Pat Tillman

Remember Pat Tillman? Tillman graduated summa cum lade from Arizona State; was a star high school and college football player; played professionally for the Arizona Cardinals; and, in the wake of the 9-11 attacks, passed on a lucrative Cardinals contract extension offer to enlist in the army to fight al Queda in Afghanistan.


Tillman was shot to death by members of his own army unit and for the subsequent 5 weeks the Dept. of War proferred a story that Tillman was killed in a heroic fight with enemy forces. Shortly before Tillman's unit was due to ship home officials in the Dept. of War apparently decided they had better own up to the truth and revealed that Tillman had been killed by "friendly fire."

Despite a number of investigations, one of which is ongoing, the truth of Tillman's killing has never been definitively enunciated. I wonder why the Dept. of War lied about Tillman's death? Similarly, why did the DOW lie about the Jessica Lynch affair? In either case, it seems to me, lies were told purely for public relations purposes; and, it seems, that those who proferred the BS arrogantly thought they could get away with theirs lies.

Read the San Francisco Chronicle article.

Urban Legend

Turns out that "99%" of the stories of shooting, murder, and rape in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina are BS. Read the story in the Time-Picayune.

Depths of Depravity

Is there no limits to the depth of depravity of President in Fact, Karl Rove? Remember that President, by Supreme Court edict, George Bush has appointed Rove to head the Katrina recovery effort.

From the Mississippi Clarion-Ledger. Full Story here.

"The Clarion-Ledger has obtained a copy of an internal e-mail the U.S. Department of Justice sent out this week to various U.S. attorneys' offices: "Has your district defended any cases on behalf of the (U.S.) Army Corps of Engineers against claims brought by environmental groups seeking to block or otherwise impede the Corps work on the levees protecting New Orleans? If so, please describe the case and the outcome of the litigation.'"

What became of the republican "talking point" that now is not the time for affixing blame for the Katrina response debacle? None-the-less, the Justice Department, not to mention its apologists at the "National Review Online," got it wrong. As the article notes, the levees subject of environmental law suits were Mississippi River levees, not the Lake Pontchartrain levees that failed and flooded New Orleans. So not only is Karl Rove depraved, he's also inept, except, of course, when it comes to smearing folks who don't agree with him.

Bush Goes to the U.N. and Writes Note to Mommy Condi

I know Condi and George are close, but this is abit over the top. The President writing a note to his Secretary of State, during a U. N. confab indicating that he needs "a bathroom break" .

The Reuters caption.

"U.S. President George W. Bush writes a note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during a Security Council meeting at the 2005 World Summit and 60th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York September 14, 2005. World leaders are exploring ways to revitalize the United Nations at a summit on Wednesday but their blueprint falls short of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's vision of freedom from want, persecution and war."

Click image to enlarge.

Trogir Girl

Time for another photo so my two readers don't grow weary of my ranting.

I came upon this exceptionally cute Croatian girl while skulking the narrow byways of Trogir photographing the beautiful old buildings in the small town on a tiny island in the Adriatic not far from Split.

Speaking of Racism

Update: I found the photos; and, as you can see the photos are from different news agencies. None-the-less, given the fact that folks who were unable to leave were desperate for food and water I think AP still deserves condemnation for its photo caption. Click on image to view a larger version.

The Associated Press ran two photos of folks who had broken into grocery stores to obtain food and drink. The caption of the picture of an African-American gentleman carrying a half rack of Pepsi and a garbage bag apparently full of other supplies indicated the man had looted the grocery store. The photo of a Caucasian man and woman indicated that they had found supplies in a grocery store.

I think that one of the good things to come out of the Katrina rendered disaster is that we have again been reminded that overt racial bigotry remains. From the fact that the city, state, and federal governments left behind in New Orleans 100,000 poor, mostly African -American, citizens who for one reason or another who could not flee the coming storm; to the cracker suburban New Orleans police chief who prevented folks from evactuating the City via one of the few remaining evacuation routes; to an Assoicated Press editor.

Bush Does Something Right

Bush has forced out his crony, Mike Brown, as FEMA director and replaced him with someone with some actual experience managing disaster response.

R. David Paulison, as chief of the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department, has led the U.S. Fire Administration division of FEMA since December 2001.

Now he should get rid of his cronies he appointed to lead the war, state and justice departments; and who have lied there way into the invasion of Iraq, muffed the invasion and occupation, justified torture, and further eroded our Constitutional protections from the awesome power of our government.

Don't Let Them Into Our Neighborhood

Of all of disturbing stories of overt racism emanating from New Orleans in Katrina's wake, this report of a suburban police chief ordering his troops to fire into the air to dissuade New Orleanians (primarily African-American, and a couple San Francisco paramedics) from escaping New Orleans could be the most disturbing. But, to steal a line from just about every Marx Brothers movie made, "It's early yet."

Cops trapped survivors in New Orleans

By Shaun Waterman
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
Sep. 9, 2005 at 10:48AM

Police from surrounding jurisdictions shut down several access points to one of the only ways out of New Orleans last week, effectively trapping victims of Hurricane Katrina in the flooded and devastated city.

An eyewitness account from two San Francisco paramedics posted on an internet site for Emergency Medical Services specialists says, "Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the city on foot."

"We shut down the bridge," Arthur Lawson, chief of the City of Gretna Police Department, confirmed to United Press International, adding that his jurisdiction had been "a closed and secure location" since before the storm hit.

"All our people had evacuated and we locked the city down," he said.

The bridge in question -- the Crescent City Connection -- is the major artery heading west out of New Orleans across the Mississippi River.

Lawson said that once the storm itself had passed Monday, police from Gretna City, Jefferson Parrish and the Louisiana State Crescent City Connection Police Department closed to foot traffic the three access points to the bridge closest to the West Bank of the river.

He added that the small town, which he called "a bedroom community" for the city of New Orleans, would have been overwhelmed by the influx.

"There was no food, water or shelter" in Gretna City, Lawson said. "We did not have the wherewithal to deal with these people.

"If we had opened the bridge, our city would have looked like New Orleans does now: looted, burned and pillaged." (emphasis added)

But -- in an example of the chaos that continued to beset survivors of the storm long after it had passed -- even as Lawson's men were closing the bridge, authorities in New Orleans were telling people that it was only way out of the city.

But -- in an example of the chaos that continued to beset survivors of the storm long after it had passed -- even as Lawson's men were closing the bridge, authorities in New Orleans were telling people that it was only way out of the city.

"The only way people can leave the city of New Orleans is to get on (the) Crescent City Connection ... authorities said," reads a Tuesday morning posting on the Web site of the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper, which kept reporting through the storm and the ruinous flooding that followed.

Read the story here.

Katrina Response Investigations

What we hear these days coming from federal elected and appointed officials and the media: blah, blah, blah, Katrina, blah, blah, blah, FEMA, blah, blah, blah. Of course, with the change of two words, it's pretty much all we here from those quarters.

I am certain that the 100,000, or so, who were left behind during the evacuation of New Orleans to fend for themselves for 3 or 4 days, and other victims of the shameful FEMA failures, are comforted to know that President Bush will personally investigate the bungled federal response to Katrina. Much as they were, no doubt, comforted by the President's belated visit to the devastation, which he memorialized by noting that he had often partied in the destroyed city. (Incidentally, during the President's photo-op visit, intended to bolster is plummeting approval rating, rescue and aid helicopter flights were grounded and firefighters were imported from as far away as Utah to act as props during the president's visit.)

Republican leaders of congress have also announced a "bi-partisan, bi-cameral" investigation into the federal response.

