by Albert Einstein
It appears that Kvatch over at Blognonymous has proven my theory of the space/time continuum, and amazingly has been able to pre-view tonight's State of the Union speech before President Bush actually delivers it (within the normal bounds of the pathetically sluggish speed of light, a mere 299,792,458 meters per second).
Kvatch has posted the full text of the president's soon-to-be-delivered speech here.
In the interests of equal time and fair play, I have also bent the rules, along with the relevant beams of light, and pre-viewed the Democrats' response, as (will be) delivered by Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine, with the intention of posting his remarks here at 604.
However, at the last minute, an unfortunate event occurred/will occur to the governor. Just as he was about to begin his rebuttal, he was/will be arrested for planning to falsify his 2008 tax return (apparently the IRS has also mastered my theory).
Fortunately, that peerless American patriot, Karl Rove, just happened to be in the studio at the time of citizen Kaine's arrest. He picked up the text of the speech where Kaine dropped it on the floor, and read it to the camera, verbatim (so he claimed).
Here is the full text of the Kaine rebuttal, as read by Rove:
"President Bush is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life. Thank you and goodnight."
And may God bless America...
by Anthony Ioven
Condoleezza Rice has "ruled out" U.S. financial aid to the Palestinian Authority under the new Hamas government, and is calling on other nations to do the same. Rice said:
You cannot be on one hand dedicated to peace and on the other dedicated to violence. Those two things are irreconcilable.
Makes sense. So why, then, is Israel "the largest recipient of US foreign aid," to the tune of about $3 billion a year?
Last week, when Palestinians were, to many Americans, inexplicably electing a solid Hamas majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council, Israeli soldiers were busy dispatching two dangerous Palestinian militants, according to a UK Guardian report.
One was Aya al-Astal, a 9-year-old girl:
[T]he Israeli army later said Aya was behaving in a suspicious manner reminiscent of a terrorist — she got too close to the border fence — and so a soldier fired several bullets into the child, hitting her in the neck and blowing open her stomach.
Aya's mother said:
We have no idea why she went there but she was a child. She was so small. She was nine years old. She didn't wear a hijab. It was clear she was just a young girl. This is hatred.
The other dire threat to the state of Israel was Munadel Abu Aaalia, a 13-year-old boy:
Soldiers near Ramallah shot 13-year-old Munadel Abu Aaalia in the back as he walked along a road reserved for Jewish settlers with two friends. The army said the boys planned to throw rocks at Israeli cars, which the military defines as terrorism.
As the Guardian report notes: "The two killings went unnoticed by the outside world."
Good lord, Buffy, dear. Why would any Palestinian vote for that horrid Hamas? More coffee?
by Anthony Ioven
All right, class. What would you suppose President Bush would cite as the biggest disappointment of his 5-year presidency? Anyone?
An illegal and unnecessary war in Iraq that has cost the lives of at least 2,241 US soldiers and uncounted Iraqi women and children?
Missing the red flags that should have alerted the administration to a real and present danger from Osama bin Laden?
The extremist Islamic governments in Iran and the occupied Palestinian territories that were democratically elected since we began our crusade of "spreadin' liberty" in the Middle East?
The kidnapping, torture, and outright murder of terrorism suspects?
The erosion of civil liberties and the undermining of the constitution right here at home?
Let me respond to each of your pathetic answers by saying: No... Nope... Uh-uh... Oh, please... and You've got to be kidding. You all fail. I suggest you visit your Army recruiter right after school.
In a Face the Nation interview aired yesterday, our boy-President said his biggest disappointment is:
...the bitterness in Washington, D.C...that's been the biggest disappointment, is the tone in Washington.
Too bad it was Bob Schieffer doing the interview instead of Ted Koppel. It would have been wonderful to hear Koppel say, with that withering gravitas, You just don't get it, do you, Mr. President?
by Anthony Ioven
The bits and bytes in 604's earlier post, You Do the Math, hardly had time to cool when this story flashed on the screen:
The U.S. Army has forced about 50,000 soldiers to continue serving after their voluntary stints ended under a policy called "stop-loss."
So we're cutting troop strength while we're forcing tens of thousands of poor souls to extend their service time? This gives a whole new meaning to the term "fuzzy math."
Apparently, this administration will do anything to avoid a draft — which would be the beginning of the end of their phony War on Terror.
by Anthony Ioven
Media watchdog Project Censored reports on "news stories of social significance that have been overlooked, under-reported or self-censored by the country's major national news media."
In the number 2 position of their top 25 list of under-reported stories for 2005 is Media Coverage on Iraq: Fallujah and the Civilian Death Toll. I would put it at number 1.
The Common Dreams Newswire summarizes the story like this:
The civilized world may well look back on the assaults on Fallujah in 2004 as examples of utter disregard for the most basic wartime rules of engagement. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour called for an investigation into whether the Americans and their allies had engaged in "the deliberate targeting of civilians, indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, the killing of injured persons, and the use of human shields," among other possible "grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions" considered war crimes under federal law. More than 83 percent of Fallujah's 300,000 residents fled the city. Men between the ages of 15 and 45 were refused safe passage, and all who remained—about 50,000—were treated as enemy combatants. Numerous sources reported that coalition forces cut off water and electricity, shot at anyone who ventured out into the open, executed families waving white flags while trying to swim across the Euphrates, shot at ambulances, and allowed corpses to rot in the streets and be eaten by dogs. Medical staff reported seeing people with melted faces and limbs, injuries consistent with the use of phosphorous bombs. But you likely know little of this as the media hardly mentioned it.
