Torture is us

We are well on our way to becoming one with all the worst regimes of modern history. By becoming torturers we have crossed a terrible line into territory from which we may not be able to return. There is no way to justify government sanctioned torture. Torture is always wrong. That is a simple truth, no matter what the despicable Cheney/ Bush thugs do to confuse the issue, a moral Polaris that, if we keep a steady fix on it, will help us to surely distinguish between the good guys and those that are absolutely evil.

This Sunday there is an editorial in the New York Times about the horrendous, but now legally sanctioned kidnapping, shipping off to a Syrian cell and torture of Maher Arar, who, everyone agrees, is an innocent man. Here it is

February 26, 2006
Editorial
A Judicial Green Light for Torture

The administration's tendency to dodge accountability for lawless actions by resorting to secrecy and claims of national security is on sharp display in the case of a Syrian-born Canadian, Maher Arar, who spent months under torture because of United States action. A federal trial judge in Brooklyn has refused to stand up to the executive branch, in a decision that is both chilling and ripe for prompt overturning.

Mr. Arar, a 35-year-old software engineer whose case has been detailed in a pair of columns by Bob Herbert, was detained at Kennedy Airport in 2002 while on his way home from a family vacation. He was held in solitary confinement in a Brooklyn detention center and interrogated without proper access to legal counsel. Finally, he was shipped off to a Syrian prison. There, he was held for 10 months in an underground rat-infested dungeon and brutally tortured because officials suspected that he was a member of Al Qaeda. All this was part of a morally and legally unsupportable United States practice known as "extraordinary rendition," in which the federal government outsources interrogations to regimes known to use torture and lacking fundamental human rights protections.

The maltreatment of Mr. Arar would be reprehensible — and illegal under the United States Constitution and applicable treaties — even had the suspicions of terrorist involvement proven true. But no link to any terrorist organization or activity emerged, which is why the Syrians eventually released him. Mr. Arar then sued for damages.

The judge in the case, David Trager of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, did not dispute that United States officials had reason to know that Mr. Arar faced a likelihood of torture in Syria. But he took the rare step of blocking the lawsuit entirely, saying that the use of torture in rendition cases is a foreign policy question not appropriate for court review, and that going forward would mean disclosing state secrets.

It is hard to see why resolving Mr. Arar's case would necessitate the revelation of privileged material. Moreover, as the Supreme Court made clear in a pair of 2004 decisions rebuking the government for its policies of holding foreign terrorism suspects in an indefinite legal limbo in Guantánamo and elsewhere, even during the war on terror, the government's actions are subject to court review and must adhere to the rule of law.

With the Bush administration claiming imperial powers to detain, spy on and even torture people, and the Republican Congress stuck largely in enabling mode, the role of judges in checking executive branch excesses becomes all the more crucial. If the courts collapse when confronted with spurious government claims about the needs of national security, so will basic American liberties.

Also, the current New Yorker article “Annals of the Pentagon, THE MEMO, How an internal effort to ban the abuse and torture of detainees was thwarted", by Jane Mayer, portrays the despicable maneuverings of the Cheney/Rumsfeld sycophants to provide legal cover for torture. The article is on line.

Mayer attributes the quote below to Alberto J. Mora, the now outgoing general counsel of the United States Navy, a conservative with a well functioning moral compass. From a few paragraphs into the article:

...“To my mind, there’s no moral or practical distinction,” he (Mora) told me. “If cruelty is no longer declared unlawful, but instead is applied as a matter of policy, it alters the fundamental relationship of man to government. It destroys the whole notion of individual rights. The Constitution recognizes that man has an inherent right, not bestowed by the state or laws, to personal dignity, including the right to be free of cruelty. It applies to all human beings, not just in America—even those designated as ‘unlawful enemy combatants.’ If you make this exception, the whole Constitution crumbles. It’s a transformative issue.”...

LINK

I can not grasp how it has happened that we have allowed these incompetent vicious beasts running our country to torture, to ignore law, principles, and the Constitution without meaningful challenge and resistance. Our compliance will be a shame that will outlive us all. It makes me sick.

Pennacchio 2

The Sideshow suggests getting these lists of the three main Pennsylvania Senators' positions on the issues in front of Pennsylvania voters.

Here are the lists:

Rick Santorum (Republican)
On abortion – pro-life
On stem cell research – opposed
Accepts PAC money – yes
War in Iraq – it was the right thing to do
Troops in Iraq – stay the course
National Health Care – opposed
Raising the minimum wage – supports an increase of $1.10
NAFTA/CAFTA – supports CAFTA; opposed NAFTA
Alito confirmation to Supreme Court – supports confirmation

Bob Casey, Jr. (Democrat)
On abortion – pro-life
On stem cell research – opposed
Accepts PAC money – yes, but not corporate or industry
War in Iraq – supported
Troops in Iraq – stay the course
National Health Care – opposed
Raising the minimum wage – supports
NAFTA/CAFTA – opposed both
Alito confirmation to Supreme Court – supports confirmation

Chuck Pennacchio (Democrat)
On abortion – pro-choice
On stem cell research – supports
Accepts PAC money – no
War in Iraq – opposed
Troops in Iraq – out as soon as safely possible
National Health Care – supports
Raising the minimum wage – supports living wage with different levels depending on where the worker lives
NAFTA/CAFTA – opposed both
Alito confirmation to Supreme Court – supports a filibuster

LINK

Damn little difference between Casey and Santorum.

Pennacchio

My fellow Pennsylvania voters who are disgusted with having to chose between voting for Casey (who jumped at the chance to support Alito) or not voting really need to visit The Sideshow, read the post and follow the links.

The short version: Pennacchio is a viable candidate and worth voting for, not a candidate you have to hold your nose, close your eyes, flip the lever and drive home disgusted over.

Check out The SideShow LINK

Unraveling

There is so much stuff going on that it’s impossible to keep up. I’ve been reading and not posting. However, the vote fraud Raw Story quoted from below should not get lost entirely in the VP Fudd shotguning news, the VP falsely claiming the right to declassify documents news, and much more. No wonder Cheney tries to avoid speaking.

Check out this story below and think of it as a harbinger of things to come. After the wall begins to crack, the process accelerates and it comes crashing down much more quickly than we could ever reasonably expect.

The Maryland State Board of Elections allowed Diebold Election Systems to operate its touch-screen voting machines during the state's 2002 gubernatorial election and the 2004 presidential primaries before the state agency actually certified the controversial machines, according to recently disclosed documents.

That is a violation of state law, according to Linda Schade, executive director of TrueVoteMD.org, an election integrity group….

…In November 2002, Lamone, a Democrat, allowed Diebold to operate its machines in four counties for the state gubernatorial election. That was when Ehrlich became the first Republican governor to be elected in 36 years in what had always been known as a solidly Democratic state.

That was also the year when a Republican political newcomer, a self-described "nobody," ousted a veteran Democratic state senator in what The Baltimore Sun described as "one of the most remarkable election upsets in recent Maryland political history."

After serving for several decades, Democratic House Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr. lost his Allegany County seat to LeRoy E. Myers. Allegany County was one of the four counties where Diebold machines were used that year.

LINK

To stay on the crest of what's happening with Cheney, go to firedoglake and look around. They are way ahead.

Minor heart attack

From firedoglake:

Dick Cheney is not the big, tough bwana hunter he pretends to be. He uses a little girl gun on canned hunts and hides behind a woman's skirts to evade responsibility for shooting an old man in the face.

I will keep saying that over and over and over again.

jane hamsher

quoted from her "Comments" in her blog.

Also, is any heart attack minor?

A billion a year on pr

It takes a lot of shoveling to cover up the Bush mess, sell the Iraq war and keep the American wad convinced they live in a Democracy.

From The Raw Story

Today Rep. Henry A. Waxman, Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Rep. George Miller, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, and other senior Democrats released a new Government Accountability Office report finding that the Bush Administration spent more than $1.6 billion in public relations and media contracts in a two and a half year span.

"The government is spending over a billion dollars per year on PR and advertising," said Rep. Waxman. "Careful oversight of this spending is essential given the track record of the Bush Administration, which has used taxpayer dollars to fund covert propaganda within the United States."

LINK

Caught with the smoking gun after gunning down a Texas crony while cruising the brush with a couple of women will take a heap of cash to fix.

Hunter safety course?

The key to the story is no longer how closely Harry Whittington resembles a quail. The latest, more embellished story suggests that it was Harry's fault. He snuck up on Dick.

Armstrong said she was watching from a car while Cheney, Whittington and another hunter got out of the vehicle to shot at a covey of quail late afternoon on Saturday.

Whittington shot a bird and went to look for it in the tall grass, while Cheney and the third hunter walked to another spot and found a second covey.

Whittington "came up from behind the vice president and the other hunter and didn't signal them or indicate to them or announce himself," Armstrong told the Associated Press in an interview.

