R's starting to think for themselves...? In KANSAS...?

holy crap...! if bush is pissing off republicans in KANSAS, can OKLAHOMA and UTAH be far behind...?

The squat, bunker-like building in a south Topeka suburb does not look like a place to turn American politics on its head. Nor does Mark Parkinson, a tall, affable man, look too much like a revolutionary. But here, deep in the American heartland, are the warning signs of a political earthquake.

The two-storey office block is Parkinson's campaign headquarters as he runs as Democrat candidate for deputy governor. So far, so normal. Except that only a few weeks ago Parkinson was a Republican. In fact, he was Kansas Republican party chairman.

His defection to the Democrats sent shockwaves through a state deeply associated with the national Republican cause and the evangelical conservatives at its base. Nor was it just Parkinson's leave-taking that left Republicans spluttering with rage and talking of betrayal. It was that as he left Parkinson lambasted his former party's obsession with conservative and religious issues such as gay marriage, evolution and abortion.

Sitting in his headquarters, the new Democrat is sticking to his guns. Republicans in Kansas, he says, have let down their own people. 'They were fixated on ideological issues that really don't matter to people's everyday lives. What matters is improving schools and creating jobs,' he said. 'I got tired of the theological debate over whether Charles Darwin was right.'

"fixated on ideological issues that really don't matter to people's everyday lives..." yes, true enough... now, if he can just grasp the fact that the fixation has also included ripping the u.s. constitution and bill of rights to shreds, placing the nation in financial jeopardy that may take generations to get out from under, and trying to unilaterally extend the u.s. global empire to the far corners of the world, he will have a more complete picture...

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Aw, c'mon, Brooks...! Stick a sock in it... You know NOTHING about DailyKos...

if the poor sap would spend just a couple of days actually READING daily kos, doing the research that one supposedly has the right to expect from a nyt columnist, he could plainly see that there isn't a soul on kos who feels constrained from taking their own course... the only ones that get banned or censured are the ones that violate the norms of reasonable decency or deliberately lie in an attempt to cause trouble... sure, just like anywhere else (the nyt possibly?), there can sometimes be groupthink but, by and large, kos is the most community-oriented, leaderless weblog on the internet...

"The Keyboard Kingpin, aka Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, sits at his computer, fires up his Web site, Daily Kos, and commands his followers, who come across like squadrons of rabid lambs, to unleash their venom on those who stand in the way," writes Brooks. "And in this way the Kingpin has made himself a mighty force in his own mind, and every knee shall bow."

this is the most childish screed imaginable coming out of a newspaper that seems to think it's earned a reputation for credibility... gimme a break... all i can do after reading something like this is to chuckle ruefully and shake my head... what garbage...!

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Argentina meets Mexico

...vs...

having traveled extensively and lived for a while in mexico and currently living part-time in argentina, i have mixed loyalties... ok, nah... i'm for argentina but i hope it will be one heck of a game...

it's about to start... follow it here...

[UPDATE AND BUMP]

WHAT A GAME...!!

ARGENTINA 2 MEXICO 1

IN OVERTIME...!!

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Malkin supports the State Security Apparatus repressing the freedom of the press

would we expect anything less...?

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Agreeing with Obama

(from a speech by Barack Obama, a U.S. senator from Illinois, at the Take Back America conference on June 14, 2006...)

i've heard very few major political figures of any stripe have the courage to call the bushco strategy for what it is - social darwinism...

The problem is not that the philosophy of this administration is not working the way it's supposed to work; the problem is that it is working the way it's supposed to work. They don't believe -- they don't believe that government has a role in solving national problems because they think government is the problem. They think that we're better off if we just dismantle government; if, in the form of tax breaks, we make sure that everybody's responsible for buying your own health care and your own retirement security and your own child care and your own schools, your own private security forces, your own roads, your own levees.

It is called the "ownership society" in Washington. But, you know, historically there has been another term for it; it's called "social Darwinism"...

and, so, as progressives and liberals, what is it that we want in its place...? corny as it may sound, it's really nothing more or less than the golden rule...

[Americans] know the government can't solve all their problems, but they expect the government can help because they know it's an expression of what they're learning in Sunday school. What they learn in their church, in their synagogue, in their mosque - a basic moral precept that says that I have to look out for you and I have responsibility for you and you have responsibility for me, that I am your keeper and you are mine. That's what America is.

and he echoes a very deep passion of mine - the need for leadership...

We're tired of being divided. We are tired of running into ideological walls and partisan roadblocks. We're tired of appeals to our worst instincts and our greatest fears. So I say this to you guys, that America is desperate for leadership. I absolutely feel it everywhere I go. They are longing for direction and they want to believe again.

i have a thing about leadership, primarily because i see so very damn little of it in today's world... and, i believe it is not only americans who are crying out for authentic leadership, i believe the WORLD is crying out for it...

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Cheney's megalomania surfaces (again)

you knew it was time for dr. evil to bestir himself in order to make a passionate defense of the executive branch doing what it goddam well pleases without being accountable to anyone, insisting that it's the right thing to do, bristling at even a hint that it might be inappropriate or illegal, and angry that somebody found out about it...

Vice President Dick Cheney said a secret program allowing U.S. officials to examine thousands of private banking records around the world was a legal and "absolutely essential" weapon in the war on terror, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

[...]

Cheney said the Bush administration knew it would likely be criticized for the program -- as it was for the warrant-less eavesdropping of phone calls -- but said it was necessary.

[...]

"They're carried out in a manner that is fully consistent with the constitutional authority of the president of the United States. They are absolutely essential in terms of protecting us against attacks."

[...]

"What I find most disturbing about these stories is the fact that some of the news media take it upon themselves to disclose vital national security programs, thereby making it more difficult for us to prevent future attacks against the American people," he said. "That offends me."

thank god for the small segment of the news media who still take it as their responsibility to keep the citizens of our formerly free republic informed about what our government is up to...

put your hands together for uncle "big-time" d, the man who's making sure we all stay safe...

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This moment of refreshment brought to you by Mother Nature

the sun has already set over the low hills in the northwest, but its rays are creating a brilliant display on the canvas of the thunderheads in the southeast... a truly spectacular nevada friday evening...