The full Project Censored story ends with an update that lists other, smaller Iraqi cities that suffered a similar fate as Fallujah — Al-Qa'im, Karabla, and Haditha. Most disturbing are the reports that "medical personnel were unable to reach [the wounded] due to American snipers," and "U.S. snipers shot anyone in the streets for days on end." And of course, the self-imposed media silence: "Any mention of civilian casualties, heavy-handed tactics or illegal munitions was either brief or non-existent, and continues to be as of June 2005."
by Anthony Ioven
Ok, so I wasn't a math whiz in school. But I know the difference between addition and subtraction.
So with reports like this warning that America's troop strength is stretched dangerously thin, you would expect the administration to take steps to add more troops.
But instead, the administration wants to reduce troop strength:
Under the plan, the authorized troop strength of the Army Reserve would drop from 205,000 - the current number of slots it is allowed - to 188,000, the number of soldiers it had at the end of 2005...
Army leaders have already said they are taking a similar approach to shrinking the National Guard, which the Army is proposing to cut from its authorized level of 350,000 soldiers to 333,000, the number now on National Guard rolls.
The reductions are part of "a broader plan to achieve a new balance of troop strength and combat power among the active Army, the National Guard and reserves to fight the global war on terrorism and to defend the homeland."
What in hell does that mean? The article provides no details. But at the very least, the reductions are going to take some of the security out of "homeland security."
by Anthony Ioven
I tend not to put too much faith in "they stole the election" stories. The media would be all over a story like that, I assumed. And the victim candidate would surely cry foul.
So when AlterNet recently posted an interview with Mark Miller, author of (deep breath) Fooled Again: How The Right Stole The 2004 Election, And Why They'll Steal The Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them), I just skimmed it.
But this caught my eye:
AlterNet: I would think that the 2004 election story, if tracked and broken, would be huge for whoever breaks it. Any other thoughts about why it's so ignored?
Miller: We have to understand that for some decades the press has served basically an establishmentarian function...The press will not deal with any story that goes beyond a particular scandal to cast doubt on the very viability of the entire system. The press in this country will studiously ignore any story that too violently rocks the boat, whose implications are too shattering.
This is not new. Watergate was a story that the press avoided for months and months. Only the Washington Post pursued that story; everybody else made fun of it. Now we look back on Watergate with tremendous nostalgia and self-congratulation, telling ourselves the press saved the system. But since Watergate the press has preferred to deal with meaningless and trivial scandals like the Clinton scandals. They will not talk about 9/11, they will not talk about the theft of the last three elections.
That certainly rings true.
Miller later said this:
I think basically Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry this last time are far too concerned with establishment opinion, far too worried that they'll seem to be sore losers, conspiracy theorists, etc. They have therefore refused to go public with what they actually believe. Kerry told me personally on October 28th at a fundraising party that he believes the election was probably stolen.
But hours after Kerry's revelation to Miller broke in the press, a Kerry spokesman "vehemently" denied it:
The only thing true about [Miller's] recollection of the conversation is that he gave Senator Kerry a copy of his book.
Either Kerry or Miller is — well, bending the truth. And we know from his 2004 campaign that Kerry is capable of equivocating the truth right out of existence (and himself right out of the presidency).
If Kerry does, in fact, believe the election was stolen, it's not hard to believe that he would want to hide that opinion from the public. But others, like John Conyers, have not been afraid to state publicly that there were "numerous, serious election irregularities in the Ohio presidential
election, which resulted in a significant disenfranchisement of voters," and that these irregularities skewed the entire election.
I've been wrong — stories of major election fraud and 'Diebold magic' deserve our attention, and even a serious investigation. But I won't hold my breath.
by Joseph Goebbels
Who knows? Had we had the Internet back in my day, World War II might have had a very different outcome. I was that good.
But you Americans are getting quite good at propaganda warfare as well (although you now call it "electronic warfare," or EW).
The declassified Pentagon document Information Operations Roadmap (PDF), signed in 2003 by Donald Rumsfeld himself, outlines your military's plans for EW and other opportunities for, as your president so charmingly put it, "catapulting the propaganda" — mostly through technology that wasn't available to me, or through staged events and other information-control devices that, frankly, I wish I had thought of.
Your three propaganda catapults that I so admire:
Military public affairs officers — Spreading the party line through manufactured opportunities such as "Town Hall meetings," "Humanitarian road-shows," "Domestic opinion pieces and editorials by senior DoD officials," and by that brilliant device I so envy, "Media embeds."
DoD support to public diplomacy — Examples: "Content of speeches or OP/ED pieces by senior DOD officials to foreign audiences," "Talking points for private exchanges with foreign leaders," and support to other agency information activities, such as Voice of America and TV Marti.
Psychological Operations (psyops — how I wish I had thought of that lovely term) — Examples: "Radio/TV/Print/Web media designed to directly modify behavior," a global web site to promote US objectives, use of new technologies such as wireless devices, cellphones, and the Internet, and assistance to friendly forces for developing their own psyop programs.
The roadmap acknowledges that "PSYOP is restricted by both DoD policy and executive order from targeting American audiences, our military personnel and news agencies our outlets." But then, so cleverly, it adds:
However, information intended for foreign audiences including public diplomacy and PSYOP, increasingly is consumed by our domestic audience and vice-versa.
PSYOP messages disseminated to any audience except individual decision-makers (and perhaps even then) will often be replayed by the news media for much larger audiences, including the American public.
