The Watch

Fox News Accountability?

2008-06-13T11:24:00.005-04:00

I keep hoping that at some point we will finally reach a tipping point beyond which the millions of Americans who believe that Fox News is a legitimate news organization will finally see them as what they are; the political propaganda wing of the Republican party. While I'm not foolish enough to believe that we'll actually see this happen any time soon, a series of gaffes at Fox News has given me reason to hope. Not so much that Fox News is doing anything worse than what they've been doing all along. It's just that lately they've had to issue a series of apologies and retractions because the public has been calling them to the carpet.

First was a gaffe by Fox News pundit Liz Trotta. While being interviewed by FOX News anchor Eric Shawn for a standard talking head segment, Trotta said;

“And now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama, uh, Obama. Well, both, if we could.”

Needless to say, this didn't go over very well. Even a joking suggestion that someone assassinate a candidate for the Presidency of the United States is going to land you in hot water. And Trotta found herself back-pedeling. She was forced to issue an on-air apology the next day.

Second was an incident in which E.D. Hill, the anchor of Fox News show America's Pulse, suggested that Barack Obama and his wife affectionately bumping fists before his victory speech on becoming the Democratic candidate for president could be seen as a “terrorist fist jab”.

“A fist bump? A pound? A terrorist fist jab? The gesture everyone seems to interpret differently,” said Hill in her show. “We'll show you some interesting body communication and find out what it really says.”

Following that, Hill, who has been with Fox News Channel since 1998, lost her show, although she is to stay with the network in an as yet undetermined capacity. She issued a standard half-assed apology following her gaffe, but it wasn't enough. So off she goes.

Third, Fox News took heat because of an onscreen caption referencing Obama's vow to protect his wife from critics.

The caption read; “Outraged Liberals: Stop Picking on Obama's Baby Mama!”

The misogynist and racist implications of the term “baby mama” -- frequently used in rap songs and most recently in a film about a white-trash surrogate mother -- were apparently offensive enough to female employees inside the company that Fox executives issued a quasi-apology. Fox's Senior Vice President of Programming Bill Shine said in a statement “A producer on the program exercised poor judgment in using this chyron during the segment.” A Fox staffer said that others internally were bothered by describing the potential first lady, and very accomplished woman who Princeton and Harvard Law educated, as the senator's “baby mama.”

It's all just more of the same. Fox News isn't doing anything differently than what they've been doing for years. But now they're catching some heat from it. Personally, I'm dancing in my chair to see even this little bit of accountability being levelled at Fox News. They've been getting a free pass for far too long. They're reaching a point where they're offending their own audience. That's something I never honestly thought could happen. Obviously, they may lighten up, or the legitimate media may stop covering their gaffes. Either way, it's good to see Fox News on the defensive.

One has to wonder if Barack Obama will personally challenge these deliberate slights from Fox in the same way that his campaign has worked to destroy the more insidious online rumor mill that claim that he's Muslim, that he won't say the Pledge of Allegiance and that he's hiding his birth certificate. He's placed online a web site titled Fight the Smears that addresses those issues. Will he also put up a Fox News section? How can he not? They're going to be working over-time trying to find ways to discredit the Senator and smear his family.

For now, at least, it's enough for me that Fox News is actually having to backpedal a bit. They've been so successful in their role as the propaganda wing of the Republican Party that they've taken on an air of untouchability; an arrogance that came from believing that they were riding the crest of a wave of Neo-Conservatism that was sweeping the country into a Right-Wing paradise where the Democratic Party would be marginalized, Liberals would become an endangered species, and the United States would exist in a state of perpetual war during which every citizen would wrap themselves in the flag and wouldn't dare question their appointed Republican leaders.

Now it seems that at least in some ways, that wave is receding. Hopefully the American people will continue to hold Fox News accountable, and proclaim that while it's apparently acceptible to attack political leaders with misinformation and lies, it's unacceptable that they use misogyny and racism as a means to that end. That may not be the resounding rejection of Fox News that I could hope for, but it's a step in the right direction. Personally, I hope their testosterone driven school-boy bully shtick will keep them putting their collective foot in their mouths. Nothing else could reveal Fox News for what they really are better than their own words suggesting that an American Presidential candidate has ties to terrorists, that perhaps he should be assassinated, and that his wife is the kind of trash that rappers talk about in their songs.

In an unrelated incident, but something that I want to mention in staying with the theme of Fox News accountability, I want to mention something concerning Bill Moyers. For those who might not know, Bill Moyers is one of the grand old statesman of professional American journalism. He has led the fight for the restoration of an independent 4th estate, and has therefore been a target of the Bush administration, in concert with Fox News, which has launched unrelenting personal attack on Moyers' reputation and credibility. As part of that attack, Bill O'Reily recently sent one of his street thugs, Porter Berry, to ambush Moyers at the National Conference for Media Reform, to try to antagonize him (and I imagine get juicy tape that could be heavily edited to make Moyers look like an idiot).

Well, that didn't work out so well.

Moyers emasculated the young punk, humiliating him in front of about 20 real journalists. He described O'Reilly on tape as not a journalist, as he describes himself, but a pugilist (a professional fighter or boxer). The segment ended with the real journalists who witnessed the ambush chasing poor old Porter out of the building giving him a little of his own O'Reilly medicine. Finally. Fox News is getting some of what's coming to them.

If you want a good laugh, check out the Moyers video on YouTube.

References:

Wikipedia: Liz Trotta
Wikipedia: E.D. Hill
Fox Address Baby Mama Drama
Obama's Fight the Smears web site

Julie Gerberding's Subjective Reality

2007-10-30T12:18:00.000-04:00

The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Julie Gerberding, addressed the Senate last Tuesday on the health impact of global warming in the United States. On most news days, this would go un-noticed. It would have most likely been reported, but the public wouldn't have noticed it. After all, Paris Hilton was probably shopping somewhere, and we all want to know about that, don't we?

What made Dr. Gerberding's appearance dramatic enough to temporarily bump Paris Hilton to the sidelines was the fact that the White House altered her report. White House press secretary Dana Perino explained that the draft was edited because officials didn't believe it matched scientific conclusions in a report by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Okay, let's set aside for a moment the laughable idea that White House political appointees are better informed about the science in reports by the IPCC (the U.N.-chartered scientific group that shares this year's Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore) than Dr. Gerberding and her staff are. As director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Gerberding has particular expertise.

Among the six pages that were removed from the original twelve-page draft by the Office of Management and Budget (which is staffed and run by true-believing political appointees) were specific things that Dr. Gerberding wanted to tell Congress. Such as “scientific evidence supports the view that the Earth's climate is changing,” yet “the public health effects of climate change remain largely unaddressed,” and that areas in the northern part of the country “will likely bear the brunt of increases in ground-level ozone and associated airborne pollutants. Populations in Midwestern and Northeastern cities are expected to experience more heat-related illnesses as heat waves increase in frequency, severity, and duration.”

The draft version explained why climate change is a public health concern. It described the expected impact of climate change, including new disease patterns and food and water shortages for some people. It included predictions about the potential consequences of increased air pollution, the rampant growth of plants that cause allergies and the creation of environments that promote water- and food-borne disease. “Catastrophic weather events such as heat waves and hurricanes are expected to become more frequent, severe, and costly,” it said.

All this disappeared, leaving only wordy generalities like “climate change is anticipated to have a broad range of impacts on the health of Americans and the nation's public health infrastructure.” The shorter version focuses on public health preparedness for climate change, including how the CDC is tracking diseases, doing heat-stroke modeling for cities to predict vulnerable populations and helping local officials plan for environmental emergencies.

So. Okay. The White House changed the report. Why is this even an issue. Who cares, right?

This is why it's an issue ...

The Bush administration has a history of political appointees rewriting the work of government scientists to bring their findings into line with White House policy and objectives. A Bush official once bragged to a reporter that the administration had the power to create its own reality. I believe the term that was used was “subjective reality”.

There was the 24-year-old Bush political appointee and college dropout at NASA, who reworked agency materials to take into account his belief that the big bang was only an “opinion” that should be accorded equal weight with intelligent design.

In 2005, after NASA scientist James E. Hansen said that greenhouse gas emissions were creating “a different planet,” his superiors tried to control his appearances and limit his interviews.

In 2003, the EPA did its best to bury an analysis by staff members showing that a proposal to cap carbon dioxide emissions by Senators John McCain and Joseph Lieberman would not seriously damage the economy.

In 2003, Philip Cooney, who then headed the Council on Environmental Quality in the Bush White House, made more than 300 changes to a report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on global warming. Cooney's changes exaggerated supposed uncertainties about global warming and removed many references to the phenomenon entirely.

In 2002, the White House made the Environmental Protection Agency drop a chapter on the risks of climate change from an annual EPA report that for six years had included such information.

On Tuesday of last week, Office of Management and Budget (the agency that edited Dr. Gerberding's report) spokesman Sean Kevelighan said the OMB reviews documents and testimony to see whether they “line up well with the national priorities of the administration.”

As you can imagine, perception of this issue has been largely determined by political affiliation. Conservatives (who still aren't convinced that global warming is real and consider the hang-wringing over it to be politically motivated) naturally believe that this is just another example of the Liberal mainstream media finding yet another issue to use to attack the Bush Administration. Liberals (who believe that global warming is real and is an issue that we need to take seriously) naturally believe that this is yet another example of the White House abusing Executive power, and they ARE using this to attack the Bush Administration.

What you have is two sides tugging back and forth over issues that contradict with their political ideology. Somewhere in the middle the science is forgotten.

Dr. Gerberding isn't too worried about. Wednesday she said that she was happy with her testimony and that the review process was normal. In a lunch-hour speech before the Atlanta Press Club, Gerberding said she made all the points to Congress that she wanted to make. “This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard,” she said of the furor. “I don't let people put words in my mouth. I spoke the truth to Congress.”

Despite myself, I can't help thinking “well, that's what we would expect her to say, isn't it?“ Julie Gerberding wants to keep her job. And technically what she said IS true. She did speak the truth to Congress. She didn't lie about what's going on. But in her statement is a bit of political sleight-of-hand. It's not what she said that people are taking issue with. It's what she didn't say. It's what was left out that tongues are wagging about, not what was included.

If you state in a report that in a generic sense there is a possibility that a foreign army might invade our country, that perhaps we should be prepared for the eventuality, just in case, you're probably going to be seen as reasonable and prudent. But what if you leave out the fact that a foreign army is camped just over the next hill and will be invading the capitol at dawn, just because your superiors don't believe that the foreign army exists? Did you lie in your statements? No. You told the truth. You just didn't tell the whole truth.

In short, what I'm trying to say is that what should have been a report on the problem of global warming was turned into a political issue by the Bush Administration. Don't worry. Be happy. What you don't know can't hurt you.

Meanwhile, in the real world, British scientists, in a paper published this week, say that fossil records show mass extinctions of species are linked to warming tropical seas. And they say, based on Intergovernmental Panel projections, Earth is on course to reach extinction-level warming in about 100 years. If that level is reached, the panel says, “20 to 30 percent” of animal species will be at risk of extinction.

One has to wonder if there will be anyone left 100 years from now to debate whether or not there's a problem.

Reference
- Dr. Julie Gerberding's original draft testimony

Bush Commutes Libby's Sentence

2007-07-04T12:59:00.000-04:00

Well. What can one say about President Bush's decision to commute Lewis “Scooter” Libby's sentence that hasn't been said already?

Okay, so you know if I make a statement like that, I'm obviously going to add to the pile. In spite of the extensive coverage of this issue, over the past few days I've found myself trying to explain to a lot of people just why this is such an issue. Most people didn't follow the investigation of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who was trying to determine who revealed the identity of CIA operative Valarie Plame, much less Libby's indictment and subsequent conviction of purjury and obstruction of justice.

Okay. We should start from the beginning, to put this all into perspective.

In late February 2002, responding to inquiries from the Vice President's office and the Departments of State and Defense about the allegation that Iraq had a sales agreement to buy uranium in the form of yellowcake from Niger, the CIA authorized a trip by former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson to Niger to investigate the possibility. Wilson decided that there “was nothing to the story,” and presented his report in March 2002. The Bush Administration ignored this report and continued to use the yellowcake story as part of its justification for an impending invasion of Iraq.

After the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, Wilson, frustrated by the White House's rejection of his conclusions, wrote a series of articles questioning its factual basis. In one of these op-eds (published in the New York Times on July 6, 2003), Wilson argued that President George Bush, in the State of the Union Address, misrepresented intelligence leading up to the invasion and suggested that the Iraqi regime had indeed sought uranium to manufacture nuclear weapons.

According to federal court records, beginning in mid-June 2003, Bush administration officials discussed with various reporters the employment of a classified, covert, CIA agent, named Valerie E. Wilson (Joseph Wilson's wife, oddly enough, who is also known as Valerie Plame). On July 14, 2003, in a newspaper column, Robert Novak disclosed Plame's name and status as an “operative” who worked in a CIA division on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Mrs. Wilson's husband, stated in various interviews and later writings that his wife's identity was covert and that members of the administration had knowingly revealed it as retribution for his op-ed (especially the one entitled “What I Didn't Find in Africa”, published in The New York Times on July 6, 2003).

On September 16, 2003 the CIA sent a letter to the US Department of Justice, stating that Plame's status as a CIA undercover operative was classified information. They requested a federal investigation. I should probably mention here that Knowingly leaking the identity of a covert agent is a criminal violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, and the CIA is required by law to report any such possible criminal violations. If convicted of such an act, one faces possible charges of treason. It is considered a treasonous act by the United States Government.

Then Attorney General John Ashcroft referred the matter to the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel, which was directed by Patrick Fitzgerald, who convened a grand jury. The CIA leak grand jury investigation resulted in the indictment and conviction of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Chief of Staff of Vice President Dick Cheney, on five counts of obstruction of justice, perjury, and false statements to the grand jury and federal investigators.

On March 6, 2007, Libby was convicted on four counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements. On June 5, 2007, he was sentenced to 30 months in prison, a fine of $250,000, and two years of supervised release after his prison term.

End of story, right? Justice done, right?

Aw, not so fast. We're talking about a member of the Bush Administration.

On July 2, 2007, President Bush commuted Libby's sentence. Libby will not see one day of his prison term. Following the traditions of his Presidency, Bush made a statement that generally was met with derision by everyone but Conservatives.

“I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive,” he said in a statement. “Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.”

“My decision to commute his prison sentence leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby,” Bush continued. “The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged. His wife and young children have also suffered immensely. He will remain on probation. The significant fines imposed by the judge will remain in effect. The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant and private citizen will be long-lasting.”

Okay. I've read this many times. I'm still trying to follow the logic. What Bush is saying is that if you are a member of his administraiton, being convicted on four counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements in a Federal investigation, is no big deal. What is important is not the crimes for which Lewis Libby was convicted, but that he might suffer because of it.

Ironically, in a recent, almost identical separate case, a former federal employee and a decorated Vietnam veteran, Victor Rita, was convicted of lying to a grand jury, making false statements and committing perjury. He was sentenced to 33 months. President Bush apparently did not see fit to commute Victor Rita's sentence. Therefore, one would think Rita's crimes were worse that Libby's, right? After all, a decorated Vietnam veteran with a 25 year career in the military would have to do something pretty bad for such a sentence. Right?

Here's what he did. Rita had made two false statements to a federal grand jury. The jury was investigating a gun company. Prosecutors believed that buyers of a kit, called a “PPSH 41 machinegun ‘parts kit,’” could assemble a machinegun from the kit, and that the company had not secured the necessary permits to import machine guns. Rita had purchased one of the kits and, when he was contacted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, he agreed to let the agent inspect the kit. But before meeting with the agent, he sent back the kit and, instead, substituted a kit that did not amount to a machine gun. The government contended that he lied to the grand jury about his actions and he was convicted for making false statements and committing perjury.

Wow. That's so much worse than lying to Federal investigators about who committed treason by revealing the name of a covert CIA agent, and, worse, who was involved in covering it up (Conservatives, please note here that this is what we call “sarcasm”).

One would think that Bush would commute the sentence of a decorated Vietnam veteran, since he's in the mood for bypassing the Judicial system. Sadly, Victor Rita will receive no such consideration from President Bush. The President is very selective with his compassion. In his previous political capacity as governor of Texas, Bush showed none of those on the state’s death row the compassion he reserved for “Scooter” Libby. He sent 150 men and two women to their deaths — executing the first female in Texas in 100 years, Karla Faye Tucker, after being petitioned by The Pope to commute her death sentence to life in prison, and then publicly mocking her plea that he spare her life.

So what makes Lewis “Scooter” Libby so different? Why does he deserve such special treatment when Bush has been more than willing to let everyone else swing from the trees?

Oh, come on!

Even worse, the President refused to rule out granting a full pardon at some point down the road that would wipe Libby's slate completely clean. Libby still has a $250,000 fine to pay, two years of probation and can't practice law to help pay for his mountain of legal bills.

“I rule nothing in or nothing out,” Bush said, further describing the commuted sentence as “a very difficult decision.”

Does anyone seriously believe that Lewis “Scooter” Libby will have any trouble making a living? He's now free to be a hero to Bush administration supporters (who gave $3.5 million to his legal defense fund and sent almost 200 letters in his favor to the judge in his case).

“He is a hero among many conservatives who feel he was wrongly prosecuted,” George Washington University law Prof. Jonathan Turley said. “He could be the next Ollie North.”

Fred Thompson, unabashed conservative and soon-to-be-declared Republican presidential candidate, who helped organise a Libby defence fund, said “I am very happy for Scooter Libby. This will allow a good American, who has done a lot for his country, to resume his life.”

Poor Scooter. How he has suffered.

Others were not so kind. In regard to Bush's assertion that “I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive,” the Washington Post pointed out Tuesday that the sentence was anything but excessive.

“Three of every four people convicted of obstruction of justice have been sent to prison over the past two years, a total of 283 people, according to federal judiciary data,” the Post reported. “The average term was more than five years. The largest group of defendants were sentenced to between 13 and 31 months in prison, exactly where Libby would have fallen on the charts.”

According to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald; “The sentence in this case was imposed pursuant to the laws governing sentencings which occur every day throughout this country. In this case, an experienced federal judge considered extensive argument from the parties and then imposed a sentence consistent with the applicable laws. It is fundamental to the rule of law that all citizens stand before the bar of justice as equals. That principle guided the judge during both the trial and the sentencing.”

Former Ambassador Joe Wilson, whose wife Valerie Plame's covert CIA status was compromised, starting this whole thing, had a few thoughts of his own.

“The fact that the president short-circuited our system of justice by giving Scooter Libby a get-out-of-jail-free card, thereby eliminating any incentive that he would tell the truth to the prosecutor, guarantees that there is a cloud of suspicion put over the office of the president and makes him potentially a suspect in an ongoing obstruction of justice case,” declared Wilson, adding, “This was a coverup.”

Indeed. Anyone who believes that the justice in this issue is not Lewis “Scooter” Libby being convicted to 30 months in prison for four counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements, but President Bush commuting Libby's prison sentence, is, at best, deluded, or worse, a Conservative idealogue who believes that “Republican” translates to “unerringly moral”. Libby was left off of the hook to remove any incentive he might have to cooperate with Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. With the specter of prison removed, why would Libby talk?

By commuting Scooter Libby's sentence, President Bush has perhaps laid to rest the investigation into the “outing” of Valerie Plame's status as a covert CIA operative. We may never know the details now, unless at some future date Libby has a sudden upswelling of morality and decides to clear his conscience.

One has to wonder if on Tuesday night, somewhere in the dark, damp lair of Vice-President Cheney that's hidden a hale mile underground beneath the White House, President Bush and Vice-President Cheney drank a toast to the successful culmination of their campaign to shut down the investigation into the Plame Affair. One can imagine the maniacally evil laughter that echoed through the hallways as they celebrated snatching justice from the grasp of the courts of law. And one also has to imagine if somewhere in those hallways, a Secret Service agent looked down at his shoes in shame and shuddered.

- Wicasta Lovelace

- Watch Alert archived post

VA to Give Pentacles for Fallen Wiccan Soldiers

2007-04-28T15:01:00.000-04:00

Like many Pagans, I've wondered for quite some time why the federal Department of Veterans Affairs has, for 10 years, fought against placing the pentacle, a symbol of the Wicca faith, on the grave markers of Wiccan soldiers buried in government cemeteries. One would think that if a soldier dies in combat, and is a follower of a religion which is officially recognized by the U.S. military, that placing the symbol of that soldier's faith upon his or her marker would not be an issue.

Except we live in a country in which the president of the United States does not believe these soldiers have such a right, in spite of the fact that they died fighting for their country in a war which he himself initiated. In a 1999 appearance on ABC's Good Morning America, then-Texas Gov. Bush responded to questions about a controversy which was raging at the time over Wiccan soldiers being allowed to hold services at the Fort Hood army installation in Texas. “I don't think witchcraft is a religion,” he said. “I would hope the military officials would take a second look at the decision they made.”

While there is no proof that the White House has been directly involved in the issue concerning the pentacle on the grave markers of Wiccan soldiers, Bush has not wavered from his belief that Wicca is not a religion, and has never apologized for his remarks. His beliefs in regards to Wicca has apparently been echoed by the Veterans Administration, and led to their long, protracted struggle to keep the Wiccan pentacle out of government cemeteries.

Well, last Monday the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced a settlement that would allow the Wiccan pentacle to be added to the list of emblems allowed in national cemeteries and on goverment-issued headstones of fallen soldiers. The settlement calls for the pentacle, whose five points represent earth, air, fire, water and spirit, to be placed on grave markers within 14 days for those who have pending requests with the VA.

Barry Lynn, director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, called the settlement in Circle Sanctuary v. Nicholson “a proud day for religious freedom in the United States.” But he noted that VA documents the plaintiffs' attorneys reviewed appeared to reveal that government officials had intentionally dragged their feet on approving the symbol for fear that it would upset religious conservatives.

“Many people have asked me why the federal government was so stubborn about recognizing the Wiccan symbol,” Lynn said. “I did not want to believe that bias toward Wiccans was the reason, but that appears to have been the case. That's discouraging, but I'm pleased we were able to put a stop to it.” He also noted, “This settlement has forced the Bush Administration into acknowledging that there are no second class religions in America, including among our nation's veterans.”

The American Civil Liberties Union said the agreement also settles a similar lawsuit it filed last year against the VA. In that case, the ACLU represented two other Wiccan churches and three individuals.

Eleven families nationwide are waiting for grave markers with the pentacle, said Selena Fox, a Wiccan high priestess with Circle Sanctuary in Barneveld, Wis., a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

“I am glad this has ended in success in time to get markers for Memorial Day,” Fox said.

The VA stated that they sought the settlement in the interest of the families involved and to save taxpayers the expense of further litigation. This according to VA spokesman Matt Burns. The agency also agreed to pay $225,000 in attorneys' fees and costs.

The pentacle has been added to 38 symbols the VA already permits on gravestones. They include commonly recognized symbols for Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and Judaism, as well as those for smaller religions such as Sufism Reoriented, Eckiankar and the Japanese faith Seicho-No-Ie.

VA-issued headstones, markers and plaques can be used in any cemetery, whether it is a national one such as Arlington or a private burial ground like that on Circle Sanctuary's property.

And just in case anyone hasn't picked up on it yet, Wiccans would probably like to once again remind people that Wicca is a nature-based religion based on respect for the earth, nature and the cycle of the seasons. Variations of the pentacle have long been used in horror movies as a sign of the devil, and is perhaps the primary reason many Americans wrongly associate Wicca and Paganism with Satan-worship.

- Watch Alert archived post

Americans Outraged by Squalor Surrounding Wounded Iraq Veterans

2007-03-04T11:15:00.000-05:00

Like most Americans, I've been shocked recently by reports of the conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. Like everyone else, I assumed that our veterans who are returning wounded from Iraq and Afghanistan were receiving the best care possible. After all, Walter Reed is a prestigious army hospital, and is supposed to be among the best hospitals in the country.

Do the paragraphs below, which I’ve culled from various media sources, sound like one of the best hospitals in the country?

“Staff Sergeant John Shannon, 43, whose eye and skull were shattered by a sniper in Ramadi, was sent to Walter Reed in November 2004. On arrival he was given a map of the grounds and told to make his own way to his room. Badly disoriented and barely able to see, he had to hold himself upright by sliding against the walls, asking anybody he could find for directions.”

“The Post reported that black mold was thick on the walls and that roaches ran rampant, except when they were pushed out of the way by rats and mice. The wounded soldiers, many of whom are wheelchair bound, had to make their own way a quarter, or half, mile up the street to the hospital for treatment.”

“Disengaged clerks, unqualified platoon sergeants and overworked case managers fumble with simple needs: feeding soldiers’ families who are close to poverty, replacing a uniform ripped off by medics in the desert sand or helping a brain-damaged soldier remember his next appointment.”

“On the worst days, soldiers say they feel like they are living a chapter of “Catch-22.” The wounded manage other wounded. Soldiers dealing with psychological disorders of their own have been put in charge of others at risk of suicide.”

According to Diane Benson, mother of Latseen Benson, 27, who was recovering from a double amputation at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, her son met a parade of VIPs. Every time the President, the Vice-President or the Defense Secretary passed by, the military hospital would be thoroughly scrubbed. But the improvements wouldn’t last long.

“I wasn’t so bothered by the rats, although there were a lot running around outside, but I really wanted his room to be swept and kept clean,” she said. “You couldn’t get people to mop the blood and urine from the floor while my son was there with his legs wide open.”

Like many Americans, I keep asking one simple question. How could this have happened in the United States of America? Doesn’t President Bush stand up there almost on a daily basis and try to excoriate anyone who questions his handling of the war or how ill-equipped our soldiers are? Much less anyone who disagrees with the Iraq War itself. They’re dismissed as left-wing kooks who are undermining the morale of our people who are serving in the military. So wouldn’t you think that the Administration would be on top of this issue? If for no other reason than good PR?

The Bush Administration has been in full spin mode since news of the conditions of Walter Reed became public. President Bush said in his weekly radio broadcast on Saturday that he was appalled by the conditions at the prestigious army hospital, and announced an inquiry into veterans’ care.

“This is unacceptable to me, it is unacceptable to the country and it’s not going to continue,” he said.

But it’s quite likely that the Bush Administration’s push for privatization may have helped create the Walter Reed disaster. Getting much less attention in the media are reports that a five-year, $120 million contract awarded to a firm run by a former executive from Halliburton (a multi-national corporation where Vice President Dick Cheney once served as CEO) will be probed at a Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs hearing scheduled for Monday.

A letter sent by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, to Major General George W. Weightman, the former commander at Walter Reed, asks him to “address the implications of a memorandum from Garrison Commander Peter Garibaldi sent through you to Colonel Daryl Spencer, the Assistant Chief of Staff for Resource Management with the U.S. Army Medical Command” in order to better prepare himself for his testimony at the hearing.

“This memorandum, which we understand was written in September 2006, describes how the Army’s decision to privatize support services at Walter Reed Army Medical Center was causing an exodus of ‘highly skilled and experienced personnel,’” Waxman’s letter continues. “As a result, according to the memorandum, ‘WRAMC Base Operations and patient care services are at risk of mission failure.’”

“We have learned that in January 2006, Walter Reed awarded a five-year $120 million contract to a company called IAP Worldwide Services for base operations support services, including facilities management,” Waxman continues. “IAP is one of the companies that experienced problems delivering ice during the response to Hurricane Katrina.”

Before the contract, according to the memorandum, over 300 federal employees provided facilities management services at Walter Reed, but that number dropped to less than 60 the day before IAP took over.

“Yet instead of hiring additional personnel, IAP apparently replaced the remaining 60 federal employees with only 50 IAP personnel,” Waxman writes.

A year ago, the Government Accountability Office “dismissed a protest filed on behalf of employees at the Army’s Walter Reed Medical Center, ruling that the employee group had no standing to challenge the outcome of a public-private job competition initiated prior to January 2005,” GovExec.com reported.

One has to wonder why this aspect of this story has received so little attention. It seems to explain a lot, doesn’t it? The mainstream media has been obsessively reporting on the conditions in Walter Reed itself, and has been largely focused on which of the medical center’s administrators were being kicked to the curb, and which politicans have had what to say about the whole subject.

Fox News, always a world unto itself, hasn’t even gone that far. Instead, they’ve been reporting on more important issues. Anna Nicole.
Brittany’s hair. American Idol nudie pics. Al Gore’s perfidious hypocrisy. Obama’s connection to racist churches. Hillary’s connection to Satan.

Have you heard a peep of indignation from Bill O’Reilly against the Republican Congress who, for the last six years, not only stood by and allowed the Walter Reed debacle to happen, but actually conspired in the abomination? Not at all. He would rather spend a few hundred segments skewering Cindy Sheehan or David Letterman.

Has there be any mention that it was House Republicans who had ousted Conservative Republican Chris Smith as the chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee when he sought higher funding for veterans services than the Bush Administration desired? Not when Rush Limbaugh was busy blaming anonymous Huffington Post commenters (not bloggers - but those who made their comments in the ope-to-anyone, including dittoheads, forums) for wishing the Vice President dead.

Standing in front of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, Ann Coulter didn’t call Republicans to the floor for their years of undermining and under-funding veterans. She instead decided to make use of that time to call Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards a “faggot”.

And the National Review’s Jonah Goldberg, instead of trying to get to the bottom of this national embarrassment, spent most of his energy writing a column to expose Dana Priest (the Washington Post writer who, with Anne Hull, revealed the military’s dirty, rat infested secret) for having “an agenda”.

In short, the talking heads on The Right, both in the media and in the Republican Party, have instinctively attacked anyone who questioned who was responsible for the deplorable conditions at Walter Reed Medical Center. After all, Republicans have been in-charge, and so the questioning of any aspect of this issue has been dismissed, of course, at nothing more than thinly-veiled, politically-motivated attacks.

The conservative politicians have rightly started back-pedaling. They see the writing on the wall. They realize that there’s no way they can use this issue to launch political attacks against Democrats. So they’re out there making their necessary speeches expressing their outrage and moral indignation over the conditions at Walter Reed, and demanding that someone be held accountable. Which, in Republican terms, means someone should be fired so we can all move on to more important things. Like Faith-Based Initiatives. Throwing the teaching of Evolution out of public schools. Making sure gays and lesbians can’t get married. Instead, they let the propaganda wing of the Republican Part (Fox News, Right-Wing talk shows) do the dirty work for them.

They don’t want us to look at this issue. They know that if Americans are aware of all the facts, the Republicans might very well suffer dearly for turning the care of our returning veterans over to a private company that “is led by Al Neffgen, a former senior Halliburton official who testified before our Committee in July 2004 in defense of Halliburton’s exorbitant charges for fuel delivery and troop support in Iraq.”

I think all Americans agree that something must be done at Walter Reed Medical Center, and immediately. But what I’ll be watching most closely in the coming weeks is whether all the rhetoric over this issue is turned into action, or if this all just goes away when Americans are distracted by some other shiney object and diversion.