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More government attempts to stifle the press

[UPDATE AND BUMP]

(check the update with the john snow quote at the end...)

how much DOESN'T get reported due to government pressure...? how much DOESN'T get reported because no one has found out about it yet...?

Treasury Department officials spent 90 minutes Thursday meeting with the newspaper's [LA Times] reporters, stressing the legality of the program and urging the paper to not publish a story on the program [the government's inspection of monies flowing in and out of the country], McManus said in a telephone interview.

[...]

Administration officials were concerned that news reports of the program would diminish its effectiveness and could harm overall national security.

"It's a tough call; it was not a decision made lightly," said Doyle McManus, the Los Angeles Times' Washington bureau chief. "The key issue here is whether the government has shown that there are adequate safeguards in these programs to give American citizens confidence that information that should remain private is being protected."

get real... there ARE no adequate safeguards... the government is not going to ALLOW adequate safeguards... they will use the information for precisely what they please and leave it to us to guess what those purposes might be...

[UPDATE]

John Snow, the treasury secretary, said yesterday the administration had not intruded unduly on Americans' privacy.

unduly...?? WTF...!! and just precisely who is going to be the arbiter of "UNDULY...?"

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N. Carolina - Fahrenheit 451 and "wowsers"

it's comforting to know there are concerned people out there who are determined to make sure you are forced to do what THEY think is good for you...

The author of what has been described as the definitive dictionary of slang is gobsmacked, gutted, throwing up bunches, honked, hipped, and jacked like a cock-maggot in a sink-hole. A North Carolina school district has banned the dictionary under pressure from one of a growing number of conservative Christian groups using the internet to encourage school book bans across the US.

Jonathon Green, who compiled the 87,000 entries in the Cassell Dictionary of Slang, which was published last year, said that North Carolina is the only place he knows of where the book cannot be used in schools.

[...]

"I'm very flattered," said Mr Green on Friday. "It's not exactly book-burning but, in the great tradition of book censorship, there never seems to be the slightest logic to it." He said that there were around 80 words in the dictionary that could sum up his reaction. The word that he would use for those who had pushed for the ban, he said, was "wowser", a 1910 Australian term for a "Bible-banging" puritan.

and this was hard on the heels of...

The ban comes a week after a children's book about Cuba was removed from Miami-Dade County school libraries because it painted too rosy a picture of life on the island. There were objections to pages reading: "People in Cuba eat, work, and go to school like you do".

no, they don't... they're miserable, 24/7/365... how can we be filling the heads of our children with this propaganda...? cubans aren't people, certainly not like WE are...! shocking...! absolutely SHOCKING...!!

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Tony Snow: he doesn't have answers so he attacks (disguised as humor, of course)...

didn't anyone ever teach him to respect his elders...?

(from raw story's coverage about today's wh press conference, specifically questions concerning the government's spying on banking transaction data...)

Snow: When did you know about SWIFT before? (Laughter.)

Unidentified reporter: While I don't, I can assure you that people in the financial community know.

Snow: I guarantee you -- you go talk to your local banker, you talk about a lot of --

Thomas: Is it legal?

Snow: It is legal, Helen. See --

Thomas: What is the law that allows you to --

Snow: I'll tell you what, we will attach -- we'll get our lawyers to attach all this and it will just glaze your eyes.

Thomas: (Inaudible) -- give me the law.

Snow: I am going to give you the law.

Go ahead.

Thomas: You don't even know.

Snow: You're absolutely right, I do not know the specific statute, which is why I will present it to you.

Unidentified reporter: But again, why go to the extraordinary effort of trying to get news media to inform people what their government is doing?

Thomas: Do you not understand the difference between private companies and --

Snow: I understand -- I do understand. But what I'm saying here is what the public -- I'll tell you what, you ask the American public: Do you want -- do you think you have a right to know the specific means and methods by which --

Thomas: That's not the --

Snow: Helen, will you stop heckling and let me conduct the press conference? (Laughter.) Well no, I'm making an argument and you're pestering the teacher.

white house press conferences should be filled with nothing but helen thomases...

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TDS is good for politics and citizen participation

marty kaplan nails it in the huffpo...

Young Daily Show viewers blame the elites who run the political-media system for the mess we're in, not themselves. They think they really get what politics is actually all about. And, says the study, here's an idea worth entertaining: "citizens who understand politics are more likely to participate than those who do not."

marty sees through the slanted view taken by the wapo and pegs it to the same bullshit being peddled by lee siegel in tnr (see earlier post)...

Is there a reason that the Washington Post piece dwelt exclusively on the half-empty side of the argument? I suppose that reflecting what the study actually says -- on the one hand, on the other hand -- just wouldn't have cut it for a column. And making the half-full case exclusively instead -- Jon Stewart, Fighter for Democracy -- might not have gone over well in a town whose media and political elites don't much like being nailed on television as the dickwads and asshats that they are.

the number of people with any reach at all who are courageous enough to speak truth to power in this country is distressingly few... thank god for jon stewart... it's just a shame that we have to get that level of reality in a comedy show...

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Terrorist wannabes...

Oh. My. God. do you suppose the media is catching on...?

In a BBC news broadcast today, Miami Herald reporter Mani Garcia remarks that the government's arrest of seven men in connection with a 'plot' to blow up the Sears Tower is probably overblown.

"They've been described to us by sources as 'wannabes' -- still to be determined if making a connection about talking about doing an attack and and being able to finance an attack," Garcia said. "We've seen previous cases where the Federal government has announced with great hoopla breaking terrorist cells. And when you start deconstructing a case, you see that there's a lot of talk."

it's really hard to conduct a good p.r. campaign when folks start questioning your news releases... what's a body to do...? they might have to resort to something REALLY radical, like capturing osama...

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Rove and Satan... When newspapers accidentally print the truth...

i've long maintained a close relationship if not a biological link...



(click image for link)

yeah, it was a satire and, yeah, the byline of the satirist was left off and, yeah, it was a mistake, but...

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Oh, the tackiness of it all...!

squeeze THIS sponge and you'll get a basin full of the most revolting kind of elitism and condescencion...