Ach, the memories. I can almost see der Fuhrer winking and smiling at me affectionately for saying something so diabolically calculating.
And what does the roadmap foresee down the road for EW? According to the BBC:
The US military seeks the capability to knock out every telephone, every networked computer, every radar system on the planet.
I am humbled...
by Anthony Ioven
604 to Hillary Clinton — Please keep your carpetbagger hands off of health care reform. You had your chance a decade ago and (you should pardon the expression) you blew it.
Clinton announced this week that she is "ready to get back into the fray" of health care reform, neglecting to mention that her byzantine, 1,000-page Health Security Act of 1993 effectively killed any chance of real reform right up to the present day.
The American health care system is an expensive, inefficient web of redundant bureaucracies. It is funded in large part by private businesses, which puts them at a serious disadvantage with competitors in more enlightened countries with publicly funded health care.
Hillarycare not only would have retained the complexity and inefficiency of the current system, it would have added to it. All businesses would have been required to provide health insurance for its workers. Smaller businesses that couldn't afford it on their own would have been forced to join a newly-created bureaucracy of regional alliances for providing health insurance. It would have been a monolithic, bureaucratic nightmare.
If we're serious about health care reform, we need to move towards a simpler, saner, more efficient single-payer system.
And we need to keep Clinton away from it.
by Anthony Ioven
On Saturday, Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer was convicted by a military court of negligent homicide and negligent dereliction of duty, resulting in the death of an Iraqi general he was "interrogating:"
Prosecutors had described Welshofer as a rogue interrogator who became frustrated with Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush's refusal to answer questions and escalated his techniques from simple interviews to beatings to simulating drowning, and finally, to death.
The Iraqi's death was caused by Welshofer's "stuffing the Iraqi general headfirst into a sleeping bag and sitting on his chest."
On Monday, Daniel Burns was convicted of trespassing and damaging government property. In 2003, Burns splashed his own blood inside a military recruitment office in protest of the Iraq war.
Protester Burns was sentenced to six months in prison. Welshofer, who caused the death of the Iraqi officer, can be sentenced to a maximum of 60 days of barracks restriction. No jail time.
Go figure...
by Anthony Ioven
Yesterday, AlterNet launched a new blog called Echo Chamber. Its mission is to "cover how progressive ideas and issues are communicated and gain traction in the overall media universe."
AlterNet sees two main problems with the progressive movement:
Ineffective amplification of progressive ideas and goals in the media. How do we "echo" a progressive message "frequently in various media by multiple message carriers until it reaches a tipping point or helps achieve a political goal, or becomes part of the overall national political conversation"?
The "movement" is currently just a "conglomeration of several different issues or identity-based movements."
American progressives are like a thousand points of light. We've never found a way to shine that light through a single, powerful lens, and that's why "we are no closer to the rebirth of a genuine movement [today] than we were 25 years ago."
Don't know if Echo Chamber will ultimately provide the lens, but maybe it will be a start.
by Anthony Ioven
More than 40 years after the fact, the assassination of John Kennedy continues to haunt us.
Well, at least some of us. Some youngsters out there probably think it's just ancient history, and I can't blame them.
But JFK's assassination was like an iron post deflecting the flight of a rifle shot — it set us off in an entirely new direction, leading to where we are today.
Incredibly, the events of the last 40 years have taken us from an inspirational leader who could make us believe in the impossible...
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other
things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
...to a bumbling pretender of a president who complains that his job is such "hard work."
We still don't know what happened on November 22, 1963. The last official word came in 1979, from the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives. Its conclusion:
The committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The committee was unable to identify the other gunmen or the extent of the conspiracy.
A recent German documentary claims the assassination was a conspiracy between Lee Harvey Oswald and Cuban intelligence, G2. There are no plans for the documentary to be shown in the US. More on the documentary here, here, here, and here.
Castro and Castro loyalists certainly had a motive for wanting Kennedy dead. We were trying our best to kill him. But others had motive, too, including anti-Castro Cubans.
According to the documentary, Cuba paid Oswald $6,500 to kill Kennedy. If that's true, the Cubans didn't get their money's worth, because Oswald didn't fire the fatal shot.
Oswald was positioned behind the president's limousine when the shots were fired. But according to eyewitnesses, the fatal shot was fired from the front.
One of those eyewitnesses is me, thanks to the Zapruder film. If you've seen the film, you're a witness, too.
If you haven't seen the film, take a look at the fatal shot (warning: very graphic and disturbing). Unless you believe that Kennedy's head snapped backwards as a result of the jet effect or a neurological spasm, you'll likely agree that a shooter had to be positioned in front of Kennedy and to his right.
And that means the event that shifted the course of history and brought us from inspirational leadership (We do these things because they are hard) to lame excuses (Being president's hard work) remains a mystery, one that might explain a little bit about who and what we are.
You can find links to both sides of the controversy here.
by Anthony Ioven
AlterNet recently posted an interesting interview with three American vets back from the war in Iraq.
What is striking is the sense of disillusionment and betrayal that runs through the words of these young men — not, as the Bush administration would have us believe, because "defeatists" in this country have called for US troop withdrawals, but because of the failures of the Bush administration itself. And more importantly, because of our failures, the celebrated American public.
