Cartoon: GOP Declares Victory

Wolverton

How Much Cr@p Can the Chesapeake Handle?

As a proud citizen of Southern California I can really relate to the worry about over-building near the Chesapeake.

Out here we have to fight to keep wetlands from being completely built over. In fact, the compromise on one of the biggest developments around was to let the builder go right up to one the sensitive part of a wetland-wild area (though wild areas are about as endangered as wetlands around here).

And still the developers whine that they don't get enough.

Then every decade or so we get into a period when we don't have enough rain (though So California takes most of its water from watershed of the Eastern Sierras). That actually makes a few people think about all the overdevelopment we've allowed, but only as long as the drought lasts.

There are certain points that I've noticed about the need to develop an area.

• Development helps politicians to advance their careers
• Increase Campaign Contributions
• Increase Tax Base
• Increase Importance of Politician's Job
• Selected Property Purchases


• Undevelopment Doesn't Happen


• Housing Prices Go Up Even Faster As An Area Gets More Development


• More Businesses? More Jobs for Locals? --No!


• No One Knows Where the Tipping Point Happens

I think campaign contributions is an obvious point. Mo' money from the developers, but also, if your hometown now has 10 million people rather than 1 million farmers and they just love their homey, you're going to get more dough to run a campaign on.

An increasing tax base means more money for your locality right now. Unfortunately it often (especially when due to more housing) means that down the line you will need more schools, services etc., but then you can sign up for even more development so you can keep putting off any difficult decisions. Just as long as you can keep that propaganda flowing about development being good for a community, you've got it made.

Of course, the councilman, and even more so the mayor of a 10 million population is a more important figure than the same position in a town of 1 million.

I'd also bet most councilmembers etc., who need to approve a new development are given ideas on which properties to invest in to take advantage of the new building.

BTW, look around, undevelopment doesn't happen. New buildings are put up, but other areas are not taken down and restored to nature. Another area of the city might degrade, but it's seldom torn down and made into a park even.

Instead it's been my experience that when rental and housing prices might go down because of all the overdevelopment, there's suddenly a new flood of immigrants to make sure the most disgusting housing runs at a cost that severely impacts about half the families in the city. It almost makes one believe that it's the rental owners as much as business owners that drive our nation to Chinatown (do as little as possible) over illegal immigration.

And that flood of immigrants helps take up the available jobs too. And yet, businesses, even though they can hire more immigrants leave the area because land prices go up, giving the people in an area with even fewer options.

And even the article notes that no one knows where the tipping point it in development.

I think much of the Los Angeles basin has gone beyond it. I hope the Chesapeake area can figure it out before they get there.

BTW, isn't that the area when the fish in certain rivers and the bay are developing ghastly chronic diseases? I'd guess that would be a good clue.

More to leaving out Tupac than you think, Rhome.

I know you know your stuff factually Anderson, but you gotta be East Coast if you think you can put Biggie in a definative list of hip hop w/o Makaveli.

You can't just ignore the rivalry.

Yeah, I know that's kind of shallow, but I have another thought too.

Maybe, rap is going where it's going to a pretty shallow plateau because of the way mainstream media -- and entertainment news -- works; so that nearly 30 years of music will be boiled down to 10 shallow bites, like chicken nuggets of analysis.

Now, I eat chicken nuggets when I'm too hungry to care what I'm eating. I guess I'll check in to read an article on HipHop in the Washington Post again when-- well, I guess I'll never be that desperate.

Levees may fail again even after repairs

It will take a staggering four million cubic yards of soil to repair the levee system around New Orleans, and nearly half of it will go here, a battered 12-mile stretch along the navigational canal, east of the city, known as the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet.

Yet critics of the Army Corps of Engineers say the new construction is likely to fail again. The sandy local dirt being used for levee construction is too weak, they say, and not enough thick clay is being imported by barge from Mississippi to strengthen it.

Getting enough of the kind of soil that can stand up to future hurricanes is one of the greatest challenges of the levee effort, as the Corps of Engineers and its contractors race to restore the storm protection system. By June 1, the start of hurricane season, they want the levees to be as least as strong as they were before Hurricane Katrina. The St. Bernard project, which began last fall, is among the biggest challenges in rebuilding the 350-mile system around New Orleans; the Corps estimates that this stretch of levee alone will require 1.65 million cubic yards of soil, most of it excavated from local pits.

...

Corps officials acknowledge that that getting enough of what they call "borrow" material to has been difficult, but say the search has been going well and the levees will be strong.

"I'm very confident in what we're building," said Col. Lewis Setliff III, commander of the Task Force Guardian, the corps unit that is responsible for restoring the damaged flood protection system. "It's certainly better than what was there before."

But Robert G. Bea, a professor of engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and a leader of the group of independent investigators that is financed by the National Science Foundation, said the earth he had seen on the site "is no better than it was before."

Seems like an expert should check this out. Why doesn't the Congress force an inspection? Hmmm Republicans?

(Crickets chirping.)

Give her some credit for style

Alone in the clear, Lindsey Jacobellis could have practically crawled to the finish line and won.

After an Olympic-sized flub, she probably wishes she had.

Coasting to what should have been a runaway victory Friday, the 20-year-old American grabbed her board on the second-to-last jump before the finish line. Inexplicably -- and some say inexcusably -- she fell.

"I was caught up in the moment," Jacobellis said.

While she scrambled to her feet, Switzerland's Tanja Frieden caught up and sped past Jacobellis to become the first champion in the strange and wild sport of Olympic women's snowboard cross. Jacobellis settled for silver.
...

In the moments after the race, Jacobellis insisted it was pretty much standard operating procedure and that she did it only to "create stability."

A few hours later, in a conference call, she held to that point, but also conceded there might have been some showboating going on.

"I was having fun," she said. "Snowboarding is fun. I was ahead. I wanted to share my enthusiasm with the crowd. I messed up. Oh well, it happens."

Plus if it weren't for the failures of our people to win much in the Winter Olympics, there wouldn't be much for the sportscasters to talk about would there?

Seems like someone else thinks the same way I do. I went searching for more on Jacobellis and found "Column: the Best and Worst of Week One"

and

Boarders Unite! Jacobellis Gets Support

Okay. I give up. Being selfish helps you win too.

Excerpt WP report (link is the first one below):

Shani Davis knew what he was doing. Davis became the first black to win an individual gold medal in Winter Olympic history on Saturday, capturing the men's 1,000-meter speedskating race.

...

Davis came under scrutiny for skipping the team pursuit _ especially when the Hedrick-led squad was knocked out in the quarterfinals, doomed by a slow skater who might not have been on the ice if Davis was available.

But Davis, world record holder in the 1,000, wanted to focus on his signature event. It certainly paid off.

After crossing the line and spotting his time, the first guy to break 1:09 on the slow Turin ice, Davis thrust his right fist in the air.

(And he didn't get thrown out of the Olympics? Boy, times have changed. Okay the guys at Mexico City did do it during the Award of the Medals, but still times have changed. And that is good.)

Davis' official site says those who question their man skipping the team pursuit don't understand the sport.

Excerpt:

Note that Shani did not participate in the Opening Ceremonies due to his racing the 5000m the day after. Interesting the media did not jump on him for that.

3 Years Too Late Bush Makes Calls on Darfur

While Bush was ramping up his drive to invade Iraq because his "smarter buddies" told him it would be a good idea, what was recognized as genocide started in Sudan.

First the administration ignored it, then they started calling for anyone else to help.

Bush is actually doing most of the same now.

See we've got ourselves messed up in Iraq so we have to rely on other people to take care of Sudan.

Our nation is like a gangster who is too busy robbing others to stop and help at a car wreck so he tells everyone else to do it.

It might happen, but in real life no one would think of the G as a hero in that case.

Experts Doubt Cheney's account of distance shot

Cheney has said he was standing 30 yards from Whittington when he fired. But hunters and firearms experts questioned whether birdshot from a 28-gauge shotgun, known as a "gentleman's gun" because the ammunition is expensive and the firearm is light, could have passed through Whittington's clothes and entered his thoracic cavity at such a distance.

Jim Wilson, the retired sheriff of Crockett County in West Texas and the handguns editor at Shooting Times, said that he doubted Whittington was that far from Cheney.

"At 30 yards that shot pattern is going to have spread quite a bit," he said. "You could put a person's eye out, but hitting a person's body, the shot won't penetrate very far."

Nonetheless, Wilson, like other hunters in Texas, said persistent questions about the accident reflected an ignorance of how investigations are conducted in Texas. Some have questioned why Kenedy County Sheriff Ramon Salinas III waited until the morning after the shooting to interview Cheney and witnesses.

