Neocontext

Internet predator writing child-protection laws?

2006-10-06T11:53:00.000-04:00

While it may be shocking that the GOP leadership would keep a known sexual predator as co-chair of the GOP Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children...
Foley Built Career as Protector of Children - washingtonpost.com

It actually fits the pattern of Republican governance:

The main author of the Big Pharma give-away Medicare Part D law, Billy Tauzin of Louisiana, wrote the bill while he was negotiating his new job as a lobbyist for, well, Big Pharma.
12/16/04 Tauzin switches sides from drug industry overseer to lobbyist

(Tauzin got such a sweet pay package that he resigned from Congress before his term ended and became the highest paid lobbyist in Washington, DC.)

So don't act so surprised...

What’s on Gen. Michael Hayden’s iPod?

2006-05-18T22:20:00.000-04:00

What tracks would the guy with the biggest ears in the world keep pumpin' in his earbuds? Hmm...

Voice-printed Presidential “Get Out of Jail FREE” Directive (cued…)

AudioBook: The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America (abridged)

Phone logs of 200 million Americans (compilation)

Database of steamy text messages intercepted between Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Fitzgerald.

Bill O’Reilly’s phone-sex tapes (prostate stimulator and “falafel” calls)

Last 60 minutes of Michael Moore surveillance video (updated hourly)

Latest Georgia Homeland Security Vegan Eco-TerrorWATCH! podcast (updated daily)

Recording of shiksa Dominatrix phone-sex session with Sen. Joseph Lieberman

Vital signs of Vice President Dick Cheney's vital signs (updated realtime)

3:00AM Drunk-dial to Monica Lewinsky by then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton (1998)

"Tomorrow is Zero Hour", Al Qaeda (received 9/10/01, translated 9/12/01)

16 Days!... starting sometime in the next few years

2006-04-12T16:10:00.000-04:00

Desperate for a new war to distract voters from the old one, the White House is spinning Iran's nuke "threat" like a uranium centrifuge:

The Spin: "Iran, defying United Nations Security Council demands to halt its nuclear program, may be capable of making a nuclear bomb within 16 days, a U.S. State Department official said."

Wow, that's as scary as Saddam's unmanned drones that could be armed with WMD in 45 minutes! And about as real...

This hype is debunked later in the article if you read closely and do the math:

``Using those 50,000 centrifuges they could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in 16 days,'' said Stephen Rademaker, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation.

Huh? What 50,000 centrifuges? Iran only has 164 up and running, and Rademaker said those would have to run for 13 years to produce a bomb's worth of uranium.

Iran will move to ``industrial scale'' uranium enrichment involving 54,000 centrifuges at its Natanz plant, the Associated Press quoted deputy nuclear chief Mohammad Saeedi as telling state-run television today.

Oh, THOSE 50,000 centrifuges! But how long would it take for Iran to get all of them spinning?

Iran has informed the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency that it plans to construct 3,000 centrifuges at Natanz next year, Rademaker said.

Hmm... At a rate of 3000 a year, it would take 16 years to set up the 50,000 centrifuges that would justify Rademaker's alarmist "16 Days" warning. But the 3,000 Iran hopes to have running a year from now would still be dangerous, of course:

``We calculate that a 3,000-machine cascade could produce enough uranium to build a nuclear weapon within 271 days,'' Rademaker said.

So an honest and responsible assessment of the Iranian nuke threat would be that sometime next year Iran would be 9 months away from enriching enough uranium for one nuclear bomb. Of course, building the actual bomb will take much longer, so Bush will be out of office by the time Iran could actually threaten us with a nuclear bomb...

But he wants his war NOW! So, 16 Days!! 16 Days!!

"An officer swears an oath not to a person but to the Constitution"

2006-04-09T16:09:00.000-04:00

Lieut. General Greg Newbold (ret.) calls out the Pentagon brass on their resposnibility of speak out against the Pentagon suits in this stinging critique in this week's Time Magazine.

"I've been silent long enough"
"With the encouragement of some still in positions of military leadership, I offer a challenge to those still in uniform: a leader's responsibility is to give voice to those who can't—or don't have the opportunity to—speak. Enlisted members of the armed forces swear their oath to those appointed over them; an officer swears an oath not to a person but to the Constitution. The distinction is important."

First they came for the came for the Illegal Immigrants...

2006-04-07T23:43:00.000-04:00

and I did not speak out
because I have my papers...

This story is as personally heartbreaking as it is politically ominous. Beyond the tragedy of a child being terrified into suicide, the impunity with which the school official made these threats betrays a trickle-down lawlessness similar to what led to Abu Ghraib.

14 year-old protest organizer commits suicide after threats from school faculty:
"Eighth grader Anthony Soltero shot himself on Thursday, March 30, after the assistant principal at De Anza Middle School told him that he was going to prison for three years because of his involvement as an organizer of the March 28 school walk-outs to protest the anti-immigrant legislation in Washington. The vice principal also forbade Anthony from attending graduation activities and threatened to fine his mother for Anthony's truancy and participation in the student protests."

De Anza Middle School
2060 Cameron St., Ventura, CA 93001
(805)641-5165 fax: (805)641-5282
ADMINISTRATION
Montano, Jose - Assistant Principal
Wolowicz, Gina - Asst. Principal (Bilingual)
Wyatt, Valerie - Principal

The Troops Get It...

2006-04-03T12:48:00.000-04:00

Bush says he listens to his generals, but does he listen to his troops? Doubtful, because he wouldn't like what he'd hear. The significance of the following letter cannot be overstated in terms of what is says about the feeling within our armed forces.

It first quotes an economist's recent paper on the war's nearly unfathomable cost, and goes on to name-and-shame war profiteers and accuse the Bush family of near-treason for personal enrichment. Honestly, it's the kind language you'd expect to see in a World Socialist Worker newsletter.

