Malkin Out to Burn Brian WilliamsFor Telling It Like It Was

All day I have been saying I just do not understand the shock over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad alleged involvement in the 1979 take-over of the US embassy in Tehran. It is only logical that a leader in the student movement would move on to leadership positions in that country, even the Presidency. Even if he was who the former hostages say he was.....So What? Leaders of revolutions have gone on to lead their countries for centuries. But don't point out such Facts to Michelle Malkin who is preparing her minions for a full-on assault.... er excuse me Durbinazation Alert...(more like a wingnut Mafia hit) of Brian Williams of NBC news for saying this of the story:

"What would it all matter if proven true? Someone brought up today the first several U.S. presidents were certainly revolutionaries and might have been called 'terrorists' by the British crown, after all."

This is so inane it's hard to even write more than a few sentences on it but....

What Williams said is true. What does it matter? Are we going to persue regime change? Do the wingnuts want us to bomb Tehran or just send in some CIA types to kill the new president? Or do they just want to whip up hate because that's what fuels their blogging existence?

The Founding Fathers WERE revolutionaries. Or do the wingnuts want to re-write the dictionary and all US history books? I guess though it's the "Terrorist" word that has them spinning. So do they want a constitutional amendment stating no one can make any analogy or observation that would in any way equate any American, past or present to be a Terrorist, or any behavior of any American to be terrorism? Would that take care of it? The Wingnut Politically Correct Language Amendment?

Or is this just another assault on what they perceive to be the "Liberal Media"? Ah now we're talking. Malkin and crowd has to keep up this meme until they have rendered our media so impotent that the public will be so ignorant, that future polls will show 73% of Americans believe Saddam Hussein, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Osama bin Ladin are brothers, who plotted 9/11 at the behest of Hillary Clinton, at a garden party in Brian Williams back yard with Dan Rather and every New York Times reporter and columnist (except Judith Miller) in attendance.

Yes they want their Americans Ignorant, Angry and Frightened. And if they can't get the first 2, then Frightened will due just fine...especially when it comes to the "Liberal Media" types. So they'll go after Brian Williams and try to relive Rather-Gate..... their supposed great shining moment.

Well I have a message to Mr. Williams. Don't let them "Durbanize" you.
My first thoughts were I hope he tells them to go to hell.
Then I thought no, perhaps just ask them.... SO WHAT! It'd be fitting to see the Malkins of the world reduced to insignificance.
But I'm thinking Brian Williams could pull off the "no decency" moment:

"You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir(maam), at long last? Have you left no sense of decency"

Cause we are in desperate need of that moment.

What Evidence?

From Reuters:

Several Republicans supported Bush's focus on the Sept. 11 attacks, and North Carolina Rep. Robin Hayes said he had seen evidence that ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was linked to al Qaeda.

"There is evidence everywhere. We get access to it and unfortunately others don't," he told CNN.

I think we have a right to hear this evidence. If the Rep is going to say such things on CNN, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, then perhaps a call to any of the offices of Rep. Hayes is in order. Ask if he'll elaborate on the evidence:
Offices
Concord, NC
137 Union Street South
Concord, NC 28025
(704) 786-1612
FAX: (704) 782-1004
Toll Free in NC:
(888) 207-1311

Rockingham, NC
230 East Franklin St.
Rockingham, NC 28379
(910) 997-2070
FAX (910)997-7987

Washington, DC
130 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-3715
FAX (202) 225-4036

Gravatar....Please hurry..... it's just an innocent little Southern liberal white girl pic

First Do No Harm Unless....You Practice at Gitmo

The NYT has interviewed Guantanomo interrogators who revealed doctors provided:

advice on how to increase stress levels and exploit fears, according to new, detailed accounts given by former interrogators.

snip

In addition, the authors of an article published by The New England Journal of Medicine this week said their interviews with doctors who helped devise and supervise the interrogation regimen at Guantánamo showed that the program was explicitly designed to increase fear and distress among detainees as a means to obtaining intelligence.

Do I dare conceive of a new word here .... Mengalize without apology?
Well the Pentagon says it's no problem:

Pentagon officials said in interviews that the practices at Guantánamo violated no ethics guidelines, and they disputed the conclusions of the medical journal's article, which was posted on the journal's Web site on Wednesday.