It's a bizarre phenomenon, the blogosphere. It radiates democracy's dream of full participation but practices democracy's nightmare of populist crudity, character-assassination, and emotional stupefaction. It's hard fascism with a Microsoft face.

[...]

Even beyond the thuggishness, what I despise about so many blogurus, is the frivolity of their "readers." DailyKos might have hundreds of responses to his posts, but after five or six of them the interminable thread meanders into trivial subjects that have nothing to do with the subject that briefly provoked it. The blogosphere's lack of concentration is even more dangerous than all its rage. In the Middle East, they struggle with belief. In the United States, we struggle with attention. The blogosphere's fanaticism is, in many ways, the triumph of a lack of focus.

yes, you moron, it's called open discussion, discussion that isn't framed for us by the likes of YOU...! ask yourself, assuming you haven't already drowned in the rain because your nose is stuck up so high in the air, why the blogosphere has become so wildly popular... hmmmmm...? do you suppose, possibly, that there's a severe backlog of A NEED TO DISCOVER AND DISCUSS out there, A NEED TO DISCOVER AND DISCUSS MATTERS THAT ARE ACTUALLY IMPORTANT, THAT WE OURSELVES HAVE DECIDED ARE ACTUALLY IMPORTANT...??

i've spent well over half my life trying to piece together enough information to feel like i might actually be looking at something that resembles truth... it wasn't until the internet and the blogosphere came along that i actually began to feel that i wasn't engaged in an empty exercise...

as a sidenote, i would bet good money that you wouldn't think of setting foot in a walmart or any other place else where real working people hang out...

(thanks to atrios...)

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Why does Congress hate Americans (except the rich, of course)...?

adding riches to the rich...

Two weeks ago, the Senate killed an effort to repeal the federal estate tax on multimillion-dollar fortunes. The "no" votes were a stand for budget sanity and basic fairness. But the pro-repeal camp doesn't want to take no for an answer.

Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed an estate-tax cut that is a repeal in everything but name. The so-called compromise would exempt more than 99.5 percent of estates from tax, slash the tax rates on the rest and cost at least $760 billion during its first full decade. Of that, $600 billion is the amount the government would have to borrow to make up for lost revenue from the cuts, which would benefit the heirs of America's wealthiest families, like the Marses of Mars bar and the Waltons of Wal-Mart Stores. The remaining $160 billion is the interest on that borrowing, which would be paid by all Americans.

making sure the poor stay poor...

Senate Democrats tried unsuccessfully this week to raise the federal minimum wage, which stands at just $5.15 an hour. It has not been increased in nearly a decade, and at its current stingy level, the rate flies in the face of Americans' belief that those who work hard and play by the rules will be rewarded. A minimum-wage worker earns just $10,700 a year, nearly $6,000 below the poverty line for a family of three.

and, never one to shrink from telling it like it is, jon stewart says...

Congress Shits on the Poor

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Dr. Evil - watch him online [UPDATE] then think about him under oath...

pbs has "the dark side" available for viewing online...

[UPDATE]

Vice President Dick Cheney said Thursday he might have to testify in the CIA leak trial of his former chief of staff.

Cheney made the comment in a CNN interview, following last month's suggestion by prosecutors that the vice president would be a logical witness in the case of I. Lewis Libby, who is accused of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI.

Libby is "one of the finest men I've ever known," Cheney said, then declined further comment. "I may be called as a witness."

just thinking about him sweating on the stand, under oath, makes me positively tingly all over...

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The hits just keep on comin'...

more stuff you didn't know about...

The U.S. government, without the knowledge of many banks and their customers, has engaged for years in a secret effort to track terrorist financing by reviewing confidential information on transfers of money between banks worldwide.

The program, run by the Treasury Department, is considered a potent weapon in the war on terrorism because of its ability to clandestinely monitor financial transactions and map terrorist webs.

Current and former officials at multiple U.S. agencies acknowledged the program's existence, but spoke on condition of anonymity, citing its sensitive nature. "We're very, very protective of it," said a senior U.S. official familiar with the program. "It is extremely valuable."

the thing that troubles me about this shit is that the information can be used in so many ways that we know NOTHING ABOUT... there is no oversight, no checks, no balances, no watchdogs, nada, zip, zero, zilch... they can do whatever they want with the information and we'll never know, unless and until something hits us from left field and, even then, we'll probably be left to guess what the hell happened...

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Sorry, Mr Vargas...

we don't care that you're married to an american citizen... we don't care that you started a business here and contributed to the economy as a good citizen should... we don't care that you've been here 20 years... you can now pack your bags and get the hell out...

The Supreme Court has said a deported Mexican who lived in the US for 20 years cannot seek legal residency, in a blow to long-term illegal immigrants.

[...]

Mr Fernandez Vargas was born in Mexico but worked north of the border in the 1970s, when he was deported several times.

He returned to the US in the early 1980s and then stayed for more than 20 years, marrying an American citizen and starting a company.

When he applied for citizenship he was deported under a law that streamlines the expulsion process for illegal migrants.

i had a conversation with a woman from india just last evening... she and her family are planning to move back to india within a few years... she says that when she tells that to friends and acquaintances, they're astounded... "why would you ever want to leave the u.s. and go back THERE," they say... "do you know india?" she asks, "have you ever been there...?" "no," they respond, "but why would you ever want to leave HERE...?" think about it, folks... why, indeed...

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Dick Cheney is an unscrupulous, manipulative, lying bastard

stronger letter to follow...

"What the Democrats are suggesting basically you can call it withdrawal, you can call it redeployment, whatever you want to call it, basically it's -- in effect, validates the terrorist strategy," Cheney said.

it ain't even ABOUT terrorists, dead-eye, you lying sack... it's about sectarian violence, the hobgoblins of shia-sunni animosity held in check for years by saddam's rigid authoritarian rule and now set loose by a horribly ill-conceived, unbelievably poorly executed war, undertaken by the united states on the basis of lies to secure a global monopoly on energy resources... if there was such a thing as instant karma, uncle d, you would have been struck dead by lightning long ago...

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My man, Russ...

and THIS is only part of why i'm drawn more and more to this guy...

Q: You don’t take pay raises on principle, right?