In their words:
[W]hen I came home I was pissed off and dissatisfied with the dialogue. In the spring of 2004, John Kerry and George Bush were throwing the Iraq war back and forth like a political football. And to be honest with you, nobody really knew what the heck they were talking about. The news media was dominated by Martha Stewart and what color pajamas Michael Jackson was wearing, and the country didn't really seem connected with the war.
. . .
I don't care what George Bush tells you, our military's been run into the ground. More than half of our folks are there for a second time, the divorce rates have doubled, we're now moving combat units out of Korea and out of training units in the United States to perform combat missions in Iraq, recruiting numbers are in the toilet, and retention numbers will soon fall. At the end of the day, he's really destroyed our military, and that will have long-term effects for our national security for decades.
. . .
Accountability and responsibility. I bring up these two words because the American public are largely responsible for where we are right now, therefore they are accountable for our nation's failure in Iraq and diminishing status abroad...We allowed ourselves to be manipulated following 9/11 and adopted the "any Muslim will do" attitude that afforded the administration the opportunity to use 9/11 to justify Iraq, a nation that had nothing to do with the attacks.
. . .
While the American public is to blame for allowing itself to be manipulated, this administration is to blame for the manipulation. The war in Iraq has been a total failure and an abuse of power...Bush and the rest of this administration must be held accountable for their colossal failures following 9/11, chiefly focusing on Iraq while Osama bin Laden is still at large, and for manipulating intelligence, lying to the U.N., and for the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis and U.S. service members.
. . .
While the military ranks tend to be more conservative than the nation as a whole, more and more veterans of this war are becoming disillusioned. For many of us it all goes back to WMD, the president's primary — or sole — justification for the invasion. When they weren't found — hard to find something that is nonexistent — the ever-morphing rationale for the war is disheartening for those fighting it.
We've let these young people down — you and me.
In 1964, Kitty Genovese was brutally stabbed to death in a middle-class neighborhood of Queens, New York. The attack lasted for over 15 minutes. During that time, her screams and cries for help were heard by no less than 37 residents. No one tried to stop the attack. No one even called police until half an hour after the attack began.
Forty years later, an entire nation collectively pulled down its shades and turned up its TVs so we wouldn't hear the cries of anguish and screams of pain from Iraq. Iraq is somebody else's problem. Let's not get involved.
by Anthony Ioven
Molly Ivins' patience is clearly wearing thin with do-nothing Democrats:
What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes.
The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF?
But the Dems are no doubt aware of these polls. If there's one thing a politician knows how to do, it's suck on his finger and stick it in the air.
Something else must be in play here. Something that is corrupting the entire political process. But what? What could it possibly be?
by Anthony Ioven
If a low-level employee of a large corporation can make former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich feel like "a chump," what chance do the rest of us have dealing with these behemoths?
Reich recently moved from Massachusetts to California, and he was trying to transfer his money from his Massachusetts bank to a California bank:
The nice young man who was sitting there at a computer in the California bank told me I’d have to wait two weeks for my check to clear.
We’re in an electronic age. Money moves from Boston to Bangkok in two seconds. My car and furniture got moved from Massachusetts to California in ten days. Why should it take two weeks for my money to move from Massachusetts to California? The nice young man, sitting behind the computer, explained that Massachusetts was a different state from California, I was new to California, and, well, various things had to be looked into.
The bank clerk's lame excuse is typical of what customer service reps of large corporations find themselves doing day in and day out — defending the indefensible, like minor-league Scott McClellans. The excuse didn't fool Reich — he knew the bank was simply getting free use of his money for two weeks for no good reason whatsoever. But this once powerful member of President Clinton's first administration was powerless against this "nice young man" and the arrogant colossus he represented.
The bank in question is Bank of America, which reached megabank status by acquiring other banks — in my neck of the woods, Fleet, which acquired Bank of Boston, which acquired BayBanks and, I'm sure, some minnows, too.
Is this big-fish-eats-little-fish method of growing a business really good for America? The answer is Yes, if you happen to be a Borg or a Borg wannabe. Otherwise, not so much, as customers like Reich will attest. And speaking as one who has been assimilated by the Borg of the computer industry — yes, resistance was, indeed, futile — it's not so great being a drone inside the collective, either.
How is it good for America for a General Electric to own NBC? For Altria (nee Philip Morris) to own Nabisco, Kraft, and General Foods? For Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation to own American TV and radio stations, book publishers, film studios, sports stadiums, and sports teams?
I am Locutus, of Borg. Resistance is futile. Your life as it has been, is over. From this time forward, you will service us.
by Anthony Ioven
This just in from Voice of America:
U.S. news reports Tuesday said a U.S. missile attack in eastern England last week killed three known leaders of the al-Qaida terrorist network, including one who was a master bomb maker and chemical weapons expert.
ABC News reported Wednesday that English authorities identified one of the dead as Midhat Mursi, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri, who is believed to have run al-Qaida's Derunta training camp. The United States had posted a five million-dollar reward for his capture.
At least 18 people, including civilians, were killed in the bombing.
The report comes as English Prime Minister Tony Blair begins a six-day visit to the United States that includes a meeting with President Bush.
On Tuesday, Mr. Blair said England cannot accept such military strikes on its territory, and said he will raise the issue with U.S. officials.
Ok, I admit to fixing the facts of this story. But I'd be willing to wager that in the brief moment it took you to realize the bombing took place in Pakistan, not England, you were shocked — more than you were when the story of the actual bombing in Pakistan broke.
I have to wonder — if these same three dangerous men were thought to be in a home in, say, Maidstone, England, or London, or Boston, for that matter, would we still have bombed the place, civilians be damned?
