In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
Krugman: Buying Into Failure. To sum up:So the Bush administration wants to scrap a retirement system that works, and can be made financially sound for generations to come with modest reforms. Instead, it wants to buy into failure, emulating systems that, when tried elsewhere, have neither saved money nor protected the elderly from poverty.
- rob 4:40 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
Torture begins at the top
Rummy is George's man. As a Christian George knows Jesus is cool with torture, so George is cool with Rummy. (it is hard not to vomit these days, isn't it)
Torture is not only immoral and just plain wrong, but it is against American law, and if that wasn't enough - its effectiveness is generally considered to be minimal to useless. So why is the Bush administration so hot on it?
Torture begins at the top
A recently disclosed FBI memo indicates that "marching orders" to abandon traditional interrogation methods came from Defense Secretary Rumsfeld himself.Dec. 17, 2004 | Renewed exposure of prisoner abuse, torture and even murder by American military personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan is widening already deep divisions between the Pentagon and the intelligence community -- and creating an untenable situation for Donald Rumsfeld, the beleaguered secretary of defense. A recently disclosed FBI memo indicates that "marching orders" to abandon traditional interrogation methods came from the defense secretary himself.
In recent days, a coalition of human rights groups led by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights has brought new cases of abuse to public attention. Using the Freedom of Information Act, they have pried thousands of pages of previously secret documents from the Defense Department and other agencies.
...
The documents also show that officers from the CIA, the FBI and the Defense Intelligence Agency lodged "heated" objections to the abusive methods of interrogation used by the military, denouncing them in previously secret memoranda as not only unethical but useless and destructive.
In the files released by the government, FBI officials with special expertise in counterterrorism and interrogation techniques recorded their ongoing debate with Army officers about the harsh, coercive techniques authorized by the Pentagon. They were as concerned about the efficacy of those methods -- which they believe often produce poor intelligence -- as with possible violations of law and regulations. But the commanders overseeing the military interrogations simply dismissed the sharp warnings of the law enforcement and intelligence officers.
The abuses continued, in some cases even after the initial furor over Abu Ghraib. What's more, an internal FBI memo indicates that the directive to discard traditional restraints came from the very highest civilian official in the Pentagon: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
- rob 4:26 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
America's Mercenary Army: The American Foreign Legion?
Poor Salvadorans chase 'Iraqi dream'SAN SALVADOR -- Juan Nerio, a 44-year-old mason's assistant, was sick of living in a mud hut on the side of a volcano. When he heard that an American company was offering six times his $200 monthly wage, he signed up. Six weeks later he found himself holding an AK-47 assault rifle and guarding a US diplomatic complex in Iraq.
"No one could possibly earn so much in our country," said Nerio, who returned to El Salvador two weeks ago after a hernia forced him to reluctantly give up his $1,240-a-month job in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. "With that kind of money, I thought I could make my family's life a little easier."
- rob 3:48 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
A really good roundup from someone who has time and writing ability (i.e. not me): Daily Kos :: Ohio Update 12/17 [Updated]
- rob 3:15 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
You ever get annoyed that you sign up for a part time job and that sometimes you have to work all 5 days of the week and weekends? You think you'd get annoyed if that sometimes was everytime for over a year? Yeah other people get annoyed with that too:
US National Guard feels impact of Iraq war as recruiting slips
- rob 2:09 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
It's Challenging lying to the American public about social security.- Thursday, December 16, 2004 -
Typical Bush Fact Checking:
Anyway, don't let Bush reward his campaign donors. Check out: Privatize This!According to the Social Security actuaries, the trust funds currently carry enough reserves to pay full benefits to all who are eligible through 2042. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the trust funds are even stronger than that, carrying enough in reserves to pay full benefits through 2052. At that time, the trust funds will still have enough in revenue to pay 73 to 81 percent of benefits, according to the actuaries and CBO respectively.The threat of Social Security's immediate demise is about as real as Saddam's WMDs. Yes there is in the future a problem that needs to be dealt with now, but as with Iraq Bush's solutions are... umm... not so hot.The president has suggested that a plan put forth in 2001 by his handpicked Social Security commission would be a "good blueprint" for reform. Under this plan, one-third of a worker's contributions to Social Security would be diverted from the trust funds into private accounts. As a result of this plan, the trust funds would lose almost $2 trillion in the first 10 years alone.But putting aside the fact that Bush's plans for America hurt Americans, it is a nice little gift to Wall Street.
This diversion weakens the trust funds so significantly that the date by which they are no longer able to pay full benefits is moved up by more than two decades - 21 years - from 2042 to 2021. Expediting insolvency is an odd way of shoring up Social Security.
Worse yet, these losses will not stop after the first decade. These so-called "transition costs" continue for 50-60 years. Although the plan claims it will find additional money to put into the trust funds so current beneficiaries can continue to be paid, it resorts to accounting gimmicks to hide trust fund deficits. For example, the plan relies heavily upon deficit financing - more than $200 billion a year until 2054. But, it never tells us where this money comes from or how we pay it back. Borrowing of this magnitude would mean that our national debt will rise to unprecedented levels. This new debt alone - debt in addition to what is already projected under current law - would grow to equal 24 percent of gross domestic product.
These staggering "transition costs" will force substantial benefit cuts. Private accounts are touted as voluntary - if you want to remain in traditional Social Security, proponents claim you will be free to do so. However, even those who opt not to participate in a privatized system will see benefit cuts. For example, if you are in your late 20s today, when you retire at age 65 in 2042 your benefits will be 25 percent less than they would have been under today's Social Security system.
