September 7-14, a very big week . . .

It began with Labor Day. To be sure, the week felt markedly like a transitional one.  During the week President Obama spent a great deal of time at the podium, making a number of very significant speeches.  NASA watched over its STS-128 mission and released a number of spectacular images on Wednesday from the newly refurbished Hubble telescope.  On Friday, the anniversary of 9/11/01, the President and First Lady spent time giving service to the community, as did thousands of people across the nation marking a National Day of Service.  The week’s news was full of stories about the politics of health care reform in a Congress now back to work, opinion about the growing divide amongst the electorate, and uneasy reports about the future of the war in Afghanistan, as well as the future of the U.S. space program.

What has changed, if anything? There is a bigger divide between members of the two major parties, evident in the behavior of Republicans during the President’s speech Wednesday evening to a joint session of Congress.  There seems to be growing opposition among many Americans, as well as rank and file  Democrats, to the war in Afghanistan and its climbing casualty figures.  This may have caused President Obama to say in his 9/11 speech at the Pentagon that he does not want Americans to forget the true nature of al-Qaeda, reports Scott Wilson of the Washington Post.

Opposition to health care reform has now grown to the point that organizers were able to stage a 9/12 march on Washington.  Tens of thousands (according to the Washington Post estimate) of a loosely organized coalition of conservative “tea party” protesters marched on the nation’s capitol Saturday.  Jeff Zeleny of the NYT, summarized the tone:

Their anger stretched well beyond the health care legislation moving through Congress, with shouts of support for gun rights, lower taxes and a smaller government. But as they sang verse after verse of patriotic hymns like “God Bless America,” sharp words of profane and political criticism were aimed at Mr. Obama and Congress.

At the same time a crowd of over 10,000 people came to enthusiastically stand and cheer at President Obama’s health care rally at Minneapolis’ Target arena.  The President told the crowd that now is the time for action and warned against the scare tactics being employed by the opposition, reports Reuters.

What has stayed the same? A year later, little has changed on Wall Street, according to  the New York Times‘ Alex Berenson.  Big banks have not really restructured, financial stocks are on the rise, complex derivatives remain in play, few hedge funds have closed and executives are still pulling down huge bonuses.  For instance, “30,000 Goldman Sachs employees will earn an average of $70,000 this year.”  Worst of all the Obama administration’s proposed regulatory changes have gone nowhere in Congress.  And the passage of time decreases the chances of significant crisis-driven reform.

The space shuttle Discovery completed another highly successful mission to resupply the International Space Station Friday, landing safely at Edwards AFB in California after battling bad weather in Florida for a couple of days.  To quote Reuters:

Discovery had carried more than 7.5 tons of food, laboratory equipment, science experiments, spare parts, a new treadmill and crew quarters for the space station. The outpost is a $100 billion project involving 16 nations, which is nearing completion after more than a decade of construction.

NASA is turning over crew transport to the station to Russia, at a cost of about $50 million per seat, as it begins phasing out the shuttle. The space agency is also considering hiring U.S. commercial firms to ferry its astronauts. . . NASA has six flights remaining to finish outfitting the station and then plans to move on with development of a capsule and rocket that could ferry crews to the moon. Barack Obama considers the results of a study that has determined NASA’s lunar ambitions exceed its budget by about $3 billion a year.

What could change – “Humans aren’t going to Mars — or anywhere else — without more money,” is the story from Wired-Science (9/8/09).  Another headline, “Panel’s report threatens NASA’s mission,” comes from The Hill (9/10/09) via Twitter.  The article opens:

A report suggesting that NASA’s space travel goals are too ambitious for its budget is imperiling efforts by Florida and Texas lawmakers to win more money for the agency’s budget.

“The full Final Report is still being prepared and will be released when complete”  is also via Twitter from NASA_HSF, the U.S.  Human Space Flight Committee.  Look for it to be released in early October.

What will not change is the mainstream media’s fascination with conflict, who is winning or losing, with outrageousness and with the mistaken idea that any old lie is merely the other side’s point of view.  The week of September 7-14 saw President Obama seeming to regain his stride and the right-wing crazies more determined than ever to keep him off stride.  The election in Afghanistan remains undecided and more and more war casualties occur.  Nor has the President decided the future of the U.S. space program.  Congress has its hands full with health care reform, and has no time (nor perhaps the stomach) for financial regulatory reform.  Maybe it would be a good idea for everybody to take an occasional day off and catch their breath.