The very idea is absurd, out of the question. Why is it not so for Pakistan?
An emotional editorial in a Pakistani daily paper expressed the outrage of the Pakistani people, not only over the loss of life itself, but over the arrogance that allowed it to happen:
[I]t is not American lives alone that are precious in this world. The people of this country are not children of a lesser god. Their lives are just as priceless.
Do we really need to be reminded of this? What is happening to us?
by Anthony Ioven
Which is the real Al Gore? The wooden Indian who ran for president in 2000? Or the one who yesterday delivered that fiery, hard-hitting, plain-spoken speech?
The media hyped the speech for days, and I thought it was sure to disappoint. But Gore came through, magnificently, to the sound of "thunderous ovations:"
One day, we will all look back to Mr. Gore's speech, and either be proud that we listened and understood and fought for the sanctity of the US Constitution.....or be embarrassed and shocked that we didn't comprehend the utter seriousness of the predicament of the United States of America in 2006.
Gore has put the ball in play. Now, can the Democrats run with it?
That question remains to be answered, and I have my doubts. But I know one thing — had Gore been so blunt and impassioned six years ago, we'd be calling him Mr. President now.
We may yet.
by Martin Luther King
I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
. . .
We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
. . .
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
. . .
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
. . .
Now of course one of the difficulties in speaking out today grows out of the fact that there are those who are seeking to equate dissent with disloyalty. It is a dark day in our nation when high level authorities will seek to use every method to silence dissent. Something has happened and people are not going to be silent, the truth must be told. Yes we must stand, and we must speak. There comes a time when silence is betrayal.
. . .
Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man.
by Deep Post
An absolutely unimpeachable White House source informed me that the following conversation took place, word for word, in the Oval Office this morning between President Bush and the Official White House Nanny:
Nanny: Georgie, I told you I don't want you playing with Mr. Rove. He's a bad man.
POTUS: Turd Blossom?
Nanny: Don't call him that. It's not nice. Even if he is a Turd Blossom for what he's doing to Representative Murtha. And now he's got people questioning the Purple Hearts Mr. Murtha earned in Vietnam, just like they did to that nice Mr. Kerry.
POTUS: Murtha deserves it. Givin' comfort to our adversaries with all that defeatist talk. Deserves a good whuppin', too. Where's that switch stick daddy uses on me...
Nanny: It's in Kennebunkport, Georgie. And stop looking under the desk when I'm sitting across from you. I've told you, it isn't polite.
POTUS: Wait'll you hear what else Turd Blossom — I mean, Boy Genius thought up. He's gonna make me into a war hero.
Nanny: Georgie, don't let him tease you like that. You've never been anywhere near a war zone. Mr. Rove may be mean, but he's not a magician, Georgie.
POTUS: He ain't, huh? You know those few days back in the 70s when I maybe wasn't where I was supposed to be in the National Guard?
Nanny: You mean between May, 1972 and April, 1973? Those few days?
POTUS: Yeah, whatever. Anyway, Turd Blossom's gonna leak it that I was actually on a secret mission in Vietnam during that time.
Nanny: Oh, Georgie, no one's going to believe that.
POTUS: Sure they will. Karl's got pictures and everything — you wouldn't believe what they can do with Photoshop nowadays. So Karl's gonna leak it that I led a secret commando team into North Vietnam as part of Operation Kleenex —
Nanny: You mean Operation Phoenix, dear.
POTUS: Whatever. He's gonna leak it that we went around killin' all the top gooks who were against the North signin' a peace agreement with us. This went on for months. Come January 1973, after we wasted enough of 'em, presto — peace with honor.
Nanny: Georgie, no one will believe you could have led such a mission. You're too... too...
POTUS: Watch it, Nanny. I've put people in Gitmo for less.
Nanny: Nice, Georgie. You're too nice a man to have done those things. You pick up that phone right now, that's right, and you call Mr. Rove and tell him to forget this silliness, and also tell him to leave Mr. Murtha alone. [Leaves.]
POTUS: Karl? George. Listen — you ever swift-boat a nanny?
by Anthony Ioven
The US Government tried to overthrow him, and Pat Robertson wanted him whacked, but Hugo Chavez still lives to stick his thumb in our eye another day.
In the latest spitting contest with Chavez, the US is trying to stop him from purchasing 12 military planes from Spain by refusing to license the American-made parts and technology that the planes contain.
But Venezuela wants the planes, and Spain wants the $2 billion and the 1,000 new jobs that the sale will generate. So these two surprisingly (for leftists) entrepreneurial governments applied some good 'ol (South) American know-how and agreed on a workaround — Spain will replace the American components with more expensive components made in Europe.
If there's one thing Americans can't stand, it's being shown up — especially by a couple of freedom-hating Socialists. We immediately protested the component switcharoo:
The US says Venezuela's Socialist President Hugo Chavez could use the planes to destabilise the region.
Destabilize the region? With 12 planes? Well, maybe so, because if there's one thing America knows quite a bit about, it's how to destabilize a region.
by Anthony Ioven
Take this quick quiz at bring it on!. Well worth the trip.
by Faith Hope
So my friend is telling me the other day about this "secret memo" that supposedly exists that has President Bush telling Tony Blair that he wanted to bomb the Al-Jazeera offices in Qatar, never mind that we're not even at war with Qatar and couldn't possibly cover up a thing like that and besides the president wouldn't even consider doing such a crazy and criminal thing — hello, President Bush isn't stupid — but still the loony Left expects us to swallow this wacky conspiracy theory contained in yet another secret British memo and speaking of that why is it that these prim and proper British seem to have as many secret memos as Victoria has secrets in her lingerie drawer, for God's sakes.