Now the Pentagon's perview is war not medicine which is probably why they call the good doctors "biscuits":

Several ethics experts outside the military said there were serious questions involving the conduct of the doctors, especially those in units known as Behavioral Science Consultation Teams, BSCT, colloquially referred to as "biscuit" teams, which advise interrogators.

And besides as a Pentagon spokesman said:

that while some health care personnel are responsible for "humane treatment of detainees," some medical professionals "may have other roles," like serving as behavioral scientists assessing the character of interrogation subjects.

OK just don't call them Doctors and just pull the 'ol switcharoo on the Role they play and it's just fine.

Do we really want to go down this Slippery Slope trail? Will these pratices migrate to the mainland? Have they already? Do you want them consulting the "biscuits" on how to handle your tough ass some day? You say we'd never do that. Wake up! This is how, dare I say, Nazis did it. ...by a slow erosion of values, ethics and laws. No matter how low a human can sink (Karl Rove holds the bottom at present but will surely out do himself again) we do not deserve to lower our standards to the level of biscuits or to be Mengalized.
Oh the (w)horror!

Chinese Take-over Move

From the NYT:

SHANGHAI, Thursday, June 23 - A Chinese state-controlled oil company made a $18.5 billion unsolicited bid for Unocal today, igniting the first-ever takeover battle between corporations in China and the United States.

Read the rest:
This is going to get very interesting.

Dems Just Can't Compete on Ohio Corruption Playing Field

There is something about this small story in the many Ohio scandals that seems very telling.

The 2002 Lucas County Commissioner's race featured Sandy Isenberg (Dem) vs. Maggie Thurber (Rep) in which Isenberg was the odds on favorite until it was learned "she accepted a free roof on her condo from a local developer who had appeared before her for a vote on the Lucas County Plan Commission." Not good of course but Thurber needed to capitalize on it. She didn't have the funds to pay for a big ad buy to expose Isenberg's apparent graft. So in steps Noe money.

Thurber got $40,000 to finance the TV ad buy from GOP fund-raiser Tom Noe who is at the center of numerous scandals in Ohio. With the tainted money Ms. Thurber then ' seized on the roof deal, and it became the subject of a catchy television ad". In fact "The money flowed to the Thurber campaign because Ms. Thurber's race against Ms. Isenberg was the focal point of the 2002 election season in Lucas County" once Isenberg was seen as vulnerable. It was the turning point in the race and Thurber won.

So let's compare...... the Dem Isenberg got a roof (let's say $10,000) and the Rep Thurber got $40,000 of tainted Noe money. ($87k in all from the party). In a weird Faustian way it just isn't fair now is it. Thurber had the benefit of this huge Repug illegal money machine and all Isenberg had was a lousy roof deal (she ended up paying for the roof herself by the way).

From a story like this people get cynical and say so what, they are all corrupt. OK if that's where we are, then let's look that cycnism right in the face. We need to admit the crazy disproportionality that's going on here. It'd David vs. Goliath in the money game. How's a Dem to compete?????? Be more massive and efficiently corrupt?

• Do we blame the Dems for being the apparent rank amateurs they are when it comes to corruption?

• Do we say if all you're willing to risk is a lousy roof then you deserve to be beat?

• If all you got is 20th century 'ol boss under the table deals and aren't thinking 21st century hi-tech and national then that's your own damn fault?

Because if we are not going to clean up the whole mess and raze this corrupt playing field then leveling it for the Dems is the answer....take off the gloves and abolish campaign finance laws so Dems can have a fair fight. Let them go to school on Repug fund raising tactics. That's where we stand right now. Is that really where we want to be? From the lack of outrage and media coverage I guess so.

Is Houston an Al Qaeda Training Gound?

Did I miss something about Houston? We learn from Atrios that Tom Delay says:

"You know, if Houston, Texas, was held to the same standard as Iraq is held to, nobody'd go to Houston, because all this reporting coming out of the local press in Houston is violence, murders, robberies, deaths on the highways," DeLay said. "And if you took that as the image of what is a great city that has an incredible quality of life and an incredible economy, it's amazing to me. Go to Iraq. And see what's actually happening there.

"Everybody that comes from Iraq is amazed at the difference of what they see on the ground and what they see on the television set."

Now from the NYT we learn the CIA says:

WASHINGTON, June 21 - A new classified assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency says Iraq may prove to be an even more effective training ground for Islamic extremists than Afghanistan was in Al Qaeda's early days, because it is serving as a real-world laboratory for urban combat.