- rob 11:51 AM - [PermaLink] -
----
real quick ohio round up
- I think I mentioned this before but it is just so amazing: Woman who made accusations of Triad voting machine tampering comes forward
He arrived at about 12:30PM. I hung his coat up and it was very heavy. I made a comment about it being so heavy. He, Lisa Schwartze and I chatted for a few minutes. He proceeded to go to the room where our computer and tabulation machine is kept. I followed him into the room. I had my back to him when he turned the computer on. He stated that the computer was not coming up. I did see some commands at the lower left hand of the screen but no menu. He said that the battery in the computer was dead and that the stored information was gone. He said that he could put a patch on it and fix it. My main concern was - what if this happened when we were ready to do the recount. He proceeded to take the computer apart and call his offices to get information to input into our computer. Our computer is fourteen years old and as far as I know had always worked in the past. I asked him if the older computer, that is in the same room. could be used for the recount. I don't remember exactly what he said but I did relay to him that the computer was old and a spare. At some point he asked if he could take the spare computer apart and I said "yes". He took both computers apart. I don't remember seeing any tools and he asked Sue Wallace, Clerk, for a screwdriver. She got it for him. At this point I was frustrated about the computer not performing and feared that it wouldn't work for the recount. I called Gerald Robinette, board chairman, to inform him regarding the computer problem and asked him if we could have Tri Ad come to our offices to run the program and tabulator for the recount. Gerald talked on the phone with Michael and Michael assured Gerald that he could fix our computer. He worked on the computer until about 3:00 PM and then asked me which precinct and the number of the precinct we were going to count. I told him, Good Hope 1 # 17. He went back into the tabulation room. Shortly after that he (illegible) stated that the computer was ready for the recount and told us not to turn the computer off so it would charge up.Because lets face it, hand counting would be inconvenient, and democracy shouldn't be inconvenient.
...
He advised Lisa and I on how to post a "cheat sheet" on the wall so that only the board members and staff would know about it and and what the codes meant so the count would come out perfect and we wouldn't have to do a full hand recount of the county. He left about 5:00 PM.
- Olbermann: Conyers "prepared" to contest Ohio Electoral Vote
NEW YORK - The ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee told us tonight on Countdown that he and others in Congress are considering formally challenging the slate of electors who cast Ohio's votes, when those votes are opened and counted before a joint session of Congress on January 6th.
"We're prepared to do that," Conyers said. "And we understand the law as well as you." After the on-air interview ended, the Michigan representative added that he and his colleagues had not yet decided whether or not to take the extraordinary constitutional step, and he had not sought the support of a Senator who would have to co-sign the challenge.
- rob 6:04 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
Don't feel bad about Kerik and Gonzalez - Bush is already drafting plans for them to get the medal of freedom next year.
Yes, Bush again seems perfectly happy with incompetence.
Bushies circle the wagons 'round AG pickWASHINGTON - Even though critics say he flubbed the vetting of Bernie Kerik, Team Bush yesterday absolved White House Counsel and attorney general nominee Alberto Gonzales.Yes, it was that damn Nanny
Often mentioned as an eventual Supreme Court pick, Gonzales still is sure to be questioned about what went wrong in tapping Kerik for the homeland security post when he faces his own Senate confirmation hearing early next year, congressional sources told the Daily News.
The White House insists the process worked and that the problem was Kerik's failure to be forthright about hiring a nanny who was an illegal immigrant and failing to pay taxes.
"Rest assured, we did significant due diligence," said White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett, who, without specifying, claimed the administration knew about some of Kerik's other black marks.
"We were aware of many of the issues that have been reported," Bartlett insisted, except for the hiring of the nanny.
Ummm... but was there even a nanny?
Mystery Woman in Kerik Case: NannyOne secret after another has tumbled out since the collapse of Bernard B. Kerik's nomination as homeland security secretary - an undisclosed marriage, clandestine love affairs, unsavory business ties and unreported gifts.But that was okay - until the world learned he had a nanny (okay a nanny with immigration issues, and a person Kerik never paid taxes on... but perhaps he didn't pay taxes on her because she didn't exist... and why does a grown man need a nanny anyways? I thought he was supposed to be so tough but he needs a nanny? What does he need to have her help clean his face after eating ice cream?The White House has been unwilling to discuss any specifics of the nanny herself, including whether anyone in the administration had asked Mr. Kerik for details about her identity, status or nationality. Answers were not forthcoming from Mr. Kerik's camp, either. "We are not going to discuss the nanny any further," said Christopher Rising, general counsel at Giuliani-Kerik L.L.C., who is acting as a spokesman for Mr. Kerik.So maybe the nanny existed maybe not, but I just want to note that the Bush administration claims the nanny was a "deal breaker," not the other known black marks in Kerik's record.
...
A neighbor who lives next door to the Keriks in Franklin Lakes, N.J., said that until a few weeks ago she would see a woman she believed to be the nanny playing ball with the two Kerik children in a side yard. But even that neighbor, who described the children's playmate as a young, olive-skinned woman who did not drive, had never met the woman or learned where she came from. The neighbor spoke on the condition of anonymity.
But many others have either been reluctant or unable to talk about her, including other nannies in the neighborhood, relatives of Mr. Kerik's wife, Hala, even Mr. Kerik's lawyer, Joseph Tacopina.
Mr. Tacopina, who has also been fielding calls from the press on Mr. Kerik's behalf, said he knows nothing about the nanny's identity, the length of her employment or even her nationality, despite news reports that she was Mexican that were mistakenly attributed to him.
"I never met her," he said. "I don't know what country she came from. I don't know her nationality. I don't know her name." Pressed, he added, "I know she's not a phantom, because a document was applied for and received."
...
In the blue-collar neighborhood of Elmwood Park, N.J., where Mrs. Kerik's mother, Zakia, lived in a rented duplex for years, neighbors reacted with surprise to questions about a nanny, and said that Mrs. Kerik's mother had moved into the Kerik home about a year ago.
"They never came around here with a nanny," said Sophie Borsuk, 55, the longtime landlady and downstairs neighbor of Mrs. Kerik's mother. "I never saw any nanny. This is the first time I heard about a nanny."
But in Franklin Lakes, a town of vast lawns and winding driveways, nannies are practically an expected status symbol, according to the owners of nanny agencies that serve the area, all of which denied supplying the Keriks with a nanny.
"He had to have known the status of his nanny," said Christine Sandrib, who has operated Nannies N More for 14 years. "If she's illegal, anybody in his position had to have known."
