think tank remoras and corporate media millionaire pundits and rosy scenario bullshit pr executives everywhere. Leave no rosy scenario bullshit pr executive behind.

Clearly, Americans can no longer produce a fucking toaster or stitch a pair of work boots together or pay some poor bastard a living wage for standing around all day guarding a shit eating cash register, but, by god, when it comes to weaving an endless tapestry of imbecilic televised rosy scenarios, demonstratable lies, half-truths, deceptions, disinformation, goggle eyed boo-scare stories, glossy corporate video new releases, cheery self congratulatory feel good buzz phrases, moony-eyed economic privatization quackeries, and page after page after page of devious, disingenuous, dishonest, deceitful, and altogether unscrupulous "public diplomacy" bullshit - well - Americans are the living breathing champions of rosy productivity. No amount of money or time or effort is wasted when it comes to the manufacture and distribution of precious Rosy Scenario bullshit. Fuckin' A.

Not all Americans are happy about this of course. But who cares about them. They are simply intolerant bigots who hate real American bullshit.

When David Brooks can appear on NPR and tell listeners that Ronald Reagan never tolerated dictators...

"This does go back to Reagan. The idea you shouldn't play footsie with dictators." SEE: Analysis of the Inauguration - All Things Considered, January 20, 2005 · Robert Siegel and Melissa Block talk to columnists E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post and David Brooks from the New York Times about President Bush's speech and react to inauguration events.

..well, that is a heapin' helpin' of certifiable manufactured real American bullshit. In a sane world Brooks would have had his twitchy little well powdered nose rubbed in his own excrement and laughed off the air, because, any honest intelligent person knows that what Brooks said it is bullshit. Ronald Reagan and his administration not only tolerated murderous dictators they eagerly crawled under the covers with them and sucked on their diseased dictator toes and then left big bags of cash and cocaine on the nightstand on the way out the door. Right wing evangelical crazy Efrain Rios Montt, the fascist murderer Augusto Pinochet, Marcos in the Phillipines, Roberto D'Aubuisson and his right wing death squads in El Salvador, Videla and his "dirty war" genocide generals in Argentina, etc. Oh yeah sure, the Reagan years, they were a regular desert of dashed hopes for crazy dictators and nun rapers and torture chamber entrepreneurs.

The fact that EJ Dionne and Robert Siegel and Melissa Block just sat there like stump fungus and allowed Brooks to fling such bullshit around on National Public Radio without a peep in response just goes to show you how impressed with the awesome power of bullshit flinging the Big Liar Mainstream Media bullshit artists are.

Whats important to remember is that making a living as a Big Liar Mainstream Media bullshit artist is a booming trade. The New York Times actively seeks con-artist bullshitter bobos like David Brooks to propagate as many bullshit stories as possible. The New York Times has no problem with the fact that David Brooks is a liar and a bullshitter because the lies and bullshit David Brooks makes up sell newspapers with the "New York Times" printed on the front page. Thats a rosy bobo scenario The New York Times can live with. Who cares if it's nothing but dishonest bobo bullshit if dishonest bobo bullshit sells newspapers to bobos who want to be spoon fed bullshit! Apparently according to the bullshit salesman at the New York Times there is an entire market demographic which requests - no, demands! - demands to be spoon fed bullshit. And who is the New York Times to deny the customer what they request, I mean demand. Damnit! If it's bullshit the customer wants it's bullshit the NYT will deliver! Right to your door every single grey bullshit day if you like. It's the lazy-fare American way.

NPR presents another case of bullshit for sale. As a matter of fact immediately following the episode with David Brooks they ran and entire program called "America Abroad" with Gerrick Utley and Margaret Warner which highlighted all the rosy scenario moments of Ronald Reagan's "perception management" psy-op machine. It was mostly bullshit too. Complete with woosie reflections on the golden years of Charles Wick's USIA state sponsored "public diplomacy" apparatus and little sniperoos of jolly good cheer from Jeane Kirkpatrick (who never met a right wing dictator she couldn't bring to a climax) and other all-star memory moments in state sponsored bullshit management. No vetting of course of Iran Contra and El Salvador and Guatemala and death sqauds and mujahadeen "freedom fighters" and uncomfortable intolerant liberal Gipper soiling anti-bullshit stuff like that. Freedom, liberty, the Gipper.... hip hip hooray for the American bullshitter way!

So, back to inauguration day and all the lavish claptrap and repetitious goo-goo eyed hero worship and plainspoken feedom lovin' liberty lavishin' praise from the Big Liar Mainstream Media about George W. Bush's designs to pry the tentacles of despotism from the globe and replace those despotic tentacles with the warm and fuzzy tender freedom loving hug of the Bush family's corporate military industrial complex. Feel the love. Freedom and liberty and who cares how many graves of innocent dead children and mommies and daddies and puppies we have to walk over to dispense our worldly affections and to get even with those whoever they weres who destroyed the World Trade Towers wherever they are. As long as we ultimately deliver our big freedom hug to the world. You will all thank us later because Jesus sent us. Yes siree. Sure.

So now we're off to Iran? Ok... like as I understand it now: at least according to Condi-liar Rice we invaded Iraq because --- Saddam was a threat to his neighbors and the stability in the region and blah blah blah.

So then, one might pon-der, why the fuck now are we threatening those neighbors?

Let me get this new story straight: We invaded Iraq because Saddam was a threat to us because he was a threat to his neighbors and by being a threat to his neighbors we needed to remove the threat of Saddam so that ---- we could therefore be a threat to his neighbors who are now in turn a threat to us and stability in the region?

Oh, yeah, I get it...I'd like to thank the freedom loving Iraqi people for allowing us to drop five thousand pound bombs on their homes so we can now threaten their neighbors on behalf of protecting them and ourselves from threatening neighbors. Thats right nice of ya all to allow us to be so neighborly and helpful and stability enhancing and all. I'm sure the Iranians will thank us too. As soon as we can drop five thousand pound bombs on their homes to remind them that we removed the threat of Saddam who had been threatening their neighborhood's stability for so long. And because they the Iranians, who are a threat to Iraq who was a threat to us before and still is but never mind that, are also a threat to us now too because after we removed the threat to them they then became a threat to us. And to pretty much anyone else we can threaten into being threatened in the meantime. Know what I mean you fuckers? Well you better figure it out quick or something terrible might happen.

Do I really need to go into it? America can't have that happening again. It's too much of a threat. Condi "Miss Supertanker" Rice and Donald Rumsfeld will explain it all once we get to Tehran and set up our military outpost 'freedom' bases among the flowers and cheering crowds of well wishers.

You know, only crazy people think like this but I think I'm getting the hang of it. Being crazy isn't really that difficult. I kinda like it and I hear they canned Crossfire and are hiring new crazy bullshit artists at CNN.

Well, I went to art school and I know how to bake a cake and rivet a rosy bullshit scenario together with the best of em. So hey, someone just send me an application and an employee handgun, I mean handbook - sorry - and I'll be right over.

BTW: I'll only take the bullshit job if Ari Fleischer can be my liberal co-host. I insist on a fair and balanced program of bullshit at all times because that's what the American people want. Even if 'bout half of them is just full of bullshit.

*

Amazing that nobody called bullshit on him for this at his confirmation hearing, but the Senate Dems are still way, way too deferential (except for Barbara Boxer, of course). Read it again:

"[GONZALES:] I do believe there may come an occasion when the Congress might pass a statute that the president may view as unconstitutional" and therefore ignore it.
(via the Barre Times Argus)

Wait a minute. It's up to the Executive—let's try to reserve "President" for Constitutional officers—to decide which laws are unconstitutional? I thought the Supreme Court was supposed to do that, under the doctrine of the separation of powers.

Let's check out the Federalist Papers—something our Republican [cough] friends should consider doing more often—and see what James Madison had to say about a system where the courts and the executive powers were united, instead of being seperated:

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. Were the federal Constitution, therefore, really chargeable with the accumulation of power, or with a mixture of powers, having a dangerous tendency to such an accumulation, no further arguments would be necessary to inspire a universal reprobation of the system.
(via Federalist Papers, #47)

Funny the oath that soldiers take—"to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic," when Bush, by his actions and his nominations, is surely a domestic enemy of the Constitution. Life's little ironies....

Well, now they can unweld all the manhole covers they welded shut for the coronation.

And kudos to Oliver Willis for the clip. Watch Vanity Fair's Judy Bachrach take down FUX [cough] news anchor Brigitte Quinn. Funny, there seems to be a false note in Republican triumphalism, and Bachrach exposes it expertly. Citizen journalism at its finest! Like kryptonite to stupid, indeed!

Leadfoot gets a new do:

Our favorite TV nugget of the day so far came courtesy of Barbara Walters, who matter-of-factly informed viewers that Laura Bush recently had her hair done by famed New York City stylist Sally Hershberger, who charges $700 for a haircut. Just take a moment to think back to the go-go '90s, and try to imagine what the press' hysterical reaction would have been if word ever leaked out that Hillary Clinton had sat down for a $700 trim.
(via Eric Bohlert in Salon)

The press? You mean the LRWM?

All that preparation for a terror attack?

In the end, massive anti-terrorism preparations for what federal authorities promised would be the most secure inauguration in U.S. history turned into an exercise in crowd control,
(via WaPo)

Coincidence? You be the judge.

Words lie:

[BUSH] All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.
(via WaPo)

Pictures don't:


Say, we're still waiting for a little more coverage on that executive order authorizing torture (back).

More WPS:

America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies.
(via WaPo)

Listening, MBFs?

Sheesh, what a mediocre speech this is. Can you believe it, the soaring-spirited geniuses who wrote it actually put in a sentence like "America's influence is considerable." Considerable?

Anyone out there actually read the text?

(APPLAUSE)

[BUSH] Across the generations, we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master and no one deserves to be a slave.

(APPLAUSE)

Fancying these ideals is the mission that created our nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers.
(via WaPo)

Fancy them?! Why not fabulous them! Yeah, that's the ticket. "Fabulousing these ideals...."

Limbaugh supports right to privacy. Funny how important rights become when the cops are after you:

The conservative radio commentator alleges that his privacy was violated when the records were seized in 2003 and has fought to keep them sealed. Lower courts have sided with prosecutors, who are investigating whether Limbaugh illegally visited several doctors to receive duplicate prescriptions.
(via AP)

Time to recycle that old joke:

What's the difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Hindenburg?

Readers?

Oh, wait:

Sgt. Kevin Benderman notified his commanders Dec. 28 that he was seeking a discharge as a conscientious objector. He then refused orders to deploy with his unit Jan. 8 while the Army processed his objector claim.

Though he never fired a gun in combat, Benderman says the misery he saw firsthand - including a badly burned young girl and mass graves filled with men, women and children - led him to seek objector status.

Army investigators must now decide whether to prosecute Benderman in a court-martial or allow his case to be handled administratively, said Lt. Col. Robert Whetstone, a Fort Stewart spokesman.
(via AP)

And where one does it, you can bet there are many more thinking about it.

Hey, freedom's untidy!

More stories from AP of creative resistance:

At a mock inauguration in Baltimore, a woman wearing a Bush mask gave a pretend speech, stumbling over her words, and a guitarist played Bob Dylan's "Gates of Eden," which opens, "Of war and peace the truth just twists." Passing cars, buses and taxis honked horns in support, and a pedestrian raised a fist.

In Louisville, Ky., protesters solemnly read the names of dead Iraqis and Americans and staged a skit that spoofed Bush and his chief political adviser, Karl Rove.

"It's very frightening to me that we have four more years," said Ken Nevitt of the Louisville Peace Action Community. "For us, it's going to be four more years of protesting."

About 1,500 protesters joined the "Jazz Funeral for Democracy" in New Orleans. A mock coffin bearing copies of the Patriot Act and the Constitution was borne through the French Quarter's narrow streets on a horse-drawn hearse to the wail of trumpets and trombones.

In Las Vegas, about 30 peace activists talked on the steps of the federal courthouse about issues they said need to be emphasized — love, the environment and the Bill of Rights. About 50 demonstrators beat drums outside the statehouse in Austin, Texas, as part of a "kiss in," when they all "make out, not make war."

At the federal courthouse in Akron, Ohio, about 20 demonstrators stood on a snowy street corner.

"We think war is not the way to come to peace," said Mary Kathryne Ryan, 63. "So many people are suffering in Iraq — their people and our people. We just don't make friends that way. The children there are going to grow up hating us more, and that will create more terrorism."

It's a healthy sign. For us, it’s going to be four more years of trying to nail The Great Pretender to the wall, via protests, letters, local, regional and national Democratic action toward victory in 2006, pushing to expose the lies and encourage prosecution, cutting off spending to corporations and businesses that support these various outrages, preaching nonviolent direct action and peace and justice and equality, and drinking heavily as needed (phooey on the doctors). A Bas le Roi! We are not alone! We'll stop fighting these bastards when they pry the portraits of Emma Goldman and our Make Love, Not War amulets out of our cold, dead, fingers.

The headline for this story is just priceless: "Poll: Nation split on Bush as uniter or divider."

I'll give you a bit more from this story written by an apparently irony-impaired reporter:

On the eve of President Bush's inauguration, a poll shows the nation is split over whether he has united or divided the nation, but a majority believe his inauguration festivities should be toned down because of the war.

During the 2000 campaign, Bush promised to be a "uniter, not a divider."

Forty-nine percent of 1,007 adult Americans said in phone interviews they believe Bush is a "uniter," according to the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Wednesday. Another 49 percent called him a "divider," and 2 percent had no opinion.

Um, guys, this poll demonstrates pretty conclusively that he's a divider, don't you think?

In fact, W, Rove, and the boys specialize in this thing called wedge politics that uses certain issues to unite certain groups behind them. So, in a weird way, Bush is a uniter for some but clearly, overall, he's a divider.

Sigh.

Have you guys been paying any attention at all the last few years?

I guess we know the answer to that question now, don't we?

I keep thinking of this guy I saw in one of the tsunami videos. He's standing a few dozen yards away at the water's edge, staring out to sea. He's obviously seeing something. An advance wave hits the beach and nearly knocks him over, but after recovering his balance he just resumes gazing at the horizon. Then another, larger wave hits a few feet away from the videographer, and the camera, amid rising cries, stops rolling. The last image is of him just standing there as others turn to run.

I couldn't help but wonder what he was thinking. Was he in denial? Was he trying to think of something to do? Was he looking for something that would tell him it's all a bad dream? Was he praying? What more did he think he'd learn by continuing to stare? Why didn't he just get the hell out of there?

The first time my wife and seriously discussed leaving the United States was nearly two years ago. We were already suffocating from the incompetence, greed, sanctimony, lying, and jingoism that permeated, largely unopposed, our airwaves, our newspapers, and the Internet. By that time the hallmarks of Bushism were already obvious: the intent to cripple government's ability to help the helpless; the hostility to political custom and principles of comity between institutions; the contempt for accountability; the punitive response to all criticism; the mind-boggling fiscal recklessness; the militant stupidity; the cronyism.

The pivotal moment may have been the Canadian woman in Vancouver, where we'd fled for respite during the Iraq invasion. On hearing our lament for a country gone frankly insane, she simply suggested, "Well, dears, why don't you move here? We'd love to have you!" After a year of being labeled traitors by our own countrymen, that was almost enough to make us cancel our return tickets then and there. But we still hoped that sanity and basic decency would prevail. So we filed for a permanent residence visa, and then threw ourselves into the campaign with everything we had. The visa would be approved by the time of the election, but we hoped we wouldn't need it. Call it pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.

In a fine meditation on the tsunami, Digby writes, "This disaster has made my tidal wave dreams more turbulent than they've ever been and it's not because of the frightening images of the tsunami surge and the people running for their lives. It's because we are ruled by people with no empathy, no competence and no limits. It's because, more than ever, I feel engulfed by powerful forces over which I have no control."

It's indeed a testament to the derangement of our society and the cynicism of those running it, that 49% of the population can feel so alone and powerless. It's also not a coincidence. Bush is an effect, not a cause of the crisis we are facing, one that would not have disappeared with John Kerry in office. We are living in a country whose custodians--corporations, public officials, courts, and the press--have been looting our patrimony for years. To carry this out has required the undermining of the belief in the very idea of a patrimony worth preserving and growing, a project that show no sign of abating and that is now nearly complete. If and when it is complete, the American Dream will be a lifeboat, and our motto, no longer "e pluribus unum," but "sauve qui peut."

In the final analysis, Bush is no tsunami. For one thing, he lacks a tsunami's terrifying magnificence. He's more like the La Conchita mudslide, an ugly wall of sludge, triggered by an underlying structural collapse, that slowly fouls and smothers everything in its path. And maybe that's why relatively few people are getting out (or taking to the streets): They think their house is safe, that their children will be spared, that a miracle will intervene. Perhaps Social Security will be the Bushies' Stalingrad. Perhaps this waking nightmare will finally end short of ruination, though the wreckage will still take years to clean up. Nothing would make us happier, but until then, the facts in front of us tell us that the prudent action is to seek higher ground.

We know we can't entirely escape Bush from our little redoubt up North, but at least we can shelter our children from much of his ugliness and give them a shot at a more hopeful future. We are also looking forward to finally paying our taxes without shame. Canada is a beautiful country that still amazes us after many visits with its decency, wit, and above all, commitment to a better life for all its citizens.

From our new home we will continue the same fight as before, and invite others to join us. (We learn daily of more who are.) To those who can't or won't, don't misunderstand: They also subvert, who merely get up and leave.

So two governors fly home, nobly missing the coronation inaugural to keep their states safe. Funny—it's the first alert since the Republican convention! And even funnier—both Governors are Republicans! (via CNN)

Guess we'd better weld the whole country's manhole covers shut, like they did in DC. Just to be on the terrified side.

Okay, this story is not--just barely not, but still not--quite as bad as the headline implies.

Lambert has been valiantly flogging the fact that the worst thing about Alberto Gonzales is NOT his compliant willingness to work out a legal justification for torture if that's what Dear Leader wants him to do, but the fact that in pursuit of that end he has perverted his legal mind to justify Rule By Decree.

The idea--found, as best as I can tell from the copy of the US Constitution which is open on my desk as I write--that the Executive can decide that a law duly passed by Congress is unConstitutional and therefore can be ignored, abrogated and generally pissed upon.

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, this atrocity is working its way into the print media at least:

(via The Invaluable Froom)

Dan Eggen and Charles Babington write in The Washington Post: "Attorney general nominee Alberto R. Gonzales, responding to questions about his role in setting controversial detention policies, told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that any form of torture by U.S. personnel is illegal, according to new documents released yesterday.

"But Gonzales, the White House counsel who is expected to be confirmed by the Senate in coming weeks, declined to identify the techniques allowed under U.S. interrogation policies, citing restrictions on classified information. He also reiterated his view that a president could theoretically decide that a U.S. law -- such as the prohibition against torture -- is unconstitutional, though he dismissed the question as irrelevant under President Bush."

Read that last sentence again. Now that we've noted that this is what Gonzales truly believes--not just something that he did because he was told, in his capacity as White House capo, like a kid assigned to write a term paper about Moby-Dick or something--but truly believes, how can there be any consideration by anyone that this man is deserving of a government paycheck in any capacity? Much less as the chief lawyer of the land?

Don't Senators take an oath too? About defending the Constitution "from all enemies, foreign and domestic"?

What's up with that? Isn't she supposed to be entirely talent-free?

Honestly, I don't see what's so hard about the ethics of this whole Social Security thing. It's pay as you go? Big deal.

While I've been working, my payroll taxes paid for my mother's retirement in dignity (and maybe some other mothers' too. Good).

In Asia, that's called filial piety. I guess that translates to, um, family values in this country, doesn't it?

Since Social Security is a social compact between generations, the same will be done for me, by people who are young now. And they will be taken care of in their turn.

The numbers say this works. And it's also the right thing to do. Whether you're a Confucian, a Christian, or just plain humane.

God knows what our policy towards Iran should be. But wouldn't basing it in reality, instead of fantasy, be a really good first step? But n-o-o-o-o-o-o:

[T]he hawks in the Pentagon, in private discussions, have been urging a limited attack on Iran because they believe it could lead to a toppling of the religious leadership. “Within the soul of Iran there is a struggle between secular nationalists and reformers, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the fundamentalist Islamic movement,” the consultant told me. “The minute the aura of invincibility which the mullahs enjoy is shattered, and with it the ability to hoodwink the West, the Iranian regime will collapse”—like the former Communist regimes in Romania, East Germany, and the Soviet Union. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz share that belief, he said.
(via the most excellent Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker)

Right. And isn't Rummy and Wolfowitz talking about "shattering the aura of invincibility an utterly classic case of Winger Projection Syndrome (WPS)? Given that these clowns have done more than anyone to destroy the aura of American invincibility since Robert MacNamara and William Westmoreland?

Lovely:

Mr. Gonzales declined to say in his written responses to the committee what interrogation tactics would constitute torture in his view or which ones should be banned.
(via the poor old Times)

So, torture is against the law, except they don't know or won't say what torture is, and executive—let's reserve the word "President" for constitutional officers, shall we?—can set aside the law anyhow, and rule by decree.

Eesh. No Democrat should vote for this guy. There's no upside to it at all.

Knight Ridder has a few choice details:

To sell privatized pension plans to workers, Chile's fund managers hired miniskirted marketers to troll outside factories and office buildings. The marketers' wages got passed on to workers who signed up, however, and dragged down returns.

Poor initial oversight allowed fund managers to lure workers into switching plans, then charge them for the switch.
(via Knight Ridder)

(Some statistics too, but, lies, damned lies, and...)

You know, I always had the picture that after Bush phased out Social Security in favor of private pension plans, I'd be sitting down with a broker; sure, I'd get ripped off, but by a professional, or at least someone in a suit.

After Chile, it looks like dealing with privatized social security is going to be more like dealing with cable weasels, or with telemarketers trying to get you to switch your long distance carrier.

Our operators are standing by!

NOTE I like the AARP's gambling idea, but it we could put across the meme that dealing with the privatized system (we've got to reframe "private accounts") is like dealing with the cable company... Well, victory would be ours.

Let Ken Melhman eat his durable majority, we have our enduring values to keep us warm.

Hey, who says we can't frame?

Enduring values ought to be the ones that unite all Americans, that survive beyond partisanship. Remember how pundits always used to, and still do, come to think of it, sneer at Democrats for their coalition politics, their need to service interest groups instead of having a coherent political philosophy. But isn't that exactly what Ken Melhman is talking about doing? Isn't that exactly what Republicans have been doing, and isn't that why Republicans have become the partisan dividers, rather than the enduring uniters based on common values. And before any liberal lets any of the Bushites get away with saying that their values are the common ones, three million votes out of three hundre million cast is a slim majority, it gives you the right to govern, but it doesn't redefine the American heritage.

Gentle readers, think on this subject, as will I; any further thoughts you might have will be welcome.

Another hats off to Kevin Benderman, the sergeant who refused to participate in iWaq or any other war ever again, echoing Dr. King’s quote of the lyrics “I ain’t gonna study war no more.” He gave a lot of reasons why he came to this decision, but here’s one:

…Somewhere along the route there was this one woman standing along side the road with a young girl of about 8 or 9 years old and the little girl’s arm was burned all the way up her shoulder and I don’t mean just a little blistered, I mean she had 3rd degree burns the entire length of her arm and she crying in pain because of the burns. I asked the troop executive officer if we could stop and help the family and I was told that the medical supplies that we had were limited and that we may need them, I informed him that I would donate my share to that girl but we did not stop to help her.

I found the whole thing at POAC: voices_004 It’s quite moving. His wife has also posted at Online Journal. Here’s part of what she had to say:

For the past two weeks, my husband Kevin and I have answered questions from reporters, journalists, interested citizens from almost every state in the union, and about 8 foreign countries. After all of these interviews, I have a few questions of my own.

What is wrong with a country in which a man and his wife have to jump through hoops, take psychological tests, and wait three months for the results of an application that declares he has made a conscious choice to never go to war again?

What is wrong with the state of affairs of a country when a man and his wife must use every media source available, and during those interviews face the questioning of his and their character, all because that man has decided he cannot in good conscience ever participate in war again?

