Noted N.H. Republican endorses Democrat Dean Democrat Howard Dean’s stance against the war in Iraq has brought him supporters from across party lines in New Hampshire.Will the Plame leak be the last straw for moderate Republicans? Will we be talking about "Dean Republicans" in 2004 like we used to talk about "Reagan Democrats"?Hilary Cleveland of New London, wife of the late Congressman James Cleveland, and a prominent campaigner for both President Bushes, is helping organize a Republicans for Dean movement.
Dean announced the names of 40 Republicans who will serve on a steering committee. Cleveland says she’s been a lifelong Republican, but will switch her registration to independent so she can vote for Dean in the presidential primary.
Cleveland was the New London co-chair for George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign and was the state finance chair Bush’s father in 1980.
"I have been disappointed in the Bush Administration’s policies in Iraq, and former Governor Dean has best articulated why we should not have gone to war in Iraq. I like his emphasis on the importance of internationalism and his fiscal program," Cleveland said.
via Atrios.
Yes, we really ARE monks! We really DO pray and help others. Hundreds of years ago, monks survived by baking bread, making wine, or copying manuscripts. We survive by selling Ink and Toner Supplies online, at HUGE discountsThey're apparently a monastery of Cistercian (Trappist) monks in Wisconsin. To be honest, I haven't checked out their prices (which they claim are quite low), but if you're looking for an alternative to buying toner and inkjet cartridges at your local giant retail outlet, it's certainly that. They include links to what charitable works are done with the money they make.
.....and YOU benefit!Lasermonks was founded in 2001 by a team of enterprising monks, and follows in the tradition of monastic business endeavors, uniquely blending philanthropy, spirituality, and enterprise to support a life of prayer and charitable service.
"Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this," Novak said on CNN's "Crossfire," of which he is a co-host. "There is no great crime here."Now I don't really have a hard time believing that. Plausible deniability is a wonderful thing; I could easily believe that someone called him on another pretext, intending all along to let the Plame information "slip" along the way. Or that they had Novak call them. Or that it was done at a face to face meeting. Any of those would make that statement technically true. I guess you might say that it all depends on what the definition of "call" is.
Of course, you have to compare that to what he said in a July 22 interview in Newsday (thanks to Josh Marshall):
Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."
There's also the matter of "analyst" vs. "operative", which is pretty important in terms of whether and which laws were broken. Novak is now saying that
a confidential source at the CIA told him Plame was "an analyst, not a spy, not covert operative and not in charge of undercover operatives." (same CNN article)On the other hand, we have CNN saying that other CIA sources have told them she was an operative plus Wilson's statements that when Novak originally called him before publishing the article he told Wilson that someone had identified his wife as a CIA operative.
Nothing illegal here on Novak's part; the First Amendment is a wonderful thing. But Novak is certainly working hard at cementing his credentials as the kind of vermin other vermin cross the street to avoid.
I have changed on some of the issues. I think that's one of the hallmarks of who I am. I'm a doctor. I believe if you have a theory and the fact comes along that changes the theory, then you throw out the theory. The Republicans believe that if a fact comes along that changes the theory, they throw out the fact. They deny there is such a thing as global warming. The President made the case that a bipartisan committee in Congress admits was exaggerated, and he ignored the facts for going to war in Iraq. This is pretty serious stuff. I have no complaint and no embarrassment about changing my positions at all. If facts come along that show you things need to change, you need to change them.That is one of the most sensible things I've heard from any politician in a long time.
The bad news? It's very likely to run afoul of the "simplicity is integrity" image that's been playing in the press for some time now. Sorry, but I just don't understand (or agree with) the idea that sticking to a position no matter what is better than being willing to change your mind if facts indicate you should.
By comparison, Bill Meuller won the AL title by a comfortable margin at .326 over Manny Ramirez at .325 and Derek Jeter at .324.
Instapundit somehow finds l'affaire Plame too complicated for him. Even after reading the Washington Post story that I thought laid it all out quite well. He seems to be stumbling over the question of why they would do such a thing. Here's a suggestion: think back to Watergate. How many of the things that came out during that investigation seemed, in the light of day, bizarre and/or downright stupid? Why break into DNC headquarters? When you spend to long listening and talking to the same small group of people, your view of reality gets warped. I was astonished when Bush told Brit Hume that he didn't read the newspapers, and got all his news from a small, trusted group of people. What that means is that he's getting all his information from people who overwhelmingly have one of two biases:
The other thing that doesn't seem very complicated at this point is locating the leakers. Why are we waiting for a Justice Department investigation? We know that "a senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife" from the Post. Noting the different usage ("administration official" vs. "White House official") lends a bit of weight (IMO) to the speculation that the "administration official" is CIA Director Tenet (who happens to be pictured along with the story). So it seems pretty obvious to me that if Bush wanted to, he could have that "senior administration official" give him the names (assuming he doesn't already have them) and produce them in about 14.7 seconds, give or take a news cycle.
So why doesn't he? More and more, it looks like the question, what did the President know and when did he know it? may be coming back for a second turn in the limelight. All we need now is a latter-day Woodward and Bernstein to shake things up a bit, jump in, and hang on. Mr. Pincus, Mr. Milbank? Call for you from central casting.
Remarks By George Bush
41st President of the United States,
At the Dedication Ceremony for the George Bush Center for Intelligence
26 April 1999
It's going to be an interesting news cycle or two (not to mention the Sunday gabfests). Not quite midnight on Saturday and so far we have
What I want to know is how we got to this point. Robert Novak, nobody's liberal, published the original "outing" of Plame and attributed the story to two people in the White House. A "senior administration official" said that at least six newspapers were given the information, which means someone in the West Wing knew about it. So, what did the President know and when did he know it?
Let's hope this is just the first of many Democratic voices calling for something to be done about this.
The recently suspended head of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corp. has landed another highly paid job with the Pataki administration, officials said yesterday. Robert Ryan, suspended in February from his $144,311-a-year state post and escorted from his office after the Roosevelt Island board of directors accused him of awarding tens of thousands of dollars in unauthorized salary bonuses, is now a $110,000-a-year assistant secretary of state.I'm not sure which part of this I find more disgusting, the fact that he was hired despite the hiring freeze or that, for $110,000/year, he does not have a formal job description.Ryan, 47, held the title of "campaign manager" in Gov. Pataki's first gubernatorial campaign in 1994. Now he will be responsible for trying to get New York City to conform to the state fire code, said a spokesman for Secretary of State Randy Daniels, a potential GOP gubernatorial candidate in 2006. Official payroll records show Ryan, who first landed a high-paying state job at the Empire State Development Corp. in 1995, was put on the state Health Department payroll - and not on the Department of State's payroll - Sept. 3 as a "health pro."
Ryan, a close political ally of Conservative Party Chairman Mike Long, was investigated by the state Inspector General's Office at the request of the Roosevelt Island board after his suspension, but no charges were brought.
A spokesman for Pataki would not comment on the hiring of Ryan.
A spokesman for Daniels confirmed the hiring but said Ryan "does not have a formal job description."
Ryan was hired despite a Pataki-ordered hiring freeze.
MSNBC is reporting an exclusive that the "CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations that the White House broke federal laws by revealing the identity of one of its undercover employees in retaliation against the woman’s husband, a former ambassador who publicly criticized President Bush’s since-discredited claim that Iraq had sought weapons-grade uranium from Africa...."
This undercover employee, of course, would be Valerie Plame, wife of Joe Wilson. That image of Karl Rove being frog-marched out of the White House just got one step closer.
