"We got 'im...?"

According to foreign news sources, U.S. military and intelligence forces did not find and capture Saddam Hussein. Rather, U.S. soldiers followed directions given by Kurdish forces to locate and drag the drugged, befuddled Hussein from the hole in the ground where the Kurds had imprisoned him since one of his own tribesmen betrayed him out of revenge.

London: Ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was captured by Kurdish forces, then drugged and handed over to the American forces as a revenge against the rape of a tribal chief's daughter by the tyrant's psychopathic eldest son Uday, a media report said today.

The full story of the fallen dictator's capture last Saturday in a "spider hole" near his birthplace of Tikrit exposes the version peddled by Americans as incomplete.

According to the report in The Sunday Express, Saddam had already been handed over to Kurdish forces, who then brokered a deal with US commanders.

He was drugged and abandoned, ready for the American troops to recover him.

So, President Bush lied again when he said, "Yesterday, on December 13th, at 8:30 p.m. Iraqi time, Saddam Hussein was captured by US forces."

Worse, most major U.S. media outlets are complicit in his lie by failing to publish and broadcast the truth.

Real story here, here, and here.

Feel safer yet...?


Exactly how is this going to make us safer?

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23 — Pentagon officials said today that Americans in some areas of the country could expect to see more warplanes in the skies during the holiday season now that a higher antiterrorism alert level is in effect.

"They may see additional air patrols over select cities and facilities, an increase in the air-defense posture here in Washington, D.C., and combat aircraft could be put on a higher alert at different air bases throughout the country," the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers, said at a Pentagon briefing.

Yeah, right, al Qaeda's going to attack us with a squadron of fighter bombers.

Considering the safety record of the U.S. military, more warplanes in the skies above American cities probably increases the risk of casualties.

More here.

Blow 2 to tyranny...!

A divided federal appeals court in New York ruled yesterday that President Bush lacked the authority to detain indefinitely a United States citizen arrested on American soil on suspicion of terrorism simply by declaring him "an enemy combatant."

Within hours, a second federal appeals court, based in San Francisco, also in a divided ruling, declared that the administration's policy of imprisoning some 660 noncitizens captured in the Afghan war on a naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, without access to United States legal protections was unconstitutional as well as a violation of international law.

The twin blows to the underpinnings of the administration's elaborate legal strategy erected after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks make it all the more likely that the Supreme Court will have the final say on matters that the administration had argued did not belong in the courts in the first place.

Of course, before we start celebrating too heartily we should remember that the same Supreme Court that annointed Bush president has agreed to definitively decide the issue of the Guantánamo Bay detainees. Court watchers say the Supremes will likely add the question of Padillo's fate to their docket.

Complete story here.

Courts rule against Bush...!

NEW YORK - President Bush does not have power to detain American citizen Jose Padilla, the former gang member seized on U.S. soil, as an enemy combatant, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

The decision, which ordered that Padilla be released from military custody within 30 days, could force the government to try the "dirty bomb" plot suspect in civilian courts. The White House said the government would seek a stay.

[...]

"As this court sits only a short distance from where the World Trade Center stood, we are as keenly aware as anyone of the threat al-Qaida poses to our country and of the responsibilities the president and law enforcement officials bear for protecting the nation," the court said.

"But presidential authority does not exist in a vacuum, and this case involves not whether those responsibilities should be aggressively pursued, but whether the president is obligated, in the circumstances presented here, to share them with Congress," it added.

I wish the court had ruled more strongly and extended its decision to other detainees, such as Esam Hamdi, a Louisiana native captured during the fighting in Afghanistan and also designated an "enemy combatant."

But it's a start.

Complete story here.

More Republican hypocrisy....

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- The 78-year-old daughter of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond and a black maid said Wednesday that now that she has come forward to disclose her heritage, she is finally at peace.

At a news conference in her native South Carolina, Essie Mae Washington-Williams said she did not come forward earlier because she didn't want to jeopardize Thurmond's political career and family. ``Throughout his life and mine we respected each other. ... I was sensitive about his well-being and his career.''

``I am not bitter. I am not angry. In fact, there is a great sense of peace that has come over me in the past year,'' she said. ``I feel as though a great weight has been lifted. I am Essie Mae Washington-Williams, and at last I feel completely free.''

I can understand Williams' desire to be free of bitterness and anger. After all, those emotions eat away at a person's integrity and happiness.

What I don't understand is why she and her family concealed the late senator's incredible hypocrisy out of sensitivity for "his well-being and his career." Thurmond's actions in the Senate advanced one of the most racist, homophobic and misogynist agendas in modern times. If ever a man deserved to be exposed for the sort of slimy hypocrite who believed it was ok to take sexual advantage of a 16-year-old family servant, but not eat with, attend school with, sit side-by-side on a city bus with or marry, it was Strom Thurmond.

Complete story here.

So, Hussein is in custody...

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 14 - Saddam Hussein, the deposed Iraqi leader, was captured in a raid on a farm near Tikrit on Saturday night, American military officials confirmed today.

Personally, I don't expect the Iraqi resistance to weaken. But I could be wrong.

Complete story here.

Bush's "war on terrorism" fails again...

The Bush administration’s obsessive secrecy and adamant opposition to public trials for suspected terrorists not only violates the Constitution, thus moving our country closer to totalitarianism, but makes it impossible to fairly try those accused of collaborating to plan 9/11.

One such suspect was freed in Germany today and the outcome of his trial thrown into doubt.

BERLIN, Dec. 11 — The United States' refusal to allow testimony from a jailed Qaeda figure prompted a Hamburg judge on Thursday to order the release of a Moroccan accused of aiding the Sept. 11 hijackers.

The judge acted after reviewing new evidence that Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a member of the Hamburg Qaeda cell that planned and executed the World Trade Center attacks, told American interrogators that only he and the three suicide pilots from the Hamburg cell knew about the attacks before they happened. The judge said that while he had strong doubts about the reliability of the evidence, he could not properly evaluate it without testimony from Mr. bin al-Shibh.

Complete story here.

The problem with Democrats....

As much as I abhor radical Republicans and the stands they take—war in Iraq, tax-cuts and tax-shelters for the wealthy, dismantling of Medicare and Social Security, de-funding of public education, exploitation of the environment, opposition to gay marriage, against a woman's right to choose, and so on and so on--I detest spineless Democrats even more. At least the Republicans stand on their convictions, selfish, twisted and corrupt as those convictions may be. While Democrats seem to have no principles, much less the guts to take a stand, even against Republicans.

In a letter to the editors of the Rapid City Journal, Senator Tom Daschle's campaign manager defended his boss' legislative record by emphasizing how often the minority leader sided with the opposition.

I'm very disappointed in Denise Ross' Nov. 25 column allowing Republican Sen. George Allen of Virginia to do a 1,100-word hatchet job on Tom Daschle without any opportunity to refute the false charges.

For instance, Allen claims that Daschle opposes the president at every turn, but in fact a Congressional Quarterly study has Sen. Daschle voting with President Bush 75 percent of the time. [Emphasis mine.]

Jeeze, with enemies like this, Republicans need no friends.

Complete story here.

More broken promises...

SACRAMENTO — Retreating from two central campaign promises that helped make him governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday dropped his personal "guarantee" that cities and counties would be compensated for billions in lost car-tax revenue and reversed his pledge to safeguard spending for public schools.

In a wide-ranging interview with CNN, Schwarzenegger offered no commitment that his administration would restore to local governments the money they lost when he repealed a vehicle registration fee increase on his first day in office. Rather, he said that mayors and county supervisors who are worried that some $4 billion in lost revenue won't be replaced should look to the Legislature, which is considering a bill to make that happen.

And he suggested that if local government coffers are not replenished, it is not his fault.

"They [local officials] should put pressure on their state legislators because they've spent their money," Schwarzenegger said on the network's "Inside Politics" show. "It's not me taking anything away from them, it's they've spent their money."

Schwarzenegger also broached the prospect of suspending an education spending formula mandated by the state Constitution. During the campaign he had said that schools would be cut "over my dead body."[Emphasis mine.]

Ahh, you can see Schwarzenegger's learning from the best. Promise voters anything, then once in office plunder public coffers with one hand and point the finger of blame at Democrats with the other.

How California voters could be so delusional as to expect otherwise from Schwarzenegger is beyond me.

I'll soon be leaving the state to return to NYC (and my sweetie!). Perhaps regarding the debacle from afar will be less painful than up close.

Complete story here.

I was rooting for the green...

SAN FRANCISCO — Gavin Newsom, a 36-year-old millionaire entrepreneur and protege of outgoing mayor Willie Brown, edged out a surprisingly strong Green Party opponent Tuesday night to become the youngest San Francisco mayor in a century.