But this letter, headed "Bush's Sorry Legacy" is the lead item on the Letters-to-the-Editors page of Stars & Stripes, the house organ of the U.S. military. It appears on the website and leads the page in BOTH the European and Pacific editions (which suggests a particular endorsement from the editors).

Michele Winter, stationed in Würzburg, Germany, wrote:
"In 'The True Costs of the Iraq War,' Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia University professor of economics) states, 'One cannot help but wonder: were there alternative ways of spending a fraction of the war’s $1-$2 trillion in costs that would have better strengthened security, boosted prosperity, and promoted democracy?'

"And spared lives? Clearly, but at a loss of billions in contracts to Halliburton/KBR, Bechtel and the Carlyle Group, of which George H.W. Bush is senior adviser. If it weren’t for war, the Bush family empire would be bankrupt. Self-enrichment is why Bush and (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair were determined to launch an invasion against Iraq.
...
"Bush’s policy of touting peace and democracy while dropping bombs on oil-producing countries and promoting crony capitalism in an America deteriorating into a feudal backwater will be Bush’s legacy as the worst president in U.S. history."

And just in case you're thinking that such talk could/should get the writer in trouble for disloyalty to the Commander-in-Chief, the editors of Stars & Stripes helpfully offer some perspective in the very next letter:

Writes Michael Williams from Baghdad:
"Letters referencing the Uniform Code of Military Justice and political protest remind me of 1996 and 2000. I wonder where these self-righteous enforcers stood then.

"I recall entering my work center at a joint service unit in 1996 to find an Army noncommissioned officer lecturing my troops to the effect that, if the election did not kick President Clinton out, he and a half million other soldiers knew how to 'finish the job.'
...
"I also remember talking with my division chief in late 2000 who stated to me and others that he was afraid of only one thing in that election: that George W. Bush would win the popular vote but not the Electoral College. He said if that happened, he expected the military to 'step in' and set things right. He reacted with indignation when I informed him that such talk was treason and he questioned my loyalties. Not surprisingly, he did not advocate armed insurrection when what he feared did happen, only not to the guy he was supporting."

We have always been at war with Eurasia...

2006-03-31T12:37:00.000-05:00

Remember back when we were liberating the Shiites from the Sunni/Baathist insurgency?
Well, the Penatgon doesn't:
"American officials are now saying that Shiite militias are the No. 1 problem in Iraq, more dangerous than the Sunni-led insurgents who for nearly the past three years have been branded the gravest security threat."

How the Times have changed...

2006-03-27T12:40:00.000-05:00

It seems like less than a year ago that half a dozen damning Top Secret memos caught fire in the British press and blazed for a month across the Pond before a grassroots effort finally pressured the US media to acknowledge the evidence that Bush's pre-war kabuki for the UN and the American people was all just a sham...

Today, the lastest "Downing Street Memo" breaks on Page One of the New York Times:

Bush Was Set on Path to War, Memo by British Adviser Says
"During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times."

Though to be fair, the Times is still a bit late on the pick-up on the U2 spy plane bombshell. AfterDowningStreet.org (the main coallition formed to push for coverage of the original memos) has been on it since early Feburary:
White House Memo
"President Bush to Tony Blair: 'The US was thinking of flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach'"

There to stay

2006-03-21T09:00:00.000-05:00

If we're not planning a permanent imperial occupation of Iraq, why are we building gigantic military bases complete with Burger King franchises?

"I think we'll be here forever":
"At another giant base, al-Asad in Iraq's western desert, the 17,000 troops and workers come and go in a kind of bustling American town, with a Burger King, Pizza Hut and a car dealership, stop signs, traffic regulations and young bikers clogging the roads. At a third hub down south, Tallil, they're planning a new mess hall, one that will seat 6,000 hungry airmen and soldiers for chow.

Are the Americans here to stay? Air Force mechanic Josh Remy is sure of it as he looks around Balad.

'I think we'll be here forever,' the 19-year-old airman from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., told a visitor to his base."

"Criminal Negligence"

2006-03-20T22:27:00.000-05:00

FBI Agent Slams Bosses at Moussaoui Trial: "Under questioning from MacMahon, Samit acknowledged that he had told the Justice Department inspector general that 'obstructionism, criminal negligence and careerism' on the part of FBI headquarters officials had prevented him from getting a warrant that would have revealed more about Moussaoui's associates. He said that opposition blocked 'a serious opportunity to stop the 9/11 attacks.'"

GOP Struggles To Define Its Message for 2006 Elections

2006-03-20T11:41:00.000-05:00

Hey, wait a second... Who got the talking points mixed up? I thought it was the Democrats who couldn't rally around a unified message...

GOP Struggles To Define Its Message for 2006 Elections: "Republican efforts to craft a policy and political agenda to carry the party into the midterm elections have stumbled repeatedly as GOP leaders face widespread disaffection and disagreement within the ranks."

The Republican Party: United No More? via Newsweek: "Is Anyone Listening? For six years, Bush has kept his troops in line. But suddenly, the GOP is looking rebellious, disorganized"

So maybe all that blather about the Dems not having any agenda or ideas is just another GOP Feudian slip...

Psychology Glossary: "Projection is one of the defense mechanisms identified by Freud and still acknowledged today. According to Freud, projection is when someone is threatened by or afraid of their own impulses so they attribute these impulses to someone else."

The Big Lie

2006-03-20T09:02:00.000-05:00

As we head into Year Four of the one of the longest and costliest war in American history, FOX & Friends continue to flog the idea that the reason all us America-haters think Iraq is a mess is that the America-hating media is conspiring to discredit our Fearless Leader. A reporter on the ground points out the logical fallacy in that proposition:

Iraq reporter Christopher Allbritton on "The Big Lie"
"Let's conduct a little thought experiment. 'The media' here are fiercely competitive. Everyone of us is looking for any angle -- any! -- that will break news, make our stories stand out or otherwise distinguish ourselves. That's what journalists do, and the corps here comes from the entire ideological spectrum, from the conservative to the socialist. But weirdly, this herd of cats -- which is what we could be best be compared to -- have all come to the same conclusion: Iraq is a mess."