Like Christy Ann Bozanian, owner of A Better Nanny, Ms. Sandrib stressed that an agency was responsible for determining that any employee it placed was legal. Their own agencies require a green card or work authorization as well as a criminal background check. Both said the demand for legal, thoroughly vetted nannies had risen dramatically in recent years.
"In particular post 9/11, there's a greater concern about knowing who is in their home," Ms. Sandrib said. "This neighborhood is full of attorneys, physicians, people involved in politics at some sort of a level. They're not interested in illegal candidates. An educated person should know to ask for that."
What kind of black marks? Is it the affairs? Is it the secret wife? What could it be? What kind of black marks is the White House fine with?
Well perhaps they are fine with the fact that Kerik seemed to have really enjoyed the movie Bad Lieutenant .
Let's see what the NY Papers are finding out about Kerik's black marks:Gee, no wonder Bush likes the guy: corrupt, abuse of power, spending tax money for expensive security measures that don't actually do anything; why if it wasn't for the sex scandals he'd be VP!
- He seems to have a bit of a mob connection: KERIK MOB PROBE
December 16, 2004 -- The Bronx District Attorney's Office said yesterday it will investigate allegations that former NYPD top cop Bernard Kerik used a mob-connected contractor to renovate an apartment he purchased.
Bronx DA Robert Johnson is launching the probe in the wake of a report that in 1999 Kerik had a mob-connected contractor convert two first-floor apartments into one large apartment at the West 239th Street building.
Kerik, then the city's Correction Department commissioner, was experiencing severe financial problems at the time.- Besides having affairs and then stalking ex-lovers... he stalks their family too: THE CHILLING DAY BERNIE STALKED REGAN'S SON ON HIGHWAY: BIZ PAL
When Regan ate in a restaurant with another man, Kerik called her cellphone, or had the management page her, said the source. Once he got her on the phone, "He'd describe the man she was having dinner with. He seemed to be watching her through the window," the associate said. He kept a key to her apartment, said another pal, and showed up unexpectedly. On a business trip to Los Angeles, she said, he had her followed.
But what frightened Regan most was a call in which Kerik he claimed to be following her son as he drove back to college in Massachusetts.
"He said, 'I'm following Patrick. I'm at this exit at the turnpike. I want you to know this is where he is,' " the associate recalled.
While the married Kerik has all but acknowledged that he carried on affairs with not one, but two women in his Battery Park love nest — an apartment that had been originally donated to 9/11 rescue workers — he denied stalking.- He seems to be worried about some of his shady deals coming to life: KERIK QUIT L.I. FIRM IN A HURRY
In late October, Kerik abruptly submitted a resignation letter as an adviser to the firm, Hauppauge-based Defense Technology Systems Inc., failing thereafter to return phone calls asking for an explanation, said the company's chief operating and finance officer, Philip Rauch.
Three weeks later, Kerik returned certificates for 400,000 shares of stock and the surrender of a slew of options he'd been granted by the firm, Rauch said.
Rauch said no one at Defense Technology has any idea why Kerik cut ties to the company, except perhaps in the hope of distancing himself from its association with a Queens-based security-door company, Georal Inc., if questions about that company should have come up at his confirmation hearings.
In late October, Georal's owner, Alan Risi pleaded guilty to submitting inflated and excessive invoices to the city under various contracts, and is scheduled for sentencing this Friday.
In June 2001, when Kerik was running the New York Police Department, Risi's company sold the department four automatic high-security door systems for 1 Police Plaza, at a price that published reports say was roughly $200,000. Georal's general counsel, Theodore Pryor, said that figure is "somewhat low."
When the doors arrived, they were never installed, and wound up being shipped to Rikers Island for use there.
- rob 5:52 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
Now Trent Lott's an easy going guy.- Wednesday, December 15, 2004 -
If you're a racist bigot who impregnates the teenage help, that's cool with him, he'll still think you were a great Senator (Strom).
If you lie to congress about the true cost of a program just so they'll pass it, and if you lie about to congress to get them to let you go to war, that's really cool with him, he'll still think you are a great President (George).
So this really makes me go wow: Lott: Replace defense chiefBILOXI - U.S. Sen. Trent Lott doesn't believe Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld should resign immediately, but he does think Rumsfeld should be replaced sometime in the next year.
- rob 5:01 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
Look what the three stooges are up to!
They got shiny medals!
Bush bestows highest civilian honor on Tenet, Bremer, Franks
That better be some kind of shame metal. - John Stewart
Proving that only incompetence is rewarded in the Bush administration, the highest civilian medal in America, a medal with a grand history is debased by Bush awarding it to his bungling former employees (probably so they'll keep quiet). How will an award given to Julia Child, Johnny Carson, Charlton Heston, Sam Walton and so many others ever earn back its respect (okay Mandela, Cesar Chavez, Warren Burger, and Mother Teresa have also been honored - this is a serious medal).
But let's look at the achievements these three have brought to America (besides the death of over a thousand of its young soldiers):
- Bremer was the watch dog in charge when 9/11 happened and then was the go to it boy for fake evidence for the Iraqi war.
- Franks is the general who moved his soldiers in so fast during the invasion had no problem letting the country fall immediately into anarchy by standing by during the looting, setting the tone for the entire occupation (and let's not forget he also didn't seem to have a problem leaving weapon stockpiles unguarded as long as the oil facilities were guarded).
- Bremer definitely deserves a special honor. Under his leadership the Iraqi army was disbanded giving a lot of young men the need to find a job, but since under Bremer's leadership there were no jobs, so some of the men came up with a hobby - attacking foreigners. Under Bremer all Bath party members lost their government jobs leaving every level of government understaffed. But that doesn't matter because Bremer himself saw his main mission to be the privatizing of Iraq's public assets. Bremer was in charge of looting, and here he succeeded.
But let's see what the newspapers said:A holdover from the Clinton presidency, Tenet was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1997 to 2004 and was responsible for the effort to pull together conclusions based on information gathered from more than a dozen intelligence agencies during the run-up to the war against Iraq.