I guess that just about takes care of the whole matter. Why, who could doubt that the President and Republican congressional leaders will conduct honest investigations?

The results of an honest investigation, which we will never witness, would indicate that the Federal Emergency Management Agency has once again become a dumping ground for patronage appointments of political hacks with no emergency management experience.

Remember, after the pathetic FEMA response to hurricane Andrew, owing to the incompetence of hacks appointed as FEMA managers by Bush I, there were calls for FEMA reform. During the 1990s James Witt, an actual professional manager with emergency management experience, did just that. FEMA gained a reputation as an effective emergency response agency.

President Bush II has returned FEMA to the bad old days.

Commenting and Spam

Since there have now been two automated spam comments posted here I have turned on the "word verification" function. Those posting comments will be required to type into a box the letters that appear on the screen. This requires the intervention of a human and will eliminate automated spam.

Once Again, Cuba Outdoes the U. S.

Thanks to Steve for passing on the following excellant article.

The Two Americas

By Marjorie Cohn

09/03/05 "t r u t h o u t" -- --- Last September, a Category 5 hurricane battered the small island of Cuba with 160-mile-per-hour winds. More than 1.5 million Cubans were evacuated to higher ground ahead of the storm. Although the hurricane destroyed 20,000 houses, no one died.

What is Cuban President Fidel Castro's secret? According to Dr. Nelson Valdes, a sociology professor at the University of New Mexico, and specialist in Latin America, "the whole civil defense is embedded in the community to begin with. People know ahead of time where they are to go."

"Cuba's leaders go on TV and take charge," said Valdes. Contrast this with George W. Bush's reaction to Hurricane Katrina. The day after Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Bush was playing golf. He waited three days to make a TV appearance and five days before visiting the disaster site. In a scathing editorial on Thursday, the New York Times said, "nothing about the president's demeanor yesterday - which seemed casual to the point of carelessness - suggested that he understood the depth of the current crisis."

"Merely sticking people in a stadium is unthinkable" in Cuba, Valdes said. "Shelters all have medical personnel, from the neighborhood. They have family doctors in Cuba, who evacuate together with the neighborhood, and already know, for example, who needs insulin."

They also evacuate animals and veterinarians, TV sets and refrigerators, "so that people aren't reluctant to leave because people might steal their stuff," Valdes observed.

After Hurricane Ivan, the United Nations International Secretariat for Disaster Reduction cited Cuba as a model for hurricane preparation. ISDR director Salvano Briceno said, "The Cuban way could easily be applied to other countries with similar economic conditions and even in countries with greater resources that do not manage to protect their population as well as Cuba does."

Our federal and local governments had more than ample warning that hurricanes, which are growing in intensity thanks to global warming, could destroy New Orleans. Yet, instead of heeding those warnings, Bush set about to prevent states from controlling global warming, weaken FEMA, and cut the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for levee construction in New Orleans by $71.2 million, a 44 percent reduction.

Bush sent nearly half our National Guard troops and high-water Humvees to fight in an unnecessary war in Iraq. Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Paris in New Orleans, noted a year ago, "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq."

An Editor and Publisher article Wednesday said the Army Corps of Engineers "never tried to hide the fact that the spending pressures of the war in Iraq, as well as homeland security - coming at the same time as federal tax cuts - was the reason for the strain," which caused a slowdown of work on flood control and sinking levees.

"This storm was much greater than protection we were authorized to provide," said Alfred C. Naomi, a senior project manager in the New Orleans district of the corps.

Unlike in Cuba, where homeland security means keeping the country secure from deadly natural disasters as well as foreign invasions, Bush has failed to keep our people safe. "On a fundamental level," Paul Krugman wrote in yesterday's New York Times, "our current leaders just aren't serious about some of the essential functions of government. They like waging war, but they don't like providing security, rescuing those in need or spending on prevention measures. And they never, ever ask for shared sacrifice."

During the 2004 election campaign, vice presidential candidate John Edwards spoke of "the two Americas." It seems unfathomable how people can shoot at rescue workers. Yet, after the beating of Rodney King aired on televisions across the country, poor, desperate, hungry people in Watts took over their neighborhoods, burning and looting. Their anger, which had seethed below the surface for so long, erupted. That's what's happening now in New Orleans. And we, mostly white, people of privilege, rarely catch a glimpse of this other America.

"I think a lot of it has to do with race and class," said Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. "The people affected were largely poor people. Poor, black people."

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin reached a breaking point Thursday night. "You mean to tell me that a place where you probably have thousands of people that have died and thousands more that are dying every day, that we can't figure out a way to authorize the resources we need? Come on, man!"

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff had boasted earlier in the day that FEMA and other federal agencies have done a "magnificent job" under the circumstances.

But, said, Nagin, "They're feeding the people a line of bull, and they are spinning and people are dying. Get off your asses and let's do something!"

When asked about the looting, the mayor said that except for a few "knuckleheads," it is the result of desperate people trying to find food and water to survive.

Nagin blamed the outbreak of violence and crime on drug addicts who have been cut off from their drug supplies, wandering the city, "looking to take the edge off their jones."

When Hurricane Ivan hit Cuba, no curfew was imposed; yet, no looting or violence took place. Everyone was in the same boat.

Fidel Castro, who has compared his government's preparations for Hurricane Ivan to the island's long-standing preparations for an invasion by the United States, said, "We've been preparing for this for 45 years."

On Thursday, Cuba's National Assembly sent a message of solidarity to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. It says the Cuban people have followed closely the news of the hurricane damage in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and the news has caused pain and sadness. The message notes that the hardest hit are African-Americans, Latino workers, and the poor, who still wait to be rescued and taken to secure places, and who have suffered the most fatalities and homelessness. The message concludes by saying that the entire world must feel this tragedy as its own.

Marjorie Cohn, a contributing editor to t r u t h o u t, is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, executive vice president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the US representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists.

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune

Dear Mr. President:

We heard you loud and clear Friday when you visited our devastated city and the Gulf Coast and said, "What is not working, we’re going to make it right."

Please forgive us if we wait to see proof of your promise before believing you. But we have good reason for our skepticism.

Bienville built New Orleans where he built it for one main reason: It’s accessible. The city between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain was easy to reach in 1718.

How much easier it is to access in 2005 now that there are interstates and bridges, airports and helipads, cruise ships, barges, buses and diesel-powered trucks.

Despite the city’s multiple points of entry, our nation’s bureaucrats spent days after last week’s hurricane wringing their hands, lamenting the fact that they could neither rescue the city’s stranded victims nor bring them food, water and medical supplies.

Meanwhile there were journalists, including some who work for The Times-Picayune, going in and out of the city via the Crescent City Connection. On Thursday morning, that crew saw a caravan of 13 Wal-Mart tractor trailers headed into town to bring food, water and supplies to a dying city.

Television reporters were doing live reports from downtown New Orleans streets. Harry Connick Jr. brought in some aid Thursday, and his efforts were the focus of a "Today" show story Friday morning.

Yet, the people trained to protect our nation, the people whose job it is to quickly bring in aid were absent. Those who should have been deploying troops were singing a sad song about how our city was impossible to reach.

We’re angry, Mr. President, and we’ll be angry long after our beloved city and surrounding parishes have been pumped dry. Our people deserved rescuing. Many who could have been were not. That’s to the government’s shame.

Mayor Ray Nagin did the right thing Sunday when he allowed those with no other alternative to seek shelter from the storm inside the Louisiana Superdome. We still don’t know what the death toll is, but one thing is certain: Had the Superdome not been opened, the city’s death toll would have been higher. The toll may even have been exponentially higher.