Torture too ugly for even the CIA

2006-03-19T18:42:00.000-05:00

The "Black Room": "In the windowless, jet-black garage-size room, some soldiers beat prisoners with rifle butts, yelled and spit in their faces and, in a nearby area, used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball. "

Placards posted by soldiers at the detention area advised, "NO BLOOD, NO FOUL." The slogan, as one Defense Department official explained, reflected an adage adopted by Task Force 6-26: "If you don't make them bleed, they can't prosecute for it."

According to Pentagon specialists who worked with the unit, prisoners at Camp Nama often disappeared into a detention black hole, barred from access to lawyers or relatives, and confined for weeks without charges. "The reality is, there were no rules there," another Pentagon official said.

Change of heartland

2006-03-19T17:49:00.000-05:00

Indiana voters turn on Bush
This month, the Indianapolis Star released poll findings that Bush's approval rating among Indiana voters stood at 37 percent -- a drop of 18 points over the past year. The numbers echoed national polls, but were particularly shocking in a state that has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964.

''A 37 percent approval rating in Indiana for a Republican president is unheard of," said Brian Howey, who runs a newsletter for Indiana state political insiders. ''Those are Bill Clinton or John Kerry numbers in Indiana. So there is something seriously awry going on right now."

From a waitress at the South Junction Café:
"I hear all these people come in and say: 'That President Bush, we got to get that guy out of there.' But you ask them who they voted for, and they hush up because they were the ones who voted him in. He's their boy."

From a self-declared ''partisan supporter" of Bush:
''The mid-term elections are coming and it scares me to death, speaking as a partisan Republican," he said. ''There's a difference between regular dissatisfaction and a dissent that will move an election. There's that feeling in the air."

And this from the Bush Boys' own backyard...

Florida Republicans see trouble brewing: "'These numbers are like a tsunami. There has been a literal sea change, a potential realignment toward the Democrats in Florida,' Towery said. 'I think the state's gone from being pretty safe Republican to being pretty safe Democrat. And it's because the independents who kept (both Bushes) in office have shifted something like 70 percent to the Democrats.'"

Well that's a switch...

2006-03-17T18:13:00.000-05:00

White House agents posing as Fox journalists
"He said the men told him they were with Fox News out of Houston, Texas, and were on a 'scouting mission' for a story on new construction. They took pictures inside Akins' house, which is under construction and looked up and down the road in the neighborhood.
...
But after the president left Akins' home, the two men again approached Akins and let him know they were not media after all, but were with the governmental entourage."

Usually it's the guys at Fox acting like they work for the White House...

Animated Bush (dis)Approval Map

2006-03-17T13:19:00.000-05:00

From blogger "Radical Russ": "Revel in the newest incarnation of the Bush Approval Map! This map displays the state-by-state job approval polls of Pretzeldunce Chimpy McFlightsuit. His Net Approval is his job approval minus his job disapproval ratings, with positive numbers representing states where more people approve than disapprove, and negative numbers representing the opposite."

Americans Support Censure

2006-03-17T11:46:00.000-05:00

More Americans favor censure than oppose it:
"46% favor Senator Russ Feingold's (D-WI) plan to censure President Bush, while just 44% are opposed. Approval of the plan grows slightly when the sample is narrowed to voters, up to 48% in favor of the Senate censuring the sitting president.

Even more shocking is that just 57% of Republicans are opposed to the move, and 29% actually in favor.

More surprising still: The poll found fully 43% of voters in favor of actually impeaching the President, with just 50% of voters opposed. While only 18% of Republicans surveyed wanted to see Bush impeached, 61% of Democrats and 47% of Independents reported they wanted to see the House move ahead with the Conyers (D-MI) resolution."

What a Democratic majority would mean

2006-03-17T10:27:00.000-05:00

U.S. Senate: March 16, 2006, 109th Congress, 2nd Session:
Here is a sampling of initiatives proposed by Senate Democrats and immediately shot down by the Republicans on just one day this week. Send this to anybody who tells you that Democrats don't have any ideas:

Debbie A. Stabenow (D-MI) Amdt No. 3164; To establish a reserve fund to provide seniors with a prescription drug benefit option administered directly by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. (As opposed to the GOP’s dozens of confusing plans from for-profit companies that can’t negotiate volume discounts)
Amdt No. 3141; To provide an assured stream of funding for veteran's health care that will take into account the annual changes in the veteran's population and inflation to be paid for by restoring the pre-2001 top rate for income over $1 million, closing corporate tax loopholes and delaying tax cuts for the wealthy.

Senator John F. Kerry (D-MA) Amdt No. 3143; To prevent the imposition of excessive TRICARE fees and co-pays on military retirees.

Senator Paul S. Sarbanes (D-MD) Amdt No. 3103; To restore funding for the civil works programs of the Corps of Engineers, Federal conservation programs, and other natural resource needs, through an offset achieved by closing corporate tax loopholes.

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman (D-CT) Amdt No. 3034; To provide $8 billion in additional funds for homeland security government-wide, providing an additional $1.2 billion for first responders, $1.7 billion for the Coast Guard and port security, $150 million for chemical-plant security, $1 billion for rail and transit security, $456 million for FEMA, $1 billion for health preparedness programs, and $752 million for aviation security.

Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND) Amdt No. 3133; To increase funding to combat avian flu, increase local preparedness, and create a Manhattan Project-like effort to develop a vaccine to inoculate the U.S. Population against a pandemic by $5 billion in FY 2007 paid for by requiring tax withholding on government payments to contractors like Halliburton.

Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) Amendment No. 3131; To require a study of debt held by foreigners.

28 Solid Gold Eiffel Towers

2006-03-17T08:22:00.000-05:00

The Times (UK) puts America's new credit card limit into perspective.