RF: I only take a pay raise when I’m reelected. So for six years, if there’s any pay raises, I write a check every two weeks to the federal treasury. It has cost me, hmm, about 60,000 bucks.

Q: And do you also have rules about what your staff can do?

RF: They have to follow the zero-tolerance-for-freebies rule.

Q: That’s not the way they do business in Washington.

RF: Noooo. In fact, my latest routine is when somebody—you know, on the floor of the Senate, I’m going, “Look, we really shouldn’t have free meals bought by others.” And some senator says, “Well, how am I gonna have dinner with my friend the banker?” And I say, “This is how. [opens wallet, takes out Visa card] You take this thing out and you say to the waiter, ‘Would you be willing to give us separate checks?’ And you split the bill.”

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Congress is trying to find out what the White House is doing

oferchrissakes...! a supposedly equal arm of government is being deliberately kept in the dark by another supposedly equal arm of government...? what have they done with the united states of america...? i want it back...!

[A]d hoc briefings are part of an effort by Congress to learn what the Executive Branch is doing with its foreign policy. The briefings, however, are treated as classified and no information is available on who has attended or what has been discussed.

According to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Congress has not been briefed on an offer to help Iran develop some nuclear technologies if they abandoned plans to enrich uranium.

"To the best of my knowledge, Congress has not yet been briefed on any of the key details of the deal offered to Iran a few weeks ago," Reid said on the Senate floor this week. "The Iranians have been briefed, the Europeans have been briefed, the Russians have been briefed, the Chinese have been briefed -- but not the U.S. Senate."

how pathetic that it's come to this...

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Shiite cleric would "rather see Iraq under Saddam Hussein than the way it is now."

what hath we wrought...?

National Public Radio foreign correspondent Loren Jenkins, serving in NPR's Baghdad bureau, met earlier this month with a senior Shiite cleric, a man who was described in the NPR report as "a moderate" and as a person trying to lead his Shiite followers into practicing peace and reconciliation. He had been jailed by Saddam Hussein and forced into exile. Jenkins asked him: "What would you think if you had to go back to Saddam Hussein?" The cleric replied that he'd "rather see Iraq under Saddam Hussein than the way it is now."

william blum in counterpunch offers a distressing summary of exactly how horrible post-saddam life in iraq really is...

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You wanna talk about obscenity...?

i've got your obscenity right here...

Chief executive officers in the United States earned 262 times the pay of an average worker in 2005, the second-highest level in the 40 years for which there is data, a nonprofit think-tank said on Wednesday.

In fact, a CEO earned more in one workday than an average worker earned in 52 weeks, said the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

The typical worker's compensation averaged just under $42,000 for the year, while the average CEO brought home almost $11 million, EPI said.

there's an incontrovertible and little-discussed fact that should never be overlooked... it is the front-line employees in any organization who do the ACTUAL WORK of that organization... whether we're talking about private sector or public sector, for profit or nonprofit, the products or services of the organization issue directly from the efforts of those actually making the product or performing the service... everything else is there to support their effort... unfortunately, our priorities are so incredibly screwed up, we lose sight of that very simple and fundamental reality...

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The Abramoff net is catching some very interesting fish

(from tpm muckraker...)

Everybody who's been paying attention to the Abramoff scandal knows that when Ralph Reed, the boy-king of the Christian right, went to work for Jack Abramoff's Indian casino clients (his job was to roust grassroots Christians against competiting [sic] gambling platforms), he got skittish about accepting money from the tribes directly, since he's, you know, supposed to be anti-gambling. So he used non-profits, like Grover Norquist's American for Tax Reform, as pass-throughs to disguise the origin of the funds.

But it's refreshing to hear the Senate Indian Affairs Committee not mince words in their report. As part of their retelling of Abramoff's work for the Mississippi Choctaws, the report provides a damning blow-by-blow of how Reed came on this scheme, and how Norquist got started accepting a "management fee" (read: laundering fee) for his services.

The report is unequivocal. According to the Choctaw's planner, Nell Rogers, the tribe agreed to launder the money because "Ralph Reed did not want to be paid directly by a tribe with gaming interests." And at one point, she told the committee, Norquist became "nervous" about laundering the money. (But apparently not too nervous, because he kept on doing it.)

maybe we can shrink grover down to the size where he can be drowned in the bathtub...

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Rove's "cut-and-run" talking point: how infectious disease spreads

maybe we need to call in the centers for disease control...

During an interview with Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-DE) on the June 20 edition of CNN's Paula Zahn Now, Zahn claimed that the Democratic Party is "getting creamed as the party of cut-and-runners, the wobbly, the weak." Noting that Senate Democrats have offered different proposals for withdrawing troops from Iraq, Zahn then asked Biden: "[D]o you understand why that divisiveness compromises the credibility of your party?"

don't bother to think for yourself, paula, or take any time whatsoever to touch base with reality so that what tumbles out of your mouth might in any way connect with the truth...

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R's rage at Bush...? Take a number...

(see previous post...)

Maybe it's the early summer heat, but something has caused House Republicans to boil with rage this week -- and to direct much of it at President Bush and his administration.

tough cookies, george... since congress is pissed even to the extent of looking into the nsa phone records business, the polls don't seem to be bouncing, n. korea isn't going to give you a chance to shoot down their missile, the violence in iraq shows no signs of abating, and the europeans think you're a worse threat than iran, maybe you ought to try flying back to baghdad for another photo-op - only this time, spend the night...

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US forces may soon be asked to leave Iraq

when richard armitage speaks, it's not a bad idea to listen...

[F]ormer US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage has given a gloomy assessment of the situation.

"The British used to make a big deal of walking around in their berets in the south," he said. "Now they won't even go to the latrines without their helmets. The south has got much rougher, it's mainly Shia on Shia violence."

Mr Armitage said much of the violence came from differences over how the Islamic religion should be interpreted.

And he said he believed the Iraqis would soon ask the US to leave their country.

butwaittheresmore...

Mr Armitage was equally gloomy about Afghanistan, especially in the south, where violence was worsening...

and here's a nice visualization to take to bed with you this evening...

Mr Armitage believes Iraq is still a big drag on Republicans.