LINK

It does the Sportsmen for Bush/Cheney proud, not to mention Cheney's NRA pals. Can we see that photo again where they present him with a rifle?

On update, a few questions:

Why did they wait nearly a day to release the story?
Was Cheney drunk?
Was he hunting the birds from a car?
Who were the other "hunters"?

Soon it may not be the Europe you remember

I don't want to risk cartooning this. But it's an interesting observation I thought I'd pass along.

...Islam is the fastest growing religion in Europe. The demographic trends are ominous: Given current birthrates, France could be a majority Muslim country in 25 years, and that is if immigration were to stop tomorrow....

From "Sam Harris on the Reality of Islam" on Truthdig

The article quoted from above is very much anti Islamic. Whether it consoles anyone who is offended or not, Sam Harris is anti all religions and apparently sees them as major contributors to conflict. He carries my own aversion to religious fundamentalism in any form a few steps farther.

LINK

Sharing the wealth

The Nation's Dual Political Dynasties Are Growing Closer Than Arm's Length

By ELISABETH BUMILLER

WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 — When the Bushes and Clintons held hands before 15,000 mourners at Coretta Scott King's funeral on Tuesday, it looked like a prayerful moment in the life of the nation. But as almost anyone watching America's two leading political families knew, underneath the tranquil image was a drama of ambition, rivalry, love and alliance that could shape the 2008 presidential election. …

…It was one of the most public manifestations to date of the odd friendship and mutual need of two dynasties that, on the surface at least, have almost nothing in common. But as President Bush put it in an interview with CBS News last month, "Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton." Mr. Bush made the remark in a telling exchange with Bob Schieffer, who said, "Well, you know, if Senator Clinton becomes president."…

LINK

Bumiller is never to be trusted. But even so, this quote, from the NYT, (and the every day reports on our preening , clubby Senators) underlines the reality of our plutocracy. Those at the top who are superficially opponents are more closely allied with each other to ensure continuation of the status quo than they are with principles or with the interests of voters. The Constitution does not prescribe the system of government; it has become a collection of shape shifting slogans expeditiously fitted to any situation.

American Democracy, as we thought it was, is over. Maybe it has been for a long time and we simply did not know it. Either way we are now watching a new system of government emerge--one that has some of the characteristics of fascism, plutocracy, and a new corporatocracy. Those of us with no connections to the top tier are toast. We will be stripped of our security and squished into a timid, ever more malleable wad desperate to serve the plutocrats for whatever trickles down or dribbles out of their well stuffed pockets.

Here in Pennsylvania we are faced with both the Democratic Governor Rendell (whose wife Midge served with Alito on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals) going out of his way, on FOX, to announce support of Alito, and Casey (a member of a local dynasty himself), the likely nominee to oppose Santorum, also announcing support, both at the very time some Democrats were trying (lamely) to put together support for a filibuster. LINK

Not much to vote for here in Pennsylvania.

Cartoons

I’m sure the Sportsmen for Bush down at the corner tavern are pretty firm in their support of cartoons depicting Mohammed and our right to publicly ridicule. If I find myself agreeing with them about anything, I know it’s time for me to carefully examine my position.

Having the "right" doesn't necessarily mean we should do something. In the cartoon situation, I think we can defend the "right" to cartoon (to me even the word is funny) without endorsing the propriety of publishing cartoons that are offensive to so many. Ultimately, I don't think a stand is required. Maybe the best solution is a “let it blow over approach.” Stop running the cartoons, at least until people are no longer rioting and being killed over cartoons, without making a statement or explanation. We don’t always have to take a stand and some conflicts simply can’t be resolved.

Ukes for troops

You’re probably well ahead of me on this, but in case not, you might want to contemplate the impact a boat load of ukuleles could have on the Iraq war, especially if we expanded the program to include insurgents as well as U.S. troops. If you do think about this program, like me you might come to the conclusion that settling issues with dueling ukuleles might be a good way to go.

For those of you not already involved, here’s a LINK to the Ukes for Troops website.

I found the site (can we call it a movement?) this morning via WNTI radio’s Flaming Ukulele radio hour.

Captain George Bush and the Republican crew?

From this Reuters story: "Red Sea ferry survivors say captain fled"

...We were wearing lifejackets but they told us there was nothing wrong, told us to take them off and they took away the lifejackets. Then the boat started to sink and the captain took a boat and left," he added, speaking to Reuters Television.

"The captain was the first to leave and we were surprised to see the boat sinking," added Khaled Hassan, another survivor.

Other survivors also reported that the crew had played down the gravity of the situation and withheld lifejackets.

"There was a fire but the crew stopped the people from putting on lifejackets so that it wouldn't cause a panic," said Abdel Raouf Abdel Nabi, one of the survivors.

"There was a blaze down below. The crew said 'Don't worry, we will put it out.' When things got really bad the crew just went off in the lifeboats and left us on board," said Nader Galal Abdel Shafi, another arrival on the same rescue boat....

LINK

Even if Bush and Cheney weren't aboard, they certainly subscribe to the same approach to leadership. Lie to the people, take care of yourself first and screw everyone else.

More lies, more evidence

If you want to get the latest, breaking details on Plamegate, trumped up reasons to invade Iraq, and evidence that Cheney knew the wmd tale was a lie, here’s a LINK, and be sure to follow the links from there.

The Left Coaster via Firedoglake And don't miss Waas

What's surprising is how damn clumsy they are. If we had an honest press or an honest Attorney General, the Bush gang would be on the spit and well roasted long ago.

Crackpots

This morning I was entertained by reading Bush’s prewar scheme to justify war with Iraq: paint a plane with UN insignias and provoke the Iraqis into shooting it down. LINK. This crackpot plan could have been cooked up by a crew of roofers slugging down lunchtime beers in the Flying Dutchman saloon. No wonder Bush has support from the Sportsmen for Bush gang. They are on the same wave length, together stumbling lost in the murky woods between here and the Halfwit Hills.

What a fucking waste

Could the Democrats have found a less inspiring spokesperson than Tim Kaine?

Even Gergen, on CNN right now, describes the Democrats as spineless.

I have been a Democrat all my life. When I was young it was a kick your teeth in party of longshoremen, cops, and intellectuals. Who knows what it is now. But whatever it is it embarrasses me, makes me sick and I'm ashamed to be associated with it.

Reality based resistance

Thanks mainly to the cowardly, ineffectual Democratic Senators; the Y2K coup is now complete. The fascist Right now controls all branches of the government and can now devote all resources to maintaining power. They can accelerate the dismantling of the constitution and the movement of wealth to their friends and allies in the corporatocracy. Expect them to use U.S. military power to continue seeking control of all the world’s energy resources resulting in lots more little wars, coups and assassinations.

Here at home we can look forward to torture, arrest and murder becoming, more than ever, politics as usual.

Best we can hope for is the collapse of the Right under the weight of their own stone cold stupidity while we well meaning Liberals continue in a hallucinatory daze to nominate candidates, send money and play sincerely our parts through the election cycle of hope, disappointment and despair as if it were all real and elections were more than theatrical productions with predetermined outcomes.

If the Democratic Senators wish to change the course and redeem themselves, they should get up and walk out during this evening’s superfluous state-of-the-union address. At least then the reality of the situation would be boldly outlined and that could be the beginning of reality based resistance. But they won’t, of course. The seats are too comfortable.

Ready for the roundup

Here’s something that Patty Sheehan needs to know, especially if her camp out at the ranch is joined by Venezuela’s President Chavez.

A new provision tucked into the Patriot Act bill now before Congress would allow authorities to haul demonstrators at any "special event of national significance" away to jail on felony charges if they are caught breaching a security perimeter.

Sen. Arlen Specter , R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, sponsored the measure, which would extend the authority of the Secret Service to allow agents to arrest people who willingly or knowingly enter a restricted area at an event, even if the president or other official normally protected by the Secret Service isn't in attendance at the time.

The measure has civil libertarians protesting what they say is yet another power grab for the executive branch and one more loss for free speech.

"It's definitely problematic and chilling," said Lisa Graves, senior counsel for legislative strategy at the American Civil Liberties Union , which has written letters to the chairmen and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, pointing out that the provision wasn't subject to hearings or open debate.... LINK

Business as usual

My guess is that even those Democratic Senators who voted in favor of an Alito filibuster did so only because they counted the votes and knew it would fail. Taking falsely principled stands on hopeless issues is one of their often used tactics. It allows them to posture grandly before their constituents. Watch them all piously vote “NO” in the Alito confirmation vote, taking cover once again by casting a meaningless vote.

This batch of Democratic Senators love for their privileges is far greater than commitment to any principle. Along with their pals, their Republican colleagues and also the equally privileged superstar members of the media, their main goal is always to preserve the status quo where they all sit comfortably near the top of the American plutocracy.