What is wrong with the direction of the world when a man and his wife receive phone calls and emails from all over their country asking them to explain themselves, calling them coward, wondering if they have ever read the Bible or studied the scripture, all because that man has chosen to speak out against war and violence, and his wife has chosen to stand with him?

What is wrong with a country when an application for conscientious objector status is reviewed and questioned, when a man's mental state is evaluated, when his morality is brought into question by a supposed chaplain (a man of God), all because this soldier has decided he cannot use a weapon to kill another person for any reason?

What is wrong with a country when a man can walk into a military recruiting office, sign on the dotted line and find himself in a war zone two months later, without one question directed toward his sanity?

What’s wrong? Republicans. The whole thing is here: One man has stopped killing; hope for more to do the same

And while we’re at it, a hats off to Adam Maor, Noam Bahat, Matan Kaminer, Shimri Tzameret, and Hagai Matar, the five Israeli refuseniks who recently got out of the Karmel Military Prison after serving 21 months for refusing mandatory service in the IDF. Shimir Tzameret says, “…my generation goes to the Occupied Territories and comes back with new norms…they talk about shooting people just for fun.” It’s in the January issue of The Progressive, but not online yet I don’t think.

Any other stories of resistance? Refusal directed toward the one-dimensional machine of destruction?

UPDATE: Farmer mentioned this CNN link to the Benderman story, too. I note that part of the story included this bit, so Kevin may indeed be looking at desertion charges.

“In May, a Fort Stewart court-martial sentenced Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia of the Florida National Guard to a year in prison for desertion despite his pending objector application. Mejia filed his claim after refusing to return to his unit in Iraq while home on leave.”
CNN.com - Army sergeant refuses 2nd Iraq deployment - Jan 13, 2005

And while, yes, reinstating the draft would certainly push resistance over the edge, remember that Boulder Daily Camera quote: “…lack of economic opportunity helps to explain why African-Americans compose 26 percent of the Army's enlisted personnel — meaning that they hold a disproportionate share of the lowest-ranking and most dangerous positions.” There’s drafts and then there’s drafts.

And here’s more on Israeli refusniks: Refuser Solidarity Network

"Durable Majority" - Yeah, that's real catchy. I love it. Like leaving an old unchained refrigerator on the front porch for the children to play in.

RNC Chair Unveils 'Durable Majority' Plan

WASHINGTON - White House ally Ken Mehlman took over leadership of the Republican Party on Wednesday and outlined plans to find new voters among the ranks of churchgoers and social conservatives.

"We can deepen the GOP by identifying and turning out Americans who vote for president but who often miss off-year elections and agree with our work on behalf of a culture of life, our promoting marriage, and a belief in our Second Amendment heritage," Mehlman said, referring to the party's opposition to abortion, gay marriage and gun control.

In other words - the God, Guns and Greed plan.

The GOP, where grand old wizardries are born again, and again, and again, and...

*

Paul Craig Roberts, him of the former "Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. [...] Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page [...] Contributing Editor of National Review," etc... etc... fame and fortune and other adventures in stupid bad ideas - yes - that Paul Craig Roberts, has alas apparently woken to the startling realization that "Americans have been betrayed." Ding-ding-ding-ding!, the alarm clock tolls for thee, Paul C Roberts.

Roberts reviews The New American Militarism, by Andrew J. Bacevich:

January 18, 2005
Empire and Militant Christianity How Americans Were Seduced by War
by Paul Craig Roberts

Americans have been betrayed.

Sooner or later Americans will realize that they have been led to defeat in a pointless war by political leaders who they inattentively trusted. They have been misinformed by a sycophantic corporate media too mindful of advertising revenues to risk reporting truths branded unpatriotic by the propagandistic slogan, "you are with us or against us."

What happens when Americans wake up to their betrayal? It is too late to be rescued from catastrophe in Iraq, but perhaps if Americans can understand how such a grand mistake was made they can avoid repeating it.

[...]

The greatest threat to the US is not terrorists but the neoconservative belief, to which President Bush is firmly committed, that American security and well-being depend on US global hegemony and impressing US values on the rest of the world. This belief resonates with a patriotic public. Bacevich writes, "in the aftermath of a century filled to overflowing with evidence pointing to the limited utility of armed force and the dangers inherent in relying excessively on military power, the American people have persuaded themselves that their best prospect for safety and salvation lies with the sword."

If Americans persist in these misconceptions, America will "share the fate of all those who in ages past have looked to war and military power to fulfill their destiny. We will rob future generations of their rightful inheritance. We will wreak havoc abroad. We will endanger our security at home. We will risk the forfeiture of all that we prize."

"Americans have been betrayed." - !!!!! - Well no shit. Maybe I haven't been paying attention but when did Paul Craig Roberts figure this one out? I dunno. Perhaps being inducted into the French Legion of Honor has transformed Paul Craig into some kind of cheese eating pastry flake anti-American Christ-hater? Ya know?

In any event: A big hip-hip-hooray for PC Roberts for finally leaping to attention, rubbing the fishy scales from his bloodshot gaze, and slapping himself in the face with a cold wash cloth. Better late than never as they say.

But then again -- it's not like Roberts and guys like him weren't warned a long time ago that the onboard Kool Aide was spiked with funny bid'ness. They were warned plenty of times down through the decades. And lets face it, the obnoxious keg rolling swindlers and power drunk privateers currently steering our national "family values" party boat "Imperium" straight for the rocky shoals, those people, wouldn't be where they are right now this very moment (preparing to waltz their way through another inauguration) if it weren't for the persistent support and assistance and endorsement of dreamy Right-wingnut Good Ship Gipper party boy scull yankers like Paul Craig Roberts and his "morning in America" crew.

So thanks a lot Roberts. I guess. At least, apparently, you've still got enough walking around half-sense left in you to help scrub the deck of the mess you and your supply-sider military industrial complex doper pals have made of the place. These are your people Paul C. Roberts. You helped book this crazy rummy soaked moonlight "cakewalk" cruise a long time ago. At least it's right manly of you to help try to swab up the vomit all these watery sea-sickening miles later.

Hopefully we'll all safely survive the voyage back to some recognizable home port. Assuming the whole ship don't sink like a brick to the bottom of the drink in the meantime. Who can say for sure at this point. But, if we do make it home hi and dry, we can all hold a big counterpunchers clam bake on a beach somewhere and dance like wild horny bonvivants to the tsunami-like swing of Dick Dale's surf guitar and you, Craig Roberts, can invite Lew Rockwell (The Reality of Red-State Fascism) or that windy wop Justin Raimondo* (Today's Conservatives Are Fascists) and I'll bring along Kitty Deer and her sisters and a chick from Dixie and we'll screw Christopher Hitchens onto a sharpened stilt and spit roast the greasy fat marinated bastard over a crackling driftwood fire like a sacrificial bush pig. And then we'll heave the entire burnt offering to the crabs! Jeezis, what the hell am I talking about.....

[*Advice to Raimondo. Lose the groovy Fonzi pose will ya.]

Well, we'll see.... I'm starting to get carried away here. It must be the waves and the rum and the thundering drums of war. It's all making me weird. So go read what Roberts has to say. It's a good refreshing read. Coming from a Clownhall wanker with a compelling life story that is.

*

"History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake."

Dis—

No, forget it. Don't discuss. Have another drink.

At the inaugural:

In addition to solemn dedications to wars present and past, the event featured comedy routines.
(via AP)

Um.

Borrowing a word from Motley Crue's Neil, the lead singer of Fuel proclaimed, "Welcome to the greatest ----ing country in the world."
(via AP)

Heh.

What will we tell the children?

Of course, apparently no one was there:

Duff was the headliner at the half-full, D.C. Armory concert, which paid tribute to youth volunteerism and community service.

Well, Hilary Duff isn't exactly "hip," is she?

Lame. Republicans ain't go no soul.

Heavily publicized in recent days has been the problems the FBI seems to have with computers. You get the impression that they're all working on Commodore 64s, Apple IIE's and 47 pound Osborne portables, connected (intermittently) by 300-baud dialup modems. A sample of this tale of woe, carried in thousands of papers and media outlets:

(via San Diego Union Tribune)

The FBI said yesterday that it might scrap a $170 million software program developed as a crucial element in a high-performance computer system required for the bureau to meet the threat of terrorism.

And there's also this one....although this is more puzzling as it is dated today whereas I thought they had announced the cancellation of this program months ago when those wacko civil-liberties nuts complained:

AP (via AskJeeves aggregator MyWay)

The FBI has effectively abandoned its custom-built Internet surveillance technology, once known as Carnivore, designed to read e-mails and other online communications among suspected criminals, terrorists and spies, according to bureau oversight reports submitted to Congress.

Instead, the FBI said it has switched to unspecified commercial software to eavesdrop on computer traffic during such investigations and has increasingly asked Internet providers to conduct wiretaps on targeted customers on the government's behalf, reimbursing companies for their costs.

So after two such sad songs, does anything about this piece seem just a bit incongruous?

also AP

If you're among the millions of Americans who took airline flights in the months before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the FBI probably knows about it - and possibly where you stayed, whom you traveled with, what credit card you used and even whether you ordered a kosher meal.

The bureau is keeping 257.5 million records on people who flew on commercial airlines from June through September 2001 in its permanent investigative database, according to information obtained by a privacy group and made available to The Associated Press.

Privacy advocates say they're troubled by the possibility that the FBI could be analyzing personal information about people without their knowledge or permission.

Um, no shit. Not to mention the question of what the hell use these ancient records are to figuring out where terrists are plotting eeeevil today.

(Oh, and is anybody else getting as annoyed as I am by the overuse of the word "troubling" these days? Could we maybe get a better indication of whether this is "a thing that makes you say HHHmmmmm...." as Arsenio used to put it, or a "run for your life, we're surrounded, sauve qui peut" situation? But we digress....)

And lo, there is an explanation!

FBI spokesman Bill Carter said the bureau was required to retain its records.

"There are rules that have been set by the National Archives with regard to the retention of records by government agencies," Carter said.

Yeah, that's the ticket! They're saving this shit, which they had a dubious right to acquire in the first place, for the Archives! Right. Sure. I believe that.

Meanwhile if you were on a commercial flight during the time period in question, your name is in a file somewhere. I hope the consolation of having your name, credit card number, and preferences in kosher food preserved for all time in the National Archives, and will become available to the archaeologists of the year 4782. I'm sure nobody's going to look at it in the meantime just for fun or because they can or anything.

The Boulder (Colorado) Daily Camera gets it right in their MLK Day editorial:

…lack of economic opportunity helps to explain why African-Americans compose 26 percent of the Army's enlisted personnel — meaning that they hold a disproportionate share of the lowest-ranking and most dangerous positions.

As he condemned the Vietnam War in 1967, Dr. King framed it as an issue of social justice. "I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such."

King continued, "We were taking the black men who had been crippled by our society and sending them 8,000 miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem."

Emphasizing that he was deeply and equally concerned about Vietnamese victims and U.S. troops, King dwelled on the plight of our soldiers: "For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war. ... We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved."

Last week, the Bush administration announced that it was ending its search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The president's original rationale for war was thus decisively cast aside. And the words of Dr. King indict today's leaders as convincingly as they did yesterday's.

It’s sure good to see someone connecting the dots, especially with Republicans falling over each other to hijack and sanitize Dr. King’s memory. Hope everyone had a great holiday full of peace and justice action. Hope everyone has some peace and justice plans for the 20th, too. If you feel like sharing…

I think of Martin Luther King Jr. in many different names. Sometimes he is Dr. King, sometimes the Rev. Dr.; there was a certain formality about the man, a deep seriousness that often makes us forget that he was only 35 years old on the day he was assassinated. And let us be clear, as well, that the formality of the man, and our need to honor that self-imposed decorum was not unrelated to race. It was Dr. King's way of reminding, especially us white folks, that he was a man of accomplishment by any standard by which we chose to judge, and we white folks who answered his call were anxious to show him we knew, we understood that he was a Dr. and Reverand, and that he was the son of another Martin Luther King. But in my secret heart, the place where we keep those intimate, spiritual relationships we have with those whose body of work we love and admire from afar, writers, artists, teachers, and yes, politicians, the best of whom we should think of as public servants, in that secret heart, Dr. King was, and still is "Martin."

We all know that he'd gone to Memphis to march with municipal garbage workers who were on strike, and we all know that section of the speech, which was given on his last night alive on earth, when he seems to see, at least rhetorically the possibility of his own death; the speech is usually referenced as "I've been to the mountaintop," speech. But there was much more to that speech, as in all his speeches.

One set of people who haven't forgotten anything about that strike and that death are the garbage workers of Memphis and their union and who keep a page on their AFMSCE site, (that would be the American Federation Of Municiapl State, & County Employees, you know, those government employees that Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush and now George W. Bush are trying to free from the horror of being represented by a union.) And please, no comments that the Democrats aren't any better. Tain't so. The Democratic Party has remained true to the cause of unions, as it has to the racial causes for which my "Martin" became the lodestar. The AFMSCE site is called "MEMEPHIS: We Remember; it is well worth a visit. The workers on strike bore signs with this simple, delcarative sentence: "I AM A MAN."

Among the excellent links you'll find at the site, there is an "I AM A MAN" exhibit devoted to the strike at the Walter Reuther Library at Wayne St. University.

On the AFMSCE site, one can find a piece taken from a Juan Williams book, a discussion by Jesse Epps, a Mississippi-born American black man, who explains his path from that non-American state to become a labor organizer, and explains how they happened on the theme of "I am a man," in Memephis and how rats may have figured into the final settlement; would that Juan Williams were better able to remember the meaning of the life of Jesse Epps when Juan is doing his soft shoe shuffle on that panel of Fox News shit-eaters to which he brings his color and little else on so many occasions.

Perhaps most interesting is Jesse Epps" discussion of Dr. King's reluctance to become involved in a labor dispute:

In the end, close to 1,400 men joined the strike, and they shut the city down.

On his first visit to Memphis, King spoke to a crowd of 17,000 and called for a citywide march.

When we first asked Dr. King to come speak to the garbage workers, his reaction was, "We don't get involved in labor disputes."

Dr. King said to me, "I sympathize and understand the problems, Jesse, but my plate is full." He was running all over the country trying to create some excitement for the Poor People's Campaign. He said, "You know, I'm up against the wall, and I really can't come down, because I cannot abandon this project."

I told him, "We're not asking you to abandon it. We're saying that this is very much a part of it. So you cannot afford to pass by these men." The Rev. Jim Lawson, who had pioneered the movement's use of nonviolent techniques, finally got Dr. King to agree to come. When he came, he saw the real fervor of what was going on here, and it energized him.

It did energize Martin. You can sense that renewed energy when you read the whole speech he gave in Memphsis on his last night alive on this earth. I apologize that I keep repeating that phrase, but in some part of my soul, I still can't believe we lost him then, so early, so young, with so much more to do in this life. But we did. And here's a small part of what we lost:

I'm delighted to see each of you here tonight in spite of a storm warning. You reveal that you are determined to go on anyhow. Something is happening in Memphis, something is happening in our world.

As you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of general and panoramic view of the whole human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, "Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?" — I would take my mental flight by Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there. I would move on by Greece, and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality.

But I wouldn't stop there. I would go on, even to the great heyday of the Roman Empire. And I would see developments around there, through various emperors and leaders. But I wouldn't stop there. I would even come up to the day of the Renaissance, and get a quick picture of all that the Renaissance did for the cultural and esthetic life of man. But I wouldn't stop there. I would even go by the way that the man for whom I'm named had his habitat. And I would watch Martin Luther as he tacked his ninety-five theses on the door at the church in Wittenberg.

But I wouldn't stop there. I would come on up even to 1863, and watch a vacillating president by the name of Abraham Lincoln finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. But I wouldn't stop there. I would even come up to the early thirties, and see a man grappling with the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation. And come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

But I wouldn't stop there. Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, "If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the twentieth century, I will be happy." Now that's a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land. Confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a away that men, in some strange way, are responding — something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee — the cry is always the same — "We want to be free."

And another reason that I'm happy to live in this period is that we have been forced to a point where we're going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demand didn't force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. Men, for years now, have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence.

That is where we are today. And also in the human rights revolution, if something isn't done, and in a hurry, to bring the colored peoples of the world out of their long years of poverty, their long years of hurt and neglect, the whole world is doomed. Now, I'm just happy that God has allowed me to live in this period, to see what is unfolding. And I'm happy that He's allowed me to be in Memphis.

I can remember, I can remember when Negroes were just going around as Ralph has said, so often, scratching where they didn't itch, and laughing when they were not tickled. But that day is all over. We mean business now, and we are determined to gain our rightful place in God's world.

And that's all this whole thing is about. We aren't engaged in any negative protest and in any negative arguments with anybody. We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people. We are saying that we are God's children. And that we don't have to live like we are forced to live.

Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means that we've got to stay together. We've got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain unity.

Secondly, let us keep the issues where they are. The issue is injustice. The issue is the refusal of Memphis to be fair and honest in its dealings with its public servants, who happen to be sanitation workers. Now, we've got to keep attention on that. That's always the problem with a little violence. You know what happened the other day, and the press dealt only with the window-breaking. I read the articles. They very seldom got around to mentioning the fact that one thousand, three hundred sanitation workers were on strike, and that Memphis is not being fair to them, and that Mayor Loeb is in dire need of a doctor. They didn't get around to that.

Now we're going to march again, and we've got to march again, in order to put the issue where it is supposed to be. And force everybody to see that there are thirteen hundred of God's children here suffering, sometimes going hungry, going through dark and dreary nights wondering how this thing is going to come out. That's the issue. And we've got to say to the nation: we know it's coming out. For when people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.

(emphasis mine)

I have more to say about the uses and misuses of "Martin" and will do so in a subsequent post.

Amazing damn story in, of all places, NYT. It almost gives me hope for their future, at least in reporting about revolution and patriotism in foreign countries. Prepare to have your head spin around a few times: it seems the Orange Revolution was saved by the secret police, known as the siloviki:

While wet snow fell on the rally in Independence Square, an undercover colonel from the Security Service of Ukraine, or S.B.U., moved among the protesters' tents. He represented the successor agency to the K.G.B., but his mission, he said, was not against the protesters. It was to thwart the mobilizing troops. He warned opposition leaders that a crackdown was afoot.

Simultaneously, senior intelligence officials were madly working their secure telephones, in one instance cooperating with an army general to persuade the Interior Ministry to turn back.

The officials issued warnings, saying that using force against peaceful rallies was illegal and could lead to prosecution and that if ministry troops came to Kiev, the army and security services would defend civilians, said an opposition leader who witnessed some of the exchanges and Oleksander Galaka, head of the military's intelligence service, the G.U.R., who made some of the calls.

It's long, but I want to note just one more clip from down near the end. When, Oh Lord, are we going to get people with courage like this again?

Even as the election commission deliberated over Mr. Yanukovich's victory, Ukrayinska Pravda, a news Web site, posted transcripts of conversations from among members of the Yanukovich campaign.

The officials were discussing plans to rig the election, including padding the vote. One conversation, recorded on election night, was between Yuri Levenets, a campaign manager, and a man identified as Valery.

Valery: "We have negative results."

Mr. Levenets: "What do you mean?"

Valery: "48.37 for opposition, 47.64 for us."

Valery later added: "We have agreed to a 3 to 3.5 percent difference in our favor. We are preparing a table. You will have it by fax."

Mr. Yanukovich won by 2.9 percent. In an interview, Mr. Ribachuk said he gave the transcripts to Pravda after receiving them from the S.B.U., which had bugged the Yanukovich campaign.

General Smeshko refused to discuss the tapes in detail. "Officially, the S.B.U. had nothing to do with the surveillance of Yanukovich campaign officials," he said. "Such taping would be illegal in this country without permission from the court. I will say nothing more."

But a member of the siloviki, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the taping was illegal, acknowledged the surveillance but said it was too delicate for General Smeshko to confirm. "Those who did this, they did not intend to become heroes," the officer said. "They wanted only to prevent a falsified election."

I'll answer my own question. We'll get people like that in this country when we have people willing to close down the capital city with their own, orange-clad bodies. In the dead of a Ukrainian winter no less. Without them, none of this would have happened.

Anyone out there who'd like to do a guest post for Corrente with a little instant analysis that decodes the religious messages/theology in Bush's State of the Union speech? Drop me a line. Serious responses only please; I want real analysis tied to chapter and verse.

Some alert readers have suggested that farmer is really Thomas Pynchon.

Here at Corrente, we don't know. But we do know farmer deserves to be voted best writer (And where else do you get the illustrations thrown in?!) So, vote early and often!

Here's the money paragraph in Hersh's story:

The new rules will enable the Special Forces community to set up what it calls “action teams” in the target countries overseas which can be used to find and eliminate terrorist organizations. “Do you remember the right-wing execution squads in El Salvador?” the former high-level intelligence official asked me, referring to the military-led gangs that committed atrocities in the early nineteen-eighties. “We founded them and we financed them,” he said. “The objective now is to recruit locals in any area we want. And we aren’t going to tell Congress about it.” A former military officer, who has knowledge of the Pentagon’s commando capabilities, said, “We’re going to be riding with the bad boys.”
(via New Yorker)

Yep, a dirty war against 1.5 billion Muslims. Good luck, guys!

Oh, and Tom's historical question has now been at least partially answered:

Are the folks at the Pentagon now admitting that we were BEHIND THE DEATHSQUADS in El Salvador in the 1980s?

Well, Hersh's sources certainly are. We can only hope that books are forthcoming from lots of recently purged CIA professionals. Eh?

And let's try not to be too obvious, OK?

Teddy.

Clueless. Playing politics when the Republicans are waging war. A net loss.

Please, Dean for DNC chair!

A fine editorial this Sunday morning:

According to the logic of attorney general nominee [Gonzales], federal authorities could deprive American citizens of sleep, isolate them in cold cells while bombarding them with unpleasant noises and interrogate them 20 hours a day while the prisoners were naked and hooded, all without violating the Constitution. Senators who vote to ratify Mr. Gonzales's nomination will bear the responsibility of ratifying such views as legitimate.
(via WaPo)

Let's see if the Beltway Dems have some inaugural balls of their own, eh?

NOTE WaPo doesn't even mention Gonzales's advocacy of executive—let's not use the word "President," OK? That's for Constitutional office holders—"rule by decree" (back). But we'll take what we can get.

Everything we've been saying must be true...

Bush has taken Ollie North's "covert, off-the-shelf" operations capability off the shelf, and He's using it to run a dirty war in the Middle East.
(via back)

...Seymour Hersh shows is true.

Except it's worse than anyone ever imagined. Read it all.

Striking Iran has been getting the press play, but the real issue is that Bush is refighting Reagan's dirty war in the 80s in Latin America in the Middle East.

We saw this back in July. Farmer hammers the point home again today. Too bad the press, or the Dems, didn't raise the issue back then, eh? Reminds me of the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime... Now it's all in motion, and we can all wait for the inevitable blowback...

"This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign."

Scroll down page to Lambert's post On to Tehran.

This post is esentially a replay. Intended as a kind of public service I suppose. This so called next in line "Iranian campaign" is nothing new. Shadow-president Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, sales and marketing prop George W. Bush, and so on.... have been slithering toward this spider hole for many years. 9/11 "changed eveything" - so the corporatist media bedwetter chant goes - but that is simply so much blind simple minded script-reading from a sickening gaggle of cosmetic counter makeup sales girls and "official statement" readers and paid payola psy-op pundits in the cable television and print media.

Just so much well baked cakewalking and frosting licking and whelp-dog Beltway cocktail party ass sniffing from the posers at CNN and MSNBC and elsewhere. You know the kind. And thats all that is. No one in the cable-TeeVee news media can remember what happened three weeks ago let alone a little over two years ago. And they didn't pay attention back then either. So what's the difference.

But, some people pay attention. And have been paying attention for years. Sy Hersh is one. And Jay Bookman at the Atlanta Journal Constitution is another.

Lets travel back in time.......to:

SEPT. 29, 2002

Atlanta Journal-Constitution The President's Real Goal in Iraq - by Jay Bookman

The official story on Iraq has never made sense. The connection that the Bush administration has tried to draw between Iraq and al-Qaida has always seemed contrived and artificial. In fact, it was hard to believe that smart people in the Bush administration would start a major war based on such flimsy evidence.