He said "many Republicans are running away from the President" as they prepared for the forthcoming mid-term congressional elections.

nobody i'm reading is using the term "radioactive" just yet, but it can't be too far away...

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Padilla case "very light on facts" and the judge doesn't like it

this is good... a judge sticking up for due process and demanding that the government start making a real case instead of baseless allegations and throwing around all this enemy combatant and indefinite detention crap...

A federal judge ordered prosecutors to turn over more evidence to back up allegations that Jose Padilla and two co-defendants conspired to kill, injure or kidnap people overseas as part of a global Islamic terrorist network.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke said Tuesday she agreed with claims made by defense attorneys that the indictment against Padilla and the others is "very light on facts" that would link the defendants to specific acts of terrorism or victims.

"We are so shooting in the dark," said Jeanne Baker, one of the attorneys representing defendant Adham Amin Hassoun. "The government has to tell us, what are these acts they conspired to commit?"

[...]

Cooke ordered the government to flesh out its charges by providing defense lawyers with names of unindicted co-conspirators, broad descriptions of intended victims of alleged acts of violence and specifics about false statements Hassoun allegedly made about the meaning of phone calls intercepted by the government.

[...]

Padilla was designated an "enemy combatant" and held for 3 1/2 years without charge by the Bush administration shortly after his May 2002 arrest. He was accused then of plotting to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a major U.S. city.

Padilla was added as a defendant in the Miami terror support cell case last year amid a legal struggle over President Bush's authority to hold him indefinitely.

this shit has to cease...

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Flashbacks to Lily Tomlin - one ringy-dingy

why...? because we're the phone company... we don't have to...

AT&T has issued an updated privacy policy that takes effect Friday. The changes are significant because they appear to give the telecom giant more latitude when it comes to sharing customers' personal data with government officials.

The new policy says that AT&T -- not customers -- owns customers' confidential info and can use it "to protect its legitimate business interests, safeguard others, or respond to legal process."

The policy also indicates that AT&T will track the viewing habits of customers of its new video service -- something that cable and satellite providers are prohibited from doing.

bite me... my data is MY data... the only reason you have it is because i've provided it to you in return for a service... i didn't SELL it to you and you sure as shit DON'T OWN IT...

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Nat'l Security Strategy says no attack on Iran

hmmm... evidently it pays to read these documents very closely...

Despite the constant invocation of a possible military attack on Iran, however, a little-noticed section of the administration's official national security strategy indicates that Bush has already decided that he will not use military force to try to prevent Iran from going nuclear.

Instead, the administration has shifted its aim to pressing Iran to make internal political changes, based on the dubious theory that it would lead to a change in Iranian nuclear policy.

News coverage of the U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) issued Mar. 16 emphasised its reference to the doctrine of preemption. But a careful reading of the document reveals that its real message -- ignored by the media -- was that Iran will not alter its nuclear policy until after regime change has taken place.

my hunch is that international pressure against an attack on iran is so great that it would make such a move almost untenable, bolton's fulminations notwithstanding...

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Unbelievable, the words that come out of Bush's mouth

winning friends and influencing people across the globe...

Today, President Bush held a press conference in Vienna, Austria as part of a diplomatic visit to Europe. He was asked by a member of the press why approval for his policies, particularly on national security issues, was so low in Europe. Bush explained that Europeans didn’t take the 9/11 attacks seriously. “For Europe, September 11th was a moment. For us, it was a change of thinking.”

that's my george...!

(thanks to think progress...)

[Update and Bump]

sometimes my outrage takes a little while to kick in... where does this guy friggin' get off...?? 9/11 was A MOMENT for europe...? i was in europe for the madrid train bombings and i was in europe for the london subway bombings... were those A MOMENT for the u.s...? george, you are a miserable, rotten, flaming, 200% JERK...!

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The National Entertainment State

perhaps i'm a little slow (well, no perhaps about it), but i just ran across the term "national entertainment state" yesterday and now i stumble on the full monty...



(click graphic for larger, readable image...)

excellent graphic and accompanying article in the nation, describing in detail who is in control of the media in the u.s...

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Continuing to turn a blind eye to reality in Iraq

sunday, i posted on the communique from the u.s. embassy in baghdad which, according to media matters, has received virtually no media attention...

[D]espite the clear significance of the document -- and the contrast it presented with Bush's upbeat comments -- the media have almost entirely ignored its publication.

today, the nyt responds with an editorial...

Mr. Bush's six-hour visit to Baghdad was mostly spent inside the Green Zone, where he made much of what he had been able to learn from looking Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki "in the eyes." Now that he's home, Mr. Bush needs to take a hard, unfiltered look at the more disturbing picture relayed by America's embassy.

i always have to laugh when i read advice being given to bush... it's such a complete waste of newsprint and/or bandwidth... perhaps if it was advice on how to accumulate more power or to further undermine the u.s. constitution, it would stand a chance of being heeded... otherwise, no...

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Bush in Europe - an extremely slow learner does some homework

quote of the day...

"To their credit," he said, speaking of Bush administration officials, "they have learned that it's better to have the Europeans on board than not."

- Gary J. Schmitt, who specializes in defense and foreign policy issues at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington

well, duh... any teacher who had students in his or her class that were over four years learning a single, very simple lesson would have recommended special ed and perhaps suggested ADD meds...

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N. Korea missile shoot-down: testosterone run amok

nothing like real-time target practice...

If North Korea launches a long-range missile, as some U.S. officials say appears likely, then the Pentagon may get a first chance to use its unproven missile defenses against a real target.

Although the North Korean missile most likely would be launched for a flight test or to put a satellite in space, Bush administration officials are considering the possibility of shooting it down, since they cannot rule out in advance that the missile might be fired with hostile intent.

gives us a chance to try out a system that, in this december 16, 2004, story from the progress report, may be another boondoggle...

The Bush administration's rush to deploy a costly, unproven national missile defense system "suffered an embarrassing setback yesterday when an interceptor missile failed to launch during the first flight test of the system in two years." Pentagon officials could not immediately explain the reason for the failure, which cast fresh doubt on the feasibility of a system that "by some accounts has cost $130 billion and is scheduled to tally $50 billion more over the next five years." The previous test, in December 2002, "also flopped when the kill vehicle failed to separate from the booster."

let's see if we can't get ourselves into another war...