Soon a little cluster of Democratic Senators will skip off to compete in the presidential primaries. Very likely once again one of them will win and we will get excited about their gibberish and posturing and starry eyed we will troop off to vote in another predetermined, meaningless election.

What a mess.

(UPDATE: digby has a more eloguent, more optimistic, more in depth analysis, here LINK)

How it works

A peek at how the corporatocracy works from a book review in the Guardian.

...In 1972 Perkins went to see the then dictator of Panama, General Omar Torrijos. Torrijos was a nationalist who was eager to wrest control of the Panama Canal from the US. Perkins went in to read him the riot act and came out with what sounded like an agreement. Some years later, Torrijos started talking to the Japanese about building a larger, sea-level canal for Panama that would have undermined American influence and corporate interests in the area. One night in 1981 Torrijos died when his Twin Otter aircraft crashed under mysterious circumstances. Perkins is convinced he was killed by US interests who placed a bomb on the plane. Had he lived, Perkins writes in his book, Confessions Of An Economic Hit Man, "He would have served as a role model for a generation of leaders in the Americas, Africa and Asia - something the CIA, the NSA [National Security Agency] and the EHMs [economic hit men] could not allow."

Economic hit men resort to such heavy-handed tactics, says Perkins, only when all other means of leverage have failed. The rest of the time they would employ a mixture of bribery, sex, flattery, prostitution, distortion, extortion, abduction and invasion to get their own way. "Sex was a very common tool used by economic hit men," Perkins says. "It was not uncommon for us to seduce wives of oil company executives because that was a way of gaining information and learning things about their husbands."

If the threats of the economic hit men don't persuade, the "jackals" will come in to make good on them. The jackals, says Perkins, are the CIA-sanctioned heavy mob who foment coups and revolutions, murder, abduction and assassination. And when the jackals fail, as was the case in Iraq, then the military goes in.

Economic hit men, Perkins says, work entirely separately but completely in concert with the state. Perkins never once reported to a US government agency - but he is in little doubt that the US government always knew and approved of what he was doing. His task, he says, was to ensure that US business interests came out on top, regardless of who won an election, and that the American wealthy were further enriched, regardless of who was impoverished as a result....

LINK via 3Quarks Daily

(Wellstone fans should note the use of the small plane as murder weapon.)

Anti Alito staging area

Even though it's the last minute, it is still possible to have an impact. If you want to get in the fight against Alito a good place to start is Firedoglake. Everything you need to get active is there.

Camporee

Serious challenges in the primaries might awaken some anti fascist attitudes in our somnolent Democratic Senators.

At a press conference in Venezuela, alongside President Chavez, Patty Sheehan said she might run for the Senate.

Sheehan, who lives in Berkeley, Calif., said Saturday that she is strongly considering challenging Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein because the lawmaker will not support calls to immediately bring the troops home.

Sheehan, 48, said running in the Democratic primary in June would help "bring attention to all the peace candidates in the country."

Sheehan, who was visiting Venezuela for the six-day forum along with other anti-war and anti-globalization activists, told The Associated Press that she decide whether to run after talking with her three adult children in California.

Sheehan accused Feinstein of being out of touch with Californians on the war in Iraq. Feinstein's campaign manager said the senator did not support Bush and felt she had been misled by his administration.

LINK via the Raw Story

Chavez said Sheehan invited him to join her in setting up tents at Bush's ranch.

Fool me once...

Republican election theft is the most important political issue we face. Why invest time, energy and fantasy in picking candidates when the problems that allowed the election thefts in 2000 and 2004 have not been addressed? If anything, the stakes are even higher now and you can bet that impeachment wary Republicans will have their fraud machine updated, tuned up and supercharged to meet the challenges of 06. All they need do is target selected, vulnerable districts—just enough to ensure continued control of both houses.

Don’t expect much help from incumbent Democrats. Most have revealed themselves to be more interested in keeping their comfortable seats than presenting an effective challenge to Republicans. Being a minority Democratic Senator is a great job and, since they have no control, they bear no responsibility for whatever the Senate does or does not do. All they have to do is spoon out a little spunk now and then and reelection is assured. Where else are the anti Bush votes going to go?

For more on how we lost before, how examination of vote fraud is stifled, and how we’re going to lose again, here’s a link to an informative, but brief interview with Mark Crispin Miller, via The Sideshow.

Kidnap the wives

Is this the tip of another iceberg?

Documents Show Army Seized Wives As Tactic

By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent

The U.S. Army in Iraq has at least twice seized and jailed the wives of suspected insurgents in hopes of "leveraging" their husbands into surrender, U.S. military documents show. ...

...In one memo, a civilian Pentagon intelligence officer described what happened when he took part in a raid on an Iraqi suspect's house in Tarmiya, northwest of Baghdad, on May 9, 2004. The raid involved Task Force (TF) 6-26, a secretive military unit formed to handle high-profile targets.

"During the pre-operation brief it was recommended by TF personnel that if the wife were present, she be detained and held in order to leverage the primary target's surrender," wrote the 14-year veteran officer.

He said he objected, but when they raided the house the team leader, a senior sergeant, seized her anyway.

"The 28-year-old woman had three young children at the house, one being as young as six months and still nursing," the intelligence officer wrote. She was held for two days and was released after he complained, he said....

LINK

via The Raw Story.

Filibuster Alito

Editorial from today's New York Times

January 26, 2006
Editorial
Senators in Need of a Spine
Judge Samuel Alito Jr., whose entire history suggests that he holds extreme views about the expansive powers of the presidency and the limited role of Congress, will almost certainly be a Supreme Court justice soon. His elevation will come courtesy of a president whose grandiose vision of his own powers threatens to undermine the nation's basic philosophy of government — and a Senate that seems eager to cooperate by rolling over and playing dead.

It is hard to imagine a moment when it would be more appropriate for senators to fight for a principle. Even a losing battle would draw the public's attention to the import of this nomination....

Last paragraph:

... A filibuster is a radical tool. It's easy to see why Democrats are frightened of it. But from our perspective, there are some things far more frightening. One of them is Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court.

LINK

Call or Fax your Senators LINK

Also Loathsome

Robert Casey and Ed Rendell, both Pennsylvania Democrats, endorsed Alito.

Casey is campaigning for the nomination to run against Santorum for the Senate and Governor Rendell is up for reelection.

With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans? Rendell, at least, could easily have dodged making an endorsement. Was he so afraid of the Right that he felt compelled to appease them?

Fuck both of these guys.

LINK via Atrios.

Casey's campaign number: 215-567-4190

Governor Rendell's number: (717) 787-2500.

If you call you might want to remind them that the Alito nomination is about more than Roe vs Wade, which is likely the issue that most concerns these cowardly Democrats.

Most loathsome

The BEAST 50 Most Loathsome People in America, 2005

Don't cheat yourself. Read all 50 entries.

Via 3 Quarks Daily

Stop Alito

The Alito nomination is as good a place as any to draw the line and bring the Bush agenda to a halt. Though congressional Democrats can't impeach,there certainly is enough reason for them to stop cooperating with Republicans on everything and at least clog the Bush engine.

By now Bush’s negatives must have taken us to the point where congressional Democrats’ self serving interests intersect with positions of principle.

Torturers and proud of it

From CNN:

FORT CARSON, Colorado (AP) -- A military jury on Monday ordered a reprimand but no jail time for an Army interrogator convicted of killing an Iraqi general by stuffing him headfirst into a sleeping bag and sitting on his chest.

Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jr. also was ordered to forfeit $6,000 salary and was largely restricted to his barracks and workplace for 60 days....

...The defense had argued a heart condition caused Mowhoush's death, and that Welshofer's commanders had approved the interrogation technique.

Prosecutors described Welshofer as a rogue interrogator who became frustrated with Mowhoush's refusal to answer questions and escalated his techniques from simple interviews to beatings to simulating drowning, and finally, to death.

LINK

I am ashamed of what we have become and what we tolerate. All our nightmares of what would happen if Bush became president are coming true.

If we make a bigger mess, we make more money

Halliburton has been giving our troops contaminated water, according to an AP story posted on this site: Halliburton Watch

Water supplied to a U.S. base in Iraq was contaminated and the contractor in charge, Halliburton, failed to tell troops and civilians at the facility, according to internal documents from the company and interviews with former Halliburton officials.

Although the allegations came from Halliburton's own water quality experts, the company once headed by Vice President Dick Cheney denied there was a contamination problem at Camp Junction City, in Ramadi.

"We exposed a base camp population (military and civilian) to a water source that was not treated," said a July 15, 2005, memo by William Granger, the official for Halliburton's KBR subsidiary who was in charge of water quality in Iraq and Kuwait.
"The level of contamination was roughly 2x the normal contamination of untreated water from the Euphrates River," Granger wrote in one of several documents.
The Associated Press obtained the documents from Senate Democrats who are holding a public inquiry into the allegations Monday.