$9 Trillion: "...equates to $1,500 for every man, woman and child in the world

...would buy all the tea in China. In fact it would buy all the tea in the world for the next 2,000 years.

...is enough to solve the Palestinian crisis by rehousing every Israeli and Palestinian family in a $2.6m detached house in Henley-on-Thames

...would build 28 Eiffel Towers — constructed out of gold."

Bets versus Ballots

2006-03-16T19:32:00.000-05:00

via The Washington Post: "It's easier to rig an electronic voting machine than a Las Vegas slot machine, says University of Pennsylvania visiting professor Steve Freeman. That's because Vegas slots are better monitored and regulated than America's voting machines, Freeman writes in a book out in July that argues, among other things, that President Bush may owe his 2004 win to an unfair vote count."

WaPo has a chart showing how we protect our vices better than we protect our votes. Example #1 is the software:

Las Vegas slot machines:
State has access to all software; illegal to use software not filed with state authorities.

Electronic voting machines:
All software is considered to be a trade secret and known only to the manufacturers.

It's 8 months to November -- do you know where your ballot is?

You said it, Joe!

2006-03-16T19:04:00.000-05:00

Joe Scarborough: "Maybe disgraced commentators and politicians alike... will step forward tonight and show the content of their character by simply admitting what we know already: that their wartime predictions were arrogant, they were misguided and they were dead wrong. "

Sadly, the disgraced former Congressman turned TV yacker did not say this last night about the arrogant, misguided and dead wrong wartime predictions of the GOP, but rather in April of 2003 when the dire warnings of generals and experts about the Iraq invasion had not (yet) come to pass.

Why don't you email Joe and invite him to show the content of his character? Oh wait, he already has...

Fair & Accuracy in Reporting has compiled a telling list of quotes from gloating wingnuts basking in the afterglow of Bush's "Mission Accomplished" codpiece display.

Fox's Mor[t]on Kondracke provides the best one:
"The Tommy Franks-Don Rumsfeld battle plan, war plan, worked brilliantly, a three-week war with mercifully few American deaths or Iraqi civilian deaths.... There is a lot of work yet to do, but all the naysayers have been humiliated so far.... The final word on this is, hooray."

Word Ass-ociation

2006-03-16T09:22:00.000-05:00

The most striking finding in the latest Pew Center poll is that "Honest" is no longer the word that most often springs to mind when people hear Bush's name:

In a word...Incompetent: "The single word most frequently associated with George W. Bush today is 'incompetent,' and close behind are two other increasingly mentioned descriptors: 'idiot' and 'liar.' "

But my favorite tidbit is the newest moniker to make the list, shown in this table from the actual report...

E-voting Crashes

2006-03-13T19:45:00.000-05:00

Md. House Approves Paper Ballots:
"The Maryland House of Delegates unanimously passed legislation yesterday to ditch the state's touch-screen voting machines for the coming election in favor of a system that uses paper ballots.
The 137 to 0 vote in the House and the endorsement of the plan this week by Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. represents a stunning turnaround for a state that was on the leading edge of touch-screen voting in 2001, and it reflects a national shift toward machines that provide a paper record."
New Mexico just dumped its touch screens too...

And the primaries are exposing lot's of problems:
Optical-scan voting equipment in one Ohio county "experienced a 30 percent failure rate in testing." Problems were common in Texas on primary day. And when one Florida candidate tried to vote for himself, the machine repeatedly defaulted to a vote for his opponent.

But the machine vendors and their allies are fighting hard against accountability.

Brad Friedman has aggressively covered the ongoing e-voting scandals, and has broken many important stories. He recently wondered why Diebold's AccuVote TS6 touch-screen voting machines would have built-in wireless infrared data transfer ports?
The Brad Blog's election-fraud coverage is not to be missed. The problems go beyond unsecured voting-machines, to include specific allegations against a sitting Congressman. Friedman also exposed the American Center For Voting Rights as a Republican front group set up to push laws requiring photo IDs to vote and distract from voter-suppression and machine issues.

If you want to know more about what happened to our electoral system, or are interested in fixing the damage, there are plenty of legitimate resources. Activism will be necessary to get anything done before the mid-terms:

VotersUnite is a genuinely non-partisan national grassroots organization pushing for fair and accurate elections, and the National Election Archive Project wants our elections independently audited to detect and correct errors.
Black Box Voting is the original e-voting watchdog.
Fooled Again by Mark Crispin Miller is an exhaustively researched account of the 2004 election.
The Conyers Report produced by Representative John Conyers, the Ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is a comprehensive record of voter suppression efforts in Ohio in 2004.

Interior Secretary Resigns Suddenly

2006-03-10T20:42:00.000-05:00

via DenverPost: "Gale Norton resigned today after serving more than five years as secretary of the Interior and overseeing a dramatic expansion of drilling, logging and development on the public lands of the West."

Now, I'm sure she's looking forward to spending more time with her family, but this might have something to do with it as well...

Abramoff personally installed her: "After the 2000 election, Abramoff was named to the Bush transition team for the Interior Department, which regulates the Indian casinos that paid Abramoff his inflated fees." And "Casino Jack" Abramoff just gave a major tell-all interview to Vanity Fair.

As for why her resignation was so sudden, she may be in a hurry to get in some of that quality family time, if her career follows the pattern of other Abramoff-connected Bush officials...

Bush Official Arrested in Corruption Probe: "The Bush administration's top federal procurement official resigned Friday and was arrested yesterday, accused of lying and obstructing a criminal investigation into Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff's dealings with the federal government. "

And Safavian's arrest is what clinched what has become the odds-on favorite to be the first Congressional indictment in the Abramoff case: That of the defiant Bob Ney (R-OH): “I’m running -- if I’m indicted, I’m running.”

Verdict: Less-Guilty, by Reason of Amorality

2006-03-07T21:35:00.000-05:00

The implications of this precedent are disturbing on so many levels. It's shameful that we have trapped our soldiers in a situation that would make this even conceivable, and tragic that this war would lead the world to expect less of our nation morally.

