WIIIAI listens to the morons so we don't have to

WIIIAI reports on Rummy's latest babblings, in which he claims that the Iraqi insurgents are not really insurgents because they "don't have a legitimate gripe."

Also, going above and beyond the call, WIIIAI watched aWol's "Plan for Victory" speech. Bush has now divided the illegitimate gripers into three categories: Rejectionists, Saddamists, and Terrorists. He also defined the mission in Iraq: “Our mission in Iraq is to win the war - our troops will return home when that mission is complete.” To which WIIIAI adds, "As opposed to when the mission is accomplished, which was a couple of years ago."

The middies at the Naval Academy were thrilled by the speech:



Of course that was before he told them they'd all be headed for the Marines instead of the Navy after graduation, if not before.

Barbara Walters has terrible taste

I watched her Most Fascinating People of 2005 show last night. Considering that Condi Rice and Tom Cruise were on her list, I'd guess that for Baba the words "fascinating" and "scary" are synonyms. Her choice for the top spot was Camilla Parker Bowles, someone somewhere below grass growing and paint drying on my fascination scale. The rest of her gang of ten: Kanye West, Dakota Fanning, Thomas Mesereau (Michael Jackson's lawyer), Lance Armstrong, Beth Holloway Twitty (mom of blonde white girl lost in Aruba), Teri Hatcher, and Jamie Foxx. You know the list is lame when it features BOTH of the stars of the worst movie I've seen since, well, "Mission Impossible." And Teri Hatcher? Gorgeous, yes. Fascinating? Only as much as any other pretty woman, and much less than most. Baba pointed out that Hatcher's character on "Desperate Housewives" seemed to have a lot in common with Hatcher herself, and Hatcher replied "I'm not that good an actress--I can only play myself." I doubt if anyone watching disagreed.

So I guess I'll have to come up with my own list, with your help. I'll try not to confuse "fascinating" with "people I agree with," although I've already chosen my most fascinating person of 2005: Hugo Chavez. I guess I'll define "fascinating" to mean someone I'd like to see interviewed on TV, with the opening question being "What the hell are you up to?" Here are some ideas: George Galloway, Judith Miller, Jack Abramoff, Cindy Sheehan, Sandra Day O'Connor, Anderson Cooper, Seymour Hersh, Robert Fisk. Movie stars? George Clooney and Ashley Judd.

Anyway, send your suggestions to bob at aapeace.org.

FBI linked to assassination of Venezuelan Attorney General?

From Granma International:

IN its November 10 late edition, the Miami daily El Nuevo Herald revealed that according to "a Venezuelan government witness in the investigation into the murder of Attorney General Danilo Anderson," Héctor Pesquera, former FBI chief in Miami, who directed, organized and effected the arrest of the five Cubans transformed into spies in a grand media show, was also involved in the assassination of the Venezuelan official.

AWol on ethics

The pResident was babbling about ethics yesterday, with respect to the Duke Cunningham case.

"Any member of Congress, Republican or Democrat, must take their office seriously and the ethics seriously," Bush said to reporters during a trip to Texas.

"The idea of a congressman taking money is outrageous. And Congressman Cunningham is going to realize that he has broken the law and is going to pay a serious price, which he should," Bush said.

W's remarks will go down in history alongside Bill Clinton's speech on marital fidelity and Hitler's heartfelt 1940 "Tolerance for all" address.

I'm sure FEMA can handle it

So why did they build an entire city in a flood plain below sea level? More to the point, why do they continue to do it? Apparently, a moderate earthquake in California's Central Valley could make Katrina seem like just a little glitch by comparison. From the WSWS:

On November 1, 2005 California’s Department of Water Resources (DWR) issued a report stating that a simple 6.5-magnitude earthquake in Northern California’s Delta region could produce more than 30 levee breaches on 16 Delta islands. This would flood tens of thousands of homes and a massive area of productive farmland, causing around $30 billion in damages. However, the most alarming news, by far, was the realization that such an event could render unusable the drinking water supply of two-thirds of all Californians.

The United States Geological Service estimates that there is a 62 percent probability that an earthquake of at least magnitude 6.7 or greater will strike the San Francisco Bay region before 2032. According to the DWR report, this would liquefy several portions of the levee system, causing a massive release of fresh water. Salt water from the San Francisco Bay would then be sucked into the Delta to replace the fresh water in a phenomena described as “the big gulp,” shutting down the State Water Project and the Central Valley Project. These two water projects together serve 25 million Californians. Major power and gas transmission lines would also be damaged, impacting energy delivery throughout the state.

You can see the DWR's presentation online. The WSWS goes on to point out that, even as the levees rot and the earthquake clock ticks, tens of thousands of homes continue to be built in the flood plain. Developers connected to both Republicans and Democrats are making far too much money from the housing bubble for sanity to even enter the picture. Meanwhile, FEMA admits that its floodplain maps are outdated, as is its flood safety standard.

My brother and nieces live in Northern California, and I read several California-based blogs. The DWR report came out a month ago. Why wasn't this bigger news? Or is it just common knowledge?

More highlights from the WSWS:

Lathrop officials have approved the addition of 9,000 homes to an area west of Interstate 5 despite the fact that the abutting levee suffered seepage problems as recently as 1997. City officials didn’t require developers to upgrade or even certify the levee. In a show of proud ignorance, Lathrop even opted to build its City Hall behind the levee. “I think that’s a pretty good vote of confidence,” City Manager Pam Carder told the Stockton Record.

In Stockton, The Grupe Co. announced a proposal this month to build more than 7,000 homes, offices and stores on a Delta island that flooded in 1983. A ground squirrel reportedly caused the flood when it burrowed into the levee. Kevin Huber, the company’s president, blithely told the Stockton Record, “We don’t think that’s a problem.”
...
Two of the biggest developers, Alex Spanos and Fritz Grupe, are heavy financial supporters of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Spanos alone contributed $2 million to “Schwarzenegger’s California Recovery Team,” an Orwellian euphemism for the committee used to push his now failed ballot measures.