So anyway when this phony secret memo hoopla blew up in the news last November the White House called the allegations "outlandish and inconceivable" and Blair stated in no uncertain terms that America gave him no information about such a bombing and so that pretty much killed the phony memo story right there.
So then what's up with this stuff I overheard a couple of Middle-Eastern-looking gentlemen talking about yesterday where the guys who leaked the phony memo are going to stand trial in England for violating the British Official Secrets Act? I mean, if there's no such memo that claims Bush made this nutty bomb threat — and there can't be right? Please tell me there can't be — what evidence will the good government barristers present at the trial?
Good m'lord, if it do please the court, we charge these traitors with outrageous violations of law, based on evidence which we are unable to show this esteemed court because it is both top secret and nonexistent.
These British are a strange lot, What?
Oh well gotta run.
by Farleigh B. Fox
I've supported President Bush's War on Terror right from the start. I'm all for fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here. NIMBY — that's my motto.
This is the way wars should be fought — over there, while here at home life goes on without any unpleasant bumps whatsoever.
Iraq has been what I call a splendid little war, one that doesn't affect me.
So that's why I choked on my latte light when I read this:
Report: Iraq war costs could top $2 trillion.
Further into the story, my worst fears about the true horror of this war were confirmed:
It is obvious that the war in Iraq is going to cost the American taxpayer far more than the Bush administration first said it would.
Wait a minute — I'm an American taxpayer. This war is now affecting me.
What is that flunky Bush and his cabal doing?
Americans need to ask themselves if the White House is in competent hands when a $70 billion war becomes a $2 trillion war. Bush sold his war by understating its cost by a factor of 28.57. Any financial officer any where in the world whose project was 2,857 percent over budget would instantly be fired for utter incompetence.
This war has become utterly unacceptable. It's time to fire the liars.
(What Farleigh forgot to mention, but I'm sure was foremost in his mind, is that as of today, 2,210 American service men and women have lost their lives in Iraq. - Anthony Ioven, 604 Guestblog.)
by Richard M. Nixon
WorldNetDaily is one of my favorite sources of fair and balanced news. I read it religiously. But I have to say, I'm a little embarrassed for them for still trying to make a case for WMDs in Iraq. It's over, boys. Time to board the helicopter and move on.
Here is the latest hope of the desperate about Saddam Hussein's phantom WMDs:
A former intelligence analyst currently working as a civilian contractor will unveil publicly what he believes to be recordings of Saddam Hussein's office meetings discussing his program of developing weapons of mass destruction at an International Intelligence Summit in the nation's capital next month.
The highly confidential audio was overlooked when it was found in a warehouse along with many other untranslated Iraqi intelligence files, according to the contractor. The recordings are very significant because they may contain audio of Saddam's secret intentions regarding weapons of mass destruction, he says.
I know a little something about recording presidential conversations. And I can say without any equivocation whatsoever — I don't recommend it.
After my little audio fiasco a few years back, I doubt the leader of any nation anywhere would record himself talking about anything of substance, and certainly not anything in the least bit incriminating. For Hussein, blabbing on tape about WMDs would be the mother of all boners.
According to WorldNetDaily:
Saddam's secret office recordings continued well into the year 2000. In all, they contain at least 12 hours of totally candid discussions with his senior aides.
Twelve hours? Saddam came to power in 1979, and between then and 2000 he recorded only twelve hours of conversations? Hell, just my <expletive-deleted> deleted expletives came to more than twelve hours.
WorldNetDaily reports that the "audio was overlooked when it was found." How in hell do you overlook an audiotaped conversation of the President of Iraq?
"Hey, look here Mr. Bremer, some tapes with Hussein's name on them."
"Never mind that. I'm looking for his porn collection."
I only wish I had investigators like these going through my tapes.
by Anthony Ioven
Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, Iraq's National Security Advisor, is the latest visionary claiming to see the light at the end of the tunnel, saying that Iraq is "close" to being able to handle the insurgency in his country all by itself:
He said that within the next two years they would be able to cope without the help of international forces.
Two years? That doesn't seem very close to me.
Let's just hope that the light at the end of this tunnel — if there is an end to this tunnel — doesn't resemble the light that the US military worked towards at the end of the Vietnamese tunnel:
by Anthony Ioven
The My Lai massacre of Vietnamese civilians by US soldiers in 1968 was an almost unimaginably savage, shocking crime.
Savage, because of who its victims were:
The official memorial in the village of My Lai lists 504 killed, "182 women, of whom 17 were pregnant, and 173 children, of whom 56 were of infant age. Sixty of the men were over 60 years old…"
Shocking, because it was committed in our name, by ordinary people, just like us.
What would you have done if you were a solider at My Lai?
Some of us, no doubt, have the evil in our hearts, or the arrogance, or the fear, or whatever it takes to order such a crime, as Lt. William Calley did in 1968. He is the only person to have been convicted of a crime there.
Many more of us are simply the tools of people like Calley.
Like Paul Meadlo, who was just being a good solider:
I was just following the orders of my officer like any good soldier—what's the good of having officers if they've nobody to obey them?
Or like Varnado Simpson, who just went along with what everyone else was doing:
I cut their throats, cut off their hands, cut out their tongues, scalped them. I did it. A lot of people were doing it and I just followed. I just lost all sense of direction."