That’s all the Republicans and their Right-Wing media arm are waiting for. If they can batten down the hatches, fire a few high level people, and just hang on, this issue will go away. IAP Worldwide Services can go back to its highly profitable business of providing inadequate health care for our returning veterans and supporting Republican candidates. And Republicans can keep mouthing off about how those godless Liberals and Democrats care less about America’s soldiers than the God-fearing Conservative high-steppers on the Right.

Personally, I think Walter Reed Medical Center is just another casualty in the “culture war” that Right-Wing Christians are so obsessed about. It’s another casualty in the Republicans’ war against American Democracy, as they seek to privatize our governmental institutions, and enrich corporations (by far their largest source of political contributions) to the detriment of public programs.

Walter Reed Medical Center is a good example of what’s going on in American culture in general, where corporations are taking over our very infrastructure and seeking ways to charge Americans a fee for their love of country and patriotism. In this most immediate example of this struggle, our veterans are suffering the most from the Republicans’ misguided experiment. I hope and pray that the American public will wake up from its daze, demand that more is done than just fire a few high profile administrators, and remember who is responsible for creating this mess in the first place.

In the interim, I simply pray that our soldiers returning wounded from combat can hang on long enough to be afforded the kind of care they so rightly deserve, that somewhere amid all the rhetoric and chest-beating, someone actually gets something done.

- Watch Alert archived post

A Harry Potter Witch Hunt

2006-11-06T09:36:00.000-05:00

A Harry Potter witch hunt
Mom who hasn't even read the books says they teach witchcraft
KAY MCSPADDEN
Special to the Observer

The suburbs of Atlanta are at the center of a witch hunt. Literally.

Laura Mallory, a former evangelical Christian missionary and mother of four, has been trying since September 2005 to have the Harry Potter books by author J.K. Rowling removed from all of the Gwinnett County public school libraries. Initially she argued that the books were inappropriate because of "evil themes, witchcraft, demonic activity, murder, evil blood sacrifice, spells, and teaching children all of this," but she later added that they promote witchcraft, Wicca, and the occult.

Mallory's challenge was addressed by the media review committee at J.C. Magill Elementary, where three of Mallory's children are enrolled. The committee recommended that the books remain in the libraries, and the district administration concurred.

In April Mallory appealed to the district school board, which held a public hearing in May. The school board sided with the school media review committee and voted unanimously in favor of keeping the books.

Now Mallory has taken her challenge to the state Board of Education. They met in October and will issue a judgment in December.

In some ways this is a rather predictable book challenge.

Like many book complainants, Mallory objects that the contents of the books are offensive to her religious beliefs. She claims the books have an anti-Christian bias.

Also like many complainants, she admits she hasn't read the books.

"They're really very long and I have four kids," Mallory told the Gwinnett Daily Post. "I think it would be hypocritical of me to read all of the books, honestly. I don't agree with what's in them."

And also like many of the people who challenge books, Mallory ignores the role of parents in guiding their children's choices -- unless, of course, she is the parent making those choices for everyone's children.

The outcry against Mallory's challenge has been predictable as well. Supporters of the Harry Potter series have countered that the books do not promote witchcraft but are fantasy stories about gifted children who discover their own remarkable abilities and go to a special school in order to learn to use them. The books are intense morality tales where good triumphs over evil, where friendship and loyalty are celebrated, where Harry learns from his missteps.

Potter fans also point out that although Mallory charges that the books try to indoctrinate children into the religion of Wicca, the only religious reference is to Christianity, when Hogwarts adjourns each December for the Christmas holidays. Nor do the books teach occult practices, as Mallory claims. The magic taught at Hogwarts is a clever counterpart to real life activities -- learning to make the tip of a wand light up to use as a flashlight, for example, or learning the proper way to fly a broom. The only teacher who presumes to teach what might be called occult practices is Sybill Trelawney, the incompetent fortune teller who is roundly mocked by both her students and her colleagues.

As predictable as the challenge has been, it has also been surprising to me. Why are books this universally read and loved also so widely feared and reviled? Despite their lack of sexual content or offensive language -- two of the most common reasons for book challenges -- the Harry Potter books are listed as the American Library Association's most-challenged books of the 21st century. What's going on?

Laura Mallory told one interviewer that "the books expose and introduce occult practices to young readers, opening a door to their minds and hearts to this kind of stuff, the casting of spells. The occult is dangerous to our children, and we need to get it out of our schools in all its forms."

For Mallory and other people like her who have a pre-Enlightenment view of the world as a place where magic is real and supernatural powers can be accessed through spells, the books might seem frightening. These are the same people who send chain letters and e-mails which promise great rewards to those who say a prayer and forward the mail to others -- and which sometimes threaten harm if the chain is broken.

They are the people who read cosmic significance into coincidence, who believe without question the cautionary tales they hear, who reject reason and science as ungodly and substitute religion with superstition.

Ironically, they say that they worry that children cannot tell the difference between fact and fiction, but their own anxiety about the books suggests that they are the ones who are having difficulty. It's too bad that their confusion means the rest of us have to endure yet another senseless witch hunt.

Kay McSpadden

Observer columnist Kay McSpadden is a high school English teacher in York, S.C. Write her c/o The Observer, P.O. Box 30308, Charlotte, NC 28230-0308 or by e-mail at kmcspadden@comporium.net.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Catholics vs. Pagans in Glastonbury

2006-11-04T09:40:00.000-05:00

This is an article worth reading. It reminds us that however we like to think that things are changing, a lot stays the same.

- Wicasta

=======
Bad vibes in Glastonbury after Catholics against pagans
By Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent

BY THE light of the full moon, witches in Glastonbury will tonight be casting a "circle of protection" around Britain's centre of mysticism after a group of militant Christians cast salt at them in an attempt to "cleanse" the town of paganism.

One Roman Catholic was fined and two cautioned by police after the "alternative Hallowe'en" festival in Britain's centre of magical mysticism turned into a spiritual battle between Christianity and paganism.

Now even the local Catholic priest has told his fellow Christians that they are not welcome in the town.

The Christians were visiting for the Lightswitch@glastonbury festival, the eighth such event organised by the Catholic charity Youth 2000. Promotional material tempted them there with slogans such as: "Has the light on your halo gone dark? Have your wings gone a bit grubby? Just want to switch your faith back on?"

Organised with the co-operation of the Catholic Parish Church and Shrine of Our Lady St Mary in Glastonbury, it was intended to be the Hallowe'en of choice "for those who have grown tired of tatty fancy dress and the Blair Witch Project".

But police were called after militants told locals that they wanted to cleanse the town of paganism, cast salt around to exorcise "evil" spirits and called one woman a "whore witch".

Yemaya Pinder, a witch and a member of the Pagan Federation who owns The Magick Box store, said that she believed the Christians should be prosecuted for a religious hate crime.

Mrs Pinder, a mother of two and grandmother of four, and whose sister is an Anglican vicar in Basildon, described how a group of Catholics had entered her shop and abused her.

She said: "It was as if we had returned to the dark ages. They told me they wanted to cleanse Glastonbury of paganism. They said they had lighters and were going to come back and burn us down. When the police asked them to apologise, they refused."

She said there were no plans to put a curse on the Christians. "But we are doing protection for ourselves and the shop and the town. We are working magic for the healing and the damage they very nearly did between us and the local Roman Catholic church."

She said that the town's witches had begun to work their magic, starting the protective circle on Samhein, the Celtic new year, last Tuesday, and planning to finish it using the "high energy" of tonight's full moon.

Dreow Bennett, the Archdruid of Glastonbury and leader of the pagan movement, said: "To call the behaviour of some of their members medieval would be an understatement. I witnessed a pagan being called a `bloody witch' and being told, `You will burn in hell'.

"Apparently this man was not a diligent follower of the teachings of Christ. It was my understanding that Christ taught compassion and tolerance rather than hatred and ignorance."

Father Kevin Knox-Lecky, the Catholic parish priest at Glastonbury, said: "I was utterly appalled by the disgraceful behaviour, language and threats that were apparently made to members of the local pagan community by a small fringe group that attached itself to the Youth 2000 retreat last weekend in Glastonbury." He said the militants were "unChristian and unrepresentative" of the majority of the 350 young people at the festival.

He had since met Mrs Pinder and Mr Bennett. The conversation ended in "mutual embrace". He said: "We have agreed to keep in touch with each other and to support each other in the event of negative attention from any extremists from whichever faith. I have frequently found evidence of rites performed on my church steps."

Youth 2000 is a registered charity which aims to forge links between young Catholics through retreats and events.

Charlie Connor, the managing director of Youth 2000, said that aiming "blessed salt" at pagans was in direct contravention of the spirit of Youth 2000. "For the avoidance of doubt, Youth 2000 does not condone or encourage this kind of behaviour from anyone. We fully agree that differences on matters of faith cannot and should not be resolved by any kind of harassment."

But he added: "Youth 2000 would also like to place on the record that many young people at the retreat were harassed, sworn at and even cursed by people. One incident included the taking of photographs of young people, including children, and numbers plates by people present in the town. They were forced to move on. Regrettably, Youth 2000 will not be running a festival in Glastonbury next year."

Avon and Somerset police said: "The neighbourhood beat manager was on patrol on Saturday and was alerted that there was an incident at the Magick Box shop. The officer arrested a man for a public order offence. He was later released after being issued with a fixed penalty notice. Two women were also given cautions and words of advice about their future behaviour."

A SPIRITUAL BATTLE . . . WITH A LARGE PINCH OF SALT

- Glastonbury has become well known as the venue of one of the world's most popular music festivals but its mystical roots go back much further

- Some believe it was the site of Avalon, the final resting place of King Arthur

- Salt, the origin of the word "salvation", has an important place in many of the world's religions

- Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting The Last Supper shows Judas Iscariot spilling a bowl of salt, seen as an omen of evil and bad luck

- Some Christians still believe that they should throw it over their shoulder to ward off devils that may be lurking behind them

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

John Kerry vs. Assorted Right-Wing Nutjobs

2006-10-31T19:32:00.000-05:00

What a bunch of maggots Fox News and the Republicans are. In an effort to further prove that they are fair and balanced, Fox News posted this headline; “Kerry Reloads in Dogfight Over Snipe at Troops in Iraq”

Problem is, John Kerry's recent comments were aimed at President Bush. Not at the troops.

Hell, the Republicans, who are getting their asses handed to them in most polls and are in real danger of losing control of both branches of Congress, are scrambling to make something of nothing. Fox News is in the lead, as usual, but they're not out there alone.

So. Let's look at this. Here's what John Kerry said.

While campaigning in California, Kerry told a college crowd on Monday: “You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq.” Like ... say ... George W. Bush?

The Republicans sounded a loud “Eureka!” believing they had at last stumbled across something that might effectively distract the American public from their party's moral depravity, their dismantling of American democracy, and the war profiteering of their rich corporate campaign donors. President Bush, who has been running around of late trying to remind Americans of what should be foremost on their minds when heading to the polls (keeping same-sex couples from getting married, for example), seized upon Kerry's comments immediately.

Said President Bush; “The senator's suggestion that the men and women of our military are somehow uneducated is insulting and shameful. The men and women who serve in our all-volunteer Armed Forces are plenty smart.”

True. The men and women of our Armed Forces are plenty smart. Unlike their President, who completely missed it that John Kerry's remarks were a jab at him, not the troops.

Not to miss an opportunity to kiss some Conservative ass and bolster his imminent 2008 Presidential bid, John McCain said; “The suggestion that only the least educated Americans would agree to serve in the military and fight in Iraq is an insult to every soldier serving in combat.”

Now, I don't think John McCain is stupid or uneducated. I think he knew exactly what John Kerry meant. However, being a politician, he couldn't help but pile on when all his right-wing buddies were doing the same.

Uncharacteristically, John Kerry came back out swinging.

He said his remarks, which he conceded were part of a “botched joke,” had been distorted and called the criticism directed at him the work of “assorted right-wing nut jobs and right-wing talk show hosts.” He went on to say “It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country, lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have. If anyone thinks a veteran would criticise the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they're crazy.”

Dayum, brother. You tell 'em!

At a televised news conference today in Seattle, Mr. Kerry said he was “disgusted” by the Republican attacks, which he noted were coming at the end of a bloody month in Iraq. “Sadly, this is the best this administration can do,” he said.

He stepped it up today, issuing a fresh denunciation of the administration this evening as Bush was in Georgia. “Had George Bush and Dick Cheney been in combat one minute of their comfortable lives, they would never have sent American troops to war without body armor or without a plan to win the peace, and they wouldn't be exploiting our troops today,” the senator said. “No Democrat will be bullied by an administration that has a cut-and-run policy in Afghanistan and a stand-still-and-lose strategy in Iraq.” He accused Republicans of creating “straw men” because “they're afraid to debate real men.”

I have to admit that this skirmish tickled the hell out of me. I was glad to see a Democrat come out swinging. Typically, there has been a lot of hand-wringing in some Democratic circles, with some worrying that Kerry's remarks will hurt Democrats at the polls on Election Day. I doubt it. If anything, I think Americans will be glad to see a Democrat who has some balls for a change, instead of the snivelling candy-asses who are too afraid of making waves to make an effective stand. It's no wonder Democrats have generally lost the last couple of elections. It's rare for one to say what he or she means, or to take a stand without running opinion polls first.

Al Gore is a good example. How many people have been stunned at the man who we now know as Al Gore, who is steadfast in his opinions and willing to fight it out? Where was this man during the 2000 Presidential campaign? All of his friends and associates say that this is the real Al Gore; this passionate eco-warrior who is an energetic and charismatic man who makes a compelling case for the issues he believes in. Where was he in 2000?

He was supressed by the same hand-wringers who are so worried today that John Kerry's remarks will hurt the Democrats' chances on Election Day. I say if Kerry's remarks hurt the Democrats, it will be because his principled and defiant stand provides such stark contrast to the policy of appeasement that Democratic strategists prefer to pursue.

Finally. A Democrat with balls (sorry, Hillary, I don't mean that in the literal sense)!

Wouldn't it be a wonderful world if John Kerry's recent passion (which was so sadly lacking in the 2004 Presidential campaign) was the rule among Democrats and not the exception?

- Watch Alert archived post

Pagan Movement Steps In To Help India's Witches

2006-10-13T14:50:00.000-04:00

Thu Oct 12, 2006 4:42 AM BST171
By Bappa Majumdar

KOLKATA (Reuters) - Followers of a global pagan witchcraft movement plan to introduce their beliefs in India to curb the persecution and killing of hundreds of witches every year. Witchcraft has been practised by women in rural, isolated communities in India for centuries but in recent years witches have become ostracised. Many have even been murdered by neighbours or family who blame them for doing the work of evil spirits.

In the past five years, police say they have reports of more than 700 women being killed as witches or witch doctors in eastern India alone. But the real figure could be many times higher, they say.

Now, followers of the Wicca faith from the United States, Britain and India plan to introduce their religion in the eastern city of Kolkata to promote awareness of witchcraft and provide support for harassed witches.

"People from different walks of life and even governments had asked me to institutionalise Wicca, but I was waiting for the right moment," Ipsita Roy Chakraverti, a prominent social activist who practices Wicca, told Reuters.

"Now is the time we stood up against people who persecute and kill innocent women," said Chakraverti, adding that the Indian "Wiccan Brigade" would also register complaints of persecution and coordinate with police to ensure cases were brought to trial.

Around 100 people have already signed up to take a training programme in Wiccan philosophy, literature and psychology and the students will also set up a grievance cell where persecuted women can register their complaints, she said.

Like many Pagan religions, Wicca practises magic and witches believe that the human mind has the power to effect change in ways that are not fully understood by science.

In their rituals, as well as honouring their deities, witches also perform spells for healing and to help people with general life problems.

In India, many witches practise the Dakini Vidya form of witchcraft, where women invoke the Mother Goddess to draw spiritual strength, a belief which has similarities to the Wicca faith in a Great Mother.

In remote India, where literacy is low and lives are governed by superstition, villagers often persecute witches and blame them for natural disasters or for illness, death or theft in a village.

"They cannot afford medicines for ailments and often put the blame squarely on innocent women and later kill them," said Chakraverti, who studied the Wiccan faith at a chalet in Canada's Laurentian mountains.

Chakraverti has also written two books on Wicca -- one of which, The Sacred Evil, was adapted for the big screen earlier this year.

witchcraft across the world is experiencing a renaissance of sorts after centuries of bad press, led by television characters such as Buffy, Sabrina and the ladies from Charmed.

Internet sites have also encouraged pagans -- worshipping as wiccas, druids, or shamans -- to come out of the broom closet.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

NSA Wiretaps Ruled Illegal

2006-08-19T10:25:00.000-04:00

The Bush Administration's war against the American people took another blow Thursday when a Federal judge, U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of Detroit, ruled that the NSA's warrantless surveillance of American citizens is un-Constitutional. Republicans are aghast that a terrorist sympathizer could have wound up on a Federal bench without anyone realizing it. Okay, so they haven't gone that far yet. But they're beginning to ramp up the tired old “activist judges” argument. They haven't come right out and called Taylor that just yet, but they're already pointing out that she was appointed by President Jimmy Carter (a godless Democrat if they've ever seen one), as if that's all the damning evidence that's needed.

“There are no hereditary kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution,” Taylor said in finding that the administration's wiretapping violates an array of constitutional rights and a 1978 law requiring court warrants for electronic surveillance related to terrorism or espionage. She granted the American Civil Liberties Union's request for a nationwide injunction halting the surveillance (which President Bush secretly authorized shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks). The president acknowledged the program's existence only after it was disclosed by the New York Times in December.

Bush said he had ordered the National Security Agency to monitor phone calls and e-mails between Americans and suspected members and supporters of al Qaeda overseas. The president claimed authority under his constitutional powers as commander-in-chief, but most specifically under a post-Sept. 11 congressional resolution authorizing the use of military force in Afghanistan -- an assertion that Taylor said was unfounded.

“It was never the intent of the Framers to give the president such unfettered control, particularly where his actions blatantly disregard the parameters clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights,” Taylor wrote in the decision. “The three separate branches of government were developed as a check and balance for one another.”

The government argued that the program is well within the president’s authority, but said proving that would require revealing state secrets. Well, that should make us all feel better, right? I mean, it would compromise national security to prove to us that it's legal, so we'll just have to trust them. After all, it's not like they've done anything to make us mistrust them before, right?

The Justice Department said it is appealing the ruling. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, old “torture is legal” himself, said at a news conference in Washington, “We’re going to do everything we can do in the courts to allow this program to continue,” and “We’ve had numerous statements by leaders of the intelligence community about the effectiveness of the program in protecting America.”

Catch phrase alert; “protecting America.” Well, no one is debating the effectiveness of the program. I'm sure it's mighty convenient for the government to be able to listen in on whomever it pleases whenever it pleases, without having to go through the bother of securing a warrant or explain to anyone why they want to listen in on us. Surely somewhere within the millions of phone calls the government monitors, something suspicious is bound to show up. If it does, by God, they'll catch it, and they'll continue to protect America.

What is being debated here is the legality and Constitutionality of the program, not the effectiveness of the program. That's what's inconveniencing the NSA, the Justice Department and the Bush Administration here. Quaint ideas like the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the Bush administration “couldn’t disagree more with this ruling. The program is carefully administered and only targets international phone calls coming into or out of the United States where one of the parties on the call is a suspected al-Qaida or affiliated terrorist.”

My question here is this; who exactly is carefully administering this program? The Bush Administration has thumbed its nose at Congressional oversight, and has, besides, largely enjoyed a rumber-stamping of everything it has wanted to do by a Republican controlled Congress. Does this mean that the NSA is over-seeing itself? You know. That is literally what he's saying. The only oversight Congress has exercised is in the fact that they were aware of the program.

Oh, wait. I get it. We're back to the “trust us” argument. They wouldn't do anything wrong.

The basic problem in Snow's statement is the whole redirection thing again. The gist of it is the phrase “suspected al-Qaida or affiliated terrorist.” See, that makes it sounds like they're only listening in on Osama and his buddies, not Americans citizens in general. Yet the NSA cannot, and will not, explain its database of millions of phone numbers. Ooops! That's embarassing.

This gets down the very core of this argument. Without warrants, the NSA doesn't even need to have probable cause to listen in to your phone calls. If they decide you are “a person of interest,” for whatever reason, King George has already given them permission to monitor everything you do or say. The issue here is whether or not the President has the Constitutional authority to do that.

“Those who herald this decision simply do not understand the world we live in,” President Bush said (apparently without illiciting laughter). Bush should be commended that he could say this with a straight face, since, well, we're talking about the boy king here.

Again, we come back to the “trust us” argument. We simple citizens couldn't possibly understand the complexities of the world we live in. So we should just allow King George and his Neo-Conservative buddies to do as they please. Besides, I'm sure that later we can launder the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and probably even get out the stains once they're finished wiping their butts with them.

“This country is at war,” Bush said (ever notice he reminds us of that whenever we question him on anything?). “We must give those whose job it is to protect us the tools they need. I strongly disagree with the decision. I believe our appeal will be upheld. The American people expect us to protect them so I put this program in place. If Al Quaeda is calling into the United States we want to know what it is saying.”

Well, I think we all would like to know what Al Quaeda is up to.

“No one is against wiretapping suspected terrorists,” Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) said. “The question is how to bring this program within the law.”

Republican leaders, meanwhile, urged the White House to fight for the program in court. And no doubt they're prepared to use every catch phrase at their disposal to do so.

“Terrorists are the real threat to our constitutional and democratic freedoms, not the law-enforcement and intelligence tools used to keep America safe,” Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) said in a statement. “We need to strengthen, not weaken, our ability to foil terrorist plots before they can do us harm.”

After all, we are a nation at war. They're protecting America. They're targeting Al Quaeda and affiliated terrorists. Us ungrateful wretches should be ashamed of ourselves for denying them the tools they need to fight terrorists and protect America at a time when we're a nation at war. You know. Tools such as warrantless wiretaps that ignore the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and support the un-checked power-grab of the executive branch.

The ACLU said the Taylor decision should force congressional action, but it fears that such action will only make the situation worse.

“Congress needs to do its job and stop the president from violating the law,” they said. “The White House has stonewalled congressional attempts to investigate the administration’s circumvention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. President George W. Bush personally blocked a Department of Justice investigation regarding the NSA’s warrantless-wiretapping program. Although Congress lacks a full understanding of the facts, several bills have been introduced that would reward the government’s illegal actions by changing the law to legitimize the program.”

Maybe we should just make Bush king. After all, this is the man who said “If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier -- just as long as I'm the dictator.”

- Watch Alert archived post

U.S. Military Casualties for July, 2006

2006-08-02T08:39:00.000-04:00

It's occurred to me that you just don't hear much about U.S. military casualties anymore. I mean, I keep up with it and I'm sure a lot of Americans do, but the media doesn't, really. I seem to recall that one of the big networks has a segment on one of their news programs called Faces of the Fallen, which features a different soldier every night. But my impression of that effort has always been that the music and delivery are too upbeat, and the presentation doesn't reflect the tragedy of a human life ending.

What you find in the general media are the numbers. The problem is, those numbers are an abstract idea. They can be horrifying if you take the time to think about them, but few of us do. 2,567 members of the U.S. military killed since the beginning of the Iraq War, 2,027 of those by hostile action. 18,988 wounded. See what I mean? It's hard to wrap our brains around how man people those numbers represent.

Well, I was looking at a list of the casualties for July, and I was just overwhelmed. So I thought I would post the casualty list that I was looking at, and then try to make a point about how desensitized Americans have become to the endless recitation of abstract numbers.

I implore you to read each and every name and description. It's the least we can do as Americans to honor their sacrifices.

July 21: Army Cpl. Matthew P. Wallace, 22, Lexington Park, Md., died in Landstuhl, Germany, of injuries sustained July 16 when his vehicle hit an explosive in Baghdad; assigned to the Army's 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

•Marine Capt. Christopher T. Pate, 29, Hampstead, N.C.; killed in Anbar province; assigned to 2nd Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company, Command Element, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

July 20: Army Pfc. Derek J. Plowman, 20, Everton, Ark.; died in Baghdad from a gun shot wound; assigned to the Army National Guard's 1st Battalion, 142nd Fires Brigade, Rogers, Ark.

•Marine Cpl. Julian A. Ramon, 22, Flushing, N.Y.; was killed in Anbar province; assigned to 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

July 18: Marine Lance Cpl. Geofrey R. Cayer, 20, Fitchburg, Mass.; died in Anbar province of a non-hostile incident; assigned to 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.

•Army Sgt. Mark R. Vecchione, 25, Tucson; died Tuesday in Ramadi when an explosive detonated near his vehicle; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment, 1st Armored Division, Friedberg, Germany.

July 17: Army Cpl. Nathaniel S. Baughman, 23, Monticello, Ind.; died in Bayji when his vehicle was hit by grenades; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, Fort Campbell, Ky.

•Army Staff Sgt. Michael A. Dickinson II, 26, Battle Creek, Mich.; died in Ramadi when his patrol was hit by small arms fire; assigned to the 9th Psychological Operations Battalion, 4th Psychological Operations Group, U.S. Army Special Operations Command, Fort Bragg, N.C.

•Army Cpl. Kenneth I. Pugh, 39, Houston; died in Baghdad when his vehicle was hit by small arms fire; assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

•Army Sgt. 1st Class Scott R. Smith, 34, Punxsutawney, Pa.; died Monday in Iskandariyah from an explosive; assigned to the 737th Explosive Ordnance Detachment, 52nd Ordnance Group, Fort Belvoir, Va.

July 16: Army Staff Sgt. Jason M. Evey, 29, Stockton, Calif.; died when his vehicle was hit by an explosive in Baghdad; assigned to the 1st Squadron, 10th Calvary Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, Fort Hood, Texas.

July 15: Army Sgt. Andres J. Contreras, 23, Huntington Park, Calif.; died when his vehicle was hit by an explosive in Baghdad; assigned to the 519th Military Police Battalion, 1st Combat Support Brigade, Fort Polk, La.

•Army Spc. Manuel J. Holguin, 21, Woodlake, Calif.; died Saturday in Baghdad when his patrol was hit by small arms fire and an explosive; assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division, Baumholder, Germany.

July 14: Army Sgt. Thomas B. Turner Jr., 31, Cottonwood, Calif.; died at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Landstuhl, Germany, of injuries from July 13 when an explosive detonated near his vehicle in Muqdadiyah; assigned to the 1st Squadron, 32nd Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, Fort Campbell, Ky.

July 13: Army Sgt. Alkaila T. Floyd, 23, Grand Rapids, Mich.; died in Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Landstuhl, Germany, of injuries from an explosive on July 8 in Ramadi; assigned to the 54th Engineer Battalion, 130th Engineer Brigade, Bamberg, Germany.

July 12: Army Sgt. Irving Hernandez Jr., 28, New York; died in Mosul from small arms fire; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Fort Wainwright, Alaska.

•Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Jerry A. Tharp, 44, Muscatine, Iowa; died when his vehicle was struck by an explosive in Anbar province; assigned to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 25, Rock Island, Ill.

July 10: Army Sgt. Duane J. Dreasky, 31, Novi, Mich.; died at the Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, of injuries from an explosive detonated near his vehicle in Habbaniyah on Nov. 21; assigned to the National Guard's 1st Battalion, 119th Field Artillery, Lansing, Mich.

July 9: Army Spc. Damien M. Montoya, 21, Holbrook, Ariz.; died in Baghdad from a non-hostile incident; assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

July 8: Army Staff Sgt. Omar D. Flores, 27, Mission, Texas; Army Spc. Troy C. Linden, 22, Detroit Lakes, Minn.; and Army Spc. Joseph P. Micks, 22, Rapid River, Mich. were killed in Ramadi from an explosive near their vehicle; assigned to the 54th Engineer Battalion, 130th Engineer Brigade, Warner Barracks, Bamberg, Germany.

July 3: Army Staff Sgt. Paul S. Pabla, 23, Fort Wayne, Ind.; died in Mosul from small arms fire; assigned to the National Guard's 139th Field Artillery, Kempton, Ind.

July 2: Army Pfc. Collin T. Mason, 20, New York; killed by indirect fire while manning a checkpoint in his vehicle in Taji; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.

•Marine Sgt. Justin L. Noyes, 23, Vinita, Okla.; died in Anbar province; assigned to 9th Engineer Support Battalion, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, III Marine Expeditionary Force, Okinawa, Japan.

July 1: Air Force Airman 1st Class Carl Jerome Ware Jr., 22, Smyrna, Del.; died from a non-hostile incident at Camp Bucca; assigned to the 15th Security Forces Squadron, Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii.

Conservatives will be quick to point out that some of the deaths listed above did not occur in combat. That's the kind of sick f**ks they are, that a human life means less to them if they can't use it for their political purposes. It's the same thing as the U.S. military spinning the numbers so that the casualties don't seem so bad. Oh, sure, we've had over 2,500 killed. They openly discuss that. What they don't say much about is the over 18,000 that have been wounded.

Anyway, the point I wanted to make is that the list above seems rather overwhelming when you look at how many names are on it, and reflect that each one of those names was a living, breathing human being. Husbands. Fathers. Sons. Living, vibrant people, with lives and families.

Think about how large that list seems now, and reflect that these are only 26 soldiers. 26 of the 2,567 killed.

I hope you see my point.

- Watch Alert archived post
- U.S. Casualties database

Minimum Wage, Maximum Gall

2006-08-02T07:27:00.000-04:00

Here's an article by Harold Meyerson from the Washington Post, concerning the Republicans' latest sleight-of-hand. Essentially, the Republicans have decided to raise the minimum wage after fighting it tooth and nail for over a decade. Know why? They've finally realized that they're getting hammered over it. For some reason the poor people who would benefit from raising the minimum wage haven't been too happy with the Republicans for blocking that all these years. But in true Republican fashion, they used the occasion of raising the minimum wage to kick back more tax cuts to their rich buddies, and are hoping that the poor and the riff-raff will so grateful for their charity that they won't mind the rich getting richer (again).

The Republican party is beginning to seem like some evil force out of a Greek tradegy. How can any group of people be that morally bankrupt and yet still wrap themselves in the blanket of Christian values?

Anyway, Mr. Meyerson sums up the issue rather well.

Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid has taken to invoking Harry Truman's line about a “do-nothing Congress,” and with ample reason. In dealing with the major issues of our time (global warming, immigration, the diminishing benefits and stagnant wages that characterize today's economy) or in discharging its oversight duties over administration policies that have failed (the war in Iraq) or were stillborn (the rescue of New Orleans), the Republican-controlled Congress has been nowhere to be found. In inverse relation to the seriousness of the challenges that America confronts, this Congress is well on its way to spending the fewest days in session of any in modern memory.

Still, the one thing that should engender more fear than the current Congress's doing nothing is the current Congress's doing something. Every time congressional Republicans are compelled by public pressure to address a serious issue, they retreat to their laboratory and emerge with Frankenstein-monster legislation designed primarily to reward their campaign donors and stick it to the Democrats, and only secondarily to fix the problem. The Medicare drug program they crafted with the Bush White House enabled seniors to obtain some medications at a lower price, but it codified the continued upward spiral of drug prices by forbidding the government from negotiating with pharmaceutical companies -- a linchpin of Republican campaign finance -- to bring prices down.