Yahoo! News - 2 years in a row, more in poverty : "More than a million Americans sank into poverty last year, an annual Census report is expected to show today. It would be the first time in nearly a decade that the number of poor rose two years in a row.Experts at the University of Michigan, the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation and the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said they expected official figures to show the U.S. poverty rate growing from 11.7% in 2001 to around 12.3% in 2002. Their predictions generally are accurate within a few decimal points."
After his last column on the French, I thought Friedman had gone completely around the bend, but then he comes up with a real breath of fresh air:
Connect the Dots: "If only the Bush team connected the dots, it would see what a nutty war on terrorism it is fighting, explains Mr. Prestowitz. Here, he says, is the Bush war on terrorism: Preach free trade, but don't deliver on it, so Pakistani farmers become more impoverished. Then ask Congress to give a tax break for any American who wants to buy a gas-guzzling Humvee for business use and also ask Congress to resist any efforts to make Detroit increase gasoline mileage in new cars. All this means more U.S. oil imports from Saudi Arabia.So then the Saudis have more dollars to give to their Wahhabi fundamentalist evangelists, who spend it by building religious schools in Pakistan. The Pakistani farmer we've put out of business with our farm subsidies then sends his sons to the Wahhabi school because it is tuition-free and offers a hot lunch. His sons grow up getting only a Koranic education, so they are totally unprepared for modernity, but they are taught one thing: that America is the source of all their troubles. One of the farmer's sons joins Al Qaeda and is killed in Afghanistan by U.S. Special Forces, and we think we're winning the war on terrorism."
I'd still rather listen to the Ethel Merman Disco Album than Prager, but damn, that was good.
Bush Presses 'Faith-Based' Agenda (washingtonpost.com): "President Bush repealed and proposed several regulations yesterday to make it easier for religious charities to receive federal money, including allowing such groups to make hiring decisions based on job candidates' faith."One hopes it's not really necessary to point out any of the many ways in which this looks like A Bad Idea. But as usual, the White House came up with a Truly Remarkable justification:
"In any employment decision, there's discrimination," said Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. "Universities hire smart people."Words fail me.
via TAPPED
United Press International: Iraq to bar key Arabic news channels: "The Iraqi Governing Council announced Tuesday it would suspend two prominent Arabic-language satellite news stations for what it said was supporting recent attacks on council members and U.S. occupation forces."So Chalabi, as head of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) and the Iraqi National Congress (INC) has decided to shut down al Jazeera. So much for the free press, eh? But the interesting thing in this story is the confusion(?) of those TLA's, IGC and INC. After that lead paragraph, we find the following attributions:
The plain fact is that it's a lot less likely if you're white, but the core problem here is identity theft. People worry about their identity being stolen and debts incurred, but what if someone steals your identity and attracts the interest of the Department of Justice?
The Village Voice: Features: Three Days in NYC Jails by Bryonn Bain Saturday night, November 23, 2002, I was pulled over on the Bruckner Expressway because of a broken taillight. The police officer who ran my license claimed I had multiple warrants out for my arrest, and I was thrown in jail to begin a weekend I will not soon forget.Read the whole thing. It's worth the time spent.During the next three days, I was interrogated about "terrorist activity"—whether I was involved with a terrorist group or knew anyone else who was—without an attorney present. My Legal Aid lawyer claimed she was also a medical professional and diagnosed me as mentally ill when I told her I teach poetry at New York University. After my bail was posted, I was held behind bars another night because central booking ran out of the receipts required for my release. On my third day in jail, accused of two misdemeanors and a felony I knew nothing about, I was finally found innocent, and allowed to go home.
Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: David Kay is in charge of our effort now, with some 1,500 inspectors and analysts and experts. He will provide an interim report later this month, and I am confident when people see what David Kay puts forward they will see that there was no question that such weapons exist, existed, and so did the programs to develop one.At this point, I no longer believe a word that comes from the mouth of anyone in this administration. That includes "and" and "the".Colin Powell
Meet The Press
September 7th, 2003
David Kay is not going to be done with this for quite some time. And I would not count on reports. I suppose there may be interim reports. I don't know when those will be, and I don't know what the public nature of them will be.
Condi Rice
Press Briefing
September 22nd, 2003
Update, with annotations:
Officials to Get Update on Iraq WMD Hunt
The man in charge of the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is briefing senior intelligence officials in Washington this week but the public may not be told of his findings right away. [Translation: we're going to sit on this for as long as we can and see if we can slip it out when something else is going on and hope nobody notices, 'cause we ain't got shit.]CIA adviser David Kay is expected to complete his progress report to agency Director George J. Tenet soon, U.S. officials said. [Note the subtle bait-and-switch, as we go from talking about his findings to him giving a progress report. Probably took all of 15 seconds: We're done with the searching, but the creative writing team needs a few more weeks.]
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice suggested there are no plans to release Kay's findings immediately. There had been expectations in Washington that the report would come out this month. [We've gone to Plan B. Plan A was to broadcast triumphantly that we'd found the smoking gun. Now that we've found nothing but smoke, let's pretend it was never such a big deal despite confident pronouncements like the one above from Colin Powell.]
Secretary of State Colin Powell said early(sic) that Kay "will be putting out a report in the very near future, and I look forward to seeing it, as everyone else does. From what I have heard, he has assembled a great deal of useful information." [Useful to whom, one wonders? And am I the only one who finds it a bit hard to believe that Powell has only "heard" about what's going on?]
I've come to a conclusion, though. After reading the sentence "There had been expectations in Washington that the report would come out this month," I'd like to be an editor. Just for a few days. I'd take anyone who writes sentences in the passive voice like that and fire them. Preferably from a cannon.
The contempt shown for the American public is perhaps most evidence in the disdain Bush has for actually lowering himself to being questioned. He seems to have the idea that he should be able to put forth whatever "message" is important to him at the moment and not have to worry about the petty concerns of other people.
Bush's Distaste for News Conferences Keeps Them Rare (washingtonpost.com): "Communications director Dan Bartlett said this White House uses news conferences more sparingly than other types of presidential events, because 'if you have a message you're trying to deliver, a news conference can go in a different direction.'"After two years and 45 days in office, President Ronald Reagan had held 16 solo news conferences, President Jimmy Carter had held 45, President Gerald Ford had held 37, President Richard M. Nixon had held 16 and President Lyndon B. Johnson had held 52. (From the same article.) When you've had fewer press conferences than Dick Nixon, that's an accomplishment.
Mirror.co.uk - THE BIG LIE: "In Cairo, on February 24 2001, [Colin] Powell said: 'He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours.'"
The story of "well, if we were fooled about Saddam's WMD, so was everybody else" is being spread, probably to prepare for the (late) delivery of the David Kay report which was promised to us in "mid-September". But as that quote of Colin Powell's shows, either (a) a whole lot of new evidence was gathered betwee February and September 2001, or the interpretation of the data we had changed. Personally, I think that we, like everybody else with an intelligence service had a lot of scattered bits of information. Some of it was stale, some seems to have been planted through Iraqi defectors, some was about things that were suspicious but unknown (like the "unaccounted for" WMD that now seem to have been accounting problems), and some was (unavoidably) wrong.
All the major players (France, Germany, Israel, as well as the UK and US) seem to have had this information. The key difference is that no one else decided to build a Frankenstein's monster of foreign policy from it. It's not the data that differentiates us from France on this issue, it's the interpretation.