US soldier's rape sentence cut due to Iraq stress:
"A U.S. soldier who raped a Nigerian woman in Italy was given a lighter sentence because the court deemed his tour of duty in
Iraq had made him less sensitive to the suffering of others.
...
Brown beat and handcuffed the woman, a Nigerian resident in the town of Vicenza. He raped her vaginally and anally and left her to wander the streets naked in search of help.

The crime would have earned him an eight-year sentence, but the judges reduced the penalty due to the "extenuating circumstances" of the psychological effects of Brown's year of service in Iraq"

National Guard part of national spy plan

2006-03-07T00:14:00.000-05:00

Senator ties Guard to spy plan:
"A special California National Guard unit that was disbanded last year amid suspicion it was engaged in domestic spying may have been part of a nationwide effort to monitor the activities of U.S. citizens, a state senator charged Tuesday.
...
The unit formed in California, first reported by the Mercury News in June, had been given 'broad authority' to monitor, analyze and distribute data on potential terrorist threats. Top Guard officials, the Mercury News learned then, were involved in tracking a Mother's Day anti-war rally organized by families of slain U.S. soldiers."

Another Senator may have some questions about all of this...
Gonzales May Be Recalled on Eavesdropping:
"'There is a suggestion in his letter there are other classified intelligence programs that are currently under way,' Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., told reporters."

The Cunningham Cancer Metastasizes

2006-03-06T08:55:00.000-05:00

Duke "Top Gun" Cunningham's sugar daddy, defense contractor Mitchell Wade, is fast becoming the Jack Abramoff of contractors:

Contractor Pleads Guilty to Corruption:
"The new admissions, including details that identify Reps. Virgil H. Goode Jr. (R-Va.) and Katherine Harris (R-Fla.) as recipients of illegal campaign contributions, are contained in Wade's agreement to plead guilty to four criminal charges stemming from his role in the Cunningham probe. "

Katherine Harris `Circling the Wagons':
"[Wade] admitted in federal court that he gave $32,000 in illegal campaign donations to Harris.... After that dinner meeting, Harris put in a $10 million budget request to the Defense Appropriations subcommittee to fund the project. Days later, an employee in Harris' congressional office went to work for Wade at MZM."

Et Tu Jeb?:
"Gov. Jeb Bush's office is refusing to release documents or answer questions about a $400,000 tax credit awarded to MZM Inc., whose former chief executive pleaded guilty last week to bribery and illegal campaign contributions."

Top CIA Official Under Investigation:
"The CIA Inspector General has opened an investigation into the spy agency's executive director, Kyle 'Dusty' Foggo, and his connections to two defense contractors accused of bribing a member of Congress and Pentagon officials."

Iraq Abuses Now Worse than Under Saddam

2006-03-05T18:53:00.000-05:00

Cross off another retro-rationale for the invasion...

Ex-UN Official: Iraq Abuses Growing Worse:
"John Pace, who last month left his post as director of the human rights office at the U.N. Assistance Mission for Iraq, said the level of extra-judicial executions and torture is soaring, and morgue workers are being threatened by both government-backed militia and insurgents not to properly investigate deaths.

'Under Saddam, if you agreed to forgo your basic right to freedom of expression and thought, you were physically more or less OK,' Pace said in an interview with The Associated Press. 'But now, no. Here, you have a primitive, chaotic situation where anybody can do anything they want to anyone.'"

Rights Group Says Iraq Torture Continues:
"Detainees in Iraq are still being tortured receiving electric shocks and beatings with plastic cables despite U.S. promises to prevent such abuse after the Abu Ghraib scandal, a report by an international rights group said Monday."

Tillman: From Propaganda Posterboy to Possible Homicide Victim

2006-03-04T19:32:00.000-05:00

Army to open criminal probe of Tillman death:
"The U.S. Army will launch a criminal investigation to determine whether ex-NFL player Cpl. Pat Tillman's 2004 death from friendly fire in Afghanistan was negligent homicide." - CNN

You may recall how the Pentagon exploited Tillman's tragic death with a false story that played into their use of him as a Made-for-FOX News post-9/11 mascot -- even lying to his own parents and covering up the fact that he was killed by friendly fire.

In reality, Tillman was very different from the propaganda image created by the Pentagon:
"Interviews also show a side of Pat Tillman not widely known Â a fiercely independent thinker who enlisted, fought and died in service to his country yet was critical of President Bush and opposed the war in Iraq, where he served a tour of duty. He was an avid reader whose interests ranged from history books on World War II and Winston Churchill to works of leftist Noam Chomsky, a favorite author."

The Bush "Intensity Gap"

2006-03-03T20:22:00.000-05:00

Horrible as they may be, the raw Approve/Disapprove numbers don't tell the whole story of the damage Bush's serial failures are doing to the GOP's standing.

Intense Disapproval:
"And, in a trend that could affect turnout in the November midterm elections, Bush confronts what might be called an intensity gap: The percentage of Americans who said they strongly disapproved of his performance on a wide range of issues greatly exceeded the share who strongly approved."

The GOP's "Bush Ballast" may actually depress Republican turnout enough to cancel out the boost Rove hopes to get out of his gay-adoption ploy:

Drives to ban gay adoption heat up in 16 states:
"Republicans battered by questions over ethics and Iraq 'might well' use the adoption issue to deflect attention and draw out conservatives in close Senate and governor races in states such as Missouri and Ohio, says Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, University of Southern California political scientist."

Port Tort -- UK version

2006-03-03T11:03:00.000-05:00

Dubai Port Deal Is Delayed by UK Court:
"A Miami company objecting to the takeover of British shipping company P&O by Dubai's state-owned DP World said Friday it has been granted the right to take the case to the Court of Appeal, a move that puts the deal on hold."