In that capacity, Tenet assured Bush that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons - he said at the time the conclusion was a "slam dunk" - and it was upon that information that Bush publicly justified the war. No such weapons have been found in Iraq, where 1,296 American troops have been killed and 9,844 others have been wounded, according to Pentagon figures.
...
"Tommy Franks led the forces that fought and won two wars in the defense of the world's security, and helped liberate more than 50 million people from two of the worst tyrannies in the world," said Bush. "One of the highest distinctions of history is to be called a liberator, and Tommy Franks will always carry that title."
Franks has been criticized, however, for not fully securing weapons depots in Iraq that were later looted by Iraqis. Some of the looted weapons have since been used in insurgent attacks against Iraqi citizens and U.S. forces.
Among those who questioned the administration for those alleged shortcomings, asserting that too few troops were deployed to Iraq, was Bremer, who oversaw the U.S. occupation there until last June. Bremer's critics, meanwhile, have said he presided over the rise of the insurgency in Iraq, in part by dismantling Iraqi security forces and by failing to fully integrate rival Shiite and Sunni groups into the political process there.
- rob 5:05 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
Quick update:- Tuesday, December 14, 2004 -- rob 2:57 PM - [PermaLink] -
- Olbermann notes the media seems to be noticing something news worthy might be happening: Conyers and cautions
NEW YORK? At least this should put a spike through the still-rampant rumor that the mainstream media is ?locked down? and not reporting anything of the investigation into the apparent Ohio voting irregularities.
It is not a banner headline; in fact, it is but nine paragraphs. But those nine paragraphs are in this morning?s editions of The New York Times.
Congressman John Conyers of Michigan, the newspaper reports, will today ask the FBI and a county prosecutor in Ohio to investigate what he has termed ?inappropriate and likely illegal election tampering? in one or more counties in that state.
And beginning on the front page of this morning?s Washington Post, there cascades down upon the reader no less than 41 paragraphs, told soberly and without much evident partisanship, reciting the litany of Ohio screw-ups that led that newspaper to invoke the headline ?Several Factors Contributed to ?Lost? Voters in Ohio.?
...
Throw the Senior Democrat on Judiciary, and Jesse Jackson, and the letters ?FBI? into the mix? and presto, you get mainstream media attention.
Incidentally, Conyers has also again exchanged letters with Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell and would appear to have once more gotten the public relations edge on him. After Conyers? ?36 Questions? letter of December 2, he said yesterday that he had received a reply from Blackwell in which the Secretary refused to answer any of the questions, and (according to Conyers), made the rather baroque claim that he couldn?t be cooperative with the GAO and members of Congress at the same time.
As Newsweek?s Howard Fineman noted on Countdown Monday night, Secretary Blackwell sure isn?t doing a good job of convincing people that the puffs of smoke rising from the election he supervised came only from overheating voting machines.- This Daily Kos diary titled: Houston, We Have a Whistleblower, has this nice little nugget:
(Excerpt:) "Ohio Revised Code Title XXXV Elections, Sec. 3503.26 that requires all election records to be made available for public inspection and copying. ORC Sec. 3599.161 makes it a crime for any employee of the Board of Elections to knowingly prevent or prohibit any person from inspecting the public records filed in the office of the Board of Elections. Lastly, ORC Sec. 3599.42 states: "A violation of any provision of Title XXXV (35) of the Revised Code constitutes a prima facie case of election fraud within the purview of such Title."- Why Ohio Matters (another Daily Kos diary) has amazing pictures that America is far from being color blind. In fact in Ohio it seems the more color in your skin the less likely you are to have your vote count. It is willful neglect, and it is a tragedy, and it is a crime.
----
Quick Red State Update: Judge Suspended For Wearing Blackface To PartyThe Louisiana Supreme Court has given a judge a six-month suspension for wearing blackface makeup, handcuffs and a jail jumpsuit to a Halloween party.
...
Ellender, who is white, said the costumes worn by him and his wife were meant as a joke. She dressed as a policewoman. And the party's host, Ellender's brother-in-law, was dressed as Buckwheat.
- rob 5:29 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
Oh pretty pretty please...
Senate Dems Plan Investigatory Hearings
- rob 5:22 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
Sign: Release of Classified DOJ-IG Report on FBI Cover-Up Petition (if you want to of course).
Every signature helps (maybe).
- rob 5:21 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
A Year After Saddam's Capture, Iraq's Rebels Fight On"In the history of Iraq, a dark and painful era is over," Bush declared in a television address the day after the capture on Dec. 13. "A hopeful day has arrived. All Iraqis can now come together and reject violence and build a new Iraq."And very sadly for Iraqis and Americans a new dark and painful era has begun.
- rob 5:15 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
Today's "Election" 2004 Round-up- Monday, December 13, 2004 -
- Don't just sit there, well actually you can sit - it helps when typing, send a letter to the House Judiciary Committee and have them continue to investage not only Ohio's irregularities but the state of voting in America everywhere. You can send a nice email from here:House Committee on the Judiciary, Democratic Members. Thanks. Every email will help. This is what I wrote:
I'm writing in reference to voting issues that have occurred not only in this election in Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, and other places, but in 2002 in Georgia, and in 2000 in Florida.
The government of America has spent over 100 billion dollars of the people's money in an effort to bring democracy to Iraq, and yet has done nothing to make sure our democracy is secure at home.
States have been unwilling to pay for the negligible additional cost of auditable paper receipts for electronic voting machines. States have been willing to allow poor districts to use old equipment to vote on leading to drastically higher "spoiled" ballots in these poorer communities. Suddenly only the rich in America are assured their votes count?
There seems to be a conscious effort for election boards to make sure that African American communities are not being given sufficient equipment to allow for all willing voters to vote. Suddenly Martin Luther King Jr's dream is farther away in the 21st century then it was in the 1970's?
In 2004 we have seen two things that endanger are democracy and bring into question the actual legitimacy of our "leaders" in Washington.