What led the administration into the world of faith-based intelligence, where a Don Rumsfeld could say "we know where the WMD are" and keep his job? Where a Paul Wolfowitz could proclaim that Iraq would be able to pay for the reconstruction and keep his job? Where Gen. Shinseiki could lose his job for telling what turns out to be the truth about the number of troops required to police post-war Iraq?
I don't know, but I'll sleep a lot better when they're out of office.
The "godfather of the recall", Darrell Issa, is apparently ready to urge people to vote no unless one of McClintock or Arnold drops out. Looks like he'd rather have Davis in office than Bustamante.
Personally, I think they should be able to bill Issa for the cost of the recall election if it fails.
Latest entry in the right wing loopy derby is Barr McClellan, father of Scott McClellan, White House spokesman who took over for Comical Ari, and Dr. Mark McClellan, commissioner of the FDA. McClellan pere has written a book called Blood, Money, and Power: How LBJ Killed JFK, and it's, well, not quite a paragon of objective historical reporting.
'LBJ killed JFK' - www.smh.com.au: "The book claims that Johnson plotted the killing of Kennedy through the late Edward A. Clark, who was for half a century one of the most powerful political figures in Texas as well as Johnson's personal lawyer. Barr McClellan said last week that he had worked in Clark's firm but had parted company with him in 1978 over business gone sour. 'It seemed like a story to be told,' he said. 'I had a grudge, anyway, that I was going to clear up.' "
:: 620ktar.com ::: "Federal investigators have concluded President Bush's former telecommunications policy chief committed three ethics violations by allowing industry lobbyists to throw her a party. The Justice Department, however, is declining to prosecute her.This is the same Justice Department that has asked Federal prosecutors to inform Lord Protector Ashcroft if any judge has the audacity to deviate (on the low side) from federal sentencing guidelines, which has been urging prosecutors to seek the death penalty, and has recently told prosecutors to go for the most serious charge whenever they have a choice of prosecuting someone on several charges.The previously confidential findings by the Commerce Department's inspector general came in late June, two weeks before Nancy Victory announced her resignation as assistant secretary for telecommunications and information.
The inspector general said that Victory violated ethics standards that prohibit federal employees from accepting gifts from anyone whose interests they substantially affect and require them to avoid any appearance of impropriety in carrying out their official duties.
Ten days after the catered party in her honor in October 2001, Victory urged a policy change benefiting telecommunications companies that helped pay for the catered $3,000 event with 60 to 80 guests at her home in Great Falls, Va."
Gee, I wonder if this comes under the heading of restoring "honor" to government, or would this be "dignity"?
Do they never learn? Advance leaks say that when Bush goes to the UN to ask for money and troops to bail him (us!) out in Iraq, that he "will argue just as he did last year that the United Nations needs to meet its global responsibilities or risk being irrelevant."
Soaring Iraqi Costs Mean More U.S. Business: " Sabotage, looting and a more fragile infrastructure than anticipated are driving up costs in Iraq, where U.S. companies will likely reap billions of dollars in the next round of reconstruction contracts.The article isn't clear on whether this is part of the $87B supplemental authorization.The U.S. Agency for International Development this week rolled out a $1.5 billion draft tender to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure when money runs dry for a contract it gave to San Francisco construction firm Bechtel."
And how can they say "more fragile infrastructure than anticipated" with a straight face? Didn't these people know anything about the country they were bombing the hell out of?
But here's the punch line:
A senior Bush administration official said the White House planned to award reconstruction contracts based on a ``full and open competition going forward,'' except in cases where national security required an expedited selection process.Now, how hard is to justify pretty much anything you want as "national security" in a war zone? Talk about loopholes big enough to drive a Hummer through....
I mean, didn't you always want to see a picture of Chthulu as a cute anime character?
For sale:
Apple iPod
15 GB model, lightly used
167 songs loaded
The RIAA says it's worth $25M, but I'm willing to let it go for $5M. Plus shipping.
FOXNews.com - Top Stories - Report: Terror Mastermind Reveals 9-11 Plot Hatched in 1996: "Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed told U.S. investigators that he first began plotting the attacks with terrorist leader Usama bin Laden in 1996.Lots of interesting stuff there, but the most notable things are perhaps the omissions:After examining interregation reports, The Associated Press learned that Mohammed said the original scheme involved the hijacking of five commercial airliners on both U.S. coasts.
He said the plan was changed several times in the five years between its conception and execution.
Mohammed also divulged that, in its final stages, the hijacking plot called for as many as 22 terrorists and four planes in a first wave, followed by a second wave of suicide hijackings that were to be aided possibly by Al Qaeda (search) allies in southeast Asia, according to the reports."
Former Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez, convicted of corruption charges, has been hiding in the Dominican Republic. After Venezuela cut off oil supplies to the Dominican, Perez left there and taken up residence in New York City.
VHeadline.com - Venezuela: "[Venezuelan] Energy Minister [Rafael] Ramirez says, with direct reference to Carlos Andres Perez in the Dominican Republic, that Venezuela will not now allow its crude oil to be sold to countries that support terrorism ... the definition of 'terrorism' being against the legitimate government of Venezuela."It seems clear that they're saying that giving Perez shelter is terrorism against Venezuela. Bush better hope that Iraqi oil starts flowing soon, because it could get pretty ugly if Venezuela decides to stop selling us oil.
VHeadline.com - Venezuela: "President Hugo Chavez Frias has revealed that his government is in the possession of a secretly recorded video of a US CIA officer giving instruction to would-be Venezuelan coupsters on surveillance techniques ... evidence that the CIA remains involved in clandestine activity (i.e. espionage) in Venezuela even after the US-backed coup attempt in April 2002. He also says he has clear and certain evidence of US involvement before and during the coup d'etat ... 'some day these pieces of evidence will be released to the public.'"I'm not totally convinced he's actually got what he says -- I'd like to see it released to the public -- but anyone who knows why "Savador Allende" and "CIA" belong in the same sentence isn't likely to discount it completely.
And please believe that there are Americans who are amazed and disgusted by much of the behavior being perpetrated in our names.
Baghdad Burning
Anything can happen. Some raids are no more than seemingly standard weapons checks. Three or four troops knock on the door and march in. One of them keeps an eye of the 'family' while the rest take a look around the house. They check bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms and gardens. They look under beds, behind curtains, inside closets and cupboards. All you have to do is stifle your feelings of humiliation, anger and resentment at having foreign troops from an occupying army search your home.
...
I gripped at the gate as my knees weakened, crying… trying to make sense of the mess. I could see many of the neighbors, standing around, looking on in dismay. Abu A.'s neighbor, Abu Ali, was trying to communicate with one of the troops. He was waving his arm at Umm A. and Reem, and pointing to his own house, obviously trying to allow them to take the women inside his home. The troop waved over another soldier who, apparently, was a translator. During raids, a translator hovers in the background inconspicuously- they don't bring him forward right away to communicate with terrified people because they are hoping someone will accidentally say something vital, in Arabic, thinking the troops won't understand, like, "Honey, did you bury the nuclear bomb in the garden like I told you?!"
The question, of course, is, "which is which?"
Exhibit A:
Wealthy Elites get richer, faster
The US economy is improving for the super rich.After two years of declines, the total net worth of America's richest people rose 10 per cent to $US955 billion ($1.44 trillion) this year from last year, according to Forbes magazine's annual ranking of the nation's 400 wealthiest individuals.