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Fall from grace and glory

Federal District Judge Samuel B. Kent of Texas had to leave the bench, though not his salary behind.  He will be unable to preside in court because he has been in jail since last Monday, according to Ashley Southall of The New York Times: “serving 33 months in prison for lying to a judicial panel about his sexual assault of two female employees.”  The NYT editorialized a week ago that he did not deserve his salary, but needed to be impeached and so he was.  If the U.S. Senate trial of Judge Kent finds him guilty of the House’s recent impeachment charges, he will lose his $169,300 salary also.  Federal judges are appointed for life.  Judge Kent refused to resign before going to jail, claiming disability for bipolar disorder and depression, as well as alcoholism.  The judge will be “serving his sentence in a Massachusetts prison that specializes in alcohol and drug rehabilitation,” Southall reveals.

The House of Representatives, Southall reported,

approved four impeachment articles to remove Samuel B. Kent from the federal district court in Galveston, Tex.: two articles of sexual misconduct, one article of lying during a judicial inquiry, and one article of making material and false statements to federal investigators.

It was quite a journey  for him. As is so often the case it, was not the original offenses that put him away, but the lying about it.  The judge is a sexual offender.  He plead guilty “for lying to an investigative committee of judges about whether he had sexually harassed his secretary. . . In return, the government agreed to drop five charges that he had repeatedly groped his secretary and his case manager,” the New York Times reported back in May.  The investigative panel, who did not get the full story,  originally suspended Kent without pay for 4 months, reprimanded him and did not release the details of the abuse.  But then came the indictment and several months later, the guilty plea of lying about it to the original judicial panel.

I was curious to see how he descended so far. In addition to the current impeachment stories, a New York Times search turned up an August 1993 story that I remembered, though I had not made the Judge Kent connection.  Judge Kent, who is from Corpus Christi, Texas,  was appointed in 1991 by George H.W. Bush.  The story concerned a lawsuit brought by Northwest and Continental Airlines against American Airlines for predatory pricing.  American was based at the time in the DFW Metroplex where I live.  Judge Sam Kent presided, famed lawyer David Bois was one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, and Robert Crandall was the colorful head of American Airlines. They clashed and Crandall won, as the jury, following Judge Kent’s instructions, turned in a quick verdict for the defendant American Airlines.  To quote:

After an intense four-week trial, jurors decided in less than four hours today that American Airlines did not try to drive weaker competitors out of business with “predatory” prices during the air fare war last summer.

Continental decided not to appeal the verdict, according to a follow-up NYT story.

“I think the fact that the jury came in so quickly and rejected their accusations out of hand probably has had some effect in their thinking,” said Andrew B. Steinberg, American Airlines’ senior attorney, referring to Continental’s decision not to appeal. “It was a clear vindication for American.”

Mr. Jamail and David Boies, Continental’s lead lawyer, said after the verdict that the only avenues they saw for appeal were Judge Samuel B. Kent’s instructions to the jury, which they thought were too specific, and certain rulings on evidence.

. . . Mr. Steinberg also said American Airlines plans early next week to send a bill of its court costs to Judge Kent. He said the costs range from $200,000 to $500,000, which American Airlines wants to recover since it did not bring the suit.

Judge Kent, who said Tuesday he was not inclined to reimburse the costs, told American Airlines lawyers he would take the request under advisement and make a decision next week.

I think of the contrasts in Judge Kent’s power and position between 1993 and 2009.  In 1993 Kent presided over a big corporate trial that garnered national coverage , just two years after he came to the federal bench.  After the trial was over he would have been the sole decider as to whether American Airlines would get the $200,000 to $500,000 it lost defending itself against its competitors.

Fast forward to last year and this year. Again it was power and position that came into play.  Sexual harrassment of paid employees is very often rooted in the power-over position of a superior over his subordinates.  I am not qualified to say what part Judge Kent’s claimed mental illness paid in the episode.  Perhaps he will get whatever treatment he needs.  But he does not need to continue to collect his salary at taxpayer expense.  Let us hope the Senate acts quickly to remedy this outrageous  and sordid saga.