- Decades of neglect have left the most important day of a free society - election day - a day in which people stand in line for hours to enter a poorly lit gym, vote on the same equipment their grandparents voted on, and are greeted by volunteers who are under appreciated and under trained. A day that should be a celebration turns into a hassle and a joke. To imagine people used to dress up to vote, now you'd dress down, so as not to wrinkle your clothes as you lean against the wall waiting for the line to move.
- This pathetic state of the actual election process has opened it up for easy manipulation, and some have taken advantage of that. Campaigns have moved from encouraging people to vote to purposefully blocking people from voting. Campaign consultants who talk of ways to dissuade people from voting or challenge and harass legitimate voters are not showing poor ethical behavior, they are showing outright distain for being in a free country. These are the people who hate our freedom. Taking away a vote is - plain and simple - an attempt to destroy our democracy.
Please continue to investigate any problems with these elections from either party, but don't stop there. Work to defend the right to vote. Reform America's elections. National standards, transparent methods of tabulation, the ability for a voter to verify their vote was correctly registered, and an audit trail. These aren't a wish list. These are required to keep America free. Don't let America have another election that can be compared to Ukraine's.
Folks pretend to worry about America falling because, like Ancient Rome, we have become weak. They often use this "worry" to promote costly and unnecessary military expenditures (while forgetting to armor the Humvees). But we have grown weak. We have taking voting for granted, and because of that we may have lost it.
Reform, legislate, and spend. $100 Billion plus for democracy in Iraq. How much are we willing to spend for democracy in the United States?- Clint Curtis' "show stopper" testimony causes "gasps" at hearing
Then, he asked curtis something like whether voting machines could be hacked. He said yes. Arnebeck asked him on what he based that opinion. He said because I wrote a program that could do it. Arnebeck asked when that happened. Curtis said feeney had asked him to design such a program at yang enterprises.
Jaws dropped. Tubbs jones and waters looked shocked.
Tubbs jones, waters and nadler asked questions. Waters asked him to repeat who asked him to do it. Congressman feeney, he said. Nadler asked him some questions, as did tubbs jones and a state senator.
Curtis was asked what he would conclude if there was such a substantial deviation btwn exit polls and actual results. He said he would conclude the election had been hacked. Gasps. Could have heard a pin drop.
In the end, curtis was very very convincing to everyone in attendance. He was a show stopper, a stunner. It was a really amazing moment.
...
Wired Magazine revealed today in their article on Curtis that it was staffers in Sen. Bill Nelson's office with whom Curtis met last week in D.C.
Nelson oversees NASA in the Senate. Curtis had charged in his affidavit that an employee, Hai Lin Nee (a/k/a Henry Nee) with whom Curtis worked at Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI) had inserted "wiretapping routines" into programs that YEI had been contracted to create for NASA, among other companies (including the Florida Dept. of Transportation).
Nee was charged with shipping chips used in Hellfire anti-tank missiles to the Peoples Republic of China in March of this year, and has since plead guilty to one of those counts (more on Nee soon!)
At the time of the alleged October 2000 meeting at YEI when Curtis claims that Feeney asked him to create a "vote-rigging software prototype", Feeney was a member of the Florida Legislature, a corporate attorney for YEI, as well as being a registered lobbyist for the company.
Feeney was said to have been, at the time, the only registered lobbyist known to have been serving concurrently as a legislator in the 160 member Florida statehouse.
Shortly thereafter, Feeney became Speaker of the Florida Legislature.- Green says voting company tampered with recount effort
Cobb says that a witness who had requested anonymity watched a representative of Triad Systems enter the Columbus Board of Elections unannounced and tamper with a vote tabulator which then lost all data.
The representative then, Cobb said, tried to convince employees to post false information so that it would appear as if the data was valid and had never been lost.- Startling new revelations highlight rare Congressional hearings on Ohio vote - Kerry getting more involved.
On Sunday, John Kerry spoke with Rev. Jesse Jackson and urged him to take an more active role in investigating the irregularities and ensuring a fair and impartial recount. Kerry said there were three areas of inquiry that should be addressed: 92,000 ballots that recorded no vote for president; qualifying and counting provisional ballots; and supported an independent analysis of the software and set-up of the optical scan voting machines.Please read, there's lots more.
What follows are excerpts from some of the affidavits for the election challenge.
- In Warren County, where election officers declared a homeland security emergency on Election Day, and barred reporters and others from watching the vote count, it now has been revealed that county employees were told the previous Thursday they should prepare for the Election Day lockdown. That disclosure suggests the lockdown was a political decision, not a true security risk. Moreover, statements also describe how ballots were left unguarded and unprotected in a warehouse on Election Day, and they were hastily moved after county officials received complaints.
- And of course - Olbermann: Xenia-phobia
Here is Kerry, insisting he is not invested in the outcome of an Ohio recount, asking through his lawyers to inspect the 92,000 ballots that contain no vote for president. And, through his interactions with Jesse Jackson and John Conyers, connecting into the Alliance for Democracy lawsuit to overturn or freeze the Ohio Electoral count, and into the assessment that Blackwell’s behavior “appears to violate Ohio law.”
And here is Blackwell, having insisted on 'Countdown' that there would be a re-count and his office would take no steps to prevent it, stepping on his own feet in Xenia, Ohio. Last Friday, Greene County election officials there tossed out two Green Party observers who had been given access to the examine the voting records there, attributing their actions to Blackwell’s directives that the so-called ‘canvassing period’ which follows every election be extended from ten days to more than a month because of the fact of the recount. Those county records, Blackwell’s people reasoned, needed to be sealed and handled with the “utmost care” until the recount was completed.
Just to round out the absurdity, those same two Greens returned to the Election Board building in Greene County (and what script editor would’ve permitted that coincidence?) on Saturday morning to find, they say, the facility unlocked, and all those ‘sealed’ voting machines and records out in the open where any passing vandal or political memorabilia junkie could’ve walked off with them
...