Exhibit B:
Fewer get workplace health plans
Americans who receive health insurance through their employers have dropped to less than one- half of all workers from about two- thirds a decade ago, according to a report on the nation's health coverage released yesterday by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Sherman, set the wayback machine for five months ago. President Bush made a visit to the Timken Company in Ohio while stumping for his job growth (that's pronounced "tax cut") package. Not terribly surprising; the CEO of Timken is a big Republican campaign contributor (that's pronounced "pimp"). Appearing at the plant, he said:
One of the problems we face is not enough of our fellow Americans can find work. There's too much economic uncertainty today. And so three months ago, I sent Congress a package that would promote job growth and economic vitality. For the sake of our country, for the sake of the workers of America, Congress needs to pass this jobs growth package soon. (Applause.)nd that's why I thank you for letting me come and talk to you about some of the problems that we face here in America. I appreciate the Timken family for their leadership, their concern about their fellow associates. They're working hard to make sure the future of this company is bright, and therefore, the future of employment is bright for the families that work here, that work to put food on the table for their children. (emphasis mine)
It's the people's money. (Applause.)
And when you have more of it, it drives up demand for goods and services. And that's important, given the productivity increases of today. You see, there's pressure on employment. The more productive the work force becomes – if productivity arises – rises like it's doing now, it means a worker can produce more. And unless there are folks willing to buy more goods and services, a company is not likely to hire. Productivity increases mean you can get by with less workers. And so the only way to create the conditions necessary for additional job expansion is to increase demand for goods and services. And the best way to create demand for goods and services is to let people have more of their own money. And that's why tax relief is important in the year 2003. (Applause.)
Fast forward five months:
Slowing production by the Big Three U.S. automakers has caught up with The Timken Co.The company Thursday said it will eliminate 900 jobs worldwide by year-end, revised its earnings estimate downward and announced the head of its automotive division has left.
The bulk of the job cuts -- 700 -- will come from the automotive division, Timken said, and division president Karl Kimmerling has left after a 24-year tenure.
The Canton bearings and steel manufacturer makes parts for numerous vehicles, including the Ford Expedition SUV, the Dodge Ram pickup truck and Mercedes-Benz E-class sedan.
Timken declined to provide specifics on where the job cuts will occur, but said they will be predominantly in the manufacturing sector and be a mix of salaried and blue-collar employees.
Hey, but think of the amount of demand stimulation for the makers of pink slips!
Jonah Goldberg: The Patriot Act: Separating Hysteria from Fact: "Every time self-described civil libertarians pick something to complain about, they end up with egg on their faces.The latest embarrassment is the revelation that the Department of Justice has not invoked the Patriot Act's Section 215 - a section of the act that the ACLU crowd claims has turned the FBI into a library-raiding Gestapo."
Yep. That's Lucianne's little boy saying that it's OK if the government has the power to snoop into your library records and all sort of other things because, well, they haven't used it. So far. That's not the stupidest thing I've heard this week, but it's the stupidest one that someone got paid to write.
The Corner on National Review OnlineWhat does he mean by a serious setback for institutional marriage? Is there any conceptual framework in which this doesn't zip past "stupid" at about Warp 3?
This story suggests that the next prime minister of Canada is likely to pull back from the government’s attempt to impose gay marriage on the country as a whole. Paul Martin, the man in line to be the new prime minister, is hinting that he may propose civil unions instead. Of course, Vermont-style civil unions–which are marriage in all but name–would still represent a serious setback for institutional marriage.
Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Editorial / Opinion / Op-ed / Cheney's conflict with the truth: "ON 'MEET THE PRESS' last Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney said, 'Since I left Halliburton to become George Bush's vice president, I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interests. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven't had now, for over three years.'I'm not actually bothered by the deferred salary; as Cheney says, he did earn it, and he's taken out an insurance policy so that he will get paid even if something happens to Halliburton. But I don't see how anyone can look at the stock options and say that what he said on MTP is anything other than a bald lie.That is the latest White House lie.
Within 48 hours, Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey pointed reporters toward Cheney's public financial disclosure sheets filed with the US Office of Government Ethics. The sheets show that in 2002, Cheney received $162,392 in deferred salary from Halliburton, the oil and military contracting company he ran before running for vice president. In 2001, Cheney received $205,298 in deferred salary from Halliburton.
The 2001 salary was more than Cheney's vice presidential salary of $198,600. Cheney also is still holding 433,333 stock options." (emphasis mine)
Perhaps Bush would call it "a trifecta": no Osama, no Saddam, no WMD.
But Michael Moore has a fine piece called "Three Easy Pieces for Any Decent American," which I highly recommend. I particularly like the section What Would $87B Buy?
...the plastic shredder?
"See Men Shredded, Then Say You Don't Back War," by Ann Clwyd
"There was a machine designed for shredding plastic. Men were dropped into it and we were again made to watch. Sometimes they went in head first and died quickly. Sometimes they went in feet first and died screaming. It was horrible. I saw 30 people die like this. Their remains would be placed in plastic bags and we were told they would be used as fish food ... on one occasion, I saw Qusay [President Saddam Hussein's youngest son] personally supervise these murders."
This became part of the general fury against Saddam before the war, but is it - like the story of "babies being thrown from incubators" before Gulf War I - a fabrication? It was apparently spread by UPI, the Washington Times, Pat Robertson, and the State Department. So where is this "plastic shredder"? Like the story, it appears to have just....evaporated.
The mystery is explained, in best friend-of-a-friend style, in this email that I got from a friend including this wonderful explanation from a guy he works with....
So it's finally come to this. Our soldiers have to look out for the Iraqi enemy in front of them, while worrying about the sniping by the Hillary-Ted Kennedy-George Bush anti-America crowd at their back. George Bush, the guy who we last heard from when he climbed on his soapbox to tout the United Nations as the savior of Iraq, is back. With his 'Dixie Chicks/ blame America' approach to foreign policy. While American families are planting "Support the Troops" signs on front lawns, Bush is re-writing history, declaring that Saddam Hussein was not involved in the Terror Attacks of 9/11. American soldiers have to be asking themselves what ARE we fighting for, when even unelected officials back in Washington are saying we're on a fools' errand. And we wonder why morale is so low in the ranks.So it's finally come to this. Another Sixties, Vietnam generation, Ivy League grad worms his way into the system and gives aid and comfort to the enemy. Three thousand Americans are dead and George Bush is focusing his attention on what? Making sure that no one says a bad word about Saddam. Right! Trust Saddam Hussein and put your faith in the United Nations to solve all your problems. Thank you, Mister Bush, from Saddam Hussein. And he's so sure, based on what? Bush doesn't have access to the top government information available to Dick Cheney and Condoleeza Rice. But Bush says don't trust our nation's leaders when they say Saddam engineered 9/11. Bush says don't trust the American people when 70 percent say Saddam attacked America on 9/11. Trust ME and my rehash of Noam Chomsky, Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki and NATO Commander General Wesley Clark's 'Make Sense Not War' slogans.
So it's finally come to this. There was a time when, if you didn't agree with a war, you would leave America, go to Canada or Britain to criticize. But to sit in the heart of America, in the nation's capital, amid the trappings of our heritage, a few miles from the Vietnam Wall, to snipe at America's soldiers while defending their enemy. That's inexcusable.
Shame on the Hillary-Ted-Kennedy-George Bush anti-America crowd!
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Saudis consider nuclear bomb: "Saudi Arabia, in response to the current upheaval in the Middle East, has embarked on a strategic review that includes acquiring nuclear weapons, the Guardian has learned. "
Remember, this is the President who pledged not to leave problems for future generations to solve.
