ThinkFast: August 1, 2008
ThinkFast: August 1, 2008
Bruce Ivins, a 62-year old highly-skilled biodefense researcher, “apparently committed suicide just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailings that traumatized the nation in the weeks” following 9/11. Glenn Greenwald has more.
Wal-Mart is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors “to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they’ll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies.” Managers and department heads “have been summoned to mandatory meetings” stressing the downsides of a Democratic victory and unionization.
“Republicans want to drive attention away” from the one-year anniversary today of the bridge collapse in Minnesota that killed 13 people because they don’t want to “dampen” their convention in Minneapolis next month by “revisiting an old tragedy” that “spotlighted the nation’s crumbling bridges.”
“Federal agents may take a traveler’s laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.” DHS has “the ability to copy a lifetime of files from someone’s laptop, and then examine those files at the government’s leisure.” (Take action here.)
On the trail today: Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) will hold a town hall-style meeting on the economy at Gibbs High School in St. Petersburg, FL. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is speaking to the National Urban League in Orlando; then he’s appearing with country music star John Rich at a concert and rally in Panama City.
“Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) faces growing pressure from within her Caucus” to bring off-shore drilling to the floor for a vote. “With the drilling issue paralyzing Congressional action on energy, freshman Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA) said he and other Members have communicated to leadership that there needs to be a vote, and he predicted there would be one.”
President Bush’s new executive order revising rules for intelligence agencies expands the national intelligence director’s powers. “House Republicans on the intelligence committee walked out of a Thursday morning briefing” by DNI Mike McConnell to protest the White House’s pattern of disrespect for congressional oversight. “This president is making it impossible for Congress to do oversight of the intelligence community,” said Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI).
“A former senior American official” tells Time that the “U.S. imprisoned and interrogated one or more terrorist suspects” on the British-controlled island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean “in 2002 and possibly 2003.” Former Bush counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke said he had witnessed discussions about “the possibility of using Diego Garcia” and that the official’s claim is “entirely credible.”
“The American economy expanded more slowly than expected from April to June, the government reported Thursday, while numbers for the last three months of 2007 were revised downward to show a contraction — the first official slide backward since the last recession in 2001.” Many economists say “the data increased the likelihood that a recession began late last year.”
And finally: The House transportation committee approved a ban on the passenger use of cell phones on domestic airliners yesterday. Explaining the need for the bill, Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN) complained, “My wife had to listen to a female passenger talk about her sex life the night before. … Who wants to listen to that? Certainly not when you’re trapped on an airplane.” But Rep. John Mica (R-FL) countered, “There are rude people who do rude things.” To prove his point, Mica pulled out an iPod and began playing a rock song, “Dimension” by Wolfmother. The music filled the committee room as Mica strained to talk over it.
What did we miss? Let us know in the comments section.
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New Analysis Finds $33 Billion in Taxpayer-Funded Giveaways to Oil Companies Over Next Five Years
Big Oil benefits from tax loopholes, royalty rollbacks, R&D subsidies and accounting gimmicks
Even though it is already experiencing record profits, the oil and gas industry is set to receive at least $33 billion in handouts from taxpayers over the next five years, according to a new analysis released today by Friends of the Earth.
“This is a tremendous sum for taxpayers to be doling out to the oil and gas industry,” said Friends of the Earth’s Erich Pica, who authored the analysis. “The corporate fat cats at these big oil companies are already earning record profits—they don’t need our tax dollars too. There are far smarter places to use this money, including bringing down energy costs by investing in the clean power sources of the future, such as wind and solar.”
Friends of the Earth’s analysis found that over the next five years oil companies stand to gain at least $23.2 billion from tax loopholes, $3.8 billion in royalty rollbacks, $1.6 billion in direct subsidies for research and development, and $4.3 billion through accounting gimmicks. The analysis found that tax giveaways have increased dramatically since the passage of a Republican-drafted energy bill in 2005. The analysis can be found at:
http://www.foe.org/pdf/FoE_Oil_Giveaway_Analysis_2008.pdf.
What would help this sad state of affairs, if Congress had imposed a windfall profits tax on the five major US oil companies, which together made a record $36 billion in the first quarter of 2008. “But the windfall profits bill—which also included measures to rescind some $17 billion in industry tax breaks—died a swift death in the Senate, garnering 51 votes, but not enough to overcome a filibuster.” The president vowed to veto this bill.