After the catastrophic flooding in New Orleans, the California Water Reclamation Board, the agency with direct responsibility for the levees, announced that it would review all developments proposed in flood-prone areas. In response to developer complaints, Schwarzenegger removed the entire board and made his own appointments.

Kleptocracy--destroying America, one levee at a time.

Voting your interests

In Thomas Frank's book What's the Matter with Kansas?, one of the key conundrums is why the people of Kansas and other red states consistently vote against their own economic interests. In fact, according to AP, the ten states with the lowest median income were all red states in 2004: Mississippi, West Virginia, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Alabama, Kentucky, and Tennessee. In other words, these states are full of people who benefit way more from food stamps and Medicaid than they do from tax cuts. So why do they vote for Bush, who cuts social programs and taxes?

On the other hand, the top five states in median income, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, all voted for Kerry! So they could be considered to have voted against their economic interests as well (although I think sanity had a lot to do with it).

Unfortunately, the AP article doesn't show the rank of every state. I can see that Alaska, at number six, is the richest red state, but I don't know which is the poorest blue state (I'd guess Illinois, Minnesota, or California).

One strange note. Two years ago, Nebraska had seven of the twelve poorest counties in the nation, including the bottom three. In today's listing of the poorest counties, not a single Nebraska county made the list. What's going on in Nebraska? I guess all the poor folk moved one state north. The poorest county in America is Buffalo County, South Dakota, with Ziebach County, South Dakota in third place.

Epsilon

Not expected to threaten land. The hurricane season is supposed to end tomorrow, but the Atlantic may not know that. And then there's next year. From CNN:

There is a fear next year's season could bring much of the same as 2005.

"If we are truly in a cycle, next year we probably will have between 15 and 20 cycles. If we are in a cycle being enhanced by global warming, we may have 24 storms again," [CNN meteorologist Chad] Myers said.

"There's also the chance the cycle ends next year, and it just shuts itself off. We don't think that's going to happen, we think we're at the beginning of the up trend, and not the down trend.

What he said

Greg Saunders writing at This Modern World:

What people like the George W. Bush don’t understand is that capitalism is not a one-way street. When the demand for workers is high and the supply of laborers is low, the rational solution would be for employers to raise wages, increase benefits, or both to ensure that supply catches up to demand.
...
Instead, employers have found a way to get around their obligations by employing “undocumented” workers (and thus creating a demand for illegal labor). Why are these men and women willing to do the same job that Americans are unwilling to do for less money? Well, they’re here illegally, for one. They probably don’t speak English well and have little familiarity with existing labor laws. They’re doing a job that’s unskilled while under the constant threat of deportation. Sounds like the new face of indentured servitude to me, but the President and his allies are trying to figure out ways to make it acceptable.

But here’s the key to all of these proposals : These illegal workers aren’t being offered citizenship, but membership in a “guest worker program”. Bush and co. don’t give a damn about the working class in this country, they just want to make sure that the crooks aren’t penalized for breaking our labor laws. The solutions bandied about would create a pseudo-citizenship which will protect employers but do little to lift immigrant workers from the bottom rung on the economic ladder. When residence is closely tied to employment, the threat of deportation doesn’t go away, it just gets hidden a little better.

Which makes this whole debate even more galling. Immigrants are being exploited, American workers are getting screwed, and the whole debate is happenening as if these two groups of victims are on opposite sides. If you want to stop illegal immigration, you don’t need to build a fence. The supply of illegal labor will go away once the demand for it ceases. We don’t need new plans, we need to rigorously enforce the laws already on the books. If that means that employers are going to have to pay more to the people doing the jobs that “Americans won’t do” and pass those costs on to the consumer, then it’s hardly our place to question the wisdom of the invisible hand, right?

Also, it should be stressed again that George Bush and his allies should be ashamed of themselves for slandering us with their anti-worker rhetoric. Aren’t you paying attention, America? The President of the United States just called you an indolent snob. He thinks you’re too lazy to do an honest day’s work and too effete to do work that will get your hands dirty. Doesn’t that piss you off? It should.

Conceptual Guerilla summed it up in three little words: "Cheap-labor conservatives." The bastards don't want to pay decent wages, and will do ANYTHING to avoid doing so.

Abramoff!!!

I'm beginning to like ol' Jack! From the WSWS:

The Abramoff affair could have much wider implications. A reporter for BusinessWeek, on a television interview program, said that his Justice Department sources had told him that as many as 60 congressmen could be implicated in the bribery scandal—far more than enough to threaten control over the House of Representatives, where the Republican majority is 231-202, with one independent.

Heck, Jack may bring down BOTH corporate parties--including Michigan's two senators:

The Associated Press named eight more congressmen and senators who received contributions engineered by Abramoff in return for political favors, four Republicans and four Democrats. The Republicans were congressmen Charles Taylor of North Carolina, J. D. Hayworth of Arizona, Todd Tiahrt of Kansas and Dave Camp of Michigan. The Democrats included three senators, Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota (the senior Democrat on the committee now investigating the Abramoff affair), and Congressman Dale Kildee of Michigan.

Previous press accounts have noted that House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, a Republican, and the leading Democrat in the Senate, Minority Leader Harry Reid, received substantial campaign contributions from groups directed by Abramoff, most of them Indian tribes seeking congressional favors for their casino gambling operations.

The WSWS has a second article on the Abramoff scandal today, this one detailing the various scams Jack and his mostly-Repug pals have been running for years.