The pieces just didn't fit. Something else had to be going on; something was missing.

In recent days, those missing pieces have finally begun to fall into place. As it turns out, this is not really about Iraq. It is not about weapons of mass destruction, or terrorism, or Saddam, or U.N. resolutions.

This war, should it come, is intended to mark the official emergence of the United States as a full-fledged global empire, seizing sole responsibility and authority as planetary policeman. It would be the culmination of a plan 10 years or more in the making, carried out by those who believe the United States must seize the opportunity for global domination, even if it means becoming the "American imperialists" that our enemies always claimed we were.

Once that is understood, other mysteries solve themselves. For example, why does the administration seem unconcerned about an exit strategy from Iraq once Saddam is toppled?

Because we won't be leaving. Having conquered Iraq, the United States will create permanent military bases in that country from which to dominate the Middle East, including neighboring Iran.

[SEPT. 2002] permanent U.S. military and economic domination

Part of it's laid out in the National Security Strategy, a document in which each administration outlines its approach to defending the country. The Bush administration plan, released Sept. 20, marks a significant departure from previous approaches, a change that it attributes largely to the attacks of Sept. 11.

[...]

In essence, it lays out a plan for permanent U.S. military and economic domination of every region on the globe, unfettered by international treaty or concern. And to make that plan a reality, it envisions a stark expansion of our global military presence.

"The United States will require bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia," the document warns, "as well as temporary access arrangements for the long-distance deployment of U.S. troops."

The report's repeated references to terrorism are misleading, however, because the approach of the new National Security Strategy was clearly not inspired by the events of Sept. 11. They can be found in much the same language in a report issued in September 2000 by the Project for the New American Century, a group of conservative interventionists outraged by the thought that the United States might be forfeiting its chance at a global empire.

[...]

To preserve the Pax Americana, the report says U.S. forces will be required to perform "constabulary duties" -- the United States acting as policeman of the world -- and says that such actions "demand American political leadership rather than that of the United Nations."

To meet those responsibilities, and to ensure that no country dares to challenge the United States, the report advocates a much larger military presence spread over more of the globe, in addition to the roughly 130 nations in which U.S. troops are already deployed.

[1992] - Cheney, Wolfowitz, Bush41

The 2000 report directly acknowledges its debt to a still earlier document, drafted in 1992 by the Defense Department. That document had also envisioned the United States as a colossus astride the world, imposing its will and keeping world peace through military and economic power. When leaked in final draft form, however, the proposal drew so much criticism that it was hastily withdrawn and repudiated by the first President Bush.

The defense secretary in 1992 was Richard Cheney; the document was drafted by Wolfowitz, who at the time was defense undersecretary for policy.

HIGH NOON

Accepting the Cooper role would be an historic change in who we are as a nation, and in how we operate in the international arena. Candidate Bush certainly did not campaign on such a change. It is not something that he or others have dared to discuss honestly with the American people. To the contrary, in his foreign policy debate with Al Gore, Bush pointedly advocated a more humble foreign policy, a position calculated to appeal to voters leery of military intervention.

[...] Kagan, for example, willingly embraces the idea that the United States would establish permanent military bases in a post-war Iraq.

"I think that's highly possible," he says. "We will probably need a major concentration of forces in the Middle East over a long period of time. That will come at a price, but think of the price of not having it. When we have economic problems, it's been caused by disruptions in our oil supply. If we have a force in Iraq, there will be no disruption in oil supplies."

[...]

Kagan is more blunt.
"People worry a lot about how the Arab street is going to react," he notes. "Well, I see that the Arab street has gotten very, very quiet since we started blowing things up."

Yeah Kagan. You're a regular seer you are. Open a booth on a boardwalk somewhere will ya. Leave the rest of us alone.



*

America votes!
Corrente Poll #001 results. Jan. 2005 - Final tally of 234 votes.



Bay Buchanan's Abstinence Only Island came on strong in the homestretch and finished in second place while Dan Rather's train-song-sing-a-long, looking good out of the gate, slipped back into the fifth position where it eventually died to a slow agonized trot.

Not, however, as slow and agonized as Jack Cafferty's Big Bopper mixer, which, if you think about it, conjures up a repulsive array of Aqua Velva moment sponsorship possibilities. Jack did however generate five votes. Which is probably a fairly accurate reflection of the number of actual viewers who think CNN's American Morning is worth the oxygen it sucks up on any given weekday.

I was also impressed by our readers enthusiasm for the sport of ice fishing and am now convinced that Kate O'Beirne could give Hank Parker a pretty good run for his money in this regard. The Gingrich-Santorum book tour at #4 was also a strong finish but not strong enough to warrant a panic. At least not yet. Sleep with one eye open.


So congratulations to the baldhead bloater Roger Ailes for his landslide victory. Saddly, I've been unable to locate a death adder for a televised naked wrestle to the grave main event. And I even called the local Pentacostal church. Nuttin'. Not a hissin' thang. They didn't even have an old jaded milk snake lying around the place. Old time serpent handling hootenanny Christianity just ain't what it used to be. I guess.


It also seems that it is a violation of the US postal laws to ship live Australian death adders through the mail. Just one more example of despotic government regulations carving away at our freedoms. It's an OUTRAGE! American's should all fight passionately for their God-given natural law right to ship and receive poisonous snakes and bugs in the mail. And that includes fire ants! Send a box of fire ants to Dennis Hastert today. Let him know you're serious about you're animal mail rights.

Fortunately, I was able to contact a delightful Australian named Beth Adder through the despotic postal service. And guesss what?! Beth and her twin sister Margo will be appearing with Roger Ailes in a Murdoch/Charing Cross/Farmtoons production of "Flesh and the Auferstehung" at London's famous Kabarett Streifen Necken strip tease theater later this month! You are all invited to attend the premiere. Just tell the ticket guy at the door that Corrente sent you. He'll know what you mean.


The program features Prince Harry and FOXNews metrosexual male-anchor Cal Cameron (pictured at left) in cameo roles as the Duke and Dutchess of Windsor. Should be a batty bee's knees slap-up sexy beltin' good show.


What the hell, it could of been worse. You could of all wound up being subjected to an evening of Jack Cafferty doing the 'bunny-hug' with Candy Crowley.

*

And I didn't even get to write about Graner taking the fall for the higherups who run the Fog Machine. Though hard time couldn't have happened to a nicer total asshole.

And the Eagles won!

Which is it:

1. The last step before a humiliating loss in the NFC Championship?

2. The next-to-the-last step before a humiliating loss in the Superbowl?

Not that Philadelphias are neurotic about championships, of course. Fuckin' chokers.

There's a whole lot of blather in David Hackett Fischer's Op-Ed before we get to the bottom line, but I'll include just enough to give you the flavor:

What wonderful things we could do if Republicans and Democrats could dance together like Astaire and Rogers — even if some of us would have to dance backward.

Think what we might do if we could build on the bipartisan spirit of Inauguration Day, with these models as inspirations.

Bush's deep determination to take us toward partial privatization of Social Security would be an opportunity. The first step would be think about the problem in a larger context. Most of us have been saving for our old age in different ways. Together, we have accumulated a Social Security trust fund of about $2 trillion, private pension plans totaling $4 trillion and mutual funds approaching $8 trillion. It's a big system, diverse and already more than 75% privatized and 85% personalized. Private investment accounts in Social Security could be another step forward if we could take it without heaping a heavy burden of debt...

Wouldn't it be great if pigs had wings?

... on our children and grandchildren, and without shrinking benefits to seniors who desperately need them and without wrecking other social programs in the process. We could do all that if we work together in a more flexible way without ideological rigidity and party strife.
(via LA Times)

Yes, wouldn't it be great if pigs had wings? And if only we approached the pig-flying issue in a spirit of bi-partisanship, we'd be seeing pigs taking flight everywhere!

But, as Paul Krugman shows, the math doesn't work. The numbers don't add up. If the economy performs the way tnat it must for privatization advocates to make their stock market numbers, there's no danger at all to the Social Security trust fund.

But wouldn't it be great if pigs had wings?

And wouldn't it be great all Republicans had consciences?

Here.

And the people who believe this stuff are running the country. Whoopee!

Gee, you'd think material like this would be in the New York Times or something. I mean, the news [cough] section. Maybe The World's Greatest Newspaper (not!) could print this up in booklet form and hand it to the [cough] reporters who are [cough, cough] covering the Social Security [cough, hack, COUGH] crisis?

Here's a sampling from The Reality-Based One:

Those who are pushing privatization say that our financial markets are one of our greatest strengths -- that private investment will work better in the long run than government-managed accounts with lower rates of return.

There are two problems with that. First, the fees charged on private accounts will be a significant drain on returns. In a typical portfolio, we're probably looking at a return of four percent. But fees are likely to take at least one percent, like they do in Britain. So now we're down to a return of three percent or less on private accounts. And since Bush wants to borrow $2 trillion to pay for the transition, we're talking about borrowing at interest rates of three percent to establish private accounts that will yield three percent -- with a lot of additional risk. So it's a lose-lose proposition, except for the mutual-fund industry.

The second problem with the market is that some people -- probably many people -- will end up getting much less than they would have under the current system, depending on which funds they pick and how the market does. A lot of people will hit age sixty-five with very little in their private account -- and that means a big return of poverty among the elderly, which is exactly what's happening in Britain right now. As a result, the government will have to step back in and rescue people. We'll have more suffering and bigger bills. People will ask: Where did all that money go? The answer will be: It basically went into mutual-fund fees.

But what if stocks do well? Isn't it possible that privatization would work?

The only possible way that stock returns can be high enough to make privatization work is if the U.S. economy grows at three to four percent a year for the next fifty years. But Social Security's own trustees expect the economy's growth rate to slow to 1.8 percent. If that happens -- if their own assumptions are correct -- then privatization would be a disaster. And if that doesn't happen -- if the economy continues to grow at a steady rate -- then the trust fund is good for the rest of the century, and we don't need privatization.
(via ROlling Stone)

Read the whole thing.

Boy, the Birmingham News sure knows how to bury a lede. Three grafs down:

0Newly elected Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom] Parker said Thomas told him a judge should be evaluated by whether he faithfully upholds his oath to God, not to the people, to the state or to the Constitution.
(via Birmingham News via Atrios via Ignatz)

Interesting, eh? Especially in light of today's trial balloon in WaPo:

Will President Bush actually have the guts to nominate Clarence Thomas for chief justice when that opportunity arises, which will probably be soon? You know he's just aching to do it. Because of their shared judicial philosophy, of course. But also because of that arrogant willfulness Bush has that a more generous person than myself might even call integrity. Heck, why be president if you can't rub your critics' noses in it?
(Michael Kinsley in WaPo)

I like the identification of bullying with integrity. But then, Bush did come to Washington promising to change the climate, right?

Anyhow, Clarence Thomas for Chief Justice? Lovely.

Alert and esteemed reader Sunday Morning Dream left this in comments. All I can say is, thank you.

The day that Dr. Martin Luther King was shot, John Evans decided to make a lot of money.

He had worked for Dr. King for ten years. He got himself a real job, saved, invested against conventional wisdom -- and he got rich. In three years and ten months he had enough money. He quit.He bought land by a state road in a southern state, hired a sculptor, and set about building his monument to Martin Luther King. He didn't ask for help while he was building it because he knew in his heart that it had to be done in a particular way, and other people would want to discuss, compromise. He told no one else about it at all, because he didn't want words and pictures to make the monument invisible to people before they saw it.

Because money can buy more than we usually ask it to buy, the monument now exists in its own way and is sometimes seen.

The place looks like a roadside park, and most people who stop to use the pump and the picnic tables and then drive on, but some take the time to wander around, and a few of these walk over the little hill in the back.

Behind the hill this is what they see.

There are fifteen life-size marble people. They're standing in a circle. They're holding hands. They're not up on a pedestal; their feet are in the grass. They're dressed in jeans and work shirts, suits, dresses, overalls. Their mouths are open; they're saying something. There are letters bedded into the grass in the middle of the circle. They read, We Shall Overcome.

But the circle is not unbroken. There is room between two of the people who have their hands open and reach out, but no one is holding them.

Sometimes someone who finds the memorial answers their invitation and comes forward to take their hands. You hold the hands of John's lost friends, and you look across the circle, and Martin Luther King looks back at you. John's sculptor friend did Dr. King well, especially his eyes.

When the monument was finished, John Evans understood that it wasn't in memory of Dr. King. It was in memory of one remembered moment in ten years when John had really believed in the dream, and of the many times when he had wanted so much to believe.

John sometimes goes to sit in one of the trees near the statues. You can't see him through the leaves. He waits for one of the visitors from the road to see the memorial, to see what it was like (what he was like). To believe.

It's a very quiet revival meeting, but John Evans hasn't liked noise much since he heard the shot.

This was written almost 30 years ago by Anne Herbert. She gave me permission years ago to tell the story to people; I hope it's OK to post it here. It is copyrighted in her name. I am sure the words have changed a little as I've been telling it, and so this falls short of what she wrote.

She wanted to let people know that it is fiction. But she said that people don't believe her when she says so. She said, I will tell you where the Martin Luther King memorial is. It's in a place where you're standing in a circle touching hands with people you once hated, standing equal with people you once thought were better or less than you, talking with people it's against the rules even to talk to. And to find it, you need love and courage without end.

I see in my mind’s eye lots of broken circles waiting to be closed. Thanks again.

It seems so. Looks to me like we can learn from the Russians, too. "Direct action brings satisfaction," as RDF says.

Pensioners and veterans angered over the cutoff of welfare benefits clogged streets and paralyzed traffic in St. Petersburg, hometown to President Vladimir Putin, for a second day Sunday and the street demonstrations spread to other Russian cities.

Top government officials sought to shift the blame by accusing regional leaders of botching the management of new social programs, under which benefits such as free medicine and public transportation were replaced by a monthly government stipend.

Though St. Petersburg authorities promised to restore some benefits after 10,000 people jammed the center of Russia's second-largest city on Saturday, demonstrators returned Sunday to rally on Nevsky Prospect, again snarling traffic in the center of the city.

"Hitler stole our childhood, and Putin stole our declining years," declared a banner held aloft by one the aging protesters.

"Prices keep rising, and now they have canceled our benefits," said Yevgeniya Sidorova, 70. "Putin and his government want us to lie down and wait for death to come."

Others waved red flags, beat spoons against saucepans and chanted slogans calling for Putin to step down. "We are here to demand the right to life," said Zhanna Filonova, 61. A large contingent of police stood by, but did not intervene.

Several small orange tents went up at the rally in St. Petersburg. Orange was the symbolic color of the campaign run by Ukrainian President-elect Viktor Yushchenko whose backers occupied central Kiev for weeks and won a court decision to hold a new vote that was won by their candidate.

"These tents are a symbol of the fight for democracy, the unity of the people like in Ukraine," Alexander Bogdanov said.

Youth activists joined the mix Sunday. "We came here because the government humiliated senior citizens," said Semyon Borzenko, a member of a socialist youth group.

Police in St. Petersburg engaged in friendly conversation with the protesters. The police and military lost similar welfare benefits at the start of the year.

The rallies across Russian cities, many of which involved blockades of key highways, have put new pressure on Putin, who has seen little public opposition or protest in his tenure.

The rising tide of discontent prompted the authorities in many regions to restore some benefits.
(via AP)

I like that "right to life" angle, too.

Well, not everybody. I mean, not the whole world, right? Anyhow:

"[BUSH] I did my best to reach out, and I will continue to do so as the president," Bush said. "It's important for people to know that I'm the president of everybody."
(from a whole half hour interview (!) reported in WaPo)

Well. I seem to remember that Bush campaigned in a bubble, where campaign rallies were open only to people who signed a loyalty oath to Bush (back) and any visible form of dissent was instantly suppressed (back), sometimes violently, with Bush's direct complicity (here).

How does that square with being "reaching out"? How does that square with being "President of everybody"?

So I'm torn. Is this statement from Bush Pathological lying, or a Grandiose sense of self-worth? These are just two of the troubling symptoms Bush has exhibited that match the DSM criteria for sociopaths (back).

Readers, which troubling symptom it? One, both, or neither?

Seymour Hersh is doing some reporting:

One former high-level intelligence official told [Seymour Hersh] The New Yorker, "This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign."
(via New Yorker)

Um, with what Army?

Oh, don't worry, it's only small covert operations teams:

Hersh reported that Bush has already "signed a series of top-secret findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as 10 nations in the Middle East and South Asia."

Defining these as military rather than intelligence operations, Hersh reported, will enable the Bush administration to evade legal restrictions imposed on the CIA's covert activities overseas.

Ten nations...

Death squads in Iraq, Special Forces operations all over the Middle East—looks like the Bush Dirty War is going to make for a very exciting 2005!

Not, of course, that there's any risk of blowback (back). Except for the blue states, of course, but if God chooses to rain down cleansing fire from Heaven on the ungodly in the form of dirty bombs or loose nukes, that's a good thing, right?

Inerrant Boy defers to the Senate!

On the domestic front, Bush said he would not lobby the Senate to pass a constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex marriage.

While seeking reelection, Bush voiced strong support for such a ban, and many political analysts credit this position for inspiring record turnout among evangelical Christians, who are fighting same-sex marriage at every juncture. Groups such as the Family Research Council have made the marriage amendment their top priority for the next four years.

The president said there is no reason to press for the amendment because so many senators are convinced that the Defense of Marriage Act -- which says states that outlaw same-sex unions do not have to recognize such marriages conducted outside their borders -- is sufficient.
(from a whole half-hour interview (!) reported in WaPo)

I guess He didn't respect them in the morning after all ....

Watch him take responsibility!

As for perhaps the most notorious terrorist, Osama bin Laden, the administration has so far been unsuccessful in its attempt to locate the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Asked why, Bush said, "Because he's hiding."
(from a whole half-hour interview (!) reported in WaPo)

Or not.

Say, now that God is in the White House, why not just ask God to expose the evildoer? Or is that too simple?

Who knew? From the Society of Professional Journalists (via Steve Gilliard.

Of course, for Judy "Kneepads" Miller, the only part of the code that counted was making sure the money got left on the dresser, but let that pass. I'm sure The Times has purged itself of bad elements now, and in any case Little Danny Okrent doesn't want to relitigate everything.

April 4, 1968, Indianapolis, Indiana. His handlers all begged him not to appear before a crowd they were sure would turn hostile. He appeared anyway. The ONLY major city in the United States where there wasn't a race riot on April 4, 1968, was Indianapolis. For those who may not remember his words then:

I have bad news for you, for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and killed tonight.
Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort.

In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black -- considering the evidence there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible -- you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization -- black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred toward one another.

Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.

So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, that's true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love -- a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke.

We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times; we've had difficult times in the past; we will have difficult times in the future. [If he only knew!] It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land.

Let us dedicate to ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.

That was, of course, RFK, who had no problem referencing God and Ancient Greeks in one brief utterance. No script, either. No bubble. No screening. Two leaders who didn’t mind putting their asses on the line, and who were, as we know, murdered for their trouble. I know, my friends tell me I should focus on remembering MLK’s life, not his death, but the sense of loss is so acute now in this Age of Bushco, and Xan’s What If? post and Lambert's 1/20 Avert Eyes post really hammered that home. Now, for a motivational exercise on MLK Day weekend, imagine what aWol would have said and done in similar circumstances. I’ve searched for quotes by Georges I and II on MLK, by way of finding More Disturbing Symptoms, but I’m coming up dry, and right now I’m off to the celebration and remembrance at a Baptist Church in a nearby town. (Hope lightning doesn’t strike us.) There's a march and picnic tomorrow. Readers?

After reading RDF's wonderful excerpts in recent weeks from the writings and speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, whose birthday we celebrate this weekend, I got to thinking...

Dr. King would have turned 76 yesterday. While that's pushing the concept of "late middle age" it ain't exactly geezerdom any more, unless you let it be. President Jimmy Carter (b. 1924) is eighty, and he observes elections in dangerous places, keeps up with the best of them on The Daily Show, and builds houses for poor people in his spare time for chrissakes.

So what would Dr. King be doing today if he were still with us?

Of course the problem with this scenario is the fact that if he hadn't been gunned down we most likely wouldn't be in the godawful mess we're in now. Yeah, I know the "conventional wisdom" is that he was starting to lose his effectiveness, that his turn from rights for black people to the Poor People's Campaign was costing him popularity--but I also notice that that was the time somebody chose to stop him.

So let's pretend we're at a sci-fi writer's workshop and have to base a story on the premise that after the shooting his body was rushed into a secret cryogenic facility, which just recently worked out how to thaw him out and repair the damage. That was a few months ago, and he's spent the time since then being brought up to date on what happened during the years he missed.

He's fit, he's refreshed, he's 39 years old and he's going to be appearing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial tomorrow to announce he's back. What do you imagine he'd say?

What do you suppose the reaction would be?

Oliver Willis mentions podcasts.

He could be right. While I hate to sully my rapidly approaching golden years with anything as hip as an iPod, there's an attraction to shaking the dust from my shoes and moving on from the LWRM. Many reporters are honorable, but the institutions themselves? Massive suckitude. Gut them.

What say we get some talk radio of our own going?

still doesn't have any democratic bloggers.

Powerline, they've got.

I wonder why?

Wankers.

" ... whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you."

Well, here's the sad outcome of the "blogger ethics" controversy fomented by the Republican Noise Machine, using Harvard's blogging [cough] conference as a front—you remember, the one that didn't invite any democratic bloggers (back)— apparently as a distraction from the Armstrong Williams payola story, and maybe yet another Rove-ian black-ops style move to mark Howard Dean up on his way to election as DNC chair. Big yawn.

You can read the sordid details at Kos. Poor old Bob Novak. When will he leave the life?

The saddest part of the story is this:

The Wall Street Journal has long been known for having a true Chinese wall between its Neanderthal editorial page—you remember, the one that hawked anti-Clinton conspiracy theory videos—and its news operation. Which made sense: The WSJ is the newspaper business reads to do business, and it's hard to run a business (at least, the operational side) if you're not at least partially reality-based. So the news side of the operation has long remained relatively sacrosanct.

So, how crazy are the wingers? To smear a couple of bloggers, they broke down the Wall Street Journal's Chinese wall. First, a real-life, actual, hardworking reporter called Kos to see if there was a story. The reporter concluded there wasn't. But the winger powers that be at the Journal decided they didn't like that, so they sent a couple of hacks write the smear that they wanted. Chuck at Kos has these ugly details, which are all sourced to the original Journal reporter.

Well. So much for editorial integrity at the Wall Street Journal. The pillars of American journalism—The Times, The Post, and the Wall Street Journal—have been standing a long time. All have been family-owned business, have not been gobbled up by multinationals, and have stood for at least some level of reality-based integrity in their news operations. The Post (despite Steno Sue and its complicity with the winger coup against Clinton) seems still to stand, though shakily. The Times has been crumbling for a long time, and now they're hopeless. Now the WSJ is beginning to totter as well. It's a shame. Tell me again why we have the First Amendment?

UPDATE A world class takedown from Steve Gilliard.

Here.

How about garlic? Silver bullets? Wooden stakes?

Y’know, some years ago there was this beautiful cat who put his ass on the line and confronted opposition and paid the ultimate price. Uhh, he was born today. Yeah, okay, it’s old… you’ve read it before…but it’s the blueprint for success. So this stitched-together blockquote is just a reminder:

…Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds…

…In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self-purification; and direct action….

…We decided to schedule our direct-action program for the Easter season, realizing that except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic withdrawal program would be the by-product of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change…

…You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling, for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.

My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth.

Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

Happy Birthday, Brother Martin, wherever you are. As a friend said, “your birthday has my vote to be most likely to be a world holiday.” Friends, do something special today, tomorrow, Monday, and every day to further the cause of peace, justice and equality, me hearties…arrrrghhhhhh!

Farmer has just discovered that "performers" at the Bush coronation inaugural have been ordered "not to look directly at President Bush" during the Torchlight Parade while passing the reviewing stand.

At first, I didn't see why things had to be that way, but after giving the matter prayerful consideration, I was vouchsafed the answer:

Bush's Godly radiance is such that those who look directly at Him are struck blind.

So, really, they're just trying to protect us.