"I would have done the same thing as long as I felt warning bells hadn't gone off," Wilson said. "I wouldn't necessarily have run right out there. The local sheriff probably knew the ranchers well. That's just rural law enforcement."

But the fact is a Deputy did come out that evening when the smell of alcohol might still be on Cheney's breath and he could have been given a blood alcohol test, but he was turned away by the Secret Service. Cheney Hunting Companion Is Released From Hospital

Blasphemy! Rumsfeld needs to get all over this writers @$$.

The authors of the World Bank report, "Poverty Reduction and Growth: Virtuous and Vicious Circle," recognize that a country can't necessarily grow its way out of poverty and that poverty can be a huge drag on economies and on growth. Poor regions lacking in infrastructure fail to attract investment. Poor families, faced with substandard schools and high costs, are less likely to invest in the education of their children. And, as has been particularly clear in recent years, countries unable to moderate income disparities face social tensions that jeopardize business. As the authors quantify it, when poverty levels increase by 10 percent, growth decreases by 1 percent and investment is reduced by up to 8 percent of a country's gross domestic product.

Two of their main conclusions are a breakthrough for the bank: that private-sector growth is not a panacea for the poor and that inequality must be targeted directly. A third conclusion is almost heretical for the bank: that the state needs to take on more responsibility rather than less. "Converting the state into an agent that promotes equality of opportunities and practices efficient redistribution is, perhaps, the most critical challenge Latin America faces in implementing better policies that simultaneously stimulate growth and reduce inequality and poverty," the report says.

By advocating state responsibility, particularly for redistribution of wealth, the World Bank seems to be bringing itself into greater alignment with other multilateral institutions and governments in the region.

Wait a minute that's based on a World Bank Report.

"D@mmit, Wolfowitz, do you think John Kerry got you that cushy position?

Why are you allowing all this liberal-talk to come out?"

(Could it be that the neocons got snookered by their old 'pal'?)

Rumsfeld to the Rescue!

I see that Rummy's call to control the Internet has hit the Washington Post and as often happens we see a more complete report there. (My previous report based on a BBC article is here

With the happy news on the war that the Washington Post has been printing these days you'd think that the Bush administration would be more sanguine about their press.

But then you wouldn't be counting on the "my way or the highway" Bush administration.

In the WP report on Rummy's comments (which is more complete than the first BBC article), we find he also castigated the news media for doing their job and exposing a failing job at media control (aimed at Iraqi papers). According a New York Times report the Lincoln Group appears to have failed at most of what they were paid (we learned from previous reports) $30m for a little over a year's work. (In Contrast Peter Jennings was only paid $2m per year in his last few.)

But it is a new Internet push that is worrisome.

The Republicans have already honed a stock of paid Internet specialists to use lies, talking points (often one and the same, I grant you), deceptions (I mean in pretending to be friends, Republicans pretending to be Democrats in forums for Democrats, liberals in liberal forums, etc.

The Internet forums and chats are already flooded with people who repeat what they find in their GOP talking points emails. (The number of people are receiving the Republican sendings is apparent about 3 days after a surprise scandal the White House must deal with. The Cheney shooting incident is good example.

Why do you think it took Cheney four days to figure out what to say? Well, three days is the length of a focus group cycle. The Bush administration doesn't just work up propaganda out of their head. They focus group it all ten ways before releasing it. Then on the third or fourth day a flood hits the Internet. Thousands of posts on the days old controversy all saying the same thing in nearly the same words. (In the case of the NASA internet flood -- use "Back" button to return here -- the posters often didn't even bother to rewrite the talking points. Quality control must have been less vigilant, there.)

What is astounding is that Rumsfeld is calling for the US taxpayer to multiply what they are paying for this. There are hints that some faith based money is being leaked to Internet propaganda already, and the huge, unjustified money going to defense and other government contractors yells out to me that some of that is being leaked there too.

And now Rummy wants the US taxpayer to fund this to an even greater degree than we suspect we are already.

Like Faith-based charities, I suspect they won't even need an actual bill to approve this, but will go on presidential decree.

We, apparently, have seen nothing yet.

How do you control internet free speech? They've found the time tested methods that Adolph Hitler recommended for person to person speech work quite well.

It's not only about flooding the Internet, but about attacking your opposition in ways that are so disgusting they'd get you thrown out of a biker bar (and as a matter of fact, did get some tossed out of a hip hop chatroom showing some 'counterculture' groups are smarter and tougher than the news media). Yet, the nasty names and allegations of ties with terrorists thrown at Democrats are allowed and ignored in forums that for a while had some reputation for quality.

And Rumsfeld wants more taxpayer money to pay for this, just in time for another election year, and one in which their more mainstream methods of mind control are beginning to break down.

Go figure.

Please don't say that they would only target those outside our nation. After 911 the y released news saying they would be paying for good news in other nations' newspapers. When there was an outcry about they said they called of the program, yet within years, we started learning that they were paying for favorable press and within our own nation. Armstrong Williams said he was the tip of the iceberg and we really haven't seen the iceberg yet. It's too dangerous for mainstream news, I'm supposing.

More on the Lincoln Group and the military propagada effort at DSRMA starts here

Bush Approval Dips Again. Down 3 points tp 39% in Gallup poll

Excerpt:

A new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted Feb. 9-12, puts President George W. Bush's job approval rating at 39%, marking a slight, three-point drop compared to Gallup's Feb. 6-9 poll. Although this is the first poll since November 2005 in which Bush's approval rating has been below 40%, the decline from 42% earlier in the week is within the margin of error for comparing the two polls.

gallup.com

2 Marine Helicopters Crash Off Djibouti; 10 Missing- Rumsfeld wants us to spin this for the world

Two U.S. Marine Corps helicopters crashed off the coast of northern Djibouti yesterday, and rescuers were searching for 10 missing crew members last night, according to U.S. military officials in the Horn of Africa.

Investigators were looking into the cause of the crash, which officials said happened during a training mission over the Gulf of Aden near Ras Siyyan. A spokeswoman for the military's task force in the Horn of Africa said it was unclear whether the helicopters collided, and she did not have further details of the crash or weather conditions at the time.

Djiboutian military near where the helicopters hit were able to respond immediately and rescued two crew members from the water, according to a U.S. Central Command news release.

Now to fully understand what we need to do citizen you need to have read the BBC Report on Rumsfeld calling for a massive propaganda operation to fight terror.


Okay, okay. Now my fellow Americans. This is what Sexy Superman (aka Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld) was talking about. We are getting bad press in the Arab world so we have to make our own. (Wait a minute, checking the BBC report as I read it through again, I don't see him talking about the "Arab Press". Nope he's talking about controlling the press, satellite TV, and the Internet to help him win Arab hearts and minds, and actually he doesn't say Arab hearts and minds. So, I guess he means everybody's hearts and minds.

Yep, they're back to building a huge propaganda system to control minds (including yours) with your money, Taxpayer.

Let's help Don Rumsfeld out and save ourselves some dough by doing it ourselves:

Instead of 2 Marine helicopters colliding by accident, lets make it a fantastic pre-planned maneuver designed to flush out terrorists. The operation went so well that Djibouti rescuers are still looking for 10 of our troops who quickly swam away to finish their mission.


See how easy it is?

Now about that massive propaganda attack on the Internet.

This attack on Internet free speech is not to be take lightly. We've already seen it done.

Just before last year's launch of (space shuttle) Discovery a bill was passed to provide money for an Internet support (propaganda) campaign favoring NASA. (Validating links are the next two below)

Sure enough major forum sites started opening forums on the Space Shuttle flight (though this was probably due to the flight, not part of the government program). Into those forums flooded thousands of people (who often on other days spend their forum time praising the Bush administration).

This time they had talking points about how great it was that NASA did so much research and development which was then passed onto businesses to profit from. (Well, not exactly in those terms. It was much more like NASA had improved our lives by creating Teflon, and so many other products. I think they even brought up the Tang -- the citrus drink not the National Guard -- connection, I kid you not.)

The point is that it was American taxpayer money spent to get people take over forums, pass propaganda, and fight anyone who might disagree with them. This does not sound like what was proposed as reported in this report at Space Politics or in this article on the NASA authorization bill at house.gov., but that's what happened. Opposing points of view were not allowed by the people using the government created talking points and presumably being paid with American taxpayer dollars. (We could tell they were using the NASA talking points because they were posting nearly identical posts many times.)

It is one thing in the case of NASA to pass on the talking points in favor of NASA. It's another to start berating anyone who might have a difference of opinion.

But the pro-NASA people in there acted just like they do when they are working pro Bush, which they would turn to if someone mentioned that the economy really wasn't good enough to support a manned trip to Mars.

You could tell that many of the pro-NASA posters were using the same technique they use when posting for the Republicans. So you wonder, who pays them when they post for Republicans? Is that hidden in some other money for another government program?