[...]

The contest between Green Party member and Board of Supervisors President Matt Gonzalez and fellow Supervisor Newsom had become a referendum on politics as usual.

Newsom — a charismatic Democratic Party favorite — campaigned for more than a year as Brown's chosen successor. With all the precincts counted, Newsom won by 52.6% to Gonzalez's 47.4%.

Gonzalez led a vigorous Green Party bid for mayor that drew national attention and had Democratic Party heavyweights scrambling to protect their longtime stronghold. The Democratic strategy worked even though young liberals, disenchanted with Newsom's establishment credentials, flocked to Gonzalez, a candidate who cast himself as a political outsider.

[...]

If Gonzalez had pulled off an upset, he would have become the most prominent elected Green Party official in the United States — claiming a city that has been a Democratic Party stronghold for decades. Democratic Party leaders had responded accordingly. Former President Bill Clinton flew in on a Newsom backer's private plane Monday to address supporters. Former Vice President Al Gore visited last week. And Democratic officials including U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and House minority leader Nancy Pelosi, among others, have campaigned aggressively for Newsom.

I can only hope that Democratic pols--across the nation--realize that Gonzalez's strong showing is a sign they better respond to concerns of the party's progressive wing.

Complete story here.

CA's gropping governor breaks promise...

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is dropping a plan to hire a private investigator to examine allegations that he groped at least 16 women over the last three decades, a spokesman said Monday.
The governor is busy with the state's budget crisis and doubts that such an inquiry would appease critics, said Rob Stutzman, communications director for Schwarzenegger. Because of that, he has decided not to look into the charges himself — as he promised to do in the final days of the recall campaign — Stutzman said.

How considerate, to save his critics the trouble of deciding whether or not they will be appeased.
Complete story here.

Chechnya brings the war to Moscow...

Another horrible suicide bombing.

MOSCOW, Dec. 9 - A suicide bomber blew herself up outside a historic hotel in the center of Moscow today, officials said, killing at least 5 other people and seriously wounding 13 only steps away from the Kremlin, Red Square and the Parliament.

The bomb exploded just before 11 o'clock on a cold, snowy morning, leaving a scene of chaos and carnage. Russia has suffered a wave of suicide attacks this year that has killed more than 200 people, but the explosion today brought terrorism's grisly results to the historic and political heart of the country.

The Russian military has wrecked havoc in Chechnya, in one of the most brutal occupations in modern history. I am sickened and repelled, but not surprised, that Chechnyans are strapping on explosives and striking back on Russian soil.

It frightens me, too. Unless we change our foreign policy, withdraw our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, I fear it is simply a matter of time until such retaliatory attacks become common in the U.S.

Complete story here.

Petty, vindictive, greedy little men...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 — The Pentagon has barred French, German and Russian companies from competing for $18.6 billion in contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq, saying the step "is necessary for the protection of the essential security interests of the United States."

The directive, which was issued by the deputy defense secretary, Paul D. Wolfowitz, represents perhaps the most substantive retaliation to date by the Bush administration against American allies who opposed its decision to go to war in Iraq.

I guess Haliburton and Bechtel don't already have a big enough share of the Iraqi plunder.

Complete story here.

Hiatus....

Sorry about the unannounced hiatus.

I was in France, celebrating the holidays with my daughter. I thought I might want to post now and then--hence, my failure to announce my planned absence--but ended up enjoying the time away from the (bad) news.

And there is/was so much. Children murdered by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, practicing a favorite Israeli maneuver to take out suspected terrorists from the air. Bush's bill to annihilate Medicare and divide the booty among private drug companies, signed into law. Passage in the House of the president's $820 billion spending bill with no extension of benefits to unemployment workers--Merry Xmas! The AWOL "commander-in-chief's" slink into and out of Baghdad on Thanksgiving for a staged photo-op, complete with the prop-turkey. Rush Limbaugh’s toxic return to the airways. The unending, terrible, and pointless death toll among U.S. forces, allies and civilians in Iraq.

While a part of me would still like to hide away from the news, Bush and his murdering junta must be ousted from office in ’04! Keeping this blog is part of my small contribution to achieving that end.

American death toll in Iraq....

According to Harper's Magazine, more U.S. soldiers have died so far in Iraq than in the first three years of the Vietnam War.

Here. (Scroll down.)

Mogadishu revisited....

Responsibility for these ghoulish, tragic deaths should be laid squarely at the feet of President Bush.

MOSUL, Iraq - Gunmen killed two American soldiers driving through this northern Iraqi city Sunday, and then a crowd swarmed the scene, looting the soldiers' vehicle and pummeling their bodies, witnesses said. Another soldier was killed in a roadside bombing north of Baghdad.

[…]

The 101st Airborne Division said its soldiers in Mosul were shot while driving between U.S. garrisons. Several witnesses also said the soldiers were shot during the attack in the Ras al-Jadda district, though earlier reports by witnesses said assailants slit the soldiers' throats.

Bahaa Jassim, a teenager, said the soldiers' vehicle crashed into a wall after the shooting. Several dozen passers-by then descended on the wreckage, looting the car of weapons and the soldiers' backpacks.

After the soldiers' bodies fell into the street, the crowd pummeled them with concrete blocks, Jassim said.

Publicly, the U.S. government is insisting that the rising death toll in Iraq will not lessen its resolve to remain in occupation of the country. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the U.S. military deputy director for operations, said the coalition was "not worried in the least" by the continuing attacks on its forces. "We have nothing at this point that causes us to be concerned," he said. "This is an enemy that cannot defeat us militarily."

Uh...wasn't that true in Vietnam, too?

Complete story here.

And this is only the beginning....

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Explosions shook Iraq's oil ministry this morning, witnesses said, and thick black smoke poured from the heavily guarded compound.

Fire trucks moved about the ministry and U.S. soldiers kept journalists away.

Imad Ahmed, a retired civil servant who lives near the ministry, said he heard five explosions at about 7:30 a.m. There were no reports of casualties in that attack.

The attack occurred minutes after at least three rockets were fired into the Palestine and Sheraton hotels in Baghdad. First indications were that there were no casualties among the large number of Americans and other Westerners who live in the Palestine Hotel, but a CNN report said at least two wounded people had been carried from the Sheraton after the attack.

The hotel attack was potentially the most serious strike on a major target involving foreigners in Baghdad since the Oct. 26 suicide bombing of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

On Thursday, a bomber in Kirkuk blew up a pickup packed with explosives alongside the office of a U.S.-allied political party, killing himself and five other people in the latest extension of resistance attacks into northern and southern Iraq.

The blast culminated a bloody 24-hour spate of bombings, assassinations and shootings across Iraq. Assailants blew up a sport-utility vehicle outside the home of a tribal leader in Ramadi, wounding him and killing at least two other people. In Karbala, three schoolboys were killed in a bomb blast. In Basra, a pro-American political leader was abducted and assassinated, his party said in a statement.[emphasis mine]

And let's not forget the 27 people killed yesterday (including the British consul general) and 450 wounded in Istanbul.

And the twin bombings last Saturday at the Istanbul synagogues that killed at least 20 and wounded 300.

How do President Bush and Prime Minister Blair respond?

LONDON, Nov. 20 —A grim President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair pledged defiantly Thursday to continue the fight to combat terror and stabilize Iraq, only hours after two coordinated truck-bomb attacks on British targets in Istanbul. (More here.)

I wish we could force the two of them to duke it out in the streets of Baghdad, mano-a-mano, with Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

All four deserve to be imprisoned for the devastation they have wrought throughout the world.

In the predictable aftermath of this absurd "war on terror" in Afghanistan and Iraq, everyday citizens like you and me have absolutely no protection against deplorable acts of vengeance like the ones detailed above.

These bombings were utterly predictable outcomes of the U.S. and British actions. While the exact locations and timings remain unknown until it's too late, their inevitability is as predictable as flipping a switch and turning on a light. Maybe more so.

It's time for the U.S. to treat the peoples of the world--all of them--as fellow human beings. Afford them respect, human rights and share the wealth. If instead, we continue to bully those weaker and poorer than us, terrorism is the logical and predictable outcome.

Judging from the hubris of Bush and Blair's past actions and current response, better get used to it.

It makes me so mad.

Latest bombing story here.

Energy bill blocked....

For the time being.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 — Opponents of the energy bill succeeded today in blocking the measure in the Senate, leaving the future of the legislation uncertain.

Fifty-seven senators voted in favor of cutting off debate and moving to a yes-or-no vote on the measure itself. But under Senate rules, 60 votes are required to halt debate, so the bill's backers need to find three more votes to prevail. Forty senators voted to keep the debate going.