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Make no mistake... Anything you do electronically, they know about...

i've said it before and i'll say it again... whatever you do electronically - credit card transactions, instant messaging, telephone calls, email, voip, anything that requires any transmission of any kind of data whatsoever - is being routed through extraordinarily sophisticated and immensely powerful computers programmed to assemble otherwise random patterns of information into profiles and to sniff out specific elements that fit pre-determined word, phrase, or digital strings... don't SUSPECT it's happening... don't THINK it's happening... ASSUME it's happening...

"The network sniffer with the right software can capture anything," the former network technician said. "You can get people's e-mail, VoIP phone calls, [calls made over the Internet] -- even passwords and credit card transactions -- as long as you have the right software to decrypt that."

In theory, surveillance involving Internet communications can be executed legally under federal law. "But with most of these things," Farber said, "the problem is that it just takes one small step to make it illegal."

assuming it's happening is certainly not the same thing as ACCEPTING the fact that it's happening... but, by the same token, don't be naive and think that it isn't...

(thanks to john at americablog...)

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Robert Parry calls the WaPo on its implication "that Democratic war critics are truly despicable and crazy people"

and rightly so...

One might think that a newspaper which helped fan a war frenzy that got more than 2,500 American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis killed might show some remorse or at least some circumspection before attacking critics of that misadventure. But that is not the way of the Washington Post.

the media are not merely pawns, they are willing servants...

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Abramoff cooperating...?

if so, let's get it on...

The Justice Department and attorneys for disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff have agreed to postpone for at least three months the day he has to report to federal prison — the latest sign that Abramoff’s continued cooperation with an ongoing corruption probe in Washington, D.C., is proving helpful to prosecutors.

wring every ounce of information out of that puppy that you possibly can...

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A new landmine feature - manual or victim-detonation

landmines are among the most vicious and destructive items in any weapons arsenal... a number of years ago, when i worked for a company that produced "anti-personnel" devices (while it was undeniably instructive, i still feel remorse from having associated myself with such a place), i had the opportunity to observe first-hand how they were manufactured and also to fully comprehend their destructive power... when you consider that landmines literally still blanket some areas of the world and that, even though the wars that caused them to be there may be long over, they still kill thousands of innocent people every year, it is a terrible shame that the u.s. is looking to produce new, assuredly more dangerous models...

According to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, budget documents submitted to Congress in 2005 show that the Pentagon is preparing for the development of new types of antipersonnel landmines called "Spider."

Spider landmines differ from conventional mines because they are designed to detonate in a variety of ways. Spider mines can explode either through command-detonation--where a human operator determines when the mine will explode the mine (also know as a “man in the loop” system)--or through conventional victim-activation, where a victim detonates the weapon by stepping on or picking up the mine. An operator would have the ability to turn the switch one way for command-detonation, and the other way for victim-detonation.

this is especially horrific because it comes...

Ten years after US President Bill Clinton declared the country would "aggressively pursue an international agreement to ban the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel landmines..."

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Safavian's trial concludes, the first in the Abramoff cycle

accountability is alive...

[David]Safavian was convicted on four of five felony counts of lying and obstruction. He had resigned from his White House post last year as the federal government's chief procurement officer.

unsavory colleagues...

The trial consumed eight days of testimony about Safavian's assistance to Abramoff regarding government-owned real estate and a weeklong golfing excursion the lobbyist organized to the famed St. Andrews golf course in Scotland and London. Safavian went on the trans-Atlantic trip while he was chief of staff at the General Services Administration, and other participants were Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, two Ney aides and Christian Coalition founder Ralph Reed.

serious crimes...

Safavian was charged with two counts of obstructing justice during investigations into the Scotland trip by the GSA inspector general and the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. He also was charged with three counts of making false statements or concealing information from GSA ethics officials, a GSA inspector general investigator and a Senate investigator.

The jury found Safavian guilty of obstructing the work of the GSA inspector general and of lying to a GSA ethics official. It also convicted him of lying to the GSA's Office of Inspector General and of making a false statement to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

and abramoff was saved for later...

The government made its case without ever putting Abramoff on the witness stand. It relied on the testimony of the officials Safavian was accused of deceiving.

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"Each one of us comes into this world with a different collection of things..."

and she's from right here in nevada... whaddaya know...

"I believe that God creates us with different gifts. Each one of us comes into this world with a different collection of things that challenge us and things that give us joy and allow us to bless the world around us," she said.

"Some people come into this world with affections ordered toward other people of the same gender and some people come into this world with affections directed at people of the other gender."

[...]

"The Bible has a great deal to teach us about how to live as human beings. The Bible does not have so much to teach us about what sorts of food to eat, what sorts of clothes to wear -- there are rules in the Bible about those that we don't observe today," she said.

"The Bible tells us about how to treat other human beings, and that's certainly the great message of Jesus -- to include the unincluded."

- Newly elected leader of the U.S. Episcopal Church Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori

well, i'll be dipped... someone who actually pays attention to what jesus REALLY said...!

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FINALLY...! A direction for liberals and progressives that MAKES SENSE...!

i cannot tell you HOW LONG I HAVE BEEN WAITING for someone to cut to the chase and put down in black and white what direction we need to be headed... quite frankly, i haven't paid much attention to greider and i also confess that i didn't expect to see something like this coming at me from left field...

Reform must re-establish this fundamental principle: The economy exists to support society and people, not the other way around. Only government can liberate them from the harsh rule of the marketplace, the demands imposed by capital and corporations that stunt or stymie the full pursuit of life and liberty in this complex industrial society. This very wealthy country has the capacity to insure that all citizens, regardless of status or skills, have the essential needs to pursue secure, self-directed lives. This starts with the right to health, work, livable incomes and open-ended education, and to participate meaningfully in the decisions that govern their lives. The marketplace has no interest in providing these. It is actively destroying them.

he also doesn't hesitate to point out what we all have been struggling with in the democratic party...