It looks like, at the very least, it soon will be.

Rummy has just called for a (partially) Internet campaign to promote America. And one thing that Boy George and his people know, they are America.

Congratulations, taxpayer, it's probably that you will soon be supporting the paid pro Bush forum, comment, and blog people so they can spend more time passing the Republican lies.



In the future when they've pushed this plan through with the help of Republicans in Congress, just think about that while you're slaving away at a real job so you can come home, do what you can to stay informed and maybe try in some small way to stop the Republican mind control campaign. The members of the opposition are paid (possibly with taxpayer money) to pass talking points, to lie, and to call you names.

Rummy's just told us what they will be doing. They are going to promote themselves in the name of fighting terrorism. Will the American taxpayer stand for it?

Is This Why we Need to Get Intelligent Design Taught in Our Public Schools?

Inside the flagship lab of the National Center of Atmospheric Research, a dozen home-schooled children and their parents walk past the offices of scientists grappling with topics from global warming and microphysics to solar storms and the electrical fields of lightning.

They are trailing Rusty Carter, a guide with Biblically Correct Tours. At a large, colorful panel along a wall, Carter reads aloud from a passage describing the disappearance of dinosaurs from the earth about 65 million years ago. He and some of the older students exchange knowing smiles at the timeline, which contradicts their interpretation the Bible suggesting a 6,000-year-old planet.

"Did man and dinosaurs live together?" Carter asks. A timid yes comes from the students.

"How do we know that to be true?" Carter says. There's a long pause.

"What day did God create dinosaurs on?" he continues.

"Six," says a chorus of voices.

"What day did God create man on?"

"Six."

"Did man and dinosaurs live together?"

"Yes," the students say.

If the creationists don't get intelligent design installed into our public schools then their own indoctrinated children will never have a chance. As long as your child is learning real science and they are learning something from a book that's describes what we knew about God's creation 2000 (or at least nearly 400) years ago they are going to look like fools.

I suppose that's why they want to take over our schools and teach our kids their 'science'. In a previous article the WP has shown that not only does Intelligent Design teaching say "This is what we believe, but it also contains lies and misrepresentations that tell children and young adults that the theory of evolution is a total crock. (Look up "Eden and Evolution" in WP archives) It's not just an alternate view. It's a carefully manipulated system of mind control. It's truly amazing what a group that is hooking 10% of their followers' paychecks will come up with to grab more power.

The tithe is the Lord's, but now a days it goes to 'affluent' overseers who use most of the money to build more power and control for themselves and politicians. Go figure.

If you want to know your tithe is doing good, distribute it yourself. (Hint Deut. 14 says that at least 1/3 of it should go directly to the poor, ill, and homeless.) The rest was designated to take to Jerusalem and have a party, inviting the poor, ill, and homeless to join you. Traveling to Jerusalem is no longer required, but I think we can see that the current demand for a tenth of your paycheck from anyone who decides to be a pastor is a far cry from the original intent of the tithe.

They never tell you that most of the tithe was to be used to have a party do they?

Read the entire Bible for yourself if you want to call yourself a Christian. There's a lot things that are being hidden from you.

Both the Catholic Church and all but the most backward Christian Groups believe that evolution is the way that God chose to create the species on earth.

(In Hebrew writings-- as explained by an evangelical pastor -- the word they used of 'day' has similar meanings as 'day' in English.

• Daytime
• 24hrs
• period of time
• As with "In my day we walked 10 miles to school and back, uphill both ways!"
• or the "Day of the Dinosaurs"

With a longtime interpretation of the Hebrew word for "Day" humans and dinosaurs fit neatly in without any person having to hide from the hulking things.

If some people want to go back to the middle ages, that's fine, but they don't have the right to take our children with them.

Howard Kurtz wonders if its time for Cheney to Go

And actually tears into the Great One's (Mr. VP) (or as some have named him Elmer Fudd) responses to Brit's Questions.

I'm not so sanguine about his characterizations of former presidents. I knew about the controversies and monikers that followed Ford and Carter, but I'd never heard the right wing talking points behind them.

But I know it was a better time then, and I'm right. Just the other day a report was published in the Washington Post that showed that the height of self reported happiness in the US was in the mid seventies. That's Ford and Carter country.

Even during a recession the pain was born by all instead of hitting the middle and working class much harder as the ones have since. (We also had shown ourselves that we could rid our country of a corrupt, but powerful administration.) You can't imagine how good that felt.

And we had no idea what their revenge would be. We thought we owned our lives again. Fat Cat and Big Business knew different. They would in the next couple of decades come to own our very minds as we never miss a episode of whatever short skirt and male sixpack show we are addicted to, while people worse that the Nixon crew work to make the complete dominance of the rich over everyone else permanent.

Outsourcing Becoming Big in Science and Research

A new study that will be presented today to the National Academies, the nation's leading advisory groups on science and technology, suggests that more and more research work at corporations will be sent to fast-growing economies with strong education systems, like China and India.

In a survey of more than 200 multinational corporations on their research center decisions, 38 percent said they planned to "change substantially" the worldwide distribution of their research and development work over the next three years — with the booming markets of China and India, and their world-class scientists, attracting the greatest increase in projects.

Read rest at NY Times

Doctors come out against free care in Gulf Coast Region

Free clinics in the area are causing ire as doctors seek to regain their income.

(And, of course, all would be unecessary if we had universal access. Doctors would get paid for all care, but poor people could see a doctor.)

Sounds simple to me.

HSAs and catastrophic care insurance two progams the White House is seeking look like they're going to reduce medical incomes too.

White House Defends Sales of Control of Ports to Arab Co.

The Bush administration is defending approval of a $6.8 billion sale that gives a company in the United Arab Emirates control over operations at six major American ports, even as one senator sought a new ban on companies owned by governments overseas in some U.S. shipping operations.

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., told The Associated Press he will introduce legislation to prohibit companies owned or controlled by foreign governments from running port operations in the United States.

...shipping terminals in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia...

...

''We wouldn't turn the border patrol or the customs service over to a foreign government, and we can't afford to turn our ports over to one, either,'' Menendez said.

...

The administration defended its decision. The sale was ''rigorously reviewed'' by a U.S. committee that considers security threats when foreign companies seek to buy or invest in American industry, said National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones.

You remember the UAE. That's the country where members of the royal family used to visit Osama when he had a cool enough pad. There's more 'good' news about them at link .

Homeland Security Officers Go After Library Computer Porn

Two uniformed men strolled into the main room of the Little Falls library in Bethesda one day last week and demanded the attention of all patrons using the computers. Then they made their announcement: The viewing of Internet pornography was forbidden.

The men looked stern and wore baseball caps emblazoned with the words "Homeland Security." The bizarre scene unfolded Feb. 9, leaving some residents confused and forcing county officials to explain how employees assigned to protect county buildings against terrorists came to see it as their job to police the viewing of pornography.

Read rest at link.

And may I say:

Well, now we have the sex police. We were kinda waiting for them weren't we?

Okay, it does turn out that the incident was a major embarassment for the county. Still I wonder which on of those guys was planning on running for office in the near future. This stunt would have been as good as railing about banning the "pill" (the newest talking point from the pro-life people).

Unfortunately for the grandstanding HS agents, their names were not published.

But not that many years ago the kinds of programs now being envisioned being hung on families were an embarassment. Now they are much more likely to be required in the near future.

How about sending your children to a public school that unfairly characterizes evolution as just a ridiculous guess (or worse -- a deliberately false science, from Darwin who actually went to the Galapagos seeking to discredit evolution, and, instead, became its greatest backer) instead of a theory that is proven many times over in health and many other sciences.

Really, if you don't want to believe that God used evolution to create the species, then the next time you get seriously ill, you should stick to the therapies that were available in the early 19th century too. People didn't live all that long in those days for a reason, because faith had for so many centuries been put over science.

What a difference in health care --to say the least -- since faith has been put back in the spiritual realm, but kept from hampering objectivity. I don't think God wants us to allow people to die needlessly by denying what he put on earth for us to discover for ourselves.)

E.J. Dionne: No End to the Phony Populism

Great analysis on political games being played these days.

Cartoon: New Olympic Sport

Horsey

Cartoon: Dick Cheney Vice DeClassifier

Daily Scribble

Cartoon: The Ghost of Nixon

Danziger

Republican Senator seeks to seal in the Bush Cheney autocracy by plugging leaks

The chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said yesterday that he may add language to the fiscal 2007 intelligence authorization bill to criminalize the leaking of a wider range of classified information than is now covered by law. He indicated the new measure would be similar to legislation vetoed by President Bill Clinton more than five years ago.

Another reason we liked Clinton so much. He held the line (where he could) on the Republican party.