Well, if Abramoff can bring down the Bushies and most of Congress and bring to life a call for real campaign reform, leading to actual democracy in America, he may unintentionally have performed the greatest service to America and the world in a very long time.

From Adam Zyglis.

From Dan Wasserman.

From John Branch.

From Ed Stein.

From Matt Wuerker.

From Jack Ohman.

From Pat Bagley.

From J.D. Crowe.

From Monte Wolverton.

From R.J. Matson.

Ugly

I'm watching Monday Night Football, Steelers at the Colts. Indianapolis is 10-0, with the most feared offense in the league: Peyton Manning, Marvin Harrison, Edgerin James. Just one problem--it's the ugliest looking offense to watch. Offensive, even.

From back when I was four years old going to high-school games in Alexandria, Virginia with my family, I was always fascinated by the alternation between order and chaos that is football. The teams organize themselves into neat little huddles. Then they come up to the line and array themselves in orderly formations, waiting for the snap of the ball. Then, when the ball is snapped, everything gets all Cheneyed up. But the guy gets tackled, the whistle blows, and order is restored--huddle, formation, snap.

The Colts' offense does away with all that. They don't huddle. They go immediately into a formation. Manning then runs around for about fifteen seconds, making weird hand signals to his teammates, who keep looking over their shoulders to see him (why that isn't illegal procedure I don't know--usually a little flinch from a down lineman draws a flag). The whole thing is an ugly mess, even if it works better than anyone else's offense. The best teams are usually the most fun to watch--last year's Patriots, the 49'ers of 15 years ago. But the Colts, no matter how effective, are just plain ugly to watch.

Speaking of ugly football, the Lions just fired Steve Mariucci as their coach. The search for an even dumber coach will begin immediately.

Meanwhile, in REAL football, congratulations to Australia for qualifying for soccer's World Cup (Germany 2006), for the first time in 32 years. The Socceroos beat Uruguay in a shootout in Sidney to qualify.

One Repug Crook Convicted

From AP:

Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham admitted taking $2.4 million in bribes as part of guilty pleas Monday in a case that grew from an investigation into the sale of his home to a wide-ranging conspiracy involving payments in cash, vacations and antiques.

Cunningham, 63, entered pleas in U.S. District Court to charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud and wire fraud, and tax evasion for underreporting his income in 2004.

Cunningham answered "yes, your honor" when asked by U.S. District Judge Larry Burns if he had accepted bribes from someone in exchange for his performance of official duties.

After the hearing, Cunningham was taken away for fingerprinting. He will be released on his own recognizance until a Feb. 27 sentencing hearing. He could receive a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

He pleads guilty to violating the public trust, and he's released on his own recognizance? Jose Padilla never pleaded guilty and wasn't even charged with anything until last week, but his 3 1/2 year confinement continues. In the meantime, Cunningham is apparently still a member of Congress and might vote to extend the Iraq war or commit similar crimes. He's a criminal, he's guilty--lock him up now.

Two Americas, indeed.

[Update] The updated AP article says that Cunningham resigned from Congress. Only about 400 crooks left there!

Fascism then and now

Canadian lawyer Paul Bigioni writes in the Toronto Star about the scary parallels between Germany and Italy in the 1920's and '30's and the US and Canada today.

Before the rise of fascism, Germany and Italy were, on paper, liberal democracies. Fascism did not swoop down on these nations as if from another planet. To the contrary, fascist dictatorship was the result of political and economic changes these nations underwent while they were still democratic. In both these countries, economic power became so utterly concentrated that the bulk of all economic activity fell under the control of a handful of men. Economic power, when sufficiently vast, becomes by its very nature political power. The political power of big business supported fascism in Italy and Germany.

Business tightened its grip on the state in both Italy and Germany by means of intricate webs of cartels and business associations. These associations exercised a high degree of control over the businesses of their members. They frequently controlled pricing, supply and the licensing of patented technology. These associations were private but were entirely legal. Neither Germany nor Italy had effective antitrust laws, and the proliferation of business associations was generally encouraged by government.

This was an era eerily like our own, insofar as economists and businessmen constantly clamored for self-regulation in business. By the mid 1920s, however, self-regulation had become self-imposed regimentation. By means of monopoly and cartel, the businessmen had wrought for themselves a "command and control" economy that replaced the free market. The business associations of Italy and Germany at this time are perhaps history's most perfect illustration of Adam Smith's famous dictum: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."

The whole article is excellent and informative, not to mention frightening. Laissez-faire capitalism concentrates wealth AND power in the hands of the wealthy few, eventually completely subverting democracy. Sound familiar?

Quote du jour

"Dick Cheney is too crooked, too cruel and too crazy to be allowed to continue warping this country's policies." -- Madison Capital Times

Speaking of a police state

The feds have been demanding riders show ID on Denver public buses.

Police State

Paul Craig Roberts:

What will happen to Iraq and the Middle East no one knows. Our concerns need to be directed at what happens here in the US. Bush's war against Iraq might be over, but the police state Bush built at home is still in place.
...
The Bush administration's hype about terrorism serves no purpose other than to build a police state that is far more dangerous to Americans than terrorists.

Ever since the "war on terror" was initiated by the Bush administration, the US has been holding large numbers of "detainees." By chance or the laws of probability, a few of these people might fit some definition of "terrorist." The vast majority, however, are innocents picked up in the equivalent of Stalin-era KGB street sweeps. Many are hapless people sold by warlords to the US in order to receive cash awards for turning in "terrorists."

Despite the large number of alleged "terrorists" or "enemy combatants" that are being held, the Bush administration simply hasn't a shred of evidence with which to bring "detainees" to trial.

If truth be known, the "detainees" are merely props for Bush's hype about the "terrorist threat." The "detainees" were arrested in order to make Americans feel safe and at ease with the police state.
...
A police state has to catch enemies in order to keep the people frightened and appreciative of the watchful eye of the police state.