An Undiplomatic Display (washingtonpost.com): "Back in January 2002, Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., then director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, was predicting that the budget deficit could mushroom to $100 billion. He said the good news was that a $100 billion deficit would be only about 1 percent of the gross domestic product, compared with the 3 percent to 5 percent budget deficits the federal government ran during the recessions of the 1970s and 1980s.And here's Vice President Cheney talking Sunday to Tim Russert on 'Meet the Press,' just 20 months later about the $500 billion deficit we're now facing.
'The deficit that we're running today, after we get the approval of the $87 billion, will still be less . . . than it was back in the '80s or the deficits we ran in the '90s. We're still about 4.7 percent of our total GDP. So the notion that the United States can't afford this or that we shouldn't do it is, I think, seriously flawed.'
For the record, that would be tied for the fifth-highest deficit in the past 50-plus years. The highest four as a percentage of GDP, during the Reagan administration, were 6.1 percent, 5.2 percent, 5.1 percent and 4.9 percent."
Let's hope you're not right.
An Undiplomatic Display (washingtonpost.com): "State Department types were taken aback last week to find that a longtime diplomatic photo exhibit along a busy corridor to the cafeteria had been taken down. The two dozen mostly grainy black and white shots were a historic progression of great diplomatic moments, sources recalled.There was an original political cartoon from the Jefferson era showing Britain and France pick-pocketing the Americans; there were pictures of negotiations with Indian tribes over land; President Woodrow Wilson at Versailles; former secretary of state Elihu Root somewhere; Roosevelt and Churchill signing the Atlantic Charter; former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze in cowboy boots at Jackson Hole; a splendid shot of the old State Department building; and a photo of President Ronald Reagan at a meeting with a very young Colin L. Powell seated behind him.
Then they were gone. And what was put up in their place? What else? A George W. Bush family album montage of 21 large photos of the president as diplomat. He's speaking at the United Nations and meeting with foreign leaders. There are several shots of Bush with first lady Laura Bush -- exiting a plane, touring the Forum in Rome and visiting Japan. (There's one of just Laura Bush and Jordan's Queen Noor at a U.N. conference.) There's one of Bush meeting in happier days with his very good friend Jacques Chirac, president of France, and another with his even better friend, Gerhard Schroeder, chancellor of Germany. There's a fine shot of him yucking it up in Beijing with former Chicom boss Jiang Zemin, aka the Robin Williams of the Middle Kingdom."
Was for Dean, still for Dean | 57% |
Was for Clark, now for Dean | 1% |
Was for somebody else, now for Dean | 2% |
Was for Dean, now for Clark | 6% |
Was for Clark, still for Clark | 15% |
Was for somebody else, now for Clark | 5% |
Was for Dean, now for somebody else | 3% |
Was for Clark, now for somebody else | 0% |
Was for somebody else, still for somebody else | 10% |
Still hoping Arnold will run | 3% |
First blood (fake, of course) from Rick Brookheiser at the kiddy corner at NRO:
The Corner on National Review Online: "Wesley Clark is George McClellan--proud, smart, by the book, untalented, incompetent. All stars, no battles."Wonder how many battles Mr. Brookheiser's been in?
And of course Rush "anal cyst" Limbaugh can't resist. He's dubbed Clark "Gen. Ashley Wilkes".
I was encouraged that Rep. Obey (D-WI) was beginning to show some spine about investigating how we were lied into war. But no such luck.
Dems Scrap Plans To Look Into Claims White House Manipulated Intel On Iraqi ThreatDemocrats in Congress have abandoned their efforts to investigate the White House’s use of questionable intelligence information about Iraq’s alleged stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, saying the issue has been "eclipsed" by President Bush’s request for $87 billion from Congress to continue funding the war there.No longer an issue? I can't imagine anything that's a more important issue! Either we were massively lied to or our intelligence is more incompetent than the Germans running Stalag 13 in Hogan's Heroes! Whichever it is, we deserve to know about it!David Helfert, a spokesman for Congressman David Obey, D-Wisconsin, who criticized the White House for relying too heavily on murky intelligence to get support for the war, said Friday that Congressional Democrats would no longer pursue hearings on the intelligence matter.
"We’re past that," Helfert said, referring to the intelligence issue. "Those questions were eclipsed by the supplemental request by President Bush for $87 billion" to fund the Iraq war. "Congress if focusing on asking questions about the $87 billion, what it will be used for and whether it’s worth it. It would be a good characterization to say that the intelligence questions on Iraq and how the President came to believe that it had weapons of mass destruction are no longer an issue."
It's all TBOGG's fault. I usually don't have any trouble avoiding townhall.com, but after reading his excerpt from this Mona Charen column (warning: direct exposure while eating not advised) got me to go and look at the whole thing. And it's even worse than I thought.
It's titled At the trough. So, it's about...Halliburton? Nope. Farm subsidies to agribusiness? Try again. Corporate welfare? Got you swinging. It's about those lucky duckies, the poor!
Let's take a look (warning, again: not for the squeamish). Editorial comments in italics.
It's amazing, isn't it, that Democrats never worry about federal spending unless it is for defense. No, what's amazing is that people will print this tripe. Remind me, who was the last President to BALANCE THE FREAKING BUDGET? Clinton, wasn't it? And he wasn't a Republican last I looked.
And when you politely mention that the federal budget is a giant sinkhole of waste, they ignore you completely and come up with seven new programs that need "full funding" in order for life to be decent in America. Here's a good one. A "giant sinkhole", but there's no numbers to say what fraction of the budget is waste. The implication that government is the only place money is wasted, when anyone who's ever worked in any large organization knows better. And the implication that the need for new programs is somehow connected to waste in existing programs, though again no proof is offered. It must be one of those Saddam/al Qaeda type things, where it's obvious if you'll only drink the Kool-aid.The president has asked for $87 billion to rebuild and solidify Iraq and Afghanistan. That's a lot of money. But the federal government spends $65 billion annually on student loans to college students -- enduring about a 40 percent default rate. Ummm...yeah, so? What's the connection, Mona? Would the country be better off if we did away with all those student loans?
We spend billions on hot lunches and breakfasts for schoolchildren, though the greatest health threat to the poor in America these days is not hunger but obesity. Oh, my. The poor are overfed, that's the problem. It couldn't have anything to do with the fact that it costs more to buy healthy food than to load up on stuff loaded with fats and carbs, or with the fact that our government keeps sugar artifically cheap so that it's easy to buy cheap food loaded with sugar, now could it? No, those lucky duckies are undoubtedly stuffing themselves on foie gras and truffles!Besides, why can't poor children take their lunches to school in a brown bag, as my kids do? How much does a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple and a yogurt cost? Classic. The Scrooge argument. Are there no prisons? No poorhouses?
Maybe $1.50. For a family receiving food stamps, it's even less. So why subsidize the lunches for children whose families already receive food aid in the form of food stamps? Why, indeed. How about because we've done studies, and we know that poor children don't get proper nutrition? How about because we know that children learn better when they're fed properly? Heaven forfend that any actual data interfere with a good rant, though.
If I could only read one political columnist, I don't know how I'd choose between E. J. Dionne, Paul Krugman, and Molly Ivins.
WorkingForChange-Us vs. us?: "Here in our nation's capital, the political reporter from the boonies is most often asked, 'Is this Howard Dean thing for real?' Hey, THEY never heard of Howard Dean; Howard Dean never did time on The Hill. How are they supposed to have a read on him? Their provincialism is truly charming. In politics, when people ask, 'Is the guy serious?' it means, does he have money? So, OK, Howard Dean is serious. Next question. "
The nice folks over at moveon.org are starting up a really handy service, The Daily Misleader. Just sign up here and you'll get a daily email with Our Fearless Leader's latest Bushwhopper.