Call your senators to thank them if they voted to defeat the bill. (Go here for the vote tally.) Chew them out if they voted "yea."

And while you're at it, tell them to defeat the trojan-horse prescription drug bill. (For more, see Paul Krugman's editorial.

Full story here.

Royal egg on the face....

How many millions of dollars have they spent on security for President Bush's visit to London? Some $1 million?

And all somebody had to do was apply for a palace job under his own name using bogus references.

Not only that, according to Salon the reporter has pulled the same stunt before, getting a job as a security guard to tennis stars at Wimbledon.

A SHOCKING royal security scandal has been exposed by a Mirror reporter working secretly as a footman.

Ryan Parry infiltrated the heart of Buckingham Palace for two months as police and senior staff prepared for the state visit of George Bush.

Parry, who used bogus references to get the job, was still in the Palace lastnight as Mr Bush arrived. He watched unchallenged as the president and his wife Laura were met by the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh in the Palace garden at around 8pm.

He had a full view from a pitch by the state dining room through a net curtain. Had he been a terrorist hell bent on assassinating the royals or Mr Bush, nothing could have stopped him.

Mirror story here and Salon story here.

No surprise....

I'm seriously considering voting my conscience in the next presidential election. In other words, voting for Dennis Kucinich.

Like many of my radical friends, I'm fed up with settling for second-best in the name of the "lesser of two evils." The Democrat's wimpiness on issues like this one burns me up.

The major Democratic presidential candidates continued to back legal rights for gays but declined to go as far as the Massachusetts Supreme Court and endorse gay marriage.

Only underdog candidates Dennis Kucinich, Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun support laws that would allow same-sex couples to wed.

The leading candidates for the nomination oppose gay marriage, but most say gay couples should get all the legal rights of married couples. It may seem like a dubious distinction, but it's the same position taken by the majority of Americans in public opinion polls.

"Dubious distinction?" Didn't the Supreme Court strike down that dubious "separate but equal" distinction in 1953 in Brown v. Board of Education?

Complete story here.

CNN poll....

On gay marriage. Vote here (scroll down).

Wedding bells are going to ring...!

The highest court in Massachusetts ruled today that gay and lesbian couples have the right to marry under the state constitution, emphatically stating that the Commonwealth had failed to identify any constitutional reasons why they could not wed.

The ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court stopped short of immediately allowing marriage licenses to be issued to the seven gay couples who sued the state Department of Public Health in 2001 after their requests for marriage licenses were denied.

But the court gave the Legislature six months to comply with its decision.

Naturally, the Religious Right is apoplectic over the decision, promising to pass a state (or federal) constitutional amendment to stop gays from getting marriage rights.

Yet according to the article, the earliest any such amendment could be voted on in Massachusetts would be November 2006. In the interim, gay couples could be granted marriage licenses.

Yay!

Complete story here.

Coward II....

Go here for a rundown on the extreme and expensive security measures to protect Bush while he's in London.

(Thanks to Buzzflash.)

Coward....

GEORGE Bush was last night branded chicken for scrapping his speech to Parliament because he feared being heckled by anti-war MPs.

The US president planned to give a joint address to the Commons and Lords during his state visit to Britain.

[...]

The decision to abandon the speech came as extraordinary security measures costing £19million placed London under a state of virtual siege ahead of Mr Bush's arrival tomorrow.

Roads in Whitehall were closed with concrete blockades. Overhead, a no-fly zone has been established with the RAF on standby to shoot down unidentified planes. All police leave is cancelled.

The only speech Mr Bush, who will stay with the Queen at Buckingham Palace, is now due to give will be to an "invited audience" at the Banqueting House in Whitehall.

Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn said: "This is yet another slight on this country by the president of the USA.

[...]

The row about the speech came after President Bush set up a showdown with demonstrators by refusing to be apologetic on the Gulf war.

In an interview with the BBC's Breakfast with Frost show, he said they would not "cut and run" from Iraq. He added: "We will not be defeated by the terrorists."

Mr Bush also refused to grant British pleas for mercy for the six Britons held in Guantanamo Bay.

He said: "They will go through a military tribunal at some point, a military tribunal in international accord, or in line with international accords."

Complete story here.

Bush in Britain....

During his visit to the UK, Bush wants to offer his prayers and tell the bereaved families their loved ones did not die in vain.

But Reg Keys, who lost his 20-year-old son Tom in June 2002, said he holds Bush and Tony Blair responsible for his death.

"I don't know how the man (Bush) has the nerve to show his face in his country after costing the lives of 53 British servicemen," said Mr Keys, of Llanuwchllyn, near Bala.

[...]

Mr Keys said other nations had the "backbone" to stand up to waging war on Saddam Hussein.

Mr Keys said: "I haven't had an invitation for an interview with Mr Bush, if I did I would literally walk from Wales to London to meet the man, look him in the eye and tell what I think of him.

"They didn't die for a noble cause, they died for Bush's political reasons, they were just sacrificial lambs."

[...]

"As Tom used to say in his phone calls - 'Dad, you will never westernise this country, they will never be democratic, there are too many tribal factions in this country for it to be a democracy'."

"He felt they were getting nowhere, they would try to train Iraqi police, you couldn't trust them anyway, you could put them in charge of weapon searches and they would just let their friends drive through with weapons.

"He felt it was futile, they were trying to impose Western values on a country which would not be westernised."

Bush's official response to the prospect of meeting anti-war protestors in Britain has been along the lines of "they're lucky to live in a country where people are free to say anything." This echoes--almost verbatim--what he said about protestors in Australia.

As for Bush's own country, I've seen damn few articles in any mainstream media as heartbreakingly critical as this short BBC piece. What does that say about our freedom to "say anything" and have it be heard?

Moreover, good luck getting within a mile of President Bush with any sort of anti-administration protest sign.

Complete story here.

A mayoral race to follow....

San Francisco's race for mayor is too close to call, but Supervisor Matt Gonzalez has a small lead among those most likely to vote Dec. 9, according to a poll released Friday by CBS 5-TV.

The poll, taken earlier this week by SurveyUSA of New Jersey, gave Gonzalez a surprising 49 to 47 percent lead over Supervisor Gavin Newsom among those certain to vote in the runoff. Among probable voters, Newsom had a 46 percent to 43 percent advantage. Both results are within the poll's margin of error.

For those who don't know it, Gonzalez is a Green Party candidate, while Newsom is the designated Democratic heir to outgoing Mayor Willie Brown.

Brown has disappointed and alienated many of San Francisco's liberal voters with his pro-business stance.

On the other hand, while San Francisco has no viable Republican party to speak of, there remains a staunch corps of conservative voters who may push Newsom over the top.

Complete story here.

This stinks to high heaven and beyond....

It is an unusual charity brochure: a 13-page document, complete with pictures of fireworks and a golf course, that invites potential donors to give as much as $500,000 to spend time with Tom DeLay during the Republican convention in New York City next summer — and to have part of the money go to help abused and neglected children.

Representative DeLay, who has both done work for troubled children and drawn criticism for his aggressive political fund-raising in his career in Congress, said through his staff that the entire effort was fundamentally intended to help children. But aides to Mr. DeLay, the House majority leader from Texas, acknowledged that part of the money would go to pay for late-night convention parties, a luxury suite during President Bush's speech at Madison Square Garden and yacht cruises.

And so campaign finance watchdogs say Mr. DeLay's effort can be seen as, above all, a creative maneuver around the recently enacted law meant to limit the ability of federal officials to raise large donations known as soft money.

"They are using the idea of helping children as a blatant cover for financing activities in connection with a convention with huge unlimited, undisclosed, unregulated contributions," said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a Washington group that helped push through the recent overhaul of the campaign finance laws.

Other Republicans are jumping on the bandwagon. Senator Bill Frist, R-TN and Senate majority leader, is planning a concert and reception in conjunction with the convention to supposedly benefit--get this--AIDS charities.

How's he going to square that with his homophobic consitutuents?

These guys truly have no shame.

Complete story here.

Yes...!

I wish these victories were more frequent.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 — After almost 40 hours of wearying, temper-fraying debate, Senate Democrats succeeded today in blocking three of President Bush's nominees to federal appeals courts, and they appeared to be in good position to block more nominations.

The Democrats stymied the nomination of Judge Priscilla Owen of the Texas Supreme Court for a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which sits in New Orleans; Judge Carolyn Kuhl of California for the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, and Justice Janice Rogers Brown of the California Supreme Court for the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

[...]

The White House reacted with anger. "Once again, a partisan minority of senators has thwarted the will of the majority and stood in the way of voting on superb judicial nominees," President Bush said in a statement issued by his spokesman, Scott McClellan. "These obstructionist tactics are shameful, unfair and have become all too common."