It was clear to us by late morning Monday that many people inside the Superdome would not be returning home. It should have been clear to our government, Mr. President. So why weren’t they evacuated out of the city immediately? We learned seven years ago, when Hurricane Georges threatened, that the Dome isn’t suitable as a long-term shelter. So what did state and national officials think would happen to tens of thousands of people trapped inside with no air conditioning, overflowing toilets and dwindling amounts of food, water and other essentials?

State Rep. Karen Carter was right Friday when she said the city didn’t have but two urgent needs: "Buses! And gas!" Every official at the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be fired, Director Michael Brown especially.

In a nationally televised interview Thursday night, he said his agency hadn’t known until that day that thousands of storm victims were stranded at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. He gave another nationally televised interview the next morning and said, "We’ve provided food to the people at the Convention Center so that they’ve gotten at least one, if not two meals, every single day."

Lies don’t get more bald-faced than that, Mr. President.

Yet, when you met with Mr. Brown Friday morning, you told him, "You’re doing a heck of a job."

That’s unbelievable.

There were thousands of people at the Convention Center because the riverfront is high ground. The fact that so many people had reached there on foot is proof that rescue vehicles could have gotten there, too.

We, who are from New Orleans, are no less American than those who live on the Great Plains or along the Atlantic Seaboard. We’re no less important than those from the Pacific Northwest or Appalachia. Our people deserved to be rescued.

No expense should have been spared. No excuses should have been voiced. Especially not one as preposterous as the claim that New Orleans couldn’t be reached.

Mr. President, we sincerely hope you fulfill your promise to make our beloved communities work right once again.

When you do, we will be the first to applaud.

FEMA Incompetence

I did not start this web log as a forum to bash the President Bush and his administration; but, with the inept federal government response to the disaster in New Orleans, he and the cronies he appointed to head the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) warrant criticism. After all, it took the federal government 3 days to get water and food to the 100,000, or so, folks who remained in New Orleans during the storm, most of whom were unable to leave. Then the FEMA director pronounced 3 days after the disaster that his agency was unaware of the thousands of folks stranded at the Super Dome, even though, in the wake of Katrina, folks were instructed to go to the Super Dome and that such was widely reported.

As for the President, the day after the Katrina struck Bush lectured those remaining in New Orleans must exercise personal responsibility (not that he has ever taken responsibility for anything) and the next day he exclaimed as how "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees," despite the fact that study after study, including a FEMA “tabletop” exercise last year, has cited levee failure as a major concern from a storm hitting New Orleans, an event rated amongst the top three most catastrophic natural disasters that could strike the U.S.

I watched an interview of FEMA Director Mike Brown and was appalled that he simply repeated talking points in response to each question put forth by a CNN reporter who, surprisingly, did not let up on asking how it could possibly be that FEMA did not know about the folks stranded at the Super Dome, given the fact that such had been widely reported. He blamed state officials. Mike Brown, by the way, gained his emergency management experience as "Judges and Stewards Commissioner" to the International Arabian Horse Assoc., a position from which his was ultimately fired after rendering the organization into financial ruin http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/9/2/34622/68348 .

So why has FEMA, which during the 1990s James Witt reconstructed into a well respected, competent emergency response agency, failed so shamefully in its Katrina response?

The answer is apparent. James Witt is a professional manager who had emergency response management before his appointment as FEMA director. Mike Brown is a political hack with no emergency management experience. Likewise his predecessor, and benefactor who brought Brown to FEMA after his firing from the IAHA, Joseph Allbaugh, a long time Bush political crony and 2000 campaign manager, had no emergency response experience. Allbaugh left his FEMA position to establish a consultancy to peddle his influence in awarding contracts related to the destruction and reconstruction of Iraq.

Is it too much to ask of our elected officials to hire competent, experienced professional managers to direct delivery of essential government services to the citizenry, rather than political cronies?

Christopher Hitchens

I just heard author and so called “liberal hawk” Christoper Hitchens say, in hawking his book on Thomas Jefferson to Jon Stewart on the Daily Show, that Jefferson “unilaterally” waged war against “Islamic terrorists” when he sent the U. S. Navy to invade the Barbary States of North Africa which were sponsoring the infamous Barbary Pirates. The Pirates attacked vessels from nations which hadn’t paid their annual tribute (protection money), stole the cargo, took the crews prisoner and sold them into slavery.

If Hitchen’s assertion that those of the Barbary States were Islamic Terrorists wasn’t enough to call into question his credibility, he bid farewell to Stewart by invoking the very hackneyed “it’s been real.” A sure sign that Hitchen’s obviously expansive opinion of his own intellect is misplaced. I mean, come on, “it’s been real”?

The Barbary pirates and their employers, the heads of the Barbary States who frequently came to power through coups and assassinations, were criminals motivated by financial gain, not terrorists; and Hitchens should certainly know the difference.

Until the U. S. was able to construct a navy to send after the pirates, for many years it paid an annual tribute to the Barbary States to protect the many commercial U. S. vessels that plied the Mediterranean.

An Apartment

I have today received confirmation of my rental of an apartment on the edge of downtown Merida, that I will move into on October 1.

The apartment is two stories, one bedroom, fully furnished (even an iron, ironing board, and microwave, conveniences I have long lived without), air conditioning and adjoining private terrace. The rent is 3,000 pesos per month, about $277. at today’s exchange rate.

Upon my arrival and after settling into the apartment I will go shopping for a bicycle, which I will use for transportation around Merida. For exploring further afield I will rely on public transportation.

I will post pictures of my Merida digs as soon as I arrive.

Pat Robertson - Liar

Reuters reports that televangelist Pat Robertson, in addition to being a demagogic radical who has defiled Christianity by using it for his personal political objectives, is a liar. After explicitly advocating the assassination of Venezuelan President Chavez, Robertson today denied it. See below.

As an aside, how can Reuters seriously refer to Robertson as a "conservative?"

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Conservative U.S. evangelist Pat Robertson, who called for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, said on Wednesday he was misinterpreted and there were a number of ways to "take him out" including kidnapping.

"I said our special forces could take him out. Take him out could be a number of things including kidnapping," Robertson said on his "The 700 Club" television program.

"There are a number of ways of taking out a dictator from power besides killing him. I was misinterpreted," Robertson added.

Robertson, the founder of the Christian Coalition and a presidential candidate in 1988, said on Monday of Chavez, one of Bush's most vocal critics: "If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it." (emphasis added.)

Read the full story here.

Osgood Brown Conference Center

I was stunned to learn Saturday evening (Aug. 6, 2005), during the grand opening party for the Elma Microtel Inn and Suites, that the wonderful folks of WSCO Petroleum had named the conference center adjacent to the hotel after Mayor Osgood and me. They also named one of the two meeting rooms for each of us.

I am, of course, very grateful for the recognition, particularly from folks for whom I have such great respect.

Elma's Public Works Director Jim Starks also deserves substantial credit for his work in facilitating the successful siting and construction of the hotel project.

Mt. Hood at Dusk

I really like this photo I took at dusk in late April 2002 while driving East through Eastern Oregon.

Hvar

The hillsides throughout the island of Hvar, just off the Dalmatian coast, have been terraced over the millennia by folks clearing rocks so the ground could be farmed. Lavender is grown everywhere and its scent permeates the air. Also grown are grapes from which is made the dark golden, tasty local wine.