I don't think I've seen this one asked in other recent polls. An ABC/WaPo poll just released asked whether respondents thought most Americans were better off, worse off, or about the same financially since Bush became President. The results should cost Karl Rove a few hours' sleep:
Better off: 9%
Worse off: 52%
Same: 38%.
Remember, this isn't "are you better off than you were four years ago," it's whether you think most Americans are better off.
Right wing radio wasted no time in reacting to the 9th Circuit decision delaying (not canceling, mind you, just delaying) the recall election.
New Twist in Recall Brings Anger From Right: "'Clinton comes to town and a day later two of his appointees on the appellate court decide to nix the election,' said Roger Hedgecock, an influential radio personality in San Diego.'I'm struck by the similarity between California and Venezuela,' Mr. Hedgecock said. 'Last week there was a recall attempt on Chávez down there. The signatures were turned in and his committee throws them out as invalid. That's what you had today. This is the stuff of a banana republic.'"
Nice to see that Bill Clinton still provokes Shock and Awe among the wingers, but look at that second paragraph. Isn't that a beaut? You'd almost think he'd never heard of Bush v. Gore.
"This is definitely a left-wing conspiracy," said Melanie Morgan, the host of the KSFO rush-hour program in San Francisco. "The court has stolen Californians' right to vote. It's partisan, bald-faced theft. We were so close to having this done. I'm exhausted."A left-wing conspiracy. I wonder who she thinks the conspirators are? And I really wonder how she thinks that delaying the election in order to ensure that votes are counted is "stealing" anyone's right to vote.
And of course, no exploration of the complete lack of any sense of irony on the right would be incomplete without the obligatory Republican Party apparatchik:
"We hoped the court was going to be reasonable and at least pretend to follow the law," said Shawn Steel, former chairman of the California Republican Party and co-founder of the Recall Davis committee. "This decision was brought down by leftist ideologues. It should be apparent to everyone that this court is out of control."I'd love to hear what he thinks of Bush v. Gore.
Actually, I'm really hoping this one gets appealed to the USSC. It will be interesting to see whether they say that Bush v. Gore has no applicability to this case, basically admitting that they just put Bush in office because they could, or whether they go back on their claim that it created no precedent and apply it here.
Handing Out Hardship (washingtonpost.com): "Let's get this straight: The administration wants $87 billion in new spending for Iraq, refuses to contemplate rolling back any of its tax cuts to pay for it -- and then proposes holding down new spending on child care for mothers trying to leave welfare.Oh, yes, and on Sunday, Vice President Cheney insisted that although he and President Bush have presided over a deficit that's reaching well beyond $500 billion this year, we shouldn't worry. Why? 'I am a deficit hawk,' Cheney explained. 'So is the president.' Don't you feel better?"
Ah, E. J., right on the button again. And you have to love the way Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Golden Retriever) argued so convincingly against increasing child care assistance for people trying to get off welfare: "Making people struggle a little bit is not necessarily the worst thing."
Apparently struggle is only good for the poor, though; when asked if we should freeze Bush's tax cut for the top 1% of incomes, Dick Cheney replied that it would be a "mistake".
So let me see if I've got this straight: If you're already struggling to make ends meet, then more struggle is good. If you're not, then not.
When William James spoke those words, he wasn't speaking with the idea that we should declare "war" on poverty, drugs, terrorism, Christina Aguilera's sense of style, and every other evil in the world. No, he was suggesting that what we need is to take the moral energy and outrage that we spend on war and expend that in the service of other causes. Here's a good example of some ways we could do that.
We Have the Will for War, But Neglect Our Children: "'Yet, we will do what is necessary, we will spend what is necessary, to achieve this essential victory in the war on terror, to promote freedom and to make our own nation more secure.'Striking, isn't it?We will spend what is necessary. President Bush's words of Sept. 7, 2003, are still echoing in my head.
If only the same could be said of the work that needs to be done here at home. Let me explain a few things. I am an Air Force brat. I support the military. My father did two tours in Vietnam, was decorated for valor and came home still accepting that we must sometimes fight for what we believe in.
I am also a child advocate. For 11 years I have been educating on the pitfalls of poverty, teen motherhood, infant death and the importance of early childhood education. I have argued for increasing the budget for Head Start, for money to provide health insurance to the children of this country, for increases in state budgets to allow more child protection service workers to be hired, and much more.
I can't even count the number of times concerned citizens, professional advocates, and worried parents have been told, 'We understand, we would love to help, but we just do not have the money.'
What a different world we would live in if our leaders in Washington were ever to say:
'We will spend what is necessary to provide health insurance to all children in America.'
'We will spend what is necessary to provide quality child care for working parents.'
'We will spend what is necessary to provide dental care for the elderly.'
'We will spend what is necessary to provide the work supports that low-income working families need to succeed.'
If we could hear, 'We will spend what is necessary for the children of this country,' not just in a campaign speech that is soon forgotten, but on the floor of the House and the Senate when appropriating dollars for programs that affect our children, what a different world this would be. "
It's really impressive seeing the difference in perspective, in willingness to challenge, in willingness to speak out and actually report instead of reprinting press releases that you can find in foreign newspapers.
Toronto Sun Columnist: Eric Margolis: " 'If at first you don't succeed, lie and lie again' seems to be the watchword of the floundering Bush administration. "
If you haven't already heard, Gov. Dean will be appearing at a rally near the train station in Hudson, NY on September 20 at 1:30 pm. Hudson is about 40 miles south of Albany and about 40 miles north of Poughkeepsie. If you're in the area, come out and meet the next President!
From Tom the Dancing Bug:
O'Reilly Network: National Review Continues to Get It [Sep. 10, 2003]: "This entry, while it mentions politics, is not about politics. I'm not particularly political, in any case. What I am is something of a politics junkie. And, as a politics junkie who works in technology, one thing I've noticed is that conservative groups (magazines and political orgs), in general have been a bit faster on the technology uptake than the other political varieties. "
Oh, please. So now you can buy National Review as a downloadable PDF. Sorry, I don't consider this a leap forward. And in a year where the big politics/internet story has been the ways Howard Dean has been using the net for campaigning and raising money, and when I've been a subscriber to The New Republic Digital, which actually lets you get to the articles you want in HTML so you don't have one farking huge PDF to scroll through, I just can's see this as being "faster on the uptake". Maybe it's just that the left isn't quite so relentlessly self-promoting.
OK, friends, some help here, please. I'm trying really hard to convince myself that this site is a spoof:
OBJECTIVE: Creation Education: Creation Science Fair 2001: "To that end, the Fellowship Baptist Creation Science Fair was started. Its purpose is to get kids excited about Creation and motivate them to discover the truth of our Lord on their own. The Creation Science Fair is held annually and is open to homeschoolers and students from area Christian schools grades 1 through 12."At first I thought it was, but the more I look at it, the more I'm not sure. They have links to sites like this one, where you can go digging for dinosaur fossils with creationists (no, as Dave Barry says, I am not making this up), which definitely appear to be serious. Well, at least intended seriously.
President Bush seems to have been restricting his public appearances lately to fundraisers and military audiences - people who aren't likely to complain and people who can be ordered not to. But it looks like his welcome may be wearing thin even there....