What a baby.

The Senate has approved 168 of Bush's right-wing judicial nominations and blocked only six of the most extreme.

Six!

Hardly obstructionist. Unless you're a spoiled rich kid from Texas used to getting you way by any hook or by crook.

Full story here.

Following Bush's footsteps....

We have a president in the Whitehouse who spends more time on vacation and fundraising than he does on the job and now a governor in California who kicks off his inaugural term with a family vacation in Hawaii.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - For many days, aides have portrayed California Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger (news - web sites) as hard at work in meetings on his new administration which takes office on Monday.

It turns out that the actor and his wife Maria Shriver have been vacationing in Hawaii with their four children, a person close to the family told Reuters.

"They took the children off to Hawaii," he said on Wednesday, adding that the couple's kids missed some school as a result of the pre-inaugural travels.

Complete story here. (Thanks to Bob Harris over at This Modern World.)

What's the point...?

WASHINGTON, Nov. 13 — The commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks said on Thursday that its deal with the White House for access to highly classified Oval Office intelligence reports would let the White House edit the documents before they were released to the commission's representatives.

The agreement, announced on Wednesday, has led to the first public split on the commission. Two Democrats on the 10-member panel say that the commission should have demanded full access to the intelligence summaries, known as the President's Daily Brief, and that the White House should not be allowed to determine what is relevant to the investigation.

An umbrella group of victims' families joined the criticism, saying the terms of the accord should be public.

While spokesmen for panel refused again to provide the terms, citing the sensitivity of the talks with the White House, its executive director acknowledged that the White House would be able to remove information from the reports unrelated to Al Qaeda and to the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

[...]

Administration officials have acknowledged that they are concerned that intelligence reports received by Mr. Bush in the weeks before 9/11 might be construed to suggest that the White House failed to respond to evidence suggesting that Al Qaeda was planning a catastrophic attack. The White House acknowledged last year in response to news reports that a copy of the Daily Brief in August 2001 noted that Al Qaeda might use hijacked planes in an attack.

Why not end the charade and disband the commission right now?
Complete story here.

More bad news from Iraq....


You know things are bad when USA Today is more truthful than the Pentagon and the Whitehouse.

U.S. forces are losing the intelligence battle in Iraq to an increasingly organized guerrilla force that uses stealth, spies and surprise to inflict punishing casualties.

U.S. military, intelligence and law enforcement officials say that after six months of intensifying guerrilla warfare, Iraqi insurgents know more about the U.S. and allied forces -- their style of operations, convoy routes and vulnerable targets -- than the coalition forces know about them. Indeed, U.S. intelligence has had trouble simply identifying the enemy and figuring out how many are Iraqis and how many are foreign fighters.

With local knowledge and the element of surprise on their side, the guerrillas are exploiting their intelligence edge to overcome the coalition's overwhelming military superiority. Insurgents routinely use inexpensive explosives to destroy multimillion-dollar assets, including tanks and helicopters. Using surveillance and inside information, the guerrillas have assassinated many Iraqis helping the coalition, gunned down a member of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council, killed the top United Nations official in Iraq and blasted the heavily guarded hotel in Baghdad where Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was staying.

Sophisticated U.S. intelligence tools such as spy satellites and electronic eavesdropping intercepts have been of little practical use, according to intelligence officials in Washington and military officers in Iraq. And despite an intense search and exhaustive intelligence efforts, deposed leader Saddam Hussein remains at large.

Complete story here.

More on digital voting....

This column by the NYT's David Pogue concisely lays out the case against touch-screen voting.

...Wrong Thing 4: Diebold points out that the software is inspected and tested by election officials before it's certified. There's only one problem: Diebold engineers can slip in and make changes to the software even AFTER it's been certified.

Worse, they do exactly that. A Wired article quoted a Diebold engineer as saying that his team made no fewer than three rounds of software changes to the machines in Georgia's 2002 election for governor--after the machines had been certified but before the election began. (That election "ended in a major upset that defied all polls and put a Republican in the governor's seat for the first time in more than 130 years.")

Read it here.

Hearts and minds....

This, sadly, speaks for itself.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - If Washington doubts there is Iraqi public support for guerrillas killing its troops, it should consider the teenagers who happily watched American blood spill on Wednesday.
 
After a roadside bomb ripped through a military vehicle and wounded two soldiers, Iraqi boys rushed out of their homes to survey the damage.

"This is good. If they ask me, I will join the resistance. The Americans have to die," said Ali Qais, 15. "They are just here to steal our oil."

The U.S. administration has long dismissed the guerrillas as isolated "terrorists" who are Saddam Hussein loyalists or foreign Islamic militants.

But the scene in the Sarafiya district of Baghdad suggests they are winning the sympathy of Iraqis, whose joy at Saddam's fall has been overshadowed by anti-American rage.

Teenage boys were irritated to hear that two American soldiers were just wounded, not killed.

"I saw them pushing their hands onto one of the Americans' chest. They must have died. One soldier's friend was crying," said Abdullah Oman, 18.

His fury has been fueled by what he says is an American desire to humiliate all Iraqis.

He even believes that U.S. troops plant the bombs themselves, risking American lives to terrify and kill Iraqis.

"They are watching us die and laughing. They humiliate us. They handcuffed me and arrested me in front of my parents late one night because I stood on my house porch after curfew," he said.

How can the rank-and-file Right, enamored of books and movies starring outnumbered and outgunned Americans making heroic stands against evil invaders (be they of Satan or, formerly, the Soviet Union) be so blind when it comes to this war? Iraqis are defending their homes. Their way of life. Like the American heroes of those favored fables, they will fight to the last man.

America lost this war before it began. All that remains is to determine how long we will continue the slaughter before we concede that.

Complete story here.

So how are we safer from terrorism...?

...Before the war, President Bush contended that Al Qaeda was active in Iraq. But it was not until several months after the U.S.-led occupation began that Islamic extremists apparently took advantage of the postwar chaos and started launching terrorist attacks.

U.S. officials acknowledge that they are hobbled in their efforts to stem the apparent surge in Islamic extremism because they have little information about the attackers or their activities.

Authorities believe that some of the fighters are Al Qaeda operatives and others are members of extremist groups affiliated with the network. Officials suspect that the groups operate as independent cells but are cooperating to some degree with one another and with Hussein loyalists seeking to regain power.

In September, Bremer told reporters in Washington that 248 foreign fighters had been arrested in Iraq, including 19 suspected Al Qaeda members. It is unclear when the arrests took place.

Bin Laden, who was critical of Hussein while he was in power, has repeatedly called on Muslims to go to Iraq and avenge the U.S. invasion.

"God knows if I could find a way to your field, I wouldn't stall," a voice identified as Bin Laden's said in an audiotape released in mid-October. "You my brother fighters in Iraq ... I tell you: You are God's soldiers and the arrows of Islam, and the first line of defense for this [Muslim] nation today."

[...]

Some officials fear that a growing Islamist movement in Iraq could give a boost to the extremist cause and train a new core of Muslim fighters, just as the war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union did in the 1980s.

A senior U.S. intelligence official in Washington said Iraq has emerged as the focal point for Islamic jihad, becoming the most active front in the movement and the top priority for Muslim fighters who want to confront the United States.

The assessment, shared by analysts at the CIA and other agencies, underscores how in a matter of months Iraq has supplanted Afghanistan, Chechnya and other international trouble spots as the focus of the jihad cause.

Complete story here.

More on Iraqi peace overtures....

...MICHAEL ISIKOFF [of Newsweek]: You know, there are a lot of games being played on this story and that's why it has to be murky at this point. It is hard to know. You have various agendas. Mr. Perle and his allies inside the pentagon have been at war with the C.I.A. for some time about this.- You have congressional investigators that are raising questions about the role of Mr. MALUF, who was a member of the secret pentagon intelligence team that was reviewing intelligence and back channel diplomacy that was not going through proper channels, not being reported to Secretary of State Powell and the diplomats who were responsible for this. So, it is -- It is very hard to know what to make of this at this point with a lot of--perhaps a lot of different agendas being pushed on this one.-

Complete interview here.

Verifiable voting....

The effort to standardize touch-screen voting with no paper trail must be stopped.

Go here to find out more and join the campaign.

More on Iraqi peace overtures….

Josh Marshal at Talking Points Memo is suspicious of the timing and veracity of the Iraqi peace story.

The main players--Hage and Maloof--appear to have ulterior motives for getting their version of the tale out there at this time. And neither man appears to be of sterling character.

No surprises there! Hage is an arms dealer and Maloof a protégé of Richard Perle. As for ulterior motives, doesn't every source in journalistic history have them?