Also on Hvar is the oldest theater in Europe, constructed during Shakespeare's lifetime and which has recently been renovated. While visiting the town of Hvar I stayed in what was once a Venetian Count's home. The hotel was about $20. per night and a sumptuous dinner of spaghetti fruti de mar (spaghetti with clams, mussels, and octopus), a salad and 1/2 carafe of local wine was $8. The restaurant owner, an Italian fellow, threw in a complimentary glass of vodka which I assumed was home distilled.

A bus ride across the mountainous island on the 1 1/2 lane road got to be a little exciting on a couple of occasions.

Hvar is good for a two or three day visit. There are other amazingly beautiful nearby islands, easily accessible through the excellent, pervasive ferry service. The Adriatic on the Croatian side is much deeper, thus cleaner, than on the Italian side; and mostly submerged mountains protrude from the sparkling aqua hued sea, creating more than one thousand islands.

More Indignities Heaped Upon the Constitution

Emails from two military prosecutors working at prosecuting Guantanamo Bay detainees indicate that the ‘military tribunals’ are “rigged.”

Let's see. We declare the prisoners enemy combatants, imprison them incommunicado off-shore, deny them legal counsel, torture them; and, after the Supreme Court rules that the prisoners must be provided due process of the law, set up rigged trials. Sounds like something King George would have done.

Read the report by Australian TV news.

Major Robert Preston wrote to his supervisor:

"I consider the insistence on pressing ahead with cases that would be marginal even if properly prepared to be a severe threat to the reputation of the military justice system and even a fraud on the American people," Maj Preston wrote.

"Surely they don't expect that this fairly half-arsed effort is all that we have been able to put together after all this time."

Maj Preston says he cannot continue to work on a process he considers morally, ethically and professionally intolerable.

"I lie awake worrying about this every night," he wrote.

"I find it almost impossible to focus on my part of mission.

"After all, writing a motion saying that the process will be full and fair when you don't really believe it is kind of hard, particularly when you want to call yourself an officer and lawyer."

Major Preston was transferred out of the Office of Military Commissions less than a month later.

Captain John Carr wrote:

"When I volunteered to assist with this process and was assigned to this office, I expected there would at least be a minimal effort to establish a fair process and diligently prepare cases against significant accused," he wrote.

"Instead, I find a half-hearted and disorganised effort by a skeleton group of relatively inexperienced attorneys to prosecute fairly low-level accused in a process that appears to be rigged."

Capt Carr says that the prosecutors have been told by the chief prosecutor that the panel sitting in judgment on the cases would be handpicked to ensure convictions.

"You have repeatedly said to the office that the military panel will be handpicked and will not acquit these detainees and that we only needed to worry about building a record for the review panel," he said.

Read Judge John Coughenour on His Ressam Sentancing

"The message I would hope to convey in today's sentencing is twofold:

"First, that we have the resolve in this country to deal with the subject of terrorism and people who engage in it should be prepared to sacrifice a major portion of their life in confinement.

"Secondly, though, I would like to convey the message that our system works. We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, or detain the defendant indefinitely as an enemy combatant, or deny him the right to counsel, or invoke any proceedings beyond those guaranteed by or contrary to the United States Constitution.

"I would suggest that the message to the world from today's sentencing is that our courts have not abandoned our commitment to the ideals that set our nation apart. We can deal with the threats to our national security without denying the accused fundamental constitutional protections.

"Despite the fact that Mr. Ressam is not an American citizen and despite the fact that he entered this country intent upon killing American citizens, he received an effective, vigorous defense, and the opportunity to have his guilt or innocence determined by a jury of 12 ordinary citizens.

"Most importantly, all of this occurred in the sunlight of a public trial. There were no secret proceedings, no indefinite detention, no denial of counsel.

"The tragedy of September 11th shook our sense of security and made us realize that we, too, are vulnerable to acts of terrorism.

"Unfortunately, some believe that this threat renders our Constitution obsolete. This is a Constitution for which men and women have died and continue to die and which has made us a model among nations. If that view is allowed to prevail, the terrorists will have won.

"It is my sworn duty, and as long as there is breath in my body I'll perform it, to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. We will be in recess."

Juxtapose the Judge’s wise counsel, that the rule of Constitutional law must prevail in the adjudication of criminal charges, even for those who are not American citizens; with the government's treatment of Jose Padilla, an American citizen.

Mr. Padilla was arrested in Chicago by federal agents in May, 2002 and has been held as a “enemy combatant” since the Bush administration legal advisors cooked up the notion of “enemy combatants" in order to avoid judicial scrutiny of the charges against those accused. Mr. Padilla, upon his designation as an “enemy combatant” by President Bush two days before his release would have been legally required, has been held in the “brig” of a South Carolina naval facility since June 2002. Padilla has never been charged with a crime and has been denied contact with legal counsel.

Padilla has been accused by the government of conspiring to detonate a “dirty bomb” and of conspiring with, and acting as a scout for, al Queda.

The 5th Amendment to U.S. Constitution provides:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The fact that Mr. Padilla has not been afforded "due process of the law" should be of concern to all of us (not to mention what is going on at Gitmo and the various prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.) It is entirely possible that Jose Padilla is guilty of all manner of heinous crimes. More likely Podilla is nothing more than a malcontent of mediocre intellect with a lengthy rap sheet. None-the-less, so that our Constitutional protections aren’t further eroded, he must be afforded an opportunity to defend himself in court.

Note: Coughenour was appointed to the Federal bench by President Reagan in 1981 and became Chief District Court judge in 1988.

U. S. Treasury Department Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC)

The OFAC, an agency within the U. S. Treasury Department charged with investigating and blocking terrorist financing networks, has assigned five times as many agents to investigate those traveling to Cuba than to tracking bin Laden’s financing networks. As of the end of 2003 the OFAC had 21 agents harassing those traveling to Cuba and only 5 agents looking for bin Laden’s money.

Between 1990 and 2003 the OFAC opened 93 enforcement investigations related to terrorism and since 1994 has collected $9,425 in fines for terrorism financing violations.

During the same period the OFAC opened 10,683 enforcement actions against folks who have traveled to Cuba and collected more than $8 million in fines since 1994.

Again, the U. S. policy toward Cuba is driven by the 27 electoral college votes in Florida and the inordinate influence Cuban expatriates exercise over Florida politics.

Telesur

Sunday was the first day on the air for Telesur, a satellite TV network that broadcasts throughout Latin America. The network is a creation of the governments of Venezuela, the largest shareholder; Cuba; Uruguay; and Brazil and is intended to provide an alternative to the U. S. and European owned satellite networks that now broadcast to Latin America. Brazil created TV Brasil Internacional for similar purposes.

It seems to me that the more sources of information available to any given population, the better. The U. S. government doesn’t agree.

Representative Connie Mack (R-FL) introduced legislation, adopted by Congress, which would establish a TV network to be broadcast to Venezuela, a la the broadcasts that for years have been aimed at Cuba. So U. S. taxpayer money will be used to broadcast a signal that Venezuela may easily jamb, just as has Cuba.

As sovereign nations, the developers of Telesur have an absolute right to establish a broadcasting network; but a nation’s sovereign status is inconsequential to the U. S. power elite. After all, since promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine the U. S. government has treated all Latin American nations as possessions of the U. S.; and, in fact, has either militarily invaded or unleashed covert destabilization efforts in almost every country in Latin American and the Caribbean, some multiple times.

U. S. Health Care is Most Expensive, But is Not the Best

Why, of the developed nations of the world, does the U. S. spend the most per capita for health care and yet lag other nations in basic health indicators, such as life expectancy and child mortality?

I think it’s because the U. S. health care system is based upon the profit motive rather than upon the interests of a healthy population.