The statement by Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) comes as Bush administration is campaigning against leaks and focusing on the people who receive and distribute them, including journalists.

...

CIA Director Porter J. Goss told Congress he hoped that eventually journalists who report leaks would be put before federal grand juries and forced to reveal their sources.

Except of course, members of the Bush administration's pet newspeople who are doing their bidding in outing an important NOC (Non-official cover) agent for political revenge and intimidation.

Just think how far this can go.

A lawyer familiar with the AIPAC case said administration officials "want this case as a precedent so they can have it in their arsenal" and added: "This as a weapon that can be turned against the media."

And, of course, here's another Republican in Congress ready to hand the Bush administration their authoritarian state.

Where does it stop?

The Washington Note on the Details of Cheney's New Superpower

Ok, I am kidding about the "super" part.

It helps keep me sane.

But DC insider Steve Clemons is seriously the guy who can explain what Cheney thinks he has, and what action Cheney thinks gave him the power.

And he says its not really there except, probably, in the eyes of Alberto Gonzalez.

Excerpt:

Can Cheney be His Own Declassification Machine?

In my view, the law says "No". . .but I have little doubt Alberto Gonzales and his minions will construct a rationale that says otherwise.

But I have run across some interesting information -- and have some questions that we should all pose to those at the helm in the White House.

You can find the rest at link above.

Misdelivered classified documents show that FISA surveillance may be authorized on based on untrustworthy evidence.

This is based on a statement in an LA Times article about the legal troubles of Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.

The conclusion I take away, is that it's awfully easy to get FISA approval for terrorism wiretapping.

From article:

Federal officials in Dallas mistakenly disclosed classified counter-terrorism information in a breach of national security that could also threaten one of the country's biggest terrorism prosecution cases, newly unsealed court records show.

The blunder exposed secret wiretap requests that commonly include classified information from U.S. agencies, foreign intelligence reports and confidential sources.

The criminal case involves officials of the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, a now-defunct Islamic charity with alleged ties to terrorists. Its assets were frozen by the Treasury Department three months after the Sept. 11 attacks.

...

Disclosure that the government erred in sharing secret intelligence on the case came to light when court files were unsealed this week. The mistake occurred nearly a year ago but was not previously disclosed. KTVT-TV in Dallas first reported the security breach late Tuesday.

The unsealed records, included in boxes of selected classified data turned over to defense lawyers in April [2005], included what a federal prosecutor called "extraordinarily sensitive information."

...

According to a government legal brief filed in the case, the erroneous disclosures represent the first such misstep in the 27-year history of the nation's top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court. Defense lawyers have always been denied access to applications and affidavits justifying warrants for national security surveillance.

...

Defense motions show that Holy Land lawyers believe the classified material benefits defendants and raises the possibility that federal surveillance was authorized based on misrepresentations, vague descriptions and fabricated testimony.

But that's what's too hard for the Bush administration to work up now?

I don't think warrantless eavesdropping should be the solution for Bush administration incompetence.

They had the names and identification as al Qaeda members of the most important duo of the San Diego group (involved with 911) and they never tracked them though the people were living under those names. They didn't heed the warning they got the day before the attack via normal FISA approved methods.

They don't need new powers. They need to attend to their jobs and do them right.

Article on Democratic Representative finds man guilty before being judged

This is about the worst case of yellow journalism I've seen even in the past few years of the Bush White House with taxpayer money being slipped to those who will play the propaganda game for them in the mainstream news media.

There aren't even any charges against Representative William Jefferson but the authors of this piece have basically convicted him of being another Cunningham (invoking the similarity right in the report).

And by extension supposedly this shows that all the Democrats are like the hundreds of Republicans that received money from Jack Abramoff.

This is what makes me want to remind people that the White House and the RNC does pass out news ideas and factoids to media people via conference calls and emails. I think this report, which seems to have little mitigating 'balance', shows that some of Rove's employees must be willing to virtually write a piece for a newsperson that he or she can make money on. There have been gentle hints from other news analysts that other articles seem to have more slant than possible by ordinary reporters, as well.

Shailagh Murray and Allan Lengel must have figured they could pass such journalism in today's market.

Tim Rutten at the LA Times shows that many 'news' and analyst writers are on the take though he points more to the oped writer, I think the kind of slanted news we see these days in some reports says otherwise.

Armstrong Williams said his case was the tip of an iceberg. We haven't begun to see the iceberg even with the number of crooked newspeople wh have been uncovered so far.

There doesn't seem to be the push in the news media to expose them. I wonder why. (No I don't, really.)

Rutten ends his report with:

Legendary baseball owner Bill Veeck used to quip, "I never worry about sportswriters. You can buy them with a steak."

Small sums of money didn't hurt either, and until the news media cleaned up their houses in the postwar era, they were almost as common in many newsrooms as free drinks.

If the people running our news organizations today don't look up from the bottom line and consider what's going on around them, they will find themselves back in those bad old days — with nothing to sell.

Of course, Rutten's solution is to pay writers more and give them more stability. Hey, he's a writer. That might help, but I think editors can make judgement calls on what is a slanted article, too. The WP editors should have looked over the article on Representative William Jefferson.

Iraqi Death Squad Caught

Iraq has launched an investigation into claims by the US military that an Iraqi interior ministry "death squad" has been targeting Sunni Arab Iraqis.

The probe comes after a US general revealed the arrest of 22 policemen allegedly on a mission to kill a Sunni.

"We have found one of the death squads. They are part of the police force," US Maj Gen Joseph Peterson said.

Sunnis have long accused Iraqi forces of operating death squads - but the claims have never been substantiated.

Iraqi deputy interior minister Maj Gen Hussein Kamal said his ministry had set up an inquiry.

"The interior minister has formed an investigation committee to learn more about the Sunni person and those 22 men, particularly whether they work for the Interior Ministry or claim to belong to the ministry," he told Associated Press news agency.

Hundreds of Sunni Arab Iraqis have been found dead since the 2003 war in what appear to have been extra-judicial killings.

On Wednesday, the bodies of four unidentified men were found in Baghdad's Shia district of Shula. They had been handcuffed, blindfolded and shot in the head.

Iraqi insurgents have also often used a similar tactic against Iraqis working with international forces or the Iraqi government.

Yeah, that all is a called "Civil War", but try getting that from the news media.

So the US military claims it "Got them bad guys. Not to worry anymore, lil' Missy". The Iraqi Interior Department says "Hold up there pardner. We don't know if'n these are our guys or not".

I wish there were a party involved whose word I could trust there.

I believe it was the news media that had brought the problem to the attention of the world by interviewing Iraqi Sunnis over the problem.

That is not an auspicious sign that the matter of the apparently Shiite 'militias' (not single) that are going around killing Sunnis (and vice versa) are ever going to be stopped by the US military or the Iraqi government.

Iraq 'death squad caught in act'

The Washington Post says it was a squad of Iraqi Highway Patrol that was planning on assasinating a man that they'd just captured.

Wow. Tough vehicle code there.

Just kidding. The WP article notes that the squad has now been linked to the Interior Ministry.

Scott McClellan's Verbal Mind Control

Great analysis over at Seattle P.I. on the way the White House spokesman Scott McClellan uses "focus" to work the Bush administration's control of the news.

For McClellan, though, the job is to shift attention from Cheney's arrogant secretiveness. So, McClellan's line Tuesday to reporters was: "If you all want to continue to focus on this, you can spend your time on it. We're going to keep focusing on the priorities of the American people." All told, McClellan regurgitated some form of "focus" nearly 20 times.

Focus, Scotty, focus? Perhaps that's the secret of how the Bush team beams us into attunement with its ham-handed, wrongly oriented but often quite focused kind of leadership.

White House Press: Laser-like focus

Cheney won't comment on Libby leak case

In the WP article on the Valerie Plame leak case, I found more cause for amusement.

Cheney says he won't comment on the case because he might be called to testify (though other analysts have shown that anyone is allowed to report on their previous or pending testimony) but then he'd already made the most amazing comment ever.

Though he and the president hadn't told anyone in the over 2.5 years since the controversy erupted, he and Bush apparently have the power to declassify subjects at whim, including to get back at political opponents.

Of course, he can't say when that power was decided on. That would be "commenting" on the case.

More on this here at DSRMA

Now Cheney is using Shooting to Cover Even More Outrageous Actions

I'm thinking Cheney came out yesterday in order to get cover for his announcement that he now has power to declassify covert intelligence.

And I see little discussion of that 'news'.

Cartoon: What really went on in Bush administration when Katrina hit

Oliphant

An Arrogance of Power

Is David Ignatious' take on Dick Cheney's 4 days of silence on the hunting accident.

Mr. I turns into a heavy hitter on this.