No I didn't miss anything but I think Delay has missed alot not the least of which is intellectual honesty. But then we knew that.

More Ohio

Dean calls on Bush to return money from Noe:

"Noe was given special status and special access by the Bush-Cheney campaign as a Pioneer donor, but there are now signs that the money he used to acquire this special status was tainted."

Mr. Dean yesterday repeated the Democratic National Committee's call for President Bush to return money raised by Mr. Noe. Ohio Democrats have also called on Ohio lawmakers who have received money from Mr. Noe to return the contributions.

"President Bush should immediately return all of the cash Noe raised to eliminate even the possibility that the hard-earned money of Ohio's workers was improperly diverted to his re-election campaign," Mr. Dean said.

I hope Dean and Dems keep the pressure on. Maybe Bush will have to admit a mistake for once.

And more in Ohio The Guardian reports today that:

Gov. Bob Taft failed to report a number of golf outings on his financial disclosure statements, the same omission that figured in the earlier resignation of three of his agency heads.
In a letter to the Ohio Ethics Commission, Taft wrote that it "has recently come to my attention'' that he failed to list the outings on required financial disclosure forms in past years. He released the letter Tuesday.

Ohio just keeps on giving ...too bad it's not on cabloid news.
UPDATE: More detail available on golf outings.

European Secularism

The Christian Science Monitor is running a 2 part article on the role of religion in Europe that looks interesting:.

Indeed, its secularism has led to jokes that Europe is one big "blue" state. But Europeans aren't laughing. Buffeted by the crosscurrents of secularism, Christianity, and Islam - and mindful of a history of religious violence - they are wrestling with their values and identity as never before.

"The clash between those who believe and those who don't believe will be a dominant aspect of relations between the US and Europe in the coming years," says Jacques Delors, a former president of the European Commission. "This question of a values gap is being posed more sharply now than at any time in the history of European-US relations since 1945."

A few stats:

• 21% of Europeans say religion is "very important" to them

• 59% of Americans say faith very important

• 44% of American attend a place of worship per week

• 15% of Eurpeans attend a place of worship per week
  

I hope they do not have to deal with the ruinous fundamentalism so prevalent here.

Iraq Looting Goes On

From the BBC:

But now, one of the world's leading experts on the country's antiquities says there is evidence that archaeological treasures are being systematically plundered.
"What's going on here is worse than what happened with the Baghdad museum," says Professor Elizabeth Stone of Stonybrook University in New York

Satellite photo of one looted area:

Convicted of Manslaughter

I still beleive it should have been murder but...
To read the rest

Frist humiliated again...Alright!

This is how Lott must react each time Frist gets humiliated.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Reversing field after a meeting with President Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said he will continue pushing for a floor vote on John R. Bolton for U.N. ambassador.
read the rest at CNN

Justice Delayed?

Carolyn Goodman left court Friday after testifying in the case against Edgar Ray Killen, who prosecutors say orchestrated the killing of Mr. Goodman and two other civil rights workers, Michael Schwerner and James Earl Chaney.

As a young teenager I spent part of a summer doing Civil Rights work in Mississippi about 7 years after these murders. Though community leaders wanted us to help in voter registration the group leader who had brought us to MS wouldn't allow it. It was still too dangerous. We begged to be able to do so but to no avail. There was one college kid with us who was doing voter registration. I remember one night he told us that he had been at a home (these were run down rural shacks) talking about registration and 3 men in a pick up truck pulled up. One had a Machine Gun. They made it clear that he had to go, which he did. The fact that they had a machine gun shocked me and I've never forgotten it.

We were harassed by the police everyday. One evening they pulled over and threw us in the car after seeing us come out of a neighborhood bar. (We had gone there for cigarettes which was common for kids to do). But it was stupid of US as it gave them the excuse they needed. Once in the car I demanded to know why we were being arrested. No Answer. I then told them we had the constitutional right to know why we were being arrested. The cop turned around and got right in my face and said, "Do you know Mississippi law Girl cause you're in Mississippi now". I can't tell you how much I grew up in those 10 seconds and how frightened I became because I knew the story of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner. Ten seconds earlier I had been trying to figure a way out of being taken to jail. Now I was praying we were going to jail and not taken for a ride.

We were taken to jail, questioned and held for some time before being bailed out at $25 head. We went to court the next day and the DA dropped the charges. He seemed embarrassed especially since at that time everyone liked to talk about the so- called "New South". But as we filed out of court, the black owners of the bar remained to fight for their liquor license. They prevailed... barely. Something for which we felt terrible.