London Bombings and Police Shooting

The London police shooting of an innocent “suspect” in the head at point blank range, after wrestling him to the ground, it seems to me, has provided a greater victory for the transit bombers than was provided by the bombings themselves. After all Britons now face summary execution at the hands of plain clothed police authorized to shoot to kill “suspected” suicide bombers; and the British government has announced proposed measures that will erode British civil liberties, some with their roots in the Magna Carta.

A couple of years ago, the London police have confirmed, the police agency changed its policy to authorize police officers pursuing suspected suicide bombers to use their discretion to shoot the suspect in the head (they don’t want to shoot a suspected suicide bomber in the body for he or she may be laden with explosives.)

So the effects of the terror unleashed by the bombers has been multiplied by the British police and government.

Is John Bolton the Source Judith Miller is Protecting

Read the Article Here
My two readers will recall that in the “Judith Miller” post below I wrote:
"There have been reports in recent days about a 2003 State Department memo, prepared weeks before Wilson’s NYT op-ed appeared, which, reportedly, discusses Wilson’s Niger mission and the identity of his wife. So weeks before Plame’s identity was first published, by administration water carrier Robert Novak, any number of State Department officials would have access to the memo identifying Plame. John Bolton and his posse work in the State Department and the outing of Plame as retribution certainly is consistent with Bolton’s style. Of course there are any number of other true believers in the State Department who, like all true believers, can justify their venal means because their end is so right. "

Steve Clemmons reports today that:
“TWN has just learned from a highly placed source -- and in the right place to know -- that John Bolton was a regular source for Judith Miller's New York Times WMD and national security reports.

“The source did not have any knowledge on whether Bolton was one of Miller's sources on the Valerie Plame story she was preparing, but argues that he was a regular source otherwise.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger - Pig

In announcing that he was canceling a $5 million consultant crontract he had with two body building magazines Schwarzenegger said

"'I have no problem about the money -- but my wife has a problem with that,''' he said, referring to first lady Maria Shriver. "'She was worried that means less diamonds every year or something like that.'''

Ok, let's see a show of hands. Who doesn't think that Schwarzenegger is an absolute pig?

Read the story here in the Mercury News

Californians - you voted for the jerk. Maria - you said "I do." He's your man.

Judith Miller

Anonymous writes in response to my post below:
“Judith Miller? Even if she did tell Rove - not likely in my opinion - where did she get the information? We are missing a name and I expect it yet to surface. I believe it is the unknown name for which Miller refuses to divulge and is in jail. There may be a reason for this, which would become clear once the name is revealed.

”What has to be asked and answered is - "what was the reason for the outing of Plame"? If it was to penalize someone who went against the Bush ideology and plan, it would make sense. But why would Judith Miller do it? Even if she was dumb and blindly accepted the administrations march to war, why now do something that smacks of treason?”

After the supreme court refused to hear her final appeal, New York Time reporter Judith Miller has been jailed for contempt of court for refusing to comply with a court order to testify before the grand jury investigating the outing of Valarie Plame.

Remember, Judith Miller never published an article identifying Ms. Plame, or otherwise addressing the matter. None-the-less, the information she possesses relative to the outing of Plame is apparently considered to be very important to special counsel Fitzgerald’s investigation, an opinion shared by a number of judges who have reviewed the matter.

Also, keep in mind that the Washington Post reported on July 6 that "Sources close to the investigation say there is evidence in some instances that some reporters may have told government officials -- not the other way around --….” A similar report ran in the L. A. Times on July 9^th.

Plame was identified by administration officials to punish her husband, Joseph Wilson, who had put the lie to the Niger yellowcake uranium canard and tried repeatedly to inform administration officials that their repeated citations of Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium from Niger were simply wrong. Wilson even attempted to contact National Security Advisor Rice, who ignored his information and kept on lying about the matter.

Finally, after telling his story on background to a number of journalists didn't stop the Bush administration yellowcake lies, Wilson published his now famous July, 2003 NYT op-ed, which elicited the venality of the Rovian smear machine. Certainly, the outing was retribution meant to punish Wilson; but it was also intended to warn off others who weren’t toeing the party line.

I think someone in the administration, other than Rove or “Scooter” Libby, Chaney’s number one hatchet man, provided Judith Miller with Plame’s identity and I think it is that person for whom Miller has gone to jail. I think Miller then passed the information around to other administration officials.

There have been reports in recent days about a 2003 State Department memo, prepared weeks before Wilson’s NYT op-ed appeared, which, reportedly, discusses Wilson’s Niger mission and the identity of his wife. So weeks before Plame’s identity was first published, by administration water carrier Robert Novak, any number of State Department officials would have access to the memo identifying Plame. John Bolton and his posse work in the State Department and the outing of Plame as retribution certainly is consistent with Bolton’s style. Of course there are any number of other true believers in the State Department who, like all true believers, can justify their venal means because their end is so right.

So I think that some ideologue in the State Department informed Judith Miller of Plame’s identity; and Miller, being close to the neo-cons, dutifully “carried” the information around to other administration officials. Remember, it was Miller, in her often breathless reports, who passed on as fact every lie she was told by Ahmed Chalabi, Iraqi exile neo-con darling, about Iraqi WMDs and terrorist connections. It was Miller who shamelessly lent the credence of the NYT to the lies upon which Bush sold the conquering of Iraq to the U. S. public.

Miller would have no reason to go to jail to protect Rove, since, of course, he’s already been fingered. So Miller is protecting someone else, not based upon her journalistic ethic, I suspect; but, rather, to conceal one or more felonies, perhaps which she as well as others have committed.

Finally, remember that various judges, who have instructed Miller to name her source, have commented that there is ample evidence to indicate that serious crimes have been committed. So I think that this case is more than about some venal hack publicly identifying Plame; and that, perhaps, charges of conspiracy and perjury are under consideration.

Read Time magazine’s timeline of the Plame Name Game

Update: Read a great Justin Raimondo piece on the subject

Update 7/19/05: From Bloomberg News Service 7/18/05 Read the entire article

This points toward a potential problem for Rove in the direction of Fitzgerald's investigation. It now has expanded beyond its original mission -- to determine if the 1982 law was violated -- to encompass whether any White House officials, including Rove and Fleischer, have testified falsely about the case or obstructed justice by trying to cover up their involvement in the leak, according to people familiar with the case who cite a pattern of questioning by Fitzgerald.

In addition, there is strong reason to believe that Fitzgerald is hunting big game, according to several legal experts. They say that is demonstrated by the fact that he has done something that no federal prosecutor has done in 30 years: send a reporter, Judith Miller of the New York Times, to jail for refusing to divulge with whom she spoke about the Wilson-Plame case.

``You wouldn't expect him to go to these lengths unless he thought he had something serious to look at,'' said Randall Eliason, the former chief of the public corruption section at the U.S. Attorney's office in Washington. ``You don't compel reporters to testify or jail reporters unless you have a pretty good reason.''

Tatel's Opinion

That ``pretty good reason'' was highlighted by U.S. Appellate Judge David Tatel in his Feb. 15 opinion concurring that Miller and Cooper must testify in the Plame case.

Tatel noted that the vast majority of the states, as well as the Justice Department, ``would require us to protect reporters' sources as a matter of federal common law were the leak at issue either less harmful or more newsworthy.''

However, he added, ``just as attorney-client communications made for the purpose of getting advice for the commission of a fraud or crime serve no public interest and receive no privilege, neither should courts protect sources whose leaks harm national security while providing minimal benefit to public debate.''