But it still doesn't seem right. This is a democracy, after all, so it hardly seems fair that citizens can't look at their Leader.

Then it was revealed to me that the very same technology that we have been given to view the sun during solar eclipses without going blind could be used to view The Son safely, too.

For example, a pinhole projector.

Here are the directions for making and using your very own "Solar Viewing Box," or, as we call it, your "Bush Viewing Box"™:



So, even if you can't look at Bush directly without going blind, you can still use your "Bush Viewing Box"™ to look at His projected image in complete safety! Even while you are marching before the reviewing stand!

Just be sure to explain to the security folks that you're bringing a large cardboard box to the inaugural, and how important it is to you. I'm sure they will be happy to give you every assistance. And when you put the box over your head, don't make any sudden moves.

Man, I thought that hip South Park reference would get a rise out of somebody, but n-o-o-o-o ....

No peeking at the emperor during the circus. Please refrain from gazing directly upon The Leader or extending snappy roman salutes:

Via The Sideshow

Parade performers will have security escorts to the bathroom, and they've been ordered not to look directly at President Bush or make any sudden movements while passing the reviewing stand.

Yeeks, I wonder happens to you if you do...

*

... you don't know!

And the talent agent, he just sits there for the longest time, and finally he says, "...Jesus, that's a hell of an act. What do you call it?" And the father says, "the Republicans!"

The venerable and inimical MJS, who had left a wonderful verse/lyric on "a fundie-bride/corporation-groom/wedding tomb" type of theme in the comments week before this last one, spent a weekend, at my request, seeing if more verses found their way into his head and out to his fingers.

Though they did not, he found himself inspired in a parallel direction and offered Corrente, lucky us, the first publication rights. Herewith:

WHITHER THE STATE?

Rock a bye baby
Your mother in hell
Your father is furtive
There’s blood in the well
The eagles are screaming
The West is on fire
The last of the good guys
Was shot by the choir

(choir’s chorus)
O’ Lord
Come fill our cup
O’ Lord
Let’s shoot ‘em up!
O’ Lord
The price is so steep
O’ Lord
Read ‘em and weep

Zip a dee doo dah
Careless and carefree
A soldier arrives
And cuts down our tree
The General’s bleeding
The South in retreat
The slaves smell the sulphur
The devil is sweet

(devil’s chorus)
O’ pride
We all shall rise
O’ pride
The ties that bind
O’ pride
The serpent’s eyes
O’ pride
Ever alive

Jesus is coming
He has a cell phone
Called him in Denver
Found Him all alone
Got Him a white girl
To heal all His pain
He threw her in prison
And drove her insane

(Priest’s chorus)
O’ Sophie
They buried you
O’ Sophie
The Christian and Jew
O’ Sophie
Let’s hide your face
O’ Sophie
You must learn your place

Whither a nation
That thinks it knows best?
Whither a people
Who ignore the rest?
Whither the future
Sold to the past?
How did the walls
Crumble so fast?

(People’s chorus)
O’ shit
Where is the fan?
O’ shit
Where can we stand?
O’ shit
We are so fucked
O’ shit
Shit out of luck


Rock a bye baby
Your mother in hell
Your father is furtive
There’s blood in the well
The eagles are screaming
The West is on fire
The last of the good guys
Was shot by the choir

(choir’s chorus)
O’ Lord
Come fill our cup
O’ Lord
Let’s shoot ‘em up!
O’ Lord
The price is so steep
O’ Lord
Read ‘em and weep

+++

I notice that MJS penchent for leaving little gems in the Comments has struck again; this time the target is Senator Joe, the guy with Joementum. I can't resist moving it from thence to here.

Last night I dreamed I saw Joe Lieberman
Alive as you or me
His head was made of the rubber
His tail was stuck in a tree

He shook his head and made a scowl
And muttered long and low
A gasbag-putz, a droning stooge
An empty suit, our Joe


+++

Thanks MJS.

First, an explanation; gentle and even alert readers may not have noticed, given the splendid efforts of the other 6/7ths of Corrente, but I've been largely absent from regular posting for some weeks now, although I have managed a shadowy presence in the comments. This was due entirely to illness, nothing more, which has now finally begun to recede, in favor of healing and eventually, I hope, my usual robust health.

I was able to continue to pay attention to the world around me and even to make notes; I hope to catch up, but if some of my posts review some familiar territory, I can only hope for your patience.

First, the farewells. Much has been written about Susan Sontag, when she was alive, and in response to her too early death. Yes, she had reached her seventies, but it is hard to imagine a more vibrant public intellect than hers. I knew her only as a reader, in spite of several opportunities to meet her through academic friends. I declined because I couldn't imagine a more intimate relationship than that between admired writer and admiring reader. I was in high school when I read her essay, Notes On Camp" in the Partisan Review, one of many newspapers and magazines that arrived regularly in my home; yes, I was remarkably lucky in the parenting department. I'd never heard the word "camp" used the way Sontag was using it, in fact, I wasn't sure whether her "camp" was a noun or an adjective, (it was both I finally figured out), however the aesthetic and its many paradoxes she was describing I recognized with that special shock reserved for unrevealed revelations at last revealed.

Eric Alterman had a lovely personal remembrance I can't link to because I simply can't figure out how to find those permanent Altercation links I know are there, and which Goggle refuses to offer up. (Any readers who can tell me what I'm doing wrong, please do so in comments) Eric emphasized Sontag's bravery, and he made me understand that beyond her stardom, she was not always an intimidating presence, and that it was her habit to draw out the quietest person in the room in the service of her relentless curiosity; could this quiet person have knowledge Sontag ought to know about.

As touching was this from Tom Englehardt:

On the first day of the New Year, while headlines blazed with news of 140,000 or more deaths around the coastal rim of South Asia, I found myself with a small but solitary task. I removed Susan Sontag's name from the list of those who receive Tomdispatch. She had been an early reader, well before this service gained its own name or a modest Web presence. And when it did, at the beginning of 2003, she allowed me to post a sobering(yet stirring) speech of hers on Israel's "refusniks," on what it means to resist service to your own country, a speech that seems increasingly relevant today; and later, another on the Bush administration's embattled cross-Atlantic relationship with Europe.

Tom includes links to both speeches. Read the Rebecca Solnit article, "Sontag and Tsunami" that Tom's piece introduces.

Listening to NPR I heard that the people of Sarejavo will be naming a street after Sontag, who, in case you don't know, went there in the mid- nineties, when the city was under constant bombardment from Serb artillary, to direct a play, and thereby to stand with the Muslim people of that city by opposing the power of raw force without conscience with the power of art. Whatever one's disagreements with Susan Sontag, and it wasn't possible not to have them with so vivid and authoratative an intellect, God, she was a brave woman. The Guardian also has a lot of good stuff on Sontag; start here and click away.

Robert Matsui gave the lie to all that Republican public disdain for public service. He was what every member of the House of Representatives ought to be, a tribune of the people, by the people, and for the people. I hope many of you were able to see on C-Span the Memorial for him that took place in the Capital. All the speakers were wonderful, especially Nancy Peloisi, whose deep love and sorrow often threatened to overtake her words. President Clinton spoke last, and once again I found myself awed by his deep humanity. His own recent illness has clearly taken its toil; he looks gaunt, and some spark of vitality hasn't yet returned; still, it was an amazing performance, and I do not mean that perjoratively; Mr. Clinton was not pretending anything; he was gathering his energy, his thoughts, his emotions and his words to pay tribute to a friend who was an exemplary citizen, taken from us entirely too soon; only in that sense was it a performance. The ex-president spoke without notes, and before he got to what he wanted to say, he graciously summarized and remarked upon what had been said by those who came before him to that lecturn. His own thoughts were about commonality vs. division, a common theme for Clinton, but one that was completely appropriate for Bob Matsui, a supporter of Nafta, as Clinton pointed out, and yet a man whom the head of the AFL-CIO had also come to mourn.

I did meet Mr. Matsui; I had gone to Washington, with others, to protest the Reagan and then the Bush administration's refusal to hold Saddam Hussein accountable for his massive mis-treatment of the Iraqi people, and in particular his genocidal actions against the Kurds. Irony of ironies. Representative Matsui not only listened intently, he talked with us about what he could and would do, all of which he did. In the runup to the first Gulf War, Robert Matsui put in a call to each of us who had come to talk with him in his office that day, to ask us about our views on Bush's push toward war, about which we had various attitudes. How terrible that we take such superlative citizens who spend their working lives in public service so much for granted; our democratic republic would not be possible without the likes of Bob Matsui. He made me proud to call myself a Democrat.

Robert Heilbroner was both an academic and a public intellectual. He wrote with clarity and grace about economics, and about the history of economics. No one wrote better prose about that subject, although both Galbraiths, pere and fils, were his equals, and Max Sawicky is no slouch and shares Heibroner's deep wit. Everyone should have a copy on their bookshelf of Heilbroner's great work, "Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers." You can find an excellent more formal obit here.

James Forman died this week. We hear so much talk recently about the "compelling" stories black and hispanic conservatives bring to the offices they are appointed to, as if people like John Lewis, John Conyers, and yes, James Forman somehow had it easy, riding that liberal gravy train to fame and fortune.

From the Washington Post, see if this is a compelling enough life story to stand up to the likes of Armstrong Williams and Clarence Thomas, who never ran for office and never oganized anything beyond their own personal ambitions:

James Forman was born in Chicago on Oct. 4, 1928, and spent his early years living with his grandmother on a farm in Marshall County, Miss. When he was 6, his parents took him back to Chicago, although he often spent summers in Mississippi. Until he was a teenager, he used the surname of his stepfather, John Rufus, a gas station manager, unaware that his real father was a Chicago cabdriver named Jackson Forman.

He graduated with honors from Chicago's Englewood High School in 1947 and served with the Air Force in Okinawa during the Korean War. After his discharge in 1952, he enrolled at the University of Southern California.

Early in his second semester, in 1953, he was falsely arrested, beaten and held for three days by Los Angeles police. The experience prompted a breakdown that briefly put him in a psychiatric hospital. Afterward, he returned to Chicago and enrolled at Roosevelt University.

He graduated in three years, planning to be a writer or journalist. While doing graduate work at Boston University, he wrangled press credentials from the Chicago Defender and took the train to Little Rock, where, in the fall of 1957, court-ordered school integration was being resisted. From there, he filed a few stories and looked for opportunities to organize mass protests in the South.

After working briefly as a substitute elementary school teacher in Chicago, he found that opportunity in Fayette County, Tenn., a few miles from his childhood home. Seven hundred families of sharecroppers had been evicted from their homes for registering to vote. Joining a program sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality, he helped publicize the farmers' plight, distributed food and registered voters.

In the summer of 1961, he was jailed with SNCC-organized Freedom Riders who were protesting segregated facilities in Monroe, N.C. After his sentence was suspended, he went to work full time for SNCC.

One of Mr. Forman's early challenges was to referee an internal dispute between SNCC activists who believed in direct action -- sit-ins, demonstrations and other forms of confrontation -- and those who believed voter registration was the most effective path to political empowerment. Mr. Forman maintained there really was no distinction.

"The brutal Southern sheriffs," he wrote a few years later, "didn't care what kind of 'outside agitator' you were; you were black and making trouble and that was enough for them."

He also wrestled, as did most SNCC members, with the meaning and utility of nonviolence. Unlike his friend and SNCC cohort John Lewis, who considered nonviolence a way of life, Mr. Forman considered it a tactic, nothing more. There were times, he believed, when self-defense -- fighting back -- was absolutely necessary.

Mr. Forman also was often at odds with Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1961, for example, Mr. Forman objected to King's involvement in the Albany Movement, a boycott, sit-in and voter registration drive SNCC initiated in Georgia.

"A strong people's movement was in progress, the people were feeling their own strength grow," he wrote some years later. "I knew how much harm could be done by interjecting the Messiah complex -- people would feel that only a particular individual could save them and would not move on their own to fight racism and exploitation."

King came to Albany, spoke and left. SNCC's work in the area continued for the next couple of years.

In the summer of 1964, Mr. Forman's SNCC brought almost a thousand young volunteers, black and white, to register voters, set up "freedom schools," establish community centers and build the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Among those volunteers were Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, the three young men murdered along a muddy road near Philadelphia, Miss., in June 1964. (According to Julian Bond, Mr. Forman was probably not aware in the last days of his life that Edgar Ray Killen, a preacher and sawmill operator, had been recently charged with the murders.)

Later that summer, Mr. Forman journeyed to Atlantic City, where he worked to persuade Democratic Party officials to recognize the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party at the Democratic National Convention. Despite his efforts and despite the powerful testimony of Fannie Lou Hamer, who told of being fired by her boss and beaten unconscious by the police for her work in support of MFDP, the upstart party failed to supplant the state's party regulars.

"Atlantic City was a powerful lesson, not only for the black people from Mississippi but for all of SNCC and many other people as well," Mr. Forman wrote. "No longer was there any hope, among those who still had it, that the federal government would change the situation in the Deep South."

Despite Mr. Forman's growing militancy, SNCC dumped him and Lewis in 1966, replacing them with Carmichael and Ruby Doris Smith Robinson.

Mr. Forman, who always had been interested in African liberation movements, went to Africa in 1967. In 1969, he helped organize the Black Economic Development Conference in Detroit, where a "Black Manifesto" was adopted. He also founded a nonprofit organization called the Unemployment and Poverty Action Committee.

On a Sunday morning in May 1969, Mr. Forman interrupted services at New York City's Riverside Church to demand $500 million in reparations from white churches to make up for injustices African Americans had suffered over the centuries. Although Riverside's preaching minister, the Rev. Ernest T. Campbell, termed the demands "exorbitant and fanciful," he was in sympathy with the impulse, if not the tactic. Later, the church agreed to donate a fixed percentage of its annual income to anti-poverty efforts.

In the 1970s, Mr. Forman was in graduate school at Cornell University and received a master's degree in African and African American studies in 1980. In 1982, he received a PhD from the Union of Experimental Colleges and Universities.

A writer and pamphleteer, Mr. Forman moved to Washington in 1981 and started a newspaper called the Washington Times, which lasted a short while. He also founded the Black American News Service. He was the author of "Sammy Younge Jr.: The First Black College Student to Die in the Black Liberation Movement" (1969), "The Making of Black Revolutionaries" (1972 and 1997) and "Self Determination: An Examination of the Question and Its Application to the African American People" (1984).

edit

In July, despite being weak from his long struggle with cancer, Mr. Forman took a train from Washington to Boston during the Democratic National Convention. He took part in a "Boston Tea Party," in which members of the D.C. delegation tossed bags of tea into Boston Harbor to protest lack of statehood and no vote in Congress.

"It was said that on his deathbed, Frederick Douglass's last words were, 'Organize! Organize!' That's what Forman did every day of his life," Bond said. "That's what today's civil rights movement has forgotten how to do."

Notice, no cushy internships or associateships at phony think tanks, no stipends, no entrys into journalism by way of rightwing publications, just a long, hard, slog, trying to make this country into the America most Americans imagined, wrongly, it to be. And how do we thank this American hero? Well, too many of us don't. For me, I will honor James Forman by acting upon the message of his life, the message of all those great American lives which informed the sixties in this country, not only James Forman, but James Farmer, and Fannie Lou Hammer, and James Cheney, and Thurgood Marshall, and all the American people they stirred to conscience and action, which included me - "Organize! Organize!"

And now to the birthday. Eric Alterman is forty-five today, so visit Altercation and find out about the noble manner in which he would like those of us who are part of the Altercation community to celebrate in his honor; find out as well about Eric's own successful organizational effort to get The Economist to unslander Susan Sontag. Then let Eric know that you honored the good birthday cause he directs us to by leaving a message in the convenient box right at the end of the current post. It's Slacker Friday so there's also a terrific Charles Pierce letter. I've just finished reading "When President's Lie," and it's first-rate history, the best written of all Eric's book, and you should have it on your bookshelf. So, a well-earned Happy Birthday, Eric.

The Bush Administration is a lot like my large intestine - I don't really know how either works, both are sort of gross to think about, and both are very hard to get a good look at. But the most important similiarity is this: most of what they produce is shit.
(via the inestimable Poorman)

Indeed.

That just about says it all, huh?

The rest of the post is good too.

Go read it.

Remember the "flypaper" theory? Looks like the warbloggers picked the wrong metaphor. Try "petri dish".

No surprise here:

The campaign [to phase out Social Security] will use Bush's campaign-honed techniques of mass repetition, never deviating from the script and using the politics of fear to build support -- contending that a Social Security financial crisis is imminent when even Republican figures show it is decades away.
(via WaPo)

POTL!

They'e taking Bush's word as, um, Gospel. The Amazin' Froomkin points out:

It would appear that no reporter asked Bush why his representation of Social Security's long-term financial situation is at odds with the experts. The program's trustees estimate that with no changes, the plan would no longer be able to pay full benefits beginning in 2042 but would still provide significant payments.

And in their reports today, I didn't see reporters clearing this up for their readers, either -- they just quoted the president and left it at that.
(via WaPo)

The Howler is keeping a list, reporter by reporter, of the tank-dwellers....

More disturbing symptoms, via AP:

In the week after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush was asked if he wanted bin Laden, the terrorist leader blamed for the attacks, dead.

"I want justice," Bush said. "And there's an old poster out West, that I recall, that said, 'Wanted, Dead or Alive.'"

Recalling that remark, Bush told the reporters: "I can remember getting back to the White House, and Laura said, 'Why did you do that for?' I said, 'Well, it was just an expression that came out. I didn't rehearse it'."

"I don't know if you'd call it a regret, but it certainly is a lesson that a president must be mindful of, that the words that you sometimes say. ... I speak plainly sometimes, but you've got to be mindful of the consequences of the words. So put that down. I don't know if you'd call that a confession, a regret, something."

Dear me. Doesn’t even know what a regret or a confession IS. But "put that down" in your notebook anyway, so maybe people will think I have the ability to feel it.

I was doing a little light reading in Wikipedia and came across this:

The Texas sharpshooter fallacy is a logical fallacy where a cluster of statistically non-significant data is taken from its context, and therefore thought to have a common cause.

The name comes from a story about a Texan who fires his gun randomly at the side of a barn, then paints a target centered on the largest cluster of hits.
(via WikiPedia)

Hmm... Texas... This is reminding me of something... But what?

"Reality therapy for Republicans."

Discuss.

This is what the Idiot-In-Chief said in an interview yesterday when asked about the new puppy:

Barney has been - Barney, it's an interesting adjustment. The person who brought the dog Beazley over said that it's going to be very soon the female Scottie will dominate the male Scottie. I didn't realize that was going to be the case. Barney hasn't realized it either. [Laughter.] So the little one so far has - we've seen some tendency as to domination. Barney actually is quite cute, monitoring the little person and making sure that she doesn't go wandering off. And he doesn't know what he's in store for, according to the handler. It's going to be a great joy. You learn to accept the simple pleasures of life here as the president. And very few things can break into the cocoon that have lasting permanence and lasting effect, and Beazley is going to be one of them.

I’m speechless, frankly. Fear of domination by females. Referring to the female puppy as “the little person.” Learning to “accept” “simple pleasures here as the president” as opposed to having them shoved down yer throat. Bubble boy. “Very few things can break into the cocoon.”

Ye gods. What other disturbing symptoms did I miss here?

For a few months now, in between the "regular" Mal-Wart ads with the yellow smiley ball flying around knocking several cents off the price of foreign-made goods you didn't really need in the first place, have been heartwarming tales of hideously sick people, usually children, healed and made happy again because their parents worked at the said Mal-Wart, where everyone is not only insured but so well paid they can afford the premiums and co-pays on said insurance.

That, it seems, was just a warmup. Oh, and note the reward they get for running full-page ads about their own wonderfulness in most of the nation's major papers today: an extra heapin' helpin' of Free Media!

Chicago Trib

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, and its chief executive, Lee Scott, went on the offensive Thursday against critics of its employment policies and the impact its stores have on communities where they are located.

The company took out more than 100 full-page newspaper ads Thursday, outlining the wages and benefits it pays its employees and the good the Bentonville-based company says it brings to communities.

Scott said he wants Wal-Mart overcome its reputation as a company that does not pay well and has minimal full-time workers.

"We want to get those myths off the table, set the record straight," Scott said in a phone interview from New York City where he was making a round of media interviews Thursday.
[major snip]
Scott said he planned meetings with a variety of groups not associated with government to help explain Wal-Mart's employment practices, environment-related policies and how it deals with its suppliers. He would not name the organizations, saying did not want the groups to feel they were being used to garner media attention.

Gee, you start to think. Maybe I have misjudged these wonderful people just because they wreck entire towns, entire industries, and donate heavily to Republicans...

Nope. You didn't misjudge at all. Let's see what might have prompted this schlock-and-drawl campaign....

(via Pittsburgh Post-Dispatch)

It took nearly five years of legal wrangling, but 15 workers in the auto services department at the Wal-Mart supercenter store in New Castle are getting an opportunity to vote on joining a union.

The National Labor Relations Board, in a case that has been pending since 2000, has scheduled an election for Feb. 11 to let employees of the store's Tire & Lube Express department decide whether to join the United Food and Commercial Workers union.

It is the only pending union-representation election at any Wal-Mart in the United States, according to the UFCW, which for years has unsuccessfully sought to represent Wal-Mart employees in stores across the country.

The New Castle election originally was scheduled for the summer of 2000 after the labor board ruled that the tire department workers were an appropriate voting unit.

Wal-Mart had argued that the vote should include the store's total work force of more than 400.

But the 2000 election was halted when the UFCW's Cleveland-based Local 880 filed unfair labor practice charges against Wal-Mart, alleging the giant retailer interfered with the election. The union alleged Wal-Mart executives from Arkansas descended on the store immediately after the election was scheduled and improved conditions for the auto service department workers.

The company installed new equipment and, the UFCW argued, engaged in surveillance of employees' union activities, interrogated them about their union sympathies and moved various employees in and out of the department to dilute support of the union. The allegations were settled by the board in an unpublished ruling late last year, paving the way for the next month's election.

Wal-Mart, which as part of the settlement was ordered to cease the offending practices and inform employees by posting notices in the store, declined to comment yesterday.

Oh, they commented all right. If you're in the New Castle area stop by and buy something automotive-related, and be sure to tell everybody that you're there because they're going union.

Or if you are of a more cynical bent, get wagers down now as to how long it will take for the lovely, caring Mal-Wart folks to shut down the automotive department of every store in the chain if this organizing effort is successful. It's what they did when the meatcutters in one store organized, and the reason you can only buy crappy pre-packaged meat there anymore.

I meant to post this much earlier but Slogger was limping around with a flat tire again and wouldn't process my requests. So, better late than never: congrats to Riggsveda at It's My Country, Too; who will be joining the blogger/author honor roll at The American Street:

Finally, and most seriously, a big thank you to Kevin Hayden over at The American Street for finding something he liked in my ravings and giving them a home at his site.

Sounds like a good finding to me, too.

*

And why does he go on FUX to say so? (Thanks to Tinfoil Hat Boy)

"The fact that we didn't discover large stocks of weapons of mass destruction doesn't mean that Saddam Hussein didn't have them," the Connecticut Senator told the Fox television network.
(via Turkish Press)

Yeah. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence....

UPDATE RDF comments:

THB, you're assuming that Whiney Joe is, in fact, a Democrat. That utterance you quoted shows plainly that he's not, as it's a typical anti-reality GOP statement... as in, "the fact that we didn't find a rhinoceros in this closet doesn't mean there's not a rhinoceros in this closet. It could be, say, invisible, or perhaps it escapes right before we look. Maybe it's in another closet. And we did find a small animal that looks very much like a rhinoceros in poor light. Anyway, we were completely justified in calling in Rhino-B-Gone..."