LINK

In another, more detailed, article on the same Halliburton Watch website, the whistle blowers are identified and a possible Halliburton motive emerges in the final paragraph.

...Former KBR employees and water quality specialists, Ben Carter and Ken May, told HalliburtonWatch that KBR knowingly exposes troops and civilians to contaminated water from Iraq's Euphrates River. One internal KBR email provided to HalliburtonWatch says that, for "possibly a year," the level of contamination at one camp was two times the normal level for untreated water...

LINK

The final two paragraphs:

Carter and May also describe instances where a site manager urged everyone to conceal contamination information from the company's health and safety department. According to May, statements were made in an "All Hands Meeting" by then Site Manger Suzanne-Raku Williams, Warren Smith, and acting Medic Phillip Daigle suggesting that if anyone became sick, it was probably from the handles from the port-a-lets toilets and not from water contamination. In response, Ken May resigned out of disgust and frustration. In an email to superiors, he chastised KBR for what he said was "retaliatory behavior from dishonest site management" and "inaction" that "compromised" camp safety and the health of the people who work there. He expressed concern over "the lack of oversight from the outside to investigate, redirect, and periodically monitor" the water to assure a healthy workplace. "Unfortunately, because of the lack of regards for my wellbeing [and] no response or action from KBR/Halliburton I have no recourse other than to resign," he said in an email to his supervisor.

Carter and May's experience is not uncommon at KBR, where former employees have described instances of being ostracized or terminated if they dare to speak out against company negligence, mismanagement or malfeasance. Other former KBR employees have testified about being fired or urged to quit or conceal information after pointing out low-cost solutions to simple problems. But, a cynic might note, allowing small problems to grow into expensive ones through purposeful neglect actually boosts KBR's profits as there is a profit guarantee of 1% to 3% over cost for the LOGCAP III contract. As with all of KBR's "cost plus" military contracts, the more expensive the problem, the greater the fee paid to KBR from the government. So, it would seem there is actually a built-in incentive not to prevent small problems or reward whistleblower employees like Carter and May when neglect will result in a costlier problem down the road and more profits for KBR.

emphasis mine.LINK

Spying assistantships available

An alumni group is offering students up to $100 per class to supply tapes and notes exposing University of California, Los Angeles professors who allegedly express extreme left-wing political views....

LINK, AP via The Huffington Post

According to the article, the nonprofit group has so far raised $22,000 from 100 donors

Dowd today

Why Maureen Dowd is compelled to take shots at Gore, Hillary and Kerry at every opportunity is a mystery. She did it again, at all three, today. Here's a LINK, but it is available only to subscribers.

The first three paragraphs:

Looking for a Democratic Tough Guy, or Girl
By MAUREEN DOWD
The Democrats were throwing haymakers at the White House this week, but they will never succeed as long as they're perceived as the party in skirts.

Al Gore, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton called the Bush administration on its apparently bottomless store of imperial sins. They made a lot of good points. They just didn't score any.

This trio, apparently jockeying for '08, are not the best messengers. They're loaded down with baggage.

Two of them, who could have stopped W. and Dick Cheney before they undid 230 years of American democracy, didn't, because they allowed themselves to be painted as girlie men. The other, a manly girl, has been so cautious and opportunistic about weighing in on everything from Schiavo to Alito and Iraq that when she finally sang out on Monday and railed against W., she sounded more soprano than basso profundo.

It was easy for the Republicans to play their usual gender games and dismiss the three Democrats as whiny, shrill and ineffectual.

Here's the note I pasted into Dowd's "contact" box:

"In spite of your efforts to the contrary, Gore did win the 2000 popular vote, a fact most Gore bashers always leave out. If the Florida votes were counted fairly, he would have won the electoral votes as well.

I really don’t understand why, when it comes to the Democratic opposition, you continue to parrot Republican talking points. Gore was the victim of an extensive smear campaign that had little to do with facts. For whatever reasons, celebrity journalists disliked him, favored Bush, and took every opportunity to portray Gore negatively. You know this well, since you were one of the players. Why now continue with the personal slander, when we all know better, instead of sticking with the eloquent message Gore delivered?

You, thanks to your dishonest portraits of the Democratic candidates, are partly responsible for the mess we are now in. Seems to me you can be counted on to put aside integrity when presented with an opportunity to be outrageous. You’d rather be interesting than fair.

I picture you squeezing your eyes shut, jamming your fingers in your ears and shrieking when something positive about Gore (and most other Democrats) comes to your attention--a sorry posture for a journalist."

Sweet dreams of impeachment

Asked by ABC News following his speech whether President Bush's domestic spying program constituted an impeachable offense, Gore said it might be and pointed to one of the three Articles of Impeachment that the House Judiciary Committee approved against President Nixon on July 27, 1974.

"That's a legal determination for the Congress to make," Gore told ABC News. "But Article II of the impeachment charges against President Nixon was warrantless wiretapping that the President said was 'necessary' for national security."

"It can be" an impeachable offense, he added

LINK via The Raw Story

Before we get too carried away with sweet fantasies of impeachment we need to remember that Congress is controlled by Republicans. They will continue to be in control unless Democrats effectively address election fraud. By now the Republican election theft machine has been refined to work even more smoothly than it did 2004 and 2000, with key 2006 congressional elections in the crosshairs.

After years of watching these neo fascists operate, why would anyone think they will risk control of both houses in a fair election? The possibility of impeachment is too great a risk for them to take and they will do anything to win. To think otherwise is delusional.

Once in power fascists are difficult to dislodge

What's it going to take?

From firedoglake:

...It is a dangerous time to be an American. We live under virtually unchallenged one party rule, and that one party is on a rampage to make torture morally acceptable. Karl Rove and Ken Mehlman invite screaming racist Michelle Malkin to lunch, and today Peter Kirsanow is paraded before the Senate by the GOP as an "expert." Both of these people applaud rounding up American citizens and putting them into concentration camps....

LINK

I agree. Today’s Right is a dangerous, extremist movement fully capable of the excesses of twentieth century fascism. The polite response to this threat by the media, The New York Times, for example, and also the Democratic Senators leaves this movement unchallenged. It baffles me. I wonder what it will take to energize an effective resistance. You would think defending and advocating torture as acceptable American policy would be enough. But of course it is not. Nor is it enough that we wage a war of aggression on falsified pretenses, keep prisoners in camps without trial or the protection of international law, have a government that flouts the law and illegally taps communications, spies on dissenters, and gets caught accepting huge bribes from special interests.

I am contemptuous of all those Democrats in privileged and influential positions who give the Right a forum, who do not challenge them bluntly and forcefully on every single issue. It strains me greatly to be minimally civil to Republican family members, Republicans I work with, and old Republican friends, all of them ordinary people, simple members of the chorus but none-the-less vital parts of this terrible engine.

Go read firedoglake and check out Nancy Pelosi:

WASHINGTON Jan 12, 2006 — House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday said Republicans had created "one of the most closed, corrupt congresses in history" and urged the House ethics committee to investigate GOP lawmakers linked to lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

"It's hard for the American people to understand how corrupt it is here," the California Democrat said at a news conference.

LINK

Good stuff

Here are the opening paragraphs in a terrific post at firedoglake on Alito and the managed media coverage. If you go there and read the entire post, you very likely will want more and will end up scrolling down and down for quite a good read.

It is remarkably frustrating to blog the Alito hearings, feel the righteous indignation of people in the comments sections all over the blogosphere that the supreme court is in danger of making a major lurch to the extreme right with the potential appointment of a bigoted, sexist, entitled, slavering chickenhawk like Alito, and see it reflected nowhere in the traditional media.

Every time it feels like some momentum is being gained, CNN blows it all away with the sweep of a facile headline. Pick up a paper or turn on cable news and on cue they are parroting all the GOP's talking points -- Alito's a moderate, he'll keep an "open mind" on abortion, and oh the poor frumpy sobbing wife.

LINK

Same Old Shit

Same old Democratic Senators, gasping, awash, half rotted in the stream like dying salmon.

This paragraph from Altercation's coverage of the Alito hearings about sums it up.

The Senators, with few exceptions, used their allotted time to pontificate rather than to learn something about Alito or give him enough rope to hang himself. They spent countless minutes spouting off their views, followed by close-ended questions he could answer or refuse to answer in a sentence or two. Walter Shapiro at Salon has more on their artless questioning.

LINK

God help us if another Democratic Senator wins the presidential nomination.

The case for fighting Alito's confirmation

From Crooks and Liars:

The Democrats are a party in urgent need of a good fight. And the Alito nomination presents the perfect opportunity for Democrats to demonstrate that they are willing to wage a real battle for the things they believe in. Two core Democratic principles, at least, are at stake in these hearings, and are clearly threatened by the Alito nomination:

(1) whether we live in a country where the President has the right to declare himself to be above the law and can freely violate whatever laws he wants; and, (2) whether the privacy rights which are the bedrock of individual liberty in this country will be decimated by the Supreme Court, thereby returning us to the days where women were prohibited by the state from having abortions and where the Federal Government is able to intervene in our lives and restrict our liberties in the most personal and private spheres, from our most intimate relationships to the way we die....