Compares it to Ted Kennedy's Chappaquiddick adventure.

and writes:

But let us assume the obvious: It was an attempt to delay and perhaps suppress embarrassing news. We will never know whether the vice president's office would have announced the incident at all if the host of the hunting party, Katharine Armstrong, hadn't made her own decision Sunday morning to inform her local paper.

He also finds intelligence officials who tell us that Bush's claim to have saved the West Coast (or at least downtown Los Angeles) from a horrendous terrorist attack was disingenuous as the plan was more of a day dream. I called it a plan for a sequel by a loser that finally managed to land a hit. And I don't know those intelligence officials.

But there is more in the article. Read his column at the link above.

When Mea Culpa Attacks

Well, done analysis by Dana Milbank on Cheney's interview on Fox over the shooting of his 'aquaintance'.

And of Chertoff's non mea culpa over Katrina.

I think both men would resign if they meant what they said about accepting responsibility.

Why are people and industry hurting while the economy's buzzing?

Could it be that Bushonomics isn't all it's cracked up to be?

Yeah, What George Will said

Sometimes he's talkin' sense.

This is one of them.

Go read

Ohno! Skater shows that 'alone time' rest helps a person come back strong!

Already in this Olympics it has been shown that relaxation helped a snowboarder win a gold.

Now rest and alone time seems to work too..

Previous writings by analysts have noticed that successful sports teams tend to look like they are practicing Socialism.

Whatever is Big Business going to do (besides make sure that most of the American public never hears about all this)?

Big business is well on its way to proving to us that all we need is to vote Republican, work and commute 12 hours a day (both parents), sleep 8 hours (so we can work our hardest the next day) and get up and do it all again for 6 maybe 7 days a week.

Then these pesky sports stars make these statements.

But maybe that's why it has been found that the height of reported happiness was in the post Nixon days of the mid 70s with it's recession, but less burden on the middle and lower classes. (And greater respect for the non wealthy, not to mention the fact that Americans had shown they could think for themselves and oust a crooked VP and President.)

Good old Jimmy Carter is looking better and better everyday.

Lowly Latvia kicks US Hockey team in the shins

Lack of a chances for the US team to practice together gets the blame.

I'm surprised they didn't add the wet, slow ice of sea level Turin to the list of what went wrong.

Cheney Gains a New Power!

The Great One, Vice President Dick Cheney has revealed that he has acquired a new super power given to him and Wonderboy, President George Bush.

They (both) can now declassify protected information.

This is a result of an executive order.

Whoa there, Trigger! Doesn't that mean it was something that was decided by Wonderboy himself?

I suppose so.

I'm not kidding.

This revelation is like something out of a gamer's dream.

I've been given a new power! How very convenient, since without it, I and my top aide would be put in the pokey!

Oh, you don't get details on when Wonderboy made up this new power, though. (Not from the ABC report as pulled up about 7pm Wednesday February 15, 2006. (I'm finding reports tend to change over a day or two though they keep the same link. I have no idea if ABC does that, but some new sources do.)

And the rest of the ABC article starts focusing on legal defenses and whether they work.

There is a more important point though.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Important Point Below
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

Whether or not Wonderboy magically created the power for himself and the Great One to declassify information, the outing of Valerie Plame destroyed decades of setting up a covert system to track hidden proliferation of WMDs.

Because of Plame's outing, a whole company with thousands of contacts with covert agents in other (often authoritarian) countries was outed.

As a former CIA operative (Larry Johnson, a Republican) said in a CNN interview in October 2003:

JOHNSON: I don't know if lives have been lost yet, but we have to start with the damage to Mrs. Wilson. Her life has been put at risk. The people that she was working with overseas who were spies, they are potentially at risk. You could potentially have people dead because of this. But the odds of finding that out as far as the CIA coming forth and detailing it, we are not likely to hear that because they have to protect the sources and methods.

And luckily, Steve Clemons over at The Washington Notes wrote an article on the results of Ms. Plame-Wilson's outing just Monday that can show you why this was a very bad thing even if Wonderboy okayed it.

Wonderboy doesn't have superpower that will heal our broken covert intelligence on Iran and other clandestine nuclear proliferation. Wonderboy doesn't have the power to bring US agents in other countries back to life.

Wonderboy cannot undo the damage to decades of trust building.

But Steve Clemons shows that you can thank Wonderboy and Dick Cheney for damaging our ability to know and show the world exactly what the threat from Iran is.

And they have made it more likely that America will get hit with a dirty or nuclear bomb from terrorists by this action. If Wonderboy okayed the outing of Plame in advance then he is complicit in making you more of a target to nuclear weapons from terrorists or rogue countries. If he gave Cheney the new power after the fact, he makes a travesty of our justice system, and shows that the rich and powerful are above the law under this Commander in Chief.

Don't expect the obedient Republicans in Congress to do anything substantial about it in any case though.

The Vice President is Very very very very sorry.

I won't go into the feasibility of a Fox Newsman actually doing a hard hitting interview with Dick Cheney.

I'm sure you can figure that out for yourself.

But I remember a lot of other famous and rich people that were very very very very sorry. Terribly broken up. Feel bad for them please.

There was the headguy at ValueJet after the plane had gone down in the Florida Everglades because the VJs (illegally) carted around empty oxygen containers for extra money.

In fact, just about every airline chief comes out and cries all over himself about the crashes that probably could have been prevented by better maintenance or following the proper rules and laws of operating a an airline.


There were the heads of the companies who's products killed people by contamination. I remember a few coming out weeping about the children whose lives were cut off because their product didn't follow minimal guidelines of cleanliness.

It's a gimic these days for when the company gets into trouble (and you want to save your job).

In reality, if you actually care about people you take pains to make sure that you aren't or an organization you control isn't going to harm people.

Plus this is rather a farce when Cheney is in large part responsible for over 100,000 deaths in Iraq.

He doesn't cry himself to sleep at night over them?

BTW, the VP in this case is the adult that was supposed to be carrying little boy Bush through his presidency and then he acts like he doesn't know how to delegate the notices to Mr. Whittinton's family members?

If Cheney is that incompetent, then who, really, is running our government?

We could have a huge emergency and lots of people could be at risk of dying and more losing their homes... oh wait a minute.

Well, there could be a terror attack planned that, if allowed -- through incompetence -- to come to fruition, could cost thousands of lives.... wait no, I guess we'd better not talk about that either.

We could have to make a decision about going to war based on whether a nation had WMDs.. wait a minute... do you suppose?

What if you had a government at the highest levels whose only concern was how to make itself more powerful, and making itself more powerful meant giving more money and more money through tax cuts, pork, and government contracts to people who would feed back into the system through campaign money (proven), cooked mainstream news and analysis both within the nation and outside (proven), paid bloggers (some proven), and a shadow live and internet whispering campaign of paid supporters constantly passing right wing talking points to message boards and even to friends, family members, and church folk?

The lower levels of government struggle to maintain for a few years. The military bleeds members for crazy wars. The middle class taxpayers allow themselves to be gouged deeper and deeper to pay for taxcuts for the wealthy class that can give the administration the most monetary support.

Major catastrophes happen, but after a major terror attack the news media is advised that it would actually support the terrorists if it questioned the competency of the administration.

A war on terror is started, but when the administration turns over a crucial operation to poor underequipped tribesmen, the news media does comment, but allows more 'news' to cover over the old news of a massive failure of competency in the upper level of the military.

A questionable invasion is promoted, but the news media is advised that it would be helping the enemy if it questioned too strongly the intelligence leading to the invasion of another country. Years later, some question, some comment, but there is always another speech by any high ranking member of the administration that needs to be paid attention.

A major natural disaster (which was increased by the decision to invade a country years before instead of strenghtening necessary levees) happens, there are months of discussions, but there is always at least one speech, comment, etc. from a senior administration member that must be paid attention by the news media.

Together with sports, entertainment and weather news, there is very little time to bring up the major incompetence of the post Katrina period, and when they do they have to cover speech after speech, comment after comment of by the administration pushing their propaganda about how they were and are doing the best possible job in the face of all the terrorists.

(I have to admit with the early leeking of the report on the post-Katrina response this week has been a break from the usual deluge of administration propaganda on all subjects. But that only means that you and I taxpayer will have to pay for another campaign by our president trotting around the country telling his base how wonderful he is so he'll have the support he needs to continue to take from us and pay his rich supporters. And I suspect the news media will get back to it's normal pattern. Rove is making up the propaganda now. It usually takes him a few days to a week to get the focus group results back.)

War incompetency, spying on Americans, databases of Grannies against war, Quakers, ACLU being called threats to the nation.

Still the news media focuses more on the propagandic response from the administration more than the facts.

And don't forget that llllloooonnnngggg unending war on terror in which only Bush and his obedient Republican subjects in Congress can save us.