-- With reporting by Laurie Asseo in Washington. Editor: Fireman, Kraus

Further update: 7/19/05 The Washington Post reorts that Fitzgerald may pusue criminal contempt charge against Miller

Karl Rove Fingered as Source in Plame Name Game

Newsweek reported, this past weekend, that it had obtained copies of email messages from Time reporter Mathew Cooper that indicated that President Bush’s political guru and chief hatchet man, Karl Rove, perhaps in a felonious act, revealed to him that former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife was a CIA “operative”, as she was characterized in a column by Robert Novak. It is a felony, subject to several statutory stipulations, to reveal the identity of intelligence “operatives”.

As you will recall, during the Bush administration’s sale of the Iraq war to the U. S. public, various administration officials cited reports of Iraqi attempts to secure uranium from Niger as one justification for the invasion. The allegation was based upon documents provided to an Italian journalist, who provided them to U. S. officials. The Italian journalist and U. S. officials promptly determined that the documents were forgeries containing a number of obvious defects.

During this time the CIA contacted former ambassador and career diplomat Joseph Wilson, who had been stationed in Africa; and, according to Wilson, asked him to travel to Niger to investigate the allegation of Iraqi attempts to secure uranium there. Mr. Wilson has indicated that he came under the impression that Vice-president Cheney had asked for the investigation of the Niger documents. Mr. Wilson traveled to Niger and in short order determined that there was no evidence of Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium there. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also weighed in with the judgment that Niger’s uranium mining and marketing program was in full compliance with IAEA requirements.

After Bush administration officials, including Director of National Security Rice, continued to cite Iraqi attempts to secure Niger uranium as justification for war Mr. Wilson published a commentary in the New York Times putting the lie to the Administration’s Niger uranium story.

Subsequent to the appearance of Mr. Wilson’s commentary, columnist Robert Novak reported that he had been informed by "senior administration officials" that Wilson’s wife, Valarie Plame, was a CIA “operative”; and that it was she who had suggested to CIA officials that her husband be retained to investigate the Niger uranium report. Subsequent to the Novak column a number of other journalists reported the story.

During the ensuing two years the White House has repeatedly and categorically, denied that Karl Rove, or two other suspected White House officials (“Scooter” Libby and Cheney), ever revealed Plame’s identity.

What the Cooper emails indicate, is that the Bush administration has been lying to the public about the whole Plame affair. I’m shocked.

This story has many interesting facets, from the seeming obliviousness of the President; to the absolute, and well recognized, venality of Karl Rove; and what of New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who has been jailed for contempt in refusing to reveal a source for information of the Plame affair, even though she never published a story of the matter?

I will follow up in a future post with a discussion of Miller’s role in this drama, and her role in selling the Iraq adventure to the U.S. public. I think that eventually we will learn that it was Miller who revealed Plame’s identity to Rove et al and Rove passed it on to his media lapdogs.

For now, the Bush administration has been caught in another lie, this one used in an attempt to cover up the potentially felonious act of the President's top advisor. Will Bush be held to account for the lying? Will Karl Rove be "frog marched" out of the White House, as Joseph Wilson predicted two years ago? Will Judith Miller be identified as she who outed Ms. Plame? Stay tuned.

The media, having been repeatedly lied to by the White House, seems to have awakened from its years long slumber by the smell of blood in the water; and I don't expect it will let the story go.

Scum Buckets of FOX News

London subways and busses are bombed, upwards of 50 people are killed, hundreds wounded, and what does FOX news have to say about it.

Here's Brit Hume the top FOX newsperson (propagandist.)
"My first thought when I heard - just on a personal basis, when I heard there had been this attack and I saw the futures this morning, which were really in the tank, I thought, 'Hmmm, time to buy."
Fox News's Brit Hume, 7/7/05

And here's FOX talking hairdo Brian Kilmeade.
"And he [British Prime Minister Tony Blair] made the statement, clearly shaken, but clearly determined. This is his second address in the last hour. First to the people of London, and now at the G8 summit, where their topic Number 1 --believe it or not-- was global warming, the second was African aid. And that was the first time since 9-11 when they should know, and they do know now, that terrorism should be Number 1. But it's important for them all to be together. I think that works to our advantage, in the Western world's advantage, for people to experience something like this together, just 500 miles from where the attacks have happened."

This is truly nauseating stuff. What's more nauseating is that millions of folks take FOX News seriously and eagerly lap up the crap it spews.

Cheney on Club Gitmo

Cheney, as the chief of transition, infested the Bush administration with the Neo-fascists (they call themselves Neo-conservatives) who have been dying to invade Iraq since the early 1990s. Go to the Project for the New American Century website and read all about it.

I should also note that almost none of the New Amercian Centurions, who are so anxious to send our brave military personnel into harm's way on dubious, poorly planned missions, ever served their country. In fact, it has been reported that professional military personnel refer to Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Libby, Leith, and etc. as "chickenhawks".


June 24, 2005

Cheney Says Detainees Are Well Treated

By AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

WASHINGTON, June 23 (Agence France-Presse) - Vice President Dick Cheney said on Thursday that prisoners at the detention camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had everything they could possibly want and were well fed and well treated as they lived in the "tropics."

Mr. Cheney dismissed calls to close the facility, which holds terrorism suspects. "They got a brand new facility down at Guantánamo," Mr. Cheney said in an interview with CNN. "We spent a lot of money to build it. They're very well treated down there."

"They're living in the tropics," he added. "They're well fed. They've got everything they could possibly want. There isn't any other nation in the world that would treat people who were determined to kill Americans the way we're treating these people."

Mr. Cheney categorized the prisoners as "terrorists," "bomb makers" and "facilitators of terror" who would "go back to trying to kill Americans" if freed.

Former President Bill Clinton has become the most prominent critic of the base in Cuba. "It is time that there are no more stories coming out of there about people being abused," Mr. Clinton said in an interview published in Monday's editions of The Financial Times.

Read the Story Here

The Perfect Picture

Before leaving for Cuba, on my first trip back since 1970, I told Bill, one of my traveling companions who looks like Hemingway and whom we called Hemingway throughout our trip, that a perfect picture of our trip would be that of an old woman smoking a cigar.

Bill and I were sitting on a bench in the main Santiago plaza when up walked the perfect picture. Her cigar is most definitely no prop.

Did you know that the U.S. government permits huge agricultural corporations to sell products to Cuba while the State Department Office of Foreign Asset Control devotes greatly more staff to pursuing those traveling to Cuba than it does to investigating terrorist financing networks?

Dirys Adams Wilson - "Oh, my God"

I met Dirys Adams Wilson, known to her friends a Indira, in Santiago, Cuba. She was looking for someone with whom to practice her English and who would buy her a chicken and french fry dinner.

Indira would laugh, slap her knee and declare "Oh, my God." She was delightful company who provided me with lots of information about Santiago, one of Cuba's most beautiful Cities.

The cigar was just a prop for the picture, as she doesn't smoke.

Further Erosion of the Bill of Rights

The Supreme Court this week, in a 6-3 decision, declared that government can take your property and give it to another private property owner. Such transactions usually involve taking property from poorer folks and giving it to richer folks, and all that’s necessary is for those desiring the property of others to prevail upon a city council or other legislative body. Given the obscenely prominent role of money (legal bribery) in the formulation of public policy in our nation, such is easily accomplished.

As Justice Sandra Day O’Connor stated in her dissenting opinion: "The specter of condemnation hangs over all property. Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory."

Justice Thomas, who most often hews to the Scalia party line, also dissented; noting that the Supremes decision was "far-reaching and dangerous" and that in such situations property is usually taken from lower income folks and given to those of greater means.