LINK

via The Sideshow to Unclaimed Territory

There's much more here and it is all very good.

Rewriting personal histories

You would think a Supreme Court Justice wannabe, a super star media whore and an Oprah favored author would have the nuts to fess up and come clean with the past. Apparently not.

Alito is lying to the Senate about his membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP). For the facts about his awkward attempts to cover up this membership and why it matters, go here: LINK

For Diby's assassination of Alito (and his homeboys), go here: LINK

For additional coverage of Alito and his hearings, go here: LINK, and scroll down. For a bonus, Russert, who also has trouble coming clean, is depantsed.

If you're interested in joining the fun with the James Frey ain't I something (no, you're not) Oprah book fraud, read the great Wolcott, here: LINK

To hell with pensions. Give it all to the rich.

Here’s more evidence, from the New York Times, of the class war being waged aggressively by the privileged corporate elite against people who work for a living. Slowly but surely we are being stripped of any security. The value of contributions made by wage earners and salaried workers to corporate success is scorned as the fabulously rich renege on obligations to life long employees while hauling cash home by the barge load.

The article is long, but here’s the first two paragraphs:

More Companies Ending Promises for Retirement

The death knell for the traditional company pension has been tolling for some time now. Companies in ailing industries like steel, airlines and auto parts have thrown themselves into bankruptcy and turned over their ruined pension plans to the federal government.

Now, with the recent announcements of pension freezes by some of the cream of corporate America - Verizon, Lockheed Martin, Motorola and, just last week, I.B.M. - the bell is tolling even louder. Even strong, stable companies with the means to operate a pension plan are facing longer worker lifespans, looming regulatory and accounting changes and, most important, heightened global competition. Some are deciding they either cannot, or will not, keep making the decades-long promises that a pension plan involves....

From farther into the article:

...Pension advocates said they were dismayed that rich and powerful companies like I.B.M. and Verizon would abandon traditional pensions.

"With Verizon, we're talking about a company at the top of its game," said Karen Friedman, director of policy studies for the Pension Rights Center, an advocacy group in Washington. "They have a huge profit. Their C.E.O. has given himself a huge compensation package. And then they're saying, 'In order to compete, sorry, we have to freeze the pensions.' If companies freeze the pensions, what are employees left with?"...

Link

You have to wonder when people will get pissed off enough to do something.

Who's next?

We always knew they would do this. Here’s someone telling a tale of being on the “no fly” list most likely for writing critical of Bush.

From James Moore's "Branded" on the Huffington Post. (via America Blog)

"Mam, I'd like to know how I got on the No Fly Watch List."

"I'm not really authorized to tell you that, sir," she explained after taking down my social security and Texas driver's license numbers.

"What can you tell me?"

"All I can tell you is that there is something in your background that in some way is similar to someone they are looking for."

"Well, let me get this straight then," I said. "Our government is looking for a guy who may have a mundane Anglo name, who pays tens of thousands of dollars every year in taxes, has never been arrested or even late on a credit card payment, is more uninteresting than a Tupperware party, and cries after the first two notes of the national anthem? We need to find this guy. He sounds dangerous to me."

"I'm sorry, sir, I've already told you everything I can."

"Oh, wait," I said. "One last thing: this guy they are looking for? Did he write books critical of the Bush administration, too?"

I have been on the No Fly Watch List for a year. I will never be told the official reason. No one ever is. You cannot sue to get the information. Nothing I have done has moved me any closer to getting off the list. There were 35,000 Americans in that database last year. According to a European government that screens hundreds of thousands of American travelers every year, the list they have been given to work from has since grown to 80,000.

Fineman calls it for McCain/Lieberman

Howard Fineman thinks disgust at the Abramoff scandals could lead to a successful third party challenge. His dream ticket is headed by McCain and Lieberman. I am speechless; my brain numb at the prospect of these two despicable, self righteous nutbags heading anything.

Fineman is one of the most offensive typists covering politics. His early Newsweek coverage of Bush was teen fan magazine quality and now he’s launched another boat load of horseshit. What does Newsweek pay this guy to do? Sit around and make up childish fantasies to make the adults ooh and ahhh and pat him on his silly but naughty head?

If Sen. John McCain doesn’t win the Republican presidential nomination, I could see him leading an independent effort to “clean up” the capital as a third-party candidate. Having been seared by his own touch with this type of controversy (the Keating case in the '80s, which was as important an experience to him as Vietnam), McCain could team up with a Democrat, say, Sen. Joe Lieberman. If they could assemble a cabinet in waiting—perhaps Wes Clark for Defense, Russ Feingold for Justice, Colin Powell for anything— they could win the 2008 election going away.

Link
via The Raw Story

Burger man

Of all the seasonal homilies about "green" Christmases and "sustainable" new year pledges - an oxymoron if ever I've heard one - only one stuck in my mind: each of us could make a bigger contribution to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases by becoming a vegan than by converting to an eco-friendly car.

Researchers at the University of Chicago have calculated the relative carbon intensity of a standard vegan diet in comparison to a US-style carnivorous diet, all the way through from production to processing to distribution to cooking and consumption. An average burger man (that is, not the outsize variety) emits the equivalent of 1.5 tonnes more CO2 every year than the standard vegan. By comparison, were you to trade in your conventional gas-guzzler for a state of the art Prius hybrid, your CO2 savings would amount to little more than one tonne per year.

This may come as a bit of a shock to climate change campaigners. "Stop eating meat" is unlikely to be the favourite slogan of the new Stop Climate Chaos coalition. Even "eat less meat" might not go down too well, even though Compassion in World Farming has produced an utterly compelling explanation - in their report, Global Benefits of Eating Less Meat - of why this really is the way forward.

The basic rule of thumb is that it takes 2kg of feed to produce every kilogram of chicken, 4kg for pork, and at least 7kg for beef. The more meat we eat, the more grain, soya and other feedstuffs we need. So when we hear that the total global meat demand is expected to grow from 209m tonnes in 1997 to around 327m tonnes in 2020, what we have to hold in our mind is all the extra hectares of land required, all the extra water consumed, the extra energy burned, and the extra chemicals applied to grow the requisite amount of feed to produce 327m tonnes of meat....

Link via 3 Quarks Daily

No Diebold here. Maybe.

Here in NE Pennsylvania at least one county is balking at switching over to computer voting machines. For as long I’ve lived here (20 years) we’ve used lever voting machines. I’m no expert on voting machines (I’m for paper ballots) and I don’t know if these machines are easy to rig. Though they make it tough to cast a write in, they are pretty easy to understand and there's always a volunteer hovering nearby in case you get confused.

The county supervisors balk at the expense of replacing perfectly serviceable lever machines and also cite public opposition to machines that don’t provide a paper record.

The commissioners passed a resolution last month formally accepting $630,000 in federal funds, funneled through the state, as part of the Help America Vote Act. Some estimates place total cost of replacing Monroe's 120 lever machines at $1.2 million, with the county expected to cover nearly half the total.

Voting jurisdictions throughout the U.S. are being told to replace older voting machines with new machines employing computer technology. The legislation was prompted by voting irregularities in Florida during the 2000 presidential election, including confusing punch ballots that resulted in "hanging chads" that were only partially removed by voters.

"I believe it was a knee-jerk reaction to that situation," Monroe County Commissioner Bob Nothstein says of the voting machine replacement mandate. "Our machines work fine."

Monroe County has used the same pull-lever machines for several years. The commissioners announced more than a year ago that they won't allocate any county money for buying the new machines. Monroe is the only county in the state to take such a stand.

The commissioners believe, however, that the $630,000 grant may be sufficient to replace its voting machines without the need for additional funding. One option being explored is to lease the new machines.

"We have no idea if additional money will be needed or not," said Commissioners Chairwoman Donna Asure. "Until we know what a lease option will cost us ..." Link

Asure said many residents have e-mailed the commissioners in opposition to use of new computer voting machines, particularly machines that don't provide a paper receipt acknowledging that each voter's ballot was recorded.

I’m sure Santorum longs for lots of new, Republican favoring Diebold voting machines with preprogrammed outcomes.

Why will 06 and 08 be different?

The Sideshow links to this Ghosts in the Voting Machines which gives a good account of recent news on the fraudulent elections of 00 and 04.

Kerry, apparently, tells Mark Crispin Miller that he believes the election was stolen and then later Kerry’s staffers deny he did.

If you are hoping for a long shot congressional sweep in 06 to save us from Bush/Cheney then you better hope for candidates, especially in key states, that are prepared to overcome the Rove vote fraud machine. Otherwise you can count on lots of narrow wins contrary to exit polls that continue the Republican majorities in both houses.