Senator John Warner: (paraphrased) A dictatorship needs constant war to distract the people at home from what is being done to them.

How long do you think this can keep going on before we have an event that will wake enough people up?

More important work our president is getting down to: The White Sox come to visit

Yesterday, Scott McClellan told news people that the president was ready to move onto important issues, leaving the Cheney shooting incident behind.

Since then the president has hosted the Texas Longhorns (yesterday) and (today) the Chicago White Soxs.

Now I know that's all the time the president has in his day after his hours of bike riding, so I guess those were really important parties.

U.S. Tells News Media to Shut Up Over New Abu Ghraib Pictures

The videotapes and photographs of naked captives at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad were consistent with images shown earlier in the United States and depict captives naked, with hoods over their heads and posed in sexual situations.

One video shows a handcuffed man pounding his head against a metal cell door. The same prisoner is shown in other pictures dangling upside down and naked from a top bunk and smeared with his own feces, according to the Special Broadcasting Service's "Dateline" program.

The man was mentally ill and became a "plaything" for the guards who "experimented with ways to restrain them," the S.B.S. reported, according to The Associated Press in Sydney. The S.B.S. declined to say where it had obtained the pictures.

The State Department legal adviser, John B. Bellinger 3d, said the latest pictures "show once again just the reprehensible conduct that was going on in Abu Ghraib," conduct "that is absolutely disgusting."

Mr. Bellinger noted that, following the instances of abuse in late 2003 and their disclosure early in 2004, there had been numerous public investigations, prosecutions and internal reviews. "And it's unfortunate, in fact, that these photographs are coming out further and fanning the flames," Mr. Bellinger said, referring to the Australian broadcast.

Of course, the Bush administration's posture says that if the news media shuts up this will all go away -- away like dirt swept under the carpet.

New York Times

Our American Troikaship (Dick, George, and Karl) never ceases to amaze.

(I wrote this in a bit of a rush and added a sentence that I could never reconcile with decent English, and have deleted that sentence. Unfortunately it was the one that ABC au picked up for their report on blogs. I will attempt to construct a decent sentence containing a similar meaning now though it's 12:34 am)

Most countries that have in the years since Hitler and Stalin attempted to control the press like the Bush administration does have long ago been recognized as non democratic.

Does media focus on atheletes with the biggest stories?

Instead of those devoted to their sports, it seems like the news media focuses on those with a bigger story.

Does that help athletes win more endorsements.

The Washington Post seems kind of shocked that the big story guy didn't get a medal, and someone without a tearjerker did.

Good luck to both young men in the future. But this might be a hint to future Olympians.

Devote yourself to your sport, but be sure to have that 'story' for the media and endorsers.

I hope we see Toby Dawson in some ads.

It does seem that some great athletes have been ignored (at until everyone else in the sports has tested positive for enhancement drug abuse).

Cheney's Sorry but was he drinking?

No answer to the question of whether Cheney was drinking before or during the hunt.

Imagine you having someone turn the Sheriff away from your door the night after a serious hunting accident because you didn't want to talk to him.

But then you're not the Vice President are you?

Olympics becoming a battle?

It sounds funny, but today's world is a battle, either economically, and politically or because of ideology or religion.

This is what happens when the rich control just about everything. Rather like the middle ages.

Why should the 'Olympics' be any different?

We aggressively invaded Iraq for Bush's whims, killing over 100,000 Iraqis as of the summer of 2004 and not even including the death toll of the first Fallujan massacre (the second occured in November 2004). It's safe to say that nearly a quarter of a million of the citizens of that country are dead because of what we allowed.

And now we expect a couple of weeks of peace and goodwill from the other nations of the world?

I don't think they're blind to what's at stake here. This is not a world in which one would work together, but everyone competes full out. Smash the opposition. Get what you want.

If you want peace and goodwill you have to live it first.

325,000 Fingered for Negroponte's "Terrorist' list

The National Counterterrorism Center maintains a central repository of 325,000 names of international terrorism suspects or people who allegedly aid them, a number that has more than quadrupled since the fall of 2003, according to counterterrorism officials.

The list kept by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) -- created in 2004 to be the primary U.S. terrorism intelligence agency -- contains a far greater number of international terrorism suspects and associated names in a single government database than has previously been disclosed. Because the same person may appear under different spellings or aliases, the true number of people is estimated to be more than 200,000, according to NCTC officials.

...

"We have lists that are having baby lists at this point; they're spawning faster than rabbits," Sparapani said. "If we have over 300,000 known terrorists who want to do this country harm, we've got a much bigger problem than deciding which names go on which list. But I highly doubt that is the case."

Asked whether the names in the repository were collected through the NSA's domestic intelligence intercept program, the NCTC official said, "Our database includes names of known and suspected international terrorists provided by all intelligence community organizations, including NSA."

But it's good to know that we've got those Grannies against War and the Quakers in our sights.

(Yes, I read all the reassurances, etc. in the rest of the article. I just don't swallow the Bush administration's propaganda.)

My understanding of the message from the Bush administration in the rest of the article is: 'Don't worry folks. For now the only thing we'll admit is that it's just "brown people" being targeted.' This is basically the same thing Michael Hayden said when calling for calm over the NSA spying.

I remember a TV show (which was an episode of the New Twilight Zone, I believe) where a woman received a box from a man at her door who told here that if she opened it she would receive a millions dollars, but someone she didn't know and would never know about would die. The family was in desperate straits and she fretted for several days, but in the end she did open it. The man returned to her door nearly immediately and handed her a check for a million dollars. She asked what would then happen to the box. The man blithely told her that it would be resealed and given to someone else for the test. To someone she didn't know and who would never know about her.

Our country's fascism is not free. It will come back for payment on us. Somewhere, some group will make their plans in their desperation (the Muslim world is under attack at all levels if you haven't noticed) to take out some "white people" whom they've never ever met and will never know.

You have to hand it to the Bush administration though, they are now getting primo propaganda right out with the original report. It took them a month to get the inferences that people hurt by the NSA snooping are just 'brown folks' who don't play in the park with their kids like you do.

The reporters though show that apparently lists are being kept of people we wouldn't consider terrorists and dangerous people's signals are being down graded.

Better a dangerous armed right winger with you on a flight than a "brown person" with the wrong name. Hopefully, the Muslim nations won't do the same to us "white folks". There'd be a lot John Smiths that could never fly again. (A large percentage of Muslims names are like 'John Smith' having a lot of overlap.)

Read the entire article. This is an important report.

Passivity did the most damage in days, weeks after Katrina hit

"Passivity did the most damage," concluded the report, which was written by a Republican-dominated special House committee and obtained Tuesday night by The Associated Press. "The failure of initiative cost lives, prolonged suffering, and left all Americans justifiably concerned our government is no better prepared to protect its people than it was before 9/11... [The Republican dominated group added Even "if we are" to the end of this. Consider the source.]

The hard-hitting report, entitled "A Failure of Initiative," concludes that President Bush could have speeded the response by becoming involved in the crisis earlier. It says he was not receiving guidance from a disaster specialist who would have understood the scope of the storm's destruction.

Of course he didn't have the guidance he needed, because he only appointed cronies and those loyal to his 'supreme president' ambitions.

Mike Chertoff is a propaganda specialist as was his predecessor, Tom Ridge. We won't even go into Former FEMA Director Michael (have I got the right shirt on?) Brown. But Mike Brown was only one of many in an administration that is geared towards making itself look good. They all checked their wardrobe and plotted their photo ops over Katrina while people were dying in New Orleans.

Now we are seeing what we lose when we accept that kind of governance and go back to our shallow lives, ignoring the danger in DC.

Next could be a tornado swarm in the MidWest, or an Earthquake on the West Coast or a Blizzard or Nor'Easter anywhere within 2/3rds of our nation should it happen that the normal phenomenum take on Katrina size proportions.

Meanwhile they plot to keep us in Iraq until the propaganda on that can be turned to favor the administration. I'm convinced they only stay now because leaving would look like giving in... to the Democratic party's demands, ...to Cindy.

When the defeat in Iraq can be made to resemble victory as Nixon attempted over Vietnam, then the troops can come home.


The following excerpts are from the Forbes' version of similar AP report by Lara Jakes Jordan (AP reports come out in different revisions during the day, and it seems that end receivers can slice and dice the reports or use the unique information from one and list AP as one of their sources. All AP 'reports' tend to disappear, in sources for the general public, within a couple of weeks, but are available through a Nexis.com account which few can afford.)

Government at all levels took an indifferent stance toward disaster preparations after the 2001 terror attacks, leaving the Gulf Coast vulnerable to Hurricane Katrina and contributing to the death and suffering the storm inflicted, a House inquiry concludes.