While Marshall’s doubts do make me more cautious about the story, they don’t disprove it.

I hope journalists and Democrats with spine (an oxymoron) will pursue the matter.

Iraqi-gate...

The story of the Bush administration's arrogant dismissal of Iraq's last-ditch, desperate efforts to avoid war is being picked up by news outlets.

More than any allegation made to date, this one has the potential to bring Bush down. Call your elected representatives and urge them to investigate the matter.

Bush may never be tried for war crimes, but he should at the very least be impeached.

AP story here.

War-crimes...

With time running out, Saddam Hussein's government tried desperately to avert war by negotiating through back channels with Bush administration officials.

They were summarily rebuffed.

Or, as Richard Perle—hawk, neoconservative, resident fellow at the rightwing American Enterprise Institute and former chairman and current member of the Defense Policy Board—told the NY Times, "The message was, `Tell them that we will see them in Baghdad.' "

How do you like that, “we?” This whole Iraqi tragedy wouldn’t have happened if sorry-assed old rich men, like Perle, Bush, Cheney and Wolfowitz had to patrol the streets of Baghdad with M16s.

But I digress.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 — As American soldiers massed on the Iraqi border in March and diplomats argued about war, an influential adviser to the Pentagon received a secret message from a Lebanese-American businessman: Saddam Hussein wanted to make a deal.

Iraqi officials, including the chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service, had told the businessman that they wanted Washington to know that Iraq no longer had weapons of mass destruction, and they offered to allow American troops and experts to conduct an independent search. The businessman said in an interview that the Iraqis also offered to hand over a man accused of being involved in the World Trade Center bombing in 1993 who was being held in Baghdad. At one point, he said, the Iraqis pledged to hold elections.

[…]

…Mr. Obeidi [chief of foreign operations of the Iraqi Intelligence Service] explained that the Iraqis wanted to cooperate with the Americans and could not understand why the Americans were focused on Iraq rather than on countries, like Iran, that have long supported terrorists, Mr. Hage [the Lebanese-American businessman] said. The Iraqi seemed desperate, Mr. Hage said, "like someone who feared for his own safety, although he tried to hide it."

Mr. Obeidi told Mr. Hage that Iraq would make deals to avoid war, including helping in the Mideast peace process. "He said, if this is about oil, we will talk about U.S. oil concessions," Mr. Hage recalled. "If it is about the peace process, then we can talk. If this is about weapons of mass destruction, let the Americans send over their people. There are no weapons of mass destruction."

Why have Iraqis so seriously underestimated the American capacity for treachery? In 1990, Saddam Hussein believed U.S. ambassador to Iraq, April Gillespie, when she announced that America had no interest in “territorial disputes between Iraq and its Arab neighbors.” Four months later, he invaded Kuwait.

Thirteen years later, his flunkies trusted Richard Perle, leading proponent of the invasion of Iraq, to plead their case against war to the Bush administration.

Did they not know who they were talking to? Might as well ask Satan to relay your repentance to God.

Perle is now downplaying the importance of his contact with Mr. Hage, claiming disbelief that the overture was authentic. No matter. Principled men grasp at any straw to avoid the sort of bloodshed that occurred in Iraq.

The men in the Bush White House are anything but principled.

Justice demands that those responsible for the lies and manipulation that led to the slaughter in Iraq be tried for war-crimes.

Complete story here.

Bush's magic marker strikes again....

This is all over the net, but in case you haven't seen it, half of the 186 pages of a recently released Justice Department report on diversity among its attorneys was blacked out.

...The blacked-out pages betray a Justice Department that does not want America to know what happens after people are hired. The full report is available on a Web site called the Memory Hole, which electronically lifted the blacked-out sections. Among the conclusions of the full report were:

"When controlling for component, grade, and salary, we found that the average minority is currently residing approximately one-third step lower than the average white and the average woman is currently residing approximately one-half step lower than the average man. These effects are statistically significant."

"Race and gender combine for a particularly strong negative effect of identity for minority women."

"Section chiefs are an extremely critical element of the department's diversity climate. They have significant authority in recruitment, hiring, promotion, performance appraisal, case assignment, and career development. The section chief work force is not diverse, and turnover is low. This pattern, combined with the generally low attention that these managers pay to staff career development, leads minorities to perceive a lack of advancement opportunities."

Complete op-ed here.

Touch-screen vote manipulation.…

Long article on the dangers of converting to touch-screen voting. A must-read if you care about democracy in America.

…Roxanne Jekot, who has put much of her professional and personal life on hold to work on the issue full time, puts it even more strongly. "Corporate America is very close to running this country. The only thing that is stopping them from taking total control are the pesky voters. That's why there's such a drive to control the vote. What we're seeing is the corporatisation of the last shred of democracy.

"I feel that unless we stop it here and stop it now," she says, "my kids won't grow up to have a right to vote at all."

Complete story here.

Thanks to This Modern World for the link.

Such hatred....

The consecration of a gay man as an Anglican bishop in New Hampshire has evoked fury from members of a religion allegedly based on love of one's fellow human beings.

The rage seems particularly extreme in Africa where any support has been greeted with fanatical condemnation.

...But such remarks drew condemnation from conservative church leaders, who said there was no room for compromise on an issue like homosexuality. A leader of the African Christian Democratic Party in South Africa, Louis Green, said Mr. Ndungane and others who support the gay bishop are in need of "spiritual guidance and biblical insight."

"Although God loves everyone, he does not condone sinful behavior," Mr. Green told the South African Press Association. "The Bible equates homosexuality with perversity and as Christians we cannot interpret God's word to suit modern lifestyles."

On the wider question of whether gays ought to be allowed to marry or enter the priesthood, Nigeria's Anglicans have been unequivocal in their opposition.

"We totally reject and renounce this obnoxious attitude and behavior," the church said in a statement issued last month.

"It is devilish and satanic. It comes directly from the pit of hell. It is an idea sponsored by Satan himself and being executed by his followers and adherents who have infiltrated the church."

You've got to wonder when people feel so vehmently about an issue that, presumably, doesn't personally affect them.

Or does it?

Complete story here.

Picking your pocket with a smile…

Excellent column by David Pogue in today’s NYT on the trend of large companies toward passive-aggressive customer-service.

Pogue presents an interesting theory to explain the phenomena.

…I called Verizon. “Don’t worry,” the lady told me. “You signed up for the 700-minute plan with a 100-minute-a-month bonus. When you get your bill, you’ll see 800 minutes of airtime free.”

As you can probably guess, I did not, in fact, get those extra 100 minutes. For two straight months, I had to call Verizon and ask them to fix it. Each time, they apologized and gave me the 100-minute credit. But each time, I lost 25 minutes of my life.

Yes, it’s possible that I just had the good luck to call three incompetent customer-service reps in a row.

But there’s another possibility: Verizon knows that a certain percentage of customers will never notice that they’re being overbilled, or will trust that the problem has been corrected after the first complaint.

I’d chalk this up as an isolated oddity—but the thing is, this was the third or fourth time it’s come up this year.

For example, only a month earlier, the same story had played out with our MCI home long-distance service: our plan was supposed to include unlimited, free long-distance calls on the main line. Yet month after month, we were billed for long-distance calls. Month after month, we’d call customer service. “Oh, I’m so sorry; we’ll credit that to your next bill”—and no credit ever appeared. (We finally dumped MCI.)

Oh, that we could dump all the companies that are jumping on this bandwagon!

Pogue leaves out my own pet peeves. They include impenetrable voicemail systems; being placed on-hold for 20 minutes or longer; the requirement that you punch in your contact information, only to have to repeat it to the person who finally answers; the insistence that one department cannot communicate directly with another, thereby restarting the whole process; and, when all else fails, undisguised rudeness on the part of managers.

AT&T Wireless excels in these techniques. That's why I bought out of my contract early and will never sign with them again.

Read Pogue's column here.

Spinmeisters....

Remember when U.S. forces were puzzled by the failure of Saddam Hussein's "elite Republican Guard" to make a stand to defend Baghdad? Remember when it seemed that Saddam's forces just melted away, and no one knew where they went or what happened to their weapons and organization?

Now the White House/U.S. Media spin is that "foreign terrorists" are responsible for the recent string of deadly attacks in Iraq that has left U.S. soldiers and foreign aid workers--Red Cross, U.N., Doctors Without Borders, etc.--scurrying for cover.

Wouldn't it make more sense that the recent attacks are the work of some of those unaccounted for Republican guard units? Say, under the command of Saddam Hussein?

Remember him?

But that would contradict President Bush's posturing that we "won" handily in Iraq and that the war is over. It would defy the notion that all Iraqis despise Hussein. And it would undermine a key foundation upon which Bush sold his war, namely, that Iraq is a warren of al-Qaida and other foreign terrorists.