Now they're at it again. Facing pressure from Northeastern and Midwestern House Republicans fearful of losing their seats this November, the House leadership has at long last relented and crafted a bill, which passed the House at around 1:30 Saturday morning, to raise the hourly minimum wage from its current abysmal $5.15 to $7.25 in three separate stages over the next three years. A decade has passed since Congress last hiked the minimum wage, during which time it has managed in a series of votes to raise its own members' salaries by a cool $31,000. Democrats and labor were hammering the Republicans over this most double of standards; minimum-wage workers were showing up at the Republicans' district offices and on local TV newscasts to dramatize the disparity.

So Republicans had to respond, and they did so in their inimitable cynical fashion. Appended to the minimum wage hike that the vast majority of them opposed was a provision genuinely dear to their hearts: a cut in the estate tax that chiefly benefits the super-rich and that will reduce government revenue over the next decade, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, by $753 billion. The shortfall could well lead to offsetting cuts in programs that benefit the same working poor that the minimum-wage increase would help. But who cares about the poor? The whole point of the exercise was to come up with a bill that might force some Democrats to vote for an estate tax cut they would otherwise oppose, and enable Republicans to claim they weren't really the Dickensian grotesques that many of them in fact are.

Which may be why the Republicans' midnight orations in favor of raising the wage bore minimal resemblance to, say, the Sermon on the Mount. Their tone was best captured by Tennessee Rep. Zach Wamp, a Mayberry Machiavelli if ever there was one, who could not restrain himself from telling House Democrats, “You have seen us really outfox you on this issue tonight.”

Wamp's taunt can serve as the credo for this entire Republican Congress, which legislates only when, and because, it can outfox the Democrats. It is the credo of the Bush administration as well, which views even its signature policy -- its war on terrorism -- as its foremost wedge issue against the Democrats. Combine this hyper-partisan ethos with a far-right ideology that sees no role for the government even as our corporate welfare state crumbles and our planet turns to toast, and you get a more do-nothing government than Harry Truman could have even imagined.

So the solutions for national problems get kicked downstairs. To date 23 states have passed minimum-wage standards higher than the feds' -- and none of them in statutes designed to subvert themselves or play gotcha with the opposition party. States have begun to enact universal health insurance plans, while cities are passing living-wage ordinances. And just this Monday, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tony Blair signed an agreement between the sovereign state of California and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to curb greenhouse gas emissions, promote clean fuels and fight global warming. “California will not wait for our federal government to take strong action on global warming,” said Schwarzenegger, who understands that for a Republican to win election in Democratic California, he has to be a down-the-line environmentalist.

In Washington, meanwhile, Republicans are desperate to hold power. Not to govern, mind you, just hold power.

By Harold Meyerson
meyersonh@washpost.com
Wednesday, August 2, 2006

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

The Enemy is A 15-Year-Old Girl

2006-07-27T01:08:00.000-04:00

I'm in love with a 15-year-old girl.

Now, before any of you yahoos snatch up your cellphones and call the police, you should consider what I have to say.

My love's name is Ava Lowery. She lives in Alabama, calls herself a peace activist, and for the past year or so has been producing short Flash animations on her web site at peacetakescourage.com. She's made over seventy animations, and most of them oppose President Bush and his Iraq War.

“I was just so mad about it,” she explains. “And the media are not showing the real images of the war, so I did a lot research and started my own website.”

Lately Ava Lowery has been receiving ugly comments and even death threats from the knuckle-dragger wing of the Republican Party. You know the types. If we disagree with you, we'll just shout you down. And if we can't shout you down, we'll demean you and call you names. And if that doesn't work we'll threaten your life.

What got it all started was one of Ava's latest animations. She submitted one titled “WWJD” to the monthly “contagious” contest that huffingtonpost.com is running. It's an open contest which ranks the number of viewes for each submission.

“WWJD”(“What Would Jesus Do,” if you don't know) features a soundtrack of a child singing “Jesus loves me, this I know” while picture after picture of wounded, bloody, or screaming Iraqi children fills the screen.

Says Ava, “The object of the animation is to get this point across; Jesus loves Iraqi children, too.”

Ava ends the video with quotations from Beatitudes. These include “Blessed are they who mourn” and “Blessed are the meek” and “Blessed are the merciful” and “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

Oddly enough, this didn't go over very well with the knuckle-draggers. Ava says she's received a lot of positive feedback in messages to her web site. But she was not prepared for the viciousness of the negative feedback that she received - especially the ugly sexual slurs.

If you can't stand foul language, this is your stopping point. Beyond this paragraph there be Republicans ...

Among some of the things that apparently adult Republicans / Conservatives have had to say to Ava ...

“It’s people like you who need to fucking die and get raped while your corpse rots in the sun.” You know, I'm sure that tactic is in the Bible somewhere. And I'm not entirely sure I'm joking.

“Fuck you, I would jack off on your parents if I could. If you don’t like the team, get out of the park. That means take ur small dick and get the fuck off of my homeland you faggot chocolate gulper.” Apparently this person missed the fact that Ava is a girl, so at least the small dick part is accurate. But generally, it seems that with Republicans if you disagree with them, you must have a small dick. I also liked the part about "my homeland." Who knew this one asshole had somehow taken possession of the entire United States? And what's a chocolate gulper? Wait, I don't want to know.

“You are a TRAITOR to your country and should be executed for treason,” another one said. “All you do is bitch about the US. If you hate it so much, why don’t you GET THE FUCK OUT.”

“Why don’t you go masterbate [sic] to a pic of Sheehan and fuck off,” said a third.

“Are you a muslem [sic] terrorist?” asked another.

Ava says there was a threat against her that was circulating “on the conservative underground.” She says she received one e-mail from someone who said, “Contact me ASAP. It concerns a danger to your life.”

When her mom called the number, the person who answered denied any knowledge of the threat, Lowery says.

She adds: “I was really weirded out by it.”

Geez. What can I really add to what has been posted above? Doesn't that pretty much sum it up?

My God. Are these my countrymen? Are these Christians? They're apparently Conservatives or they wouldn't take such intense offense at a 15-year-old girl disagreeing with their viewpoints. After all, with Republicans it's all about God and Country, and apparently masturbating upon the bombs before we drop them (the do talk about masturbation a lot, don't they?). I haven't been monitoring the Conservative misinformation dissemination centers lately, but I'm sure knuckle-draggers like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity have had a few snarky comments about Ava Lowery. It'd be about their speed to take on a young girl.

The greatest, most heart-felt pain that I've felt over this has been the absolute lack of support that Ava Lowery has received from Republican political leaders. Not one Republican, not one Christian leader, not one Conservative, has stepped forward and said publically that Ava Lowery has a right to express her beliefs, and that grown men and women should fall down upon their knees and beg God for forgiveness for the things that they have said to her and threatened to do to her and her family. That says to me that these people tacitly approve of these intimidation tactics. It underscores what I've known for sometime; that most Republicans are not fit for office. Hell, most Republicans are not fit for citizenship.

These knuckle-draggers are of the opinion that this is their homeland? I beg to differ. You fucking asshole. When you can threaten a 15-year-old girl and tell her that she should be raped and murdered and her body left in the sun to rot, you truly have no concept of what it means to be an American or what this country is all about. What gives you the unimaginable gall to dishonor the sweat, blood and sacrifice of my forefathers, who gave their lives to ensure that their children, grandchildren, and their grandchildren's grandchildren could live their lives in freedom ... what gives you the right to draw your foul breath and dare to call yourself an American?

Shine your jackboots, Adolf. Slide that armband on. Practice your high-stepping marches. But I will tell you this, you mindless thugs. When you dare come for my dear Ava, I and many others like me will be waiting for you. And then we will, perhaps, be able to determine, once and for all, just whose homeland this is. You will not find us such an easy target.

If you so despise freedom and the freedom of expression, then you are certainly in the wrong country. All I have to say to you is don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. Here, let me show you the way.

Ava Lowery is a patriot in the truest sense of the word. She clearly loves her country. And she is clearly not going to back down from the bullying of a bunch of mindless knuckle-dragging brutes. I'm not a 15-year-old girl. I warmly invite you maggots to come try your hand with me.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Peace Takes Courage

Panel slams Bush for law challenges

2006-07-26T23:42:00.000-04:00

While roaming the Internet I came across a story by Michael Abramowitz, of the Washington Post. It was quite an interesting article, and I've quoted liberally from it below.

It seems King George is thumbing his nose at the American people and quaint little ideas such as the Constitution yet again. A bipartisan panel of legal scholars and lawyers, who were brought together by the American Bar Association, has strongly criticized President Bush for his use of “signing statements,” which he uses as a means of ignoring, or simply not enforcing, laws pass by Congress that he and his buddies find ... well, inconvenient.

In a report issued on July 24, 2006, the ABA task force stated that President Bush has lodged more challenges to provisions of laws than all previous presidents combined. The panel described the development as a serious threat to the Constitution's system of checks and balances, and urged Congress to pass legislation permitting court review of these “signing statements.”

According to ABA President Michael Greco, a Massachusetts attorney, “The president is indicating that he will not either enforce part or the entirety of congressional bills - we will be close to a constitutional crisis if this issue, the president's use of signing statements, is left unchecked.”

The report is probably going to anger a lot of King George's buddies, fueling the controversy over signing statements, which President Bush has used to challenge laws ranging from a congressional ban on torture and a request for data on the Patriot Act, to whistle-blower protections and the banning of U.S. troops in fighting rebels in Colombia.

Naturally, Adminstration officials describe these signing statements as a part of a routine presidential practice. Nothing to worry about. You Constitutional alarmist can go back to your tofu and lattes.

“Presidents have issued signing statements since the early days of our country,” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said on Sunday; probably while stifling a yawn over yet another silly Constitutional non-issue. “... He is exercising a legitimate power in a legitimate way.”

Funny how they use the word “legitimate,” isn't it?

President Bush vetoed his first bill last week (and Mama Bush was so proud of him). It was a measure approved by Congress which would relax his limits on federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research. Bush basically said, “Aw, hell no, you didn't.” But he has on many occasions signed bills, then issued statements reserving the right not to enforce or execute parts of the new laws, on the grounds that they infringe on presidential authority or violate other constitutional provisions.

Surprisingly (snark), the Justice Department has determined that the rarity of Bush's approach is a matter of some dispute. They said that President Bush has issued 110 signing statements, compared with President Bill Clinton's 80.

The ABA task force, chaired by prominent Miami attorney Neil Sonnett, disagrees, and cites research that President Bush in his signing statements has collectively lodged more than 800 challenges to provisions of laws passed by Congress.

No doubt the debate and spin will continue. The report will be considered by the full ABA at its meeting next month.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Rove, Novak: Have You No Decency?

2006-07-13T08:26:00.000-04:00

Amen, Brother!

Nicholas F. Benton
Falls Church News-Press

At last the Prince of Darkness has spoken. Columnist Robert Novak has come forward with a tardy confession of his collusion with the highest levels of the White House — namely Karl Rove, himself — in an unprecedented bit of nastiness that perfectly conforms with everything else we know about both. Rove leaked. Novak wrote, and a covert CIA operation was blown. And for what? To exact revenge.

The Rove-Novak connection is like a perfect maelstrom of deceit in the arena of public policy. The despicably immoral operative in the White House teams with the equally contemptible partisan disguised as a journalist in a nefarious scheme to punish a political enemy. These two thought nothing of the consequences of their devil’s compact in terms of how it compromised vital U.S. national security interests, critical covert operations and potentially the lives of undercover CIA agents.

It tells you not only how far things have descended in the most hallowed corridors of power in the land, but in the world of the Fourth Estate, as well. The slimy Novak paid no price among his journalistic peers for being the media outlet that blew Valerie Plame’s cover, and for covering up his source for over two years, despite the spectacular deceit that was so clearly involved.

The fact that such dogs retain any modicum of respect among allegedly civil circles that pretend to lead our nation is a sorry commentary on this entire fool’s paradise. The government and the media may have an unwritten agreement in Washington to artificially prop up each other’s respectability, but beneath that veneer is something so putrid that it is hard to determine if it is the idea of the contemptible behavior, or the outright stink of it, that is nauseating.

There is nothing in the core DNA of a Robert Novak type that knows of the notion of virtue, as is also the case of a Karl Rove or a Tom DeLay. These are the kind of people that have no actual talent, except as thugs. Novak has perfected his role as a partisan water boy disguised as a journalist. Rove and DeLay epitomize the type of person who would be a homeless drunk if it weren’t for the fact that politics, like used car sales, offers a career for the brutish hack with no refined skills.

A moment to clarify the record: You read in this column for months prior to the invasion of Iraq that there were no weapons of mass destruction there. This column was spot-on right about that, based on solid evidence, and everyone who disagreed was wrong. Many people did not believe those weapons were there, and with good reasons. They were right. Everyone else was wrong.

You read in this column two years ago that Karl Rove was the source of the leak to Robert Novak on Valerie Plame. Now, this week comes the news that this column was right, and everyone who disagreed was wrong. This column’s assertion was not a guess. It was based on solid combined inductive and deductive thinking, the kind of skill that journalists cultivate to guide their search for information and truth behind public lies.

I’d say it is now a matter of open, public record that I’m two-for-two on two of the most important inflection points in the Bush administration’s treachery, as well as on a number of other things.

The tragedy that has been unleashed in Iraq today is the saddest testament of all to the world-historic fiasco that is everything this Bush administration represents. Civil war is in full force, with marauding death squads now roaming through the nation’s capital killing randomly.

Who do the Iraqi people, and a world now truly unsafe from the terrorist incubator created in Iraq by the U.S. invasion, have to blame for this descent into hell?

Who are they to blame? Bush, Rove, Novak, DeLay, or William Kristol of the neo-conversative Project for a New American Century’s Weekly Standard magazine who now stands back, washing its hands of culpibility, and lamenting what’s become of it all? Or should they blame all the rest who stood by silently and compliantly, obsessed with the Washington game of being included over anything remotely resembling honor, valor, an overriding commitment to truth, or that old Renaissance notion of virtue?

The Rove-Novak case calls forth the famous condemnation of Sen. Joseph McCarthy at the Army-McCarthy hearing in April 1954, when the Army’s attorney general Joseph Welsh, after discrediting groundless allegations by McCarthy against a soldier in front of a national television audience, exclaimed to McCarthy, “Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Fallen Soldier Gets a Bronze Star but No Pagan Star

2006-07-04T21:37:00.000-04:00

By Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 4, 2006

At the Veterans Memorial Cemetery in the small town of Fernley, Nev., there is a wall of brass plaques for local heroes. But one space is blank. There is no memorial for Sgt. Patrick D. Stewart.

That's because Stewart was a Wiccan, and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has refused to allow a symbol of the Wicca religion -- a five-pointed star within a circle, called a pentacle -- to be inscribed on U.S. military memorials or grave markers.

The department has approved the symbols of 38 other faiths; about half of are versions of the Christian cross. It also allows the Jewish Star of David, the Muslim crescent, the Buddhist wheel, the Mormon angel, the nine-pointed star of Bahai and something that looks like an atomic symbol for atheists.

Stewart, 34, is believed to be the first Wiccan killed in combat. He was serving in the Nevada National Guard when the helicopter in which he was riding was shot down in Afghanistan last September. He previously had served in the Army in Korea and Operation Desert Storm. He was posthumously awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star.

His widow, Roberta Stewart, scattered his ashes in the hills above Reno and would like him to have a permanent memorial.

She said the veterans cemetery in Fernley offered to install a plaque with his name and no religious symbol. She refused.

“Once they do that, they'll forget me. They don't like having a hole in the wall,” she said. “I feel very strongly that my husband fought for the Constitution of the United States, he was proud of his spirituality and of being a Wiccan, and he was proud of being an American.”

Wicca is one of the fastest-growing faiths in the country. Its adherents have increased almost 17-fold from 8,000 in 1990 to 134,000 in 2001, according to the American Religious Identification Survey. The Pentagon says that more than 1,800 Wiccans are on active duty in the armed forces.

Wiccans still suffer, however, from the misconception that they are devil worshipers. Some Wiccans call themselves witches, pagans or neopagans. Most of their rituals revolve around the cycles of nature, such as equinoxes and phases of the moon. Wiccans often pick and choose among religious traditions, blending belief in reincarnation and feminine gods with ritual dancing, chanting and herbal medicine.

Federal courts have recognized Wicca as a religion since 1986. Prisons across the country treat it as a legitimate faith, as do the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. military, which allows Wiccan ceremonies on its bases.

“My husband's dog tags said ‘Wiccan’ on them,” Stewart noted.

But applications from Wiccan groups and individuals to VA for use of the pentacle on grave markers have been pending for nine years, during which time the symbols of 11 other faiths have been approved.

Department spokeswoman Josephine Schuda said VA turned down Wiccans in the past because religious groups used to be required to list a headquarters or central authority, which Wicca does not have. But that requirement was eliminated last year, she noted.

“I really have no idea why it has taken so long” for the Wiccan symbol to gain approval, Schuda said.

The department declined repeated requests from The Washington Post to speak to higher-ranking officials about the issue.

Retired Army Chaplain William Chrystal, a United Church of Christ minister who was chaplain of Stewart's National Guard unit, has strongly backed Roberta Stewart's request.

“It's such a clear First Amendment issue, I can't even conceive of why they are not granting it, except for political reasons,” he said. “I think the powers that be are afraid they'll alienate conservative Christians if they approve a symbol that connotes witches and warlocks casting spells and brewing potions.”

Nevada's congressional delegation, including Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D), also has supported Roberta Stewart.

But letters printed by Nevada newspapers indicate how much hostility Wiccans face. “I don't see how anything that supports witchcraft and satanism can legitimately be called a religion,” one reader wrote to the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Stewart said that she is trying to educate people about Wicca, as well as to fulfill her husband's wishes. “Until he is laid to rest,” she said, “I cannot rest.”

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

A Chilling Example of Republican Thought

2006-06-16T11:09:00.000-04:00

From Think Progress;

On Thursday, the House of Representatives will hold a debate on the Iraq war. Media reports say Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) “hopes to match the serious, dignified tone of deliberation that preceded the Gulf war, in 1991.”

ThinkProgress has obtained a “Confidential Messaging Memo” from Boehner instructing his caucus to conduct a very different kind of deliberation. Here's a quick summary:

1. Exploit 9/11. The two page memo mentions 9/11 seven times. It describes debating Iraq in the context of 9/11 as “imperative.”

2. Attack opponents ad hominem. The memo describes those who opposes President Bush's policies in Iraq as “sheepish,” “weak,” and “prone to waver endlessly.”

3. Create a false choice. The memo says the decision is between supporting President Bush's policies and hoping terrorist threats will “fade away on their own.”

The full text of the memo follows.

To: House Republican Members

From: House Majority Leader John A. Boehner

Date: June 13, 2006

Re: Confidential Messaging Memo – Floor Debate on Iraq and the Global War on Terror

This week, the House of Representatives will engage in a debate about the war in Iraq, the Global War on Terror and our efforts to strengthen our national security in a post-9/11 world.

The past week has brought news of several important, positive developments in Iraq and the Global War on Terror:

– U.S. military forces eliminated the terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda's top commander in Iraq and a cold-blooded killer.

– The Iraqi government named new interior, defense and security ministers as part of the new government's continued progress.

– Just this morning, President George W. Bush traveled to Baghdad to meet the newly appointed Prime Minster of Iraq, Nouri al-Maliki and to discuss our growing partnership with the new democratic ally.

Clearly, these positive developments are the result of steadfast support of both our military and diplomatic efforts in Iraq and across the globe. We should not refrain from touting such progress

During this debate, our Republican Conference should be focused on delivering these key points:

The Importance of Our Actions

It is imperative during this debate that we re-examine the conditions that required the United States to take military action in Afghanistan and Iraq in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The attacks we witnessed that day serve as a reminder of the dangers we face as a nation in a post-9/11 world. We can no longer expect oceans between us and our enemies to keep us safe. The plotting and planning taking place in terror camps protected by rogue regimes could no longer go unchecked or unchallenged. In a post-9/11 world, we could no longer allow despots and dictators like the Taliban and Saddam Hussein to ignore international sanctions and resolutions passed by the United Nations Security Council.

So, during this debate we must make clear to the American people that the United States had to take action in the best interests of the security of our nation and the world community. As Republicans who supported military action against Saddam Hussein and terrorists around the globe, the United States had to show our resolve as the world's premier defender of freedom and liberty before such ideals were preyed upon, rather than after standing witness to their demise at the hands of our enemies.

As President John F. Kennedy once stated so eloquently:

"The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission."

A Portrait of Contrasts

This debate in the House of Representatives gives our Republican Conference the opportunity to present the American people our case for strong national security policies whose purpose is to protect the nation against another attack on our own soil.

Similarly, we must conduct this debate as a portrait of contrasts between Republicans and Democrats with regard to one of the most important political issues of our era. Articulating and advocating our core principles will allow the American public to witness Members of Congress debate a fundamental question facing America's leaders:

In a post-9/11 world, do we confront dangerous regimes and the threat of terrorism with strength and resolve, or do we instead abandon our efforts against these threats in the hopes that they will just fade away on their own?

Republicans believe victory in Iraq will be an important blow to terrorism and the threat it poses around the world. Democrats, on the other hand, are prone to waver endlessly about the use of force to protect American ideals. Capitol Hill Democrats' only specific policy proposals are to concede defeat on the battlefield and instead, merely manage the threat of terrorism and the danger it poses.

These are troubling policies to embrace in a post-9/11 world. During this debate, we need to clarify just how wrong the Democrats' weak approach is and just how dangerous their implementation would be to both the short-term and long-term national security interests of the United States.

Resolve Will Triumph Over Retreat

As a result of our efforts during this debate, Americans will recognize that on the issue of national security, they have a clear choice between a Republican Party aware of the stakes and dedicated to victory, versus a Democrat Party without a coherent national security policy that sheepishly dismisses the challenges America faces in a post- 9/11 world.

Let there be no doubt that America and its allies in the war in Iraq and the Global War on Terrorism face difficult challenges. The American people are understandably concerned about our mission in a post-Saddam Iraq. There have been many tough days since Iraq's liberation and transition to a sovereign democracy.

Democrats are all too eager to seize upon the challenges we face as their rationale or motivation for retreat. As Republicans, we understand the diplomatic and national security hazards of such a move. We must echo the American public's understanding of just how great the stakes are in Iraq and our long-term efforts to win the War on Terrorism.

Building democracies in a part of the world that has known nothing but tyranny and despotism is a difficult task. But achieving victory there and gaining democratic allies in the region will be the best gift of security we can give to future generations of Americans.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

U.S. House Shoots Down Net Neutrality Provision

2006-06-09T20:09:00.000-04:00

There's not much I can add to the article that I've posted below.

The U.S. House of Representatives has defeated a provision to require U.S. broadband providers to offer the same speed of service to competitors that’s available to partners, a major defeat to a coalition of online companies and consumer groups.

The 269-152 House vote against the so-called net neutrality amendment late Thursday came after a last-minute push for the measure from many technology companies. After the House defeated the net neutrality amendment, it passed the underlying bill, a wide-ranging broadband bill focused partly on speeding the rollout of television over IP.

Without a net neutrality law, the Internet will turn into a two-tiered network in which the fastest speeds are reserved for content produced by the large broadband providers and companies that pay extra fees, net neutrality backers said. Customers who want to go to Web content from competing Internet companies will end up in a “slow lane,” net neutrality backers said.

“It is a shame that the House turned its back on the open essence of the Internet,” Gigi Sohn, president of consumer rights group Public Knowledge, said in an e-mail. “Instead, the House ... voted to allow the telephone and cable companies to discriminate by controlling the content that will flow over the network.”

The Senate is debating its own broadband and telecom reform bill, but the current version doesn’t include a net neutrality requirement. Lawmakers have introduced four standalone net neutrality bills, but the defeat in the House could mean the issue is dead until 2007.

Large broadband providers such as AT&T and Verizon Communications opposed a net neutrality law, saying it would bring unneeded regulation to the Internet. There’s little evidence of broadband providers blocking or impairing competing content, they said.

Executives with AT&T and BellSouth in recent months have also talked of new business plans that would allow them to charge Internet companies extra for faster speeds. Broadband providers need new ways of paying for the costs of building next-generation broadband networks, and charging large Internet companies makes the most sense, they said.

The Hands Off The Internet coalition, a group supported by AT&T and BellSouth, praised the House’s defeat of the net neutrality amendment, sponsored by Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat. The amendment would have required broadband providers that set aside faster connections for new services such as video over IP to offer the same speeds to competing services.

“Bipartisan common sense won out over the bottom lines of a few big online companies,” Mike McCurry, co-chairman of the Hands Off The Internet coalition, said in a statement. “They would dramatically shift the cost of building tomorrow’s Internet onto the backs of consumers.”

The underlying broadband bill, the Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Enhancement Act, passed by a vote of 321-101. The bill would allow the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to investigate complaints about broadband providers blocking or impairing of Internet content only after the fact.

The bill would also streamline local franchising requirements for telecom carriers that want to offer IPTV services in competition with cable TV. The bill would in essence create a national franchise, allowing AT&T and Verizon to roll out their IPTV services without going through lengthy franchising negotiations with each local government where they want to provide service.

Verizon praised the House passage of the bill. It would bring “more choice, better services and lower price” to consumers, the company said. The company also cheered the defeat of the net neutrality provision, saying Congress “won’t go down the road of legislating solutions to problems that don’t exist.”

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, also calls for requiring voice-over-IP providers to offer customers enhanced 911 emergency dialing service, and allowing municipal governments to offer broadband data and video services. Verizon and other broadband carriers have opposed municipal broadband services.

Several tech and consumer groups engaged in a last-minute lobbying campaign for a net neutrality provision. Members of TechNet, a trade group representing tech vendor senior executives, sent a letter to members of the House Thursday urging support for net neutrality. Among those signing the letter were executives with eBay, Microsoft, and the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers venture capital firm.

Without net neutrality, small companies that can’t afford to pay extra broadband fees won’t be able to compete for customers, said John Doerr, a partner in the influential venture capital firm. “The telephone and cable giants want to be able to add a surcharge on,” he said Thursday. “We have to work hard to make sure there’s not that discrimination.”

-Grant Gross, IDG News Service (Washington Bureau)

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- Original Article

Dixie Chicks vs. Country Lemmings

2006-05-28T11:13:00.000-04:00

I am not and never have been a fan of the Dixie Chicks. I've liked some of what they've done, but overall their music has never been my cup of tea. But I find myself rooting for their success with the release of their new album, Taking the Long Way. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of other people feel the same way.

The Dixie Chicks have faced what a lot of Americans have faced, but have done so in a very public manner. By voicing their dissent in regard to the war in Iraq and condemning President Bush, they have all but been blacklisted in Country music. What success they have enjoyed since condeming President Bush and facing the incredible over-reaction by the Country music industry has come largely from Pop cross-overs. I hope that trend continues, because I would love to see the Dixie Chicks continue. If for no other reason than to annoy the crap out of the Right-Wingers all over the country, whose typical reaction to anyone who disagrees them is to attempt to silence their voice. I hope that every time the Dixie Chicks sing a song, the Right-Wingers shiver.

Well, I don't criticize anyone for their musical tastes, but this whole thing sums up why I don't listen to country music. You must remember that I am someone who has in his CD collection music by Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams (I, II and III), among many others that are considered to be legends in Country music. The problem here is that they've stopped making Country music. What exists now is a format and form that fits an ideology. It's the soundtrack to a political point of view. The Conservatives saw that Bill Clinton used Rock and Roll, and so they adopted Country music. The result was propaganda.

Frank Bell, VP of programming at independent Froggy radio, said “I think when you look at what country music and country music listeners are all about, it’s family, fun, faith and flag. I haven’t heard the whole CD, but the singles have none of that.”

That explains somewhat the incredible outpouring of emotion and propaganda that has surrounded the Dixie Chicks' latest album. The Dixie Chicks broke with formatting.

They broke away from the very things I hate about contemporary Country music. I've travelled extensively in the United States. I've been in countless truck stops where contemporary Country music was playing over the intercom. And I must say that it's virtually impossible to tell one singer or song from the next. But what makes it so grating is that on top of that incredible banality they pile on ideas such as patriotism and love of country, and somehow portray this drivel as the music of the American patriot. Rock and Roll is for anarchists. Country is for Americans.

This is not a dissection of the relative merits of Country music versus Rock and Roll, but rather a rant about how an entire genre of music has been taken over by a Right-Wing ideology. If our democracy falls to the one-party theocracy that the Religious Right and Right-Wing Conservatives are aching for, it will largely be accomplished to a Country music soundtrack.

I don't see that the Dixie Chicks have any choice but to leave behind the lemmings who constituted their original fan base. To that end I offer them the best. I believe that I may very well buy their new CD just to help them shake a fist at these charlatans in Country music who wrap themselves in the American flag and then betray American democracy by demanding that any voices that contradict their own be silenced immediately.

I have to say, given the level of discourse going on surrounding the Dixie Chicks and their latest album, they will most likely do just fine. If for no other reason than that the furor will compell a lot of people to come see what all the fuss is about.

- Watch Alert archived post

Hysteria and The DaVinci Code

2006-05-21T19:33:00.000-04:00

First off, let me say one thing. If your faith can be shaken or challenged by the contents of a movie, your faith is weak, to say the least.

I am not one of those people who believe that the average person is a weak-minded sheep who cannot make up his or her own mind about something, and must therefore be protected from anything which might lead them in a direction certain people don't want them to follow. Simply put, if The DaVinci Code doesn't appeal to you, don't go see it.

If you are going to form groups to try to boycott this movie and prevent it from being shown in theaters, then you will certainly have no right to complain when later on someone wants to boycott and shut down a movie that you might want to see out there (such as those terrible movies based on the Left Behind series). The same people who want to shut down The DaVinci Code and prevent people from seeing it would have screamed bloody murder had someone tried to do the same thing to The Passion of the Christ.

Sorry, folks. While I understand that this movie is controversial, to say the least, and will undoubtedly offend some people, this is not a religious issue. This is an issue concerning the very foundations of our democracy. Thomas Jefferson said that freedom of expression “cannot be limited without being lost.” In other words, you cannot limit the freedoms of others without giving up the same liberties for yourself.

But greaters minds that I have had plenty to say on this subject. It would serve the boycotters well to remember some of the ones I've listed below.

“You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free.” - Clarence Darrow

“When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished voluntarily by default it can never be recovered.” - Dorothy Thompson

“The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don't agree with.” - Eleanor Holmes Norton

“If we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise we do not believe in it at all.” - Noam Chomsky

Long story short, folks, the point I'm trying to make is that you can't have it both ways. What's so difficult to understand about that? If you sell your neighbor into slavery, what gives you the right to complain when they come to enslave you?

I'm certainly not saying that people who disagree with this movie should remain silent. I don't have a problem with people speaking out about The DaVinci Code (or anything that they disagree with). But when they form groups and try to prevent other people to see it, they have betrayed our Foundating Fathers and the sacrifices of our American ancestors, who spilled their blood and gave their lives defending the freedoms that too many Americans are so eager to just give away.

I understand why Christians would be upset with the premise of The DaVinci Code. But the same people who made fun of Muslims when they were outraged by the depiction of the prophet Mohammad in cartoons are largely acting in the same fashion.