Finding fault with the White House down to local officials, the 520-page report determined that authorities failed to move quickly to protect people - even when faced with warnings days before the catastrophic storm struck last Aug. 29.

The Scam Artists of the Lincoln Group

Two years ago, Christian Bailey and Paige Craig were living in a half-renovated Washington group house, with a string of failed startup companies behind them.

Mr. Bailey, a boyish-looking Briton, and Mr. Craig, a chain-smoking former Marine sergeant, then began winning multimillion-dollar contracts with the United States military to produce propaganda in Iraq.

Now their company, Lincoln Group, works out of elegant offices along Pennsylvania Avenue and sponsors polo matches in Virginia horse country. Mr. Bailey recently bought a million-dollar Georgetown row house. Mr. Craig drives a Jaguar and shows up for interviews accompanied by his "director of security," a beefy bodyguard.

The company's rise, though, has been built in part by exaggerated claims about its abilities and connections, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former Lincoln Group employees and associates, and a review of company documents.

New York Times.

More on the Lincoln Group here.

Another place that American taxpayer financed pro Bush administration propaganda has been documented is in works done by faith based charities overseas.

Also ran American wins us some gold

From what I've been reading Ted Ligety wasn't supposed to be winning this year, with or without Bode Miller.

But he did.

Nice to see this pinned on the news media and big business.

Cartoon: Cheney responds

Cole

McClellan declared that the president would be moving on from the Cheney shooting case

Leaving behind a report stuffed for 22 hours, because it wasn't convenient for the Vice President to have to admit to a mistake.

And forgetting the different stories the local Sheriff told to different news reporters about whether or not Cheney was seen in person the night of Saturday, February 11, 2006, (to judge for themselves if the VP had been drinking).

Forgetting the fact that the bird shot has now caused the man a heart attack (which, of course, will be blamed on liberals in the future) (AnLA Times report says the chance of the shot migration that apparently happened in the chest of Whittington is 1 in a 1000 (their words were "1 in 99.99" but they aren't trying to obfuscate the matter to avoid censure by Limbaugh and O'Reilly hate squads, no).


(Apparently the Sheriff has been able to tie the two different reports he gave together in the article at the above link, but it still leaves Cheney alone on Saturday night with no one, but his cronies to tell the Sheriff if he'd been drinking before or during hunting.) (The LA Times report linked above says that the deputy was actually turned away by the Secret Service Saturday night.)

Meanwhile back at the Eastern Prairie Chapel:

After first defensively fielding questions on why disclosure of the Saturday shooting was delayed until the next day, Press Secretary Scott McClellan joked about the situation with reporters at his morning briefing. Later, he turned somber after doctors in Corpus Christi, Texas, said the Austin lawyer shot by Cheney _ Henry Whittington, 78 _ had suffered a minor heart attack after birdshot from Cheney's blast migrated to his heart.

Then McClellan got snippy and said:

"If you want to continue to spend time on that, that's fine," McClellan told reporters pressing him on the shooting incident. "We're moving on to the priorities of the American people. That's where our focus is."

Analysis: Cheney Forced Onto Center Stage

And our wonderful president got right down to important stuff, by welcoming the Texas Longhorns to the Rose Garden.

Hyjinks and good times were had by all.

Stay tuned.

Cartoon: The Constitution is so Pre 9-11

Keefe

Cartoon: Now this is a cartoon to get upset about

Cohen

Jackson: No one would modify the memorial for Moses to make the pharaoh feel better.

Excerpt:

Memorial services are meant to pay tribute to the lives and the struggles of the deceased. No one would modify the memorial for Moses to make the pharaoh feel better. Lowery's and Carter's words paid direct tribute to Dr. King and Coretta. Their willingness to afflict the comfortable was faithful to the teachings of the heroine they mourned. It was Dr. King who taught us to use every occasion to challenge those supporting injustice with their action or their inaction.

For example, two weeks after his famous speech at the March on Washington in September 1963, Dr. King delivered the eulogy at the funeral for four little girls killed when their Birmingham church was firebombed. Their loss weighed heavily on Dr. King, Coretta and the civil rights activists. They knew the risks.

Dr. King felt that agony personally. At the funeral service, he paid memorable tribute to those innocent spirits. He comforted their grieving families. But he also invoked the slain children to challenge the powerful and the content: ''They are . . . martyred heroines. . . . They have something to say to every minister of the Gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows. . . . They have something to say to every politician who has fed his constituents with the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism. . . . They have something to say to a federal government that has compromised with the undemocratic practices of Southern Dixiecrats and the blatant hypocrisy of right-wing Northern Republicans. . . . They have something to say to every Negro who has passively accepted the evil system of segregation and who has stood on the sidelines in a mighty struggle for justice.''

Bush chose to come to the funeral, but he stands on the other side of history from Dr. King and Coretta. She opposed the war in Iraq. She decried the immoral priorities of this administration. Bush went directly from the memorial service to release a federal budget that mocked the memory of Dr. King and Coretta. More than $500 billion -- half a trillion dollars -- for the Pentagon, more tax cuts for millionaires, while cutting children from Head Start, raising health care costs on the poor and the elderly, cutting back on home heating and raising the cost of student loans.

There are those who want to erase the reality that the president was and is on the wrong side of the human rights and justice struggle in America that Dr. King and Coretta led. The president has a right to be on that side of history. What he does not have a right to be is a wolf in sheep's clothing, pretending to be supportive of the civil-rights and human-rights struggle that they lived. Lowery and Carter ensured the funeral service broke through that lie.

Too bad right wing didn't just listen

Cartoon: Cheney got the Quayle

Trever

Cartoon: Saint Poll

Danziger

Cartoon: Cheney, chickenhawk no longer

Daily Scribble

Actually, Mr. VP since you weren't being shot at, you're still one.

Yeah, What He Said.

Jose Antonio Vargas explores the icon that is Kwan.

And she should have been put in at Lillehammer too.

Wikipedia: Michelle Kwan

John Cheek, Inspired by Altruism, Comes Up Golden

Apparently, the speedskater had plotted the night before to give any money won to Johann Olav Koss's charity, "Right to Play", that uses sports to help children caught in danger zones. Cheek designated his money for Darfur.

Cheek might give the world another present as well. A chance to applaud the charitable spirit.

Robinson: Ready Aim Fire -- The Guiding Philosophy for the Bush Administration

And especially for VP Cheney

Sally Jenkins Explains Crashing in the Downhill

Pretty Scary Stuff

Hunter-writer trying to drum up sympathy for Vice President, shows how 'me-first' his actions were

Excerpt:

The fundamental etiquette and safety device of bird hunting is: Obey the line.

The line is between you and the game ahead of you, and by you I mean everybody in your party. The line is invisible but should exist in the imagination as powerfully as the Great Wall of China. It is the simple geography of safety that determines that we are here and we only shoot there -- that is, ahead of us. It has certain mandates. One is that at any given moment, one should know where everybody in the hunting party is. You have to keep those images in mind as you move over the ground. It has to be second nature.

It can be tough. The pleasure of bird hunting is that unlike still hunting (the duck blind, the deer stand) you are in motion against the texture of the land and it can always trick you with unseen folds, with grass that's higher than it should be, with trees that aren't as thick or are twice as thick as they seem. Then irregularities of incline and decline, of vegetation and stoniness all play havoc against the line, as well as heat, thirst, hunger, comfort and emotional state.

But you risk much if you lose contact with the line.

It appears the vice president lost contact with the line. News reports indicate that, as the man farthest to the right in his party, he assumed that the third member, his friend Whittington, was well off the field. He did not know and Whittington did not inform him that Whittington was rejoining the party from the right rear. When the vice president "busted a covey" -- that is, startled a group of birds into flight to his far right -- he tracked one, stayed on it even as he curled around farther to the rear and pulled the trigger.

News of the Vice President's Misfire Hits A Fellow Bird Hunter Where It Hurts

First get that bird--worry about where people are next.

Cartoon: FEMA to the Rescue!

Sargent

VP's actions highlight questions of candor within Bush administration

Excerpt article in Slate Magazine:

treating the press like Patrick Leahy is bad staff work. As a veteran staffer of two administrations and a cabinet secretary in another, Dick Cheney should know that he is not supposed to embarrass his boss.

Cheney's silence has forced White House aides to answer for the 21-hour delay without being able to give the real story (there is still no official account of what happened). The Cheney delay has also exacerbated questions about the Bush administration's candor and truthfulness. Those topics were already in the news enough. Last week, the former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until last year charged White House officials with "cherry-picking" intelligence on Iraq to justify a decision it had already reached to go to war. This week, Republicans in Congress will issue a report that says the Bush administration delayed the evacuation of thousands of New Orleans residents by failing to act quickly on early reports that the levees had broken during Hurricane Katrina, a charge that contradicts the president's assertion about when they knew the levees would fail. Suddenly, a lot of columnists sound like Maureen Dowd, bemoaning the gang that can't get the truth straight.