Now that the Padilla case has evaporated, the Bush administration has come up with a replacement. An American student of Arab descent, who was studying at a Saudi Arabian university, has been indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiracy to assassinate President Bush. The indictment rests on the confession wrung out of the young man by torture in a Saudi prison.

Does anyone really believe that al Qaeda leaders would conspire with an American college student to assassinate President Bush? Indeed, President Bush has been Osama bin Laden's greatest benefactor. Why would al Qaeda want to kill the man who is doing them so much good?

Before Bush launched his war on terror and invaded Iraq, the vast majority of Muslims thought bin Laden was a nut case and supported the US. Today Muslims think Bush is a nut case and support bin Laden.

What kind of a country have we become when we put a citizen on trial on the basis of a confession obtained under torture by a foreign government? Is the case against this student anything other than an attempt to enlist the sympathy factor for Bush in order to repair his standing in the polls?

Americans need to understand that a police state has to produce results in order to justify its budget and its powers. It doesn't really care who it catches. Stalin's police state caught the wife of Stalin's foreign minister in one of its street sweeps.

The Bush administration justifies torture and threatens to veto congressional attempts to restrain its use. The Bush administration justifies indefinite detention of American citizens without charges.

It asserts the power of indefinite detention based on its subjective judgment about who is a threat. An American government that preaches "freedom and democracy" to the world claims the powers of tyrants as its own.

Abramoff and the Republican Mafia

I'm way behind the curve on the Abramoff stuff. But Joseph Cannon has lots of wicked stuff on Abramoff, Little Tony, Big Tony, Bob Ney, Ralph Reed, Poppy Bush, and others. Here's a small sample:

Keep in mind, as you read all this, that Abramoff's major partner in this series of scams was professional Christian Ralph Reed. Reed's major function (if I may over-simplify matters) was to cajole naive fundamentalists into bringing anti-gambling pressures against Indian casinos, who would then pay Abramoff to lobby those troubles away.

Remember those old "Dead End Kids" movies? "Hey Mister -- we'll watch your car for a quarter." Anyone who didn't pay the quarter found his tires slashed. Abramoff and Reed were plying the same trick, albeit on a much more rarified level.

The bottom line: Abramoff, representing the Bush interests, seems to have been the point man in a crusade to take over non-Vegas gambling. At the same time this Republican "mob" asserted ever-growing control over the Indian casinos, they forced they way into the regulation-free cruise ship industry attempted to acquire the major share of online gambling.

Here's to the sinking of the Repug cruise ship, with DeLay, Bush and all the rest of the Repug crooks going down with it.

Comical Allawi speaks up

Even our terrorist puppets are now saying that Iraqis are no better off now than they were when Saddam was in power. From the Guardian:

Human rights abuses in Iraq are now as bad as they were under Saddam Hussein and are even in danger of eclipsing his record, according to the country's first Prime Minister after the fall of Saddam's regime.

'People are doing the same as [in] Saddam's time and worse,' Ayad Allawi told The Observer. 'It is an appropriate comparison. People are remembering the days of Saddam. These were the precise reasons that we fought Saddam and now we are seeing the same things.'

In a damning and wide-ranging indictment of Iraq's escalating human rights catastrophe, Allawi accused fellow Shias in the government of being responsible for death squads and secret torture centres. The brutality of elements in the new security forces rivals that of Saddam's secret police, he said.

From Parenting Magazine. Just kidding. That's from Red Meat.

Yikes

From Mike Thompson.

Just making it up

The NY Times analyzes several cases involving supposed terrorists and looks at who gets labelled an "enemy combatant" and who doesn't. The conclusion? There are no standards--the Bushies are just making it up as they go along. Of course, standards of any sort would be a recognition of limits on their power, something the Bushies clearly don't recognize. They have effectively repealed the Constitution.

From Rex Babin.

From Bruce Beattie.

From Mark Cohen.

Standing out in the blogosphere

Lots of lefty bloggers out here--but how many can say they once had their picture taken with George Wallace?



I'm the short guy in back. My boss at the time is feeding the guv a copy of the Alabama Preservation Manual, a book which was my boss's idea and of which I was the main editor. I was working for the Alabama Historical Commission at the time of the photo (1985, I think). Wallace was wheelchair-bound from the 1972 gunshot wound he suffered while running for president, and was pretty much deaf as well. I didn't think he was long for the world, but he hung on until 1998. Wallace had renounced his earlier racist views and been elected back as governor in 1982, getting a majority of the black vote.

(Sorry--totally irrelevant. Just looking through old photos on Thanksgiving!)

News I can use

The NY Times asked ten fitness experts to rate the five most popular cardio exercise machines. The winner? The elliptical machine. That agrees with what I generally see at the gym, although the treadmills are also very popular.

The Times also tells you what not to do at the gym.

Padilla indicted for applying for passport and conspiring to transport zucchini

Incredible. They arrested a US citizen 3 1/2 years ago, held him incommunicado, suggested he was a terrible threat to the US through dirty bombs and apartment explosions. Now, all they've got is attaching him to some hazy conspiracy to provide weapons to jihadists on the other side of the world (something the Reagan administration did nonstop for eight years). And they've only got that because of hearsay heard on some wiretaps of questionable legality, with alleged conspirators talking about soccer equipment and vegetables.

From the NY Times:

Although the indictment does not say so, officials confirm that the conversations are from wiretaps authorized by a special court that reviews law enforcement applications to eavesdrop on foreigners suspected of intelligence activities.

In the indictment's recounting of the conversations, the principals converse in what officials describe as code, referring to arms shipments and attack plans as sporting events or, on some occasions, as vegetables.