Almost 80 otherwise ordinary Americans participated in the murders, but some did not.
Like Robert Maples, who refused a direct order to shoot.
Like Michael Bernhardt, who "refused to take part, but feels guilty because 'I just stood back and let it happen.'"
Too many of us are like Maples and Bernhardt. People like us would like to think we are not the tools of the Lt. Calleys of this world. But we are. It's not enough to refuse to take part in wrongdoing if we also refuse to do nothing to stop it.
Unlike 24-year-old Hugh Thompson.
Thompson witnessed the horror that day from the safe distance of a helicopter. He could have decided not to get involved and kept flying. But instead, he acted:
Hugh Thompson, by now almost frantic, saw bodies in the ditch, including a few people who were still alive. He landed his helicopter and told Calley to hold his men there while he evacuated the civilians. Thompson told his helicopter crew chief to 'open up on the Americans' if they fired at the civilians. He put himself between Calley's men and the Vietnamese. When a rescue helicopter landed, Thompson had the nine civilians, including five children, flown to the nearest army hospital. Later, Thompson was to land again and rescue a baby still clinging to her dead mother.
Thompson and his crew stopped the slaughter. Here is his account.
For his courage, he was awarded the prestigious Soldier's Medal. But not until 30 years after the event. In between, he was rewarded differently:
But Mr Thompson was shunned for years by fellow soldiers, received death threats, and was once told by a congressman that he was the only American who should be punished over My Lai.
Hugh Thompson died this week of cancer at age 62. He was something that the rest of us will never be — a true hero.
In fact, it's because of the rest of us that horrors like this are allowed to happen.
by Anthony Ioven
Recently Bush and Rumsfeld have been raising hopes about troop reductions in Iraq. Could this be the light at the end of the tunnel?
But then there are the persistent reports of permanent bases being planned in Iraq — the most recent one from the online Daily Mirror quoting an "Iraqi security source":
"Plans for four superbases across the country will only reinforce the view that the US is here to stay for the duration."...
The superbases will be in central Iraq, close to the capital, and also to the north, west and east of Baghdad.
Even more disturbing is this, from the same Mirror report:
America has a string of 'secret' military bases throughout the Gulf states, including Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar.
The huge desert complexes, including airstrips and aircraft hangars, are up to 20 miles square and are not featured on civilian maps.
They started to appear after the first Gulf War 15 years ago, infuriating Islamic extremists and the al-Qaeda terror network.
In fact, US military presence in the Middle East is one of Osama bin Laden's stated reasons for the 9/11 attacks. So it looks like the bases are somewhat of a lethal circular argument — we need the bases because we have the bases.
There is no light at the end of the tunnel. There is just tunnel.
by Anthony Ioven
I have to admit, I've never heard of a presidential "signing statement."
I mean, sure, when a president signs a bill into law, he's free to make any statement he likes — I am proud to sign this bill, or I am signing this bill even though I object to parts of it. Whatever — it's just a sound byte. But once he signs the bill, it's the law, and even the president has to obey it, right?
Apparently not:
When President Bush last week signed the bill outlawing the torture of detainees, he quietly reserved the right to bypass the law under his powers as commander in chief.
After approving the bill last Friday, Bush issued a "signing statement" — an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law — declaring that he will view the interrogation limits in the context of his broader powers to protect national security. This means Bush believes he can waive the restrictions, the White House and legal specialists said.
Excuse me? Where in the constitution or any of its amendments is this "official document" provided for?
You guessed it — Nowhere. The signing statement just sort of materialized gradually, like a wart on the body politic. It dates back to the presidencies of James Monroe and Andrew Jackson, but wasn't used with any regularity until modern times, beginning with (surprise!) the Reagan administration:
It has been used deftly by Presidents Reagan through the current Bush administration to gain advantages lost in the legislative process or to work out losses in the process of veto bargaining.
Essentially, a signing statement is a way for a president to have his cake and eat it too. It lets him sign a bill that he opposes but that is politically advantageous for him to sign, while at the same time, he reserves the right to ignore any portion of the bill that he claims infringes upon his constitutional prerogatives as president.
So in spite of all the hoopla just before Christmas about Bush and John McCain finally coming to terms on the McCain "ban on torture" amendment, the president apparently had his fingers crossed behind his back while he was shaking McCain's hand.
According to the Boston Globe:
Elisa Massimino, Washington director for Human Rights Watch, called Bush's signing statement an "in-your-face affront" to both McCain and to Congress.
"The basic civics lesson that there are three co-equal branches of government that provide checks and balances on each other is being fundamentally rejected by this executive branch," she said.
"Congress is trying to flex its muscle to provide those checks [on detainee abuse], and it's being told through the signing statement that it's impotent. It's quite a radical view."
Thank you very much, but Congress is more than capable of demonstrating its impotence all by itself.
by Anthony Ioven
Just how easy is it to get a surveillance warrant from the FISA court?
And just how extensive was the NSA's secret surveillance operation?
In an interview yesterday with Democracy Now, former NSA intelligence agent Russell Tice offers an insider's opinion:
The FISA court — it’s not very difficult to get something through a FISA court. I kinda liken the FISA court to a monkey with a rubber stamp. The monkey sees a name, the monkey sees a word justification with a block of information. It can't read the block, but it just stamps "affirmed" on the block, and a banana chip rolls out, and then the next paper rolls in front of the monkey. When you have like 20,000 requests and only, I think, four were turned down, you can't look at the FISA court as anything different.