It took us several phone calls today to get any explanation out of Secretary Blackwell’s office as to the events in Xenia. Carlo LoParo, the Secretary’s Press Secretary, finally came through just before dinner time. “When a county board of elections receives a formal request for a recount,” he said on Blackwell’s behalf, “all ballots, poll books and lists must be sealed to protect the record. Those documents can only be accessed in the presence of all parties involved in the recount through bi-partisan election officials — at least one Democrat and one Republican.”
In other words, the Greens’ observers were kicked out because they were neither Democrat nor Republican, even though the recount is being sponsored by, and funded by, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans.
- rob 5:11 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
To be a Conservative Fox News Pundit means never having to say your sorry... or even having to say anthing truthful.
Make up your mind, will ya?Does Fox News personality Bill O'Reilly really believe that the Anti-Defamation League's Abe Foxman leads "an extremist group that finds offense in pretty much everything," as he claimed yesterday on his radio show?
"These are the people who accused anybody of liking 'The Passion of the Christ' as anti-Semitic," O'Reilly added.
Or does O'Reilly believe the contrary arguments he made back in February, when he repeatedly cited Foxman in his defense of Mel Gibson's movie?
"Now Abraham Foxman, the head of the ADL, says the movie isn't anti-Semitic. And when he says it ... I think you got to believe it," he said on the Feb. 26 "O'Reilly Factor."
- rob 3:59 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
Gary Webb, reporter who exposed CIA, diesSACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Gary Webb, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who wrote a controversial series of stories linking the CIA to crack cocaine trafficking in Los Angeles, has died at age 49.I remember when Webb was demoted. I find it fascinating that his report was at all even controversial. Maybe I imagined it but I plainly remember in the televised Iran-Contra hearings little boy scout Ollie North briefly admitting that the planes delivering arms to Nicaragua would return with drugs which were then sold in America and used to buy more arms. I still remember my jaw dropping, and then there was nothing. I didn't read about it in the paper the next day, no one mentioned it in the news. People I met who watched it seemed to remember it, but with no media feedback like me were beginning to thing they imagined it.
Webb was found Friday morning at his home in Sacramento County, dead of an apparent suicide. Moving-company workers called authorities after discovering a note posted on his front door that read, "Please do not enter. Call 911 and ask for an ambulance."
Webb died of a gunshot wound to the head, according to the Sacramento County coroner's office.
...
Webb's 1996 series in the Mercury News alleged that Nicaraguan drug traffickers had sold tons of crack cocaine in Los Angeles and funneled millions of dollars in profits to the CIA-supported Nicaraguan Contras during the 1980s.
The articles did not accuse the CIA of directly aiding drug dealers to raise money for the Contras, but implied that the agency was aware of the activity.
Major parts of Webb's reporting were later discredited by other newspaper investigations. An investigation by the Los Angeles Police Department found no evidence of a connection between the CIA and the drug traffickers.
In 1997, then-Mercury News executive editor Jerry Ceppos backed away from the series, saying "we fell short at every step of our process." Webb was transferred to one of the paper's suburban bureaus.
"This is just harassment," Webb said after his demotion. "This isn't the first time that a reporter went after the CIA and lost his job over it."
Then came Webb's article. "aha! At last! No people will talk about what was said in the hearings." Nope, in the end the guy gets demoted. And now this.
Does anyone remember hearing about drug running in Oliver North's testimony? Did I wear a tin hat even in the eighties?
- rob 3:36 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
Someone in Iraq knows his history, and as we know a lot of history is not so hot.
'Iraqi Hitler' May Emerge from Unrest-Iraq PresidentDUBAI (Reuters) - Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar said in remarks published Monday that long-term instability in his country could give birth to an "Iraqi Hitler" if citizens continued to feel humiliated and despondent.
Daily bombings and kidnappings have plagued Iraq since last year's U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein and the relentless Sunni-led insurgency has crippled reconstruction and development projects in the country.
"This could in the long term create an environment in which an Iraqi Hitler could emerge like the one created by the defeat of Germany and the humiliation of Germans in World War I," Yawar told the London-based Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.
- rob 3:19 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
You want facts about sex, here's two: its icky, and god doesn't like it.
Fact-free teaching on sexThe 1938 government antimarijuana propaganda film Reefer Madness is still watched today for its campy excesses. Dr. Carroll, the moralizing high school principal, warns parents that marijuana is more dangerous than opium and heroin. Those who smoke the drug are depicted as instantly addicted and crazed.Who correctly noted there was a lot of energy and commerce involved in convincing someone to have sex with them and that they felt bad about themselves afterwards and that was about as "scientific" as anyone needed.
We laugh at these scare tactics today. But the government has not ended its efforts to modify behavior by using campaigns of exaggerations and lies. A new congressional report has found that the nation's most popular government-funded abstinence-only sex education programs are peppered with inaccuracies that misinform young people about the risks of sex, contraceptives and abortion. It's Reefer Madness all over again. Or, as one research group called it, "Scared Chaste."
...
But unlike Bush's energetic concern over educational accountability and standards reflected in No Child Left Behind, the curricula for abstinence-only sex education programs are not vetted for accuracy. (There was an attempt by Democratic lawmakers in 2002 to require medical accuracy as a condition of receiving money for these programs, but that effort was voted down by Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.)"We hear from kids all the time about the myths they've been fed," said Marilyn Anderson, director of education at Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida. "The whole idea is to scare kids and make them think they'll get HIV by having sex. But what's walking into our clinic says that kids are having sex, just without condoms."Yeah, and lying to teens about one of God's gifts (you know sex - orgasms - nudity - and other icky things) will make you really truly awesome in God's eyes. And I'm sorry a blastocyst is about as snuggly as the word. Its barely a gob of cells at that point. Humans kill more cells coughing.
Although the federal government has determinedly refused to study whether any correlation exists between teaching abstinence and actual abstinence, the social science that does exist demonstrates very little positive impact. The handful of states that have studied it found no long-term success in delaying sexual initiation. Instead, some state program evaluators said the programs' lack of information on pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases was leading to dangerous attitudes and behaviors.