But any such efforts to conceal the nature of the subjects discussed were seemingly clumsy. In one conversation, for instance, Adham Amin Hassoun talks with another defendant, Mohamed Hesham Youssef, about soccer equipment. The indictment says that Mr. Hassoun later told investigators he had indeed been referring to sports equipment, but that he was unable to explain why he had then asked Mr. Youssef if he had enough "soccer equipment" to "launch an attack on the enemy."

In other talks, reminiscent of tape recordings of organized crime figures, the defendants appear to use a code involving vegetables, the indictment says. They sometimes talk about zucchini and "green goods," which the government has suggested could mean weapons.

Mr. Padilla's role, however, appears limited. Among the overt acts that the government says demonstrate his participation in the conspiracy is his 1996 application for a passport. The other defendants are overheard in the apparent wiretaps saying Mr. Padilla would be getting money, had traveled to Egypt and Afghanistan and had considered visiting Yemen. He also "filled out a 'mujahideen data form' in preparation for violent jihad training in Afghanistan," the indictment charges.

Sounds to me like they've got nothing, and certainly nothing that would get him a 3 1/2 year sentence. He should be released immediately, and given a pamphlet entitled "How to sue your government for false arrest and imprisonment."

"Mujahideen data form." Right. Al Qaeda keeps such good records--that's why the FBI never found one piece of paper linking Afghanistan to 9/11 (by Director Mueller's own admission).

"Mujahideen data form" + zucchini + shin pads + illegal wiretaps = DIRTY BOMBER!!!! That's your "Justice" Department at work. This case is all about demonstrating that they can detain anyone for anything (or nothing) at any time.

Quote du jour

"This is not a war of words, this is a war." -- Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), responding to Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-OH SHUT UP), who said on the House floor last Friday that "cowards cut and run, Marines never do."

Murtha has called Schmidt's comment ridiculous.

"You can't spin this. You've got to have a real solution," Murtha said Monday when asked about her remarks at a news conference in Pennsylvania. "This is not a war of words, this is a war."

Unfortunately, I'm sure there are still plenty of Schmidtheads out there, especially in Congress.

U.S.: Al-Jazeera bomb story 'outlandish'

That's the CNN headline. I'll have to agree with that. Postponing the 9/11 investigation, invading Iraq and ignoring Katrina victims were outlandish, too.

Note that while the White House calls it outlandish, it doesn't call it false:

"We are not going to dignify something so outlandish with a response," a White House official told CNN.

CNN has a poll on that page:

Do you believe President Bush talked about bombing the HQ of Arabic-language TV network al-Jazeera?

Out of over 100,000 votes, yes currently leads no 69% to 31%.

The NY Times on Padilla

Lead editorial today. Excerpt:

Mr. Padilla was added late in the game, and in a minor role, to a continuing case against four other men. He faces serious charges that carry a possible life sentence, but they do nothing to clear up the enormous legal questions created by this case, nor do they have the remotest connection with the original accusations.

The Padilla case was supposed to be an example of why the administration needs to suspend prisoners' rights when it comes to the war on terror. It turned out to be the opposite. If Mr. Padilla was seriously planning a "dirty bomb" attack, he can never be held accountable for it in court because the illegal conditions under which he has been held will make it impossible to do that. If he was only an inept fellow traveler in the terrorist community, he is excellent proof that the government is fallible and needs the normal checks of the judicial system. And, of course, if he is innocent, he was the victim of a terrible injustice.

Innocent or not, Padilla's treatment has been and continues to be a terrible injustice. Not just to him, but to others who may have already plea-bargained their freedom away under threat of being treated as an "enemy combatant." Indefinite detention and torture have been added to the death penalty as unconscionable sticks prosecutors use to extract pleas.

The race to the bottom--are we winning?

From yesterday's Detroit Free Press:

Michigan's median household income already has fallen by $9,914 -- 19% -- between 1999 and 2004, more than any other state, according to U.S. census data.
...
It's clear that workers are getting fed up with the restructurings and the uncertainty.

"There are lot of people that are really mad," Paulk, the GM worker from Novi, said. "They think this is the thing that revolutions are made of."

The WSWS describes the likely impact of all of these job losses on Michigan and other affected regions.

Studies show that each job at a US auto factory supports seven jobs at other businesses nearby. That means the elimination of 60,000 auto jobs in the US and Canada will result in a total job loss of well over 400,000. And these losses will be concentrated in working class communities already hard hit by previous layoffs and plant closures.

President comes through for the poor!

Thanks to a generous gesture on the part of the president, thousands of low-income Massachusetts residents will be getting their heating oil at a reduced rate this winter--40% below market prices. Regardless of how we feel about the president, we should thank him for this gracious gesture.

President Bush! HA! Of course not! President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela is the one helping America's poor.

Obligatory blockbuster news

I think there are a few readers out there who only have time to read this blog, and not the many other similar lefty blogs. And since the mainstream media doesn't bother with some of the biggest stories, you might miss them entirely. (I tend to focus on things that I can think of something to say about.) So, as a public service, I'll mention three big stories in the left blogosphere:

• AWol received a classified briefing ten days after 9/11 stating that Iraq had no connection to 9/11, what few contacts Saddam's regime may have had with al Qaeda were likely attempts to infiltrate AQ, not to work with it.
• Bush and Blair discussed bombing al-Jazeera's headquarters in Qatar in April, 2004. (Heck, they've already bombed the branch offices.)
• Timetable for withdrawal from Iraq demanded. Not from Congress, of course--from Iraqi leaders: Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. They also endorsed the idea that the insurgency has a "legitimate right" to resist. And these are our puppets speaking!