(Cross posted at Southwest Progressive)

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CIA-OLC-Gitmo Primer

It took a large number of people and organizations to get the torture program up and running at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. Spy Talk’s Jeff Stein writes that repetetive interrogations revealed the CIA’s lack of spies, according to a number of agency veterans. One of the most bizarre aspects of the program was the participation of psychologists. ProPublica has investigated this part of the story and written an important article on the subject: “A Secret E-mail Argument Among Psychologists About Torture,” by Sheri Fink, (5/8/09). To quote:

As part of our report* we posted a listserv of internal emails between staff of the American Psychological Association and members of its “Psychological Ethics and National Security” task force. (Here’s the entire listserv.) That listserv offers a rare look into a process that led to the adoption of an influential and controversial policy for the world’s largest professional organization of psychologists, which represents the profession of psychology in the United States. It also provides a window into a heated discussion among medical professionals grappling with their ethical obligations and their possible complicity in torture.

Liberals want accountability for those who wrote the “torture memos” regarding harsh interrogation techniques. President Obama is opposed to a “truth commission,” as suggested by Senator Leahy; an independent inquiry, as suggested by House Speaker Pelosi and opposed by the Senate; or even an independent prosecutor, unless prosecution was recommended by the DOJ. Some liberals have suggested the impeachment of federal judge Jay Bybee, one of the memo authors. And, unlike many U.S. news sources, Al Jazeera headlined (5/6/09) that the “US [is] ‘likely to probe Bush lawyers,” citing Scott Horton, a professor of military law at Columbia University in New York. To quote Horton:

. . . the results of the inquiry would very likely form the basis “for a criminal investigation being commenced”.”There is likely to be a criminal investigation that will look at the entire process of introducing torture in Guantanamo, Bagram, Abu Ghraib and other places as a result of decisions that we now know were ultimately taken in the White House itself,” he said.

“These lawyers played a key role in that entire process.”

Horton added that the report would “heighten the pressure on the attorney-general [Eric Holder] for the appointment of a special prosecutor” to investigate the lawyers’ actions.

“I think the attorney-general is going to find it impossible to avoid the investigation phase,” he said.

President Obama banned torture and he and the Justice Department have said there will be no prosecution of those in the CIA who practiced the enhanced interrogation techniques on those detained by the U.S. Likewise the administration opposed prosecution of the authors of the torture memos. According to The Washington Post, there was intense debate in Obama’s inner circle over the decision to release the memos. The President certainly walks a thin line in the entire interrogation question, analysts say. A great many American people believe that President Obama was absolutely right to release the torture memos, though there was, of course, debate about it.

The Office of Professional Responsibility at the Justice Department has drafted a long-awaited report on the professional conduct of the torture memo lawyers. It looks as if it will only recommend professional sanctions against two of the three lawyers, Yahoo! News (5/5/09) reported. It should be pointed out that the OPR does not have the authority to press charges.

The CIA reportedly declined to closely evaluate harsh interrogations during the Bush administration, according to an excellent LA Times (4/26/09) story. There has been no study to see whether the methods worked or not. There is now a White House task force to examine the effectiveness of various interrogation approaches. The Senate Intelligence Committee has launched a similar review, one that has never been done before. From the horse’s mouth comes a very believable piece by Ali Soufan on the New York Times Op-ed page of April 23, 2009: “My Tortured Decision.” To summarize it –

A former F.B.I. agent who questioned Abu Zubaydah in 2002 says the terrorist operative provided important intelligence under traditional interrogation methods. The CIA had inflated the importance of what Zubayda had to say.

One of the first things President Obama did after taking office was announce that Guantanamo Bay, Cuba’s detention facility would be closed. The project to close Guantanamo is not an easy one. There are costs involved, both monetary and political. Congress is getting increasingly worried about the possibility of detainees in their communities, and may impede the closure plans. Politico explains:

[Senate Minority leader Mitch] McConnell’s comments were most telling. . . just as many Democrats see Guantanamo as a legacy of the Bush years, the Kentucky Republican framed the fight as a test now of whether the Obama administration will protect Americans, fearful of the detainees being moved into corrections facilities in their states.