A coherent alternative agenda that will fulfill these principles does not yet exist. Nor will a liberal-progressive program emerge miraculously if the Democratic Party should somehow regain power in the next few years, since many Democrats in Congress have internalized the market ideology and collaborate with the right.

i'm awestruck by the rationality and sweep of greider's vision...

greider's the author of The Soul of Capitalism:

-- a head-on critique of American capitalism that (I hope) leads people toward the sunlight, not darkness. My premise: we have reached a rare moment in history when Americans have the opportunity (and obligation) to confront the destructive qualities of the U.S. economic system and reform it in profound ways. That is, alter capitalism's operating values and its imperious power structure that produce the damaging consequences for society, the confinements on people's lives and values, the collisions with nature and our future. Americans are more powerful than they imagine. People have the potential to force organic changes on the system from within. Many smart citizens are already at work on it.

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The horrors taking place in our name

it's bad enough when you hear it in bits and pieces and it's altogether horrifying when it's laid out in toto...

Beating; punching with fists; use of truncheons; kicking; slamming against walls; stretching or suspension (to tear ligaments or muscles to cause asphyxia); external electric shocks; forcing prisoners to abase and to urinate on themselves; forced masturbation; forced renunciation of religion; false confessions or accusations; applying urine and feces to prisoners; making verbal threats to a prisoner and his family; denigration of a prisoner's religion; force-feeding; induced hypothermia and exposure to extreme heat; dietary manipulation; use of sedatives; extreme sleep deprivation; mock executions; water immersion; "water-boarding"; obstruction of the prisoner's airway; chest compression; thermal burning; rape; dog bites; sexual abuse; forcing a prisoner to watch the abuse or torture of a loved one.

from...

Oath Betrayed : Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War on Terror

Author: Steven Miles

Steven H. Miles, M.D., is an expert in medical ethics, human rights, and international health care. A professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School and a faculty member of its Center for Bioethics, Miles is also a practicing physician.

In Oath Betrayed, Miles explains the answer to this question. Not only were doctors, nurses, and medics silent while prisoners were abused; physicians and psychologists provided information that helped determine how much and what kind of mistreatment could be delivered to detainees during interrogation. Additionally, these harsh examinations were monitored by health professionals operating under the purview of the U.S. military.

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Federal spending on Halliburton contracts shot up an astonishing 600% between 2000 and 2005.

there's just no surprising news this morning...

Top contractor Lockheed got contracts larger than budget of Congress

[...]

[P]rocurement spending increased by over $175 billion between 2000 and 2005, making federal contracts the fastest growing component of federal discretionary spending.

That spending increase -- an astonishing 86 percent -- puts total US federal procurement at $377.5 billion annually. The increase means spending on federal contracts has grown more than two times as fast as other forms of discretionary government spending.

[...]

Spending is categorized in the report as highly concentrated on a few large contractors, with the five largest contractors receiving over 20 percent of contract dollars awarded in 2005. Last year, the largest federal contractor, Lockheed Martin, received contracts worth more than the total combined budgets of the Department of Commerce, the Department of the Interior, the Small Business Administration and the U.S. Congress.

But the fastest growing contractor under the Bush Administration has been Halliburton. Federal spending on Halliburton contracts shot up an astonishing 600% between 2000 and 2005.

it's hard to wrap your mind around that kind of money, particularly when it's going into the pockets of bushco cronies... other countries have nothing on us when it comes to levels of corruption... it may be called corruption in latin america or the balkans, but here we call it capitalism and no-bid contracts... the u.s. is in really sad shape, so very much worse than most of us tend to realize...

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"What a steaming crock!"

juan cole is a little irritated with tony snow this morning...

Everything Snow said was wrong, and most of it was insulting-- whether to my late uncle, to the greatest generation in general, or just to our intelligence.

but, juan... that's bushco sop... they fling around history in whatever way suits their needs of the moment... it matters not whether it's accurate or even remotely appropriate... they figure, quite rightly in most cases, that we u.s. citizens are sufficiently anesthetized that it won't make any difference...

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And we would be surprised because...?

they can cite 9/11 for destroying our civil liberties and the u.s. constitution but when it comes to their campaign supporters and making money, golly gee, they just can't manage to enforce the law...

Illegal Hiring Is Rarely Penalized
Politics, 9/11 Cited in Lax Enforcement

By Spencer S. Hsu and Kari Lydersen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, June 19, 2006; Page A01

The Bush administration, which is vowing to crack down on U.S. companies that hire illegal workers, virtually abandoned such employer sanctions before it began pushing to overhaul U.S. immigration laws last year, government statistics show.

Between 1999 and 2003, work-site enforcement operations were scaled back 95 percent by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which subsequently was merged into the Homeland Security Department. The number of employers prosecuted for unlawfully employing immigrants dropped from 182 in 1999 to four in 2003, and fines collected declined from $3.6 million to $212,000, according to federal statistics.

95% is a HUGE number... after being caught out time and time again, you'd think they'd realize that people are actually paying attention... and, of course, the more under-handedness that gets exposed, the more attention people are going to pay...

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The Iraqi central government is "not relevant"

a description of reality on the ground in baghdad, well worth reading... so much for bush photo-ops and smiley faces...

The Washington Post has obtained a cable, marked "sensitive," that it says show that just before President Bush left on a surprise trip last Monday to the Green Zone in Baghdad for an upbeat assessment of the situation there, "the U.S. Embassy in Iraq painted a starkly different portrait of increasing danger and hardship faced by its Iraqi employees."

This cable outlines, the Post reported Sunday, "the daily-worsening conditions for those who live outside the heavily guarded international zone: harassment, threats and the employees' constant fears that their neighbors will discover they work for the U.S. government."

It's actually far worse than that, as the details published below indicate, which include references to abductions, threats to women's rights, and "ethnic cleansing."

maybe bush rove was hoping his bush's visit would eclipse the ugly truth... sorry, george karl...

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911 Loose Change 2nd Edition with extra footage

watch it... it incorporates the recently-released 5 frames of whatever hit the pentagon...

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"We don't have a democracy"

from steven d's diary at daily kos...

Some think that we shouldn't talk about stolen elections. You'll only suppress the vote, they tell us. And you'll hurt our credibility with the national media. Better to keep quiet. Keep working hard to rebuild the Democratic Party so that we can win back at least one house of the Congress.