My unindicted co-conspirators sent me this today and I sure hope that ol’ David W. Orr is a prophet. Not really a prophet, mind you—prescient. Making a true argument, and explaining the structure, nature and stench of the chicken that’s tied around the GOP chicken-killin’ dog’s neck. Because if the GOP can deny there's a stinking chicken on their collective neck, they will. It's part of their illness, remember. As good therapists, we must understand the nature of the thing being denied. Here’s a taste; the whole thing is easily accessible at Common Dreams:

Following the election of 2004, much has been made of the weaknesses of the Democratic Party, even its possible end. But it has escaped the notice of our blow-dry television pundits and political observers alike that the Republican Party, in the full blush of triumph in control of all the branches of government and large sections of the media, stands on the edge of certain extinction. The reasons grow daily more evident. Over the past three decades, the moderate, business-oriented party of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Dwight Eisenhower was captured by its extreme right-wing thereby becoming a party dominated by ideologues, increasingly divorced from unmovable facts. But no organization, political party, or nation can long survive by ignoring realities of ecology, social justice, law, economics, and true security. Sooner or later, it will step off the proverbial curb into onrushing traffic of events, forces, and trends that it refused to see.

It’s a comforting thought, but a little too passive. I mean, these same forces—“ecology, social justice, law, economics, and true security”—are not idle forces. They are in the hands of the people who are concerned enough about them to take action. So, it’s not a matter of just idly waiting to be a material witness to the GOP stepping off the curb in front of a freedom bus, it’s a matter of giving them a push… he goes on to note the nature of the realities in question being denied (yet another disturbing symptom!) at the peril of the afflicted:

The Republican Party has chosen to deny social, ecological, cultural, religious, and economic realities which are unavoidably complicated, complex, diverse, ironic, and paradoxical. Instead they have chosen to make their own simplistic, ideological, and chauvinistic fantasy world that has little affinity for law, science, a free and independent press, fairness, true security, ecological sustainability, and the accountability that is requisite for genuine democracy.

It is the job of us living in Free America to put a hatpin in this fantasy bubble. For more, visit The Imminent Demise of the Republican Party and while you’re there you might also check out NH WOMAN LOSES INSURANCE COVERAGE FOR HER POLITICAL ACTIVISM, the story of how being a politically active democrat can cost you your coverage. Imagine how easily a wild-eyed socialist could be denied coverage.

Pundits say that the left's positions are too complex, and the right's are popular because they're simple. But the message IS simple: it's a complex world and a complex world demands complex solutions. Like Johnson, when asked how to refute Bishop Berkeley, kicking the curb and replying "thus!" Reality is a hard object. Another disturbing symptom, aside from denial of reality is the inability to tolerate criticism. So, let’s keep pouring on the reality and the criticism of simpleminded greed. It’s a case of tough love for America.

I think I'm going to buy a parakeet, just so I can put winger billionaire Anschitz's new tabloid on the bottom of the cage.

NOTE Check out the essential Orcinus on the sore loser/anything to win Republicans in Washington. Same old, same old.

That toothless old whore William "Mumbles" Safire types a column titled "Character is Destiny".

Then again, the scum also rises (Salon. Get the pass, read the bullet points. It's worth it.)

Billionaire investor Philip Anschutz plans to introduce a free tabloid in Washington, DC:

A media company owned by billionaire investor Philip Anschutz said Wednesday it will launch a free, six-day-a-week newspaper in the Washington, D.C., area on Feb. 1.
(via AP)

Gee, I wonder whether Anschutz is a Democrat or a Republican?

Anschutz has supported socially conservative causes. In 1987, Anschutz's family foundation gave Focus on the Family founder James Dobson an award for his "contributions to the American Family." According to its Web site, the Denver-based group works to "counter the media-saturating message that homosexuality is inborn and unchangeable" and one of its policy experts called legalized abortion an example of when "Satan temporarily succeeds in destroying God's creation."

In 1992, Anschutz contributed $10,000 to a group called Colorado Family Values, to support an amendment to the state constitution that invalidated state and local laws against discrimination based on sexual orientation. Anschutz's money helped pay for an ad campaign that said such anti-bias laws gave gays and lesbians "special rights." The U.S. Supreme Court later overturned the amendment as discriminatory.

Anschutz is an active Republican donor. Since 1996, he, his companies and members of his family have given more than $500,000 in campaign contributions to GOP candidates and committees.
(via WaPo)

LRWM.

The Poorman.

Wankers.

I've seen these loons outside Reading Terminal Market and in Chinatown, of all places. One of the "preachers" was a boy about eight years old. Sick, or what? In fact, someone should call Child Protective Services and save that boy before it's too late.

Four members of a local Christian group, Repent America, are facing felony charges in connection with their behavior in the fall during the gay and lesbian community's annual Outfest celebration in Center City.

For allegedly trying to disrupt the event with their bullhorn-amplified, Scripture-based denunciations of homosexuality, they have been accused of criminal conspiracy, incitement to riot, and violating the state's law against hate crimes.

Several conservative Christian groups, including the American Family Association and Concerned Women for America, say the "Philadelphia Four" are being prosecuted solely for voicing their religious beliefs.
(via Inkwire)

Well, maybe the bullshithorn has something to do with it.

"This homofascism has come to our doorstep; it's in America," said Ralph Ovadal, head of Wisconsin Christians United, in a recent radio program. "Christians need to wake up and realize how quickly the walls are closing in on their religious liberties, on their religious duties to preach the gospel."

Wow! "Homofascism"... A WPS (Winger Projection Syndrome) two-fer, eh?

"Jim Crow has been resurrected in Philadelphia, and instead of being targeted at African Americans, he is targeting Christians," Joe Murray, a lawyer with the American Family Association's Center for Law and Policy, said during a radio program that reminded listeners that Philadelphia is the home of the Abscam scandal and the MOVE bombing.

"If this city were built on a swamp, I'd say it needs to be drained," Murray said, "because it's a dirty city."

Philadelphia dirty?! Film at 11! I mean, I walk through Suburban Station every morning and every night.

But linking gay pride to Abscam?! That's a low blow!

Oh, wait. Now I get it. Homosexuals are dirty.

Seriously, the key is to deny these clowns the martyrdom they so obviously crave. As long as they lose the bullhorn, I say invite them to Outfest. Give them a booth. Give them the love they so obviously need ....

Gee, if there's really something to protect Bush from, shouldn't the Alert Level have been increased by now? Oh, wait, the election is over. My bad.

An army of 6,000-plus police officers, more than 2,500 military personnel, and thousands of Secret Service and other agents from 60 agencies will employ the latest high-tech gear and surveillance to protect the 55th inaugural on Jan. 20.

"Security will be the highest levels it has ever been for any inauguration," [lame duck DHS head Tom] Ridge said. "We will have 24/7 surveillance of key inaugural facilities."

While he said he knew of no specific threats targeting President Bush's second swearing-in, Ridge added that a coronation an inauguration was "the most visible manifestation of our democracy."
(via Philly Inkwire)

Funny, I would have thought the most visible manifestation of our democracy would be a citizen exercising their right to vote. But what do I know?

Farmer’s post about an inauguration day sickout and the response to it got me thinking:

The 1929 stock market crash which marked the beginning of the Great Depression ushered in a period of immiseration for virtually the entire working class. By 1932 it was estimated that 75 percent of the population was living in poverty, and fully one-third was unemployed. And in many places, Black unemployment rates were two, three, or even four times those of white workers...

(According to the Census, the official poverty rate in 2003 was 12.5 percent, up from 12.1 percent in 2002. Total Americans below the official poverty thresholds numbered 35.9 million, a figure 1.3 million higher than the 34.6 million in poverty in 2002.)

…But the richest people in society felt no sympathy for the starving masses. They had spent the previous decade slashing wages and breaking unions, with widespread success. By 1929, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) had lost a million members.

With the onset of depression, they banded together as a group to oppose every measure to grant government assistance to feed the hungry or help the homeless. Most employers flatly refused to bargain with any union, and used the economic crisis as an excuse to slash all wages across the board. But in so doing, they unleashed the greatest period of social upheaval that has ever taken place in the United States.

When faced with working-class opposition, the ruling class responded with violence. Police repeatedly fired upon hunger marchers in the early 1930s. In 1932, for example, the Detroit police mowed down a hunger demonstration of several thousand using machine guns. Four demonstrators were killed and more than 60 were injured. Yet afterward a city prosecutor said, "I say I wish they’d killed a few more of those damn rioters."

In 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt granted workers the right to organize into unions in Section 7(a) of the National Recovery Act, and workers rushed to join unions. But everywhere the employers put up violent resistance. In 1934, when 400,000 East Coast textile workers went on strike to win union recognition, the bosses responded with a reign of terror, provoking one of the bitterest and bloodiest strikes in U.S. labor history.

In the South, the ruling class unleashed a torrent of racism and anti-communism, while armed mobs attacked strikers. The Gastonia Daily Gazette ran "Communism in the South. Kill it!" as a front-page headline. Employers distributed anti-union leaflets that read, "Would you belong to a union which opposes White supremacy?"

In Gastonia, North Carolina, National Guardsmen joined by armed strikebreakers, were ordered to "shoot to kill" unarmed strikers: “Without warning came the first shots, followed by many others, and for a few minutes there was bedlam. Striker after striker fell to the ground, with the cries of wounded men sounding over the field and men and women running shrieking from the scene.”

In Burlington, North Carolina, soldiers bayoneted five picketers in a group of 400, all of whom were wearing "peaceful picket" badges. In the North, the battle was no less violent, when National Guard troops occupied mill towns all over New England. Rhode Island’s Democratic governor declared that "there is a communist uprising and not a textile strike in Rhode Island," and called the legislature into special session to declare a state of insurrection and request federal troops.

Although the strikers fought back heroically, they lost the strike. Thousands of strikers lost their jobs; others were forced to sign pledges to leave the union.

From Sharon Smith’s article, “The 1930s: Turning Point for U.S. Labor,” in International Socialist Review Issue 25, September–October 2002

But now, like the frog in the pan, many workers sit by while benefits are slashed, retirement plans abrogated, working days extended (“voluntarily,” of course, like pay cuts)… I guess there’s just not enough widespread misery yet. Perhaps we have to get to 30% unemployment and 75% poverty rates again. Or maybe people will have to work, say, four or five jobs instead of two or three. Or maybe corporate greed will have to get so blatant and widespread that the stench is unbearable. Or maybe the rich will have to start wars to maintain their control of dwindling resources. Oh, wait, on those last three, nevermind. Got that happening. Maybe we can put a stop to it now, before the misery becomes "bad enough"?

Remember, the oppressed have power. As Dr. King said in his autobiography, "We would use this boycott method to give birth to justice and freedom....I came to see that what we were really doing was withdrawing our cooperation from an evil system, rather than merely withdrawing our support from the bus company. The bus company, being an external expression of the system, would naturally suffer, but the basic aim was to refuse to cooperate with evil. We were simply saying to the white community: We can no longer lend our cooperation to an evil system. From that moment on I conceived of our movement as an act of massive non-cooperation."

In what ways am I cooperating with the one-dimensional machine of destruction? In what ways can I stop, and encourage others to do so? Borchert’s list was a start…

Following hard on the oh-so-convenient prosecutorial conduct that caused the case against Republican fundraiser and Chinese double-agent Katrina Leung to be thrown out (back), we get this:

Why have so many people rushed to assume that a crime was committed when someone "in the administration" gave columnist Robert D. Novak the name of CIA "operative" Valerie Plame [and blowing her cover]?
(via Victoria Toensing and Bruce W. Sanford in WaPo)

Of course, Bush blew a mole's cover during the campaign (basck) and that darned liberal media didn't turn a hair. As Michael Chertoff wrote another context, "[T]hey chose not to violate the law but to attack the law and its institutions directly."

IOKIYAR!

UPDATE Alert reader Tom Maguire writes:

Your headline is wrong - Sanford, with another co-author, had a nearly identical piece in the WSJ last December.

Mark Kleiman hammered it then (I did too, but you can't be listening to righties, now can you?)

Actually, I listen to the LRWM all the time, eh?

Thank God Froomkin's back:

In addition to making deceptive claims about the system going broke, Bush continued to perpetuate a myth about life expectancy so misleading that the Social Security Administration's own Web site goes to great pains to explain how wrong it is.

Said Bush: "The problem is, is that times have changed since 1935. Then most women did not work outside the house, and the average life expectancy was about 60 years old, which for a guy 58 years old must have been a little discouraging. (LAUGHTER)

"Today, Americans, fortunately, are living longer and longer. I mean, we're living way beyond 60 years old and most women are working outside the house."

In fact, as the Social Security Web site states: "If we look at life expectancy statistics from the 1930s we might naturally come to the conclusion that the Social Security program was designed in such a way that people would work for many years paying in taxes, but would not live long enough to collect benefits. Life expectancy at birth in 1930 was indeed only 58 for men and 62 for women. But life expectancy at birth in the early decades of the 20th century was low due to high infant mortality, and someone who died as a child would never have worked and paid into Social Security. A more appropriate measure is probably life expectancy after attainment of adulthood."

By that standard, average life expectancy has still grown, but not as much as Bush implied.
(via WaPo)

The amazing thing to me—I can't believe I'm still capable of being amazed—is that in seeking to abolish Social Security, the Republicans are well to the right of Otto von Bismarck, who started the first Social Security program in Germany. Yep, Otto von Bismarck, what an extreme liberal...

Dr. Victor summarizes the symptoms:

If you are physically and morally nauseated by: rigged/unverifiable elections, corporate-sponsored misinformation and propaganda, torture, imperial war without end, exploitation of fundamentalist religion for political ends, plunder of tax and social security revenues, unrestrained greed and corruption... then you won't be lying to your boss when you call on Jan 20th.

CALL IN SICK OF BUSH

For prognostics and preventative measures see: Shysteeblog immediately!

PATRIOT FEVER! ~ CALL IN SICK OF BUSH

Do it for the Econ. 101 Fighting Freepi Keyboard Battalion. :-)

*

Kid Rock: To be honest I really have no idea who this pop-moron is or what he's all about. I have only a rudimentary familiarity with the brainless caterwaulings of Kid Rock. And I don't have any interest in learning any more about him to be perfectly honest. So please, spare me the effort. Look, I get paid BIG $$$$ to write this kind of shit. I don't care if I know what I'm talking about or not. What the hell do I care. As as long as I deliver the goods and my people is happy... I'm a bid'ness man damnit! Do you here me! A bid'ness man!

But, I must say, if brainless caterwauling is your thing, it seems to me that the best place to feature such noisy outrage would be a Republican inauguration party. Really. What better place to celebrate brainless caterwauling and noisy drivel?

And who better to host such festivities than the next generation Bush geminate brood? I'm sure Laura Ingraham will show up with the blow. Hey, ya know, this ain't gonna be no Melanie concert. These are hard scrabble Texas Republicans with compellin' life stories we is talkin' about here. And you thought Armstrong "Buff Daddy" Williams had the big pimpin' gig. Oh no, that not so. Kid Rock, he da man. He da "pimp of the nation."

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how ya look at it, the fussy scoldpottle gatekeepers of Christian correctitude don't take to such jive nonsense. Well, I'm with em. Hopefully we can overturn that Secret Service inauguration day ban on wooden crosses and I and my new friends from the pro-family faction can swoop down upon the celebrity pervert invite and beat him bloody with the rood of Jesus.

Then me and Bob Knight and Donny Wildmon will scoop the obnoxious little sexualized fucker into the back seat of a Hummer and take him for a ride in the Shenandoah National Park where we'll hand him a carton of cigarettes and twenty dollars and warn him never to return to town lest he knows whats good God-damned good fer him. Then we'll kick him in the nuts and break a couple of his immoral fingers and roll him outta the backseat and into a ditch. Just for the Christian Nation fun of it. What?

Inauguration Youth Event -- Between a Rock and a Red Face?

By Jim Brown and Bill Fancher - January 11, 2005
(AgapePress) - Controversy continues to swirl around an upcoming Bush presidential inauguration event that features a performance by a rapper who refers to himself as the "pimp of the nation." While the White House says the president himself would never endorse the performer's sexualized lyrics, the group heading up the inaugural festivities has pretty much declined comment.

Numerous news organizations have reported that Kid Rock, a controversial rock-and-roller known for his vulgar lyrics and immoral lifestyle, is slated to perform at an inaugural youth concert hosted by First Twins Jenna and Barbara Bush. Pro-family activists have expressed outrage over the rapper's scheduled performance.

The PIC will neither confirm nor deny whether Kid Rock has been invited. At least one pro-family leader who has attempted to contact the PIC several times in recent days says he does not buy that statement.

"What kind of answer is that?" asks American Family Association chairman Don Wildmon. "All you have to say is yes, he's is going to be here; no, he's not going to be here. But they refuse to do that -- which leads me to think that they have the man signed up [and] ready to come, but they're afraid of the backlash and they're waiting to see what's going to happen."

[...]

Conservatives have also taken offense to the revelation that actor Kelsey Grammer will emcee a kickoff inaugural gala honoring the military. Grammer has been arrested for multiple DUI and cocaine possession offenses.

Cocaine and DUI! The OUTRAGE! The sheer nerve of anyone inviting someone with a history of DUI arrests and cocaine possession offenses to a Bush inauguration is - is - is - well, simply an OUTRAGE! I'll have none of it. Hopefully my friends Don Wildmon and Bob Knight will bring an extra twenty dollars and another carton of cigarettes along for the ride.

*

This is the glorious city that dwelt in security: that said in her heart: I am, and there is none beside me: how is she become a desert, a place for beasts to lie down in? every one that passeth by her, shall hiss, and wag his hand.- Sophonias 2:15 (Douay)




The 'Salvador Option', Robert Parry writes::

The strategy is named after the Reagan-Bush administration’s "still-secret strategy" of supporting El Salvador’s right-wing security forces, which operated clandestine "death squads" to eliminate both leftist guerrillas and their civilian sympathizers, Newsweek reported. "Many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success – despite the deaths of innocent civilians," Newsweek wrote.

[...]

The insurgencies in El Salvador and Guatemala were crushed through the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians. In Guatemala, about 200,000 people perished, including what a truth commission later termed a genocide against Mayan Indians in the Guatemalan highlands. In El Salvador, about 70,000 died including massacres of whole villages, such as the slaughter carried out by a U.S.-trained battalion against hundreds of men, women and children in and around the town of El Mozote in 1981.

Perception Management - The PR Machine:

The Reagan-Bush strategy also had a domestic component, the so-called "perception management" operation that employed sophisticated propaganda to manipulate the fears of the American people while hiding the ugly reality of the wars. The Reagan-Bush administration justified its actions in Central America by portraying the popular uprisings as an attempt by the Soviet Union to establish a beachhead in the Americas to threaten the U.S. southern border.

If anyone thinks that Armstrong "Buff Daddy" Williams is some kind of pioneer in this regard, well, think back. The Bush Borg and its well greased Right Wing fleet of killer satellites have been orbiting the earth for years. The entire scope of the covert funding and elaborate propaganda whirlwind which swirled around the Reagan/Bush Latin America adventure in bloodletting during the 1980's is extremely complex. Much to complex for this short blog post. But some of the key operators in this carnival of death included the "Outreach Working Group on Central America" which farmed the assistance of multiple right wing Christian, neoconservative and New Right organizations; including Pat Robertson's Freedom Council, Falwell's Moral Majority, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the Heritage Foundation, the Eagel Forum, the Conservative Caucus, Accuracy in Media, and Richard Viguerie's mass mail marketing brigantine, among others.

Each of these slippery operations was responsible for providing the public with a deafening roar of white noise disinformation and misdirection concerning the Bush/Reagan foreign policy in Latin America. In addition to this complex media fog there was added a twisted array of private funding networks -- which also included some of the groups above -- all obligated to conduct fundraising and funnel money and supplies and intel into the 'dirty war' effort in Latin America. One such group was a far Right neofascist and old line Nazi network called the World Anti-Communist League (WACL), which, in 1981, found itself under the leadership of Gen. John Singlaub's Council for World Freedom. WACL would also figure prominently in the Reagan Administration's efforts and support on behalf of the mujahadeen's war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. So, if you're wondering who ultimately helped train Osama bin Laden & company...., uh, well, whats the word, oh yeah... blowback.

One notable funder of WACL was the Unification Church. Moon's groups were also one of the primary funding and supply organs for the Contra resupply network. Another Moon satellite was the Freedom Fund which was originally founded by donations made available by Bo Hi Pak and Jeane Kirkpatrick. The Freedom Fund's board of directors included such lovelies as Midge Decter and Michael Novak. So, if you ever ask yourself what it is that so many on the Right, including the Bush family, find so warm and fuzzy and regal about the Moon crazies; it's simple - the Moonies know where all the bones are buried and who buried them where and when and how much it costs to make sure the corpses stay as dead as possible. Who's afraid of the demons that live in the shadows - I ask ya?

As I said, there's a lot more to this than I can relate in this blog post at this time so I'll move along.

Triggering "death squad" chaos, Iraq and beyond; Parry continues:

Bush appears to be upping the ante by contemplating cross-border raids into countries neighboring Iraq. He also would be potentially expanding the war by having Iraqi Kurds and Shiites kill Sunnis, a prescription for civil war or genocide.

Continue reading Bush's Death Squad's, by Robert Parry, Jan. 11, 2005 ~ via Consortium News.

Also see:
History of Guatemala's 'Death Squads', by Robert Parry - Jan. 11, 2005.

For more on the Bush monarchy adventures in world conquest and 'dirty war' diplomacy you can also read Parry's book Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq

Also noted: Billmon is back, at least temporarily, and has posted a selection of article snips and links to various items relating to events that took place in El Salvador during the 1980s.

*

All the way at the end, in the final paragraph, we get this little gem:

Since leaving the Justice Department, Chertoff has written and spoken publicly about the need for "creative legal thinking" in Congress and the White House about a new approach for handling suspected terrorists.
(via WaPO)

The last thing I want from the thugs in Inerrant Boy's malAdministration is "creative legal thinking." We've had quite enough "creative thinking" from Gonzales, justifying rule by decree. Let alone the winger establishment impeaching a President over a blowjob. Creative, or what?

How about a little thinking that makes the Constitution something other than a dead letter?

Oh, and Chertoff was chief counsel for Al D'Amato's Whitewater investigation, which was even more clownish and swinish than the [cough] Independent Counsels. Worse and worse.

Man, I'm glad it's snowing somewhere. It's January, fer cryin' out loud. It ought to be snowing. But here in Philly it's just this dreary mizzly drizzle.

I hope it rains on Bush's parade. Raining fire from heaven would be a little bit much to ask for, though it there were any justice...

Oh, and vote for farmer for best writer. Or Pete the Deer becomes, shall we say, a piece de resistance...

Is this a great country, or what?

The little guy gets prosecuted

A court-martial was ordered Tuesday for an Air Force officer charged with illegally shipping AK-47 assault rifles, rocket propelled grenade launchers and other souvenirs from Iraq to this Florida Panhandle base.
(via AP)

But Rummy goes free:

We know that Rumsfeld (and other high FBI officials)

1. looted 9/11 relics (back here)
2. which is a Federal crime punishable by up to 10 years in jail (back here)
3. for which ordinary citizens have been indicted, prosecuted, convicted, and punished (back here).
(from deep within the Corrente Time Vault)

Oh, but what am I thinking? Rummy is a High Administration Official! And a Republican! And since we have become a government of men, not laws, that makes everything OK!

IOKIYAR!

I must admit I'm much more a fan of the early Mel Gibson—does Inerrant Boy's Excellent Adventure remind you of that tanker filled with sand, or what—but he's talking sense here:

"[GIBSON] What the hell are we doing in Iraq? No one can explain to me in a reasonable manner that I can accept why we're there, why we went there, and why we're still there."
(via read-it-until-they-make-me-pay Times)

Now, that's supporting the troops!

Winning hearts and minds:

FORT HOOD, Texas (Reuters) - A former inmate at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison forced by U.S. guards to masturbate in public and piled onto a pyramid of naked men said Tuesday even Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein did not do such things.

"I couldn't believe in the beginning that this could happen, but I wished I could kill myself because no one was there to stop it," Hussein Mutar, who was sent to Abu Ghraib accused of car theft, said in videotaped testimony.
(via Reuters)

Ah, who cares what Iraqi untermenschen think. They're not even Christians....

We know from public relations and winger money laundering firm Ketchum's own site that they want to "own" blogs, and come to "mutually beneficial" relations with the blogosphere (back here).

Um, "mutually beneficial" like the $250,000-worth of mutual benefit they passed along from the taxpayers to Armstrong "Buff Daddy" Williams?