And the GOP is quickly abandoning ship:

Republican senator says Dubai port deal broke the law
"'It's my interpretation that the Byrd Amendment is pretty clear, that if you look at the legislative history, they certainly didn't follow the law that I thought they should have,' Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said in an interview after a congressional hearing on the Dubai Ports World deal."

Republican Vows to Block Ports Deal:
"One of the most prominent House Republicans on military issues said Thursday he would try to scuttle a Dubai-based company's effort to manage U.S. ports as lawmakers' complaints about the Bush administration's handling of the issue continued to spread.

'Dubai cannot be trusted,' said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and normally one of the administration's most trusted allies. "

Meanwhile, the UAE is playing the petrodollar card -- exactly the type of economic blackmail sure to intensify the split in the GOP between the party's plutocrats and the nativists...

Ports backlash makes Arab investors wary:
"Arab officials and businessmen are warning that growing opposition to Dubai Ports World's acquisition of US container terminals may cause Arab investors to think twice before putting their money in the US."

Baghdad official who exposed executions flees

2006-03-02T18:33:00.000-05:00

Guardian: Baghdad official who exposed executions flees
"Faik Bakir, the director of the Baghdad morgue, has fled Iraq in fear of his life after reporting that more than 7,000 people have been killed by death squads in recent months, the outgoing head of the UN human rights office in Iraq has disclosed.

'The vast majority of bodies showed signs of summary execution - many with their hands tied behind their back. Some showed evidence of torture, with arms and leg joints broken by electric drills,' said John Pace, the Maltese UN official. The killings had been happening long before the bloodshed after last week's bombing of the Shia shrine in Samarra."

Pillar to press: Don't get fooled again

2006-03-01T22:00:00.000-05:00

Via Nieman Watchdog:
"Paul R. Pillar, the former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until last year, writes that the press was insufficiently questioning both in the run-up to war and in its coverage of the 9/11 Commission. He proposes questions reporters should ask -- retrospectively and prospectively -- about the use and abuse of intelligence by policymakers."

Pillar is the whistleblower who wrote the stunning Foreign Affairs article describing how the White House cooked the Iraq intel:

"The most serious problem with U.S. intelligence today is that its relationship with the policymaking process is broken and badly needs repair. In the wake of the Iraq war, it has become clear that official intelligence analysis was not relied on in making even the most significant national security decisions, that intelligence was misused publicly to justify decisions already made, that damaging ill will developed between policymakers and intelligence officers, and that the intelligence community's own work was politicized. As the national intelligence officer responsible for the Middle East from 2000 to 2005, I witnessed all of these disturbing developments..."

Port deal never probed for terror risk

2006-03-01T20:54:00.000-05:00

Lawmaker: Port deal never probed for terror ties:
Via CNN: GOP Rep. Peter King of New York, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, confirms that White House assurances on the port deal are utterly baseless:

"King said the officials told him after he asked about investigation into possible terrorist ties: 'Congressman, you don't understand, we don't conduct a thorough investigation. We just ask the intel director if there is anything on file, and he said no.'

'There was no real investigation conducted during the 30-day period,' King, told CNN. 'I can't emphasize this enough,'"

And if you needed any more emphasis that no investigation was done, you'd think if there was one it might have turned this up:

Al Qaeda to UAE: Our Pliers, Your Balls...
Via Scripps Howard:
"The document, a letter from the al Qaeda terrorist organization to the United Arab Emirates government, mainly warns UAE officials to stop arresting al Qaeda's 'Mujahideen sympathizers.' The second paragraph begins with a potentially chilling boast: 'You are well aware that we have infiltrated your security, censorship, and monetary agencies along with other agencies that should not be mentioned.'"

And it doesn't look like the "intel director" even checked to see " if there is anything on file":

"This document was not exactly a tip top government secret. U.S. officials could find and read it (in its original Arabic or English translation) in the files of various government counter-terrorism agencies. But you can find and read it too. Just check out the Web site of the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and peruse the list of unclassified documents. It is the one that says at the top, 'In the Name of Allah the Most Compassionate and Merciful,' followed by a warning title, 'Get the Idolaters out of Arab Island (Gulf Countries).'"

Coast Guard can't vouch for Dubai Ports on terrorism

2006-02-27T18:19:00.000-05:00

Paper: Coast Guard Has Port Co. Intel Gaps
The White House said there were no security objections to the DP World from the vetting committee. Maybe this was because the Coast Guard couldn't gather enough intel from our "vital ally" in the War on Terror to do an actual security assessment...

"Citing broad gaps in U.S. intelligence, the Coast Guard cautioned the Bush administration that it was unable to determine whether a United Arab Emirates-owned company might support terrorist operations, a Senate panel said Monday."

100,000 Errors in Palm Beach alone

2006-02-25T01:00:00.000-05:00

Watchdog Group Questions 2004 Fla. Vote
BlackBoxVoting.org, which describes itself as a nonpartisan, nonprofit citizens group, said it found 70,000 instances in Palm Beach County of cards getting stuck in the paperless ATM-like machines and that the computers logged about 100,000 errors, including memory failures.

Also, the hard drives crashed on some of the machines made by Oakland, Calif.-based Sequoia Voting Systems, some machines apparently had to be rebooted over and over, and 1,475 re-calibrations were performed on Election Day on more than 4,300 units, Harris said.
...
Harris said one machine showed that 112 votes were cast on Oct. 16, two days before the start of early voting, a possible sign of tampering. She said the group found evidence of tampering on more than 30 machines in the county.

Oh, THOSE emails!

2006-02-24T22:05:00.000-05:00

Update Fitzgerald: White House "located" missing emails: "The defense was told that the White House had recently located and turned over about 250 pages of e-mails from the vice president's office. Fitzgerald, in a letter last month to the defense, had cautioned Libby's lawyers that some e-mails might be missing because the White House's archiving system had failed. "

Port Tort

2006-02-24T21:11:00.000-05:00

Mark your calendar, kids! On March 1, that's next Wednesday, the White House will have to explain to a judge why it did not conduct the legally mandated 45-day investigation into the Dubai Ports deal -- or else he'll put the deal on ice indefinitely.