The instant case involved the desire of the New London, Connecticut city council to increase its property tax revenue by seizing “seizing people's homes, clearing the land and turning it over to private interests that would build a residential, office, retail complex supporting new $300 million research facility of the Pfizer drug company.” Read about it here and Here

The fifth amendment to the U. S. constitution provides that, amongst other things, “…nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.” Remember, the Bill of Rights was amended into the Constitution, four years after adoption of the Constitution, to protect individual citizens from the type of excesses and injustices perpetrated upon the colonies by the British crown.

Is it a “public use” for government to take property in order to hand it over to folks or corporations who will then use the property to enhance their personal or corporate wealth? The Supremes say yes.

A similarly inexplicable decision of the high court was its early June decision that federal anti-marijuana laws trump state medical marijuana laws. The court, in a fit of rhetorical gymnastics, construed there to be interstate commerce implications to the states’ medical marijuana laws. Again Sandra Day O’Conner, a true conservative, dissented, saying that the court was overreaching to endorse "making it a federal crime to grow small amounts of marijuana in one's own home for one's own medicinal use”.

Once again the Supremes have eroded the Bill of Rights, which in the tenth amendment provides that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The Supreme Court, throughout its history, has generally restrained federal jurisdiction to matters involving interstate commerce.

Even the right reverend Justice Scalia, who forever is lecturing us dumb ass masses that judges should construe the Constitution from an “originalist” perspective, voted with the majority in the medical marijuana case. Scalia, being a Straussian philosopher, needn’t bother himself with consistency when it comes to regulating our private behavior. What an absolute hack.

The Supremes, some years ago, declared invalid federal legislation that enhanced penalties for those convicted of a crime involving guns when the crime was committed in proximity to a school, concluding no interstate commerce implications. Apparently providing marijuana as medicine to folks, who otherwise have found no medical relief, involves interstate commerce.

The fascism that has been creeping along in this nation for most of its history is now up and walking; and, with the advent of the national security state, it should soon be sprinting.

Bush’s Posada Dilemma

What is George Bush to do with Luis Posada Carriles? You perhaps have read recently about Posada, the self-professed tourist hotel bomber and U.S. government identified commercial airliner bomber, who illegally snuck into the U.S.

Posada, a former member of the regime of former Cuban dictator Fulencio Batistsa, trained by the CIA in explosives and assassination in the early ‘60s, a Bay of Pigs veteran, a CIA operative from the early ‘60s until the mid-‘70s, a Venezuela secret police official in the late 70s, and a fugitive from Venezuelan custody where he was imprisoned awaiting a third trial for the bombing of a Cuban commercial airliner in 1976 that killed the greatest portion of the Cuban youth fencing teams. It should be noted that during a good portion of Posada’s CIA association, George Bush Sr. was Director of Central Intelligence.

Venezuela has requested Posada’s extradition and so far the Bush administration has refused, putting the lie to Bush’s professed war on terrorism. As it turns out, if Bush agrees with the desired end of terrorist acts, or calculates political advantage, he will forgive terrorist acts. Terrorism aimed at Cuba is OK.

Posada entered the U.S. illegally in March. Entering, no doubt, using one of the plethora of fake passports of which he bragged in a 1998 New York Times interview. An interview, by the way, in which he boasted of bombing several Cuban tourist hotels, one of which killed an Italian tourist. The U.S. government took no measures to apprehend Posada until he held a press conference in May, thereby eliminating, for certain, any opportunity for the Bush administration to deny knowledge of Posada’s illegal presence in the U.S.

So what has been Bush’s response? Posada has been jailed for illegally entering the U.S. If he ships Posada to Venezuela it is likely that Posada may begin to chirp like a bird and tell all, to the presumed embarrassment of Bush Sr. Additionally, extradition to Venezuela would alienate the hard core anti-Castro Cuban expatriates in Florida who exercise an inordinate influence, afforded by their inordinate affluence, over the dispensation of the 27 Florida electoral college votes. Bush’s refusal to extradite Posada will illustrate Bush’s hypocrisy in his so called “war on terror.” On the other hand Bush could extradite Posada to another nation, within which Posada would simply disappear.

So what will it be? Bush will deny the Venezuelan extradition request and thumb his nose at (more likely flip off) the rest of the world which takes note of his hypocrisy and Posada will disappear after extradition to another nation.

In pursuance of Bush’s divine mission, the opinions of others are merely a distraction and in his ridged ideological vision of the world there is no room for doubt.

The Depravity of Bill Frist and Jeb Bush

During the media circus manufactured around the Theresa Schiavo matter, by demagogic politicians hoping to sew up the radical right vote for the 2008 presidential campaign, Senate majority leader Dr. Bill Frist, as you’ll remember, pronounced upon the Senate floor that he had watched a one hour video of Ms. Schiavo and determined that she was not in a persistent vegetative state.

"Speaking more as a physician than as a U.S. senator,” Frist , on the Senate floor on March 17, questioned the repeated diagnosis of Ms. Schiavo’s persistent vegetative state, “I say that I question it, and I question it based on a review of the video footage which I spent an hour or so looking at last night in my office here in the Capitol,''.

Then on June 16, after release of Schaivo's autopsy results which indicated that her brain had atrophied to half the normal expected size, that she was blind, and that there was no prospect for her recovery, Dr. Frist declared that "I would never attempt to make a diagnosis by videotape.''

So not only is Frist such a lousy doctor that he publicly pronounces a diagnosis based upon his viewing a one hour video, but he’s also a liar.

I bet Frist is just dying to see the negative ads to be trotted out on this subject during his 2008 presidential campaign.

For pure depravity, though, it would be very difficult, indeed, to descend further into the depths of such depravity than has Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who has requested an investigation into charges of spousal abuse against Michael Schiavo. Governor Bush has 2008 aspirations of his own.

I just love how the good soldiers of the radically sanctimonious wing of the republican party are all for smaller government; until, that is, they sense an opportunity to utilize the awesome power of the federal government to restrict personal freedom in the pursuance of their agenda to impose their “moral” values upon the rest of us.

Comments

This is a big night for Expatriate Ruminations. There have been four comments entered from two different commentators, "Anonymous" and my buddy Dan.

Social Security "Reform"

First, I must confess to a complete lack of credentials or training that would qualify me to address this subject; but President Bush has announced that “reform” of the Social Security System is one of his top priorities for his second term.

President Bush has indicated that the SS system is in crisis, that it must be reformed, and is recommending a system recommended by the CATO Institute, within which future workers would establish “private accounts” into which will be paid at least a portion of what is now paid into the SS system. The funds within the “private account” would be invested by the individual into a range of government approved investment vehicles representing a range of risk, from government bonds to stock market equities.

Of course, the current SS system involves your payment of payroll taxes to the government which the SS Administration invests in government securities. During the 1980s Congress raised the payroll tax to amass a surplus in preparation for the retirement of the large Baby Boom generation. The surplus in funds that has since accumulated has been spent by Congress, over the years, on other programs and the funds have been replaced in the SS Trust Fund by IOUs guaranteed by the U.S. Treasury. When Baby Boomers retire the Congress must find funds with which to redeem the IOUs so that retirees may receive benefits.

SS Administration actuaries say that current payroll taxes will more than cover promised benefits until 2018, that taxes plus interest on the trust fund's U. S. Treasury IOUs will cover promised benefits until 2028 and that the trust fund won't run dry until 2042.

So the problem is not that the SS system is facing imminent collapse, the problem will be finding the money with which to redeem the IOUs in the SS Trust Fund, from which Congress and Presidents have so freely borrowed over the years, so Baby Boomers receive promised benefits. The redemption funding will have to come from other government programs (military and health care, to cite two major areas of federal expenditure) or from higher taxes. Of course, the retirement age could be increased to push the problem off a bit further into the future.