Is The DaVinci Code blasphemous? Yes. To most Christians, it is indeed blasphemous. The problem here is that when Dan Brown wrote the book that this movie is based upon, he never contended that it was factional. It's been marketed as fiction. It's been accepted and read by people who understood that it's fiction. I've known many Christians who read the book, thought it was great, and walked away from it without any doubts about their faith. One has to wonder why so many other people simply cannot do that.

I'll tell you why. The majority of Americans practice what I call a shallow faith. As long as they go to church on occasion, play at being religious, and call themselves Christians, they believe that they are “what they should be.” These are the people who protest the loudest when their shallow faith is challenged by a movie or a book, or are offended by a logo on a bottle of shampoo or a phrase on a can of Pepsi.

These are the people who are potesting the loudest now, because their shallow faith has been challenged by a movie. The reason their faith can be challenged so easily is that Jesus Christ and his teachings has very little to do with how they conduct their daily lives. Somewhere deep in the recesses of their minds, they know that they are not what they should be. They believe that by protesting louder than anyone else, they can somehow prove to God (as well as their neighbors) that they are, indeed, “the real deal.”

In summation, it seems to me that the story of Jesus Christ and the depth of his teachings has survived for two thousand years. I imagine Jesus will weather The DaVinci Code just fine, without the help of these charlatans who are standing on every rooftop and shouting that the world is coming to an end.

I say come down from there. Buy youself a ticket to The DaVinci Code and go sit in that theater and watch this movie. If you then leave that theater doubting your belief in Jesus Christ, then you were never a Christian to begin with. The sooner you accept it and move on with your life, the better off you will be.

- Watch Alert archived post

First Lady: Don't Politicize Marriage Amendment

2006-05-15T13:14:00.000-04:00

Yes. Read that again.

“First lady: Don't politicize marriage amendment.” That's what it says.

First Lady Laura Bush said Sunday that Americans want debate on a proposed constitutional amendment against gay marriage, but “I don't think it should be used as a campaign tool, obviously.”

:: blink ::

I had to read that several times to wrap my brain around it. My first thought was “you're f**king kidding me.” Not use it as a campaign tool? It is a campaign tool! The proposed amendment itself is nothing but a political stunt engineered by the Republicans to shore up their quivering base of support with the ultra-conservative Right-Wing nutjobs who continue to supply bodies to the Republican war machine. Well, okay. Not so many bodies. That's what the poor are for. But they supply money to keep it all churning away.

Naturally, Laura Bush couldn't stop there. Just like her husband, the more she talked, the more bizarre it got.

“It requires a lot of sensitivity to just talk about the issue -- a lot of sensitivity,” she said on Fox News Sunday.

Sensitivity to whom, exactly? Those gays and lesbians who are in danger of having a basic right stripped away from them by an amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America? Or are we talking about sensitivity to those right-wing nutjobs who find it offensive that gays and lesbians exist?

Here's the issue. Early next month, the Senate will debate legislation that would have the Constitution define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. This was revealed by Majority Leader Bill Frist on CNN's Late Edition.

President Bush supports the amendment, but Vice President Dick Cheney does not. Cheney's daughter Mary is a lesbian and has been speaking out against the marriage amendment as she promotes her book, Now It's My Turn. She said on Fox (oddly enough) that the proposed amendment “is a bad piece of legislation. It is writing discrimination into the Constitution, and, as I say, it is fundamentally wrong.”

Okay, I agree with Mary Chaney on this much. But she can still kiss my ass. This is the woman who kept a low profile during her father's re-election campaign and who was kept essentially under wraps during the Republican convention. But now that her father isn't facing re-election, she decides to stand up and be counted? She could have made a difference for gays and lesbians in 2004 when the Republicans were ranting their usual homophobia. It's a bit late now for anyone give a damn what Mary Chaney thinks about anything.

Bill Frist said he would defend the amendment even to Dick Cheney.

“I basically say, Mr. Vice President, right now marriage is under attack in this country,” Frist said on CNN. “And we've seen activist judges overturning state by state law ... and that is why we need an amendment” to the Constitution.

I still can't believe what's going on here. The Republicans want to amend the Constitution to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman? I dunno. I keep thinking about the Constitution, and all of the incredibly important issues addressed in it. Oh, you know. The right of be free of unreasonable search and seizure. The right to recourse to a court of law. The right to speak freely without fear of being thrown into Guantanamo Bay. You should know what's on the list. Somehow, I have trouble comprehending how any group of Americans could hope to amend the Constitution to limit the rights of another group of Americans. I don't see how that bit of legislation could possibly fit in with the lofty goals and ideals of the rest of the Constitution.

Look, folks. It's simple. If the United States Government expects gays and lesbians to pay taxes and to pay money into FICA and Social Security programs just like every other American, how then can it tell them that they're not just like every other American, but are instead part of a separate group that does not deserve the same rights? If you won't allow them to marry like every other American, why do you still expect them to pay those taxes?

I'm not worried about activist judges. They're the least of our troubles. It's activist legislators that are creating all of the havoc in this country. It's a bunch of Right-Wing Republicans who believe that the Founding Fathers didn't know what they were doing, and are trying to refashion the very foundations of our country to fit their extremist right-wing ideology. People like Bill Frist and George W. Bush are the enemies of American democracy.

I'm sure Bill First and George W. Bush don't mind lesbians as long as they're featured in a backroom video that they and their buddies are watching while their wives are away. But God forbid that their daughter should bring home another woman and declare her love for her. Oh, wait. That would be different, wouldn't it? It is for Vice President Dick Cheney in regard to his daughter, Mary, anyway.

One has to wonder how Dick Cheney sleeps at night knowing that he and his Republicans buddies have done everything they can possibly do to limit the freedoms that his daughter may enjoy as an American. Mr. Cheney, how can you do that to your own daughter?

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

The NSA and King George

2006-05-13T12:13:00.000-04:00

Well, you knew I had to get to this issue sooner or later.

For anyone who's been hiding under a rock, it was revealed early last week that the National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.

“It's the largest database ever assembled in the world,” said one person, who declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is “to create a database of every call ever made” within the nation's borders, this person added.

For customers of those companies, this means that the United Sates government has detailed records of calls they made, whether the call was across town or across the country, to their family members, co-workers, business contacts and others. And since all things loop back upon itself with the Bush Administration and their cabal of incestuous cronies, it's worth noting that Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, who has just been nominated by President Bush to become the director of the CIA, headed the NSA from March 1999 to April 2005. That means that Hayden would have overseen the agency's domestic call-tracking program. Hayden had nothing to say about it. Oddly enough.

Well, President Bush and the Administration scrambled quickly to put out this particular fire. Essentially King George was trotted out before the cameras to do his usual redirection by raising the spectre of terrorism, insisting that the NSA program is necessary, and reassuring Americans that they can trust their government. According to the President; “We're not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans. Our efforts are focused on links to al Qaeda and their known affiliates. So far we've been very successful in preventing another attack on our soil.”

Yada yada. Do you feel reassured? Well, here's the problem. With access to records of billions of domestic calls, the NSA has gained a secret window into the communications habits of millions of Americans. Customers' names, street addresses and other personal information aren't being handed over as part of the program. But the phone numbers the NSA collects can easily be cross-checked with other databases to obtain that information. Bush & Company raise the spectre of al Qaeda to scare us into thinking this is perfectly reasonable.

“Are you telling me tens of millions of Americans are involved with al-Qaeda?”" Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy complained. “These are tens of millions of Americans who are not suspected of anything.”

Maybe we should put this in perspective. In 1975, a congressional investigation discovered that the NSA had been intercepting, without warrants, international communications for more than 20 years at the behest of the CIA and other agencies. The spy campaign, code-named “Shamrock,” led to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was designed to protect Americans from illegal eavesdropping. So the very agency that President Bush is asking us to trust is the agency whose activities led to the legislation that specifically limits the surveillance activities of the NSA, CIA and FBI, and was designed to provide oversight and some sense of accountability.

As for what Americans think of all this, it looks like it's all coming down to party affiliation once again. By 51%-43%, those responding to a poll disapproved of the program (disclosed Thursday in USA TODAY). I'm astounded that the numbers are that close. What in the world could make someone think this is a great idea? Most of those who approve of the program say it violates some civil liberties but is acceptable because “investigating terrorism is the more important goal”

Does this sound remotely familiar to anyone else? Every time it's been discovered that the government is up to something else no good, all of the Conservative Republican media outlets start spewing forth this rhetoric about how in a time of war certain sacrifices must be made. It looks like a lot of people agree with that. They're willing to see their children and grandchildren in chains, just as long as they don't have to be frightened by the spectre of al Qaeda.

Yeah, these handcuffs chafe, but we're keeping the terrorists are bay, man.

Out of all this mess, one bright spot has emerged. There's at least one company that did not go ass-up the first time the NSA laid a $50 bill on the table. Americans were betrayed by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth. But one major telecommunications company refused to participate in the NSA spying program: Qwest.

I'll quote verbatim below from an article in USA Today.

According to sources familiar with the events, Qwest's CEO at the time, Joe Nacchio, was deeply troubled by the NSA's assertion that Qwest didn't need a court order — or approval under FISA — to proceed. Adding to the tension, Qwest was unclear about who, exactly, would have access to its customers' information and how that information might be used.

Financial implications were also a concern, the sources said. Carriers that illegally divulge calling information can be subjected to heavy fines. The NSA was asking Qwest to turn over millions of records. The fines, in the aggregate, could have been substantial.

The NSA told Qwest that other government agencies, including the FBI, CIA and DEA, also might have access to the database, the sources said. As a matter of practice, the NSA regularly shares its information — known as “product” in intelligence circles — with other intelligence groups. Even so, Qwest's lawyers were troubled by the expansiveness of the NSA request, the sources said.

The NSA, which needed Qwest's participation to completely cover the country, pushed back hard.

Trying to put pressure on Qwest, NSA representatives pointedly told Qwest that it was the lone holdout among the big telecommunications companies. It also tried appealing to Qwest's patriotic side: In one meeting, an NSA representative suggested that Qwest's refusal to contribute to the database could compromise national security, one person recalled.

In addition, the agency suggested that Qwest's foot-dragging might affect its ability to get future classified work with the government. Like other big telecommunications companies, Qwest already had classified contracts and hoped to get more.

Unable to get comfortable with what NSA was proposing, Qwest's lawyers asked NSA to take its proposal to the FISA court. According to the sources, the agency refused.

The NSA's explanation did little to satisfy Qwest's lawyers. “They told (Qwest) they didn't want to do that because FISA might not agree with them,” one person recalled. For similar reasons, this person said, NSA rejected Qwest's suggestion of getting a letter of authorization from the U.S. attorney general's office. A second person confirmed this version of events.

In June 2002, Nacchio resigned amid allegations that he had misled investors about Qwest's financial health. But Qwest's legal questions about the NSA request remained.

Unable to reach agreement, Nacchio's successor, Richard Notebaert, finally pulled the plug on the NSA talks in late 2004, the sources said.

As far as I'm concerned, all you need to know about this issue can be summed up by this last part about Qwest. Simply put, if the NSA was operating totally within the boundaries of the law, as President Bush and his cronies have been asserting, why was it so afraid to go before the FISA court or the U.S. Attorney General?

Well, at least one company didn't sell us out. Thanks Qwest. Perhaps there is hope for our democracy, after all.

And as for AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth?

They can all kiss my all-American ass.

- Watch Alert archived post

Bush Hires Fox News Commentator

2006-04-26T19:54:00.000-04:00

If anyone needed proof that Fox News was a Republican mouthpiece, President Bush just delivered it by hiring Fox News commentator Tony Snow to replace Scott McClellan as White House press secretary. While my first thought was that it makes sense for the Bush Administration to hire someone from Fox News (since anyone from Fox is practically on the payroll already), my second thought concerned Tony Snow's credentials. What in the world made the Bushies think of Tony Snow?

The Conservatives are spinning this as proof that President Bush is willing to shake up his staff and make needed changes by going outside of his usual cabal of Bush-worshippers. These opinions are delivered without the apparent irony of President Bush hiring a Fox News commentator and considering him to be an outsider.

Well, Tony Snow is not the outsider that Conservatives are making him out to be. He served as a speechwriter and deputy assistant for media affairs for President George H.W. Bush from 1991 to 1993. Are we to believe that's unrelated?

Honestly, I don't think there's much of a story here. I could care less who the White House moutpiece is. But I'm getting a little tired of hearing the Republicans trying to spin this as proof that President Bush is trying to bring someone into the White House who will have credibility. I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but he hired a guy from Fox News!

They get that credibility bit from the fact that Tony Snow has been critical of President Bush. However, you have to look at that in context. Snow has been critical of Bush for diverging from the true Conservative path, not for being the inept, war-mongering idiot that everyone else criticizes him for being. It's hardly criticism for a Conservative commentator to lament that the President is not being conservative enough. And it hardly gives him credibility.

What a strange world we live in.

It makes perfect sense for me that President Bush should hire someone from Fox News. After all, the Bush Administration and Fox News have a lot in common. Both of them are operating within an artificial reality of their own making that is not related in any way, shape or form to that annoying reality that the rest of us have to deal with.

- Watch Alert archived post

Tell the World: Torture is Un-American

2006-04-26T19:44:00.000-04:00

If you agree with me that torture, indefinite detention and secret government kidnapping are un-American, I think you’ll be interested in a petition that I just signed.

These practices should not represent the United States of America. But today, two years after the truth was exposed about government-sponsored torture and abuse, the U.S. has failed to reverse the policies that led to this abuse -- and has yet to hold a single high-ranking official responsible.

After the horrors of World War II, our leaders helped draft universal principles that prohibit torture and protect human rights. I hope you join me in defending that legacy by signing the petition and speaking out against torture.

Please join with thousands of others and sign the petition today: http://action.aclu.org/tortureisunamerican

Thanks.

Wicasta Lovelace

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

A 4-star Defense of the Republic

2006-04-22T11:29:00.000-04:00

While on the road, I've recently run into a lot of well-meaning but confused Conservatives who are of the opinion that the generals who recently criticized Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and called for his resignation are part of some kind of conspiracy to undermine American democracy, and are attempting to assert military control of our civilian government. Most of these people are surprised to learn that these generals are all retired, and as such have honored the very system they're accused of undermining by not speaking out until after they had left the military and had returned to civilian life.

It always amazes me that anyone in the military who criticizes anyone in the Bush Administration (a collection of individuals whose collective military experience could be summed up in a few paragraphs) is immediately portrayed as undermining America itself and its “War on Terror ©,” while any military personnel who agrees with the Administration and speaks out to that effect is trotted before the cameras and hailed as a true American hero.

With that in mind, I was delighted to discover an article by Rosa Brooks in the L.A. Times. She sums up everything that I've been thinking, and does so in a way that simply makes sense. I've actually thought about making copies of this article and keeping them with me so that I could just hand them out to whatever clueless Conservative I came across whose perceptions of this issue come straight from the propaganda unit of Fox News.

I've included the article below in case you might want to do this, as well.

Rosa Brooks:
A 4-star defense of the republic
April 21, 2006

WHEN SIX recently retired generals criticized Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's handling of the Iraq war and urged his resignation, the Bush administration reacted as if the generals had announced an impending military coup. Within days, administration loyalists were suggesting that the generals had been disloyal not merely to Rumsfeld but to American democracy itself.

The dissenting generals seemed almost surprised by the speed and savagery of the administration's counteroffensive. Maybe they had assumed that their combat records and decades of service would protect them. Or maybe they had been lulled into a false sense of security by the administration's floundering Iraq policies and assumed that Rumsfeld and his White House backers were just too distracted and incompetent to go after a few courteous, highly decorated critics. But the generals should have known that this administration can be ferociously competent when there's something really important — like President Bush's poll numbers — at stake.

On the right, the key talking point in the War Against the Generals quickly emerged: “Civilian control of the military.” It was an effective line of attack, and so clever that even many who ought to have known better were suckered. The Washington Post editorial board on Tuesday, for instance, fell for it hook, line and sinker, worrying that the retired generals were threatening “the essential democratic principle of military subordination to civilian control…. If [the generals] are successful in forcing Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation, they will set an ugly precedent.”

They even had me nodding along there for a few minutes. After all, every student of recent history knows that if you dilute civilian control of the military, you end up with fascism or a Latin American-style military junta. Because constant security threats are necessary to maintain the power and credibility of a military regime, a nation that lacks civilian control of the military gets ensnared in unending, pointless wars, often against an increasingly vaguely defined threat. Gradually, the broader society becomes militarized. Dissenters are denounced as cowards or traitors, and domestic surveillance becomes common. Secret military courts and detention systems begin to supplant the civilian judicial system. Detainees get tortured, and some end up mysteriously dead after interrogation.

We definitely wouldn't want that kind of regime to control the United States, would we?

IT WAS AT THIS POINT that I got the joke — because, dear reader, we're already well on the way to having that kind of regime. If Rumsfeld thought he could get away with calling himself Il Generalissimo, don't you think he'd do so in a heartbeat?

In the looking-glass world the Bush administration has brought us, it's the civilians in the White House and the Pentagon who have been eager to embrace the values normally exemplified by military juntas, while many uniformed military personnel have struggled to insist on values that are supposed to characterize democratic civil society.

Iraq is only one of the many issues on which military personnel have stood up against foolish or immoral administration policies. In 2003, the three generals and one admiral who collectively head the JAG Corps of the various services wrote strongly worded internal memos opposing the administration's authorization of interrogation techniques that border on or constitute torture. Navy Rear Adm. Michael Lohr, for instance, condemned the techniques as “inconsistent with our most fundamental values.” In January 2005, five retired generals filed an amicus brief in a case before the Supreme Court opposing the administration's argument that suspects tried by military commissions are not entitled to the protections of the Geneva Convention. Many more examples could be cited.

The claim that the six dissenting generals are betraying the principle of civilian control over the military is both silly and sinister. It's silly because polite, reasoned criticism from retired generals is just free speech, a very far cry from “forcing” the Defense secretary out. And it's sinister because civilian control is a means of safeguarding democracy, not an end in itself. When that gets forgotten, the phrase becomes just another way to stifle dissent.

Military officers must obey all lawful commands and refrain from using “contemptuous words” about their civilian leaders. But when officers take the military oath, they also pledge to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, [and] bear true faith and allegiance to the same.”

That's a hard oath, because bearing “true faith” to the Constitution requires military personnel to speak out, regardless of the cost, when they think our civilian leaders have gone beyond the pale. Both our democracy and the lives of the soldiers who fight in our name depend on it. If officers remain silent when our military policies go terribly wrong, there's little the rest of us can do to set things right again.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Gangster Government

2006-04-12T11:13:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Janis Page for bringing this to my attention. This article sums up the outrageous nature of what Bush & Co. have done better than any other article I've seen. I've posted it to the archives because I believe it may very well be prescient.

Gangster Government
A Leaky President Runs Afoul of ‘Little Rico’

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Greg Palast

Exclusive to BuzzFlash.com

It's a crime. No kidding. But the media has it all wrong. As usual, ‘Scooter’ Libby finally outed ‘Mr. Big,’ the perpetrator of the heinous disclosure of the name of secret agent Valerie Plame. It was the President of United States himself -- in conspiracy with his Vice-President. Now the pundits are arguing over whether our war-a-holic President had the legal right to leak this national security information. But, that's a fake debate meant to distract you.

OK, let's accept the White House alibi that releasing Plame's identity was no crime. But if that's true, they've committed a bigger crime: Bush and Cheney knowingly withheld vital information from a grand jury investigation, a multimillion dollar inquiry the perps themselves authorized. That's akin to calling in a false fire alarm or calling the cops for a burglary that never happened -- but far, far worse. Let's not forget that in the hunt for the perpetrator of this non-crime, reporter Judith Miller went to jail.

Think about that. While Miller sat in a prison cell, Bush and Cheney were laughing their sick heads off, knowing the grand jury testimony, the special prosecutor's subpoenas and the FBI's terrorizing newsrooms were nothing but fake props in Bush's elaborate charade, Cheney's Big Con.

On February 10, 2004, our not-so-dumb-as-he-sounds President stated, “Listen, I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action. And this investigation is a good thing. ...And if people have got solid information, please come forward with it.”

Notice Bush's cleverly crafted words. He says he can't name anyone who leaked this “classified“ info -- knowing full well he'd de-classified it. Far from letting Bush off the hook, it worsens the crime. For years, I worked as a government investigator and, let me tell you, Bush and Cheney withholding material information from the grand jury is a felony. Several felonies, actually: abuse of legal process, fraud, racketeering and, that old standby, obstruction of justice.

If you or I had manipulated the legal system this way, we'd be breaking rocks on a chain gang. We wouldn't even get a trial -- most judges would consider this a “fraud upon the court” and send us to the slammer in minutes using the bench's power to administer instant punishment for contempt of the judicial system.

Why'd they do it? The White House junta did the deed for the most evil of motives: to hoodwink the public during the 2004 election campaign, to pretend that evil anti-Bush elements were undermining the Republic, when it was the Bush element itself at the center of the conspiracy. (Notably, elections trickery also motivated Richard Nixon's “plumbers” to break into the Watergate, then the Democratic Party campaign headquarters.)

Let me draft the indictment for you as I would have were I still a government gumshoe:

“Perpetrator Lewis Libby (alias, ‘Scooter’) contacted Miller; while John Doe 1 contacted perpetrators' shill at the Washington Post, Bob Woodward, in furtherance of a scheme directed by George Bush (alias ‘The POTUS’) and Dick Cheney (alias, ‘The Veep’) to release intelligence information fraudulently proffered as ‘classified,’ and thereinafter, knowingly withheld material evidence from a grand jury empanelled to investigate said disclosure. Furthermore, perpetrator ‘The POTUS’ made material statements designed to deceive investigators and knowingly misrepresent his state of knowledge of the facts.”

Statements aimed at misleading grand jury investigators are hard-time offenses. It doesn't matter that Bush's too-clever little quip was made to the press and not under oath. I've cited press releases and comments in the New York Times in court as evidence of fraud. By not swearing to his disingenuous statement, Bush gets off the perjury hook, but he committed a crime nonetheless, “deliberate concealment.”

Here's how the law works (and hopefully, it will). The Bush gang's use of the telephone in this con game constituted wire fraud. Furthermore, while presidents may leak (“declassify”) intelligence information, they may not obstruct justice; that is, send a grand jury on a wild goose chase. Under the ‘RICO’ statute (named after the Edward G. Robinson movie mobster, ‘Little Rico’), the combination of these crimes makes the Bush executive branch a “racketeering enterprise.”

So, book'm, Dan-o. Time to read The POTUS and The Veep their rights.

After setting their bail (following the impeachments and removals, of course), a judge will have a more intriguing matter to address. The RICO law requires the Feds to seize all “ill-gotten gains” of a racketeering enterprise, even before trial. Usually we're talking fast cars and diamond bling. But in this case, the conspirators' purloined booty includes a stolen election and a fraudulently obtained authorization for war. I see no reason why a judge could not impound the 82d Airborne as “fruits of the fraud” -- lock, stock and gun barrels -- and bring the boys home.

And if justice is to be done we will will also have to run yellow tape across the gates at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue -- “CRIME SCENE - DO NOT ENTER” -- and return the White House to its rightful owners, the American people, the victims of this gangster government.

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION

Former racketeering investigator Greg Palast is author of “ARMED MADHOUSE: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War,” to be released in June.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

All the President's Leaks

2006-04-12T00:13:00.000-04:00

I've been trying to sum up everything that I've wanted to say about the issues surrounding recent revelations that President Bush and Vice-President Cheney declassified certain documents to discredit opponents of the Iraq invasion, and most specifically the Administration's case for war. Well, along comes E.J. Dionne Jr., who sums it all up in an article I found in the Washington Post.

Mr. Dionne says;

All the President's Leaks

By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, April 11, 2006; Page A21

What's amazing about the defenses offered for President Bush in the Valerie Plame leak investigation is that they deal with absolutely everything except the central issue: Did Bush know a lot more about this case than he let on before the 2004 elections?

But first, let's offer full credit to the Bush spin operation for working so hard and so effectively to change the subject.

The news was the court filing by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald reporting that Bush, through Vice President Cheney, had authorized I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby to leak sensitive intelligence information in July 2003 to discredit claims made by former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.

Wilson had fired a direct shot at the White House's rationale for the war in Iraq by saying the administration had distorted intelligence concerning Saddam Hussein's supposed efforts to obtain nuclear materials. The threat that Hussein might go nuclear was an emotional centerpiece of the administration's case for war. Condoleezza Rice, then Bush's national security adviser, made the case with great dramatic effect on Sept. 8, 2002: “We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”

The president's defenders want you to think that when it comes to leaking, every president does it. Why should Bush be held to a different standard? Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) told CNN on Sunday that the Bush administration was innocently asking itself, “How do we get the full story out there?”

Besides, since the president can authorize the declassification of anything he chooses to declassify, he can't be involved in anything untoward. “This was not a leak,” Joseph diGenova, a top Republican lawyer, told the New York Sun's Josh Gerstein. “This was an authorized disclosure.” Ah, yes, it depends on what the meaning of the word “leak” is. That sounds familiar, doesn't it?

These arguments merely distract attention from why Fitzgerald's disclosure was so important. When a fuss was kicked up in the fall of 2003 about the leaking of the name of Wilson's wife, former CIA operative Valerie Plame, to the media earlier in the year, the president spoke and acted as if he knew nothing and was incensed that any leaking was going on in his administration.

In its issue of Oct. 13, 2003, Time magazine quoted Bush as saying: “Listen, I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information.” Then the magazine's writers made an observation that turns out to be prescient: “Bush,” they wrote, “seemed to emphasize those last two words as if hanging on to a legal life preserver in choppy seas.”

The key words here are classified information. Did Bush at the time he made that statement know perfectly well that Cheney and Libby were involved with the leak, but that it didn't involve “classified information” because the president himself had authorized them to act? Talk about a legalistic defense.

Could it be that Bush -- heading into what he knew would be a difficult election -- was creating the impression of wanting the full story out when he already knew what most of the story was?

Which leads to another question: What exactly did Attorney General John Ashcroft know when he recused himself from the leak investigation? Did he know the investigation was getting dangerously close to Bush, Cheney, Libby and White House senior political adviser Karl Rove?

In announcing Fitzgerald's appointment on Dec. 30, 2003, Deputy Attorney General James Comey said that Ashcroft, “in an abundance of caution, believed that his recusal was appropriate based on the totality of the circumstances and the facts and evidence developed at this stage of the investigation.” What were the “facts” and the “evidence” on which Ashcroft acted? Did the administration consciously consider if passing off the investigation to someone else would delay the day of reckoning to beyond the 2004 election? And, yes, what exactly did Bush tell Fitzgerald and his staff when they questioned him on June 24, 2004? What had Cheney told Fitzgerald earlier?

The most heartening sign that all the spin in the world will not allow the administration to evade such questions was Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter's statement on Fox News Sunday that “there has to be a detailed explanation precisely as to what Vice President Cheney did, what the president said to him, and an explanation from the president as to what he said so that it can be evaluated.” Specter, a Republican and a former district attorney in Philadelphia, is just the right man to take the lead in breaking the spin cycle.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Honk If You Love Bush/Cheney

2006-04-07T19:17:00.000-04:00

This is a bit personal, but I wanted to relate a story. I just saw something on the highway that made me think about how sickeningly the Conservatives and Republicans have twisted everything.

There was a mini-convoy of three cars, each with lettering in the windows. One said “bringing our Marine home.” They all said something like that. The last one said “honk if you love USMC.” I respect this kid and his commitment to this country, so I was going to toot my air horn and wave. Then I saw the bumper sticker and the “&” in front of it.

So the message read “honk if you love USMC ... & Bush/Cheney.”

Well, I couldn't bring myself to toot my horn then. I support the troops, but I cannot in good conscience show support for the neo-con megalomaniacs in the White House. Here this young Marine was returning home, probably from Iraq or Afghanistan, and was deserving of my welcome. But someone couldn't resist turning his homecoming into a political statement. How typically Republican.

I decided to toot my horn anyway. I didn't care if it meant that someone in that caravan thought it meant that I also supported Bush and Cheney. But by then they were out of range.

It saddened me to think that the Republicans have so twisted the political discourse in this country that I can't thank that young Marine for his service without also tacitly approving of the Republican agenda. And if I don't show support for or I criticize the Republican agenda, then I am not supporting that young Marine.

I wonder if any of the fine men and women in the Service, who are in Iraq trying to help a struggling new democracy to its feet, have any idea what the Republicans are doing to our democracy at home.

- Watch Alert archived post

Republicans Spin Tom Delay's Exit

2006-04-05T10:26:00.000-04:00

The Republicans are nervously spinning Tom DeLay's sudden withdrawal from his re-election campaign in Texas. Essentially they're saying that it's a good thing that he's dropping out, because those nasty Democrats have been harassing Poor Ol’ Tom and making up nasty things about him.

Nevermind that Tom DeLay was admonished three times by the House ethics committee (which was predominantly Republican), that he had to resign as House majority leader because he was indicted on conspiracy charges in a campaign finance investigation in Texas, that two key DeLay staffers (one being Tony Rudy, his former deputy chief of staff) and lobbyist Jack Abramoff (whom DeLay had strong ties to) plead guilty in a federal corruption investigation, or that he helped create a symbiotic relationship between the House Republicans and Washington's lobbying community, securing a steady stream of donations for his members and friendly legislation for business interests. His “K Street” connections also invited scrutiny and criticism that those with issues before Congress had to pay to play.

Poor Ol’ Tom. Those wacky Democrats are making much out of nothing.

House Republican leaders proclaimed that there's going to be a fresh start for their legislative agenda, and vowed to act quickly to reform ethics laws. This all came after the news that DeLay is planning to resign his seat. They're hoping people will buy the inference that “while Poor Ol’ Tom did nothing wrong, we’re not like him, really.”

My first question was this: How many times can they promise ethics reform? Their last ethics reform was to change the laws of the House so that Tom DeLay would not have to resign as House majority leader when he was facing admonishment on ethics violations. Then they appointed a bunch of Republicans to the House ethics committe who almost all had ties to Tom DeLay.

House majority leader John Boehner, an Ohio Republican who succeeded DeLay in that position, said Republicans are responding to recent scandals in Washington. “We will take steps necessary to plug those areas where problems have erupted,” he said. He also said that ethics reform will be merely the first of many initiatives this spring, including a new fiscally responsible budget plan. Translation? It's the new, improved Republican party! We're not like Tom DeLay! Or, er, those other Republicans who are in trouble for ethics violations and criminal conspiracy. Can't we all just get along?

Of course, Tom DeLay hasn't been silent on this. He said, “I refuse to allow liberal Democrats an opportunity to steal this seat with a negative, personal campaign. The times are too grave to waste even two years in the life of this nation -- and allow even one more vote for their agenda of pessimism and failure.”

It would surprise me if DeLay's statement didn't illicit a collective giggle from those around him. For one thing, only DeLay could think that talking about his well documented ethics violations is unfair, while noting no apparent irony that his nickname is “The Hammer” because he's never shied away from dirty politics.