Former Vice President Cheney has led the Republican charge against the Obama administration’s efforts to put things right. In an ironic twist ProPublica revealed that the government could destroy records in hundreds of Guantanamo cases. There is even talk of reviving the Guantanamo military court process. And Time Magazine examined the Army Field Manual for an article headlined, “Beyond Waterboarding: What Interrogators can still do.” CIA Directer Leon Panetta has ruled that contractors are not allowed to interrogate any more, emptywheel reported.

“Libertarians” for a Torture State” – by Ed Kilgore at the Democratic Strategist (4/28/09), examined the Republicans’ inconsistencies of position (between right-wingers and Libertarians) regarding the questions associated with the rule of law, torture and closing Guantanamo. J.P Green, in the same newsletter, explores “Obama’s Measured Strategy on Torture.” His closing argument could be persuasive:

America is honor-bound to address accountability for torture — but later better than sooner. Maybe the best thing, strategy-wise, would be for Holder to initiate a thorough investigation, but save the investigation revelations and recommendations until after we get the economy on solid footing and health care reform safely enacted.

References:

1. *Report:”Tortured Profession: Psychologists Warned of Abusive Interrogations, Then Helped Craft Them,“ by ProPublica, May, 5, 2009
2. “Interrogations Timeline,” from The Washington Post (4/23/09)
3. “Torture Memos vs. Red Cross Report: Prisoners’ Recollections differ from Guidelines” — a side by side comparison chart, from ProPublica (4/24/09)
4. The significance of Obama’s decision to release the torture memos, is an important and thoughtful piece by Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com (4/23/09).
5. “America’s quick recovery from its torture program suggests it wasn’t a torture program in the first place,” by Slate Magazine’s great writer Dahlia Lithwick (4/17/09). To quote:
   

   Laced like cynical poison through the four newly released Justice Department torture memos is the logic of quick healing: Eleven days of sleep deprivation is not illegal torture so long as the prisoner gets to sleep it off later. Writes then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee: “The effect of such sleep deprivation will generally remit after one or two nights of uninterrupted sleep.” In that same memo we learn that water-boarding is also not illegal torture because the simulated drowning lasts only 20 to 40 seconds, and thus, “the waterboard is simply a controlled acute episode, lacking the connotation of a protracted period of time generally given to suffering.” By the same token, “walling” (i.e., slamming someone into a wall) isn’t torture either because “the head and neck are supported with a rolled hood or towel that provides a c-collar effect to help prevent whiplash.”

6. A Tale of Torture Grows More Timely by the Day. This is from the New York Times THEATER section By PATRICK HEALY, May 02, 2009. To summarize: In a relatively rare confluence of theater and politics, the critically lauded production of “Torture” opened nine days before the Justice Department made public four memos that described brutal interrogation techniques.

See also for further info on this subject.

Carol Gee – Online Universe is the all-in-one home page for all my websites.

Technorati tags: news news and politics politics obama administration torture OLC Gitmo CIA

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Bloggers deserve kudos for their good work

Much discomfort remains connected to the issue of what to do about Bush administration leftovers. Many progressives are still actively advocating for investigation, truth-telling, accountability and reform. Therefore, we rely on the hard news sources as well as the blogosphere to keep us well informed. I use a news aggregator. I have a section in my Bloglines aggregator called “Investigative faves.” Let me show you why you, too should be reading them. The list is in reverse chronological order:

1. TPM Muckraker for “Report: Top Gossling Pushed to Declassify Info to ‘Embarrass the Democrats’,” by Zachary Roth (5/6/09). The story refers to former Rep. Peter Goss, who served for a time (not very well) at the CIA. Did any of the associated Goss underlings leak the story about Rep Jane Harman and AIPAC? Just below this story is one titled, “Zelikow: I Think Cheney Tried to Destroy My Torture Memo, ” by Zachary Roth (5/6/09). The title is self-explanatory.
2. Firedoglake.com’s emptywheel is mostly written by Marcy Wheeler, who writes today asking “The OPR Report Why No Sanctions for Bradbury?“This post cites the original WaPo story and asks a number of very important questions regarding what should happen to the torture memo lawyers. Yesterday’s post was closely related: “Dougie Feith’s Little Shop of Tortures?” For this she researched Doug Feith’s 2003 testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, and made some fine deductions. Wheeler does perhaps the best investigation online. Blogger bmaz explains (5/5/09):
   