...
It's no surprise, then, that the curricula have also been found to mix religion and science in ways to promote an antiabortion agenda. One course described a blastocyst as a "tiny baby" that "snuggles" into the uterus. Another called a 43-day-old fetus a "thinking person."
In Louisiana, a state-sponsored Web site tells young people that withholding sex until marriage makes one "really, truly, "cool' in God's eyes."
- rob 3:02 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
Fighting for the army you have
Ohio reservists in Iraq faulted for scrounging vehicles, parts
Actually they were "court-martialed," which is just a whee bit stronger a term than "faulted."
So some soldiers screwup in an effort to protect themselves (i.e. didn't ask permission) and are court-martialed, is the cour-martial for their crime, or for the fact that they had to commit their crime which is embarrasing as hell to Rummy's "army that you have."At a time when some U.S. troops in Iraq are complaining they have to scrounge for equipment, six Ohio-based reservists were court- martialed for taking Army vehicles abandoned in Kuwait by other units so they could carry out their own unit's mission to Iraq.
The soldiers say they needed the vehicles, and parts stripped from one, to deliver fuel to Iraq, but their former battalion commander said Sunday that the troops should at least have returned the vehicles to their original units.
Members of the 656th Transportation Company based in Springfield, west of Columbus, said they needed the equipment to deliver fuel that was needed by U.S. forces in Iraq for everything from helicopters to tanks.
The reservists took two tractor-trailers and stripped parts from a five-ton truck that had been abandoned in Kuwait by other units.
- rob 2:24 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
The election isn't over until the smirking chimp cries
Update
- Ohio News Now: Kerry lawyer asks for visual inspection of some Ohio ballots
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Democrat John Kerry is asking county elections officials to allow his witnesses to visually inspect the 92,000 ballots cast in Ohio in which no vote for president was recorded, a Kerry lawyer said Sunday night.Yeah, who needs to know if they cheated, it still won't matter, if they find out he did cheat congress will give him the Presidency anyway. So who cares? Like live in the illusion already. Leader: George W. Bush
The request is one of 11 items that Kerry is asking for as part of the recount that Ohio's 88 county boards of election will begin this week, according to a letter sent to the boards over the weekend.
"We're trying to increase the transparency of the election process," said Donald McTigue, the lawyer handling the recount for the Kerry campaign.
Two minor presidential candidates who received 0.30 percent of the votes in last month's election requested the recount, claiming that the election was full of irregularities that need to be addressed.
President Bush, a Republican, beat the Massachusetts senator by about 119,000 votes in Ohio on Election Day. Ohio's 20 electoral votes, which will be cast on Monday, put Bush over the top in the race.
Kerry's campaign supports the recount but says it won't change the election outcome. Bush's campaign has criticized the recount effort, saying it won't change anything.
- Odd vote results point to mix-ups at some precincts
The election results tabulated from the two precincts at Benedictine High School seemed off-kilter from the start.Sure, I mean since it was God that told Bush to invade Iraq - everything is possible in the 21st Century.
Had more than a third of the 1,000-plus voters at the East Side school really embraced the ideals of Michael Peroutka, the candidate of the Constitution Party, and Libertarian Party candidate Michael Badnarik?Could 215 people have voted for Peroutka in a precinct that delivered 299 votes for John Kerry?
Did Badnarik win 164 votes to Kerry's 334 in the precinct that was in the same room?
At more than a dozen Cuyahoga County precincts - primarily on Cleveland's East Side - spikes in votes for the little-known third-party contenders shot up a flare that something went awry on Election Day.- Please Read: Greg Palast on voter fraud in Ohio
I came here tonight to warn you that there are cooks and cranks and crazies out there on the internet who think that John Kerry won. Now, I know because one of those articles on the internet called "John Kerry Won," on Tompaine.com ... I wrote it.
Maybe you can explain this to me. See, I got the CNN exit polls, and it said that in Ohio, Kerry defeated Bush among women 53 to 47%, and among men, Kerry defeated Bush by 51 to 49%. So, who's the third sex that put our president over the top? I thought I'd investigate, which is unusual. See, I'm a reporter. My reports appear on BBC Television. I'm a mainstream guy, as they say. And for the big newspaper of Britain, the Guardian/Observer.
I used to write George Orwell's old column there, and he'd enjoy this. And so I wrote a story called, "Kerry Won: Here's the Facts." And I got a letter, an e-mail, from the New York Times. Here it is. They wanted to follow - they wanted to investigate! Cool! And they asked me, question 1: "Are you a conspiracy nut?" Question 2: "Are you a sore loser?" Question 3: there is no question three...that was the end of the interview.
...
93,000 votes were tossed on the floor, never counted. We're not talking 're-count' here, we're talking NEVER count. These 93,000 votes are called, "spoiled" in Ohio. Another 155,000 votes are called provisional. More absentee ballots were tossed. Yet, supposedly George Bush won by 119,000. Folks, now what's going on here? Whose votes were not counted that were twice the Bush margin of victory?
Were the votes 'spoiled' randomly? Well, not exactly. Overwhelmingly the votes not counted -- NOT COUNTED --were cast in African American precincts. These are very Black votes. I use the term "overwhelmingly," those votes cast into the machines but not counted for technical reasons. When I say "overwhelmingly Black votes," that is not my phrase. That's from Dr. Mark Salling of Cleveland State University who's been investigating this for the ACLU. The statisticians and demographers say it's overwhelmingly Black votes which are not counted.
The technical term is "spoiled" votes. Okay, now, how do votes spoil? Do you leave them out of the fridge? What do you do? These are undervotes, overvotes - they use those technical terms, and in Ohio it's hanging chads. We're back to that. Dimpled chads, pregnant chads. Because Ohio is the last state in America to use the old punch card system for 75% of the vote.