In short, in true Republican fashion, the logic is that if a Democrat was to win DeLay's seat in Texas, it would not be because he or she was elected by the people of that district, but because the Democrats' “stole this seat.” Seems like the Republicans thought the same thing in Ohio during the presidential election, when those nasty Democrats were trying to steal the election by trying to get people to vote.

President Bush, who spoke with DeLay about his decision Monday afternoon, predicted that Republicans won't suffer long-term consequences from the possible ethics violations of some of the party's members. “My own judgment is ... that our party will continue to succeed because we're the party of ideas,” the president said.

I'm sure that led several people present to wonder, typically, what the hell the president was talking about. Oh, wait. Now that I think of it, the Republicans are the party of ideas. They've certainly come up with a lot of great ideas about how to get around annoying ethics and campaigns laws. Maybe that's what he meant.

The problem is, you don't just move on from people like Tom DeLay. This man was firmly in control of the House for years. DeLay's ties to his fellow Republicans are too deep to remove his imprint from the GOP caucus simply by his resignation. Representative Martin T. Meehan, a Lowell Democrat, said, “The next election will be a referendum on the system he set up. He's a symbol of everything that's wrong with Congress today.”

DeLay's money machine flowed to House members across the country, and his “K Street Project” of pressing lobbyists to hire Republicans has left him with many close allies in Washington, said David Donnelly, campaign director of the Public Campaign Action Fund, a nonpartisan group that works to reduce the influence of money on politics.

“I don't think you can simply remove DeLay from the picture and somehow have corruption removed from the equation,” Donnelly said. “Corruption in Congress goes beyond one man.”

Poor Ol’ Tom continues to proclaim his innocence on those criminal charges he is facing in connection with those alleged fund-raising irregularities. And most of DeLay's Republican colleagues continue to stand behind him publicly; House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert praised him as a “most effective“ member of House leadership. Boehner echoed those sentiments, calling it “unfortunate” and “sad”" that Poor Ol’ Tom, the Texas Republican, felt it was necessary to resign his House seat. He added that the accusations that have swirled around DeLay and other Republicans won't have an impact on congressional races this fall. I'm surprised they don't start singing “When I Wish Upon A Star.”

But Julian Zelizer, a congressional historian at Boston University, said DeLay's resignation means that Republicans can no longer question the credibility of Democrats' corruption charges. The scandal involving Abramoff, who mostly supported Republicans, could still ensnare other House members, he said.

DeLay “bowing out at any time is a huge loss for Republicans,” Zelizer said. “It's a symbolic confirmation that the corruption charges are as serious as Democrats are saying.”

For myself, I think this is all a cause for celebration. Yes, it's certainly true that this was a political move. There's no way DeLay could have been re-elected to his seat in Texas. Recent polls showed that DeLay had, at best, a 50/50 chance of being re-elected in his home district, in a race that should have been a cakewalk. Removing himself from the race was one way in which DeLay hoped to rob Democrats of a chance of winning his seat, believing, in his arrogance, that it was only because of the accusations against him that a Democrat had a chance. Never mind recent polls that indicate that if the Congressional elections were held today, the Democrats would retake the House.

But it's a good thing that this snake has been run out of political office. Tom DeLay is at the very center of this “culture of corruption” that the Democrats keep talking about. He's the one who set up the money machine to extort or cajol money out of Washington lobbyists and other groups into the pockets of Republicans. It was DeLay who created the culture in which Washington politics became “pay to play,” taking full financial advantage of Republican control of Congress to perfect the buying and selling of political influence in Washington. All of which was designed to benefit the Republicans.

If we are edging ever closer to a one-party system of government in the United States, it's because of corrupt hypocrites like Tom DeLay, who never misses a chance to talk about being a born-again Christian, while passing back and forth lobbyists' money behind his back. He is the worse form a trash, and our democracy is better off without him.

All I can say is, “Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.”

- Watch Alert archived post

Wolves in Sheep's Clothing:Telecom Industry Front Groups

2006-03-28T20:32:00.000-05:00

I rarely post things verbatim here, but I think this is worth noting. Long story short, the telecom industry is trying to leverage congress into making the Internet a for-profit enterprise, meaning it would become regulated largely by those same telecom companies. Below is an article of note from Common Cause.

As consumer demand for high-tech services grows, billions of dollars are at stake for telecommunications companies. Much of the battle is being waged in the halls of Congress right now, where our representatives are considering an overhaul of the 1996 Telecommunications Act.

Cable, telephone and Internet industry giants are fiercely lobbying, using every tool at their disposal to gain a competitive advantage in telecom reform legislation. Some of those tools are easy to spot - campaign contributions, television ads that run only inside the Beltway, and meetings with influential members of Congress. Other tactics are more insidious.

One of the underhanded tactics increasingly being used by telecom companies is "Astroturf lobbying" -- creating front groups that try to mimic true grassroots, but that are all about corporate money, not citizen power. Astroturf lobbying is hardly a new approach. Senator Lloyd Bentsen is credited with coining the term in the 1980s to describe corporations' big-money efforts to put fake grassroots pressure on Congress.[1] Astroturf campaigns generally claim to represent huge numbers of citizens, but in reality their public support is minimal or nonexistent.[2]

Another industry approach is to fund "think tanks" and nonprofit groups with innocuous sounding names to write reports and policy papers. These groups accept subsidies or grants from corporate interests to lobby or produce research when they normally might not, but too often fail to disclose the connection between their policy positions and their bank accounts. (This is not true of all industry-friendly think tanks; some, like the Progress and Freedom Foundation, disclose supporters on their websites.)

These sorts of campaigns are dangerous for our democracy. They deliberately mislead citizens, and they deliberately mislead our lawmakers, who are already charged with the difficult task of making sense of complex telecommunications policies. Corporations that already have significant economic clout and influence are trying to co-opt the voices of everyday citizens and think tanks, and use them to their own advantage. In the end, that practice dilutes the power of true grassroots and nonprofit advocacy.

This report attempts to shine a light on some of the telecom industry's devious Astroturf campaigns, as well as their funding of think tanks for "research" that supports the industry's agenda. Because there is so little disclosure in this area, it is difficult to get all the information necessary to issue a comprehensive report. But we have uncovered nine groups that represent a range of Astroturf and front group strategies employed by the telecom giants.

These corporate-backed groups are shamelessly working to convince Congress that there is widespread public and scholarly support for their policy proposals. Unfortunately, almost all of the debate over telecom reform is happening between telephone, cable and Internet industry interests. But it's not just dollars and cents that are at stake: It's also the ability of citizens to speak, to be heard, to have access to the information they need to govern themselves.

That's why it is so critical that citizens - the real grassroots, not industry Astroturf - have their voices heard on telecom issues. When Congress wrote the 1996 Telecommunications Act, only corporate stakeholders had a seat at the table. The result was a law that gave us less competition, higher prices and more concentrated media. This time around we must make sure that our lawmakers understand that the public interest is more important than telecom companies' bottom lines.

Telecom Front Groups & Astroturf

- Consumers for Cable Choice
- FreedomWorks
- Progress and Freedom Foundation
- American Legislative Exchange Council
- New Millennium Research Council
- Frontiers of Freedom
- Keep It Local NJ
- Internet Innovation Alliance
- MyWireless.org

Footnotes:

[1] Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "Astroturf: Interest Group Lobbying and Corporate Strategy," Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, Winter 2004: 563. Back to report.

[2] Ibid, 573.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Feds Weigh Allowing Wiccan Symbols on Grave Markers

2006-03-26T13:42:00.000-05:00

I decided to archive this article by Lisa Hoffman, from the Scripps Howard News Service, mostly without comment. I think the story speaks for itself, and says volumes about the equality or in-equality of the treatment of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. You would think those in question could have their beliefs honored, having given all for their country.

I will quote freely from the article below for the benefit of those who don't wish to visit the actual article or the Watch Alert archived post.

While President Bush laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery, a self-declared witch embarked on a clandestine mission to mark a grave most dear to her.

It was 2003, and neo-pagan high priestess Rosemary Kooiman, 75, was determined that the gravesite of her recently departed husband, Abraham, bear a Pentacle as the symbol of the Wiccan faith the two shared.

Unlike thousands of headstones bearing a Christian cross, Jewish Star of David, Islamic Crescent and Star, or other religious emblems, Abraham Kooiman's had none because the Department of Veterans Affairs does not permit symbols of Wicca and related pagan sects to be depicted on government-issued stones or markers.

Taking advantage of the attention turned elsewhere that day, Rosemary Kooiman affixed a vinyl Pentacle - a five-pointed star within a circle - to the gravesite of her husband, a decorated World War II combat veteran.

That guerrilla action by Kooiman came as part of a decade-long battle by those of her faith to bring recognition to troops and veterans who are Wiccans and believers in other “nature” religions.

Long wrongfully tagged by the misinformed as being Satan worshippers or the casters of evil spells, they say their ancient religion is a peaceful, benign one centered on celebrating nature through rituals, meditations and other spiritual practices.

Why then, they ask, has their religion been snubbed when more than 30 others _ including such relatively obscure ones as Seicho-No-Ie, Eckankar, Sufism and Humanism _ are permitted? Even atheists have their own approved symbol, which features an atom and the letter “A” in the center.

That crusade may be nearing an end. The Veterans department said this week that it is nearing a decision on several requests for memorial markers adorned with Pentacles, including one from the widow of a National Guardsman killed in a helicopter attack in Afghanistan.

I think that about sums it up. It really would be nice if all religions were honored equally in the United States. But, of course, America has a long history of inequality.

Read full article.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Why Do Conservatives Fear 'V for Vendetta'?

2006-03-19T14:10:00.000-05:00

I was unaware of just how detached from reality Conservatives had become until the recent hair-pulling and gnashing of teeth that arose over the release of the new movie V for Vendetta. Apparently Conservatives see this movie as a real threat to their stranglehold on the minds of average Americans. Egads! The sky is falling! Americans might see this movie and throw off their brainwashing!

Okay, so the movie probably isn't that profound. But you wouldn't know it by reading Conservative blogs. They seem to think that in the mythical war of “Hollywood vs. America” (and yes, that's an actual quote), those “latte drinking, tofu eating” Hollywood Liberals have stopped just short of working with Al-Qaeda to produce movies that undermine the moral fabric of America.

Hey. Just for a laugh, put in the prhase “latte drinking, tofu eating” into a Google search and see what comes up. It's amazing how many supposedly intelligent Conservatives quote Larry the Cable Guy in their tirades.

Well, V for Vendetta has scared the hell out of them for some reason. I actually hadn't paid much attention to the movie. It looked like it might be pretty good, and my wife and I had talked in passing about maybe going to see it, but I hadn't thought of it as a broad-side against American culture and morality. But then, I have a habit of spending my days in the real world, and typically don't have time to get all worked up about things like this.

Listen to this ranting ...

Ted Baehr, a columnist for WorldNetDaily and the president of the Christian magazine Movieguide called V for Vendetta “a vile, pro-terrorist piece of neo-Marxist, left-wing propaganda filled with radical sexual politics and nasty attacks on religion and Christianity.”

“The ending of ‘V for Vendetta’ celebrates terrorism when the movie's three most sympathetic characters carry out an evil plan to blow up England's Parliament building, one of Western Civilization's most enduring symbols of democracy and republican government with a small ‘r,’” he wrote.

Baehr also says the whole movie is “a thinly veiled attack on the War on Terror now being waged by Prime Minister Tony Blair in Great Britain and President George W. Bush in the United States” and “The rest of ‘V for Vendetta’ not only depicts Christians as evil people who oppress and torture ‘innocent’ people, it also depicts homosexuals as a persecuted, harmless minority of ‘nice’ people.”

I loved the emphasis on so-called “innocent” people and so-called “nice” homosexuals. But Baehr isn't the only one. The Internet is full of panicked blatherings by angry Conservatives. Here are a few of the nicer quotes;

“Alan Moore is a liberal and he thinks that Conservatives will turn the world to hell and that Nazi's were Conservatives.”

“Don’t go see it unless you’re ready for America, England, and Christians to come out looking bad.”

“What are the Warner Brothers studio and parent company Time Warner thinking? They've released a movie, ‘V for Vendetta,’ that is simply a pro-terrorism movie.”

You'll see the phrase “pro-terrorist” used a lot in anything that seeks to disparage the movie. And I consciously used the word “disparage.” We're not talking about people who saw the movie and didn't like it. We're not talking about bad reviews. We're talking about people who are absolutely incensed that this movie was made in the first place.

Well, whether or not I was originally planning to go see this movie, I think I have to now. Anything that can get under the skins of the Conservatives so completely warrants a look.

- Watch Alert archived post
- V for Vendetta Official Movie Site
- Original Graphic Novel at Amazon.Com

Impeach Bush Chorus Grows

2006-03-19T13:04:00.000-05:00

It's rare that I find a a single article that sums up most of what I'm thinking on a subject. Recently I've been watching President Bush's panicked flailing as his approval ratings plummet and even his staunchest supporters in the Republican party are beginning to distance themselves from him in preparation for upcoming elections. I stumbled across an article that discusses a growing chorus calling for Bush's impeachment. I have recently told anyone who will listen that if it were not for the protection of his own political party, President Bush has already done quite enough to be impeached. This article proves that I'm probably not alone in believing this.

The Iraq War, more than anything, is what's hurting Bush. The Administration has been largely successful in glossing over its encyclopedia of other mistakes and failures, but the Iraq War simply cannot be spun. As the bodies of killed American soldiers continue to return home (2,317 killed and 17,004 wounded as of this writing, according to official numbers) and Iraq teeters ever closer to outright Civil War (Former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said today that Iraq is already in a civil war), it's hard to put a positive spin on this.

According to this article, by 50% to 28% voters said that they believed that the Iraq War had weakened America’s standing in the world, and by 44% to 18% they believed that it had increased the threat from Iran. By 50% to 35% they said they would vote for a congressional candidate who favoured withdrawing troops from Iraq in a year. Doesn't look good for Baby Bush.

A compilation of state-wide polls has even more bad news for Bush. In mid-America’s Republican heartlands the president is almost as unpopular as he is nationally. In Texas, his own back yard, only 41% approve of his performance.

Wayne Slater, chief political correspondent of the Dallas Morning News, said; “People in Texas like George Bush and he was a popular governor. But even his biggest supporters are losing confidence in him. They say they don’t understand what Bush is doing.”

The only person more unpopular than Bush right now is Vice-President Dick Cheney, whose approval rating was at 18% in a recent poll. Bush joked at a Washington dinner last week: “When Dick first heard that my approval rating was 38% he said, ‘What’s your secret?’” Bush and Cheney are the only ones laughing.

President Bush's problems have emboldended some Democrats to step up and talk openly about things that have hither-to been mentioned only in whispered musings. Last week Senator Russ Feingold proposed a motion of censure against Bush for authorising the National Security Agency to wiretap Americans suspected of links to terrorism without a court warrant.

Feingold said that the party should stop “cowering” before Bush on national security issues. “If there’s any Democrat out there who can’t say the president has no right to make up his own laws, I don’t know if that Democrat really is the right (presidential) candidate,” he said.

This has led Conservatives to their typical knee-jerk reactions; damage control and redirection. And fear, of course. Nothing works better on Conservatives than their fear of losing power.

“Impeachment ... coming your way if there are changes in who controls the House right now,” Paul Weyrich, who is often referred to as the father of the Religious Right and heads the Free Congress Foundation, warned in an e-mail newsletter to supporters. “With impeachment on the horizon maybe, just maybe, conservatives would not stay at home after all.”

Others Republicans, such as blowhard Rush Limbaugh, are practically begging Democrats to “bring it on” in the hope that the conflict will make their opponents look like loony leftists who care nothing for national security. “This is such a gift,” said Limbaugh on his radio show. Well, the Conservatives hope that they can spin it as such, anyway.

A lot of people are thinking about this, though, and nothing could better illustrate how dangerous things have gotten for Bush and his cabal of Neo-Conservatives. At the moment no one dares seriously considers attempting to impeach President Bush. There are just too many risks. But it say a lot that John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, was overheard in an Irish bar on Capitol Hill talking about how satisfying it would be to impeach Bush if Congress went Democrat. He was just having a laugh, a spokeswoman rushed to explain: “Impeachment jokes in Washington are as old as Donald Rumsfeld.”

But then she said: “How are the same Republicans, who tried to impeach a president over whether he misled a nation about an affair, going to pretend it does not matter if the administration intentionally misled the country into war?”

Good question.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Personal Stories Emerge from Guantanamo

2006-03-05T11:17:00.000-05:00

Like most moral Americans, I've long had concerns about the “detainees” that our military are holding in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Any Conservative who is reading this most certainly suffered some pain just now from their eyes rolling back into their head. This is a natural reaction for someone who knows nothing about the real world, but lives his or her life steeped in black and white ideology with no possibility of shades of grey. These are the people who can't tell you which ocean is off of the East Coast, but will presume to tell you all about terrorists and what they're trying to do to the United States.

Before I go any farther, let's make one thing clear. I hate terrorists. I despise them. Any mongrel dog who will kill innocent people to make a political point is an inhuman animal that should be dealt a swift death. The problem comes in when you try to determine who is and who is not a terrorist.

Most Americans assume that every detainee being held in Guantanamo is a terrorist. After all, they wouldn't be there if they hadn't done something, right? This view is popular among Conservative Republicans, whose worldview is absolute authoritatian and precludes any possibility of wrong-doing by the party in power. Suggesting such a thing in a authoritarian culture in itself raises questions about one's patriotism. Oddly enough, the effect is that by exercising your freedom of speech you are undermining democracy and, by extension, freedom of speech.

But I'm getting far from my original point. The main issue here are these detainees. Who are they? Where are they from? Are we to believe that the United States military is so efficient that they can round up people from small villages, in large sweeps intended to catch possible al-Qaida or Taliban operatives, and somehow determine who among these detainees are collateral damage and who are really persons of interest?

Well, the Conservatives would like us to believe that. The Bush Administration believes it with all their heart.

“They're bomb-makers,” Vice President Dick Cheney said recently in regard to the detainees in Guantanamo. “They're facilitators of terror. They're members of al-Qaida and the Taliban. If you let them out, they'll go back to trying to kill Americans.”

I'm sorry. I absolutely believe that this statement is true in regard to some of the people who were rounded up in these huge sweeps of certain areas. But to say that this is the case of each and every person being held there is ludicrous. Then again, the Republicans are not known for their reverence for fact, truth or even morality. There is no right or wrong. There is simply “us vs. them.”

My primary problem with Chaney's statement, and the general attitude supporting it (which is shared by most Conservatives), is that it's simply the demonization of a group of people. In the absence of any sort of proof of wrong-doing on the part of many of the people in Guantanamo, the Conservatives simply dub them “evil-doers” and detain them indefinitely without charging them with any crimes or affording them any access to legal counsel or the eventual finality of a trial.

This sounds like something Manuel Noriega would have done in Panama. It sounds like something Saddam Hussein would have done in Iraq. Why do the Conservatives have such a hard time understanding why some Americans would have a problem with that? We're supposed to be the good guys. We're supposed to be the shining beacon of freedom and all that's good in the world. If we will not extend the ideals of that freedom and respect for basic human dignity and, by God, right and wrong, why could we possibly expect to suddenly reserve those same rights for our own citizens in foreign lands?

In summation, I do not believe that every person being held in Guantanamo is an innocent victim who never raised a hand against the United States. However, it is very clear that Dick Cheney's assertion that “they're (all) bomb-makers,” is laughable. To the Conservatives simply being sympathetic to al-Qaida is the same as blowing up a bus full of children. Does this mean that, if someone has a photograph of Osama bin Laden in their home, they can be held accountable for the crimes of Osama bin Laden?

Using this same logic, an Iraqi cook who prepares a meal for American soldiers in Iraq is a supporter of the American invasion of Iraq, and could therefore logically be detained as an American sympathizer by Muslim extremists. They would just be using the same logic we are using.

In the real world (where Conservatives fear to venture) this hypothetical cook is simply a man who is trying to get by as best as he can, dealing with the situation he has found himself in. It doesn't much matter who is in charge or whether the man standing on the street corner with the automatic weapon is a Taliban or American soldier. His family still has to eat. They still have to have a roof over their heads.

Most of the Conservatives I know would shout bloody murder if al-Qaida operatives detained this cook from an American held sector and held him prisoner for an indefinite amount of time, with no possiblity of release, without ever telling him what crimes he is accused of committing. It would anger Conservatives that this man's basic human rights were thrown out the window simply because al-Qaida deemed him an American sympathizer, a facilitator of their enemy, and therefore an enemy himself.

But the very same thing is perfectly okay if it's done by the American military in regard to Muslims. I'm sorry folks. You can't have it both ways. This brings us right back to the main point of contention for Muslims in the Middle East where the United States is concerned. America talks out of both sides of its mouth. That's not what I was taught to believe that America was all about.

Most uninformed Americans assume that the detainees in Guantanamo were enemy combatants who were captured on the field of battle. They believe this because most Americans don't understand the nature of this conflict. They think in terms of standing armies fighting on a battlefield in World War II. Or of house to house combat in villages in Vietnam. They simply don't understand that al-Qaida has no standing army, and that the Taliban in Afghanistan conscripted men into service against their will.

For the American military, and the Conservatives especially, it's enough to live in an area where al-Qaida operates, and it doesn't matter if you served the Taliban at gunpoint. It's enough that you served the Taliban. You raghead! Now get in that cell, take off your clothes, and climb up on top of that pile of naked men. We're gonna take some pictures.

Here are some background stories of some of the detainees in Guantanamo. These Details are from transcripts of “enemy combatant” hearings involving Guantanamo detainees:

- Abdulaziz Sayer, a Kuwaiti who studied at the Imam Mohamed Bin Saud Islamic University, has a degree in Islamic law. He met a man while worshipping in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, who said Sayer should go to Afghanistan to teach the Quran. He entered Afghanistan through Iran in October 2001 and did charity work. His name was found on a computer after coalition forces raided a house, but he denied belonging to al-Qaida or the Taliban.

- Jamal Alawi was accused of working for Al-Wafa, a charity with links to al-Qaida, but he said he only bought medicine for it. The United States also said he was the director of a charity considered to have al-Qaida connections. He denied being a director but said he was a representative who knew nothing about any al-Qaida links.

- Arkin Mahmud, a Chinese Muslim Uighur who traveled to Afghanistan in August 2001, was captured by the Northern Alliance as a suspected Taliban fighter. He was at the Mazar-e-Shariff prison in November 2001 when CIA officer Johnny “Mike” Spann was killed. He said he went to Afghanistan to look for his brothers. “If I am guilty they should come up with my punishment,” he told the tribunal. “Otherwise, do something faster to finish my case.”

- Boudella al Hajj, an Algerian clergyman, worked with orphans in Bosnia-Herzegovina for a humanitarian organization and the Bosnian army. He is accused of being in contact with known al-Qaida member Abu Zubaydah and belonging to an Algerian militant group, all of which he denied.

- Habib Noor, a resident of Lalmai, Afghanistan, with family in Saudi Arabia, is accused of owning a compound that attackers fled to after ambushing U.S. special forces and Afghan military forces. He insisted he was unaware of the incident that day, which he spent as a vendor in the Lalmai village bazaar in Khost province.

Believe it or not, I take all of these statements with a grain of salt. I don't believe that everyone is totally innocent anymore than I believe that anyone can be totally evil. But that's not the issue here. Simply put, if we cannot prove that these people have done anything, and have not been able to dig up any wrong-doing on their part after having them in custody for years, we should either release them or charge them with a crime.

Americans would be outraged if American citizens were being detained indefinitely by a foreign government. My age-old paradigm holds here. Just change around the names of the players, and you'll know all you need to know. Want to know if a black man is a racist and hates white people? Put his exact words in the mouth of a white person in regard to black people and then ask if it sounds like racism. That holds here. If it would be wrong for a foreign government to detain American citizens indefinitely without access to counsel, trial or even being charged with a crime, how can it be right for us to do the same?

Some of the less informed might read this and call me an enemy sympathizer. It's fine with me if some people are that stupid. If I identify at all with any of these people, it might be because I still remember the 2000 Presidential election, when Republican operatives rallied in Florida and pretended to be local residents, and chanted slogans about the Democrats trying to steal the election.

I still remember the 2004 Presidential election when Conservatives would shout insults at my wife in the parking lot at the Lowe's store because we had a bumper sticker for a Democratic candidate on our car.

I remember Conservatives trying to shout me down and intimidate me simply because I tried to hold a simple, personal conversation with another Democratic sympathizer in a public place.

I remember Republican goon squads being dispatched to polling places to challenge people's right to vote and intimidate others into staying away altogether. I remember Republicans preventing voting machines from being dispatched to areas where the vote might not favor them.

I suppose I'm particularly sensitive to any abuses of human rights committed by the United States because it's not so far fetched that I might find myself in that same situation some day. The Conservatives already love to smear non-Republicans with the label of being “un-American,” “terrorist sympathizer” and so on. We already have our very own American Taliban in the form of Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Falwell, working through the Republican Party to establish an authoritatian, de-facto theocracy.

You tell me. It is so far fetched to imagine that when these people's infiltration of the United States Government is completed, people such as I, American citizens, could see ourselves arrested on American soil without ever being charged of a crime, deported to some foreign country where I would be subject to torture, stripped of my human and civil rights, and denied access to counsel or even the right to a trial?

If this seems far fetched to you, consider this. It's already happened to American citizens. All they have to do is label you a terrorist sympathizer. Ask José Padilla.

- Watch Alert archived post

Bush, Katrina & The Video

2006-03-04T19:10:00.000-05:00

Conservatives are working over-time of late trying to spin reality to something more suited to their tastes. The recent release by the Associated Press of transcripts from a videotape of meetings with FEMA officials, the President and others just before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, is being peddled as a vindication of President Bush by Conservatives and of his damnation by his political opponents and other critics.

At issue is whether President Bush lied about the content of those meetings when he told Good Morning America on September 1, 2005; “I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.”

Well, clearly, from not just the video but from many other sources, the possible breach of the levees in New Orleans was mentioned as a possibility on several occasions. Conservatives say that since no one said “Oh, my God! Mr. President! The levees are breaching at this very moment” that it's a matter of semantics. But however they might want to spin it, it's very clear in the video that the possibility of the levees breaking was brought up, and that this directly contradicts what President Bush said on September 1, 2005 on Good Morning America.

The one thing that Conservatives are beating into the ground is the fact that Kathleen Blanco, the Governor of Louisiana (and an outspoken critic of the federal response to the disaster) did not actually tell President Bush that the levees were breaking, and in fact told him just the opposite. However, if you read what she said, it's impossible to spin.

Governor Blanco told President Bush; “We keep getting reports in some places that maybe water is coming over the levees. We heard a report, unconfirmed I think, we've heard that we have not breached the levee. We have not breached the levee. I think we have not breached the levee at this point in time.”

That's the part that the Conservatives point out. What they don't mention is what followed.

“That could change,” she went on to warn. “In some places we have floodwater coming in ... we have water 8 to 10ft (2.5 to 3m) deep, and we have people swimming in there ... That’s got a considerable amount of water itself. That’s about all I know right now on the specifics that you haven’t heard.”

Governor Blanco's update formed part of a day of contradictory briefings, culminating in a final, firm report that the levees of New Orleans had been breached in three places which arrived in the White House shortly after midnight on August 30. A Congressional report issued last month said the White House did not seek to confirm the news until the next morning.

How could this be read in a way which would say to anyone that no one anticipated this? Blanco clearly raised the possibility of levee breaches. The transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility even before the storm - and Bush was worried too.

Not enough? Try this.

White House deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Brown discussed fears of a levee breach the day the storm hit.

“I talked to the president twice today, once in Crawford and then again on Air Force One,” Brown said. “He's obviously watching the television a lot, and he had some questions about the Dome, he's asking questions about reports of breaches.”

If no one anticipated the possiblity of levee breaches, why was President Bush asking questions about that very possibility? If nothing else, wouldn't that mean that he had anticipated it?

The National Hurricane Center's Max Mayfield told the final briefing before Katrina struck that storm models predicted minimal flooding inside New Orleans during the hurricane, but he expressed concerns that counterclockwise winds and storm surges afterward could cause the levees at Lake Pontchartrain to be overrun.

“I don't think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not but that is obviously a very, very grave concern,” Mayfield told the briefing.

Wouldn't this little tidbit qualify as someone anticipating that the levees could be breached?

As with everything else, from education to religion to patriotism, the Conservatives have politicized this issue and are simply kicking in with the spin. It's not about what's real, what happened, what was said, or what was done. It's all about downplaying and re-directing the truth so that it doesn't leave any stinky residue upon Republicans or the President.

I think this sums up what the outrage and discomfort is all about. Following her tour of New Orleans following the breach of the levees with President Bush, U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu, D-La., issued the following statement concerning her call for President Bush to appoint a cabinet-level official to oversee Hurricane Katrina relief and recovery efforts within 24 hours.

Sen. Landrieu said:

“Yesterday, I was hoping President Bush would come away from his tour of the regional devastation triggered by Hurricane Katrina with a new understanding for the magnitude of the suffering and for the abject failures of the current Federal Emergency Management Agency. 24 hours later, the President has yet to answer my call for a cabinet-level official to lead our efforts. Meanwhile, FEMA, now a shell of what it once was, continues to be overwhelmed by the task at hand.

“I understand that the U.S. Forest Service had water-tanker aircraft available to help douse the fires raging on our riverfront, but FEMA has yet to accept the aid. When Amtrak offered trains to evacuate significant numbers of victims – far more efficiently than buses – FEMA again dragged its feet. Offers of medicine, communications equipment and other desperately needed items continue to flow in, only to be ignored by the agency.

“But perhaps the greatest disappointment stands at the breached 17th Street levee. Touring this critical site yesterday with the President, I saw what I believed to be a real and significant effort to get a handle on a major cause of this catastrophe. Flying over this critical spot again this morning, less than 24 hours later, it became apparent that yesterday we witnessed a hastily prepared stage set for a Presidential photo opportunity; and the desperately needed resources we saw were this morning reduced to a single, lonely piece of equipment. The good and decent people of southeast Louisiana and the Gulf Coast – black and white, rich and poor, young and old – deserve far better from their national government.”

Not much has changed. For President Bush, the GOP and Conservatives, it's still more important that you believe what you're supposed to believe. Facts be damned.

- Watch Alert archived post

GOP rift on ports, poll dip hit Bush

2006-03-04T17:14:00.000-05:00

I read an interesting story by Susan Page in USA Today this morning concerning President Bush's sagging approval rating and the growing rift between the Administration and usually suportive members of the GOP. Bush can blame only himself on this one. When doubts arose about the Dubai port deal and objections were raised even among staunch Conservatives and the nutjob talking heads media machine, his most ardent admirers, President Bush and the Administration decided to approach the issue in the same way they've approach everything else that people don't like. They ignored the issue, belittled the naysayers, and tried to steamroll everyone by essentially stating “well, the President thinks it's a great idea” and then trying to go ahead with it, assuming the Conservatives and the GOP would just fall in line. Surprise, surprise. They didn't.