   We started this discussion in earnest a little over two weeks ago when Marcy Wheeler scooped the world by revealing that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Was Waterboarded 183 Times in One Month and Abu-Zubaydah 83 times. Marcy didn’t get handed the information by a governmental press flack and she didn’t print it as a result of a leak from some coddled and conflicted secret source with an agenda. Nope, she did it the old fashioned way, she earned it by doing the tedious grunt work of reading the memos and documents. The very work the traditional press shirked.

3. ACLU Blog of Rights posted a piece titled, “Guantanamo Bay, U.S.A.?” The (5/6/09) story concerns the possibility that the Obama administration will go back to the use of military commissions for some of its detainees. Another big story asks whether the “DOJ Ethics Report [is] coming soon? (5/5/09)
4. Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com wrote, “Someone needs to give Jane Harman an award for this,” (5/4/09). Regarding Harman’s appearance at the AIPAC conference, crusading against domestic surveillance. Another fine post is titled, “UAE ‘torture’ scandal and cover-up sparks outrage in the U.S.,” (4/3/09). You may have seen this disturbing video on television recently.
5. Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood. He recently posted that the “Govt Seeks Dismissal of AIPAC Case,” (5/1/09). This is another article connected to the Harman AIPAC episode. On April 29, Aftergood wrote, “Appeals Court Curbs Use of State Secrets Privilege.” This regards the ACLU vs. Jeppesen DataPlan lawsuit.
6. Spy Talk at CQ Politics is written by Jeff Stein. On May 4 his headline read, “Rice: ‘We were deaf, dumb and blind’ on al Qaeda on Sept. 11, 2001.” The /11.post discusses Rice’s penchant for helping little kids understand what was going on with the grown-ups on 9/11. His question for the April 28 post asked,”What did top spook Blair really say about Harman and the NSA?.” This refers to Adm. Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence.
7. Wired: Threat Level by Kim Zetter: “DOJ Faulted for Failing to Follow Surveillance Reporting Requirements, ” (4/30/09). To quote:
   

   Following the release of an annual report this week about wiretaps requested by state and federal law enforcement agencies comes a complaint from the Electronic Privacy Information Center that the government has been derelict in its duty to report other surveillance statistics having to do with “pen register” and “trap and trace” orders.

   In a letter (.pdf) sent Wednesday to Senator Patrick Leahy (D – Vermont), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, EPIC noted that the Justice Department had failed to report the use of such surveillance as required by federal law.

8. About.com-Civil Liberties is written by Tom Head. Here is an example of his work: “Sympathy for the Devil,” (4/22/09). It begins, “According to memos released by the Obama administration last week, the CIA under the Bush administration tortured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed 183 times in March 2003 alone.”

Those of us who are expecting that these questions and problems are not going to disappear soon, want to see the truth get out. We want justice done and the rule of law return full force to the current administration. We can settle for no less.

[Original post date at S/SW: 5/6/09]

See also Behind the Links, for further info on this subject.

Carol Gee – Online Universe is the all-in-one home page for all my websites.

Technorati tags: news news and politics politics national intelligence blog news torture APAIC jane harman

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Oh no they didn’t try to slip this one past a bitch on a Friday…

A bitch remembers the anthrax by mail terror attacks very well. I worked for a radio ownership group that had just enough scandalicious on-air talent to warrant a security briefing for all staff that came in contact with mail. I’ll never forget watching the new reports of people who were ill or had died as a result of murder sent by post.

So, I’ve followed the case…or lack of a case…for years and I was intrigued by the Justice Department’s singling out of a certain former Army scientist named Steven Hatfill who was leaked as a person of interest in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

Well, that same Justice Department has reportedly reached a $5.8 million dollar settlement with Hatfill that will result in the dismissal of a case brought by Hatfill claiming that the Justice Department violated his privacy rights when they leaked his name to reporters.
The Associated Press reports Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse responding to the settlement with this bullshit, “The United States does not admit to any violation of the Privacy Act and continues to deny all liability in connection with Dr. Hatfill’s claims.”