No matter how you spin it, the U.S. is bogging down deeper and deeper in Iraq.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraq was hit by a string of explosions Thursday that set a freight train on fire, killed a U.S. soldier in a military convoy and ripped through Baghdad's Old Quarter. Another blast injured two U.S. soldiers on a military police patrol.

The attacks came as international organizations continued their exodus from Iraq and the U.N. secretary-general warned of ``a new phase'' in postwar violence.

[…]

U.S. forces are suffering an average of 33 attacks a day -- up from about 12 daily attacks in July. A total of 117 American soldiers have been killed in combat since May 1 -- when Bush declared an end to major fighting -- or slightly more than the 114 soldiers who died in invasion that began March 20.

The escalating violence has unnerved many of Baghdad's 5 million people...

Complete story here.

Desperate acts...?

While President Bush calls today's attacks in Baghdad that killed up to 40 people and wounded 200, the acts of "desperate" individuals who "hate freedom" and "love terror," others see them as indications that the resistance is growing stronger and more organized.

...All of the attacks came within 45 minutes of each other and appeared to be carefully choreographed by Iraqi resistance guerrillas and timed to coincide with the first day of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Brigadier General Ahmed Ibrahim, Iraq's deputy interior minister, put the Iraqi death toll at 34, including 26 civilians and eight police officers. He did not include any suicide bombers in the tally.

One American soldier was also killed in one of the police station attacks and six US troops were wounded, the US military said.

The capital has now seen the worst two days of violence since the war was declared over in April and the sound of sirens reverberated through the streets as emergency vehicles criss-crossed the city.

[...]

The terror attacks came hours after clashes in the Baghdad area killed three US soldiers overnight, and a day after an audacious rocket salvo attack on the Rashid hotel in central Baghdad which narrowly missed Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy defence secretary, who had been staying there. A US colonel was killed and 18 people wounded in that attack.

Meanwhile, near Fallujah, "US troops opened fire indiscriminately, killing at least four Iraqi civilians, after a roadside bomb exploded as a US military convoy passed."

Someone at Saturday's peace rally had a great idea for ending our occupation of Iraq. Draft the Bush daughters and the children of congressmen, senators and other politicians and ceo's into the ranks of those troops destined to go.

Complete story here.

Fire diary....

Like tens (hundreds?) of thousands of Californians, I'm avoiding smoke and ash today by staying indoors. Work has been cancelled. It's dark outside, even though it's 10:40 in the morning. The light that makes it through the smoke is a sickening shade of yellow, casting a pallor on buildings, vehicles, and people. It’s hot, the air heavy and hard to breathe. Park a car or leave a bike or anything outdoors for a few minutes and it will be covered in a layer of burnt ash. The swimming pool in my apartment complex is black with soot and sunken ash.

So far, I’m in no immediate danger. The nearest fire is at least 15 minutes away by freeway—about 15 miles. That’s closer than I like, considering the fire covered twice that distance yesterday. But rather than the dry brush lands it mostly consumed in that period, dense city development lies between me and it. Maybe I’m naïve, but I don’t feel threatened.

I can't help but marvel that this immense destruction has been set in motion by a suspected 3 individuals. One, a lost hunter, started a signal fire that accidentally burst out of control into the so-called Cedar Fire, which has destroyed 260 homes, burned 115,000 acres and so far killed nine people. Two men, presumed arsonists, were seen fleeing from the scene of the so-called Center Valley Fire, which has burned 15,000 acres, destroyed 57 homes and killed two. The cause of the third local fire, the Mine Fire, which has burned 15,000 acres, destroyed no structures and killed no one so far, is undetermined.

It shows how vulnerable our society is. Three people, with matches, have shut down an entire county. And it's not over yet. Fire officials are worried the three fires might merge into one. (If that happens, I’ll most likely be evacuated.) The soonest they're predicting containment is Thursday. And that’s if the Santa Ana Winds, quiet this morning, do not strengthen.

I’ve always maintained that humans are vulnerable enough to nature’s forces—earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes—that we should draw together and reinforce one another’s communities with kindness and generosity, rather than invading, bombing and deliberately destroying. This is certainly a case in point.

Deception dollars....

These were being distributed at today's peace demonstation.

Very effective and packed with information. Check them out here, too. (It loads faster.)

President Bush's downfall...?

We can only hope.

...Since 1979, when manufacturing employment peaked at 19.6 million, 1 in 4 [American] factory jobs have disappeared. It took more than two decades to lose the first 2.5 million. The second 2.5 million have gone away since Bush took office in January 2001.

[...]

But even the optimists tend to agree this recovery is different. So far, it is occurring without a net gain in factory employment, and economists say it is likely that many of the lost jobs will not be restored. That's because most of the losses are attributable to permanent, structural shifts instead of the cyclical layoffs typical of past recessions.

"They're not all going to come back," acknowledged National Assn. of Manufacturers President Jerry Jasinowski. Displaced factory workers "will have to move on," he said, into growing sectors of the economy, such as home building and health care.

Pete Merriman moved on earlier than most. After being laid off several times as an industrial electrician, he staked his claim in the service economy shortly after Bush assumed office in 2001. For the last three years, he's been delivering pizza for a living.

"It's hurt [Bush] in my view, that's for sure," said Merriman, who said he is making decent money toting thick-crust pizzas around Green Bay but would rather be wiring paper-making machinery again. The rate of decline during Bush's tenure dwarfs the experience of his father, George H. W. Bush, who was turned out of office in 1992 after presiding over the first "jobless recovery." Over the four years of the elder Bush's presidency, America lost factory jobs at a rate of about 26,000 a month. Since his son settled in the White House, the monthly job loss has averaged nearly 80,000.

The reporter uncritically gives far too much ink to those who believe the massive hemorrhaging of American manufacturing jobs is a natural result of “the inevitable march of history.”

If that were true, why have European countries not suffered--and worse, too, as they consist of smaller, older, and more dependent economies?

What is happening in America is neither inevitable nor accidental. It is the result of deliberate taxation, trade and government policies which, for the past 30 years or longer, have been made in such a way as to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of those who are already wealthy and powerful. While the Republican party has taken both the ideological and legislative lead in this process, the Democrats have been not very far behind.

Complete story here.

San Diego peace rally....

My guess, there were about 500-600 people at the peace rally and march in downtown San Diego today.

What's even more significant, the reaction from onlookers in buildings, on foot and in automobiles was overwhelmingly supportive. Thumbs-up, cheering, peace-signs and honking outnumbered thumbs-down or middle-fingers (isn't the Right articulate?) probably 4 or 5 to one. And this in San Diego!

Just where are all those ardent Bush supporters anyway?

As for any sort of organized counter-protest, nothing. Maybe I overestimated Protest Warrior...

"Core values of this country...?"

This group, "Protest Warrior," has set itself up as defenders of America’s core values and is "crashing" anti-war demonstrations across the country. My sweetie, in D.C. for today’s protest, said a large contingent of more than 100 people shoved its way into today’s rally, carrying assembly-line produced protest signs.

Typical of the Right (think Limbaugh, O’Reilly, etc.), what they lack in logic and truth, these guys more than make up for in aggression, belligerence and arrogance. Take this quote, for example:

We must admit we get a certain high from puncturing the moral self-righteousness of leftists. These people claim to have a monopoly on what is good, their entire self-esteem depends on it. So we like to take their premises to their logical conclusions, and show them that the policies they endorse actually lead to what they're purportedly against. For example, take our sign "Saddam only kills his own people. It's none of our business." A sign like that strikes at their ill-conceived mental constructs, because it's pointing out that their anti-war view on Iraq is very selfish and isolationist. And when this is pointed out to them, it forces them to acknowledge that they are really not for what's good, but that their ideology is based on something far less noble - that in fact they have a hatred of what's good. Witness that the two countries on this planet that stand most for 'liberal' values, the United States and Israel, are the two countries leftists despise the most.

Yeah, and black is white and down is up.

Another tactic of the Right: repeating distortions so often that people come to believe them.

When you explore their site, you see too how the Right portrays itself as the beleaguered victim in American politics. They are beset by the “liberal media,” the ideological McCarthyism at our universities.” And now, the greatest threat to America? “Islamo-fascism.”

Talk about projection.

You’ll be glad to know, though, that according to them, “…due to a successful campaign in Afghanistan, the Taliban is no more, and Al-Qaeda was largely disrupted.” Now that's a relief.

What a bunch of delusional fanatics.

Unfortunately, their ilk now holds the reins of our government.