So, some simple, simple questions would seem to be in order. They've been asked—Ketchum doesn't believe in answering its mail. Strange for a PR firm, eh?

Readers, can you help? Politely?

To Ray Kotcher, CEO, Adam Brown, and Nicholas Scibetta:

Good morning:

Corrente readers would like to know:

1. Have you arranged to fund any bloggers?

2. If so, which bloggers?

3. If so, who were your clients?

4. If so, was the ultimate source of the funding taxpayer dollars?

In addition:

1. Have you arranged for trolls to target any blogs?

2. If so, which blogs?

3. If so, who were your clients?

4. If so, was the ultimate source of the funding taxpayer dollars?

Thank you for your attention in this matter.

Signed,
An Alert Corrente Reader

The email addresses are in the salutation to the letter. Maybe if there are enough people asking the questions, politely of course, we'll get some answers.

Remember, we already know from Williams that "there are others" (back)

Alas, RDF and the phones are recovered—“alas” insofar as now I have no excuse not to get off my ass—and I now find myself and the phone and computer clogged with things demanding action. Of course, it’s still snowing so all action may come to a halt again. Anyway, here’s what I got:

1. Sign the ACLU pre-coronation petition:

the ACLU's "Refuse to Surrender" pledge

2. An forwarded email from a local organizer in a nearby county asking, “any ideas on how to get local Democrats more involved?” Hoo, boy. I’m back to house parties instead of boring meetings in church basements… I guess. Door prizes? I guess shit like this from Online Journal just ain’t enough to motivate folks:

January 7, 2005—Why have exit polls historically matched election results? How about this? It's all made up. It's a scam. A con. A fake. A fraud. Since they first started "projecting" election night winners in 1964, the major news networks have never provided any 'hard' evidence that they actually conducted any exit polls, at all. Researchers and activists who point to the disparity of the early exit polls and the 2004 election results, have failed to consider the obvious—that exit polls never existed to begin with. Did networks fake exit polls, while AP 'accessed' 2,995 mainframe computers?

Imagine then, how embarrassed they must have been by ’04, as the author does. Shiny foil chapeau territory? Well, she names sources…there was a time an allegation like this would make waves. But then, Rove-Goebbels, Inc. sets up CBS all too easily, don’t they? Indy media’s our only hope if we ever want to truly know.

3. Plans for Martin Luther King Day. There’s a rally in a nearby town with speeches and singing and the usual meet-up at the Baptist Church, with more speeching, food and music. But I want more. Ideas on how to make MLK Day not only a day of remembrance but also the anti-inauguration? I don't want to just cry for what could have been... and that recent bust in Mississippi proves MLK's dictum that "the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice." So, how to help it bend and little more quickly this coming weekend, in loving memory?

4. Anyone with the means to go to DC for the swearing-at—er, I mean, “in,” might check out Uncle Mike’s Handy Guide: MIKE'S INAUGURATION GUIDE: with links to bunches of resources for them who can go and even them who can’t.

When the snow melts off I will paint the shed blue, Xan. Meanwhile it's back to direct action sans paintbrush. And don’t forget to send a nice letter so’s to find out who the blog-skunks are, as suggested by Lambert, right below…

The only politician, Democrat, Republican, or other, to whom I've given money:

Former presidential candidate Howard Dean, once the early front-runner for the Democratic nomination whose candidacy stumbled, has decided to seek the party's chairmanship, several Democrats said Tuesday.
(via AP)

Dean's only sin? Saying the unsayable—the truth!

As opposed to the Scaife-funded, pro-coathanger candidate Roemer, from whom, as with any Republican operative, we can expect nothing but lies.

What were "our" two Beltway Dem "leaders" thinking>

However, the Roll Call newspaper reported U.S. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., want to "jump-start" the debate over finding a new committee chairman and contacted Roemer about running for the position.
(Moonie Times)

Assuming that this isn't just disinformation from one of the winger house organs, of course.

The new nominee:

From 1994 to 1996, [Michael Chertoff] served as special counsel for the Whitewater Committee, the partisan witchhunt which investigated unusual business dealings involving former U.S. president Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
(via CBC)

"Investigated"... Love that Canadian humor. It's so dry!

NOTE Is Chertoff a member of the Federalist Society? Bien sur!

I'm a little concerned about the current poll on the sidebar. At this point it doesn't look good for Newt in 2008. Maybe a Gingrich-Jack Cafferty "get to know ya" dance party would have been a bigger draw?

Maybe Dan Rather should be singing train songs to Kate O'Beirne while she gobbles chili dogs in a halter top and pair of shorty shorts? Would anyone like to watch Kate O'Beirne in a halter top and a pair of shorty shorts eat a sloppy wienerwurst to the tune of "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain?" I'll bet you'd like that wouldn't you? Damnit. I should of thought of that before.

Could send Santorum to northern Michigan to yank a fish through an ice hole. There's a kind of poetic ecclesiatical justice to that. Not sure how to help Bay Buchanan's island of apathy though. Maybe Donna Brazile could run up and down the beach with a lantern crashing ships onto a reef! Or, hey!, maybe Tucker Carlson and Armstrong Williams could visit the island and share a jacuzzi? Although that scene might put a damper on the the abstinence effort; what with all the slippery buffing and rebuffing and bow ties and hundred dollar bills and wavy locks churning around in the bubbles and all. Eeeks. Come to think of it that would be too horribly real even for horrible reality TV. Producing quality television isn't as easy as you might think.

Anyway... it looks like I'm going to have to build a pen and rent or borrow a death adder at some point very soon. Anyone know what a good death adder rents out for these days?

In the meantime... VOTE for the lame choices ya got. Ain't that always the way?

*

What a day. Theocracy. "So-called" really does mean so called liberal media. Media whore Armstrong "Buff Daddy" Williams really is a whore. And the return of Paul Lusasiak.

Way, way too much post-Holiday stimulation.

Oh, and vote for farmer if you ever want to see Pete the Deer alive again.

From Truthout via Buzzflash:

It was the issues and suspicions surrounding Triad Systems and their voting machines that motivated Senator Kerry to enter that matter?

[CAM KERRY] Yes. That is one of the things that is highly suspect. Look, Kenneth Blackwell's conduct throughout this election, going back months beforehand and through the recount, has been disgraceful. What people have to recognize is that the election protection effort, with 3,300 Kerry/Edwards lawyers who were there on the ground, plus other lawyers, the voter protection project, and other efforts out there did a lot.

They dealt with this ridiculous business of the paper weight on the voter registration and put a stop to that. The Republican effort to mount challenges, they put a stop to it. The efforts to exclude reporters and exit pollers from the polls, they put a stop to that. The malfunctions in machines in Mahoning County, they put a stop to that. They put a lot of focus on the incredible amounts of time the students at Kent had to wait. There were people there to bring them food, and there were people there who offered those in line paper ballots. They didn't want paper ballots. They wanted to get in there and cast their votes the regular way.

One of the reasons we know about all these things is because there were people there observing and recording, and they prevented a lot of the large problems. Did they prevent everything? No. Were there people who were disenfranchised? Yes. Were there mistakes and irregularities and fraud? Yes. I think this was a closer election than 119,000 votes.

Ohio wasn't the only state where there were problems in this last election. There was also New Mexico.

[CAM KERRY] I think New Mexico is a fascinating case. I think people there are doing a great job putting together data that shows some very convincing anomalies that could change the outcome. I think it's something that needs to go forward because it is really about counting the votes and not ultimately about the outcome of the election as a whole. My understand is essentially that if Governor Richardson gives the go-ahead for a partial recount, they can get started on that. It is a pretty convincing case, with serious anomalies in Native American and Hispanic voting areas.

Are they concerned in New Mexico about how this recount will proceed? I ask because the main problem with the recent Ohio recount was that it was supposed to be a random recount, but representatives from Triad, the company that had their voting machines in 41 Ohio counties, found out ahead of time which 'random' counties would be recounted. They went around to those counties and made sure that the machine count would match the hand count. This basically obviated the basic premise of the recount, that being the selection of random counties. Will the people in New Mexico be keeping an eye on things like this?

What I gather is that people have negotiated in New Mexico, and that Cobb and Badnarik will select the ten percent, something like ten percent or thereabouts, of the precincts to be recounted.
(via TruthOut)

God really is in the details....

I have to say, I wasn't passionate in favor of Kerry, but I grew to like him and respect him the more the campaign proceeded. I hope, over the next four years, that he can shed the tendency toward empty compromises that Senators, and Democrats, have so often felt compelled to make, and speak clearly in his own voice. Cut loose, Senator Kerry, cut loose! We know you can do it!

Naked wine and cheese orgies! Dirty sidewalk "chalkings." It's all a sinister plot by clothing challenged cheese eating lefties and queer prom queens to undermine the true diversity of ideas. Because, if the modern hard bitten conservative can't feel comfortable attending a wine and cheese party in full araiment, well, none of us are safe! Freedom and western civilization itself teeter upon the brink. What will we tell the parents!

Via AgapePress: The Fall of Wesleyan Civilization

Columnist Reveals Liberal School's Decadent Decline

John Leo promised his daughter he would not write about Wesleyan University until she graduated. Now that she's out, he has let loose with a column informing readers about the liberalism run amok of a university that has been home to a queer prom, a pornography-for-credit course, obscene sidewalk chalking, and a campus club crudely named for a private part of the female anatomy -- to name just a few of the school's outrages.

Uh.....The Boobie Hatch?

*

...and to our surprise, they turn out to be, well, whores. Armstrong "Buff Daddy" Williams in WaPo today:

Tucson, Ariz.: Why don't you give back the money, and regain your credibility and integrity?

Armstrong Williams: Giving back the money is not about regaining my credibility and integrity. I am a businessman. Ketchum Communications purchased advertising time: two one-minute commercials to promote No Child Left Behind. After the first 16 months it was communicated to us that between 10 and 15 million people visited the No Child Left Behind Web page as a result of our advertising campaign. There were markets initially that we were not in that Ketchum felt it necessary that we run the ads. We had to go out and buy programming time just to have ads on the air in that market.

So therefore, we honor our contract. We delivered on our goals and they delivered on their compensation. That's business: supply and demand.
(via WaPo)

"Not about regaining credibility and integrity"... Well, no. Fortunately, the White House says this is an "isolated incident." Well, that's a relief!

But what are the odds it will air? (Media Matters)

Oh. For "Buff Daddy," see the farmer back here.

Nobody, not in the media, not in the blogosphere, not anywhere has worked harder or longer or more persistently to find out the truth about George W. Bush's "military service" and the decades-long project to cover it up, than Paul Lukasiak. With his permission and encouragement we ran numerous excerpts here from the research at his website called The AWOL Project.

All that time I had no idea he was going by the excellent handle of "bushsux" over at Daily Kos. I find this out today when I click on an item there called "The CBS Memogate Project: An Insider's View."

Guess what? Yer never gonna believe this, but that "report" today? That got those four people fired? It's a whitewash, a load of hooey, a bucket full of horseshit, a prune stew of indigestible foulness. In other words, pretty much what we suspected it would be.

You should go read. Don't let Them tell you "this is an old story," or that "CBS screwed this up so badly we lose all credibility if we bring it up again." It hasn't been brought up yet, is the problem. Like all shit, it needs to get to where the maggots can crawl and the dung beetles help the fresh air and purifying sunshine break it down into its constituent parts.

"bushsux" diary at dKos

Of course, Bush knows his enemies—the Democrats (and the Consitution). And he's been superb at decapitating the one and subverting the other. Would that He could know his enemy in war, as well as in politics! From, once again, the essential New Yorker, where reporter Dan Baum has actually talked to the troops instead of sitting at his desk, fluffing unnamed administration officials by giving them good phone:

Then came Iraq. Every war is different from the last, with its own special learning curve, but there is a growing sense within the Army that Iraq signals something more significant. In the American Civil War, Army manuals taught Napoleonic tactics, like close-order formations, even though they were suicidal against rifled muskets that could kill accurately at three hundred yards. In the First World War, the French, British, and German troops persisted in attempting to storm trenches before recognizing the defensive supremacy of the machine gun. In Iraq, the Army’s marquee high-tech weapons are often sidelined while the enemy kills and maims Americans with bombs wired to garage-door openers or doorbells. Even more important, the Army is facing an enemy whose motivation it doesn’t understand. “I don’t think there’s one single person in the Army or the intelligence community that can break down the demographics of the enemy we’re facing,” an Airborne captain named Daniel Morgan told me. “You can’t tell whether you’re dealing with a former Baathist, a common criminal, a foreign terrorist, or devout believers.”
(via The New Yorker)

Yep. One of the many surreal aspects of Inerrant Boy's Most Excellent adventure is that the enemy the troops are fighting is never clearly defined. I guess they're "evil" or "hate freedom" but that's a little short of operational intelligence, eh? This truth has been hidden in plain sight, and it takes a New York weekly to reveal it. Sigh.

We may be seeing a ramping up of the new Justification for Eternal War here. While both sources may seem a tad obscure, the influence of the Moonie rag should not be underestimated. And the fact that the second piece ran in no less than nine newspapers in Australia but--as far as I could find--not a single one in the US strikes me as a bit puzzling as well.

Washington (Moonie) Times

William S. Lind
Outside View Contributor

(William S. Lind, we are told, "is expressing his own opinion. He is director for the Center for Cultural Conservatism for the Free Congress Foundation." Doesn't that sound ever so much better, so more Professional and Well-Informed, than "is a daily resident of the third stool from the end of the bar at Cheers Tavern"?)

Washington, DC, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- Was Ukraine's Nov. 21 presidential election stolen? Probably. Was President-elect Viktor Yushchenko legitimately elected as the country's next leader in the Dec. 26 rerun of the vote? Certainly. Would it be nice if Ukraine were a democracy? Sure. Are those the considerations that should drive American policy in the region? No.

The most important factor in U.S. policy toward the countries of the former Soviet Union ought to be our need for a strategic alliance with Russia. Geo-politically, Russia holds Christendom's vast eastern flank, which stretches all the way from the Black Sea to Vladivostok. As the remnants of the Christian world begin to wake up to the reality that Islam has resumed the strategic offensive, that flank takes on renewed importance. It is already under pressure, as events in Chechnya show all too clearly. If it collapses, Christendom will have suffered an epic defeat.

Massive snip of derogatory remarks against BushCo and His foreign policy. Normally this would be enjoyable reading no matter the source, but in this case it does matter because of this nutter's rationale:

The folly of ignoring Russia's vital interests may lead to a worst possible outcome - namely, a renewed civil war within Christendom. Three previous such civil wars in the 20th century -- World War I, World War II, and the Cold War -- have left our culture merely one contender among many, whereas a century ago it dominated the world. A fourth such conflict, in the form of a revived cold war, would truly be a gift from Allah to the warriors of the Prophet. Christendom would spend what little energy it has left fighting itself.

Yeah, I know...ewwww. Didn't "Christendom" as a description of a group of nation-states whose common religion overrode their numerous other differences of interest rather go out of style about the time of the Children's Crusade? Yeah, that's what I thought, until I ran across this today:

(via Sydney AU Herald-Sun)

TRAILBLAZING ideologue Newt Gingrich, who engineered the 1994 Republican takeover of the US House of Representatives, may run for president in 2008, to fight what he calls "an Islamist insurgency against the modern world".

He also spoke today about a need to centre US society around religious values formulated by "our Creator".

The mid-sized tome promotes what is being described as Mr Gingrich's vision of America's greatness in the 21st century, including his plan for winning the war on terror, re-establishing God in American public life, reforming the underfunded Social Security pension system, restoring patriotism and making US health care more accessible...[snip]

According to the former speaker, between 39 million and 52 million young men - out of a total of 1.3 billion Muslims around the world - could become available to Islamist recruiters as the war on terror grinds on.

Because of that, he predicts, the fight could continue for the next 20-25 years at best, or drag on for several centuries, as did the Catholic-Protestant wars during the Reformation and Counter Reformation.

The common assumption was that Newt could not mount a comeback in the modern Republican party because of such minor moral lapses as serial adultery, serial divorce, and the charming incident of him serving one previous wife with divorce papers while she lay in a hospital bed recovering from cancer surgery. But, as Dear Leader has proved, With A Carefully Timed Religious Conversion All Things Are Possible. And a heapin' helpin' of pompous pious platitudes don't hurt none neither.

Hey, what's that stink?
Pollutant from Poppy Bush's old swine lagoon seeps back into the stream.

Jan 10, 2005:
Bush Names Allan Hubbard as Top Economic Adviser

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush on Monday named Allan Hubbard, an Indiana businessman and major Bush fund-raiser, to serve as his top economic adviser, the White House announced.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Hubbard will serve as assistant to the president for economic policy and as director of the White House National Economic Council, replacing Stephen Friedman, who stepped down late last year.

Hubbard, a long-time Bush friend, is president of privately held E & A Industries, Inc. of Indianapolis, Indiana, which owns several chemical companies.

Records show Hubbard ranked as a top fund-raiser for Bush during his 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns.

He once served as deputy chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle.

"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it." - J. Danforth Quayle, former Vice-President

Flashback: The Quayle Council
OMD Watch - Dec. 24, 1992

Undoing Quayle Council Damage
Cases of Quayle Council Interference
In the two years Vice President Dan Quayle chaired the Council on Competitiveness, the Council interfered in, stalled, or killed dozens of regulatory programs and issued sweeping policy reports with both legislative and regulatory proposals on issues such as biotechnology and product liability.

[...]

There were reports of conflict of interest on the Council as well. Press accounts revealed that Allan Hubbard, the executive director of the Quayle Council on Competitiveness, was half-owner of an Indiana chemical company, and consequently may have had a conflict of interest in carrying out his public role. According to a report released by OMB Watch and Public Citizen, Hubbard also owned stock in an electric utility company, another industry subject to new Clean Air Act requirements. In response to these conflict of interest charges the White House has held up a waiver from conflict of interest laws that Quayle granted Hubbard in June 1991.

Flashback: House of Representatives - April 29, 1992

HON. LES AUCOIN: The next item on the Quayle council's hit list is Clean Air Act, a bill Bush himself once hailed as a major achievement. The President is currently pondering whether to allow industrial polluters to contaminate our environment even more than the law allows--without public hearings or Environmental Protection Agency review.

Hidden behind the veil of executive privilege, the council is not subject to the public accountability laws that govern other agencies. No public record of its communications or decisions is required. As Dan Quayle is fond of boasting cynically, the council `leaves no fingerprints,' just the wreckage of laws weakened by new loopholes and exemptions for corporate fat cats and polluters.

The Quayle council operates primarily for Dan Quayle's big business golfing buddies who, having failed in public debate in Congress, use the council as a secret back door to undermine health, safety, and environmental laws.

It's no coincidence that as the council pushes for a regulation to prevent the public or the EPA from stopping Clean Air Act violations, its staff director was forced to step aside for being a part owner of a chemical company that would profit from the new rule. This star chamber is by definition a conflict of interest.

Well, enough is enough. Today I'm introducing legislation to rip open the curtains and let the light of public scrutiny into this Chamber. This bill, in conjunction with legislation already introduced in the Senate by John Glenn, will require the Quayle council to conform with the procedures and openness that governs all other government rulemaking agencies.

Specifically, my bill will require the Quayle council to provide public access to all its written communications, provide summaries of oral communications, and explain the reasons for its intervention in the normal rulemaking process.

No longer will the public be shut out. No longer will big business have another chance to change laws that no one else has. It's time to shed some sunlight on George Bush and Dan Quayle's secret dealings. Let's make sure the public has the last laugh.

[source: Congressional Record]

Crocodile Tears:

The Quayle Council keeps no public records of who it talks to for advice, but Vice-President Quayle says he consults most often with business leaders who can tell him better than economists "how the clock is ticking." Allan Hubbard, executive director of the Quayle Council, says, "When they feel like they are being treated unfairly, [industry groups] come to us." ~ September 18, 1991- Environmental Research Foundation, Annapolis, MD.

Allan Hubbard - additional business/background info:
Allan B Hubbard - Director; Wellpoint Inc. (Anthem, Inc.) Link; Wellpoint Inc. mission and values

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Just in case anyone doubted the rules of the game, CBS has eliminated the ambiguity:

Four CBS News staffers were fired Monday following the release of an independent investigation that said a “myopic zeal” led to the airing of a discredited “60 Minutes Wednesday” story about President Bush's military service.

The panel's 224-page report detailed dozens of missteps, including the reliance on documents that were allegedly forged to a circle-the-wagons mentality that compounded the damage.

CBS fired Mary Mapes, producer of the Sept. 8 report; Josh Howard, executive producer of “60 Minutes Wednesday” and his top deputy Mary Murphy; and senior vice president Betsy West.
(via Globe and Mail)

For those keeping score, the rules go like this: Rely on phony documents that bolster an independently proven story against Republican President, lose your job. Doctor evidence to frame a Democratic President and his wife, live long and prosper.
[UPDATE: fixed broken link.]

David Corn talked to Armstrong Williams (via Kos):

Then Williams violated a PR rule: he got off-point. "This happens all the time," he told me. "There are others." Really? I said. Other conservative commentators accept money from the Bush administration? I asked Williams for names. "I'm not going to defend myself that way," he said. The issue right now, he explained, was his own mistake. Well, I said, what if I call you up in a few weeks, after this blows over, and then ask you? No, he said.

Does Williams really know something about other rightwing pundits? Or was he only trying to minimize his own screw-up with a momentary embrace of a trumped-up everybody-does-it defense? I could not tell. But if the IG at the Department of Education or any other official questions Williams, I suggest he or she ask what Williams meant by this comment. And if Williams is really sorry for this act of "bad judgment" and for besmirching the profession of rightwing punditry, shouldn't he do what he can to guarantee that those who watch pundits on the cable news networks and read political columnists receive conservative views that are independent and untainted by payoffs from the Bush administration or other political outfits?

Armstrong, please, help us all protect the independence of the conservative commentariat. If you are not alone, tell us who else has yielded to bad judgment.
(via Nation)

Um, could it be all of them? Why not?

And, as we asked before, Are any winger bloggers on the payroll?

Here:

Gunmen on Monday assassinated Baghdad's deputy police chief and his son, police said, while a huge roadside bomb in southwestern Baghdad destroyed a U.S. armored vehicle and killed two American soldiers, the military said.

The Bradley Fighting Vehicle is one of the more heavily armored U.S. military vehicles, suggesting that the roadside bomb was more powerful than those typically used in recent months. The Defense Department said last week that insurgents were increasing the size and power of the bombs they plant as they escalate their attacks before the Jan. 30 election.
(via AP)

Hey, I wonder where the "more powerful" explosives came from. More stuff Rummy didn't secure because there was no plan?

Marc Danner has a fascinating and horrifying account, "How Bush Really Won," of the Bush rallies during campaign 2004 in that other New York publication besides the The Yorker that actually does reporting, The New York Review of Books:

Many of the Bush supporters I spoke to were educated, well-informed people. They watched the news and took pleasure in debating politics. And yet they clung to views about important matters of fact that were demonstrably wrong. Steven Kull, the public opinion expert at the University of Maryland who authored the study from which these numbers are drawn, acknowledges that although one reason they "cling so tightly to beliefs that have been so visibly refuted...is that they continue to hear the Bush administration confirming these beliefs," the prevalence, and persistence, of these misperceptions is "probably not due to a simple failure to pay attention to the news." Rather, Kull writes, "Bush supporters cling to these beliefs because they are necessary for their support for the decision to go to war with Iraq":

Asked whether the US should have gone to war with Iraq if US intelligence had concluded that Iraq was not making WMD or providing support to al Qaeda, 58 percent of Bush supporters said the US should not have, and 61 percent assume that in this case the president would not have. To support the president and to accept that he took the US to war based on mistaken assumptions is difficult to bear, especially in light of the continuing costs in terms of lives and money. Apparently, to avoid this cognitive dissonance, Bush supporters suppress awareness of unsettling information. [See Steven Kull et al., The Separate Reality of Bush and Kerry Supporters (PIPA/Knowledge Networks, October 21, 2004), p. 13.]