Yeah, right.

Y’all are just gonna pay $2.825 million dollars up front then buy Hatfill a $3 million annuity that will pay him $150,000 each year for 20 years for the hell of it?

Uh uh, that dawg don’t hunt…plus, this bitch is beyond tired of government money going toward negotiated pay-offs for all the wrongs The Man has done.

If a bitch were in power (Ruler of the Known Universe or something like that…wink), all Justice Department employees who worked on this fubarity would be required to pay into the We-Fucked-Up-and-Spilled-Rumors-Dressed-Up-as-Facts-to-the-Press fund until they hit that magic $5.8 million dollar number or died trying.

Government minions would still do that wretched shit…but at least they’d do it with some fucking this-could-cost-me caution.

As for our government apprehending and prosecuting the organization, individuals or individual responsible for the 2001 anthrax attacks that sickened 17 and killed five people?

***cue crickets***

Mercy…

Crossposted from The Angry Black Bitch.

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The $300 Billion betrayal

Our soldiers arent’ getting the protection and the equipment they need. Yet BushCo has squandered 300 Large on boondoggles like we see in the video. From Alternet. These people are Absolute Corruption.

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The year in Corruption

A heartfelt thank you to the wonderful folks over at TPMmuckraker. They have taken the time to build a list of who’s who in the world of political corruption. Their standards were strict, which is why Karl Rove didn’t make the cut. They insisted on proof positive that the individual was guilty of corruption..and sadly, no one has actually busted Krazy Karl yet. Also, a TPM reader, DavidSilver, has created a nice pictorial homage to these fuckwits here. Now, onto the list!

Indicted / Convicted/ Pled Guilty

* Eric G. Andell – deputy undersecretary in charge of newly created Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools (previously senior adviser to Secretary of Education Rod Paige) – pleaded guilty to one count of conflict of interest for using government travel for personal causes and was sentenced to one year of probation, 100 hours of community service, and fined $5,000.

* Claude Allen – Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy- resigned, pled guilty to shoplifting from Target stores.

* Lester Crawford – Commissioner, FDA – resigned in late September 2005 after only two months on the job. On October 17th, he pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts, making a false writing and conflict of interest. On February 27, 2007, Crawford was sentenced to to three years of probation and was fined $90,000.

* Brian Doyle – Deputy Press Secretary, Department of Homeland Security – Resigned in wake of child sex scandal. Doyle was arrested on April 4th, 2006 and pleaded no contest on September 19, 2006 to seven counts of use of a computer to seduce a child and sixteen counts of transmitting harmful material to a minor. On November 17th, 2006 Brian Doyle was sentenced to five years in state prison and ten years of probation. He will also need to register as a sex offender.

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BushCo says F**k no to CA emission standards

BushCo said it actually to 17 states in all. This little Caesar wants all the control, all of the time it seems. Excuse me whilst I toss my cookies over this latest, fresh hell perpetrated by the Bush Cartel. From the NYT article:

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday denied California and 16 other states the right to set their own standards for carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles.

The E.P.A. administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, said the proposed California rules were pre-empted by federal authority and made moot by the energy bill signed into law by President Bush on Wednesday. Mr. Johnson said California had failed to make a compelling case that it needed authority to write its own standards for greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks to help curb global warming.

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Top 10 Ethics Scandals for 2007

Courtesy of CREW, Citizens for Responsibilty and Ethics in Washington has released their year end report. They note at the top of the page that despite the Democrat’s election vow to institute more checks and balances on Congressional ethics, not a damn thing has changed in that regard. No new enforcement regulations were put into law in the 110th Congress, and a group of fuckwits tasked with providing a report as to what needed to be done has yet to issue said report. Now, on to the scandals!

Ted “Bridge to Nowhere” Stevens

Teddy Stevens had his house in Alaska raided by the FBI and IRS this year. “Stevens is under federal investigation for his dealings with Bill Allen, founder of VECO Corp., an Alaska-based oil field services and engineering company that has been awarded tens of millions of dollars in federal contracts. Allen has admitted to paying for an addition to Sen. Stevens’ home.”