While they criticize "the Republican party" and "its tradition of weak and uninspiring ads," (which Republican party are they talking about?) it's clear that this group is bigger than just the two, young, affable-looking white guys, pictured on the website. It takes money and organization to mobilize 100 or more anti-protesters to a Washington rally. They may portray themselves as "grassroots" but they're getting watered by someone.

And speaking again of the photo of the two founders. What's with the peace-sign Alan Davidson is flashing?

No, you do not get to co-opt that! It's not just some hip gesture: protestors have had their heads bashed in--they have been shot-- for what it represents. And, believe me, what it represents is not the fascistic pabulum that passes for discourse on your site.

I wonder if they'll show up at today's rally in San Diego...?

Do the ends justify the means...?


I'm sad to report that progressives are resorting to "astroturfing."

If you go here, you can click through the menus and generate a "letter to the editor" of your local paper--in this case, against Patriot Acts I and II.

While I agree with the end, I strongly disagree with the means. Leftists have been rightly criticizing the RNC for using this tactic for some time now.

I must say, True Majority and Ben Cohen, of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream fame, I'm disappointed in you.

Correction....

The link to the House of Representatives vote tally of infamy (below: removed now) was incorrect. I got it from MoveOn.org, who now says that link was for a procedural vote on the $87 billion -- not the final Yes or No.

My post was correct on this matter: Susan Davis did vote for the bill.

I hope other voters besides me are calling her office to express their displeasure.

Here's the final tally for the yes or no.

Rummy memo a plant...?

I must say, I've been suspicious of the Rumsfeld memo from the start. This guy makes sense:

That memo wasn't leaked, it was obviously planted. Why? Well here are a few reasons I believe:

- The administration obviously knows they are losing the war on terrorism and so now they are setting up their excuses. How else are they going to try to explain why there are still so many terrorists?

- They are trying to prepare the American mentality to expect long drawn out occupations in both Iraq and Afghanistan as necessary evils.

- It makes Rumsfeld look like he is doing his job, but that the Department of Defense is a large difficult bureaucracy to manage (shift the blame).

- It plants the seed for the possible development of a new branch of defense designed by the White House.

- It paves the way for them to take more "necessary" aggressive measures.

Complete post here.

Infamy in the House....

To my ire, Congresswoman Susan Davis, my rep, voted to give Bush his $87 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan. I just called her office and expressed my displeasure.

Want to check your own representative's vote? Go here. [Link removed: see above.]

Make sure you let them know if you're pleased or angry.

This made my day...!

Bush heckled inside and outside Australia's Parliament.

...Thousands of demonstrators banged drums and shouted outside the Parliament building while a separate group of protesters jostled with security officials outside the U.S. embassy compound where Bush stayed overnight.

During Bush's speech, two Green Party senators jumped to their feet and shouted war protests at Bush. They were ordered removed from the chamber but sat and refused to leave. One of them, Sen. Bob Brown, shouted "we are not a sheriff," a reference to Bush's recent description of Howard.

"I love free speech," Bush said to laughter. [You lie, you smug bastard.]

If only more lawmakers, at home and abroad, had the guts.

Complete story here.

Roll call of infamy ii....

If you want to see how your senators voted on the abortion ban.

Here.

Roll call of infamy...

On the $87 billion funding to continue the debacle in Iraq.

Senator Diane Feinstein, of California, voted "yea." So did Senators Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer, of New York.

For shame!

Only 12 senators stood up to President Bush: Boxer (D, CA), Byrd (D, WV), Edwards (D, NC), Graham (D, FL), Harkin (D, IA), Hollings (D, SC), Jeffords (I, VT), Kennedy (D, MA), Kerry (D, MA), Lautenberg (D, NJ), Leahy (D, VT) and Sarbanes (D, MD).

Tally here.

U.S. troops spread too thin....

We're so overextended, we have to hire rent-a-cops to guard our military bases!

Of course, this means big bucks for the companies getting the contracts, both here and abroad.

...In Iraq, almost a third of the $4 billion monthly costs are going to private contractors. One foreign policy expert estimates the current Bush Administration has five times as many civilian contractors in Iraq as his father's administration did during the first Gulf War in 1991. [Emphasis mine.]

The privatization practice, first explored when Cheney was Secretary of Defense for the senior Bush, led to an $8.9 million logistics contract for Brown and Root, a company Cheney later oversaw as head of Halliburton after he left government. Of approximately 3,000 civilian contracts awarded by the Pentagon since 1994, about 2,700 have gone to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root and one other firm.

Complete story here.

Abortion ban passes....

Sometimes I see this as a continuation of the centuries-long battle between secularism and superstition. You know, the same battle that claimed Galileo as a victim and kept us believing the sun rotated around the earth for a few hundred years longer?

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21 — The Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved the first federal ban on a specific abortion procedure, ending eight years of divisive debate and clearing the way for President Bush to sign the measure into law.

Both sides declared the 64-to-34 vote a historic turning point in a controversy that has split Americans for decades, ever since the Supreme Court established a constitutional right to abortion in the case of Roe v. Wade 30 years ago.

Of course President Bush is salivating to sign the bill, calling it, "very important legislation that will end an abhorrent practice and continue to build a culture of life in America."

Gag.

Our hopes lie in the Supreme Court now.

Yep, the same court that appointed Bush some two years ago.

Complete story here.

Stovepiping...

Interesting interview with Seymour M. Hersh on the New Yorker website, referring to his recent article, "The Stovepipe," which details the practice of "taking a piece of intelligence or a request that should be pushed through the chain of command—checked at levels and sent from one level to another—and bringing it straight to the highest authority." He makes a strong case that President Bush might actually believe his own misinformation about Iraq--a frightening prospect.

...Remember that the Administration, no matter how they twist the words or spin the words, told us we’d find weapons in Iraq. They believed it. That was the intelligence they got. And, to me, the fact that they weren’t lying and really believed it is as alarming as if they had been lying. It’s very, very troubling.

He also quotes classified sources inside the U.S. government that say, as of two weeks ago, the number of incidents against American forces in Iraq were up to 23 a day!

Not that we hear about them here in the United States.

Complete story here.

Boykin watch....

Lt. Gen. William G. "Jerry" Boykin has apologized and says his words were misconstrued.

Awww, what a guy! We were wrong, he shouldn't be fired after all.

...When he spoke of the Somali warlord, he did not mean that the Somali's god was Islam, but rather "his worship of money and power — idolatry." Boykin said he did believe that "radical extremists have sought to use Islam as a cause of attacks on America."

As for his statement that God had installed Bush in the White House, Boykin said he meant that God had done the same for "Bill Clinton and other presidents."

Boy, I'll bet ya he gagged on that sentence!

Is the guy going to get away with this sham?

It seems so:

Though he defended his comments, Boykin has told others at the Pentagon that he will stop making speeches to religious groups and will try to tone down his remarks on the sensitive subject of religion. Defense officials said his job was not in jeopardy.[Emphasis mine.]

Once again, the L.A. Times focuses on the anger Boykin's remarks have caused in Islamic communities. Once again I ask, what about non-Islamic, secularist American constituents who don't want a religious nut like this in charge of hunting down bin Laden and Hussein? If the guy can't separate his religious extremism from his job, he shouldn't hold a government position.

Boykin should be fired.

L.A. Times story, sad disappointment that it is, here.

Is this site for real...?

Or an over-the-top parody?

It makes my skin crawl.

I can't believe the letters in the "hate mail" section are authentic. If I were a Right-Winger, trying to fake a "hate letter" from someone on the Left, I think I'd come up with something along the lines of what they have.

Creepy.

Pathetic....

That "defiance" of the Bush administration has been reduced to this.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 — The Senate defied the Bush administration on Thursday by insisting that Iraq repay up to $10 billion in reconstruction aid, even as a divided House took a different path and prepared to grant President Bush's $87 billion request for Iraq and Afghanistan without conditions.

A bipartisan coalition of moderate senators, saying that American taxpayers should not bear the entire burden of rebuilding Iraq, prevailed against strong administration opposition in a 51-to-47 vote Thursday evening. Their amendment — approved shortly after Vice President Dick Cheney failed to bring wavering senators in line through a round of phone calls — would require half of the $20.3 billion in reconstruction aid to be a loan to Iraq, unless the administration persuaded other countries to forgive 90 percent of Iraq's existing debt.

This is the best that Congress can do, even given the "waves of opposition that their constituents have voiced in the five weeks since Mr. Bush announced his intention of spending $87 billion in Iraq and Afghanistan" and the "record-high deficits [that] have squeezed public-works projects at home."

What spineless wheenies!

A bit further down in the story is the truth:

The debate about loans versus grants, however, could not obscure the administration's overall success in persuading both chambers to endorse the basic framework of its postwar Iraq policy. The president is virtually certain to command solid majorities in both houses for a vast majority of what he is asking for — and a mandate for a strong role in overseeing Iraq's future.