And at some point Cheney's starchy behavior is also insulting. Shouldn't there be some minimum level of explanation he's willing to offer as the second-highest ranking public official? When you nearly commit homicide as a public official shouldn't the honor of your office compel you to stand up and explain yourself in some fashion, at least say something in a press release and not just whisper it to a Texas rancher?

If that sense of duty doesn't compel him, Cheney should see the political necessity of saying something fast. He doesn't want the GOP to become the it's-OK-to-shoot-people-while-hunting party.

Slate Magazine

$600 Toilet Seats Beginning to Look Pretty Good

Fleecing the American Taxpayer through the Pentagon continues, increases.

Michael Hirsh at Newsweek is on it.

Cartoon: There'll Be No More Problems Meeting Military Enlishtment Quotas

Rall

Slow Leak: How Cheney Stalled News Reports of Hunting Accident

From Time Magazine article of same name.

Excerpt:

But [news of the shooting did not come out when Scott McClellan asked for it to be released shortly after learning about it on Sunday morning]. Cheney insisted on carrying out a strategy he had worked out with the ranch owner, Katharine Armstrong, in which she was to call a trusted reporter at the local paper, the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, to disclose the news. Caller-Times Managing Editor Shane Fitzgerald told TIME that the newspaper had done its usual nightly checks with local law enforcement agents on Saturday and had been told nothing was going on. Armstrong started leaving messages at the newspaper at 8 a.m., reached a reporter by 11 a.m. and the newspaper posted its story on the Web at 1:48 p.m. local time Sunday. At 3:34 p.m. eastern time, The Associated Press finally flashed the news: "Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a man during a hunting trip in Texas." Fitzgerald said he is "mystified" about the chain of events and that the public should have been notified much earlier, even if the shooter had been some random guy. Even on Monday, the newspaper struggled to get a copy of the accident report. "I think it has become a bigger deal than Mr. Cheney and/or the White House anticipated," the editor said.

Does this have anything to do with

the third hunter in the group[?] Some news outlets, including The Associated Press in some dispatches, after not disclosed the name, while many others have said it was Pam Willeford, the U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein, and a native Texan.

From E&P (Same E&P link as 2 posts below)

It was just a very curious statement at the end of the report. Like they were trying to tell us something.

Pic of Pam W. is here.

Chertoff to fix Homeland Security

But he's already fixed it once.

Really, how many chances do they get?

Actually, I'll admit I do not like Chertoff.

Why?

On the morning of August 30, 2005, he stood in front of the television cameras and told us what a great job they were doing.

And for days and weeks later he did the same.

Now it turns out it was all lie and propaganda.

How can we ever trust him? Next time you or your family may be dying while waiting for help, and there'll be Chertoff in front of the television cameras telling the country what a great job he and his department is doing.

I'm sorry to see Fran Townsend turning into one of Rove's chief propagandists.

I guess they've used up all the credibility in Karen Hughes (who'll be crooning in Arabic from now on) and Mary Matalin (does she kiss her half-dem kids with that mouth?) so they'll use Francis until no one will believe her even when she's telling the time of day.

Responding to a draft House report that said the administration disregarded warnings of Katrina's threat to New Orleans and that Bush was slow to become engaged, Townsend said, "I reject outright any suggestion that President Bush was anything less than fully involved."

...

Taking aim at Brown, Townsend said one can learn from experience or "become bitter and lash out, trying to find someone, anybody, to blame, and unfortunately we have seen that already." She added: "We cannot attempt to rewrite history by pointing fingers or laying blame."

Actually, Francis you couldn't get that reasoning by any business board in the nation. I mean if we take you at your word, we'd have to put Ken Lay back at the head of Enron, and let him try again. Instead the US pointed fingers and laid blame.

That's exactly what we should be doing with the Bush administration.

I think you get the Golden Sieve award for unsuccessful water carrying. Though I think that Scotty's going to want it back really soon with the uproar over Cheney's Friendly Fire incident.

Chinese Editor Dies of Injuries Suspected to be From Cop Beating

Up to 50 police raided the newspaper's office on October 20, a day after it published an article criticising traffic police over charging arbitrary fees for electrical bicycle licences.

Up to eight police beat and kicked Wu, before hurling him out of his office and bundling him into a police car, Xinhua reported the next day.

The Xinhua report said Wu had a liver transplant two years before and the beating caused severe damage to his liver and that he sustained multiple injuries.

Pictures still on Xinhua's website showed several police bundling Wu into a police car and another picture showing eight police vehicles outside the newspaper's building.

Another journalist at Taizhou Wanbao, who also declined to be named, said Wu had remained in hospital following the beatings on October 20. He added that newspaper staff had been warned against discussing the incident with outsiders.

Read rest at: News 24

Officials: Cheney Lacked 'Bird Stamp' for Texas License. Plus Country Sheriff involved changes his story.

Update: Please see note at Below

And according to Editor and Publisher apparently no officials were able to check Cheney's breath after incident.

Why did they wait so long to report it?

It's becoming important to answer that, now.

Was Cheney out hunting with brandy breath?

NEW YORK In the aftermath of the Saturday shooting, Texas state wildlife officials reported late today that while Vice President Dick Cheney had purchased a valid non-resident hunting license, he did not obtain a required "upland game bird stamp."

A warning citation--which carries no fine or penalty--will be issued to Cheney, which state officials described as "routine." Cheney's office said he would promptly send in the $7 for the stamp. However, as the Dallas Morning News headlined on its Web site, he was, on Saturday, "hunting illegally."

The first official report on the shooting of a fellow hunter on Saturday by Cheney was issued late today by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. It follows much controversy and speculation stemming from the failure of the vice president or the White House to announce the incident for 18 hours.

The report, posted at the Smoking Gun site, confirmed the time of shooting of Harry Whittington at 5:30 pm on Saturday and that Cheney was wearing a "blaze orange" cap and "coat/vest" and brown trousers and was toting a Perazzi .28 caliber shotgun.

The "Game Law Violated" box was checked, with the violation listed as section "P&W Code 43.652." According to an online rundown on that section, this relates to the lack of the upland bird stamp. The text follows: "Except as provided by Subsection (b), a person may not hunt a
migratory or upland game bird in this state unless the person has acquired a migratory or upland game bird stamp, as applicable, issued to the person by the department."

At the same time, the Kenedy County Sheriff's Office this afternoon issued a press release noting that an "investigation reveals that there was no alcohol, or misconduct involved in the incident." It added that Whittington "collaborated Vice President Cheney's statement," and concluded, "This was no more than a hunting accident."

However, that office had previously disclosed that it was not able to interview Cheney Saturday night after the shooting, and did not do so until Sunday morning.

So, the decision from the Sheriff that Cheney was not drinking was made upon information received from his hunting cronies.

Tomorrow's Gaggle should be even better

I am perturbed about the mainstream media suddenly making this about jokes and about how the news media is reacting.

This incident shows a side of Cheney we feared in our hearts, but didn't admit to ourselves.

Or maybe he was just drunk, and the Sheriff is covering for him.

See below for suspicious changing of stories by the Kenedy County Sheriff.

Note:

The E&P article I wrote about changed later to one about the conflicting stories coming out about the incident though it also notes Cheney's lack of the proper hunting stamp.

Excerpt from present article:

NEW YORK Several newspapers today carried wildly different accounts of the aftermath of the Saturday incident in which Vice President Cheney shot a hunting companion at a ranch in Texas.

The New York Times reports Tuesday that the local sheriff, Ramon Salinas III of Kenedy County, said the Secret Service called him shortly after the shooting occurred.
"Sheriff Salinas said he sent his chief deputy, Gilbert Sanmiguel, to the Armstrong Ranch that night," the Times relates. "He said Mr. Sanmiguel interviewed Mr. Cheney and reported that the shooting was an accident."

The Dallas Morning News, at the same time, reports that "questions remained as to why Mr. Cheney was not interviewed on Saturday."

Chief Deputy Gilbert San Miguel suggested he always knew where the vice president and the other witnesses were. "We were always in contact with Secret Service," he told the paper.

Sheriff Salinas said he decided Saturday night not to send anyone to the ranch and added that he was relying on information from others that it was an accident. "If I wanted to go in there, we would have gone in there," he told the Dallas paper. "If someone called and told me there was a shooting and they didn't think it was an accident, I'd have five or six people on the ranch."

Curiouser and curiouser.

You don't want to get caught in Texas, Thelma...(well unless you're the vice president of a neocon administration).

If you took the link to below you can use the back button to get back to the top and read the post all the way through.