I went to Mississippi a young idealistic American. One seemingly long car ride changed me. I learned America isn't fair and justice is relative to who you are and where you are. I have heard a few people say leave the old man (Killen) alone. I cringe at that. Remember he has had a whole life. Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner never did. And Carolyn Goodman had hers ripped apart. She said of her son:
"He didn't come here to be a martyr, he came here to serve the people. And now I'm here in his stead."
I applaud her for it.
I hope Mississippi will do what is right but I've had a lesson in MS law in the New South. People say it's different Now. Well today there are 13 US Senators who are unwilling to go on the record against lynching ..... including both of Mississippi 's senators. That tells me alot about just how much has changed.

BBC on a Changing China

This BBC online page has some good stories on how China is changing including, consumerism, the wealth gap and more.

Aung San Suu Kyi Turns 60 on Sunday

The National League for Democracy (NLD) leader won the 1990
elections in Burma by a landslide but was never allowed to take power.
She has been under house arrest since May 2003.

Words Don't Express

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A convicted pedophile may have chronicled sex acts with children in 36,000 notebook entries over three decades as he moved across the United States, hiding his identity, police said on Friday.
Read the rest:

WI "Missing White Women's" Law: The Cheeshead Virgins Protection Act

While the media ponders how to end the out of control problem of missing white women and keep young women safe (and virginal) on their travels.... the WI Assembly took action. After a heated debate tonight, they passed a bill banning the morning-after pill on state college campuses. The First in the Country.
This all began when the UW-Madison Health Services clinic advertised in the school paper that students could call the clinic for prescriptions of the drug to use on spring break. Well that got the Republicans moving. Rep. Daniel LeMahieu, R-Oostburg introduced the bill. On the Assembly floor tonight he said:

"Are we going to change the lifestyle of every UW student? No," LeMahieu said. "But we can tell the university that you are not going to condone it, you are not going to participate in it, and you are not going to use our tax dollars to do it."

Democrats pleaded:

• The bill was unconstitutional
• Could stop UW pharmacies from dispensing all forms of birth control to thousands of college students
• Would deny rape victims a chance to stop pregnancies
• Predicted it would lead to more unwanted pregnancies and surgical abortions
• Was a full frontal assault on the right to privacy, on the right of free speech, on the right of a free press.

But that's reasoning and that just doesn't go anywhere these days. The bill has to pass the Republican controlled state Senate (probably will). But Democrat Governor Jim Doyle has said he will veto it.
Without a Democrat for governor, WI would be passing a lot of Firsts.
So Aruba get ready....... here come the Cheeshead Virgins!

Tom Friedman's Tipping Point Line Tease?

Is Tom Friedman moving the goalposts in the Tipping Point game? (Can I mangle a metaphor as well as Tom?)

• November 19, 2004 " CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq – Every time I visit Iraq, I leave asking myself the same question: If you total up all the positives and negatives, where does the balance come out? I'd say the score is still 4 to 4. We can still emerge with a decent outcome. And the whole thing could still end very badly. There's only one thing one can say for sure today: You won't need to wait much longer for the tipping point."
• February 22, 2005 "And so, I like the way Malcolm has defined it because in that sense, Iraq -this election is a tipping point. I believe it has begun to reframe the issue."
• June 15, 2005 "Well, we need to talk about Iraq. This is no time to give up - this is still winnable - but it is time to ask: What is our strategy? This question is urgent because Iraq is inching toward a dangerous tipping point-"

I think Tom needs to reframe the Tipping Point. Because a Point is........

• (1) : a narrowly localized place having a precisely indicated position

And more on Point:

• a geometric element of which it is postulated that at least two exist and that two suffice to determine a line
  

Therefore indeedy it is a TIPPING LINE!!!!!
(Is that mangling as good as Tom's?)
NO No No you say I am missing the Point. Tom doesn't give an exact point. He is only portending to predict a point, at some point in time in the future. So the game is still on. Therefore the goalpost has not actually moved at all.
Yet.
But it will soon.
Not much longer...
Just wait.....
It's coming.
Inching closer....
Oh yeah....
I feel the urgency.....
Hold on....
Oh yes......
Hold it...
oh yeah.....
Yes.....
YES.....
YES.....
It's
Coming.
Hold it....
OH GOD......
Hold it...
OH
MY
GOD......
YESSSSSSSSSS



NO
STOP!!!
Wait.......