Senator Larry Craig

Larry has a penchant for airport restrooms and blowjobs , which caught the attention of most of the U.S. when he plead guilty to soliciting an undercover cop in a MN airport restroom. The Senate Ethics committee is *cough* investigating whether Craig violated the Senate rule prohibiting members from engaging in “improper conduct which reflects upon the Senate.”

Senator David “Diaper” Vitter

Vitter had a penchant for hookers and diapers evidently but the Senate isn’t investigating him for violating the Senate rule prohibiting members from engaging in “improper conduct which reflects upon the Senate”. But they are investigating Larry Craig..Go figure.

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Californias Feinstein still on the fence about Telco immunity? Help push her off!

Watch this short commercial by Brad Whitford about the two bills that greatly differ with regards to the retroactive telecom immunity that BushCo is trying to shove down our throat. Chris Dodd, bless his heart, has promised to filibuster the craptastic one. DiFi hasn’t said how she feels about the bill.

 

 

Call DiFi and tell that slut to make up her little mind and support NO amnesty for the Telco’s.
Her phone numbers:

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THE FAHRENHEIT 451 SOCIETY

By ABE and BIBLE BELTED

Does anyone remember a science fiction book titled Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury? We do. When some of us were growing up we read a lot of Bradbury and we feel that this particular book is especially prophetic.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the plot line, it takes place in a futuristic society in which books have been banned, the written word has virtually been stamped out. So we’re talking about a society in which not only offensive or controversial literature has been eradicated, but a totalitarian regime in which ALL written material has been effectively banned. In this regime, the individuals responsible for “maintaining order” as it were are the firemen, who hunt down and burn surviving books from the past. That’s right. You read us correctly. The firemen in this society, often operating on anonymous tips, are the preservers of repression as they go about burning books to preserve the stability of their insane world.

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The Resister

It’s been a long time since I was in the Army. I was drafted in 1968 and I served 22 months in all, with the last 12 being in Vietnam. I was a combat infantryman in a mortar platoon. I always had some shame after Vietnam. I was always ashamed that I didn’t see the war for what it was right away. Others make the excuses for me and I’ve heard them all. “You were a young boy” or “You did what your country asked of you”. Yes, I was young, very young. I was in the Army before I was 19. I got out, after being in the war, before I was 21. And I did go and serve when I was asked to via the draft. But the truth be told, as a young boy, I believed that if I was drafted and I didn’t report, I’d get caught and go to jail. It would be breaking the law and they wouldn’t let anyone get away with that. I knew there were those that were going to Canada to escape the draft. There were also those in college. My brother went into the Marine Corps in 1963 when he was 17. Dad signed a waiver so he could join while so young. He had to graduate high school first. It wasn’t long after he was in the Marines that his girlfriend joined him at Camp Pendleton, California. They got married immediately and they had a child. I can’t attest to this being his plan so he wouldn’t have to go to Vietnam. In 1963 it was just “advisors” being sent over there anyway. Or it might be me not wanting to give my brother credit for avoiding the war.Once in Vietnam, I realized that it was a crock of bullshit and that I wasn’t defending freedom for anyone. It was dog eat dog, just like it is in any place in the USA. If you had a hungry family, you had to get food. If the North Vietnamese Communists had the food, you were a Communist. If the South Vietnamese had the food, you were a Nationalist. Some went both ways and were Communists by the light of the moon, and Nationalists by light of day.

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peace protesters and free speech

In a conversation the other day about the Peace Vigil that takes place once per week here in Ashland, we wondered why we didn’t hear much, overall, about protests, either that they are held, or that they had anyone in attendance. Not about the small gathering here in Ashland, but on the National level, in bigger cities where thousands are in attendance. Seems like the colleges in and around Minneapolis/St. Paul, for example, don’t have anything going on and this war has been on for almost five years.One of my friends says it’s the draft and lack of it. “If there was a draft like when the Vietnam war was going on, you’d see the college students in the streets.” I believe there is some truth to that. I also do not ever want to see a Kent State massacre again.