Well, they can't claim the issue is just liberals playing politics this time. Bush has tried his bully tactics on his own party and supporters, and he's suffering because of it.

I quote liberally from the story below.

According to the article, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., vowed to “kill” that proposed sale of some cargo operations at six major U.S. seaports (and 22 ports total) to a Dubai firm. A USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll found overwhelming opposition to the deal.

The controversy has set up the most dramatic split to date between President Bush and Republicans on Capitol Hill. It also seems to have dented Bush's standing on handling terrorism and narrowed the Republicans' long-standing advantage over Democrats on the issue.

Armed Services Chairman Hunter, R-Calif. said he would introduce legislation to block the ports deal and to require foreign companies to divest any holdings of U.S. infrastructure critical to national security.

“I think the Republican leadership in both houses will come to the conclusion that these aren't the folks you want to operate your ports,” he said.

In January, the Bush administration approved the United Arab Emirates' government-owned DP World's purchase of a British company that controls some port operations in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans and Miami. After a congressional outcry, the administration agreed to review it.

The furor is commanding intense public interest. Three of four Americans surveyed say they are following the story closely. Overall, they oppose the deal by a nearly 4-to-1 ratio, 66%-17%. Four in 10 call the proposed sale “a major threat” to U.S. security. They also express broader concerns about seaports. While two-thirds say security at airports has gotten better since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, just 29% say that about ports. Seven in 10 say it would be “easy” for terrorists to smuggle in weapons through ports.

The furor has cost Bush dearly, says political scientist Charles Franklin of the University of Wisconsin. “The issue of security and terrorism was supposed to be the strength that drives Republican victories and generally has been the strongest suit of the president,” he says. “Now they don't have a strong suit to play.”

Republican National Committee spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt counters with typical Bush Adminstration propaganda, stating that President Bush's “number one priority continues to be the security of the American people.”

By 3 to 1, Americans say the port deal has sparked controversy because it's not in the best interest of the country, not because of discrimination against Arabs. Even so, 51% say the United States should trust friendly Arab and Muslim countries less than other allies.

Among other findings:

• Bush's job-approval rating is 38%, 1 percentage point above the lowest rating of his tenure. The proportion who strongly approve of him has fallen to 20%, the lowest ever. The proportion that strongly disapproves has risen to 44%, the highest ever. (Related: Complete poll results)

• The president's approval rating on terrorism is 47%, down 7 points in a month and a record low.

• The Republican Party's advantage over Democrats on terrorism has narrowed to 45%-40%.

And Vice President Cheney, the center of controversy last month when he shot a hunting companion? Cheney's approval rating — 40% — beats his boss's.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

South Dakota Abortion Bill Takes Aim at 'Roe'

2006-02-23T18:48:00.000-05:00

The war begins.

According to an article in the Washington Post by Evelyn Nieves, which I quote almost entirely in the following paragraphs, South Dakota lawmakers yesterday approved the nation's most far-reaching ban on abortion, setting the stage for new legal challenges that its supporters say they hope lead to an overturning of Roe v. Wade.

I quote;

The measure, which passed the state Senate 23 to 12, makes it a felony for doctors to perform any abortion, except to save the life of a pregnant woman. The proposal still must be signed by Gov. Mike Rounds (R), who opposes abortion.

The bill was designed to challenge the Supreme Court's ruling in Roe, which in 1973 recognized a right of women to terminate pregnancies. Its sponsors want to force a reexamination of the ruling by the court, which now includes two justices appointed by President Bush.

“The momentum for a change in the national policy on abortion is going to come in the not-too-distant future,” said Rep. Roger W. Hunt, a Republican who sponsored the bill. To his delight, abortion opponents succeeded in defeating all amendments designed to mitigate the ban, including exceptions in the case of rape or incest or the health of the woman. Hunt said that such “special circumstances” would have diluted the bill and its impact on the national scene.

Kate Looby, director of Planned Parenthood of South Dakota, which plans to immediately challenge the ban, said that while she was not surprised, she was still a “little shocked” by the vote. “Clearly, this is a devastating day for the women of South Dakota,” she said. “We fully expected this, yet it's still distressing to know that this legislative body cares so little about women, about families, about women who are victims of rape or incest.”

National abortion rights organizations said the South Dakota vote has set the stage for a new fight to keep abortion legal at the federal level and in the states. “When you see them have a ban that does not include exceptions for rape or incest or the health of the mother, you understand that elections do matter,” said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. “We will be very active in '06 and in '08 in electing candidates that represent the views of most Americans.”

The antiabortion movement has focused primarily in recent years on a state-by-state effort to enact restrictions on access to abortion, including pushes for parental-notification laws and waiting periods before the procedure may be performed. A 1992 Supreme Court decision again affirmed a right to abortion in a Pennsylvania case, known as Planned Parenthood v. Casey, that said states cannot put an “undue burden” on women getting access to abortions.

Not all antiabortion groups agreed with the South Dakota supporters' effort to directly challenge Roe.

“If you're just reading the law as it stands now, South Dakota's law doesn't really stand any chance under Roe or Casey. I have to agree with those who think it's remote,” said Chuck Donovan, executive vice president of the Family Research Council and a former lobbyist for the National Right to Life Committee.

He said there is not a consensus for a national approach to finding a way to overturn Roe. “There are lots of voices out there and nobody has a single strategy, so South Dakota has stepped in to fill that void,” Donovan said.

Still, some abortion opponents are more confident than they have ever been that Roe could be overturned with two new conservative members of the high court, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. Roberts has not publicly expressed his view on abortion rights. Alito opposed Roe as a young Reagan administration lawyer and had a mixed record on abortion rights while a federal appeals court judge.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether a federal law banning a procedure that opponents call “partial birth” abortion is constitutional. The law passed Congress in 2003 but has been struck down by three federal appeals courts and has yet to take effect.

South Dakota is the first but not the only state to consider new abortion restrictions this year. Ohio, Indiana, Georgia, Tennessee and Kentucky have introduced similar measures.

Rounds has indicated that he would sign the South Dakota measure if it does not jeopardize existing abortion restrictions while the legislation is challenged. In 2004, he vetoed a similar bill because of concerns that abortion restrictions would be eliminated during legal wrangling. Hunt said his bill has addressed the governor's concerns.

Hunt has also said that when the inevitable challenge to the ban is filed in court, the ban's supporters will be prepared for a costly court fight with $1 million already pledged by “an anonymous donor.”

Even without this latest ban, South Dakota was already one of the most difficult states in the country in which to get an abortion, those on both sides of the issue say. It is one of three states with only one abortion provider (Mississippi and North Dakota are the others), and its one clinic, the Planned Parenthood clinic in Sioux Falls, offers the procedure only once a week. Four doctors who fly in from Minnesota on a rotating basis perform the abortions, since no doctor in South Dakota will do so because of the heavy stigma attached.

About 800 abortions are performed each year in South Dakota, which has a population of 770,000 spread out over 77,000 square miles. Last year, South Dakota passed five laws to restrict abortions, including one that would compel doctors to tell women that they would be ending the life of a “whole, separate, unique human being.” That law has been blocked by a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood.

Welcome to the new world. Get used to it.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

References

- Roe v. Wade

President Bush Denies Knowing What He Was Defending

2006-02-23T17:57:00.000-05:00

Okay, so either President Bush is insane or he and his Administration believe that the American people are not just stupid, but have short memories. According to an article in the New York Daily News, President Bush is now saying that he had no clue his administration was signing off on a deal to grant control of six American ports to Dubai.

Whut?

Isn't this the same man who of late has been strongly defending the very same deal? A deal that will let a government-owned United Arab Emirates company,
Dubai Ports World, run six major U.S. seaports? Hasn't he been telling reporters that he will veto any bill that tries to hold up the agreement? He's threatening to veto any effort to stop the deal that he now says he knows nothing about?

“He learned about it in the last few days,” said White House spokesman Scott McClellan, adding that none of the 12 federal agencies that reviewed the deal balked. “There was no objection raised by any of the departments during the review process, or any concerns expressed about potential national security threats. And that's why it didn't rise to the presidential level,” McClellan said.

If it didn't rise to the presidential level, why has President Bush been so angry about it? Wouldn't he do his usual shell-game and peddle this off, saying that it needs to be looked into? No. He's been very forceful in supporting this deal.

The White House clearly doesn't get it. Their foremost concern has been in covering their asses. They've learned enough to think that if they come out and pretend to accept responsibility for the controversy, they'll get good points with the high-steppers in the Republican rank and file.

Aides admitted they should have tried to head off a potential firestorm by briefing key members of Congress to explain that intelligence and counterterrorism officials screened the company and that the United Arab Emirates now plays a role in anti-terror efforts.

But it's not working. Many Republicans concerned with winning reelection in November said the White House is politically out of touch.

“They're off their rocker,” said one, adding that the GOP rank and file were seizing the opening to separate themselves from the President.

Rep. Sue Myrick (R-N.C.) wrote the White House; “In regards to selling American ports to the Arab Emirates, not just ‘No’ but ‘Hell no!’”

The Conservative talking heads are even turning against the President.

Cal Thomas of Tribune Media Services (TMS) said in his column: “There have been some dumb decisions since the United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001.” The United Arab Emirates, wrote Thomas, was “used as a financial and operational base by some of the 9/11 hijackers,” was “an important transfer point for shipments of smuggled nuclear components bound for Iran, North Korea, and Libya,” and was ”one of only three countries to recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan's legitimate government before the U.S. invasion toppled it.”

Joseph Farah, the nutjob behind WorldNetDaily, wrote: “I don't know what's crazier and more politically inept -- the original decision to contract the management of six major U.S. ports ... or the White House's continued defense of the idea in the face of overwhelming criticism. You tell me: Is Bush tone deaf or brain dead?”

Most of the rest of us have been asking ourselves that same question since President Bush was annointed King by the Supreme Court in 2000.

- Watch Alert archived post

References

- Bush Defends Port Sale, Threatens Veto
- Prez in dark on deal
- Conservative Columnists Rip Dubya Over Port Deal

- United Arab Emirates
- Dubai Ports World

White House Warned About Levees Before Katrina Struck

2006-02-10T21:00:00.000-05:00

In an article on Reuters by Richard Cowen, Americans have learned that there is a lot of truth behind the allegations that the White House had ample warning that Hurricane Katrina was going to cause substantial problems in New Orleans. President Bush and other White House officials have denied this.

I quote liberally from Mr. Cowen's article below.

Former federal disaster chief Michael Brown told a U.S. Senate panel on Friday he warned President George W. Bush of impending catastrophe in New Orleans last summer and informed White House aides of dangerous flooding shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck.

Brown said on August 29, the day the hurricane hit, he relayed urgent reports that the city's levee pumps were failing, contradicting White House officials who have said they were unaware on August 29 the levees were no longer functioning.

On September 1, Bush said in a television interview, “I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees.”

Yet Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the committee's ranking Democrat, cited a report from the National Weather Service at 9:14 a.m. on August 29 that at least one of the levees protecting the city was breached.

Brown, who headed the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said in his first detailed testimony about his contacts with Bush and top White House officials that he informed the White House that “we were realizing our worst nightmare.”

In addition to one or two direct talks with Bush before the storm, Brown said he talked with White House officials about 30 times once Katrina hit land. Those conversations included White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, Brown said, adding: “Sometimes the president would get on the phone.”

In his testimony, Brown said Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff's sprawling agency was making Katrina response decisions contrary to his own. “It became an absolutely unmanageable situation,” Brown said.

Brown emerged as the main scapegoat for the government's response. He was forced to resign shortly after the disaster.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

References

- Katrina Timeline

Libby: Bosses ordered leak about Iraq WMDs

2006-02-10T20:49:00.000-05:00

From an article written by Carol D. Leonnig in the Washington Post, we have this to chew on. Ex-Cheney aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby has testified that Vice-President Dick Cheney was one of the “superiors” behind the disclosures that led to the “outing” of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative.

Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, testified that his bosses instructed him to leak information to reporters from a high-level intelligence report that suggested Iraq was trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction, according to court records in the CIA leak case.

The disclosure in a legal document written by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald shows one way in which Vice-President Cheney was involved in responding to public allegations by Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, that the administration had exaggerated questionable intelligence to justify war with Iraq.

Libby was indicted in October on charges of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements in the course of the investigation.

Fitzgerald has been trying to determine since January 2004 whether administration officials knowingly disclosed Plame's identity to reporters to discredit Wilson's allegations, a possible violation of law. Plame's name first appeared in a syndicated column by Robert Novak in July 2003, eight days after her husband publicly accused the administration of relying on questionable information about Iraq's weapons program to justify the war.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Ex-official: White House Misused Iraq Intelligence

2006-02-10T20:39:00.000-05:00

According to an article on Reuters by David Morgan (whose article is quoted liberally below), Paul Pillar, a former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East during the Iraq invasion and who was national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, has accused the White House of misusing prewar intelligence to justify its case for war. He also has said that the Senate intelligence committee and a presidential commission overlooked evidence that the Bush administration politicized the intelligence process to support White House policymakers.

“Official intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs was flawed but even with its flaws, it was not what led to the war,” Pillar said in an article written for the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs. “If the entire body of official intelligence analysis on Iraq had a policy implication, it was to avoid war -- or, if war was going to be launched, to prepare for a messy aftermath.”

According to Pillar, a widely respected intelligence analyst who spent 28 years at the CIA, it has become clear since the 2003 invasion that the White House did not use official intelligence analysis in making even the most significant national security decisions.

Policymakers instead employed a “cherry-picking” approach that selected pieces of raw intelligence that seemed most favorable to its WMD claims and the charge of a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.

The White House ignored intelligence reports that said Iraq was not fertile ground for democracy and warned of a long, difficult turbulent post-invasion period that would require a Marshall Plan-type effort to restore the country's economy despite its abundant oil reserves.

Reports also predicted an occupying force would be a target of resentment and attacks including guerrilla warfare.

Pillar said the Bush administration politicized Iraq intelligence by repeatedly calling for more material that would contribute to its case for war, a tactic that he said skewed intelligence resources toward topics favoring the White House.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the WMD commission have both concluded in official reports that there was no evidence of White House political pressure.

“But the method of investigation used by the panels,” Pillar wrote, “essentially, asking analysts whether their arms had been twisted, would have caught only the crudest attempts at politicization.”

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Fourteen Defining Characteristics Of Fascism

2006-02-04T17:08:00.000-05:00

Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes.

Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism- The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

The above is a summery of the more detailed orignal article Fascism Anyone? first published in Spring 2003 edition of Free Inquiry.

- Watch Alert Archived Post

Is new AOL IM slogan marketing blasphemy?

2006-01-31T08:55:00.000-05:00

Well, if anyone doubted that the folks at WorldNetDaily were a bunch of idiots, I submit the following from their web site. Apparently America Online has adopted a new marketing slogan for it's Instant Messenger service, that uses the phrase “I Am” in various ways, such as “I am all you need to communicate.” Well, the nutjobs at WorldNetDaily have taken this and ran with it, contending that it infringes on God's trademarked phrase “I Am.” I'm sure that if that's the case, America Online will be hearing from God's lawyers. We all know how touchy He is about trademark and copyright infringement.

Sniff sniff. Anyone else smell a boycott coming on? Brace yourselves for a slew of e-mails from your well-meaning but clueless relatives about the evils of America Online, as well as the inevitable e-mail petition calling for a Christian boycott of the Evil Empire of America Online, imploring you to stand for what's right and fight back against the moral decay of the country and those wacky Liberals who want us all to marry goats and worship the dark lord Sauron.

Yes, my friends. There are idiots among us.

If nothing else, it will be interesting to watch the wailing and gnashing of teeth that will ensue. We don't care if the Republicans dismantle our American Democracy, but we'll stand up for this kind of crap, won't we? My God. What have we become?

Here are some excerpts from the WorldNetDaily article.

Is new AOL IM slogan marketing blasphemy?
‘I AM’ pitch takes God's name in vain, say some shocked critics

When Ian Millar opened up his AOL Instant Messenger program yesterday and linked to the new AIM Triton site, he wasn't prepared for what he saw.

”I have been an AIM customer for many years, and although I do not use AOL for my mail client, I have recommended it for relatives and friends,” he said in letter to top executives of the company. “In general, I appreciate AOL and your business savvy.”

But when Millar saw the company's new slogan, he was shocked and disgusted. He was not alone.

America Online is now acting like God – using what some consider to be His very name in a marketing pitch for e-mail, voice chat, video chat, instant messaging, text messaging and other forms of communication.

AIM's new slogan is “I AM.”

Just so no one would doubt the building / impending outrage, WorldNetDaily saw fit to put up a poll, asking its users what they thought. The results are telling, and rather frightening. Please note which selection got the most votes, as well as the phrasing of “The Marketing of Evil,” a clumsy tie-in to a book that WorldNetDaily has been pushing; The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised As Freedom. “The Marketing of Evil” has become something of a catch-phrase on WorldNetDaily's web site.

What do you think of blasphemy charge against AOL?

An example of ‘The Marketing of Evil’
26.39% (355)

It's ridiculous – the words 'I AM' is a commonly used English-language phrase
13.68% (184)

It's a deliberate effort to position the company in a God-like state
11.75% (158)

It's a mistake by AOL, but the company will not correct it
11.30% (152)

It's a mistake by AOL, and the company will likely correct it
10.71% (144)

It's a well-deserved charge, I'm kissing AOL good-bye
10.48% (141)

This is 'spiritual correctness' – and it's as bad as political correctness
8.25% (111)

Other
3.27% (44)

Some people are just hypersensitive
2.75% (37)

It's an innocent oversight by AOL
1.41% (19)

TOTAL VOTES: 1345

- Watch Alert Archived Post
- Original Article

Related Links

- WorldNetDaily Poll
- American Online
- AOL Instant Messenger
- WorldNetDaily

Conservatives See Court Shift as Culmination

2006-01-29T23:15:00.000-05:00

With the confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court virtually assured, it might behoove us to look back and some of the Conservative players who have brought about this extreme shift to the right in America in the Executive and Legislative, and now the Judicial, branches of our government. These are some of the people we will have to thank for what befalls this country in the next several years. These are the people who have worked so hard to wreak havoc with American democracy, and whose works have already and will in the future result in the damages that our children will spend decades repairing.

- Watch Alert Archived Post
- Original Article

Eminent domain activists try to evict a court justice

2006-01-22T11:45:00.000-05:00

One has to wonder why the Conservative talking heads and rank-and-file Republicans are so upset that a court justice should be held liable to the same laws as the average American. Long story short, Supreme Justice David Souter was one of the justices joined a 5-4 majority upholding the right of governments to appropriate private property for commercial development. Any commercial development. According to the legislation, if any real estate developer decides that your property is in a prime location and can convince local and state governments that the commercial development of your property is in the best interest of the community, the local and state governments can simply take your land and give it to the developer. You will have no rights whatsoever that can help you fight this.

Well, local residents in Weare, New Hampshire, where Justice Souter has a farmhouse, decided that Justice Souter's home could be developed in a way that would benefit the local community. In short, they're trying to hold Souter accountable to the same laws he helped put into place. After all, if John Smith can lose him home and property to enrich some clever real estate developer, why not Justice David Souter?

Naturally, this has played out along political lines, with the Republicans almost universally believing that it's just fine to make private companies rich at the expense of American citizens. But then, that's sort of their basic platform, isn't it?

- Watch Alert Archived Post
- Original Article

11 Indicted in 'Eco-Terrorism' Case

2006-01-21T11:36:00.000-05:00

This should worry all Americans. Whether or not you agree with the tactics of these nutjobs who are going out and causing all of this damage, I'm uncomfortable with the free use of the words “terrorist” and “terrorism” here. Apparently since the United States Government is making no progress (or real effort) in regard to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, they've decided to go after groups of domestic misfits and dub them “Eco-Terrorists.”

People such as the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front are self-righteous assholes who have committed criminal acts of sabotage and destruction, but does anyone really think they're in the same league as al-Qaeda? Maybe it is only a matter of time before their idiotic campaigns result in the injury of or death of a person, but I still have a hard time envisioning these people kidnapping and beheading social workers or employees of the companies they've been targeting.

All I'll say in conclusion is that we should worry when the Government starts referring to idiots such as the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front as terrorists. Keep in mind that under the Bush Administration Education Secretary Rod Paige called the National Education Association a terrorist organization. With that in mind, it's very clear that these eleven indictments show that the United States Government considers every American to be a potential terrorist.

- Watch Alert Archived Post
- Original Article

References:

- Paige calls NEA ‘terrorist organization’ (CNN)

Privacy experts condemn subpoena of Google

2006-01-20T11:26:00.000-05:00

President Bush's and the Republicans' war against the American people continues. Not only do they want to know what books you're checking out from the library and who you're talking to on the telephone, they want to know what you're searching for on the Internet, by way of Google and other search engines. They're using the issue of child pornography to justify this incredible breach of the public trust, and naturally the Conservative media talking heads are more upset with Google for having the information that with the President for trying to get his hands on it.

This may just be a smoke-screen. Republicans have essentially stated that these are the early shots in an effort to revive the Child Online Protection Act, a handy piece of over-reaching legislation that the Supreme Court threw out for being un-Constitutional. Now that the Republicans are on the verge of shifting the Supreme Court radically to the extreme right with the appointment of Samuel Alito, it's unlikely it would be tossed out again should it make it back into legislation.

Don't be mislead. The demands upon Google that have been made by the Bush Adminstration are indeed worrisome. But as with all things where Republicans are concerned, you have to dig a little deeper to discover what they're really up to. We shouldn't be as upset about Bush's disregard for the American privacy that we forget that what he and the Republicans might do with any information gained is far more troubling.

- Watch Alert Archived Post
- Original Article

Watch Alert Archive References:

Child Online Protection Act: The basics
(Nov 27, 2001)

Lawyer takes free-speech case to the top court
(Nov 27, 2001)

Mandate for Net filters debated
(Dec 31, 2000)

References:

- Children's Online Protection Act of 1998

Israel halts Christian center talks with Robertson

2006-01-12T19:35:00.000-05:00

The first word that came to my mind when I read the article I just posted to The Watch Alert archive regarding Pat Robertson was “dumbass.” Only Pat Robertson could so stupid and insensitive to bad-mouth a man (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon) who had recently had a massive stroke and was being kept in a coma by his doctors.

“God considers this land to be his,” Robertson said of Gaza. ““For any prime minister of Israel who decides he will carve it up and give it away, God said, ‘No, this is mine.’ I would say woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course.”

Spying on Americans. Still.

2006-01-01T12:44:00.000-05:00

I've posted 3 articles to the Watch Alert archive regarding the Bush Adminstration's spying scandal. These articles discuss different aspects of this issue, but are all inter-related by their subject matter.

Justice Deputy Resisted Parts of Spy Program - Apparently there were some good, decent people in the law enforcement community who had concerns about the legality of what the Bush Administration was doing.

Schumer Seeks Motive in U.S. Spy Probe - After the National Security Administration (NSA) ominously announced an investigation into who leaked the information about President Bush's authorization for the NSA's spying on American citizens, some people began to wonder if this was an intimidation tactic to quell others from coming forward.

US spies said to share eavesdropping data - Oh, yeah. It doesn't stop with the NSA. The information collected by the NSA on American citizens was shared with the Defense Intelligence Agency, among other agencies, and would be made available to the FBI,
DIA, CIA and Department of Homeland Security, for further investigation.

And in closing, I'd like to mention a solid reference from Media Matters. I've just listed the individual headings here, so I encourage you to read the entire article for details. Essentially, what follows is a list of the lies and spin that is being peddled around by the Republicans and by the Conservative media. If you want to hear this garbage, just switch channels to Fox News or tune your radio into any of the Conservative talk shows. This is what they're all saying.

Top 12 media myths and falsehoods on the Bush administration's spying scandal.

Timeliness necessitated bypassing the FISA court.

Congress was adequately informed of -- and approved -- the administration's actions.

Warrantless searches of Americans are legal under the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Clinton, Carter also authorized warrantless searches of U.S. citizens.

Only Democrats are concerned about the Bush administration's secret surveillance.

Debate is between those supporting civil liberties and those seeking to prevent terrorism.

Bin Laden phone leak demonstrates how leak of spy operation could damage national security.

Gorelick testimony proved Clinton asserted “the same authority” as Bush.

Aldrich Ames investigation is example of Clinton administration bypassing FISA regulations.

Clinton administration conducted domestic spying.

Moussaoui case proved that FISA probable-cause standard impedes terrorism probes.

A 2002 FISA review court opinion makes clear that Bush acted legally.

Christmas In The Trenches

2005-12-25T18:23:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Janis Page for bringing this to my attention. I hope those who can will go and listen to this song.

- Wicasta Lovelace

Christmas In The Trenches
By John McCutcheon

=======
On Christmas Day, 1914, in the first year of World War I, German, British, and French soldiers disobeyed their superiors and fraternized with “the enemy” along two-thirds of the Western Front. German troops held Christmas trees up out of the trenches with signs, “Merry Christmas.” “You no shoot, we no shoot.”

Thousands of troops streamed across a no-man's land strewn with rotting corpses. They sang Christmas carols, exchanged photographs of loved ones back home, shared rations, played football, even roasted some pigs.

Soldiers embraced men they had been trying to kill a few short hours before. They agreed to warn each other if the top brass forced them to fire their weapons, and to aim high. A shudder ran through the high command on either side. Here was disaster in the making: soldiers declaring their brotherhood with each other and refusing to fight.

Generals on both sides declared this spontaneous peacemaking to be treasonous and subject to court martial. By March, 1915 the fraternization movement had been eradicated and the killing machine put back in full operation. By the time of the armistice in 1918, fifteen million would be slaughtered.

Not many people have heard the story of the Christmas Truce. Military leaders have not gone out of their way to publicize it. On Christmas Day, 1988, a story in the Boston Globe mentioned that a local FM radio host played “Christmas in the Trenches,” a ballad about the Christmas Truce, several times and was startled by the effect. The song became the most requested recording during the holidays in Boston on several FM stations.

“Even more startling than the number of requests I get is the reaction to the ballad afterward by callers who hadn't heard it before,” said the radio host. “They telephone me deeply moved, sometimes in tears, asking, ‘What the hell did I just hear?’”

I think I know why the callers were in tears. The Christmas Truce story goes against most of what we have been taught about people. It gives us a glimpse of the world as we wish it could be and says, “This really happened once.” It reminds us of those thoughts we keep hidden away, out of range of the TV and newspaper stories that tell us how trivial and mean human life is. It is like hearing that our deepest wishes really are true: the world really could be different.

Excerpted from David G. Stratman, We CAN Change the World: The Real Meaning of Everyday Life (New Democracy Books, 1991). Available for $3.00 from New Democracy Books, P.O. Box 427 , Boston , MA 02130 .

-------
Christmas In The Trenches

Words & Music
By John McCutcheon

My name is Francis Tolliver, I come from Liverpool.Two years ago the war was waiting for me after school. To Belgium and to Flanders, to Germany to here I fought for King and country I love dear.

'Twas Christmas in the trenches, where the frost so bitter hung,The frozen fields of France were still, no Christmas song was sung Our families back in England were toasting us that day. Their brave and glorious lads so far away.

I was lying with my messmate on the cold and rocky ground. When across the lines of battle came a most peculiar sound Says I, “Now listen up, me boys!” each soldier strained to hear As one young German voice sang out so clear.

“He's singing bloody well, you know!” my partner says to me. Soon, one by one, each German voice joined in harmony. The cannons rested silent, the gas clouds rolled no more as Christmas brought us respite from the war.

As soon as they were finished and a reverent pause was spent “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” struck up some lads from Kent the next they sang was “Stille Nacht.” “Tis ‘Silent Night’,” says I And in two tongues one song filled up that sky.

“There's someone coming toward us!” the front line sentry cried all sights were fixed on one long figure trudging from their side his truce flag, like a Christmas star, shown on that plain so bright as he, bravely, strode unarmed into the night.

Soon one by one on either side walked into No Man's Land with neither gun nor bayonet we met there hand to hand we shared some secret brandy and we wished each other well and in a flare-lit soccer game we gave 'em hell.

We traded chocolates, cigarettes, and photographs from home these sons and fathers far away from families of their own yung Sanders played his squeezebox and they had a violin this curious and unlikely band of men.

Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once more whith sad farewells we each prepared to settle back to war but the question haunted every heart that lived that wonderous night “Whose family have I fixed within my sights?”

'Twas Christmas in the trenches where the frost, so bitter hung the frozen fields of France were warmed as songs of peace were sung for the walls they'd kept between us to exact the work of war had been crumbled and were gone forevermore.

My name is Francis Tolliver, in Liverpool I dwell each Christmas come since World War I, I've learned its lessons well that the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame and on each end of the rifle we're the same.

Click here to download this song from iTunes

©1984 John McCutcheon/Appalsongs (ASCAP)

Nuclear search targets Muslims

2005-12-25T15:27:00.000-05:00

Bush & Company have tried hard to shred the Constitution and most specifically the Bill of Rights. Thus far they've been unable to do so. Here I submit for your perusal more evidence of the Republican's war against the American people.

- Wicasta Lovelace

December 24, 2005
BY NIRAJ WARIKOO

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Federal agents secretly monitored Muslim homes and mosques in Detroit for radiation linked to terrorist bombs, according to published reports -- a disclosure Friday that prompted disbelief and outrage in Michigan's large Islamic communities.

Under the program, agents with the FBI and U.S. Department of Energy targeted a range of private Muslim institutions without court approval or warrants. Federal officials say they set up the program in Detroit and five other cities to thwart a nuclear attack from Islamic extremists, according to a U.S. News and World Report article that was confirmed Friday by the U.S. Justice Department.

( Links to complete article below )

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Merry Merry & Happy Happy

2005-12-25T14:40:00.000-05:00

It's mildly ironic that on Christmas Day I can find little joyous news to pass on the members of The Watch mailing list. That's the way it goes when the Grinch is in charge, I guess. I haven't come across a lot of people who have the Christmas spirit this year. There are a lot of reasons.

Many people have bought into the Conservative propaganda campaign regarding the mythical “War on Christmas” and feel like they're under siege by some ghostly force. I've heard people say “no one's going to tell me I can't say ‘Merry Christmas!’” but when you asked them who has told them that they can't, there's never anyone that they can point to. I can only imagine what a damper this would be on someone's general good will if they thought someone was trying to stamp out their Christmas traditions. I think perhaps the “War on Christmas” crowd's scheming has backfired this year. Rather than rallying support for the Conservatives and the Republicans as it has in past years, now it has largely demoralized a large part of the American public.

President Bush has added to this, as well. A lot of Conservatives have stopped just short of proclaiming him Christ and celebrating the return of the Saviour. Of late, of course, George W. Bush has proven that he's anything but the spiritual leader they've built him up to be. Very little of what Bush stands for can be supported by the Christian Bible, and in fact Jesus Christ's own words contradict the agenda of Bush and the Republicans. So when Americans watch as their president is caught in scandal after scandal, supporting the use of terror, spying on American citizens, pushing for the expansion of the Patriot Act to allow for even more spying on American citizens, defending legislation that would allow his rich buddies in the oil industry to rape the Arctic National Refuge in Alaska, and lately being caught spying specifically on Muslims mosques in the United States, is is any real wonder why even the Bush faithful are feeling like they've lost their way?