In a sane universe, withdrawal of troops and impeachment would commence forthwith. Bob Harris explains why this may not be a sane universe:

I'm not denying the existence of a creator. If there is one, however, I strongly suspect it's not a deity of infinite wisdom. More like a sophomore deity, doing a summer project to make up a failing grade on his last universe, which fell over and collapsed into a black hole while it was still on the lab table, and right in front of that cute female deity he was really hoping to score with, the one who still giggles every time she sees him.

Seriously. I mean, look around. Tell me that's not what we're stuck in.

Blame the victim

Even here in Michigan, the heart of union country, union bashing is still popular. Here's a letter to the Detroit Free Press:

GM is in terrible trouble and needs to close several plants in an attempt to return to profitability ("General Misery," Nov. 22). Of course the UAW, in all its wisdom, wants GM to continue paying people after those plants close. They just don't seem to understand that not working with industry to reach solutions to problems faced in this global economy will continue to drive them off shore. That is not a good thing.

PK, Clinton Township

Note the sympathy and concern for the abstract liability-avoidance entity, General Motors, and none whatsoever for the people who work in its factories (or used to). And suggesting that the UAW hasn't worked with the auto companies is completely bogus--meetings and "innovative solutions" and concessions (especially concessions) have been going on for 25 years. TV ads have boasted about the partnership of UAW-Ford for years. And the car companies haven't been "driven offshore;" relocating plants to first the South and then to other countries has been a deliberate union-busting strategy.

And perhaps the most frustrating thing about that letter is its blind acceptance of the inevitability of the "global economy," which unfortunately is almost universal among our politicians, business leaders, and even workers and the unemployed. Global trade has been a negative far more often than it has been a positive, turning vibrant, multi-faceted economies into single-product (or no-product) exporters which survive or don't on the whims of a few moguls on the other side of the planet. Tariffs and other trade barriers can't solve all problems, but they are not the problem--unlimited and unregulated competition artificially fueled by cheap energy is.

Another letter to the Free Press comes closer, although the writer still insists that "America can compete" as if competing, rather than living well, were the goal:

It seems as though every week there are major layoffs, concessions or job cuts within major industries throughout America. America's backbone, the middle class, is deteriorating and constantly shrinking.

The United States must enact trade policies that will restore the glory of the middle class as well as address the burden of health care for active and retired workers. America can compete, if given the opportunity and resources. The "Made in America" nameplate is slowly becoming a thing of the past, and that has to change if America is to remain as the land of opportunity.

RJ, Southfield

I could babble on indefinitely about this. Instead, I'll refer once again to Dave Pollard's Wal-Mart Dilemma post, which features a cool chart (below) and offers the following suggestion:

If a product can reasonably be produced domestically, then duties and other regulations should be imposed to protect domestic producers. In other words, the alternative to 'free' trade is not no trade, but rather regulated trade, regulated to protect the economy and social fabric of the regulating country.

Pollard explains:

In my biased opinion, the vast majority of people are ahead with the green cycle, and the very rich few are ahead with the red cycle. Guess who's lobbying and bribing governments for untrammeled globalization and 'free' trade? Contrary to what most of us are taught in school, modest inflation is the single most effective way to painlessly redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor, because it allows debts to be repaid in 'cheaper' future dollars. There are environmental and social advantages to the green cycle as well. The use of slave labour is discouraged. Lax environmental laws in third world countries are not exploited as much. And if the red cycle gets out of control (some would argue it already has), a possible consequence is deflation, a terrible threat to the whole economy that we need to avoid like the plague.

From Mike Thompson.

Ham sandwich indicted

Judge Sol Wachtler, the former Chief Judge of New York State, was quoted as saying that "A grand jury would indict a ham sandwich." And while Jose Padilla is a real person, not a ham sandwich, his indictment today likely wouldn't have changed Judge Wachtler's opinion. AG Torture Gonzales and the NY Times also stayed in character, misrepresenting and withholding information as they see fit.

Here's a section from the Times article today:

The formal charges against Mr. Padilla are the latest development in a case that has been controversial from its very beginning, when he was arrested in 2002 at Chicago's O'Hare airport on his return from Pakistan, and that promises to remain controversial.

The attorney general at the time, John Ashcroft, announced with considerable fanfare that Mr. Padilla, a former Chicago gang member, had hoped to set off a radiological "dirty bomb" and carry out attacks against hotels and apartment buildings in the United States.

Judy Miller and Jason Blair may be gone, but the Times' ability to pack falsehoods into two small paragraphs remains. To begin with, the case was not controversial from its very beginning, when Padilla was arrested on May 8, 2002. This is because nobody knew about it until a month later, on June 10, when Ashcroft announced it. And Ashcroft only mentioned the "dirty bomb" BS in his announcement; the stuff about apartment buildings wasn't mentioned until almost two years later. And now, three and a half years later, his indictment involves neither charge. Now it is charged that

he had conspired to send "money, physical assets and new recruits" overseas to engage in acts of terrorism.

Jeez--if that was his goal, he could have just run for Congress.

And not only does the Times engage in revisionist history, it adds some snark (emphasis added):

The Bush administration position that it has the right to hold Mr. Padilla without formal charges as an enemy combatant, despite his citizenship, was upheld two months ago by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, which threw out a lower court ruling to the contrary.

But some lawyers continued to insist that keeping an American citizen in a Navy brig with limited access to legal counsel was a violation of civil rights and the spirit of the Constitution.

Scott Silliman, a Duke University law professor, who specializes in national security, theorized that the government had secured the indictment against Mr. Padilla so that it could sidestep a Supreme Court showdown over when and for how long American citizens could be held in military prisons.

"That's an issue the administration did not want to face," Mr. Silliman told The Associated Press.

I'll bet the Times could have found several lawyers in New York or Washington (the dateline for the article) to defend the Constitution, but going to Duke to find "Mr. Silliman" fits the snark so much better!