President Bush’s proposal to partially “privatize” Social Security would require, according to the White House, about $2 trillion to pay for the “transition” from the current system to a system incorporating “private accounts.” Where will the $2 trillion come from? It will be borrowed.

So the current SS system is not in crisis and the President’s partial “privatization” proposal will significantly increase the national debt. So what gives? This is a case where ideology is driving policy.

Currently the Social Security administration staff administers the Social Security “Trust Fund”, investing the payroll tax revenues in U. S. government debt and earning a rate of return typical of government securities. Whether the “private accounts”, invested by individuals, would earn a higher rate of return depends entirely upon the assumptions one relies upon in making comparisons or projections. There is certainty, however, that the managers of the investment funds approved by the government stand to gain much and that the “management” costs charged by the managers will be considerably higher that the administrative costs of Social Security.

Another certainty is that in the coming months we will all be inundated with arguments for or against this proposal or that proposal. Just remember, that when it comes to this type of debate there will be a plethora of lies, damned lies, and statistics proffered from all sides.

Talk of Impeachment

It is now common knowledge (at least amongst the 50 percent of the U. S. population informed enough to know that Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks and that Iraq and al Qaida were not in league) that President Bush, Vice-president Cheney, former Secretary of State Powell, Condolezza Rice, and any number of other top administration officials lied their way into war with Iraq. Such is such common knowledge, in fact, that recognition of the fact has even permeated our sorrowful mainstream media.

Remember the aluminum tubes that Bush and Rice declared were intended for use in nuclear centrifuges, even after nuclear intelligence experts in the Department of Energy indicated they were rocket tubes? Remember the mobile biological weapons labs that Bush and Chency decried, even after the British government identifed the mobile units as hydrogen generators for filling weather baloons?

The fact is that many top administration officials were signatories of a 1998 letter from the Project For The New American Century urging President Clinton to remove Saddam Hussein as the Iraqi head of state.
PNAC letter to Clinton

We also know from the July 23, 2002 “Downing Street Memo”, published in the Times of London on May 1, 2005 and largely ignored by the U.S. media, that already in the Summer of 2002:
Downing Street Memo
“Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.”

And we know from the Downing Street Memo that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld:
”…said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.”

We also know, from the reporting of Jeremy Scahil in "The Nation" that the Bush administration actually began the conquering of Iraq in May 2002 with increased bombing ostensibly to protect the “no-fly zones”, established after the Gulf War, but which were in reality:
Jeremy Scahil's report
“…offensive attacks on Iraq, that were intended to take out communications infrastructure in the country, the ability of commanders in the Iraqi military to communicate with one another, pretty much defensive mechanics for the country, and these attacks were happening with the justification that they were protecting the so-called no-fly zones in Iraq."

The fact the Bush was intent upon go to war in Iraq from the earliest days of his administration has been previously reported by former Treasury Secretary O'neill:
CBS report of the content of O'neill's forthcoming book
“From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,” says O’Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration- eight months before Sept. 11. "

The evidence that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, Wolfowitz, and etc. lied their way into a war against a nation that both Powell and Rice declared in 2001 posed no threat to the U. S. is overwhelming. I am hoping that the talk of the impeachment of Bush, now percolating in both the Congress and the media, results in actual impeachment.

Sunrise Christmas Morning

I posted this photo, taken from my front door a few years ago on Christmas morning, for Bernadette, who says she likes pictures of sunrises and sunsets.

Cuba

I couldn't resist taking this photo of these Cuban school children bouncing up and down on a tree branch as I climbed a hill in the Vinales Valley, Cuba to visit the Aquaticos.

The Aquaticos are a group of folks who live in the hills, accessible only by foot or horseback, who believe that their water has healing qualities. They bath in the special water, multiple times each day, and dry themselves in the air . You can see in the background a hill the locals refer to as mogotes. Mogotes were once columns that held up the roofs over a vast cave systems carved out of the limestone by flowing water. Cuba, like the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico is composed of limestone laced with underground rivers and caves. The magotes were once columns that supported the roofs of caves. Over time the roofs collapsed but the columns, magotes, remained. The Vinales Valley provides spectacular vistas in addition to producing fine tobaccos and a wide variety of food crops.

Did you know that Cuba, a poor third world nation, has a world class health care system that has reduced child mortality to a level less than that of the U.S. and a public education system that has produced a higher literacy rate than that of the U.S? In Cuban cities there is a doctor that serves each block and its health care system is free to all.

Cuba has an advanced biomedical industry that produces vaccines exported throughout the world and has so many doctors that Cuban doctors are serving in poor nations throughout the world at no charge. Additionally, Cuba provides medical education for students from all over the world, including 150 U.S. students, at no charge.

Deepthroat

The revelation of the identity of "Deep Throat", Woodward and Bernstien's source for their award winning Watergate investigative reports who remained unidentified for 30 years, elicits memories of the drama of the Congressional Watergate hearings and the ultimate demise of President Nixon.

The nonpartisan Watergate hearings, the prosecutions of many nefarious Nixon adminstration officials , and the impeachment and resignation of Nixon demonstrated to even the most cynical that justice could ultimately prevail in our system of government.

I believe that, in terms of mendacity and venality, President Bush and his minions have rendered Nixon to piker status; and I do not expect similar justice to be visited upon the President or any administration officials, who have lied their way into an unjust, beastly war against a nation that posed no threat to the U.S. and which has killed tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians.

If you or I lie to Congress we will suffer legal sanctions, but elected officials may lie to us with impunity without consequence. I think that elected or appointed government officials who lie to the public should be subject to the same penalties to which we are subject for lying to Congress. And I hope to some day see Bush et al answer for their crimes.

Read Bob Woodward's story of "How Mark Felt Became 'Deep Throat'"

WSCO Petroleum and the Local Economy

This evening, after consuming a couple glasses of red wine at Saginaw’s and enjoying conversation with Dan Meldrich, my friend and neighbor of 28 years, and Josh Wood, proprietor of the Bank at Saginaw’s, I had the good fortune of running into, and enjoying a great conversation with, Gene Tish and Shauna DelaMare, of WSCO Petroleum.

I hope all of those who call the Elma community home recognize the great things that Gene, Shuana, and their boss, Glenn Zirkle, have done for Elma.

WSCO, for those who don’t know, has constructed the Elma Microtel Inn and Suites hotel, as well as owning and operating the recently re-branded Gateway Exxon and operating the S. 3^rd St. Exxon station.

Not only has WSCO invested multiple millions of dollars in Elma but the company is populated by very bright, entirely unassuming folks of wonderful humor. The WSCO folks see opportunity in Elma that most folks in Elma, I believe, don’t realize.

I think WSCO’s investment in Elma’s first hotel will encourage further development of the Elma area economy. The hotel should enjoy a symbiotic relationship with the Grays Harbor Fairgrounds. The hotel should encourage more bookings of Fairground events, and the Fairgrounds will provide business to the hotel.

“Elma's fortuitous location at the interchange of State Routes 8 and 12, providing ready access to the Interstate 5 corridor to both the North and South; its modern utility infrastructure, including a state of the art sewage treatment facility and two fiber optic pipelines; great school district; competent, reliable workforce; abounding natural beauty; and an excellent quality of life bode well for Elma's economic future.” (This paragraph has been stolen from the City of Elma web site, but since I wrote it I guess it’s OK.)

WSCO Petroleum has demonstrated great confidence in the future of the economy of our community and I think we sould all take heed.