In spite of the best efforts of the Bush Administration and the Republicans, I have tried hard to feel some small part of the Christmas spirit this year. No one has told me that I can't say Merry Christmas, even though Bill O'Reilly and his ilk insist that those people are out there. In fact, these idiots seem to assume that the only people who use the phrase “Merry Christmas” are Christian Republicans. I could just say Republicans, because most of them believe that a true Christian could be nothing other than a Republican. If you are a Democrat or a member of one of the lesser political parties, you have rejected the basic tenets of the Christian faith. I suppose you're supposed to be the ones who are trying to stop everyone else from saying “Merry Christmas.”

The only end to all this that I can see if that the Neo-Conservatives are trying to recast Christmas itself as a Conservative religious observation that is not open to the rest of the country. That would make sense when one considers that for most Neo-Conservatives, politics is their religion. Maybe we've made them feel left out because for the majority of Americans celebrating Christmas doesn't include strapping on our jackboots and marching off to some lively Conservative tune seeking to oppress the beliefs and opinions of our neighbors. I'm sorry, guys. I watched a lot of war movies when I was growing up. What the Neo-Conservatives are up to doesn't remind me of the Allies fighting for all that is good and right in World War II. In fact, if you look at their use of propaganda, they have many similarities to the opposite side of that conflict. But I suppose the unblinking quest for power pretty much looks the same no matter how you dress it up or how many good, decent people you fool in the process.

I've been making a point of saying “Merry Christmas” to people this year. Put simply, I refuse to allow the Conservatives to claim that I, who am an American who strongly disagrees with nearly everything they stand for, am an enemy of Christians by claiming that people like me are the ones who are waging some phantasmic war on the Christmas holiday; a holiday which I've celebrated since I was a child, and which my family has continued to celebrate in spite of the fact that I broke with the traditional Christian religion decades ago.

My objections to the Neo-Conservative agenda has nothing to do with Christmas. As much as they might like to portray this as religious differences, my objections to their insanity come from the life and teachings of the person they claim to worhip and follow. Since I can see little, if any, evidence of the teachings of Jesus Christ in the works of the Neo-Conservatives, the Republicans or the Religious Right, how dare these people proclaim themselves the moral guardians of Christmas?

Christmas is supposed to be a time when we can all come together. It's a season and a holiday which brings to most minds warm memories of family and expressions of love. To that end I want to wish everyone on this list a Merry Christmas. I don't care if you believe in Jesus Christ. I don't care if you celebrate Christmas. It's a nice sentiment. You should just accept well-wishes for what they are, and not get hung up on the specific wording. Take it however you want to. Merry Christmas. Happy Yule. Bright Yuletide Blessings. Happy Kwanzza. Happy Hannukah. In short, have a Merry Merry and a Happy Happy!

If anyone has been offended by this post, well, get over it. Whether you celebrate the birth of the Christian Saviour Jesus Christ or you just like to get together and hang out with your family, let's stop the bickering for one day at least. Believe me, there will be plenty to worry about tomorrow.

To all on this list, I wish you Bright Blessings. Walk in light and peace. Be happy.

- Wicasta Lovelace

Bush Vs. America

2005-12-23T16:56:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking all week about what I wanted to write about President Bush and his current crop of problems. Quite frankly, Bush has found himself in such hot water so often that I've hardly known where to begin. Needless to say, it hasn't been a good couple of weeks for the President. He's been caught spying on the American public. He's had to reverse his position on the use of torture by American forces and support the McCain Detainee Amendment (which would essentially ban the use to torture techniques by American forces). His bid to allow his rich buddies in the oil industry to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska has been thwarted (for now). The Patriot Act, which is largely what Bush has used to justify his actions as the new American king, has not been universally accepted and has not been renewed to the extent that Bush was pushing for. Iraq remains his uniquely deserved albatross.

One would like to believe that Americans are waking up to the reality of who and what our President is. Personally, I don't think so. Bush has made a lot of mistakes in the past year, and a lot of stuff has come back to haunt him, but he has another three years to cover his ass. That's more than enough time to sweep some things under the rug. For one thing, he has a large Conservative media machine in place to support him and his policies (Fox News, Conservative talk-radio, etc), which not only preaches to the converted but has managed to intimidate the mainstream media into under-reporting our imperious leader's covert war on the American people. The Democrats are throwing around the word "impeachment," but few believe that's ever going to happen. Republicans may be increasingly frustrated with President Bush and they may be balking at some of the things they might have previously gone along with, but they're not going to let their boy be impeached.

So. Where to begin? What to report? Geez. There's so much. It makes on wonder. What does this guy have to do before avenging angels descend from the heavens and pluck him off of the planet for the general good of humanity? Satan is laughing his ass off. He couldn't have engineered a better plague on mankind than George W. Bush and the Neo-Conservative arm of the Republican Party. The hilarious part for the Prince of Darkness (and by this I mean Satan, not Ozzy), is that we did this to ourselves. Not only that, but some Americans are still standing up there waving their flags and saying "Thank you, sir. May I have another?"

Well, since I don't know where to start, I'm going to list some references that everyone needs to go look over. Suffice it to say that at least some of the Bush Administration's chickens have come home to roost. Hopefully this time they won't be able to deep-fry them and serve them back to the American public as wholesome American cuisine. But then again President Bush's poll numbers are beginning to rise again, up somewhat from record lows. You really can fool some people all of the time.

- McCain Detainee Amendment

- Arctic National Wildlife Refuge Stays Wild

- The Curious Section 126 of the Patriot Act

- Iraq Coalition Casualties

- Senators seek Bush Administration spying probe

- Bush ratings recover from record low approval

- Bush's Hypocrisy, Radical Holiness and Woody Guthrie

- Watch Alert archived post

Business As Usual at the Heritage Foundation

2005-12-11T20:23:00.000-05:00

I just finished posting some responses to comments I've received over something I wrote about MyHeritage.org, the new propaganda outlet from the Heritage Foundation. The Watch was mentioned on the MyHeritage web site, so a lot of the drones felt obligated to tell me how stupid I am.

One guy said that it reveals a lot about the Heritage Foundation (there supposed integrity, I think he meant) that they mentioned my web site and provided a link “so that we can go look for ourselves.” What he apparently missed was that the Heritage Foundation misrepresented what I said. I know. Who would have thunk it?

Here's what they said I said;

According to a website called “The Watch,” MyHeritage.org “has no place being listed alongside genuine news articles.” The article goes on to say that MyHeritage.org is symbolic of conservatism’s success in breaking into the media, adding that “I fear the battle may be lost” for liberalism.

Really? Sorry, you heifers. That's not what I said. Here's some clarification;

I said; “The Heritage Foundation is not a news organization at all, regardless of how they might spin their image with the MyHeritage web site. Their passionate spin has no place being listed alongside genuine news articles.”

I never said that MyHeritage.org is symbolic of conservatism's success. What I said was; “What worries me is that the Neo-Cons have been so successful at concealing their over-all agenda from mainstream scrutiny that their opinion pieces are showing up alongside genuine news articles.”

And as for the last line, if your read it in context it plays out a little differently; “When I see Heritage Foundation propaganda listed alongside genuine news articles on a mainstream news web site, I fear the battle may be lost.”

Notice I didn't say that the battle may be lost for liberalism. My intent was to imply that the battle may be lost for Democracy. If the Neo-Conservatives win this battle, the democracy that Americans enjoy will be a thing of the past.

Anyway, the guy was right. It certainly was revealing of their character the way the Heritage Foundation referenced my web site. I got the same treatment everyone else does. Spin, spin, spin. Misrepresentation followed by propaganda. If the truth doesn't sustain your agenda, how valid can your precepts really be?

- Watch Alert archived post

Related Links

- MyHeritage E-Mail Archive
- The Watch Post In Question

What War on Christmas?

2005-12-10T22:57:00.000-05:00

I just had my annual spat with my mother over the whole Christian versus non-Christian thing. Whereas I think that all Americans should be afforded the same basic respect and inclusiveness when it comes to holiday celebrations, my mother reminds me that things were different when she was a girl.

Well, I stumbled across an article that pretty much sums things up. It addresses the non-issue that Conservatives have dubbed “The War on Christmas,” which they trot out annually to frighten Christians into thinking they're not going to be allowed to celebrate Christmas. I imagine I'll be forwarding this article to my mother. Hopefully she will understand a bit of what I've been trying to say. This is a non-issue. It's smoke and mirrors and fear-mongering.

Personally, I would prefer to think that Christians are smarter than that.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Related Links

- How the secular humanist grinch didn't steal Christmas

- Anti-Semitism, U.N.-Bashing Color History of “War on Christmas” Conspiracy

- Bill O'Reilly and his "War on Christmas"

Opinion Vs. News At Google News

2005-12-04T11:01:00.000-05:00

Scanning the listings on the Google News page this morning, I was surprised to see an article titled “Dispelling the Myths About Iraq:” by the Heritage Foundation. For those who might not know, the Heritage Foundation is a Conservative “think tank” that exists solely to push the Neo-Conservative agenda. They're shills for the Republican Party and the Bush Administration, and can be relied upon for a steady stream of propaganda and spin.

So why was this article on Google News at all? It is not news. It's an opinion piece intended to serve as a Neo-Conservative rebuttal to the assertions of many that the Iraq war is a mess of epic proportions. It's Neo-Con propaganda. It addresses statements made by the same old tired list of “Liberal enemies” of Conservatives. Ted Kennedy. John Kerry. Howard Dean. Etc. And, of course, it starts out by addressing the recent statements made by their newest enemy John Murtha.

The inclusion of this article on the main page of Google News makes me wonder if the Heritage Foundation's efforts to push farther into the mainstream are being successful. Previously no one really listened to them other than Right-Wingers anyway. Now I'm not so sure. For one thing, they've recently established a web site which is cloaked in the standard Neo-Con mis-use of popular phrasing. It's called My Heritage, and is packaged as the Heritage Foundation's version of a news web site.

The “articles,” on this web site are not news articles at all, but opinion pieces that push Republican talking points, garnered from Conservative sources such as the National Review. Examples are; De-bunking myths about Wal-Mart. Socialism from the WHO. Will America have borders again? Included as well is a section title Myth Busters, which is used to dispel “Liberal myths.”

My point is that The Heritage Foundation is not a news organization at all, regardless of how they might spin their image with the MyHeritage web site. Their passionate spin has no place being listed alongside genuine news articles. The fact that they have been, and others like them have been, should worry any American who values the notion of impartiality in news reporting. This organization and everything it publishes is intended solely to push the Neo-Conservative agenda in the “culture wars” that the Neo-Cons are waging against the American people and American Democracy.

The Heritage Foundation is the last place that should be listed as a news source on a mainstream web site such as Google News. My contention here is certainly not that Google News has a Conservative agenda. Far from it. What worries me is that the Neo-Cons have been so successful at concealing their over-all agenda from mainstream scrutiny that their opinion pieces are showing up alongside genuine news articles. The Neo-Con agenda is proving so successful that mainstream organizations such as Google News are having a hard time telling what is genuine news and what is spin.

The Neo-Cons have been that successful. They've pushed the myth that the average American is a staunch conservative and popularized the notion that anyone who disagrees with them is not just a Liberal but a flower-wielding hippie leftover from the sixties drug culture. The Bush Administration used the same tactic by demonizing anyone who disagrees with them, questioning the critics' patriotism and dismissing them outright as part of “the Michael Moore camp.”

I suppose in the end the Neo-Cons are right about one thing. America is certainly engaged in a “culture war.” But the primary thing which most Americans don't understand about that is that this war was started by the Neo-Conservatives, and has been spearheaded by organizations such as The Heritage Foundation. In short, the United States is facing a political invasion. President Bush's 2000 election was a bloodless coup orchestrated by the Neo-Conservatives. At that point the average American was behind enemy lines. The effectiveness of the Neo-Cons is that they've managed to blind the average American from realizing that.

This is one of the things that The Watch was established to warn people about. Way back in the late 1990's, when so many voices belittled our “paranoia” in our warnings about the Religious Right and the push of the Conservative agenda, we alerted our members of the activities of organizations such as The Heritage Foundation. Now, so many years later, those belittling voices have fallen silent. In fact, the new reality is far worse than anyone imagined.

When I see Heritage Foundation propaganda listed alongside genuine news articles on a mainstream news web site, I fear the battle may be lost.

Wicasta Lovelace
The Watch

- Watch Alert archived post

Related Links
- Heritage Foundation
- My Heritage
- Google News

The Lunatics Run The Asylum

2005-11-28T06:27:00.000-05:00

How odd it seems to be scanning the news and find that Right-Wing propaganda has been published by Yahoo! News. Now, perhaps I'm a bit behind the times, but I was of the opinion that news sources such as Yahoo! and Google News are in the habit of posting links to other news sources, but didn't take a specific stand on issues themselves. I wasn't aware that Yahoo! had decided that its organization was in the business of shaping public opinion, much less that they had moved decisively to the right.

The title of the article was “Anti-Bush Reporting Ignores Larger Issues at Stake” and was written by a Conservative named John Leo. It reads like a press release from the Republican Party, replete with all of their tired old talking points about the media. Cindy Sheehan was created by the media and she hates America. By reporting on the milestone of 2,000 American soldiers killed in the Iraq fighting, the media proved its liberal bias. Reporting on President Bush's never-ending gaffs is mean-spirited and is trying to shed a great man in a bad light. Discussing whether or not the Bush Adminstration lied to the American public in its rush to war is apparently un-American. Criticizing a junior Republican senator who had never served in the military for inferring that a decorated Vietnam veteran was a coward for asking President Bush to set a date for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq is just plain wrong. On and on and on.

I would expect to read this kind of tripe on NewsMax, WorldNetDaily or TownHall. I was quite surprised to find out that this was on Yahoo! News. It was not just a link to another news source, but had been published on the Internet by Yahoo! itself. This probably says more than I could ever say about how dangerously close the United States is skating to the thin ice of total Right-Wing domination. It has definitely ended what little remained of my respect for Yahoo! as an organization.

Perhaps my point can be made better by quotes from the article;

“She [Cindy Sheehan] is a loony Michael Moore clone, protected by the media's ‘bereaved mom’ image.”

“58,000 died in Vietnam and almost 7,000 in a single World War II battle, Iwo Jima, all without front-page anti-war articles posing as compassionate news stories.”

“Can it be that many national reporters are so afflicted by Bush hatred that they can't let go long enough to report stories straight?”

“Or take Rep. Jean Schmidt's ‘coward’ outburst about Rep. John Murtha. Her statement was well over the top. But it was followed by typical media overkill.”

Each and every item mentioned in the article has been distorted. Jean Schmidt's speech inferring that John Murtha was a coward was not a calculated statement, but “an outburst.” The resolution for immediate withdrawal of American troops from Iraq that was forced to a vote by the Republicans was not a bone-headed, simplified version of what Murtha had demanded (a political maneuver forced to a vote in order to back Democrats into a corner so that they would have to vote against bringing the troops home), but the Republicans giving Democrats what they wanted. It's not important that over 2,000 American soldiers have died in Iraq, because far more died in Vietnam and World War II, and reporting on it shows Liberal media bias. Yada yada yada.

There is one common theme in Right-Wing reporting. They all talk about the same thing, and they all do that in the same way. Reality doesn't enter into it here. “Perceived reality” is what the Republicans deal in. That, of course, is another word for opinion. If the Right-Wing believes that it is wrong to criticize President Bush for leading the nation to war based on mere supposition, then only a Liberal would criticize the President. Or, in short, if you disagree with the Right-Wing, then you're a Liberal. That's the gist of it. That is at the heart of this article. Anyone who disagrees with the writer's politics is a Liberal and is biased. Somehow the writer isn't aware of his own Conservative bias.

In my opinion, Conservatism is an infectious disease that is spreading across this country. Finding a clutch of such decidedly Right-Wing propaganda on Yahoo! News proves that. The United States is in a dangerous situation here in which we have a lot in common with pre-World War II Germany; the political party in charge of the country has undue influence over the media and is aggressively pushing its agenda. Am I saying that Republicans are Nazis? No. Of course not. But they're using similar tactics. Remember. The Nazis didn't directly control the media. But it was made very clear that supporting the agenda of the Nazi Party was in the best corporate interests of Germany's newspapers, as well as the interests of other industries. I doubt that in the early stages any German could have foreseen where such abuse would lead. All one needs do to find the parallels in the American political landscape is review the career and tactics of former Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay.

We are on dangerous ground here. I just realized that Yahoo! is my enemy. I'll add them to an ever-growing list. Hopefully the Republicans will not soon be victorious in suppressing the exercise of democracy that our forefathers fought so hard to establish, and for which they paid a dear price. If they are, one of the greatest experiments in human history will have been for naught. Here I speak of the establishment of American Democracy. If it fades and descends into the darkness of Repubican fascism and one-party control, then one bright, shining moment of the human race will recede into the shadow of memory and myth.

We will all lose.

- Watch Alert archived post

Related Links
- John Leo
- Tom DeLay
- Anti-Bush Reporting Ignores Larger Issues at Stake

The Phony War Against the Critics

2005-11-25T04:06:00.000-05:00

I just came across an excellent article on The Washington Post web site. Essentially the article addresses the Bush Administration's bizarre and frightening campaign to label anyone who disagrees with President Bush as someone who is un-American, potentially treasonous, and aiding and abetting terrorists.

I quote;

“One might also argue,” Vice President Cheney said in a speech on Monday, “that untruthful charges against the commander in chief have an insidious effect on the war effort.” That would certainly be an ugly and demagogic argument, were one to make it. After all, if untruthful charges against the president hurt the war effort (by undermining public support and soldiers' morale), then those charges will hurt the war effort even more if they happen to be true. So one would be saying in effect that any criticism of the president is essentially treason.

Lest one fear that he might be saying that, Cheney immediately added, “I'm unwilling to say that” -- “that” being what he had just said. He generously granted critics the right to criticize (as did the president this week). Then he resumed hurling adjectives like an ape hurling coconuts at unwanted visitors. “Dishonest.” “Reprehensible.” “Corrupt.” “Shameless.” President Bush and others joined in, all morally outraged that anyone would accuse the administration of misleading us into war by faking a belief that Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear and/or chemical and biological weapons.

Click here for full article.

Well, one might also argue that President Bush stole the 2000 election by being annointed and appointed by his rich Conservative buddies on the Supreme Court.

I'm unwilling to say that.

One might also argue that it undermines our military to cut combat pay, troop benefits, veterans benefits, etc. while our troops are still on the ground in a war zone.

I'm unwilling to say that.

Such language is a convenient way to say the nasty things one wants to say in a political situation and yet still retain the delusionary belief that this isn't exactly what you said. It's a convenient shelter for cowards. Given the fact that hardly anyone in the Bush Administration saw military service, it's easy to understand why it's their favorite tactic.

We are governed by school-yard bullies. Just like every other bully I've ever met, our President and Vice-President are tough as nails until someone calls them on their bullshit, and then suddenly they're whining and crying about how unfair they're being treated.

Or as I've said my whole life, every asshole thinks everyone else in the world is an asshole. They do no wrong, but are victims of cruelest fate. Somehow with this Administration, it's far worse to suggest that they have done the things that they've clearly done, and said the things that they're on record as saying, and made the mistakes that even their staunchest supporters are beginning to acknowledge. In short, by asking them to step up and act like adults, they have no other choice but to throw a temper-tantrum.

We should all be ashamed for asking the Bush Administration to explain itself. That makes us all a bunch of meanies.

- Watch Alert archived post

Professor Calls for the Extermination of White People

2005-10-22T11:13:00.000-04:00

Kamau Kambon, a visiting professor at the University of North Carolina, recently made a statement calling for the extermination of white people. I've been somewhat surprised that this hasn't received more coverage. It would seem that anyone standing up before an audience on the campus of a major university and calling for the extermination of a group of people might be a newsworthy subject. I assume it's because the mainstream media is afraid to approach this because of the contention by people like Louis Farrakhan and Spike Lee that black people cannot be racists, and therefore even alleging that some are is, in itself, the act of racist oppressors.

Well, I think I can settle this simply. Long ago I realized that a very simple process could determine if something is hate-speech. Just switch a few words around. If something a black man says about a white man does not sound like hate, just imagine the same words coming from a white man in regard to a black man. With that in mind, let's examine what Mr. Kambon said.

“Now how do I know that the white people know that we are going to come up with a solution to the problem? I know it because they have retina scans, racial profiling, DNA banks, and they’re monitoring our people to try to prevent the one person from coming up with the one idea. And the one idea is, how we are going to exterminate white people because that in my estimation is the only conclusion I have come to. We have to exterminate white people off the face of the planet to solve the problem. [tepid applause] Now I don’t care whether you clap or not but I’m saying to you that we need to solve this problem because they are going to kill us. And I will leave on that. So we just have to set up our own system and stop playing and get very serious and not get diverted from coming up with a solution to the problem and the problem on the planet is white people.”

Doesn't sound so bad, does it? Well, they guy sounds like a nut, but few people are going to be seriously offended by this. They'll dismiss it and move on. But what if it had been for Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke delivering those words? Let's see how that would sound.

“Now how do I know that the black people know that we are going to come up with a solution to the problem? I know it because they have retina scans, racial profiling, DNA banks, and they’re monitoring our people to try to prevent the one person from coming up with the one idea. And the one idea is, how we are going to exterminate black people because that in my estimation is the only conclusion I have come to. We have to exterminate black people off the face of the planet to solve the problem. [tepid applause] Now I don’t care whether you clap or not but I’m saying to you that we need to solve this problem because they are going to kill us. And I will leave on that. So we just have to set up our own system and stop playing and get very serious and not get diverted from coming up with a solution to the problem and the problem on the planet is black people.”

Sounds a bit different now, doesn't it?

If you're wondering why I even mention this, consider that at the heart of the Nation of Islam, and groups such as the 5% Network, are religious beliefs that contend that white people weare created by an evil scientist named Yakub with the intent of oppressing and supplanting God's original black man. The people who believe this type of thing are as dangerous as the Pat Robertsons and James Dobsons of the world. The biggest difference is that they can stand up in front of an audience on the campus of a major university and make incredible statements like the one posted above, and do so without fear of repercussions.

The face of the American Taliban has many guises. We need to keep an eye on people like Kamau Kambon as much as we do people like Pat Robertson. They are cut from the same cloth.

- Watch Alert archived post

Related Links
- http://www.blacknificent.com/

Extremists Deem Katrina Punishment By God

2005-09-04T12:49:00.000-04:00

I've been sickened by the number of people who have seized upon the disaster wrought by Hurricane Katrina to support their particular hatred. Christian Fundamentalists and Muslim Extremists alike have found ways to blame their particular grievances on the “wickedness” of New Orleans. So far the only group that has been spared has been African Americans, who have not thus far been blamed as the cause for Hurrican Katrina by the Ku Klux Klan (although there have been some rumblings that the extent of the looting is because New Orleans is predominantly black).

Gays were the first to blamed for the apparent Divine Judgement wrought upon New Orleans.

“...this act of God destroyed a wicked city,” said Repent America director Michael Marcavage on the Repent America Web site. “From Girls Gone Wild to Southern Decadence, New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. May it never be the same.”

“...we believe that God is in control of the weather. The day Bourbon Street and the French Quarter was flooded was the day that 125,000 homosexuals were going to be celebrating sin in the streets. We're calling it an act of God.”

According to Franklin Graham, son of famous Evangelist Billy Graham, “This happens in our country when we have taken God out of our schools and God out of our, out of society. We don't have a moral standard.”

Marie Jon', Conservative commentator, says; “Open your eyes and see that lawlessness and neglect comes from a nation that has pushed the almighty aside and told it's people that the Ten Commandments are really a relic and a man made myth!”

That's just the tip of the iceberg in the blame game that is currently being directed at Gays. The gist of the Christan Conservative and Evangelical argument is based upon the usual distortion of facts. Basically, God destroyed New orleans because it was about to host a Gay event called Southern Decadence. They also claim that the hurricane struck on the day of the event.

The facts (and points):

1) The hurricane struck on Monday, August 29. This year's Southern Decadence, sometimes called the “Gay Mardi Gras,” was scheduled to open on the 31st, and continue through September 4th. The storm obviously did not strike on “the day” of the celebration. Many, perhaps most, of the revelers had not even arrived yet.

2) Southern Decadence is a 35-year-old tradition in New Orleans. Why did God choose to wait till 2005 to “punish” the city for it?

3) Why is the French Quarter, the district where the event (now canceled) was to be held, one of the least devastated parts of the city so far?

4) If this tragedy occurred because God is angry at New Orleans, what was the point of the awful devastation and loss of life wrought in Mississippi and Alabama?

Gays are not the only group of people who have been blamed for Katrina, however. Abortionists have been singled out, as well.

“In my belief, God judged New Orleans for the sin of shedding innocent blood through abortion,” said Steve Lefemine, director of anti-abortion group Columbia Christians for Life, who apparently discerned an image of a fetus in satellite photographs of the storm. He e-mailed the flesh-toned weather map to fellow activists across the country and put a stark message on the answering machine of his organization. “Providence punishes national sins by national calamities,” it said. “Greater divine judgment is coming upon America unless we repent of the national sin of abortion.”

Also blamed was America's support of Isreal's withdrawal from the Gaza strip.

“Whenever this country encourages Israel to give up any part of their rightful God-given land we have suffered the consequences,” wrote a discussion-board participant on the Web site of the Christian Broadcasting Network.

Not be left out, Muslim exremists have jumped on the bandwagon.

“It is almost certain that this is a wind of torment and evil that Allah has sent to this American empire,” a Kuwaiti official, Muhammad Yousef Mlaifi, wrote Wednesday in the Arabic daily Al-Siyassa under the headline “The Terrorist Katrina is One of the Soldiers of Allah ... ”

I'm disgusted by all of it. This to me is nothing more than the verbal equivalent of the rapes, murders and lootings that have been going on in New Orleans. When a group of Americans are on their knees and at their most desperate, it is our duty as human beings (first and foremost) and as Americans to reach out to our brethren and do everything possible to help them to get back on their feet again. It is not the time to build the strength and momentum of your agenda upon the bodies of the dead that still float in the waters in New Orleans, upon the life-long scars inflicted by the victims of rapes, and upon the memories of those who have died at the hands of the lawless.

When I heard of the things that have been happening in New Orleans (the looting, rapes and murders), my first thought was that human beings are animals, and in the absence of the force of law man will resort to his natural state. In my opinion these people who are using this incredible disaster to support their political viewpoints are no better than the man who raped and murdered a young girl in a bathroom in the New Orleans Superdome.

The difference is that a crowd of people found that man and they beat him to death for what he had done. I fear that no retribution will be forthcoming with the filth who use this tragedy for their own purposes. In fact, their arguments seem to carry weight with an uncomfortably high number of Americans.

I will close with a quote from an article that, for me, sums up what this tragedy is all about. I hope that in some small way this might create an image for you that might contradict what I posted above, and will be the single image that you carry away with you concerning Hurricane Katrina.

“And then there is the TV reporter who met a distraught man in the aftermath of the storm. He told her how his house had broken in two. How he tried to hold onto his wife as the storm and the water raged. How she told him, ‘You can't hold me’ and asked him to take care of the kids and the grandkids. How he lost his grip and she was swept away.

“The man was crying as he told the story and it seemed as if the reporter was weeping, too. For the record, he was black and she was white and I wouldn't be surprised if there were also other differences between them. But in that moment, they were just two human beings met at an intersection of inconsolable loss.

“There are times when nothing else matters.”

Amen.

- Watch Alert archived post

Evolution debate spawns a saucy monster

2005-08-28T11:19:00.000-04:00

I just posted an article to the archives which I think everyone should look into. Essentially a challenge to the Religious Right idea of teaching “Intelligent Design” in schools has arisen in the form of the followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Pastafarians, as they call themselves, believe that the Universe was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and that their beliefs are every bit as relevant as those of Christianity. Therefore, they believe by extension that their beliefs as just as much right be taught in school alongside Christianity.

It will, no doubt, be interesting to see how this ongoing debate unfolds.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Related Links
- Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

The Demonization of Cindy Sheehan

2005-08-21T13:41:00.000-04:00

I've been watching with some dismay as the mainstream media in the United States has started to fall in line with the Right-Wing politicos in condemning Cindy Sheehan. They don't do it as blatantly. Often they don't criticize her at all, but simply report on the criticism by including quotes from the Right without balancing quotes from the so-called Left. In other words, it's the old “we're just reporting what people are saying” without the understanding that reporting only one side of any issue is, in itself, bias.

I've read many stories in which Cindy Sheehan's comments have been taken completely out of context. For instance, she seems to be quoted a lot with saying “America Not Worth Dying For.” Oddly enough you can only seem to find that quote on Conservative web sites. What she actually said was “This country is not worth dying for,” and the country she was referring to was Iraq, not the United States. Iraq is not worth dying for. Context is everything.

The Right has a favorite word, which is “Borking.” They typically use it as a verb whenever a political nomination is being opposed by the Democrats. They say someone is “being Borked” (a reference to the fight over Reagan's appointment of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court). Well, it looks like a new verb is surfacing which the Left is using to some degree. “Swift Boating.” That new verb describes an effort to discredit someone with lies and misinformation (a reference to the “Swift Boat Veterans” attempt to discredit presidential candidate John Kerry).

That's what is happening to Cindy Sheehan. The Right-Wing policital and media machines have cranked up to fever-pitch in an effort to portray Cindy Sheehan as some irrational, politically motivated opportunist who is building some sort of celebrity career upon the dead body of her son, Casey (who died in Iraq, if you don't know). The attacks have been particularly vicious. Especially from the Right-Wing talking heads on the radio and television talk shows.

What worries me is that the mainstream media is picking up on it.

For once I'm going to limit my ranting here. There are a lot of great articles out there that need to be read, which go into these details much better than I ever could. But if you want to see my main point, simply go to the main news pages on Google or Yahoo!. Look at the headlines concerning Cindy Sheehan. For one thing, you won't find her under any human interest categories. She's now firmly ensconced in the politics section.

Anyway, here are some articles of interest;

The Swift Boating of Cindy Sheehan

What would satisfy Sheehan?

‘Peace Mom's’ marriage a metaphor for Dems

Bush supporters create opposing camp

Conservatives, others in the media launch smear campaign against Cindy Sheehan

Limbaugh, Coulter, Liddy, Hitchens, Barone continue attacks on Cindy Sheehan

Finding Cindy Sheehan

If you read any of these articles, please note how particularly nasty the Right-leaning articles are. None of them specifically discuss Cindy Sheehan's positions, but instead spend most of their time talking about how her efforts are undermining “our war in Iraq” and damaging “the morale of our troops.” Simply put, by voicing opposition at all she is proving herself to be unpatriotic, un-American, extremist, un-hinged, etcetera, etcetera.

I think this issue surprised everyone on the Right. They truly expected that the standard media spin would suffice in distracting the American public, as it always has before. Most Conservatives chalked up the interest in Cindy Sheehan as simply a slow news period. In other words, if anything else had been going on, no one would have noticed Ms. Sheehan's protest in Crawford. They may be right about that, actually. But I think the truer statement would be to say that had anything else been going on the mainstream media could have been intimidated into looking for the easier story.