I have also seen the reports about the way government handles protesters at rallies and events and keeps them out of sight and earshot. Creating holding pens where the protesters, with proper legal permits, can congregate and hold their signs. If found out of these temporary perimeters, they are arrested. This happened to Cindy Sheehan more than once. In fact, Mrs’ Spadoman, on a trip to Crawford with Cindy and Code Pink, found herself being held in a containment area when she was waiting for the release of someone who was arrested.

Daniel Ellsberg, of the Pentagon Papers fame, was arrested along with a few others for going into a ditch along side the road that the police said the protesters couldn’t go in to. Barb volunteered, as one of the few who had a car on site, to wait at the Crawford Court House to drive any of the arrested people back to their motel or vehicle. She had to wait in a designated area. She was not allowed to wait at large in the town.

We have been holding the Peace Vigil in Ashland for almost a year. We have had a small turnout. We discussed why this was so. In a small town, it is harder than a large city. Some people don’t want to be seen there, even though they support the theme of Peace. Some work. Some don’t think about coming and being a part of it. We get a lot of support in other ways, but also a lot of apathy.

Mrs. Spadoman has been marching forever it seems. Longer than I. When we lived in St. Paul, she went every Wednesday morning to a protest at Alliant Techsystems Inc., or ATK, the parent company that makes Depleted Uranium munitions. Through the internet, an e-mail from Alliant Action came and had a reference to a blog with an great article about protesters and the upcoming Republican National Convention, or RNC, that will take place in Minneapolis next September. Minneapolis, being in a very liberal part of the country, has many peace and protest groups of their own, and many chapters of National organizations. They have started early to assemble and plan an orderly large scale protest to take place during the RNC.

The article deals with what the FBI and Federal Government is doing at massive protests and is quite interesting. It is written by Charley Underwood. I am not sure of Mr. Underwoods background, but he seems to be one of the writers of the mnblue blog. MNblue is a great find for anyone, even if you don’t live in Minnesota. It covers Minnesota politicians, but also National issues. It is a unique perspective from the heartland. You can go HERE to read the article. I have also printed it below. It is entitled “The Republican Convention and the Illusion of Free Speech”

Peace to All, Here’s the article from mnblue:

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resistance is not futile

i have tooled around the internets over the weekend to see what i could see. i have been on a self imposed news blackout for quite some time- which means i scan the headlines only instead of seeking out more. i don’t need to see much more. don’t get me wrong- i think that it is imperative that the journalists do their jobs and hopefully bring back some investigative journalism- even if it has to be freelance. i doubt seriously that the fourth estate will ever recover. anyway, that isn’t my thought trail this time. i get the feeling that folks are in a quandary over what the hell to do about the current and future state of affairs we find ourselves in. i know i am. everyday, more and more corruption is exposed with little to no accountability- and it’s maddening. of course, we know in our deepest spots of the mind what we will have to do eventually- but what to do in the meantime? how does a country wrest back it’s democracy from the hands of the rich and the corporations? how does one take on city hall and win? yeah. i know. me too. no clue. i have no desire to end up on the subversives list and get carted off to a detention center. i mean first meter readers and now firefighters- on top of the cell phone tracking and warrantless wiretapping- what’s next- tasering motorists and protesters? oh wait. since we are now in a police state- with the police being trained like military- how are we going to fight back? conventional methods used in the past- protesting en masse, voting- have not worked. what can we, the people, in order to form a more perfect union, possibly do to end this march towards fascism?

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

hmmmmm………

tags:democracy, civil liberties, america

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PTSD and the VA: A Story of Fact

In the Spring of 1993, I moved from Northern Minnesota to Grand Junction, Colorado. The move was to a different climate and a change of scenery and we thought we’d try the mountains; thought the fresh start would help us cope with the loss of our daughter-we were running from something. I had suffered a mild heart attack in winter of ‘93 and I didn’t think I should stay on and continue the job I was doing. I got a clean bill of health from the Cardiologist and packed up the truck and moved. When I got situated in Grand Junction, I met a man with a nephew who had gotten money from the VA for PTSD. I didn’t really know what PTSD was, but when I got an explanation and did some research, I found out that many of the symptoms associated with PTSD and returning Vietnam War Veterans, had manifested a foothold in my own life.

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