You've heard a lot about the dangers of 'blackbox' computer voting. I want to talk to you about good old-fashioned punch card voting. 93,000 votes tossed in the garbage out of Black precincts. How? Just as Black neighborhoods get the bad schools, they get the bad hospitals, they also get the bum voting machines? And so their votes go in the garbage.
And they know it, the powers that be. You're thinking, it should be against the law. And, in fact, it is. The ACLU sued the State of Ohio for having a racist ballot counting system. They sued five states -- BEFORE the election. And before the election, four states said, "Well, gee, we're kind of embarrassed. Yeah, we're losing thousands of Black votes." And they all agreed to fix the machines before the election, all but one state: Ohio. The Secretary of State of Ohio said, "Yes, I know that the machines we use in Ohio eliminate tens of thousands of Black votes on bad machines." We'll fix them, he said, after the inauguration.
...
If you analyze the caging lists you see something interesting. They were predominantly names of voters in African American precincts. This list was put together and handed to the chairman of the Republican National Campaigns, of the state campaigns, and the Republican National Committee. What are they doing with these names of the Black folk? We asked the Republican National Committee chiefs and State Committee chiefs on BBC Television: what are you doing with these lists of Black voters? We didn't tell them they were Black voters. We just showed them the list of voters.
"Oh, those are the lists of our donors." "Oh", I said. Leni von Eckardt is one of our researchers, she went through the list, and golly gee, several of those addresses were homeless shelters. "So you get a lot of money for the Bush-Cheney campaign from the homeless shelters?" I asked. Then they said, "Oh, no, no. We've checked again. We just wanted to check to see if people had changed their address."
Every expert told us there was just one reason. Because they had a plan, a secret plan, to challenge hundreds of thousands of voters nationwide. That's what those lists were. They were target lists, challenge lists. Now, people that they were going to challenge, just because their address changed, that doesn't remove your vote. I mean, Leni went through and found out there were several of them whose address had changed from Black districts because they had gone to Baghdad.
These were Black soldiers who had been shipped out. The republicans planned en masse to remover them from the voter -- to prohibit their votes from being counted. So you had hundreds of thousands of votes thrown in the garbage by this plan. Now is that against the law? It's not against the law to go to Baghdad at the commander-in-chief's command. You don't lose your vote. But you know what is against the law? Profiling Black voters for challenge.
- rob 2:12 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
It'll be Monday all day today: The Top Ten Conservative Idiots
(this will be the last Top Ten of the year)5. Sunshine, Smiles, and SlaveryGot read the whole top ten - last week was filled with idiots it looks like (why yes, George and Rummy are featured. How did you guess?
Here's a headline you don't see every day of the week: "School defends slavery booklet." Apparently students at one of North Carolina's largest Christian schools are being forced to read a booklet which literally "whitewashes" slavery, suggesting that slaves led "a life of plenty, of simple pleasures."
Oh, for sure. You can bet that all those Africans loved being kidnapped from their homes and transported across the ocean to work without pay for their white masters. The backbreaking work; the dehumanization; the occasional flogging. Ah, the "simple pleasures" in life.
Incidentally, one of the authors of the booklet is a member of the board of directors of the League of the South, which is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. And according to the News Observer, "Leaders at Cary Christian School say they are not condoning slavery by using 'Southern Slavery, As It Was,'" which apparently "attempts to provide a biblical justification for slavery and asserts that slaves weren't treated as badly as people think." No, they're not condoning it. Just, you know, pretending it didn't happen.
6. Rolling Back The Clock
Moral Values Watch: David Brock's Media Matters for America had to send a letter to the Creators Syndicate last week after they distributed a column by Sam Francis about the recent Monday Night Football naughtiness. But wait - it's not what you think!
The naughtiness was, of course, a comedy skit performed at the beginning of Monday Night Football on November 26 by Nicolette Sheridan and Terrell Owens, in which Sheridan attempted to seduce Owens into ducking the game and shagging her instead. But while most conservatives have been kicking up a stink over the fact that - gasp - a woman's bare back was shown on national television after 9pm, Francis had a decidedly different take.
According to him, the purpose of the skit was to "hurl a pie in the face of morals and good taste but also of white racial and cultural identity." Wait a second, white racial and cultural identity?
Francis continued, "Breaking down the sexual barriers between the races is a major weapon of cultural destruction because it means the dissolution of the cultural boundaries that define breeding and the family, and ultimately, the transmission and survival of the culture itself."
Jeez, guys, can you wait until we've sorted out the gay marriage thing before you start work on re-banning interracial dating?
- rob 12:28 PM - [PermaLink] -
----
TCS Now offers a News Reader Feed
Subscribe to the TCS Feed
Having trouble with some of the poor English
on this site?
Imagine what it looks like when translated by a machine:
Archive
What is this?
This is a "team" blog. We are a bunch of
Americans, whose rising distress
in our leader's decisions brought us together to make this site.
As Bush said, he's a "uniter." Many of us have never even met.
That's the internet for you.
Buy our cool stuff.
And tell everyone what you feel.
We have a little Store
you can visit.
Our store's selection of items is constantly growing. Come
see what we have.
We're also Amazon Associates, so if you want to buy something from Amazon, please search for it below, and we will get a few bucks from the sale.
Sites we often like:
Tin Foil Caps
The Free Speech Zone
The office of the independent blogger
Buzzflash
Tom The Dancing Bug
VerifiedVoting.org
Get Your War
On
This Modern World
Eschaton / Atrios
Daily Kos
Contribute to America's Future
It is now more important then ever.
Donate to the Democractic Congressional Campaign Committee
Donate to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee
Some More Site Mottos
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the
president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is
not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the
American people."
- Teddy Roosevelt
"Government has a final responsibility for the well-being of
its citizenship. If private cooperative endeavor fails to provide work
for willing hands and relief for the unfortunate, those suffering
hardship from no fault of their own have a right to call upon the
Government for aid; and a government worthy of its name must make
fitting response."
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions, but laws must and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
- Thomas Jefferson
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain
degree."
- James Madison
"I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves."
- John F. Kennedy
"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
More Sites we often
like:
more coming...