More than anything, it's interesting that Cindy Sheehan has become such a focal point. Obviously a lot more people had strong feelings about the Iraq war and the possible illegality of it than the Bush Administration and Conservatives thought. Just because President Bush and the Right have managed to intimidate the mainstream media into under-reporting opposition to Administration policies and the War in Iraq does not mean that such opposition does not exist. In regard to Cindy Sheehan the standard spin has not worked very well thus far. But I worry that it's beginning to work now that Right-Wing media outlets are getting up to speed. If Cindy Sheehan can be discredited and swept under the rug with the amount of media coverage that she's garnered thus far, then we are truly doomed.

- Watch Alert archived post

Justice Sunday II Rally Targets Arrogant Judiciary

2005-08-15T07:53:00.000-04:00

The schizophrenia of the Christian Right continues to rage unchecked and untreated. This is evidence by the fact that the key speaker for a rally which they called “Justice Sunday II” was House Majority Leader Tom DeLay; a man who has been charged with numerous ethics violations and has only avoided probable prison time because the Republicans have blocked every investigation, replaced members of investigation committees with people more sympathetic to DeLay and outright changed the rules of the House of Representatives so that DeLay could remain in office while under investigation. So much for justice.

Dr. James Dobson and other Religious Right leaders apparently believe that the Judiciary should only be independent in regard to supporting their agenda. What Dobson and other extremist Christian leaders are calling for is a well-heeled Judiciary that will support whatever far-Right legislation politicians like Tom DeLay force through Congress. That such legislation should face scrutiny for compatability with the United States Constitution is an abhorrent idea to people like James Dobson.

Dobson and his ilk love to quote Founding Fathers such as Thomas Jefferson when they can twist his words to their advantage, and yet anyone who has read Jefferson's words in their correct context knows that people like Dobson were feared by Jefferson, and that Jefferson warned us of their influence. Dobson and other Religious Right leaders love to invoke the image of the Founding Fathers, claiming that our Government has strayed from their original intentions, when any impartial scholar would have to note that if we have indeed strayed from the intentions of the Founding Fathers, it has been in a decided and frightening shift to the Right.

I refuse to believe that an educated man like Dr. James Dobson truly does not understand how our Democracy was intended to work. Whether or not Dobson likes the rulings of the Judiciary, and especially the Supreme Court, it was intended as a check against possible abuse of Congressional power. That is its function, to determine that Congress, in its bid to please its highest paying contributors and settle political debts with people like Dobson and his Focus on the Family, does not install legislation that cannot pass Constitutional muster.

Make no mistake. “Justice Sunday II” has nothing whatsoever to do with justice. This rally is all about convincing the American public that the next appointee to the Supreme Court should be a Right-Wing wacko like James Dobson, that the court does not lean far enough to the right already. We're talking about a court which has already appointed a President (Bush in 2000) in defiance of the will of the American people and the due process of law (Al Gore was legally entitled to demand a recount of the entire state of Florida; a recount that was stopped by the Supreme Court).

These people talk a lot about justice, but only appear to recognize it as concessions to their will. If ever there were enemies to our Democracy, the people in the pulpit at Two Rivers Baptist Church are the enemies of the United States of America. Why do I say this? Only our enemies would work so tirelessly to overturn the very Democracy that our Founding Fathers worked so hard and spilled their blood for.

“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.” -Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.

“In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.” -Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

For religious issues, devil's in the details

2005-08-13T14:35:00.000-04:00

In the early days of The Watch and the Watch Alert archive, a lot of people were confused about our mission. We posted a lot of information on Pagan issues, and so many people thought we were simply a Pagan forum. I suppose that might be true if one believes, as I do, that Pagans have just as much of a right to their beliefs as anyone else.

However, the reasoning behind posting so many articles and notes about Pagans had more to do with politics than with religion. Simply put, the people who stand the most to lose at the hands of the Religious Right and Christian Extremists are Pagans. Who do you think Christians see most specifically as one of their enemies? Pagans go right to the front of the list because most Christians see Pagans as Devil-worshippers.

While all Americans will suffer under the roll-back of Democracy that will occur under the steel-gloved hand of an American Taliban, Pagans will be the first to suffer because they are seen largely as a standing enemy. Therefore, I have always felt that Pagans especially should keep up with their politics and be aware of everything that's going on around them.

I posted a story to the Watch Alert Archive about Wiccans and other Pagans being denied their rights of representation in their local governments. It makes for an interesting read, and is just the sort of story I think all Americans, not just Pagans, need to be aware of. For whatever reason, the Pagans get left out of every conversation when people start talking about oppression. It is never mentioned that when Jerry Falwell tried to lay blame on non-Christians for provoking God to allow the terrorist attacks on 9/11, the first group of people he mentioned was Pagans. Some of the first people the Nazis started rounding up in the early days of World War II were the Pagans, in the form of Gypsies.

Pagans must be aware of local, state and Federal level politics, because whether they like it or not they are in the forefront. If by some bizarre twist armed conflict should come to the streets of American cities between Christians and other groups, Pagans would be among the first targets. All Pagans should keep this in mind.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Mother's War Protest Gaining Momentum In Crawford

2005-08-11T10:19:00.000-04:00

I just posted an article to The Watch Alert archive concerning Cindy Sheehan. I've been watching Cindy Sheehan's protest outside of President Bush's ranch in Texas with great interest. This article finally compelled me to comment on this.

So far Sheehan's protest has been informative concerning the dynamic of American culture and politics. For instance, every statement by the Bush Administration in regard to Ms. Sheehan has been hyperbole, followed by cliche'd statements about how her son died for a noble cause and the American public should support its troops. The exact same message is parroted in the Right-leaning press. In the mainstream press, in every article I've read that has tried to include a counterpoint to Ms. Sheehan's views, the counterpoint has always come from some Right-Wing think-tank spouting typical party-line claptrap about how Ms. Sheehan is undermining our efforts in Iraq and either directly or indirectly asserting that this means she does not support the troops. The so-called Left, of course, thinks Cindy Sheehan is great.

Here's what I think.

The Right spins everything regarding Cindy Sheehan back to the same tired argument; those who disagree with or protest against the war in Iraq are unpatriotic and are not supporting our troops. It's all spin, of course. I truly cannot believe that they really, honestly imagine that you can't be against the military action our troops are ordered to carry out without being against the troops themselves. They try to make their political base believe that people are practically spitting on returning troops like some people did during the Vietnam War (to my knowledge, nothing of the sort has happened).

But Cindy Sheehan is not protesting against our troops. She's protesting against the war itself. Her son, Casey, died in Iraq; not because he believed in the conflict, but because he believed in fulfilling his duty, and he did so at the cost of his life. To date no one has been able to fully explain to the American public why soldiers like Casey are in Iraq in the first place. And don't throw that crap in my face about Saddam being a bad man. There are a lot of bad men in the world, and the morally superior Right never once asked that the United States military stop the slaughter of civilians in Rwanda or the Durfur region. In fact, when the Serbs were attempting genocide against Muslims in Bosnia, the Right uniformly chanted “No war for Monica!” when President Clinton took action to intervene. I can only guess that Bosnia didn't have enough oil for the Republicans' supporters to think it was justified. That hypocrisy continues to this day. Mugabe, anyone?

I realize that it seems that I'm getting off-track here, but I'm not. This stuff is all tangled up together. This myth that you can't be against a war without being against the troops themselves is one of the reasons The Right hates Cindy Sheehan so. You can take the vilest human being in the world and stand him up in front of the population for them to spit upon him and they will do so, but if you wrap him in an American flag it's suddenly anti-patriotic to suggest that this same guy is anything less than good and moral.

That's what they've done with this war; they've wrapped it up in the American flag. So that's the lense they see Cindy Sheehan through. She's not against something or someone that's wrong. She's against the United States, its troops and our very democracy because The Right has wrapped the Iraq war tightly in the American flag and dared anyone to be critical of it. In the scary black and white world of the Republican Neo-Con, Army Spc. Casey Sheehan supported President Bush because he went to Iraq as ordered; Cindy Sheehan did not support her son, Casey, because she did not blindly support the President as she was supposed to.

The irony of this entire situation is that it is probably President Bush himself who finally pushed Cindy Sheehan into being an anti-war activist. In her first meeting with Bush, in which she was part of a group of mothers who were allowed to meet with the President, Bush would not look at pictures Casey. When she tried to talk about Casey on a personal level, Bush would deflect her and change the dialogue. He also wouldn't refer to Casey by name, instead repeatedly referring to him as “your loved one,” and apparently he didn't know whether Casey was male or female.

Now, I don't expect the President of the United States to remember the names and sexes of every soldier killed in combat, but President Bush showed no interest whatsoever in Casey Sheehan while standing before his grieving mother; a mother grieving a son who died in a conflict that Bush himself initiated, which facts have born out was based on lies, misinformation and the Administration's eagerness to fix facts to suit their own agenda.

It breaks my heart as an American to see how Cindy Sheehan is being demonized in the Right-Wing press, that our country and our democracy has devolved to a point where these worthless dogs run wild in the proverbial streets. All I keep thinking about is something someone asked about the Bush family; if the war in Iraq is such a noble and holy cause, why aren't President Bush's daughters, Jenna and Barbara, in uniform? One has to wonder how many of the Right-Wing talking heads like Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh have children in Iraq. I imagine the number is pitifully low. As such, I believe that Cindy Sheehan has more of a right to speak on the issue than any of them.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Related Links
- Army Spc. Casey Sheehan
(Note: Non-political. This a memorial page on the Fallen Heroes of Operation Iraqi Freedom web site. This web site is for remembering fallen soldiers only. It is not a political forum.)

Media Coverage from The Left

The Smearing of Cindy Sheehan
“Republicans are now accusing Cindy Sheehan of being motivated by ‘hate’ and ‘anger’ for wanting the war in Iraq to end.”
@ WebCommentary

AUDIO: O’Reilly and Malkin Smear Cindy Sheehan
“If you don’t like what the mother of a fallen soldier has to say, what do you do? Smear her!”
@ Think Progress

Cindy Sheehan Draws Tears of Support in Crawford
“She will not leave until they put her in jail, until she sees the President, or until he leaves Crawford for the summer.”
@ OpEdNews

Cindy Sheehan "changed her story on Bush"?
“Tracking a lie through the conservative media”
@ Media Matters for America

Media Coverage from The Right

Cindy Sheehan: The Grieving Activist
“Cindy Sheehan’s son fought under our Commander-in-Chief. Cindy Sheehan fights against him.”
@ Men's New Daily

If Cindy and Akbar Could Meet
“...both are on either side of a debate on how much sacrifice should be made to bring democracy to the Middle East.”
@ Christian Science Monitor

Cindy Sheehan: Media Glorifies a Radical
“Now, angry, Bush-hating Cindy Sheehan...is being celebrated again as she sits outside Bush's Texas ranch.”
@ National Ledger

Robert Novak Cracking Under Pressure?

2005-08-05T17:40:00.000-04:00

A lot of people were surprised by columnist Robert Novak's recent hissy fit on CNN's Inside Politics, where he said, on air, “That's bulls**t” and walked off the set. Some people were not surprised. Novak is been under a lot of pressure because his Conservative buddy Karl Rove has been taking a lot of flack since he's been revealed as the leak who named Valerie Plame as an undercover CIA operative. With two journalists in trouble because they refused to reveal their source (one for a story that was never actually written), eyes have continued to return to Novak, who was the first person to reveal Plame's status in the CIA.

Novak has thus far refused to talk about it, has not named his source, and has generally left people to wondering what he knew, when he know it, and who gave him his information. Most importantly it's left a lot of people wondering why, if one journalist is already in jail over the Valerie Plame issue, Novak has skated free of any legal troubles.

Ed Henry had planned to ask Novak about the CIA leak case on "Inside Politics" and had informed Novak of that fact. Could Novak finally be cracking from the pressure of protecting his Karl Rove? Has the time finally come for Robert Novak to pay a price for revealing the identity of an undercover CIA operative? And does, perhaps, know it full well?

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Bush Wants Intelligent Design Taught In Schools

2005-08-03T10:53:00.000-04:00

It should surprise no one that President Bush would like to see Creationism, which of late has been disguised as a “scientific theory” called Intelligent Design, taught in schools as an alternative to Darwinism. One hallmark of Fundamentalist thought is a basic misunderstanding of the word “theory” in regard to science. They regard a scientific theory, such as Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution, to be merely an opinion. The Theory of Evolution is simply Darwin's opinion, his theory, on the development of species. Hence, their own opinion, Intelligent Design, is just as valid of a theory, right?

It's difficult to explain to people who think like this that a scientific theory, while not inherently “provable” in the sense that one can find absolute proof about every aspect of it, is not just some guy thinking up an idea and everyone else going along with it. While there often can be no absolute proof of a scientific theory, every theory is held to a pretty rigid standard, and is only accepted after a lot of examination and observation. In other words, the theory becomes an accepted idea when it is shown to be largely valid by scientific evidence and long-term study of real-world conditions to support it. So the reason Darwin's Theory of Evolution is so widely accepted is that scientists have found a lot of evidence to support it.

Intelligent Design represents a matter of opinion and a matter of faith. It is creationsim in a new package. As long as there is not sufficient scientific evidence to support the idea, I firmly believe that it should be taught in churches and not in schools. There is nothing whatsoever wrong in believing that God created the Universe and all things in it. But that is a religious belief, not a scientifically valid theory. People should not confuse the two.

However, installing Intelligent Design in the schools as an alternative to the Theory of Evolution would certainly fit in with the overall mind-set of the Bush Administration. Thus far they have had very little regard with facts, truth or reality. What we have had since 2000 is a faith-based White House, where their faith in their own ideas has trodden reality time and time again. It certainly isn't a big stretch of the imagination for President Bush to believe that Intelligent Design should trump scientific theory. After all, science is for atheists, right?

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Related Links
- Evolution is a Fact and a Theory
- Intelligent Design Network

Bush Installs Bolton

2005-08-01T18:42:00.000-04:00

I don't think many people are surprised that President Bush used a recess appointment to install John Bolton into his position as ambassador to the United Nations. As many people have noted, Bolton has been a key player in the Conservative assault against the American people. The Republicans have been looking for a position for him within the Administration for some time. This also represents an opportunity for the Administration to score major points with the Conservative Right, by apparently installing someone who Conservatives expect to take the battle to the U.N. All you have to do is travel the country and see the billboards shouting “Get us out of the United Nations!” to understand who this appointment is intended to appease.

Hopefully Mr. Bolton will not embarass the United States too greatly on the world stage. For my own part, I believe he will. I believe that is his intended function. While this Administration and the Right-Wing of the Republican party continues its war against the American people, the Constitution, and, well, Democracy in general, the three-wing circus that will be John Bolton at the United Nations will provide a convenient distraction. And while the Republicans are cutting funding for nearly every social program while awarding their rich buddies in corporations all across America unheard-of contracts, the media will be attentively watching John Bolton's Conservative lap dance.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Michael Moore Film Fest Draws Competition

2005-07-09T13:56:00.000-04:00

This got my attention because of the quote from the founder of the Traverse Bay Freedom Film Festival. She said; "People are fed up and tired with the extreme left-wing radical fringe -- America haters, family haters, Christian haters." Apparently this woman is so consumed by her hatred of Michael Moore and Democrats that she failed to notice that Michael Moore's film festival is just that; a film festival. It's not a collection of political films, but rather a showing of films such as “Jaws” and “Casablanca.”

Believing they are countering Liberal propaganda a conservative group from Texas is putting together a Conservative film festival. Who knew that “Jaws” was Liberal propaganda and extreme left-wing fare? I really need to watch that film again. I think I missed something the first time around.

These people are so rediculous that they scheduled their festival to open a day earlier than Moore's and to close a day later. That's so childish that it would be funny; except, well, it's not.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Related Links
- Traverse City Fim Festival

Whatever Happened to Principles?

2005-07-06T10:49:00.000-04:00

I just posted an article to The Watch Alert archive. It talks about the Valerie Plame issue, and the reporters who are being hung out to dry over the leaking of her name. For those who don't know, Valerie Plame is the wife of former ambassador Joe Wilson, who ran afoul of the Bush Administration by contradicting the White House contention that Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase “yellow cake” from Niger. Shortly afterwards someone in the White House identified Wilson's wife as an undercover CIA operative; a “dirty trick” with Karl Rove's fingerprints all over it.

Long story short, this as yet un-named person in the White House revealed Plame's name and CIA status to Robert Novak, who first reported it in his column. And yet somehow no one in the White House is in trouble, Novak is not in trouble, but two journalists who are only remotely connected to this story are being crucified by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who only seems interested in nailing someone for the crime, guilty or not.

Time magazine then complicated the matter when, after the two journalists had fought revealing their sources for almost two years, Time decided to reveal the sources that Fitzgerald has been seeking; although Fitzgerald already knows who the White House source was and only wants to nail someone somewhere.

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article

Sandra Day O'Connor Throws Us to the Wolves

2005-07-01T15:40:00.000-04:00

I was somewhat surprised that I didn't hyperventilate when I heard that Justice Sandra Day O'Connor had resigned from her seat on the Supreme Court. You might say that this is the beginning of the end of our Civil and Religious freedoms in the United States. But however strongly we might feel about the dangers that this resignation forbodes, we all knew that this day was bound to come. If not at the hands of O'Conner, then with Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. O'Conner made good on her old threat, that she had no intention of leaving the Supreme Court under a Democratic President.

I don't know where to begin to talk about the dangers here. We have a President who is arguably a Right-Wing Christian Fundamentalist who has no respect for the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or the Rule of Law. At his disposal is a Republican controlled Senate and a Republican controlled House of Representatives, both of which have been eager to support him on practically every issue. Some would say he has a Republican controlled Supreme Court. The Conservatives on the Supreme Court certainly handed him the election in 2000, appointing George W. Bush to be President in defiance of the norm of Due Process (by stopping the ballot recount that was not only legally justified, but expected by nearly every clear-headed thinker).

However, in the Republicans' war against the American people, we have repeatedly been saved from insane legislation and pending law by the conscience of some of the dissenting Conservatives on the bench. By this, I mean people like Sandra Day O'Connor. Without her voice to balance out the neo-Conservative agenda, I shudder to think about what's going to happen next. Given Bush's predilection for appointing Right-Wing nutjobs to the lower courts, it's hard to imagine him appointing anything less to the Supreme Court. Whoever gets appointed will allow Bush to elevate the King of Right-Wing nutjobs, Antonin Scalia, to Chief Justice. Don't count on William H. Rehnquist being around much longer. Yes, I know he's far from a moderate, but compared to Antonin Scalia he looks like one.

We are now on the slippery slope. Buckle up and try to enjoy the ride. Perhaps we should all try to make peace with the fact that, wherever we wind up, democracy as we have known it for the 224 years prior to the 2000 elections is a thing of the past. Our democracy is about to become a historical footnote; a grand experiement that, in the end, was undone by the base greed of mankind and the treachery of the Republican Party.

I would expect that the American people would be up in arms. But I've long since given up on Americans. It has taken me a very long time to admit to myself that perhaps I and my parents held Americans to an unreasonable standard. Simply put, I've always expected more of Americans than Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Yet according to the Conservatives, those horrors are no big deal. I encourage everyone to visit the links I just provided. This is what the future of the United States of America looks like.

Sandra Day O'Connor has, indeed, thrown us to the wolves.

Commandment Displays Allowed on Some Government Property

2005-06-27T17:27:00.000-04:00

Well, here we go again. Given that the politicians have re-visited the flag burning issue, it was only a matter of time until the issue of the 10 Commandments on Government property came front and center again. Christian Conservatives are determined that they can pretend that non-Christians do not exist in the United States, and they believe that if they can display Christian imagery on public property that they can support this effort with the tacit approval of Federal, states and local governments. In other words, they can't make non-Christians go away, but they can sure pretend that they don't exist. And by using Government property for overtly religious displays, they can send the message that non-Christians need not apply in the United States. This is based on the misguided belief that prior to some mystical date in the early 20th Century there was no one other than Christians in this country.

Unfortunately, this recent decision by the Supreme Court is technically and legally correct. Within the context of a historical display, the 10 Commandments might be seen as being entirely proper. Let's face it, folks, the 10 Commandments are part of the basis for our moral code in the United States, and as such it's proper within a historical context. The problem is that a lot of Christian Conservatives have discovered this, and are still placing the 10 Commandments within a religious context, using other historical documents and items to justify it legally. They've found a work-around. It's likely that this recent Supreme Court ruling, while technically and legally correct, is just a way for the Conservatives to say "Look, here's the way to do it."

I'm sure that in the future you'll be seeing the 10 Commandments a lot more often on Governmeny property, alongside enough historical content to justify it. The Conservatives on the Supreme Court have delivered this method to their supporters on a silver platter. And quite frankly, there isn't a thing anyone can do about it.

- Watch Alert Archived Post
- Original Article
Required Reading
- The Bill of Rights

Wiccan Father Still Fights for Parental Rights

2005-06-26T16:58:00.000-04:00

I just posted an article to The Watch Alert archive about the Wiccan parents in Indianapolis (Thomas E. Jones Jr., pictured, and Tammie U. Bristol) who, as a part of their divorce decree, were prohibited by a judge from involving their son in their religion. I am incensed by this. This action is being quietly approved of by a lot of people who know nothing of the Wiccan religion. However, had this happened to a Christian family in Afghanistan the Conservative and Christian media would be all over it, using terminology such as "Christian persecution." I'm sorry, folks. You can have it both ways. If it would be a moral crime if it happened to a Christian family at the hands of Muslims in Afghanistan, then it's a moral crime that it happened to a Wiccan family at the hands of Christians in the United States.

Here's the logic of the court; according to Beverly Phillips, spokeswoman for Superior Court of Marion County, "This is not an attack on Wicca or the First Amendment. The judge and commissioner support the constitutional guarantee concerning freedom of religion. But this case is not just about freedom of religion. It's about the court's obligation to protect minor children from certain rituals that might be harmful to their well-being, whether or not those things are affiliated with a religion."

What? You're kidding me! "Certain rituals?" Which rituals would that be? Well, no one is saying it out loud, but we all know the answer to that question. She's talking, of course, about the ritual of killing animals and drinking their blood. She's talking about ritualized child abuse. She's talking about the potential for human sacrifice. Oh, come on. You all know what I'm talking about.

The problem is, these very dangerous stereotypes have nothing whatsoever to do with Wicca. You want to know what danger that child is in by having Wiccan parents? He might be taught to respect the Earth and all living things. He might be taught that anything he does, whether good or bad, will come back to him three times over. He might be taught that God or The Divine (or whatever term you would like to use) is not found in the stuffy halls of some church, but that God is everywhere and is in everything. He may be taught that to talk to God he doesn't have to check first with some priest or preacher to make sure he's doing it right.

Wow. That sounds really dangerous to me.

Christians should be up in arms about this, because the implication that the courts can decide the religious beliefs of our children is a violation of basic, fundamental American principles. If Christians remain silent this time because the rights being violated here are those of a Wiccan family, then they will have no right to complain later on when a court decides that some denomination of the Christian faith is unexceptable to mainstream America.

- Watch Alert Archived Post
- Original Article
Required Reading
- Malleus Maleficarum

Reality Sets In For Marijuana Advocates

2005-06-25T14:34:00.000-04:00

The Federal Government's war against the American people stumbled into the mainstream press of late. Well, that was the intention, of course. The DEA went after some of the pot clubs in California that provided medical marijuana for patients (the clubs are legal in California, but are illegal according to Federal law). This, of course, was the DEA's way of making a statement. From a law enforcement standpoint, there are much more dangerous people that the DEA could be going after. But this, of course, is a quick and easy PR score.

It may be quite likely that criminal enterprises are involved in these clubs. After all, for someone to sell marijuana, it has to be grown somewhere by someone. Should it be any surprise that criminals would get involved in this? That's not the issue here. That's not what I'm talking about. What concerns me here is that the DEA, which is understaffed and underfunded for the job they've been given, is more concerned with making a big public relations splash that doing something about the problem of drugs in this country. What else can they do, really?

To put this in the proper perspective, consider this;

United States Attorney Kevin V. Ryan said the timing of the investigation, called Operation Urban Harvest, had nothing to do with a ruling by the United States Supreme Court two weeks ago that upheld the authority of federal officials over marijuana, even in the states where it is permitted for medical purposes.

Another of those frequent coincidences that happen in the Government?

"We're not talking about ill people who may be using marijuana," Mr. Ryan said. "We're talking about a criminal enterprise engaged in the widespread distribution of large amounts - millions of dollars, if you base it on historical evidence - of marijuana and other drugs, and money laundering their proceeds from these activities."

Hmmm. Well, that sounds impressive. Until you consider that according to the Federal Government, if you use marijuana at all you're a criminal engaged in criminal activities. If you sell marijuana and buy a gallon a milk from a convenience store with your profits, you have just laundered money. If you are arrested for possessing a half of an ounce of marijuana, that's enough to be charged with intent to sell and you can be prosecuted just as if you flew in a kilo on a private jet.

Now, before anyone gets themselves into an uproar, I'm not saying that there was no criminal activity here. I don't know all the specifics of this case. All I'm saying is that it has all the earmarks of a typical DEA public relations score. Consider the Joe Friday, tough guy rhetoric in this statement;

"This organization had been operating for over four years," Javier F. Peña, the special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration in San Francisco, said at a news conference. "It is now dismantled."

We're the DEA. We're tough. We're effective. You're protected.

I feel so much safer.

Related Links:

- Watch Alert archived post
- Original Article
- U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency

Flag Burning Amendment Should Be A Non-Issue

2005-06-24T23:44:00.000-04:00

I haven't addressed this issue lately, and some people have been wondering why. Well, it wasn't because I didn't catch it. Quite frankly, I've been waiting to see how it went. For those who don't know, it went badly. The House of Representatives approved a Constitutional Amendment to ban burning the American flag. This will send the issue to the Senate. And if the Senate approves it, then it will go to the States for ratification.

This scares the hell out of me.

Does it not seem that the only right that Republicans believe in is the right to bear arms? My, God. I realize that July 4th is coming up and ever two-bit Congressman worth his weight is going to be wrapping himself in the flag, but isn't this over-doing it a bit? A Constitutional Amendment? What the hell is wrong with these people? You can't find Osama. Americans can't afford health care. Our jobs are going overseas. The Bush Administration is slashing funding for just about every social program in the country. And this is all you guys can come up with? Flag burning?

I'm still looking around, trying to figure out which of my fellow citizens are the closet flag burners. We know that there must be a group of people somewhere who get together late on Saturday evenings in some sleepy little town in Connecticut to burn the American flag for the dark Lords and Masters. Why else would the United States Congress drop every other important issue to try to ban flag burning?

Ok, so I got off on a rant there. You have probably gathered how I feel about this. I've shared an excellent post by Helen Thomas with the Watch Alert list. Click here to read it if you're a Watch Alert member, or click here to go to the original article. Egads. What's wrong with these people?

A Long Overdue Change

2005-06-24T20:24:00.000-04:00

Okay, troops. I've been goofing off for a long time while I waited for the inspiration that would provide a direction for The Watch. Long-time subscribers to The Watch Alert mailing list know that we've been wandering in the wilderness for quite some time now. Well, as it so happens, The Watch has devolved to a point where it's just me. It finally dawned on me that this means that I can now do whatever I please with it. Since The Watch has increasingly come to reflect my personal take on things, I've decided to follow that path.

Old-time Watch Alert members should not be alarmed. Well, not overly so. Some things will change. Much will stay the same. The point of The Watch will still be to alert concerned inviduals of things they need to be aware of, but now you'll get to hear what I think about it, as well.

I know, I know. Like I've kept my mouth shut in the past.

Anyway, I hope this will work for all of us.

The Watch

Fox News Accountability?

Julie Gerberding's Subjective Reality

Bush Commutes Libby's Sentence

VA to Give Pentacles for Fallen Wiccan Soldiers

Americans Outraged by Squalor Surrounding Wounded Iraq Veterans

A Harry Potter Witch Hunt

Catholics vs. Pagans in Glastonbury

John Kerry vs. Assorted Right-Wing Nutjobs

Pagan Movement Steps In To Help India's Witches

NSA Wiretaps Ruled Illegal

U.S. Military Casualties for July, 2006

Minimum Wage, Maximum Gall

The Enemy is A 15-Year-Old Girl

Panel slams Bush for law challenges

Rove, Novak: Have You No Decency?

Fallen Soldier Gets a Bronze Star but No Pagan Star

A Chilling Example of Republican Thought

U.S. House Shoots Down Net Neutrality Provision

Dixie Chicks vs. Country Lemmings

Hysteria and The DaVinci Code

First Lady: Don't Politicize Marriage Amendment

The NSA and King George

Bush Hires Fox News Commentator

Tell the World: Torture is Un-American

A 4-star Defense of the Republic

Gangster Government

All the President's Leaks

Honk If You Love Bush/Cheney

Republicans Spin Tom Delay's Exit

Wolves in Sheep's Clothing:Telecom Industry Front Groups

Feds Weigh Allowing Wiccan Symbols on Grave Markers

Why Do Conservatives Fear 'V for Vendetta'?

Impeach Bush Chorus Grows

Personal Stories Emerge from Guantanamo

Bush, Katrina & The Video

GOP rift on ports, poll dip hit Bush

South Dakota Abortion Bill Takes Aim at 'Roe'

President Bush Denies Knowing What He Was Defending

White House Warned About Levees Before Katrina Struck

Libby: Bosses ordered leak about Iraq WMDs

Ex-official: White House Misused Iraq Intelligence

Fourteen Defining Characteristics Of Fascism

Is new AOL IM slogan marketing blasphemy?

Conservatives See Court Shift as Culmination

Eminent domain activists try to evict a court justice

11 Indicted in 'Eco-Terrorism' Case

Privacy experts condemn subpoena of Google

Israel halts Christian center talks with Robertson

Spying on Americans. Still.

Christmas In The Trenches

Nuclear search targets Muslims

Merry Merry & Happy Happy

Bush Vs. America

Business As Usual at the Heritage Foundation

What War on Christmas?

Opinion Vs. News At Google News

The Lunatics Run The Asylum

The Phony War Against the Critics

Professor Calls for the Extermination of White People

Extremists Deem Katrina Punishment By God

Evolution debate spawns a saucy monster

The Demonization of Cindy Sheehan

Justice Sunday II Rally Targets Arrogant Judiciary

For religious issues, devil's in the details

Mother's War Protest Gaining Momentum In Crawford

Robert Novak Cracking Under Pressure?

Bush Wants Intelligent Design Taught In Schools

Bush Installs Bolton

Michael Moore Film Fest Draws Competition

Whatever Happened to Principles?

Sandra Day O'Connor Throws Us to the Wolves

Commandment Displays Allowed on Some Government Property

Wiccan Father Still Fights for Parental Rights

Reality Sets In For Marijuana Advocates

Flag Burning Amendment Should Be A Non-Issue

A Long Overdue Change

Impeach Bush Chorus Grows

What War on Christmas?

Justice Sunday II Rally Targets Arrogant Judiciary