And then there's Torture Gonzales:

Although today Mr. Gonzales described Mr. Padilla as a violent jihadist, there was no mention of the earlier "dirty bomb" accusation, which was never the subject of formal charges. Nor was there a mention in the indictment of any violence that Mr. Padilla had hoped to wreak in the United States.

Asked by a reporter today if the "dirty bomb" accusations against Mr. Padilla were now "off the table," Mr. Gonzales declined to comment.

"There are limits to what I can say outside the indictment," he said. He also declined to talk about Mr. Padilla's original designation as an enemy combatant, under which he had been held in the brig without formal charges.

At his news briefing here, Mr. Gonzales credited the USA Patriot Act with helping to make the prosecution of Mr. Padilla possible.

Passed by Congress shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, the act broadened government surveillance powers. Mr. Gonzales said the measure had been effective at "tearing down the artificial wall" that had impeded information-sharing among certain law-enforcement agencies.

Asked whether the indictment might have been timed to bolster support for the Patriot Act, which is being debated in Congress as some of its provisions are up for renewal, Mr. Gonzales replied, "Absolutely not."

Of course, Padilla only gets a new cell out of this--his right to a speedy trial continues to be violated. The article says his trial is expected to begin in about a year.

If the man wants to leave, let him leave!

I'm probably one of the last bloggers to post this picture:


But did you know there's video?

Mr Bush answered a range of questions before one reporter said: "Respectfully, sir - you know we're always respectful - in your statement this morning with President Hu, you seemed a little off your game, you seemed to hurry through your statement. There was a lack of enthusiasm. Was something bothering you?"

The president answered: "Have you ever heard of jet lag? Well, good. That answers your question."

The reporter asked for a follow-up question but the president then thanked the attending journalists and said "No you may not" as he walked away.

He strode from the lectern to the door, trying both handles and then breaking into a laugh.

Hopefully someday soon he'll be locked in rather than locked out.

Fascist oxymoron quote du jour

Free speech works because most of us have the good sense to know when to keep our mouths shut.

-- Kay Anderson, Orem, Utah wingnut opposing Michael Moore's speaking on the campus of Utah Valley State College last year. The debate surrounding Moore's appearance in the heart of wingnuttery is documented in a new film, This Divided State. You can watch the first 26 minutes of the film on the web site, although only for a limited time.

The film is apparently showing in Detroit now, and the DVD is available through the web site.

Padilla indicted

From the NY Times:

"Dirty Bomb" suspect Jose Padilla, held by the U.S. as an enemy combatant for more than three years, has been indicted on federal charges in Miami, according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday.
...
Although the Justice Department has said that Padilla was readying attacks in the United States, the charges against him and four others allege they were part of a conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim persons in a foreign country and provide material support to terrorists abroad.

For three and a half years, they've held Padilla without charges, only vague rumors about dirty bombs and attacks on apartment buildings, clearly depriving him of his fifth and sixth amendment rights to due process, counsel, and a speedy trial. Now, afraid that the Supremes might actually set their proxy for the freedom of all Americans free, the Bushies indict him for "conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim persons in a foreign country and provide material support to terrorists abroad," something every member of the administration's foreign policy team could be indicted for, and certainly with more justification.

And by making it about alleged crimes overseas involving terrorists, you can be sure that they are intent on depriving Padilla of his right to a public trial on grounds of "national security." Ashcroft and Torture Gonzales are far greater threats to the life and liberty of Americans than Jose Padilla ever was, even if he is guilty of whatever they're charging him with.

Only chemical weapons when Saddam uses them

The Pentagon called white phosphorous a chemical weapon when Saddam Hussein used it against Kurds. But last week the Pentagon called WP a conventional weapon. Hypocrisy is now the coin of the realm.

Condiliar lies again

From FAIR:

On December 15, 1998, the head of the U.N. weapons inspection team in Iraq, Richard Butler, released a report accusing Iraq of not fully cooperating with inspections. The next day, Butler withdrew his inspectors from Iraq, in anticipation of a U.S.-British bombing campaign that began that evening.

Condiliar Rice, Sunday in Beijing:

I think we sometimes forget what Saddam Hussein was like. We went to war in 1991 because he tried to annex his neighbor, Kuwait -- or, actually, annexed his neighbor, Kuwait. We used force against him in 1998 because he threw out inspectors and the concerns of weapons of mass destruction.

She's lying about why we went to war in 1991, too, but that's a slightly more complicated story. We attacked Iraq in 1991, 1998, and 2003 because, well, that's just what we do.

Biodiesel on the move!

Interest is growing in Florida, a biodiesel production plant is planned in Tennessee, and buses on Washington's Olympic Peninsula are going to start using it.

From Drew Sheneman.

From Vic Harville.
Just don't wait until November--toss the inscumbents out in the primaries. And lets fix the voting system, too.

Oh yeah? How do you think I got this monstrosity passed in the first place?

From Rob Rogers.

From Matt Davies.

From Clay Bennett.

From From Sandy Huffaker.

Oil for thought

James Howard Kunstler:

Unless an anti-war opposition has a plan to withdraw from the project of suburban sprawl, we're going to have to keep soldiers in Iraq, if not in the cities, then out in desert bases guarding the oil works and keeping planes ready to fly in case some al-Zarqawi-type maniac mounts a coup in Saudi Arabia. It would certainly be legitimate for the Democratic party to oppose the idea that we can continue to be crippled by car-dependency, or that we ought to keep subsidizing that way of life -- which Vice-president Cheney called "non-negotiable." We'd better negotiate that or somebody else is going to negotiate it for us, and that is exactly what they are doing with IED's in Iraq and elsewhere.

But without that part of the argument, the debate in congress and on the airwaves is just stupid, because we've left ourselves no real choice.