Oh I get it......the Tipping Point is a...........
TIPPING TEASE!!!!!!!
(Is THAT Okrent pleasing, mix-n-mangling as good as Tom NOW?)

War Plan Now & War Plan Then

War Plan Now:
From the BBC:

In an interview for the BBC's Newsnight programme, Mr Rumsfeld said Iraq had passed several milestones, like holding elections and appointing a government.

But he said Iraq's military forces were growing in numbers and he was confident the insurgency would be defeated. He said that efforts had shifted from counter-insurgency to helping the Iraqi security forces.

"The important thing ... is to recognise that this insurgency is going to be defeated not by the coalition - it's going to be defeated by the Iraqi people and by the Iraqi security forces, and that it's going to happen as the Iraq people begin to believe they've got a future in that country," he said.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

War Plan Then:
From Richard Nixon's Address to the nation on November 3, 1969:

The Vietnamization plan was launched following Secretary Laird's visit to Vietnam in March. Under the plan, I ordered first a substantial increase in the training and equipment of South Vietnamese forces.

In July, on my visit to Vietnam, I changed General Abrams' orders so that they were consistent with the objectives of our new policies. Under the new orders, the primary mission of our troops is to enable the South Vietnamese forces to assume the full responsibility for the security of South Vietnam.

We have adopted a plan which we have worked out in cooperation with the South Vietnamese for the complete withdrawal of all U.S. combat ground forces, and their replacement by South Vietnamese forces on an orderly scheduled timetable. This withdrawal will be made from strength and not from weakness. As South Vietnamese forces become stronger, the rate of American withdrawal can become greater.

I have not and do not intend to announce the timetable for our program.

snip

My fellow Americans, I am sure you can recognize from what I have said that we really only have two choices open to us if we want to end this war.

-I can order an immediate, precipitate withdrawal of all Americans from Vietnam without regard to the effects of that action.

-Or we can persist in our search for a just peace through a negotiated settlement if possible, or through continued implementation of our plan for Vietnamization if necessary - a plan in which we will withdraw all of our forces from Vietnam on a schedule in accordance with our program, as the South Vietnamese become strong enough to defend their own freedom.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOW:
Time in Iraq: 2 years
US soldiers killed: 1706
US wounded in Iraq: 12855
At Time of Nixon's speech:
Time in Vietnam: ~ 5 years
US soldiers Killed: ~34,000

The Outcome We Know:
March 1972: Last US combat soldiers leave Vietnam
58,000 are dead,
1,000 are missing in action.
Some 150,000 Americans were seriously wounded.
April 30, 1975: South Vietnam falls
(Vietnam stats from)

Outcome Yet to be Learned:

Time will tell an all too familiar story. At least Nixon went on TV and laid it out for the American people in 1969 ...something Bush has yet to do. (And giving Nixon any credit is difficult for this liberal)

Fighting Bob La Follette's Anniversary

I spent the day at the Capital in Madison, WI celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Bob LaFollette.
So what you ask? Well read this:

"People are being unlawfully arrested, thrown into jail, denied the right to employ counsel, or to communicate with their friends, or even to inform their families of their whereabouts, subjected to unlawful search, threatened, intimidated, examined, and cross-examined. The most sacred constitutional rights guaranteed to every American citizen are violated in the name of democracy. It appears to be the purpose of those conducting this procedure to throw the country into a state of terror, to coerce public opinion, stifle criticism, suppress discussion of the issues of the war, and put a quietus on all opposition. ... It is time for the American people to assert and maintain their rights."

That was Bob La Follette speaking out about the atmosphere in the US in 1917 for those expressing opposition to involvement in WWI. Sounds like it could be spoken today.

There was a panel discussion and I got to ask this question:

As you said Bob LaFollette would be against the War in Iraq if he were alive today. Of course Fox News and the right wing bloggers would smear him and try to marginalize him.Do you think he would have a more effective way to deal with this and what would that be?

His biographer Nancy Unger said he would continue to speak truth to power. (Sounds like Dean)
Ed Garvey wasn't so sure LaFollette would be able to survive in today's media.
John Nichols believed speaking truth would win out in the end.

It was a great event and would urge you to read some about Fighting Bob at The Capital Times.
And do check out Ed Garvey's Blog........ fightingbob.com