This analysis suggests the difficulties Kerry faced in pressing home his highly "fact-dependent" argument that the Iraq war was separate from the war on terror and thus a mistaken distraction from it. Not only did accepting the point require a good deal of sophistication and knowledge, not only did it seem to contradict the evidence on Americans' television screens each night, which often showed vivid depictions of terrorism in Iraq; it also seemed to imply to some voters that they should take what must have seemed an unpatriotic position. For if they accepted the false pretenses on which the war had been based, how could they go on supporting it, as Kerry, somewhat illogically and even dishonestly, seemed to be asking them to do?

Those running the Bush campaign clearly counted on the talent and influence of impressive propagandists like Limbaugh, and the help they received from an often acquiescent mainstream press. More, they counted on the President's reputation for forthrightness, together with the political folk wisdom that many people, particularly "during wartime," believe "the man, not the fact." When Bush, in full rhetorical flower in Tinker Field, declared to his delirious audience that "Americans need a president who doesn't think terrorism is 'a nuisance,'" my neighbor Ms. Richardson-Pinto nudged me with her elbow and shouted over the laughter and cheers, "Do you believe Kerry said that?" Actually, I shouted into her ear, Kerry hadn't said that, and then I paraphrased for her the actual quotation:

We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they're a nuisance. As a former law enforcement person, I know we're never going to end prostitution... [and] illegal gambling. But we're going to reduce it, organized crime, to a level where...it's something that you continue to fight, but it's not threatening the fabric of your life.[8]

Hardly exceptional; indeed, Bush himself had only weeks before said something very similar. Ms. Richardson-Pinto, a well-educated, worldly woman —a doctor, and a two-time Olympic gold medalist in women's softball— listened to me intently, nodded politely, began to form a question, and then, thinking better of it, looked at me for a moment longer before turning back to the President. She'd had a choice what—or rather whom—to believe; and she'd made it.
(via New York Review of Books)

How to get Bush voters to unmake their choices? Could it be that the cognitive dissonance is simply too great?

The punchline is all the way at the end.

Wankers.

I'm too sexy for my politics...

"...My advice to him would be to get a boyfriend and leave his employees alone.'’

Via Blue Lemur:

In 1997, Williams was sued in a massive $200,000 50-charge sexual harassment suit for repeatedly kissing his once male trainer Stephen Gregory who he had promoted repeatedly into his talk-show staff. Gregory claimed Williams had also grabbed his buttocks and genitals and climbed into bed with him on business trips. After rebuffing him, Gregory alleged, the pundit retaliated by reducing his pay and subsequently firing him.

[...]

The columnist settled the case out of court in early 1999.

Define "rebuffing."

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As Sunday, sigh, inevitably turns into Monday....

We're here to ask for your vote! And to help with Wampum's server costs.

And especially Farmer for best writer.

Vote for farmer or we'll shoot Pete the Deer!

Here (via the Mighty Atrios).

Maybe it's faith-based?

UPDATE Oh, wait, they've got Powerline (back). Say, I wonder if Powerline is on Ketchum's winger payroll? Speaking of "credibility," and all...

The New Yorker—you remember them, the New York piblication with an actual reporter, Seymour Hersh—has a review of Jared Diamond's newest and most excellent book Collapse. Here the reviewer describes how the Norwegian colonists of Greenland starved to death, though surrounded by oceans teeming with fish:

There are no fish bones in Norse archeological remains, Diamond concludes, for the simple reason that the Norse didn’t eat fish. For one reason or another, they had a cultural taboo against it. ... When archeologists looked through the ruins of the Western Settlement, they found plenty of the big wooden objects that were so valuable in Greenland—crucifixes, bowls, furniture, doors, roof timbers—which meant that the end came too quickly for anyone to do any scavenging. And, when the archeologists looked at the animal bones left in the debris, they found the bones of newborn calves, meaning that the Norse, in that final winter, had given up on the future. They found toe bones from cows, equal to the number of cow spaces in the barn, meaning that the Norse ate their cattle down to the hoofs, and they found the bones of dogs covered with knife marks, meaning that, in the end, they had to eat their pets. But not fish bones, of course. Right up until they starved to death, the Norse never lost sight of what they stood for.
(via New Yorker)

"They never lost sight of what they stood for." Ponder that.

When I read this passage, I was irresistibly reminded of the latest grand projet of the Republican governor of Texas, Richard "Good Hair" Perry:

[Texas] has embarked on an audacious project to build superhighways so big and so complex that they will make ordinary interstates look like cow paths.

The Trans-Texas Corridor project, as first envisioned by Republican Gov. Rick Perry in 2002, would be a 4,000-mile transportation network costing $175 billion over 50 years, financed mostly if not entirely with private money. The builders then would charge motorists tolls.

But these would not be mere highways. Proving anew that everything's big in Texas, they would be megahighways — corridors up to a quarter-mile across, consisting of as many as six lanes for cars and four for trucks, plus railroad tracks, oil and gas pipelines, water and other utility lines, and broadband transmission cables.
Moonie Times

Yes, "They never lost sight of what they stood for." Thank God oil is going to be cheap for the forseeable future! Oh, wait...

Or maybe not. We all Fight The Power in our own way after all.

(via Chicago Trib)

MUSCATINE, IOWA -- A Wal-Mart greeter was sacked for apparently showing too much of his friendly side to customers.

Dean Wooten, 65, was accused of greeting customers with a computer-generated photo in which he appeared to be naked--except for a carefully placed Wal-Mart bag--and of telling them that Wal-Mart was cutting costs and the sack was the company's new uniform.

A supervisor at the Muscatine store where Wooten had worked for seven years told him to stop after customers complained. He was fired five days later, in September, after he displayed the photo again.

Wooten's application for unemployment compensation was rejected by an administrative law judge, who said "a reasonable person would know the act of showing a naked body wearing a Wal-Mart sack would not be good for the employer's business."

Heh heh heh. Let us raise our Sunday evening toast to Mr. Wooten, in hopes that, having pretty well washed up on his day job, he gets a nice raise at the comedy club in Iowa City where he clearly deserves to be a star.

Better yet, my dear readers, let me ask the big question for a historian about the "Salvadoran Option": Are the folks at the Pentagon now admitting that we were BEHIND THE DEATHSQUADS in El Salvador in the 1980s? This article in Newsweek seems to suggest as much.

Ronnie and the criminals in his administration (still the leading administration by a longshot for the number of folks who were sent to jail for a plethora scandals) always said that they knew nothing about who was behind the deathsquads and who these folks were. If Reagan had admitted this in the middle 1980s it's not too crazy to suggest this might've led to Reagan's impeachment (although probably not his conviction by the Senate).

Were we behind the deathsquads in El Salvador? Did we train them? Did we coordinate them?

Kevin, certainly don't pay any attention to the idiotic stuff Insty's prattling on about. Of course the Iran-Contra scandal grew out of the mess in El Salvador. As usual, Glenn's just trying to obfuscate and distract you from the potentially bigger issue here.

Have we just discovered that St. Ron was an even bigger monster than we all thought?

Now that my friends is a newsflash, isn't it?

If anyone out there has anything they can pass on my way about these questions, feel free to do so.

We were right back in July. Say, how come people who get paid to be journalists didn't connect the dots back then? Newsweek:

Now, NEWSWEEK has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration’s battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success—despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal. (Among the current administration officials who dealt with Central America back then is John Negroponte, who is today the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Under Reagan, he was ambassador to Honduras.)

---

[Originally posted July 17, 2004]

Just asking....

Bush has taken Ollie North's "covert, off-the-shelf" operations capability off the shelf, and He's using it to run a dirty war in the Middle East. Let's connect a few dots:

(1) dirty war kingpin Negroponte being appointed ambassador to the current Iraqi state,

(2) CIA creature Allawi shooting six insurgents in the head, immediately following his appointment the estimable Mr. Caulfield is all over this one; and Orcinus), whereupon Negroponte does a superb Sergeant Schulz imitation,

(3) the general who ran the torture wing at Abu Ghaib being put in charge of intelligence training (back here)

(4) an extra-constitutional chain of command ("Decoding the handwriting of The Fog Machine"

(5) spending that is not controlled by Congressional authority.

Doesn't this start to look exactly like the Latin American dirty wars that "our" government fought in the Reagan era? Sure looks like it to me. The same players, the same extra-constitutional techniques, the same goals.

Leaving aside the question of whether the nature of this dirty war was discussed with the American people, the basic question is this:

Will the strategy of dirty war that Bush has chosen scale to the Islamic world?

That is, assuming for a moment that the Reaganite dirty wars in Latin America can be considered a success, can we expect a successful replay in the (so-called) war on terror in the Middle East? The answer is almost certainly No.

1. Latin and Central American were in our own hemisphere. The Middle East is not. When fighting a dirty war in the Middle East, logistics, cultural and language issues, intelligence issues, are all orders of magnitude more difficult. And, although Negroponte has obviously been ordered to produce a client state, we have no client states in the Middle East, as we did in our own sphere of influence. (Even Israel, despite the billions we pay them, has a will of its own).

2. No other powers had vital interests in Latin America. Not so in the Middle East. The Middle East, unlike Latin American, is awash in the world's most addictive fluid: oil. We could fight our dirty wars in our own hemisphere without taking into account the needs, actions, or addictions of anyone but ourselves, our clients, and our opponents. In the Middle East, by contrast, the vital interests of Europe, Russia, China, and through Pakistan, India, are all involved. Here again, the balance of forces is an order of magnitude more difficult to manage than in our own backyard.

3. Latin American had no nukes. The Middle East does. Not only is Israel a nuclear power, Iran seeks to be. Worse, in nuclear Pakistan Musharraf could either be (a) is overthrown by the Islamic fundamentalists, or (b) play both ends against the middle by making common cause with them. Even worse, the Middle East has loose nukes everywhere, either as bombs from the former USSR or as dirty-bomb-suitable material (much from Iraq itself, which Rummy inexplicaby failed to secure). Here again, the risks of a dirty war in the Middle East are orders of magnitude greater than they were in Latin America.

4. For the Latin American dirty war, the Constitution could be bent. For the Middle Eastern dirty war, it must be broken. Reagan bypassed Congress's Constitutional funding authority for millions, for a limited objective, for a few years (an impeachable offense, though the Democrats, even then, didn't have the stones to call him on it). Bush is doing the same thing, for billions, for unlimited objectives, with no end in sight. Civil liberties are important, but the way to protect them is to control the funding of the executive. (Remember how Bush hagiographer Woodward reported that Bush blithely reallocated $700 million that Congress appropriated for Afghanistan to Iraq, without telling anyone?) A supposed constitutional republic that cannot control how the executive branch spends money is no longer either constitutional or a republic, but a dictatorship with a referendum every four years. Here again, the stakes of the Middle East are orders of magnitude higher than in Latin America.

5. The Latin American dirty war could be hidden from the average American. Not so in the Middle East. In Reagan's wars, minimal involvement by the average US citizen soldier was required; mercenaries could be used throughout. Not so in the Middle East; the scale is so great that ordinary citizens must become involved. In fact, it's the collision between the tactics and expectations of the dirty war fighters, on the one hand, with the tactics, expectations—and principles—of the citizen soldiers on the other, that has caused Bush so much trouble. The whistleblowers of Abu Ghraib are one example of the power that can be wielded by an outraged citizen soldier acting from principle. For Bush to put an end to this problem, He will have to redefine, for the entire country and for its citizen soldiers, what the United States is about: That we are a nation of torturers; that it is OK to set dogs on naked men; that it is OK to rape shrieking boys. Bush is performing The Stanford Experiment on a national scale; if He succeeds, he will have put in place the essential cultural underpinnings for an American version of the fascist state (Orcinus). Here again, the stakes are immeasurably greater in the Middle East than in Latin America.

6. In Latin America, the risk of blowback was minimal. Not so in the Middle East. In Latin America, what were the Sandinistas going to do? Invade Miami? In the Middle East, the stakes are greater, and the Bush administration has raised the stakes with a fundamentally unserious approach to the problem (For Bush's unseriousness on loose nukes, see "Reckless indifference the nightmare scenario").

Blowback from the Middle East will probably take the form of the loss of an American city to a loose nuke [or a dirty bomb] in the hands of a fundamentalist. However, since most target cities (even Washington, DC) are not part of the base—that is, not SIC, more likely to be gay, more likely to be immigrant, less likely to be white, and much more likely to vote Democratic—they are almost certainly regarded by the Bush administration as expendable. (The rhetoric of "cleansing fire" was already prepared in the aftermath of 9/11. Please refer all comments involving the words "tinfoil hat" to the Department of "No! They would never do that!")

So, yes, the stakes are great in November. Bush—on no authority but His own—has initiated a dirty war in the Middle East that we are almost certain to lose, because a strategy built for Latin America isn't going to scale to the Middle East. In prosecuting this dirty war, which will involve not only "terrorists" but Europe, Russia, and the rest of the Middle East, the United States is going to lose its character as a constitutional republic, plant the cultural seeds of fascism, and lose a city or two to nuclear weapons through blowback.

If you want that, vote for Bush in November. Sigh.

---

addendum: (by 'the farmer') On topic; not to forget Dan 'The Madman of Montevideo' Mitrione:

"The precise pain, in the precise place, in the precise amount, for the desired effect." ~ Dan Mitrione

Dan Mitrione did not introduce the practice of torturing political prisoners to Uruguay. It had been perpetrated by the police at times from at least the early 1960s. However, in surprising interview given to a leading Brazilian newspaper in 1970, the former Uruguayan Chief of Police Intelligence, Alejandro Otero, declared that US advisers, and in particular Mitrione, had instituted torture as a more routine measure; to the means of inflicting pain they had added scientific refinement; and to that a psychology to create despair, such as playing a tape in the next room of women and children screaming and telling the prisoners that it was his family being tortured. ~ William Blum, author of Killing Hope

Read more about Dan Mitrione back here - via 'farmrunoff' -- Tuesday, July 20, 2004: River of Painted Birds

*

I'm having a real crisis of conscience about this "weekend" thing. I mean, doesn't it interfere with the freedom of contract between employee and employer?

Vote early and often. And help with the server costs.

You remember Ketchum—the PR firm that the Republicans used as a cutout to funnel winger blowhard Armstrong "I am not a house boy" Williams $250,000 of taxpayer dollars, so he would propagandize for the No Child Left Behind Act while posing as an independent commentator? (Josh Marshall; Chicago Tribune; USA Today) Of course you do.

Not that there's anything remarkable about either the Bush administration using your money for propaganda, or breaking the law (here) to do it. In fact, that's all standard operating procedure for these guys:

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said that the administration's efforts make her "extremely nervous and uneasy."

"At first I thought it was an aberration, but now -- certainly with the Education Department -- it appears to be a pattern and I'm definitely wondering who else is on their payroll," she said.
(Seattle Post Intelligencer)

So are we, Lucy. So are we....

Anyhow, Ketchum is a sharp, forward-thinking outfit, and here are their views on the blogosphere:

What do you consider the next steps that public relations must take to ‘own’ blogs and be able to most effectively use this medium for companies and clients [like the Republican Party]?

Adam Brown: I think there is about to be a shakedown with blogs. Advertising is trying to own blogs the same way it took ownership of the Internet. But the way information is shared on a blog isn’t appropriate for advertising. Advertising is about a call to action. PR is more about information transfer and information sharing. It’s about changing someone’s thoughts, beliefs, emotions and perceptions of a company, product or brand. And that’s what blogs are about. I think we need to take the initiative and demonstrate what blogs are best suited for. Blogs are for information transfer, and PR is about information transfer, and that’s why the two go together.

Nicholas Scibetta: That’s a great point. PR has a snug fit with blogs. And we as practitioners need to embrace blogs wholeheartedly. We need to really dig deep to understand what the mindset of bloggers is and what we can do to foster mutually beneficial relationships with them. We are, as Adam said, different from advertising in terms of the call to action and the straight sell. The truth is you couldn’t have asked for a more organic development of a tool to emerge to suit the objectives of PR.

Um, "mutually beneficial" like $250,O00 worth of beneficial?

So, the question begs to be asked, doesn't it?

Has Ketchum already "taken the initiative," and are they funding anyone in the right-wing blogosphere?

I mean, the very same PR firm the Republicans have hired for a disinformation campaign says they want to "own" some blogs. Maybe we should take them at their word, and ask if they already do?

UPDATE In fact, maybe you'd like to ask Ketchum yourselves! Adam Brown, Nicholas Scibetta, and Ray Kotcher, CEO.

UPDATE Oliver Willis is all over this story.

UPDATE Alert reader Nancy asks:

Do you count paid Trolls in this? I am convinced some sites are targeted.

Nancy: Yes. I always thought the GOP Team Leader points were sufficient to account for troll infestations, but given the Armstrong story it makes sense that the trolls would be bought and paid for.

UPDATE Via ta at Loaded Mouth, Instapundit says he's virtuously declined "substantial amounts" to author OpEds. So, the money's out there. I wonder if all the wingers have been as pure-minded as InstaPundit?

This is from a couple days ago but I haven't seen anybody else pick it up. Doesn't sound like truth-telling is any more popular with the military than you might expect, but it doesn't sound like the truth-teller gives a whole great lot of a damn either:

(via Philadelphia Inquirer)

A Bucks County military doctor serving in Iraq says he was forced to shut down his Internet war diary last week after Army officials decided his gripping accounts of frontline medicine constituted a breach of Army regulations.

Maj. Michael Cohen, a doctor with the 67th Combat Support Hospital unit, had chronicled the bloody aftermath of the Dec. 21 mess-hall bombing in Mosul that killed 22. That account and 12 months of other postings on his Web log, www.67cshdocs.com, were replaced with a short notice:

"Levels above me have ordered, yes ORDERED, me to shut down this Web site. They cite that the information contained in these pages violates several Army Regulations," Cohen wrote, adding that he disagreed with the ban.

Military blogs have grown numerous since the invasion of Iraq, often providing a closer account of the war than traditional media. But such "milblogs" present a problem for military brass because the diaries are available to anyone with Internet access, including insurgents.

Cohen, 35, grew up in the Council Rock School District. Reached by e-mail yesterday, he said that he had shut down the site after receiving a written warning but that he had not been told how his blog had offended his superiors.

Cohen was chief emergency room doctor when the Mosul bombing happened. His postings chronicled life in a modern MASH unit, treating U.S. Stryker brigade troops and wounded Iraqi insurgents alike, and they were popular. Since the blog went offline last week, Cohen said, he has received 150 e-mails from people urging him to put the site back up.

Hmm, didn't they do a movie about a MASH unit one time? Seems like it was moderately successful, spawned a little TV show too. Dr. Cohen, you got enough material already. Have your people call my people, we'll get the scriptwriters going tomorrow. Everybody loves a sequel baby, you'll be a star.

Here.

Travel, and watch your money melt away before your eyes! Actually, the exchange rate is a lot more fabulous than it used to be: The Euro's only at 1.30 now....

We were all saddened when Paul Krugman lowered the worth-reading percentage of the New York Times by about 50% (Frank Rich being their other justification for killing trees) when he took off a few months ago "to write a book."

Well, apparently there really is a book. Rumor had it that it was to be a work on economics, but a hint appears that it might be Something Completely Different, as they say. A few snippets....and, oh yeah, please note that a certain Popular Item from the Liberal Lexicon has snuck into the home of the Gray Lady:

(via NYT)

Last but not least, in my bad novel the president, who portrays himself as the defender of good against evil, will preside over the widespread use of torture.

How did we find ourselves living in a bad novel? It was not ever thus. Hypocrites, cranks and scoundrels have always been with us, on both sides of the aisle. But 9/11 created an environment some liberals summarize with the acronym Iokiyar: it's O.K. if you're a Republican.

The public became unwilling to believe bad things about those who claim to be defending the nation against terrorism. And the hypocrites, cranks and scoundrels of the right, empowered by the public's credulity, have come out in unprecedented force.

Go read. Nothing that we (cough) here didn't already know, but a nice summary of facts for those teetering on the brink of tumbling off the Good Ship Bushiepop.

No, this is not the leadup to the old nun joke:

(via AP (via NYT, sorry))

The state's chief elections officer, accused of mishandling the presidential vote in Ohio, sent a fund-raising letter for his own 2006 gubernatorial campaign that was accompanied by a request for illegal contributions.
A pledge card with the letter from Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican who co-chaired the Bush-Cheney election campaign in Ohio, said ``corporate & personal checks are welcome.''

Corporate donations are illegal in Ohio.

Of course they blamed it on the printer, and no corporate donations were received, and if they HAD been received they would have been sent back quicker than a box of skunks...hmm, why did the vision of "a box of skunks" pop into my head just now? I must go brood on this, probably with the aid of drink. Blessed be the weekend.

Bear with me. It's a short read, and as far as I know only Corrente brings you things like this to chew on:

Then There's Only One Thing To (Dann Gibt Es Nur Eins!)

You. Man at the machine and man in the workshop. If they order you tomorrow to stop making water pipes and cook pots - and start making helmets and machine guns, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Girl behind the counter and girl at the office. If they order you tomorrow to fill hand grenades and mount scopes on sniper rifles, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Factory owner. If they order you tomorrow, to sell gun powder instead of talcum powder and cocoa, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Researcher in the laboratory. If they order you tomorrow, to invent a new death to do away with old life, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Poet in your room. If they order you tomorrow not to sing love songs, but songs of hate, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Doctor at the sick bed. If they order you tomorrow to certify men as fit for war, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Minister in the pulpit. If they order you tomorrow to bless murder and praise war as holy, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Captain on the steamer. If they order you tomorrow not to transport wheat - but cannons and tanks, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Pilot at the airfield. If they order you tomorrow to carry bombs and incendiaries over cities, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Tailor at your table. If they order you tomorrow to start sewing uniforms, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Judge in your robe. If they order you tomorrow to report to the military court, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Man at the train station. If tomorrow they order you to give the signal for the ammunition and the troop trains to depart, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Man in the village and man in the city. If they come for you tomorrow and with your induction papers, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO!

You. Mother in Normandy and mother in the Ukraine, you, mother in Frisco and London, you, on the banks of the Huang Ho and the Mississippi, you, mother in Nepal and Hamburg and Cairo and Oslo - mothers in all regions on earth, mothers all over the world, if they order you tomorrow to bear children - nurses for military hospitals and new soldiers for new battles, mothers all over the world, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! Mothers, say NO!

Because if you don't say NO, if YOU don't say no, mothers, then, then:

In the noisy port cities, hazy with steam, the large groaning ships will grow silent, and like titanic, mammoth corpses, filled with water, they will lethargically totter against the lifeless, lonely, algae-, seaweed-, and shell-covered walls of the docks, the body that previously appeared so gleaming and threatening now reeking like a foul fish cemetery, rotten, sickly and dead—the streetcars will be senselessly bent and dented like dull, glass-eyed birdcages and lie like petals beside the confused, steel skeletons of the wires and tracks, behind rotten sheds with holes in their roofs, in lost, crater-strewn streets—a mud-gray, heavy, leaden silence will roll in, voracious and growing in size, will establish itself in the schools and universities and theaters, on sport fields and children's playgrounds, horrible and greedy and unstoppable—the sunny, juicy grapes will spoil on the neglected slopes, the rice will dry up in the desolate earth, the potatoes will freeze in the plowed fields and the cows will stretch their dead, rigid legs into the sky like upturned milking stools—in the institutions, the ingenious inventions of the great physicians will become sour, rot, mold into fungus—the last sacks of flour, the last jars of strawberries, the pumpkins and the cherry juice will spoil in the kitchens, chambers and cellars, in the cold storage lockers and storage areas - the bread under the upturned tables and on splintered plates will become green and the melted butter will smell like soft soap, the grain on the fields will have bent down to the earth alongside rusty plows like a defeated army, and the smoking, brick chimneys, the food and smokestacks of the stamping factories, covered by eternal grass, will crumble, crumble, crumble—then the last human being, clueless with slashed intestines and polluted lungs, will wander alone under the poisonous, glowing sun and vacillating constellations, wander lonely among immense mass graves and cold idols of the gigantic, concrete-block, deserted cities, the last human being, scrawny, mad, blasphemous, complaining—and his terrible complaint: WHY? will trickle away unheard into the steppe, waft through the burst ruins and die out in the rubble of churches, slap against impenetrable bunkers, fall into pools of blood, unheard, answerless, the last animal-like cry of the last animal human being—all of this will come about, tomorrow, tomorrow perhaps, perhaps already tonight, if— if-if— you don’t say NO.