Bush Salutes War-Weary Army Division : "The division's fatigue appeared evident in the response to the president's remarks. Bush's speeches at military bases are commonly interrupted repeatedly by sustained and frequent cheers. On Friday, while Bush got an enthusiastic Army 'hoo-ah' shout when he began and a standing ovation at the end, most of the rest of his speech was greeted with polite applause.Good luck, Pvt. Henry. Hope you make it back from your next tour. And just for the record, I agree with you on this:Pvt. Kenneth Henry, 21, a radar operator with a field artillery unit, said the response was muted by the pervasive knowledge among the soldiers and their families that they will likely have to return to Iraq soon.
'How could you make these people feel better when you just said you're putting $87 billion into sending them back?' Henry asked."
"What I heard him say was, 'You went there. You took names. Came home. Now you're going back,' " Henry said. "He likes war. He should go fight in a war for two days and see how he likes it."
Maybe he could bring Rummy and Wolfie along.
Bush also tossed in these gems for good measure:
"Because of our military, catastrophic weapons will no longer be in the hands of a reckless dictator," he said.and
"We're rolling back the terrorist threat, not on the fringes of its influence but at the heart of its power," Bush said.Anyone who's been paying attention to events in Iraq and North Korea might take issue with the first of those, and the second appears to be more "mischaracterization" intended to convince people that no, really, there was a link between Saddam and al Qaeda. Who ya gonna believe, me or your lyin' eyes?
NOAA News Online (Story 2068): "The NOAA National Hurricane Center in Miami, Fla., reports that recent reports from NOAA and Air Force Reserve hurricane hunter aircraft indicate flight-level winds of 180 mph and 182 mph respectively. Also, dropsonde wind reports indicate winds of 192 mph just a few hundred feet above the surface."
It looks like Isabel is likely to hit land somewhere between Miami and Washington, DC. Unless something unusual happens, this storm could cause as much damage as Andrew or Hugo. And where are we going to get the money for Federal disaster relief? And how many of the National Guard troops typically called out for policiing and reconstruction duty after a disaster like this are now in Iraq? Thanks again, George.
In Other News..., , by (09/11/03) : "On August 29, Randolph Sill headed to a Mariners game with a homemade sign decked out with slogans written in Japanese kanji, along with the number of Sill's favorite player, Ichiro Suzuki. Whenever Ichiro came up to bat, Sill would hold his sign high. Sill, who's spent time in Japan, knows Japanese television regularly broadcasts Mariners games and spotlights signs for its native son Ichiro.Here's what Sill's sign said: On one side, the kanji read, 'President Bush is a monkey's butt.' On the other: 'Americans are ashamed of our corrupt president.' Sill, who hoped his sign would be broadcast on TV here and in Japan, says many Japanese fans at Safeco Field smiled and winked when they read his sign. "
How could he leave off "Remember, his dad threw up on your prime minister"?
Yahoo! News - Bush Marking 'Sad' Sept. 11 Anniversary : "In the afternoon, the president, still accompanied by the first lady, was to travel a few miles to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center for a private session with soldiers being treated there for wounds suffered in Iraq. "
So "private" that they only allowed an AP photographer, eh? Just another photo-op. You can bet that when Dick Cheney had "private" meetings with energy execs there were no press photographers present.
I was actually kind of impressed when I originally heard that this was going to be a private visit with the wounded, thinking that perhaps Bush wasn't going to turn it into a political event for a change.
And what's up with saying it was going to be private in the first place? Why does the White House seem to feel the need to lie about everything, big or small?
NBC 17 - News - Man Buys Groceries With Fake $200 Bill: "The bogus bill -- the U.S. Mint does not print a $200 bill -- bore the image of President George W. Bush on the front and had the White House on the back. It also included signs on the front lawn of the front lawn of the White House with slogans such as 'We like broccoli' and 'USA deserves a tax cut,' Roanoke Rapids police said.Instead of being labeled a Federal Reserve note, the fake bill was marked as a 'Moral Reserve Note.' The bill bore the signatures of Ronald Reagan, political mentor, and George H.W. Bush, campaign adviser and mentor."
I guess he figured that Bush is paying for the government with funny money, why not use it for the groceries?
via XOverboard
As usual, just after a big announcement from His Dubyaness grabs the front pages, his minions are saying "well, it's not quite that way..."
Administration Officials Seek to Lower Expectations on Foreign Help in Iraq - from Tampa Bay Online: " Just days after the United States began pushing for a new U.N. resolution authorizing a multinational military force for Iraq, senior administration officials are seeking to lower expectations that large offers of foreign troops will be forthcoming.And what of the troop deployment and economic plans that were based on most of the UN suddenly getting mass amnesia and deciding to help us out? Good question....'The expectation is that we would not get a large additional number of forces as a result of an additional U.N. resolution,' Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Wednesday during a question-and-answer session following a speech at the National Press Club. "
You remember, the mantra during the Clinton years which, if ignored for even a moment, would cause mass pandemonium, dogs and cats living together, and the destruction of the world as we know it? Apparently it's not quite as important these days...
Prosecutors Again Defy Judge in Moussaoui Case (washingtonpost.com): "The Justice Department today for a second time defied the federal judge overseeing the case of accused terror conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, saying it would not comply with her order to turn over two top al Qaeda detainees for interviews by Moussaoui and his legal team."
It seems obligatory to say something about the events of two years ago today; I was on vacation, in North Carolina visiting my parents. I was sitting in the waiting room at a Subaru dealer waiting for my car to be repaired when one of the mechanics (who'd apparently heard it on the radio in the shop) came into the waiting room and turned the TV on just before the second plane hit.
I knew a lot of people who worked for Sun Microsystems on the 25th floor of 2WTC, because I worked for Sun at the time. I live upstate, near Albany, but often traveled to New York to do business with NYC government customers and had spent the previous Tuesday, one week earlier, at the office in 2WTC. My first thought was for the friends I knew in the building, and my second was "there but for the grace of God go I."
Fortunately, no one I knew was hurt or killed in the attack. Many were not so fortunate. I recall paying a visit to the headquarters of the NYFD shortly after the attack. Their headquarters is a relatively new building in downtown Brooklyn, and they had a "Wall of Honor" on the wall in the lobby. It was a huge bronze plaque with the names of every firefighter who had died in the line of duty in the history of the NYFD. After 9/11, they had to take it down because they lost as many firefighters on that day as had died in the existence of the NYFD, and there was nowhere near enough space for the names.
So I'm connected to 9/11, more closely than most, not nearly as closely as some. I count myself fortunate both to have not been there that day and that no one I knew was killed. And now? Well, I'm angry that the event has been used for jingoistic and political purposes, particularly the timing of the Republican convention next year. I'm glad that it's brought out a visible patriotism among Americans, but sad that so much of it is simple-minded. I'm glad that I see more flags these days, but sad that I see so many of them displayed in violation of the Flag Code, and that so many of them are soiled and torn. I'm angry that George Bush used the attack along with a pack of lies to justify the invasion of Iraq, angry about the 300-odd dead American soliders and the 7,000 or so dead Iraqi civilians whose families' sorrow has been added to the sorrow of the 2,800 families affected most by 9/11.
It was a tragedy. And if we give up our freedoms, if we allow our government to play on our emotions and use it to justify whatever they want to do, if we allow more innocents to die, it will continue to be a tragedy. As Ghandi said, "There is no way to peace. Peace is the way." It's not a way that is always possible for us to follow, but it's not something that will be achieved by killing people.
Nope. Apparently El Presidente also learned a bit about accounting from "Kenny Boy".