We have no opposition party in the U.S.

Complete story here.

More about Boykin....

This story in today's L.A. Times misses the point.

Rather than raising the question of General Boykin's fitness (see below) for the position of deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence, it suggests that someone should have "a quiet chat" with him, to get him to quit offending the Islamic world with all his religious posturing.

Forget the Islamic world! (For the moment only.) The issue here is not global public relations. As a secularist who believes strongly in the separation of church and state and as a citizen who wishes to prevent a repeat of 9/11/2001, I believe someone who has stated that the real enemy is Satan, not the bin Ladens of the world, should be disqualified for the position of deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence.

Period.

Fairy tales....

Some interesting quotes, uttered in June, by our nation's deputy undersecretary of defense, Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin, whose mission is to aggressively combine intelligence with special operations and hunt down "so-called high-value terrorist targets," including Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein (both still missing, as you may recall):

“Well, is he [bin Laden] the enemy? Next slide. Or is this man [Saddam] the enemy? The enemy is none of these people I have showed you here. The enemy is a spiritual enemy. He’s called the principality of darkness. The enemy is a guy called Satan.”

Why are terrorists out to destroy the United States? Boykin said: “They’re after us because we’re a Christian nation.”

There's more:

Boykin also routinely tells audiences that God, not the voters, chose President Bush: “Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. Why is he there? And I tell you this morning that he’s in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this.”

Lest NBC seem too critical of the Bush administration, the article carries this "disclaimer."

NBC News military analyst Bill Arkin, who’s been investigating Boykin for the Los Angeles Times, says the general casts the war on terror as a religious war: “I think that it is not only at odds with what the president believes, but it is a dangerous, extreme and pernicious view that really has no place.”

Yeah, right. And I've got a pretty bridge for sale.

On the other hand, who really wants to believe that the finger on the button to the nation's nuclear arsenal belongs to a man who believes Satan walks the earth and that he was placed in office by divine intervention?

Complete story, such as it is (NBC doesn't do depth) here.

Saint George....

As Buzzflash asks, is the AP trying to sanctify Bush? By running this photo, the wire-service has lost a lot of credibility.

See for yourself here.

Krugman sounds another warning in the NYT....

During the 1990's I spent much of my time focusing on economic crises around the world — in particular, on currency crises like those that struck Southeast Asia in 1997 and Argentina in 2001. The timing of such crises is hard to predict. But there are warning signs, like big trade and budget deficits and rising debt burdens.

And there's one thing I can't help noticing: a third world country with America's recent numbers — its huge budget and trade deficits, its growing reliance on short-term borrowing from the rest of the world — would definitely be on the watch list.

One mystery I will never understand is how the Republicans continue to successfully present themselves as the political party of fiscal responsibility.

Complete story here.

A taste of our new governor's tactics....

California Governor-Elect Arnold Schwarzenegger gets back at one of the women who accused him of sexual-harassment.

Read about it here.

Fed up....

I rushed in late to a work meeting the other day, just in time to hear our HR representative winding up a talk on upcoming budget cuts, belt-tightening, heavier workloads and possible salary freezes.

Gloomy predictions have become commonplace at the large, state-funded California university where I work. The $20 billion state budget deficit lurks around every campus corner, an uninvited guest at the banquet, ravaging the buffet before anyone else can get to it.

After HR left the room, my fellow faculty assistants erupted into talk. We have to make the best of a bad situation, they said. Suck it up. Help one another when the workload gets too heavy.

No one questioned the basic premise of the situation. Not a word was uttered about fighting back if our workloads became unbearable or our workplace conditions intolerable.

Until finally I could take it no longer and piped up. “Hey, isn’t there a limit to how much we’ll take? After all, we do have a union…”

You would have thought I had suggested jumping off a cliff into the nearby Pacific. If only a fraction of the anti-union sentiment my remark occasioned would be channeled into campus labor organizing, our union wouldn’t be the well-meaning but ineffectual body even I agree it is.

Instead, the most vocal group members around the table damned the union and insisted that we have to take whatever the university dishes out because...well...that’s the way it is. Who can argue with a state budget deficit? Employers hold all the cards. Besides, we have it better than many others out there.

That the latter is true, makes me even angrier. I am so sick of low-paid workers getting the shaft, then being manipulated into turning against one another. The university has used the budget deficit for years to intimidate employees, keep lower-level wages low and excuse a host of ridiculous business practices.

Yes, California’s budget is in a colossal crisis—especially now that an inexperienced Republican actor has been placed in the governor’s mansion. (Remember what happened the last time this occurred.) The university, however, is a huge, pampered financial entity, rich in cash, land, facilities, resources and employees. Its wealth is anything but evenly distributed throughout the system.

A case in point. I recently saw one my boss’ federal tax returns. A relatively new faculty-member in electrical and computer engineering, he reported $149,000 in income in 2001. That's nothing compared to what senior U.C. administrators and other top academic leaders make. In 2001, the average salary of a UC chancellor was $280,610. And they've given themselves raises since then.

Yet, when I brought up wage-disparities in the meeting, without naming names or quoting salaries, and suggested that maybe fat could be cut from above rather than below, my fellow employees reacted more strongly than when HR had threatened to freeze their own salaries.

The faculty, they said, would go elsewhere if they aren’t paid enough. Not only that, they are "Ph.D.'s," the letters uttered as if discussing godly attributes. They have to study four years undergraduate, six years graduate, then take a post-graduate position, be an intern or whatever for even longer. Do you want to do that? someone asked.

You bet! I said. Only, I’m too broke, too indebted and most likely, too old.

Ten years ago, I tried to better my circumstances through education. I worked like a maniac and went into $20,000 in debt to earn first a B.A., then a master’s degree from U.C. Berkeley. Only to graduate and be offered $9 an hour to pursue my field, journalism, in one of the most expensive regions of the country, the San Francisco Bay Area. With a child to support and no savings or investments to fall back on, I had no choice but to turn the job down and return to higher-paying office work.

So much for my attempt to escape the admin-support ghetto.

But those poor Ph.D.’s! To hear my coworkers talk, it’s as if schooling, followed by interesting, creative and highly-paid work are sacrifices, not amazingly good fortune.

While grad students out there are studying and making, what, $25,000? Other workers are earning the same or less, pushing coffee, pumping gas, stocking the shelves at Wal-Mart, cleaning motel rooms and performing other less-than-desirable labor. Rather than rosier futures to look forward to in a few years, they have bunions, blown spinal-discs, hundreds of rude, disrespectful and filthy customers, mind-numbing boredom and no healthcare or dental benefits. Vacations? Hell, most working-class Americans are lucky now if they can get by holding down only one job.

People in the privileged classes consider several years of making less than $100,000 an economic hardship, above and beyond the call of duty.

The rest of us call it Life and consider ourselves lucky if we ever break $35,000.

Sad day for Ca-lee-for-nya...

How's this for a quote from the governor-elect of the largest state (population-wise) of the union?

"I will not fail you. I will not disappoint you, and I will not let you down," Schwarzenegger said to cheers from the crowd.

Well, he already has by uttering the same thing three ways without saying anything of substance.

A true protégé of President Bush in this regard, Schwarzenegger promises to go far!

What's more, don’t feel too smug from the safety of faraway states and foreign countries. He will soon be heading your way.

His celebration last night was held in the ballroom of the Century Plaza Hotel on Avenue of the Stars in LA, where Republicans have toasted Reagan election-night victories for two decades.

Want more proof the Republican Party is grooming him for the Oval Office? In July, Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah introduced what he hopes will become the 28th Amendment to the Constitution, permitting foreign-born nationals to be elected president.

Time to wake up!

According to the LAX, Hummers clogged the Avenue of the Stars last night, as invitees to the victory celebration searched for nonexistent parking places. Security was tight at the super-swank affair: if you weren't on the list, you didn’t get in. And that seems to have included a fair number of disappointed reporters.

Well, what do you expect from a multi-millionaire Republican actor-cum-politician-cum-governor?

Pandering to California voters’ basest instincts, Schwarzenegger’s first move will be to overturn a law granting drivers' licenses to undocumented immigrants. But make sure you somehow get a ride to the fields, nurseries, kitchens and laundry-rooms!

Just as quickly, he’s promising to undo the unpopular tripling of the car tax. And balance the state budget.

Oh well, we all know when he fails, the Democrats will somehow be blamed.

By the way, someone ought to tell Maria Shriver to ease up on whatever chemical substance has been smoothing her way on those late nights on the campaign trail. In every recent photo, she looks like a Stepford Wife on coke.

Election story here.