Washington told to justify port deal in court

The Bush administration was ordered by a U.S. federal judge on Friday to explain why it did not give New Jersey officials documents and information Washington had about a deal allowing an Arab company to take over management of a container terminal in Newark.

U.S. District Court Judge Jose Linares signed an order demanding to know why the government did not carry out a full investigation into the change of ownership of the container terminal at Port Newark.

The judge set a hearing for Wednesday and said in the order he would issue a preliminary injunction blocking the deal, pending a full investigation, unless he was satisfied with Washington's answers.

And the Bush administration has a lot of explaining to do:

Senators Challenge Ports Deal Procedure
Levin at one point noted that a special commission that investigated the terror attacks against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001 concluded that "there's a persistent counterterrorism problem represented by the United Arab Emirates."

"Just raise your hand if anybody (at the witness table) talked to the 9-11 commission," commanded Levin. There was no response among the handful of administration representatives.

Bipartisan Letter from Congress to the President outlining terrorism concerns.

Homeland Security Objected to Ports Deal: "The
Homeland Security Department objected at first to a United Arab Emirates company's taking over significant operations at six U.S. ports. It was the lone protest among members of the government committee that eventually approved the deal without dissent."

Bush's Stance on Ports Deal Fuels Anger
"In regards to selling American ports to the United Arab Emirates, not just NO - but HELL NO," conservative Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., wrote Bush in a terse letter on Wednesday that she also posted on her Web site.

UAE terminal takeover extends to 21 ports
A United Arab Emirates government-owned company is poised to take over port terminal operations in 21 American ports, far more than the six widely reported.

Senator Questions Snow's Interest in Ports deal
In his letter to Bush, Sen. Dodd said that before Snow joined the Treasury Department in 2003, Snow had worked for about 20 years at the CSX Corp., including as chairman and CEO. In December 2004, after Snow had left CSX, that company's port business was sold to Dubai Ports World in a deal worth more than $1 billion.

Snow received $72.2 million in compensation from CSX in 2003, including $33.2 million from a special retirement pension, Dodd said, citing press reports. Dodd said the press reports also said that Snow had a stake in a CSX deferred compensation plan worth between $5 million and $25 million.

Video from Crooks & Liars
Lou Dobbs:
"President Bush has put forth a challenge tonight that I simply can't ignore. The president yesterday said he wanted those who are critical and questioning of this port deal to "step up and explain why all of a sudden a Middle Eastern company is held to a different standard than a Great British company." Well, first of all, Mr. President...

Friends & Family Plan (via Crooks & Liars)

DOBBS: President Bush's family and members of the Bush administration have long-standing business connections with the United Arab Emirates, and those connections are raising new concerns and questions tonight in some quarters about why the president is defying his very own party leadership and his party in defending the Dubai port deal.

UAE Would Also Control Shipments of Military Equipment For The U.S. Army
Dubai Ports World, would also control the movement of military equipment on behalf of the U.S. Army through two other ports. From the Feb 20 edition of the British paper Lloyd’s List:

[P&O] has just renewed a contract with the United States Surface Deployment and Distribution Command to provide stevedoring [loading and unloading] of military equipment at the Texan ports of Beaumont and Corpus Christi through 2010.

This is starting to look a bit Abramoffy...
United Arab Emirates Donated At Least $1M To Bush Library

DKos has a good Timeline of the Dubai Deal-Making if you want to follow the money.

The New America

2005-06-24T21:23:00.000-04:00

Men Accused Of Beating Lesbian Teens
With Sledgehammer

Bush admits that his White House is full of crooks

2005-03-19T11:36:00.000-05:00

Well, maybe not in so many words, but the admission was articulated in the vast swathes of blacked-out redactions in the papers related to Bill Clinton's last-minute pardons which Bush just released to the conservative watchdog groups Judicial Watch. To decode the message behind the redactions (which blot out EVERYTHING except the authors and recipients of each document), consider the White House's stated reason for shielding Clinton's pardons from scrutiny:

The Bush White House has argued that releasing pardon-related documents would have a chilling effect on internal discussions leading up to presidential action on such requests.

One can only imagine how heated those discussions must be...

White House Heavily Redacts Clinton Papers

For a bit of Neocontext, consider how Bush's father used his pardoning power to shield members of his administration who could have sent the Elder Bush to jail:
Bush Pardons Weinberger, Five Others Tied to Iran-Contra

What's wrong with this picture?

2005-03-18T02:52:00.000-05:00

Or rather, article...

DeLay expected to rake it in at tonight's ROMP fundraiser
(Retain Our Majority Program)

Consider this exerpt:

More than 90 GOP lawmakers are participating in tonights event, said Jim Ellis, director of DeLays Americans for a Republican Majority Political Action Committee (ARMPAC). Only 2 percent of the $1.5 million comes from K Street, with the idea to tap business-community PACs later in the cycle, Ellis said.

"Overall, this shows an overwhelming commitment of the conference for maintaining and expanding our majority," Ellis said.

"Were at 1.5 million and change. I dont think well get to 1.6," he said. "This is bigger than the other four ROMPs Ive done."

Now Ellis obviously is the main source on this story, and it is clearly a puff piece solicited to boost DeLay. But beyond being an absolute tool, this reporter fails to give even passing mention to the fact that Jim Ellis happens to be under indictment for money laundering in Texas at the moment, on trial for funnelling illegal campaign donations through DeLay-controlled PACs to engineer the Republican takeover of the Texas House -- which led to the illegal redistricting that gave the Republican House majority their entire five-seat gain in 2004.

That information is relevant to any news story about Ellis -- ESPECIALLY when he's talking about raising money to expand the Republican majority.

What possible reason could there be for leaving out that sailient fact?

Hey, let's ask him!