Yeah, I’ve been reading again. All of the above was written by Wolfgang Borchert, a conscript in the German Army in WWII, who did time twice for speaking his mind, was sent twice to the Eastern Front, and died of war-related illness at a young age shortly after the war was over after only writing for two years.

There’s a lesson in his words somewhere for Free America. As Marcuse was supposed to have said, "Zee only proper response to zee one-dimensional machine of destruction is complete rrrrrefusal!" No?

Via John Gorenfeld:
Moon movement VIP under consideration for top U.S. trade job

The Washington Post reports today that Josette Shiner is among five potential picks to to replace her boss, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, who has been tapped to be Condi Rice's #2 man.

Once described as the most "enigmatic" of the Moon operatives in the Washington Times newsroom, Shiner was appointed by George W. Bush to a lesser U.S. trade ambassador post earlier in his administration, raising eyebrows in D.C., MSNBC reported at the time.

Shiner joined Moon's organization early on, as a college student in 1975, when Moon was much more frank about calling for his followers to take power in the U.S. government, and forge an "automatic theocracy to rule the world."

For further details... see link above

*

Startling life altering confession from Paul Wolfowitz:

Pentagon's Wolfowitz Says He Staying in Bush Team

"I have been asked to stay and have accepted," Wolfowitz told Reuters through a spokesman. "I can't imagine life after Don Rumsfeld," he added, referring to his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Right-o then Wolfie - you - fucking - lunatic!... but, hey, there is no need to torture yourself any longer with such horrific post Rumsfeldian imaginings. Do yourself and all of U.S. a favor:

KILL YOURSELF NOW ~ BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!

*

Great news!

Newt Gingrich is taking steps toward a potential presidential bid in 2008.
(via AP)

Um, what about the Bush mandate?

UPDATE Oh, wait, Gingrish is just self-shilling his new book. Why was I imagining it was about anything other than money?

Points of interest: edward pig and Bark Bark Woof Woof each have posted comprehensive Liberal Coalition "Blogaround" listings. Which are brief summaries of individual posts of interest appearing on different Liberal Coalition blogs.

For full details, the contents of each listing, see:
[1] - edward pig's LC Blogaround

[2] - Bark Bark Woof Woof LC Blogaround

For instance: You can visit T Rex's Guide To Life and read along as he fields and responds to recent commenters suggestions, critiques, and general examinations. Such as this dandy observation below:

Kayla said:
You should try to examine whether or not youre using bias in your essays--it it quite obvious that youre liberal, since you use conservatives believe and liberals know.

At Left is Right I learned about P!:

P! = Progressive, Populist, Participatory, Productive

If you believe that we are in a State of Emergency . . . [...] P! will "officially" debut in mid- to late-January, 2005. In some ways, P! will be very much like other "lefty" blogs: analysis, commentary, essays, and so forth. [...]

...If you support the notions and values I've suggested here and can commit to (a) posting thoughtfully at least once each week and (b) participating in consensus management of editorial policy and site content/format, I invite you to consider being a Contributing Editor.

Take a peek at P!

So visit the Blogaround links/listings cited above and learn about all kinds of new and interesting stuff you probably weren't even previously aware of.

For second instance: How many of you knew...

There was Moses, for example, one of the greatest salesman and real estate promoters that ever lived. Read how he conducted the Promised Land project and consider the Israelites.

That's from a publication titled: "Moses, Persuader of Men," by Henry Cragin Walker. Published by the Metropolitan Casualty Insurance Company in 1927.

You probably would have never realized to what extent Moses was invested in the real estate development racket unless you had visited Corrente. You also probably never knew that Rudolph Valentino, at least according to his wife Miss Rambova, continued his career long after he was dead. Yup, its true - at least according to Miss Rambova - and who would know better than she. I ask ya.

*

"[BUSH] I know it's hard but it's hard for a reason,"
(via AP)

How wrong can one man be?

It was a little after 7 p.m. on election night 2004. The network exit polls showed John Kerry leading George Bush in both Florida and Ohio by three points. ... Bob Shrum, Kerry's friend and close adviser, couldn't resist the moment. "May I be the first to say 'Mr. President'?" said Shrum. The others cringed.
(via Newsweek)

As Aristotle says: "You are what you repeatedly do."

What the millionaire Beltway Dem Consultants like Shrum repeatedly do is LOSE—and then add insult to injury by stashing millions of dollars of our contributions in their bank accounts*. A cozy racket for them. Not so good for us. The Beltway Dem Consultants are the Washington Generals of American politics. It's time to get rid of them. A good way to start would be by tarring and feathering Bob Shrum and riding him out of town on a rail. A good way to follow up would be by joining your local Democratic organization and making some waves, like RDF is doing.

* Especially in 2004, after McCain-Feingold.

Well, it's nice to see at least one Beltway Dem who doesn't roll over when Bush tickles his belly—or applies the electrodes to his testicles*

From a paper in Dick Durbin's district:

WASHINGTON -- Testimony during a confirmation hearing did little to assuage doubts held by Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin regarding the ability of Alberto Gonzales to serve as U.S. attorney general.

Durbin said Gonzales' role in the policy-making "raises questions about his judgment. You can't really predict how someone is going to be (in the attorney general's position). All you can do is look at a person's record. That's why this is so troubling. He was involved in a decision that turned out to be a monumental blunder."

Gonzales' record in Texas government is also of concern to Durbin, particularly Gonzales' role in some 59 death penalty cases in the state.

"I asked him, point blank, if any American person, either government or military, could legally use torture. He said he'd have to get back to me," Durbin said. "I was stunned by his lack of an immediate answer."
(via Southern Illinoisan)

Of course, what I'd like to hear Durbin say is that he'll vote No. Here's hoping this article is a trial balloon.

You can contact Senator Durbin here.

NOTE Incidentally, there's a fine speech by Senator Durbin here in defense of the MoveOn ad that the Cowardly Broadcasting System censored.

* I know I'm making an assumption here, but bear with me, OK?

Crooked Timber has the quote. As they day, there's really no other way to interpret the Bible quotation that DéLay reads.

Pandering to the base while standing on the corpses of thousands—that's our modern Republican party!

Tinfoil hat boy asks a good question:

Since you're not voting for a Dem again, does that mean

a) you're not voting
b) you're voting republican
c) you're voting green
d) you're leaving the country
e) something else?

What if Barak Obama is our candidate in 2008 (won't happen, but just pretend): would you vote for him? Would you vote for Tom Harkin from Iowa? ...

After the election for about a week I ended all posts "We're so fucked," and somebody called me on it. It's true, but defeatist. I hear you telling me the Dems are Satan, but offering nothing constructive. We get it about the Dems being the second worst political party ever. Now what?

Now what, indeed?

Finally The "Craze Mass" decorations have been put away for another year, hidden deep in one of the underground bunkers of The Mighty Corrente Building, deeper even than the massive wine cellars and the mushroom farm.

What a weight off my mind, not having to worry about "the holidays" any more!

Oh, and as Xan says, vote early and often. We're still here, we're still as bleeding edge as ever, and this year we've brought on fine new writers. I honestly think we have the tightest, most truthful, most fearless, bitterest, most deeply pissed off, and oftentimes the funniest writing in the blogosphere today. Plus, we're the ones who Google-bombed Bush Mandate. Did that meme die fast, or what? And the secret sauce: FarmerToons™. I couldn't be prouder of all our work, and I expect great things in 2005. And FTF.

But the second round cutting for the 2004 Kouvax Awards is in progress over at Wampum.

Make George Bush cry. Make Jebbie realize he'll have to take his wife's name if he ever wants to be Preznit. Make Al "Abu" Gonzalez-Ghraib get a phantom pain in his genitals every time the word "torture" is spoken in his presence.

Or if you can't do any of those things, just go vote for us. Symbolic gestures count too.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

After 11/2, everything changed, and I decided to stop paying the Times Tax by purchasing the paper edition. And despite an occasional slip, I've succeeded, and the Times is poorer by $60 (the dailies) and $40 (the Sunday). Looks like there are others like me, since the The World's Greatest Newspaper (not!) is feeling a "troubling" revenue pinch:

"We are reviewing the [New York Times] site to see whether or not there would be any areas where we should change the business model [to subscription]," said the paper's spokeswoman, Catherine Mathis, according to a Reuters report.

The upcoming issue of BusinessWeek, which features a cover story on The New York Times Co., says there's been an internal debate on the question of subscriptions. "It gets to the question of how comfortable are we training a generation of readers to get quality information for free," Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., the paper's publisher, is quoted as saying in the article. "That is troubling."
(via Times)

Oh my. That's almost too rich: "quality information." Is that chutzpah, or what? Say, does Judy "Kneepads" Miller still have a job? Thought so. Talk to me, Arthur, when she doesn't.

Oh, and:

The Times site had about 18.5 million unique visitors in November, according to the Reuters report.

Interesting. That puts Kos in the same order of magnitude; about a quarter the size, but in striking distance, and rising fast in the league tables.

Like we said: Disintermediation (back).

Part of me hates to see The Times go into a death spiral, but at least I won't have to listen to Little Danny Okrent whine about how everything would be lovely if it weren't for those pesky readers (back).

Hey, it looks like Jebbie's got no problems hiring his fluffers, so why can't his Big Brother get His act together?

NEW YORK Just days after Florida Gov. Jeb Bush fired a top official over sexual-harassment allegations, Bush's office confirmed it has hired Lloyd Brown, former editorial-page editor of the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville, who resigned from the paper in November following public allegations of sexual harassment and plagiarism.

Well, it just shows that Republicans can always forgive and forget—other Republicans!

Brown, 65, quit the paper on Nov. 2 after a former editorial writer there, Billee Bussard, wrote an article in the local Folio Weekly that asserted that Brown watched Internet pornography in the paper's office and also conducted sexual conversations on the telephone while viewing the sexual material.

Any loofah involved? But let's be reasonable: What's a little pr0n, when the guy is open to fresh, new conservative thinking?

Brown generated national attention and staff protests in 2000, after writing an editorial that called the era of slavery in the U.S. "merely a small and shrinking part of the human condition." His paper ran a clarification, apologizing for any impressions that the editorial was "insensitive or demeaning."
(via Editor and Publisher)

"Small and shrinking," eh? That explains a lot. Poor guy...

Hey, I wonder if Brown was a small-time Armstrong Williams? On the VRWC take at the Florida Times-Union? Maybe that explains why Jebbie just had to hire him, now of all times....

Evil, and illegal, as torture is, what's worse is that the President can issue an executive "over-ride" to immunize lawbreakers against prosecution. Once it starts, where does it end? With the end of the rule of law, the overthrow of the Constitution, and Presidential rule by decree, that's where.

And the feckless Beltway Dems let Gonzales float like a butterfly and sting like a bee on this one. They can't even put him near the ropes, let alone on them. Read the whole sorry mess in Slate:

Remember what Dick Cheney said to Sen. Patrick Leahy this past June on the Senate floor? Think of Alberto Gonzales' testimony Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Leahy is the ranking Democrat, as the Bush administration's logical follow-up: "And your mother."

for most of Thursday's nearly nine-hour hearing the committee's Democrats wanted an answer to just one question: Does Gonzales think the president has the power to authorize torture by immunizing American personnel from prosecution for it?

During the hearing, Leahy called this idea, which comes from the August 2002 document dubbed the "Bybee memo," "the commander-in-chief override." And by hearing's end it was clear that Gonzales believed in it. (Otherwise, why not simply answer, "No"?)

Then comes the question of the day: "Now, as attorney general, would you believe the president has the authority to exercise a commander-in-chief override and immunize acts of torture?" Leahy asks. That's "a hypothetical that's never going to occur," Gonzales says, because we don't torture people. He continues, "This president has said we're not going to engage in torture under any circumstances, and therefore that portion of the opinion was unnecessary and was the reason that we asked that that portion be withdrawn." Translation: Yes, I think the president has the legal authority to immunize acts of torture, but he doesn't want to, so I'm not going to bother with defending the idea.

Finally, Harold Hongju Koh, a Yale professor of international law (and dean of the Yale Law School), solves the riddle—about the "commander-in-chief override" not the mysterious nanny—by proposing a simple question for Gonzales. He tells the Judiciary Committee, "A simple question you could have asked today was, 'Is the anti-torture statute constitutional?" If Gonzales answers yes, then he does not believe the president can override the statute. Mystery solved. Only one problem with this professorial inquiry: By the time Koh testified, Gonzales was already gone.
(via Slate)

Future Supreme Court nominee Gonzales says the President is now above the law. What the Republicans have always wanted under Nixon (Watergate), Reagan (Ira-Contra), now they have: Absolute power. (And, in a classic example of winger projection, "the rule of law" was what the whole $70-million-for-a-blowjob farce was supposed to be about).

Kiss the Constitution goodbye, folks...

Appreciate this. Understand that the people killing us in Iraq aren't motivated by Gore Vidal or inspired by Susan Sontag or organized by Michael Moore or in cahoots in any way with any of the right's celebrity piñatas - not literally, not metaphorically, not if you look at it in a certain way, not to any infinitesimal degree, not in any sense, not in any way at all. They do not lead a clandestine international conspiracy of Evil which has corrupted everything in every foreign country plus everything in America not owned by loyal Bush Republican apparatchiks; nor are they members of such a conspiracy; nor does a conspiracy remotely matching that description exist. To think otherwise is, literally and to a very great degree, insanity. It is insane.

And if you really want to help the American war effort, you can join the fucking armed forces and go to Iraq like thousands of others have, and then you can do the best job you can to show them that Americans care about them and want, above all else, for all of our futures to be better and more peaceful than the past, and get paid shit. You will then be my personal hero, really, and I hope you don't get killed or maimed or see or do something that makes you hate everything for the rest of your life, which is a very real possibility. If you, like me, are too much of a coward to risk your life and health on a mission like that, then you can donate to charities which help soldiers (although it is worth looking into where and what kind of help is needed – some places don’t need it as much as others). But the easiest thing you can do is influence the politicians who create the policies – and in some cases the military strategies - which are being carried out in Iraq, but to do this in a useful way you first have to make some contact with reality. Reality is that the situation in Iraq is horrible, the outlook for any lasting peace is grim, and that this has nothing to do with a nebulous, malignant, all-powerful “Left”, and everything to do with the people in power who make bad and stupid policies. You can pull your head out of your ass, stop dreaming up stupid conspiracy theories about how everyone around the world you don’t like is working together to destroy Freedom, and tell them that they need to do a better job. And if they won’t do a better job, the solution is not to get upset at people who aren’t waving their pom-poms or denouncing Saddam single-mindedly enough for you, it is to fire the fuck-ups so we can maybe have some chance at salvaging something from this fiasco.

…And, before you ask: no, I have no clue about how we can improve things in Iraq. I don’t have a single idea for how we can un-shit the bed, and I don’t hold out much hope that this whole bed-shitting episode is ever going to be brought to a lemony-fresh conclusion. I do, however, know who shit the bed, and have some sense of how frequently he shits there. Let’s stop shitting for a start.
(compliments of the Poorman)

Indeed.

Heh.

I've been meaning to link to that post by the Poorman for a couple of days now but have been distracted by this pesky job of mine.

I'm thinking I may have to open my first Constitutional History class on Monday night with a little discussion of the Gonzales nomination. Is it my imagination or do Bush's folks just not seem to understand that it doesn't matter whether the president has the authority to do such things it's that the president shouldn't do these things.

The important thing is that every human being has certain inalienable rights and that torture violates them. It's really quite simple. What's astonishing to me is that the folks in the "moral values" crowd are the ones arguing that it's really okay because the president has the authority.

You might say I've been writing about this for quite some time -- if you want to read a post of mine from January of 2002 on the subject, go here.

Josh Marshall has been all over this one.

Warning From a Student of Democracy's Collapse
By Chris Hedges - Jan 6, 2005 [NYTimes - link requires log-in]

FRITZ STERN, a refugee from Hitler's Germany and a leading scholar of European history, startled several of his listeners when he warned in a speech about the danger posed in this country by the rise of the Christian right. In his address in November, just after he received a prize presented by the German foreign minister, he told his audience that Hitler saw himself as "the instrument of providence" and fused his "racial dogma with a Germanic Christianity."

"Some people recognized the moral perils of mixing religion and politics," he said of prewar Germany, "but many more were seduced by it. It was the pseudo-religious transfiguration of politics that largely ensured his success, notably in Protestant areas."

[...]

...Dr. Stern, 78, the author of books like "The Politics of Cultural Despair: A Study in the Rise of the Germanic Ideology" and university professor emeritus at Columbia University, has devoted a lifetime to analyzing how the Nazi barbarity became possible. He stops short of calling the Christian right fascist but his decision to draw parallels, especially in the uses of propaganda, was controversial.

[...]

"When I saw the speech my eyes lit up," said John R. MacArthur, whose book "Second Front" examines wartime propaganda. "The comparison between the propagandistic manipulation and uses of Christianity, then and now, is hidden in plain sight. No one will talk about it. No one wants to look at it."

Dr. Stern was a schoolboy in 1933 when Hitler was appointed the German chancellor.

[...]

"There was a longing in Europe for fascism before the name was ever invented," he said. "There was a longing for a new authoritarianism with some kind of religious orientation and above all a greater communal belongingness. There are some similarities in the mood then and the mood now, although also significant differences."

HE warns of the danger in an open society of "mass manipulation of public opinion, often mixed with mendacity and forms of intimidation." He is a passionate defender of liberalism as "manifested in the spirit of the Enlightenment and the early years of the American republic."

"The radical right and the radical left see liberalism's appeal to reason and tolerance as the denial of their uniform ideology," he said. "Every democracy needs a liberal fundament, a Bill of Rights enshrined in law and spirit, for this alone gives democracy the chance for self-correction and reform. Without it, the survival of democracy is at risk. Every genuine conservative knows this."

One Nation Under Biblical Law:

Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ -- to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness. But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice. It is dominion we are after. Not just influence. It is dominion we are after. Not just equal time. It is dominion we are after.

World conquest. That's what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish. We must win the world with the power of the Gospel. And we must never settle for anything less... Thus, Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land -- of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ. ~ George Grant, former Executive Director of Coral Ridge Ministries, The Changing of the Guard, Biblical Principles for Political Action; pages 50-51.

Further Resource Link | Expert blog:
FREDERICK CLARKSON, author of Eternal Hostility: The Struggle Between Theocracy and Democracy. Read Theocracy vs. Democracy in America - Friday, December 31, 2004.

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What courage! Oh, wait, it's in Iraq:

"[BUSH]And it's exciting times for the Iraqi people. And it's so exciting there are some who are trying to intimidate people from going to the polls."
(via WaPo)

"Exciting..." I love it.

I don't even know what to say about the war anymore, it's so obviously hosed. Read the latest in The Atlantic, Especially William Langewiesche on real life in Baghdad today.

My gut take, FWIW, is that Iraq really will disintegrate, into the Shiite south, the Kurdish north (which already Israel is working toward, back), and the Sunni "heartland."

Maybe that would have been the right thing all along, since Iraq is really just a motley collection of provinces sintered together by the British Foreign Office on a bad day (back)
... But the real question is whether such an outcome would be in the interests of the US or not. It's hard to see how.

Unbelievable:

House Republican leaders, already unhappy with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) -- who they say blindsided them in 2003 on an important tax bill -- were grumbling anew about him yesterday when Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) seconded a House Democratic move to debate Ohio's electoral vote, thus requiring hours of pointless debate before the Republicans prevailed.

Democratic leaders apparently had tried to head Boxer off. House Republicans felt that Frist, off visiting countries battered by the tsunami, should have been around at least to try to help out "when we're trying to get the president elected," said one well-placed source in the House leadership.
(via Al Kamen in WaPo)

Oh? Which "leaders," plural—leading what and where pray tell?—would that have been?

What Bill Schorr said.

NOTE: With serious, serious apologies to Iggy Pop.

bought and paid for.

Your tax dollars at work. Because... Iokiyar!

White House paid commentator to promote law
By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY

Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.

The campaign, part of an effort to promote No Child Left Behind (NCLB), required commentator Armstrong Williams "to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts," and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004.

Williams said Thursday he understands that critics could find the arrangement unethical, but "I wanted to do it because it's something I believe in."

The top Democrat on the House Education Committee, Rep. George Miller of California, called the contract "a very questionable use of taxpayers' money" that is "probably illegal." He said he will ask his Republican counterpart to join him in requesting an investigation.

[...]

The contract, detailed in documents obtained by USA TODAY through a Freedom of Information Act request, also shows that the Education Department, through the Ketchum public relations firm, arranged with Williams to use contacts with America's Black Forum, a group of black broadcast journalists, "to encourage the producers to periodically address" NCLB.

[...]

The contract may be illegal "because Congress has prohibited propaganda," or any sort of lobbying for programs funded by the government, said Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "And it's propaganda."

[...]

Williams' contract was part of a $1 million deal with Ketchum that produced "video news releases" designed to look like news reports. The Bush administration used similar releases last year to promote its Medicare prescription drug plan, prompting a scolding from the Government Accountability Office, which called them an illegal use of taxpayers' dollars.

Ah the old VNR's once again. I'm sure the cheery LRWM truckles at CNNMSGOPFOXNoise etc...etc..etc... will be "outraged", I tell you!, positively "outraged!". Oh sure they will be. And a Democratic Party sponsored "investigation" to boot! --- Oooo, those things are sooo scary.

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UPDATE A useful letter from Media Matters.

Dick Myer at CBS throws some cold water on the leg humpers:

...Against the Grain commentary.

I am shocked (not “shocked, shocked” but sincerely shocked) that Gonzales will get a single Democratic vote, much a relatively less easy confirmation. And I would have expected that some Republicans -- the ones who profess deep belief in the American mission of fostering Arab democracy, the ones who have renounced Secretary Rumsfeld, like McCain, Hagel, Lugar – would be struggling with their votes, too. But no.

If the Democrats in Congress are willing to stand for anything, it seems to me, they ought to be standing against the Gonzales nomination. “Fight” was the favorite verb of the past two democratic presidential candidates: fight for the little guy, the patient, the pensioner and fight against the rich, mighty and powerful.

Here’s a fight worth having and the Democrats are settling for aggressively-intoned hearing questions and hand-wring aye votes.

The Gonzales hearing was a kabuki hazing. The most revealing and thus absurd moment came when Sen. Joe Biden harangued Gonzales for sidestepping tough questions, "This is not about your intelligence, this hearing is not about your competence, it's not about your integrity - it's about your judgment and your candor," he said. "We're looking for candor, old buddy. I love you, but you're not very candid so far."

[...]

The fact that Gonzales is a Latino with a compelling life story is clearly putting handcuffs on the hapless Democrats. And what an irony it is that the Republicans are benefiting from a policy Republicans so routinely berate – essentially, it’s affirmative action.

[...]

Four years ago, the Democrats rolled over on the Ashcroft nomination. Then they rolled over on the Bush tax cuts, the authority to invade Iraq, the Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind and the Medicare reforms. None of that did them one lick of good in November.

If the Democrats have the gumption to fight about anything, it ought to be about this nomination. But it appears they don’t.

Ah, the old look, over there!, a "compelling life story" trick... where have I heard that one before? Oh yeah, now I remember

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1- Paul Krugman spoons a few from the stew and serves em up for you. [For NYTimes links below: registration/sign-in not required]:

Worse Than Fiction - by PAUL KRUGMAN - Jan 7, 2005

I've been thinking of writing a political novel. It will be a bad novel because there won't be any nuance: the villains won't just espouse an ideology I disagree with - they'll be hypocrites, cranks and scoundrels. [...] In my bad novel, a famous moralist who demanded national outrage over an affair and writes best-selling books about virtue will turn out to be hiding an expensive gambling habit. A talk radio host who advocates harsh penalties for drug violators will turn out to be hiding his own drug addiction.

Because...Iokiyar.

2- Bob Herbert pokes Alberto Gonzales in the forehead and tells him to get the fuck lost. Which, unfortunately, the wilting dotards of the Democratic Party are too frightened to do themselves. Promoting Torture's Promoter, by Bob Herbert -Jan 7, 2004

Alberto Gonzales, the nominee for United States attorney general, has already shamed us.

Because...Iokiyar.

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