Mainstream media and most celebrity bloggers refuse to cover this issue because they are afraid of being ridiculed by Republicans and of losing their treasured, occasional chances to be on TV and celebrity panels. Talking about vote fraud determining the 00 and 04 elections means you will not be taken seriously by the insiders and above all entrance to the serious halls of inside is what so many apparently want above all else.

My guess is that lots of battles, large and small, have been decided by one party or another's fear of embarrassment and marginalization.

The disappearance of ice

The real story of our life times may not be that we stood idly by while our country quietly became a fascist-like state ruled by the fabulously wealthy corporate and media elites, while privileged Democrats sold their souls for a seat in the plutocracy. The real story may be that we all stood idly by while global warming became irreversible, natural ice disappeared, Katrina sized storms became the norm and it became clear that Earth would soon be uninhabitable.

It is on us, all Americans, that we tolerate the Bush regime and do not throw them into the street. We allow them to torture, wage criminal war, and abet the destruction of the habitability of the planet essentially unchallenged. It is not that we don’t know. We do. We all do.

Here’s a few paragraphs from “The Coming Meltdown” in the current New York Review of Books. The article is available in its entirety on line.

…Climate change somehow seems unable to emerge on the world stage for what it really is: the single biggest challenge facing the planet, the equal in every way to the nuclear threat that transfixed us during the past half-century and a threat we haven't even begun to deal with. The coverage of Katrina's aftermath, for instance, was scathing in depicting the Bush administration's incompetence and cronyism; but the President —and his predecessors—were spared criticism for their far bigger sin of omission, the failure to do anything at all to stanch the flood of carbon that America, above all other nations, pours into the atmosphere and that is the prime cause of the great heating now underway. Though Bush has been egregious in his ignorance about climate change, the failure to do anything about it has been bipartisan; Bill Clinton and Al Gore were grandly rhetorical about the issue, but nonetheless presided over a 13 percent increase in America's carbon emissions….

… “Scientists are by training and nature conservative and...have probably underestimated our impact. Fifty years from now—I hope I'm wrong—I think you may be living in a world where you don't go outside between one and four in the afternoon.”…

…Every time she corners a scientist —the veteran Oxford environmental researcher Norman Meyers, the great diver and marine biologist Sylvia Earle, the eminent conservationist Russell Mittermeier—she asks, "Are humans a suicidal species?" They mostly dismiss her question with some reassuring words to the effect that we can still make up our minds to do better. But in fact it's a question that in some way or another needs to be near the center of our public debates. It rose for the first time in the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; for a while, many people seemed to expect an Armageddon-like nuclear exchange, and then they seemed to discount the possibility. The attacks on New York and Washington at the beginning of this millennium have raised the question of our being a suicidal species again. …

The last paragraph:

…It is hard not to approach this year's oncoming winter in an elegiac mood, with the testimony of Thompson's ice cores and the Arctic sea ice data and Ehrlich's account making the season's natural and lovely darkness seem suddenly somber. We are forced to face the fact that a century's carelessness is now melting away the world's storehouses of ice, a melting whose momentum may be nearing the irreversible. It's as if we were stripping the spectrum of a color, or eradicating one note from every octave. There are almost no words for such a change: it's no wonder that scientists have to struggle to get across the enormity of what is happening.

Link

It's now or never. For another angle on the mysterious bubble of complacency we live in, check out Roshi Bob.

On the edge

If you are terrified about finances and think you are in that position because of unique personal failures, it is very likely not your fault and you are not alone..

I saw this Harvard Magazine article, “The Middle Class on the Precipice” on 3 Quarks Daily.

Here’s the first paragraphs:

During the past generation, the American middle-class family that once could count on hard work and fair play to keep itself financially secure has been transformed by economic risk and new realities. Now a pink slip, a bad diagnosis, or a disappearing spouse can reduce a family from solidly middle class to newly poor in a few months.

Middle-class families have been threatened on every front. Rocked by rising prices for essentials as men’s wages remained flat, both Dad and Mom have entered the workforce—a strategy that has left them working harder just to try to break even. Even with two paychecks, family finances are stretched so tightly that a very small misstep can leave them in crisis. As tough as life has become for married couples, single-parent families face even more financial obstacles in trying to carve out middle-class lives on a single paycheck. And at the same time that families are facing higher costs and increased risks, the old financial rules of credit have been rewritten by powerful corporate interests that see middle-class families as the spoils of political influence.

Anti labor liberals

I have well educated friends that on most issues are liberal or progressive Democrats, but when it comes to labor and particularly strikes or other job actions, they almost always line up on the anti side. They resent it when workers are able to negotiate favorable contracts from a position of strength instead of accepting gratefully whatever is offered. When it comes to talking about tenured teachers they become apoplectic.

Anti labor liberals resent it when working people without college degrees earn good wages, have good benefits and job security. In truth, they want a compliant working class that oozes gratitude, knows its place, values the leadership of company owners (especially liberal ones), willingly and bravely fight wars that further enrich the rich and never challenge the covert boundaries of class and race.

The very best (and passionate) coverage of the Transit Workers’ Strike came from Steve Gilliard. Go here and root around and you will find clear, bluntly reported truths unavailable anywhere else.

Atrios, today, also takes a big step toward pulling the truth about pensions out of the swampy ignorance that obscures the issues.

Court gesture

Dec 23, 2005 — MILAN (Reuters) - A Milan court has issued a European arrest warrant for 22 CIA agents suspected of kidnapping an Egyptian cleric from the city in 2003, a judicial source said on Friday.

Milan magistrates suspect that a team of 22 CIA agents grabbed Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr off a Milan street and flew him for interrogation to Egypt, where he was reportedly tortured.

This is the entire bulletin, but here is the link.

It’s not likely that we will ever see the 22 lined up in front of the judge. But it’s a nice holiday gesture on the part of the Milan court.

Nothing sticks

In case you harbored hopes that being caught illegally spying on us would bring Bush down here's some sobering thoughts on what is likely to happen:

The story starts blending into a long string of administration scandals, and through skillful use of scandal fatigue, Bush weathers the storm and moves on, further demoralizing his opponents and cementing the press narrative about his 'resolve' and toughness. Congressional hearings might revive the issue momentarily, and bloggers will hammer away at it, but the initial hype is all the Democrat leadership and the media can muster, and anyway, it's never as juicy the second time around...

Rinse and repeat.

It's a battle of attrition that Bush and his team have mastered. Short of a major Dem initiative to alter the cycle, to throw a wrench into the system, to go after the media institutionally, this cycle will continue for the foreseeable future.

Link via Atrios.

The cycle continues because Americans will swallow anything so long as it comes from the right and the rich.

Will oil shale save the day?

Some of us keep the vague recollection of trillions of tons of oil shale, waiting in Colorado to be exploited, tucked away in our minds as a kind of happy place retreat when the realities of peak oil intrude and frighten us. The truth may be that ounce for ounce coal shale may contain less energy than a pop tart.

Here’s the last three paragraph from this article, “Oil shale may be fool's gold” by Randy Udall and Steve Andrews:

Americans love panaceas. We want thinner thighs in 30 days, a pill to cure baldness, an ultrasonic carburetor that will double our mileage. A magic wand would be nice, because the nation faces serious energy challenges. Since domestic oil production peaked 30 years ago, the need for energy efficiency, conservation and renewable energy has been obvious. Instead, like an addict on a binge, we continue to pursue a policy of "strength through exhaustion." Drilling the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before improving our woeful vehicle efficiency is one example of this brain-dead approach.

What contribution can oil shale make to energy security? Producing 100,000 barrels per day of shale oil does not violate the laws of physics. But the nation currently consumes that much oil every seven minutes. Improving the efficiency of our automobiles by 2 miles per gallon would save 10 times as much fuel, saving consumers $100 billion at the pump. The National Academy of Sciences has stated that cars, trucks and SUVs that get 30, 40 or 50 miles per gallon are doable. An aggressive national commitment to fuel efficiency is not optional, it's inevitable. In time, a more efficient fleet could save 20 times as much petroleum as oil shale is likely to ever provide.

All hype aside, oil shale is the poorest of the fossil fuels, containing far less energy than crude oil, much less even than hog manure, peat moss or Cap'n Crunch. A meager amount of energy, tightly bound up in an enormous volume of rock, oil shale seems destined to remain an elusive bonanza, the petroleum equivalent of fool's gold.

Link

Bears drowning

Scientists have for the first time found evidence that polar bears are drowning because climate change is melting the Arctic ice shelf.

From 3 Quarks Daily via noutopia.

A brave, small union holds the line alone for all of us

I support the striking New York City transit workers and denounce the unfair coverage of the strike by the mainstream media. I am appalled by some Democrats, including the always politically expedient Hillary Clinton, who have chosen to remain “neutral” instead of courageously supporting the strikers.

Once Democrats were proud to be pro labor.