Personally, I have more faith in Congress and the media than Kunstler does: Even if they were to properly link the war to suburban excess, the debate would somehow still manage to be insipid.

The reason for the treason

Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld committed treason. They still have not told us the real reason they were so determined to invade Iraq that they used falsified intelligence to justify a war of aggression. We must find out their real agenda and hold them fully accountable for their crimes.

-- Paul Craig Roberts

Go back to your undisclosed location--and stay there

From CNN:

Cheney stopped short of joining those Republicans who have questioned the patriotism and courage of Rep. John Murtha, D-Pennsylvania, calling him "a good man, a Marine, a patriot." Cheney's subdued comments about Murtha followed those of President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

At the same time, Cheney pressed the administration's high-voltage attack on war critics, particularly Senate Democrats who voted in October 2002 to give Bush authority to go to war in Iraq and who now oppose his policy, calling them "dishonest and reprehensible."

Well, goodness gracious, Dick, Murtha, that good man, Marine, patriot, is now the most prominent of those critics!

"The flaws in the intelligence are plain enough in hindsight. But any suggestion that prewar information was distorted, hyped or fabricated by the leader of the nation is utterly false," Cheney said in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute.

Okay, Dick. We'll buy that Bush was clueless--it was just you and Rummy and Condi and Ari and Colin who distorted, hyped or fabricated. The "leader of the nation" just said what he was told to say.

As to proposals for a rapid pullout of U.S. troops, Cheney said, "It is a dangerous illusion to suppose that another retreat by the civilized world would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave us alone." Nearly 160,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq.

Cheney ticked off a long list of terrorist attacks on American interests going back more than the two decades that preceded the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, including the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and earlier ones in Beirut, Saudi Arabia and Africa.

"Now they're making a stand in Iraq, testing our resolve, trying to intimidate the United States into abandoning our friends and permitting the overthrow of this new Middle Eastern democracy," Cheney said.

So much BS in one speech! The people making a stand in Iraq are not "terrorists," they're Iraqis fighting against the illegal occupation of their country. And the number of people killed in all of those attacked cited almost pales into insignificance compared to the carnage from Cheney's two Iraq wars--maybe 4000 dead compared to some 200,000.


What might the sign behind the Veep from the Deep say?

Puppeteer? Maneater? Deceiver? Preempter?

Quote du jour

"I haven't heard that many gunshots." Camden, New Jersey resident Gracy Muniz, explaining that her neighborhood feels a bit safer, even though Camden repeated its ranking as the most dangerous city in the US.

Listed as the most dangerous cities are: Camden, New Jersey; Detroit, Michigan; St. Louis, Missouri; Flint, Michigan; Richmond, Virginia; Baltimore, Maryland; Atlanta, Georgia; New Orleans, Louisiana; Gary, Indiana; Birmingham, Alabama.

GM to cut 30,000 jobs, close 12 facilities

Including facilities in Lansing, Flint and Ypsilanti. The Free Press story on the web features a banner ad from Mike Savoy Chevrolet.

Anyone think maybe it's time for an entirely different economic model? One which doesn't rely on the production of excess oil-guzzling global-warming vehicles to adequately feed, house and clothe its people?

Warm winter thoughts

Greenland's glaciers have begun to race towards the ocean, leading scientists to predict that the vast island's ice cap is approaching irreversible meltdown, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

Research to be published in a few days' time shows how glaciers that have been stable for centuries have started to shrink dramatically as temperatures in the Arctic have soared with global warming. On top of this, record amounts of the ice cap's surface turned to water this summer.

The two developments - the most alarming manifestations of climate change to date - suggest that the ice cap is melting far more rapidly than scientists had thought, with immense consequences for civilisation and the planet. Its complete disappearance would raise the levels of the world's seas by 20 feet, spelling inundation for London and other coastal cities around the globe, along with much of low-lying countries such as Bangladesh.

More immediately, the vast amount of fresh water discharged into the ocean as the ice melts threatens to shut down the Gulf Stream, which protects Britain and the rest of northern Europe from a freezing climate like that of Labrador.

What is it good for? Absolutely nuthin'

I've read and watched a lot of accounts of war, both fictional and non-fictional. War does many horrible things--death, maiming, destruction, starvation, endless waste and environmental damage, and more. But to me, one of the worst to me is the horrible spirit-crushing dilemmas war imposes on people. The war in Bosnia was a recent example--taking a stand on either side of the conflict could get you killed, but so could trying to remain neutral. Whatever you did, you risked being called a traitor, an insurgent, a collaborator, a coward, or whatever, and being shot for the "crime."

World War II in the Ukraine was a particularly brutal example. Ukraine had suffered under Stalin's rule, perhaps more than any other Soviet republic. Millions died of famine in 1932-33 because the Soviet government seized grain from Ukrainian farmers and shipped it to other parts of the USSR, leaving rural Ukrainians without food. This was followed by widespread purges of people suspected of "anti-soviet activity." Ukraine was particularly targeted. So, while most of Europe and probably most of the Soviet Union feared the advance of Hitler's armies, many in the Ukraine saw the Nazis as potential liberators from Stalin's brutal rule. The Communist Party structure was still in place, so openly supporting the Germans could get you killed. However, not supporting the Germans could also get you killed by anti-Soviet "insurgents," or by the Germans themselves. The situation was made infinitely more complicated as the war ebbed and flowed across the Ukraine for some two years, with certain areas nominally under the control of first the Soviets, then the Nazis, and then the Soviets again. Picking a side could get you killed on any given day, but so could not picking a side. Most Ukrainians in no way deserved the sustained horror that was brought down upon them by the maniacal hubris of Stalin and Hitler.

Plenty of other examples, of course--Vichy France, Poland, Vietnam, Somalia, Nicar