So, you have to ask yourself the question: Why would someone want to go around the FISA court in something like this? I would think the answer could be that this thing is a lot bigger than even the President has been told it is, and that ultimately a vacuum cleaner approach may have been used, in which case you don't get names, and that's ultimately why you wouldn't go to the FISA court.
Something tells me 2006 could be a very wild ride.
by Anthony Ioven
The New York Times continues to be the nation's paper of record, but that record is becoming an increasingly shabby one.
What should have been a major scoop for the paper — the story about the NSA's warrantless wiretaps — quickly turned into just another example of why the "MSM" in general and the NYT in particular have become such a sad joke.
The NYT's Public Editor, Byron Calame, has written a surprisingly frank piece about his insider's efforts to learn why the story was held back for a full year, and why it was published when it was.
On management's "stonewalling":
I e-mailed a list of 28 questions to Bill Keller, the executive editor, on Dec. 19, three days after the article appeared. He promptly declined to respond to them. I then sent the same questions to Arthur Sulzberger Jr., the publisher, who also declined to respond. They held out no hope for a fuller explanation in the future.
On the 800-pound gorilla that the NYT's editors and publishers hoped no one would notice — whether the story was pulled before the 2004 election:
For me, however, the most obvious question is still this: If no one at The Times was aware of the eavesdropping prior to the election, why wouldn't the paper have been eager to make that clear to readers in the original explanation and avoid that politically charged issue? The paper's silence leaves me with uncomfortable doubts.
On why the story was finally published in December:
The publication of Mr. Risen's book [State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration], with its discussion of the eavesdropping operation, was scheduled for mid-January - but has now been moved up to Tuesday. Despite Mr. Keller's distancing of The Times from "State of War," Mr. Risen's publisher told me on Dec. 21 that the paper's Washington bureau chief had talked to her twice in the previous 30 days about the book.
So it seems to me the paper was quite aware that it faced the possibility of being scooped by its own reporter's book in about four weeks.
And so our long national nightmare continues...
by Anthony Ioven
Tagged, am I Stacy? Ok, here goes:
1. The only republican I ever voted for
I've voted for a few locals, including Mass. State Senator Bruce Tarr, who slogged through the muck with me and my neighbors a few years ago, trying to find a better route for a natural gas pipeline. But a Republican President or Congressman? God no.
2. Great non-fiction books I read and recommend
The Truth by Al Franken, which I'm reading now but already recommend it.
New Rules by Bill Maher. Funny and on-the-mark.
A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare by James Shapiro, just to get away from it all.
Professional JavaScript for Web Developers by Nicholas Zakas, because he's my godson. ;-)
And my wife says Jimmy Carter's Our Endangered Values is a must read.
3. The 3 most important duties/obligations in our society?
Staying informed, thinking critically, voting.
4. The 4 points on the compass where I’ve lived?
I'm a New Englander. You couldn't pry me away from these miserably cold, snowy winters if you tried (and some have).
5. Recent deaths that had me in tears
Deaths of people close to me make me cry. Deaths of children in Iraq that we are responsible for make me ashamed.
6. Things you should divest yourself of
My passion for donuts, and the hope that we will learn who killed John Kennedy in my lifetime.
And now I think I'll live dangerously and tag Rex Kramer, Danger Seeker, at Spurious George.
by Uncle Sam
This year I resolve to:
Bring our troops home from Iraq and let the United Nations do its job there.
Provide health care for all Americans through an efficient single-payer system.
End the economic embargo of Cuba that has brought hardship to the people there for over 40 years.
Abolish the embarrassing Electoral College.
Outlaw paid lobbying.
Impose tight limits on the amount of money that political candidates can spend on campaigns, applicable to money from public, private, and personal funds.
Stop pretending that corporations should enjoy the same rights as individual American citizens.
End capital punishment — for good, this time.
Pledge never again to impose sanctions on a country so severe as to contribute to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children.
Visualize our own children's faces before deciding to drop a bomb or fire a bullet anywhere near a civilian area.
Acknowledge the terrible injustice that has been done and continues to be done to the Palestinian people.
Participate in the International Criminal Court.
Agree to the Kyoto protocols.
Stop whining about taxes.
Get serious about looking for alternative sources of energy.
Find a way to accommodate more political parties than the Blessed Two — Republican and Republican-Light.
Or instead of all that, maybe I'll just resolve to trim a little fat off some social programs.
Happy New Year . . .
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UpdateAmerica.com
604.UpdateAmerica.com
January's Posts
It's All Relative
A Tale of Two Countries
The Class Dunce
Where You Going, Soldier?
If It's Not on TV, It Didn't Happen
You Do the Math
'Diebold Magic'
e-Catapulting the Propaganda
Thanks, But No Thanks
A Tale of Two Sentences
A Thousand Points of Light
Who Killed JFK?
Support Our Troops
Whose Country Is It, Anyway?
Negotiation Is Irrelevant
US Bombs English Town: 18 Dead
Will the Real Al Gore Please Stand Up
Silence Is Betrayal
George Bush, War Hero
There Goes the Neighborhood
I Feel Your Pain
Say It Ain't So, George
Read My Lips...
Rose Mary Woods, Where Are You?
Seeing the Light
Death of a Hero
Mixed Messages
A What?
'A Monkey with a Rubber Stamp'
All the News That's Fit to Print
I Ran, but I Couldn't Hide
New Year's Resolutions for 2006
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