People who work should be unanimous in their support of this brave and traditionally militant union. They have chosen to hold the line on protecting pensions and healthcare for workers and have refused to cave in and accept a contract that will deliver more profits to a tiny, fantastically privileged minority. Everyone but the ultra rich should recognize that a strong union standing up for wages and benefits protects the well being of all of us; sets a comparative standard that strengthens labor bargaining positions as well as wage standards for those not organized.

In coverage of the strike it is especially disgusting to see billionaire leaders, like Bloomberg, denouncing the “greed” of workers who start at $34,000 a year. Try living in NYC on $34,000.

You can’t find fair coverage of the strike in the New York media. For a refreshing, pro worker view, try this article, “New York City transit workers defy threats and strike” from the World Socialist Web Site. When you've read it draw your own conclusions about which coverage is more credible.

Here are a few paragraphs:

...The walkout represents the biggest class confrontation in the US in a generation. The issues at stake are not peculiar to transport workers or public employees, but reflect the general drive to destroy wages, working conditions and benefits of workers throughout the economy, from the airlines to the auto industry.

This strike was by no means something the union bureaucracy wanted. It has been provoked by the MTA as part of a wider strategy to slash spending on public employee compensation. Within New York’s ruling establishment, a conscious decision has been taken to make an example of the TWU.

On the part of transit workers, however, frustration over declining living standards in what is one of the world’s most expensive cities and anger at systematic disciplinary abuse by the MTA have been joined by a deep-felt resistance to the agency’s attempts to wipe out gains won by workers through decades of struggle.

The key issue that has forced the strike is management’s demand for a roll-back of pension rights, forcing newly hired workers to stay on the job until age 62, instead of the current 55, before collecting a pension. No similar demand for pension givebacks has been made against any other public employee union in the city, and the ultimatum has provoked particular anger among transit workers, whose life expectancy is among the lowest of any section of the workforce.

This confrontation has laid bare the immense class divide in New York City, the center of world finance capital. In the run-up to the walkout, the public has been subjected to the spectacle of various billionaires—from Michael Bloomberg, who bought his way into City Hall, to MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow, a prominent real estate mogul, to Rupert Murdoch, owner of the New York Post—denouncing workers who start at salaries of $34,000 for their “greed.”

Bloomberg demanded that transit workers face a “new world” in which pensions and health care costs are to be paid by the workers themselves, so that the savings can be funneled into the immense profits and incomes of the social class that he personifies....

Link

Personal note: My own union, Local 333, a New York boatmen’s independent affiliate of the International Longshoremen, was brought to its knees by tactics later shown to be illegal, in a strike in 1985. Throughout my career, tugboat men I met in ports everywhere said 333 set the wage standard for all ports and that it was fear of our union that kept their wages, union and non union, higher than they would be without us. The companies knew this and knew how important it was to break us so wages and benefits could be made lower throughout the industry.

If you are inconvenienced by this strike, I urge you to look beyond personal difficulty and support these brave working people.

Setting the stage for 06 vote fraud

Alter has a Newsweek article excerpted below that suggests how important the 2006 congressional elections will be.

Bush’s Snoopgate

The president was so desperate to kill The New York Times’ eavesdropping story, he summoned the paper’s editor and publisher to the Oval Office. But it wasn’t just out of concern about national security...

Then, down near the end of the article there is this paragraph which underscores the importance of the 2006 elections.

...This will all play out eventually in congressional committees and in the United States Supreme Court. If the Democrats regain control of Congress, there may even be articles of impeachment introduced. Similar abuse of power was part of the impeachment charge brought against Richard Nixon in 1974.

To ensure there is no impeachment, you can be sure the right wing vote fraud engine will be going full force in key congressional elections throughout the country.

Still king

From Josh Marshall:

According to the original Times article and subsequent reports, the president's authority to override statute law comes from the 2001 congressional resolution authorizing the force to destroy al Qaida.

By that reasoning the president must also be empowered to override the new law banning the use of torture, thus making the McCain Amendment truly a meaningless piece of paper.

Above the law

Our latest belief to be revealed as a delusion is the notion that we live in nation governed by the rule of law. As we all know now, Bush authorized secret, illegal spying on citizens following 9/11. Is anyone surprised at this? Some Senators act as if they are shocked by this but we all know that they know that the Bush war criminals have been doing whatever they damn well please and to hell with law all along.

We also all know in our heart of hearts that the “agreement” between Bush and McCain about rules governing treatment of prisoners is not worth a damn. It too is a charade and Bush and Cheney will allow and encourage torture of whomever whenever it pleases them. That’s what fascists do. They are above the law. Laws, treaties and agreements exist only to advance an agenda, placate the public and provide the complicit media with raw material to build cover.

McCain’s part in the drama is aimed solely at bolstering his presidential gambit, something to conceal the actual nonsense behind his media generated myth of tough guy straight shooter who acts on principle. McCain is only a couple of shades less slimy than Bush and the two together generated as slippery a slime fest as you could find. You can be sure those guys strung up, stretched out, toes barely touching the floor are not going to be spared one single water board session by this agreement. It means nothing.

Since the courts, from the Supremes on down, are being packed with right wing maniacs, confidence that we live in a country that delivers fair due process for everyone is about as valid as belief in the tooth fairy.

Here are some links to check out. Domestic Spying Criminal Penalties and Civil Liability and Did Bush Sell Us a Bill of Goods on Torture?

Update: And be sure to check out these Atrios Posts at Eschaton: This one and this one.

Vote fraud 2004

Here's an article on vote fraud from the same (Project Censored) site linked in the torture post below.

No Paper Trail Left Behind: the Theft of the 2004 Presidential Election*

The article includes a handy list anomalies favoring Bush. Here's the last two:

15) The National Election Pool’s exit polls13 were so far off that since their inception twenty years ago, they have never been this wrong, more wrong than statistical probability indicates is possible.

16) In every single instance where exit polls were wrong the discrepancy favored Bush, even though statistical probability tells us that any survey errors should show up in both directions. Half a century of polling and centuries of mathematics must be wrong.

These paragraphs come from the second half of the article

...An obvious question here is: why haven’t the Democrats been more vigorous in their objections to this fraud? The fact that they haven’t objected more (with a few notable individual exceptions) has been taken by some as definitive evidence that no fraud must have happened because the Democrats have the most to gain from objecting. In part the answer to this puzzle is that the Democrats don’t fully understand what has hit them. ...

...The Democrats’ meek acceptance of other races’ extremely peculiar outcomes prior to the 2004 elections illustrates this point further. As a result of the 2000 Florida debacle, Congress passed the “Help America Vote” Act in October 2002. While this act introduced a number of reasonable reforms, it also resulted in the widespread introduction of paperless electronic voting machines. This meant that there was no way to determine if the votes recorded by these computers were accurate and tamper-free. The GOP majority has blocked efforts subsequently by a few Democratic Congresspeople, led by Michigan Rep. John Conyers, to rectify this and ensure a paper ballot....

...The delicious irony for the GOP is that the Help America Vote Act, precipitated by their theft of the Florida 2000 presidential vote, made GOP theft of elections as in the preceding examples easy and unverifiable except through recourse to indirect analysis such as pre-election polls and exit polls.38 This is the political equivalent of having your cake and eating it too. Or, more precisely: stealing elections, running the country, and aggressively, arrogantly and falsely claiming that “the people” support it.

Link to all of the above where there is much, much more.

Oppose Torture, all the time, everywhere

No matter how finely the Bush regime splits the hairs to cover their criminal activities, torture is torture. We know what it is and we know our government is doing it.

It is our duty to oppose torture, all the time, everywhere.

Here’s an article I saw first in my local newspaper, The Pocono Record, and found on line by googling “Project Censorsed.”

Hard Evidence of US Torturing Prisoners to Death Ignored by Corporate Media
By Peter Phillips

Military autopsy reports provide indisputable proof that detainees are being tortured to death while in US military custody. Yet the US corporate media are covering it with the seriousness of a garage sale for the local Baptist Church.A recent American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) posting of one of forty-four US military autopsy reports reads as follows: "Final Autopsy Report: DOD 003164, (Detainee) Died as a result of asphyxia (lack of oxygen to the brain) due to strangulation as evidenced by the recently fractured hyoid bone in the neck and soft tissue hemorrhage extending downward to the level of the right thyroid cartilage. Autopsy revealed bone fracture, rib fractures, contusions in mid abdomen, back and buttocks extending to the left flank, abrasions, lateral buttocks. Contusions, back of legs and knees; abrasions on knees, left fingers and encircling to left wrist. Lacerations and superficial cuts, right 4th and 5th fingers. Also, blunt force injuries, predominately recent contusions (bruises) on the torso and lower extremities. Abrasions on left wrist are consistent with use of restraints. No evidence of defense injuries or natural disease. Manner of death is homicide. Whitehorse Detainment Facility, Nasiriyah, Iraq."