Hans Nichols
Email: hnichols@thehill.com
Direct line: 202-628-8539
cell: 202-489-9629

People's Daily Online -- Senior CPC official meets media mogul Rupert Murdoch

2005-03-18T00:59:00.000-05:00

Great, now Sean Hannity is going to start ranting about "Liberal Taiwan" and saying that America has no business meddling in the internal affairs of sovereign nations.

Senior CPC official meets media mogul Rupert Murdoch

Liu Yunshan, a senior official of the Communist Party of China (CPC), encouraged media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his company, News Corporation, to make "more substantial efforts to enhance mutual understanding between China and the rest of the world."

Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corp., said his company would "further strengthen cooperative ties with the Chinese media, and explore new areas with an even more positive attitude."

The Neocontext bonus nuggets in this item are the "Related Stories"

Murdoch named director of China NetCom
Murdoch's Star to set up wholly foreign-invested ad company in China

Congress.Org -- Guide to Elected and Appointed Officials

2005-03-18T00:45:00.000-05:00

Congress.Org is a wonderful tool for political expression. You can find committee chairs, look at some of the messages the politicians are getting, and use your zip code to contact just about any elected official in your area from Dog Catcher to President.

Capital Punishment: Wolfowitz takes over the World Bank

2005-03-17T20:02:00.001-05:00

Wolfowitz is a disturbing choice to head the World Bank not only because he's so good with numbers (recall his spot-on estimates of the $1.5 billion cost of the Iraq War, and his lowballing the casualty count by 30% in senate testimony).

Given his role in The Project for the New American Century, it doesn't take much imagination to figure out how the Littlest Vulcan will use the global development bank as a weapon in the service of the neocon agenda. But if you lack the imagination (or simply fear to speculate), you can take it from an expert like John Perkins, who speaks from direct experience. He was a frontline soldier in the economic warfare waged on the developing world by the West during the Cold War, and in particular after the rise of OPEC. He breaks it all down in Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

From the blurb:
"For many years, John Perkins convinced less developed countries to borrow billions for infrastructure projects, and saw to it that the money ended up at U.S. engineering and construction companies."

And you thought it was all just a conspiracy theory...

As a matter of fact, there were two conspiracies (BBC3/15/04), and they wrassled!

And yes, the neocons screwed up the economic war just as badly as the military war, for the same damn reasons, and with the same ideological zeal.

The only surprise is that the Oil Companies were the sane ones...

2005-03-17T19:55:00.000-05:00

Well, much of this article will come as no surprise to any of us who have observed the Bush Administration with sufficient skepticism, but it's interesting to see the specifics, names and sources.

Turns out the neocons battled the pragmatists at State (and, interestingly, the Oil Industry) over how best to appropriate Iraq's oil. And Naomi Klein had it right last summer in her "Baghdad Year Zero" article.

The most striking thing, though, is who they have on the record on what:

Philip Carroll, the former CEO of Shell Oil USA who took control of Iraq's oil production for the US Government a month after the invasion -- on the plot to sell off the country's industry.

And Amy Jaffe of the James Baker Institute in Texas (which just helped create the Iraqi state-owned oil monopoly) -- on the US oil industry's interest in promoting OPEC to keep oil prices high.

Secret US plans for Iraq's oil

This is now a must read for anyone who wants to understand the Iraq War:

Baghdad Year Zero
Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia

Polls drop, Terror Alerts rise...

2005-03-16T11:37:00.000-05:00

Note to Homeland Security: to stay one step ahead of Al Qaeda, keep an eye on Bush's poll numbers. When his polls slip it's a sure sign of increased terrorist activity.

Support for Bush on Social Security Wanes
Barely One-Third of Americans Approve of President's Plan
Washington Post - March 14, 2005

Report: Qaeda Ally May Target U.S. Theaters, Schools
Reuters - March 14, 2005

Of course, the White House admits that there's really no basis for the supposed report:
"At this point sitting here, we do not have evidence of a specific operation by Zarqawi's organization targeting those kinds of targets. We just don't have that kind of information at this point," said White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley.

Well, thanks for raising the alarm now anyway!

Maybe next Bush will start saying that Al Qaeda is plotting to blow up Social Security...

Broadcast news heads sound the alarm on the Ministry of Truth

2005-03-15T08:11:00.000-05:00

According to NBC News President Neal Shapiro, the press is under attack as never before from the executive and judicial branches, which he says are pursuing journalists with "actual malice" just for doing their jobs.

It's time to "sound the alarm," he said. That call was picked up by other speakers and punctuated with applause from the crowd.

More...

(from the Radio-Television News Directors Foundation awards dinner in D.C. last Thursday)

Happy Sunshine Week!

2005-03-15T08:06:00.000-05:00

The week of March 13 has been declared Sunshine Week by media organizations and other groups pressing for government access, contending information is being withheld more often by officials who cite post-Sept. 11 security concerns.

www.sunshineweek.org

Across U.S., Citizens Fight for Records

Ministry of Truth: The Edifice Cracks

2005-03-15T07:52:00.000-05:00

The mainstream media is finally starting to dissect the Bush domestic propaganda machine. Looks like the press may be waking from its post-9/11 trance to take a realistic look at what Karl Rove is doing to public discourse.

From WaPo:
Social Security: On With the Show President's 'Conversations' on Issue Are Carefully Orchestrated, Rehearsed

From NYT:
Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged Television News
Investigation reveals hundreds of White House videos

Want to Stop Fake News?

2005-03-14T12:15:00.000-05:00

If you're getting fed up with the multi-front subversion of journalism, you can check out stopfakenews.org -- an offshoot of stopsinclair.org (now startchange.org).

Right now, it just has a petition to be sent to the FCC and Dept. of Justice, but I suspect more will be added as the site/movement matures.

And remember, journalists, it's not unethical to fight for the integrity of your profession. The extent that it may look like political activism against a particular party or elected official is only the extent to which that party or official is attacking the foundations of journalism.