BW Online | September 10, 2003 | The Neatest Thing about That $87 Billion: "Time to follow Alice for another quick trip down Washington's rabbit hole. Just take a look at what's about to happen with President Bush's request for $87 billion to continue U.S. military operations and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan.One effect this will have is that it will allow Bush to claim that discretionary spending only went up by 4% this year, though the total spending of the government will be up almost 15%. But hey, at this point they have to be figuring, "What's one more lie?"Bush will get the money from Congress, all right. But that's where things will begin to get strange. The President and congressional leaders are going to try to make $87 billion in federal spending disappear. How? By treating it as if it were off-budget spending."
I can't figure out how to describe this tastefully, but I can't pass it by without comment. It's, well, a mosaic portrait of George W. Bush made entirely of anuses.
Heard on Marketplace this afternoon: The US spends 3 times as much on agricultural subsidies to cotton farmers as it does on foreign aid.
That's how an email from Myron Ebell of the Exxon-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute to Phil Cooney, a senior official at the White House Council for Environmental Quality, begins.
Detailed News: "Did conservative elements in the White House provoke an Exxon front group to sue EPA to suppress a report on climate change? That's the question that two State Attorney Generals have asked US Attorney General John Ashcroft to investigate, after Greenpeace uncovered a routine email in a Freedom of Information Act request."The memo is available here. It's a fascinating read, openly suggesting that Christie Todd Whitman could be a handy "fall gal", and ending with the following remarkable statement:
If it were only this one little disaster, we could all lock arms and weather the assault, but this Administration has managed, whether through incompetence or intention, to create one disaster after another then expect its allies to clean up the mess. (Gee, sounds like Iraq - ed.) I don't know whether we have the resources to clean up this one.The "disaster" being referred to is an EPA report on climate change which reached conclusions that were not to the liking of Exxon-Mobil.
Somehow, I couldn't imagine Jesus doing this....
: "A Indiana Baptist pastor has been accused of spewing 'hate speech' after he posted the following message on his church's marquee: 'Sunday sermon 10:30 a.m. 'Islam: America's No. 1 Enemy.''The not-very-Reverend Monte claims to have studied the Koran, of which he says, "I opened the Quran and smelled a stinking, bloated, dead rat on every page."Marc Monte has been pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Avon, Ind., for five years, according to a report in the Indianapolis Star. He says his sermon would include important information the public is not getting from the media.
'I want to stir interest, not alarm, but Islam is a false religion, dangerous and hate-promoting,' Monte told the paper.
'If I were a pastor who read KKK literature or Hitler's 'Mein Kampf,' I would hope the members of my church would head to other churches. It is awful stuff. I repudiate it, and I put Islam in the same camp.' "
OK, I got tired of the "Dispatches from the Responsibility Era" title. It'll be back.
At least the Senate -- some Senators -- are finally starting to act like vertebrates:
850KOA · News | Sports | Entertainment: "'You told the Congress in March that, quote, 'We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon,' close quote. Talk about rosy scenarios,' Levin said. "
But not all of them:
In support of the president, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., the Armed Services Committee chairman, urged senators to provide the money now and leave the analysis of what went wrong until later.Excuse me? And this is supposed to be the party of fiscal responsbility? Just hand over $87 billion and worry about what went wrong later?
Then there's the obligatory...
Wolfowitz told the committee that terrorists would be the winners if Congress rejects the Bush's request.
I wonder if men are now trying to pick women up in Washington bars by telling them, "If you don't sleep with me, the terrorists win"?
CNN.com - Strip clubs recruit student bodies - Sep. 9, 2003 : " A chain of strip clubs is offering to pay tuition for co-eds who work as strippers -- and keep up their grade-point averages."
The clubs are in Detroit and Windsor, Ontario. Dancers typically make $10/hour plus tips, and the owner is willing to pay $1,500-$2,000 to students (men or women) who will work 3 or 4 seven-hour shifts in his clubs. The only catch is that they have to bring in their transcripts to prove they're maintaining a B average or better.
Paul Wolfowitz demonstrates the ethic of the Responsibility Era in front of Congress:
Forces Strained in Iraq Mission, Congress Is Told: "'We have no desire to own this problem or to control it,' Mr. Wolfowitz told the committee. "
Yeah, I'll just bet Paul has no desire to own "this problem" at this point. Too bad, sucker.
No, not Enron, Worldcom, or even Martha Stewart. The absurd notion that the Iraqis had neat, tidy, double-entry bookkeeping for all their WMD is finally being debunked.
'Unaccounted For' Iraqi Weapons May Be Bookkeeping Glitches, Ex-Inspectors Say - from Tampa Bay Online: "No weapons of mass destruction have turned up in Iraq, nor has any solid new evidence for them turned up in Washington or London. But what about Baghdad's patchy bookkeeping - the gaps that led U.N. inspectors to list Iraqi nerve agents and bioweapons material as unaccounted for? "There's plenty of evidence that their recordkeeping was full of error and outright fraud.Ex-inspectors now say, five months after the U.S. invasion, that the "unaccountables" may have been no more than paperwork glitches left behind when Iraq destroyed banned chemical and biological weapons years ago.
Some may represent miscounts, they say, and some may stem from Iraqi underlings' efforts to satisfy the boss by exaggerating reports on arms output in the 1980s.
"Under that sort of regime, you don't admit you got it wrong," said Ron G. Manley of Britain, a former chief U.N. adviser on chemical weapons.
His encounters with Iraqi scientists in the 1990s convinced him that at times, when told to produce "X amount" of a weapons agent, "they wrote down what their superiors wanted to hear instead of the reality," said Manley, who noted that producing VX nerve agent, for example, is a difficult process.
Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix, as he left his post this summer, became more open in discussing discrepancies.So now perhaps we know the real reason for Bush's urgency in attacking: if he had waited longer, it might have been completely clear to everyone that we were being sold a bill of goods.After the mid-1990s, "hardly ever did (inspectors) find hidden weapons," Blix reminded one audience. "What they found was bad accounting.
"It could be true they (Iraq) did destroy unilaterally in 1991 what they hid."
The discrepancies, disputed for years between U.N. inspectors and Iraqi officials, may be of more interest now that U.S. weapons hunters are failing to find Iraqi chemical or biological arms.
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Some of the "bad" accounting on the final U.N. list of unresolved disarmament issues:Earlier this year, U.N. teams were working with Baghdad to pin down such loose ends. The Iraqis had begun scientific soil sampling, for example, to try to confirm the amount of VX dumped long ago at a neutralization site, and had filed an initial report on March 17. Three days later, however, the U.S. invasion intervened.
- Although U.N. inspectors in the 1990s verified destruction of 760 tons of Iraqi chemical warfare agents, including 2.5 tons of VX nerve gas, Iraq never came up with convincing evidence for its claim that it had eliminated a final, additional 1.5 tons of VX.
- A discrepancy between Iraqi documents left open the possibility Baghdad's military retained 6,526 more chemical-filled bombs from the 1980s than inspectors first thought.
- The amount of biological growth medium obtained by Iraq suggested it was capable of producing thousands of liters more anthrax than the 8,900 liters it acknowledged.
Some such efforts had taken on a "for-the-record" character since, experts note, any old VX or "wet" anthrax, for example, would have degraded into ineffectiveness anyway.
And, you know, it's not like we keep track of everything down to the ounce, either....
In perhaps the most striking example, U.S. government auditors found in 1994 that almost three tons of plutonium, enough for hundreds of nuclear bombs, had "vanished" from U.S. stocks, because of discrepancies between "book inventory" and "physical inventory."