The ACLU website further reveals how: "a 27-year-old Iraqi male died while being interrogated by Navy Seals on April 5, 2004, in Mosul, Iraq. During his confinement he was hooded, flex-cuffed, sleep deprived and subjected to hot and cold environmental conditions, including the use of cold water on his body and hood. The exact cause of death was "undetermined" although the autopsy stated that hypothermia may have contributed to his death.

Another Iraqi detainee died on January 9, 2004, in Al Asad, Iraq, while being interrogated. He was standing, shackled to the top of a doorframe with a gag in his mouth, at the time he died. The cause of death was asphyxia and blunt force injuries.

So read several of the 44 US military autopsy reports on the ACLU website -evidence of extensive abuse of US detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan 2002 through 2004. Anthony Romero, Executive Director of ACLU stated, "There is no question that US interrogations have resulted in deaths." ACLU attorney Amrit Sing adds, "These documents present irrefutable evidence that US operatives tortured detainees to death during interrogations."...

For the rest of the article follow the Link

License to kill

PENNSYLVANIA HUNTERS SHATTER BEAR HARVEST RECORD
Hunters shot a new state record 4,123 black bears in the state's recently concluded bear season, according to the preliminary reports by the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

Link

A 733 pound male was the largest bear killed in Pennsylvania.

New Jersey Bear Hunt Ends With 280 Kills

About 280 bears were killed in New Jersey's six-day hunt aimed at thinning out the burgeoning population, which ended with more than 100 protesters waiting for hunters to emerge from the woods with their kills.

The hunt ended shortly after dusk Saturday with fewer bears killed than the 328 bagged in 2003, according to preliminary figures.

Black bears, once near extinction in the state, are now a common sight, menacing people, scampering through yards and rummaging in trash.

Link

I know reasonable resolution of the conflict between people and wild animals is a complicated issue, but there ought to be a better way than letting people pay for the joy of killing something. Bears come by here regularly. They pass through, going about bear business and agitating the dogs. Once, a bear tore a board off the side of our house. Now and then I’ve had to get up in the night to drag a barking dog out from under a treed bear. But mostly, we stay out of each other’s way.

It would give me no pleasure to kill a bear. 40 years ago I lost the ability to understand killing for pleasure and it still amazes me to see so many that think of it as fun. The way I see it, killing animals to make more room for people ought to be generally considered an odious task, like hauling trash or digging graves, and should require high pay to get someone to do it. But then there’s a huge amount of industry, from boots to guns, dedicated to feeding the illusion of wilderness for pretend woodsman. Truth is, there is no wilderness, only parks; no woodsmen, only dressed up folks from the suburbs; no wild animals, only semi tame deer eating the shrubs and bears looking for a box of donuts.

Election opiate

We don’t stand a chance of getting rid of this neo fascist regime because we still think the president is chosen by an election. This belief in elections is delusional, an opiate the plutocrats, including their tools in the mainstream media, use to tranquilize voters into a malleable wad.

Both election 2000 and 2004 were stolen and it is likely key congressional elections in 2006 will be stolen as well. A right wing coup took place in 2000 and since then the right has tweaked its election fraud engine to near perfection. Until we address that reality we are simple participants in a scripted exercise in make believe that provides an illusion of legitimacy to those who remain in power.

For more, visit The Sideshow here and here

From The Sideshow

Understand that this problem extends right into the liberal blogosphere. At the Daily Kos, it's an official policy that there was no fraud in the ballot-count and you pretty much can't even talk about whether the 2004 election was stolen. DKos is a terrific site for interested Democratic activists (and other aficionados of blogs), but they just won't entertain the possibility that the election was stolen, despite the copious evidence. It's one thing to say that it probably wasn't, but frankly it defies sanity to refuse to consider the possibility, and in this Bai and Kos are in harmony - they'd rather not know.

and visit The Huffington Post here for an interview with Mark Crispin Miller.

Press corpse

Every lefty knows the mainstream media has been largely absorbed into the reigning class of the plutocracy. But it never hurts to be reminded of just how diligently they labor to keep the wad of American voters comfortably deluded and how corrupt they have become.

Here’s a quote from Digby:

The DC press corps has no idea how they look to the rest of the country after more than a decade of running with GOP trumped up scandals, pimping for impeachment, trivializing the effects of an unorthodox presidential election in 2000, and then saluting smartly and following Dick Cheney over the cliff on Iraq. We liberals never thought of the press as particularly partisan. We thought of it as competent or incompetent. But for a lot of reasons, for the last 15 years the DC press corps have far too often aligned themselves with a manipulative GOP political establishment to the point where it's been hard to see where one ends and the other begins. It's not a matter of political preference. It's insiderism. And when you become an insider in a corrupt system, for money, access, fame, fun whatever ... you become corrupt yourself.

Link

Via Atrios

Something to vote for

Bernie Sanders gave an interview published in The Progressive. Here's one question and response.

Q: So what’s your message to progressives?

Sanders: We have got to change the political culture in America. We need a political revolution. That means we are working on politics not just three weeks before an election but 365 days a year. We have to develop a strong economic message which says every American is entitled to health care through a national health care program. And we’re not going to allow these large corporations to push through trade agreements which allow them to throw Americans out on the street and run to China. We’re not going to give tax breaks to billionaires and then cut back on the needs of our elderly or poor or kids or education. We’re not going to privatize Social Security—in fact, we’re going to strengthen it. We’re going to provide quality education for every kid in America, from preschool through college. We have to take on these corporate leaders who are selling out the American people, whose allegiance is now much more to China than it is to the United States. If we have the courage to take these people on, I think we can overwhelm Bush and his friends.

Here's where the rest is: Link

Via Kos

Sadistic, small minded little prick

Let's not forget then Governor Bush's mocking Karla Faye Tucker shortly before her execution in Texas.

"Please," Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, "don't kill me."

link

Go read the whole reminisence. It recalls what should never be forgotten, a Bush defining moment. Read also this post on Altercation where I found the link to the Timothy Noah Slate article linked above and here.

Thumbs up; thumbs down

Capricious.

...Clemency has long been intertwined with politics.

Gov. Pat Brown, who in the 1950s and '60s commuted 23 death sentences, more than any California governor, acknowledged that he once let an inmate die in the gas chamber to get a minimum-wage bill through the Legislature.

Link

The issue is never the issue.

Status report

Just to keep things straight, here’s a brief status report.

Rumsfeld and Cheney are crazy. Condi is ambitious and semi smart but thinks mostly of her shoes and loves to travel. Bush is an ill tempered fool who is over his head and shitting his pants terrified the world is going to find out.

We torture prisoners. We invade a country that poses no threat to us and sell the imperialistic quest for control of oil to the public with lies designed to frighten us. We maintain a Gulag of fewer, but more widely scattered prisons than the Soviet archipelago version, perhaps more disturbing because their existence reveals a disdain for our fundamental principles.

Our government comes to power through election fraud. Fraud friendly Republican developed computer voting technology continues proliferate. Leading Democrats still talk about being “bipartisan”. Hillary wants to stop flag burning. The New York Times, that helped us into all of the above, is still referred to as liberal. Lots of people watch O’Reilly. NPR has been taken over by the right.

Go here, to noutopia, read the posts and scroll down to the cartoon.

Condi: torture ok because they're different

Condi justifies torture. ABC story.

Without mentioning any country by name, Rice acknowledged special handling for certain terrorists.

"The captured terrorists of the 21st century do not fit easily into traditional systems of criminal or military justice, which were designed for different needs. We have had to adapt," Rice said.

This is the ultimate bullshit excuse. One used, in one way or another, by every criminal regime to allow for everything from genocide to torture. Give a name to a group, disenfranchise them, propagandize how they are different, with "different needs" and then, once dehumanized, slaughter them or torture them, or whatever.

You would think Europeans would be too sensitive to this rationalization to fall for it. The Sportsmen for Bush fascist base, of course, are all for it.

Torture

Condi says the U.S. does not use torture. What she means by the word "torture" and what the rest of us mean by it are very different.

From Reuters: CIA prisons in Europe closed in November: ABC News

...ABC News cited intelligence officers as saying that Rice could say that because of a presidential finding that approved "enhanced interrogation techniques," which the United States has said are not torture. These include sleep deprivation and waterboarding.

...ABC cited its sources as saying that the al Qaeda suspects being held are regularly subjected to these interrogation techniques.

In the report on the Web site, ABC cited sources as saying that of the suspects held by the CIA, only one, Ramzi bin al-Shaibah, a suspected coordinator of the September 11, 2001 attacks, did not require water boarding before he talked.

The report said al-Shaibah broke down in tears after he was walked past the cell of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the attacks on the United States. The sources were cited as saying a visibly shaken al-Shaibah started to cry and became cooperative.

So, just what kind of shape was Khalid in that simply seeing him reduced al-Shaibah to tears?

War criminals all.