Well, with all due respect, those people are wrong. I finally get what the poor people in the Cincinnati projects I canvassed for Kerry were trying to tell me with their weary postures, rueful grins and knowing looks. We don't have a democracy. At least not the kind where each vote counts the same as every other one. What we have is a broken electoral process. No, more than just broken, our elections have been corrupted. They are a sham and a mockery, and its past time to be talking about that fact if we ever want to return a modicum sanity, honesty and common sense to our politics.

Because at present we are at the mercy of a silent coup. One where the media and the leadership of the Democratic Party have been effectively muzzled. One that is watered by a spigot of corporate money pouring into the coffers of Republican politicians and lobbyists. And one that is beholden to the radical agenda of certain fundamentalist right wing Christian pastors whose congregations provide the organizational muscle to pull it off. People ask if this is really happening why don't the Democratic leaders believe it? I think they do. I think Al Gore and John Kerry both know their presidencies were taken from them. And I think many of their fellow Democrats believe it too. But they're afraid to talk about it, afraid of destroying their political careers should they ever dare to speak about what they know to be true. So I'm writing this diary to let them know that I believe that these elections have been stolen. And there are many more like me. We'll have their backs if they ever have the guts to do what Mark Crispin Miller and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have done, which is simply to speak the truth. Our elections are a sham and its about time more people started saying so, inside the Democratic Party, and out in the progressive net roots. Because until we conquer our fear of this topic, until we confront our denial of the truth, we have no hope of taking back our country from the criminals and fanatics that are now in charge.

i've posted repeatedly on the extent to which our system is diseased so, yeah, this is another one... i'll keep talking about it until they carry me away, which may be sooner than i think...

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Guantanamo "feels like a Muslim version of the World War II Japanese American internment"

and it makes it damn hard to cover when you get kicked out...

...a baffling move by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's office, in which the only three newspaper reporters who managed to surmount Pentagon obstacles to covering the first deaths at Guantanamo were ordered off the base Wednesday. Rumsfeld's office said the decision was made "to be fair and impartial" to the rest of the media, which the government had refused to let in.

Rumsfeld's gatekeepers have long made clear that they view outside scrutiny of the detention operations as a danger to the Bush administration's secretive and often criticized campaign to indefinitely detain "enemy combatants." But this time, their actions seemed counterproductive because booting out the Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald and Charlotte (N.C.) Observer only provoked fresh demands to learn what the government is hiding.

[...]

It is the opportunity to shed light into the dark corners of the antiterrorism campaign that inspires us to surmount the obstacles and obfuscations. And it is the thwarting of that mission with moves like our expulsion that make us all the more determined to question, probe and illuminate the actions of our government being waged in the country's name.

the latimes provides a fascinating glimpse into the draconian measures our government is employing to keep their actions under wraps... a worthwhile read...

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Libby pardon talk

it's not like we didn't suspect the possibility of something like this and, god knows, there is certainly no reason to believe that bush wouldn't do it, but, i would like to know, WHEN THE HELL ARE WE GOING TO GET TO HEAR THE TRUTH AND WHERE IS THE FRIGGIN' ACCOUNTABILITY...?

Now that top White House aide Karl Rove is off the hook in the CIA leak probe, President George W. Bush must weigh whether to pardon former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the only one indicted in the three-year investigation.

Speculation about a pardon began in late October, soon after Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald unsealed the perjury indictment of Libby, and it continued last week after Fitzgerald chose not to charge Rove.

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That's it, John, don't cut Karl any slack

on meet the press (video link)...

MURTHA: [Rove's] in New Hampshire. He’s making a political speech. He’s sitting in his air-conditioned office on his big, fat backside, saying stay the course. That’s not a plan. … We’ve got to change direction. You can’t sit there in the air-conditioned office and tell troops carrying 70 pounds on their backs, inside these armored vessels hit with IEDs every day, seeing their friends blown up, their buddies blown up — and he says stay the course? Easy to say that from Washington, DC.

every single time rove opens his hate-spewing mouth or a lock-step-marching elected r or media sycophant regurgitates a rovian talking point, they should get both barrels right back in their faces, a la cheney... they SHOULD NOT, hell, they MUST NOT be allowed to get away with their ceaseless attempts to polarize the nation...

(thanks to think progress...)

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Finally a no-shill WaPo editorial

it sure beats the sucking-up that's been the on-going norm...

Nearly five years into a war between the United States and Islamic extremists, U.S. policies and practices for arresting, holding, interrogating and trying enemy militants are in a state of disarray unprecedented in modern American history. They shame the nation and violate its fundamental values.

and even THAT'S an understatement...

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Dems "bogged down...?" No, it's about soul...

no, we're in a struggle to recover our soul...

"The Democratic Party has got bogged down in a dispute between centrists and populists," [Ruy] Teixeira said. "We've been trying to approach the question of strategy for the Democratic Party in an empirical way" by using demographic, voting and other data to test various strategies.

and i can tell ya right now, "demographic, voting and other data to test various strategies" is a big part of how we lost our soul to begin with... empiricism, when the foundations of the country are being systematically demolished is pure, unadulterated crap... in fact, let's take a look at the #1 definition of empiricism from merriam-webster...

Main Entry: em·pir·i·cism

Pronunciation: im-'pir-&-"si-z&m, em-
Function: noun
1 a : a former school of medical practice founded on experience without the aid of science or theory b : QUACKERY, CHARLATANRY

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If I see another story about Bush's gut feelings, I'm gonna puke

note to george: take your gut feelings and stick 'em where the sun don't shine...

Bush's Gut Feeling On Maliki Is Positive

President Bush flew to Baghdad last week to size up Iraq's new leader. "I have come not only to thank you," he told American troops gathered in the Green Zone on Tuesday, "but to look Prime Minister Maliki in the eyes -- to determine whether or not he is as dedicated to a free Iraq as you are."

The presidential determination? "I believe he is," Bush said.

The snap assessment recalled Bush's famous assertion that he had sensed Vladimir Putin's soul and showed how Bush often appears more comfortable with his gut-level assessment of foreign leaders than the one he gets from briefing papers prepared by his intelligence agencies.

and we all know how it turned out with putin...

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