The American Petroleum Institute, the industry's main lobby, is targeting voters, “that rising energy prices are not the producers' fault and that government efforts to punish the industry, especially with higher taxes, would only make pricing problems worse.” They are going to turn their focus on us with a multiyear, multimedia, multimillion-dollar campaign. "We decided that if we didn't do something to help people understand the basics of our industry, we'd be on the losing end as far as the eye could see," said Red Cavaney, the institute's president.
After wading through all of that double talk, we (the consumer and voter) are going to be subjected to advertisements in major newspapers, conferences and trips to drilling platforms to win us over, to improve our low opinion of the Big Oil industry. I personally am insulted that the API thinks we are all foolish enough to fall for their deceptive advertising. Put it towards lowering gas prices instead of trying to change my perspective of an industry. Who will never garner more than my utter disgust of their greed, profiteering, and the plundering of our National Wildlife Refuge.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:01 amMalWart is deathly afraid of its workers having the right to unionize and be paid a fair wage and get reasonable health benefits.
Shopping at MalWart is bad for America.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:02 amNew Analysis Finds $33 Billion in Taxpayer-Funded Giveaways to Oil Companies Over Next Five Years
Big Oil benefits from tax loopholes, royalty rollbacks, R&D subsidies and accounting gimmicks
Even though it is already experiencing record profits, the oil and gas industry is set to receive at least $33 billion in handouts from taxpayers over the next five years, according to a new analysis released today by Friends of the Earth.
“This is a tremendous sum for taxpayers to be doling out to the oil and gas industry,” said Friends of the Earth’s Erich Pica, who authored the analysis. “The corporate fat cats at these big oil companies are already earning record profits—they don’t need our tax dollars too. There are far smarter places to use this money, including bringing down energy costs by investing in the clean power sources of the future, such as wind and solar.”
Friends of the Earth’s analysis found that over the next five years oil companies stand to gain at least $23.2 billion from tax loopholes, $3.8 billion in royalty rollbacks, $1.6 billion in direct subsidies for research and development, and $4.3 billion through accounting gimmicks. The analysis found that tax giveaways have increased dramatically since the passage of a Republican-drafted energy bill in 2005. The analysis can be found at:
http://www.commondreams.org/
What would help this sad state of affairs, if Congress had imposed a windfall profits tax on the five major US oil companies, which together made a record $36 billion in the first quarter of 2008. “But the windfall profits bill—which also included measures to rescind some $17 billion in industry tax breaks—died a swift death in the Senate, garnering 51 votes, but not enough to overcome a filibuster.” The president vowed to veto this bill.
The American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s main lobby, is targeting voters, “that rising energy prices are not the producers’ fault and that government efforts to punish the industry, especially with higher taxes, would only make pricing problems worse.” They are going to turn their focus on us with a multiyear, multimedia, multimillion-dollar campaign. “We decided that if we didn’t do something to help people understand the basics of our industry, we’d be on the losing end as far as the eye could see,” said Red Cavaney, the institute’s president.
After wading through all of that double talk, we (the consumer and voter) are going to be subjected to advertisements in major newspapers, conferences and trips to drilling platforms to win us over, to improve our low opinion of the Big Oil industry. I personally am insulted that the API thinks we are all foolish enough to fall for their deceptive advertising. Put it towards lowering gas prices instead of trying to change my perspective of an industry. Who will never garner more than my utter disgust of their greed, profiteering, and the plundering of our National Wildlife Refuge.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:04 amYet another reason why not to give your money to Commie-Mart; they are a bunch of communist-loving, anti-democracy scum.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:04 amMany economists say “the data increased the likelihood that a recession began late last year.”
But..........just..........can't.........say..........the...........R...............word .............until............Jan..........09..
August 1st, 2008 at 9:04 amThe President has issued an Executive Order to revise Executive Order 12333, which governs United States intelligence activities. The revised Executive Order implements the reforms enacted into law by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 and creates a more unified, integrated, and collaborative Intelligence Community under the leadership of the Director of National Intelligence.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/07/20080731-3.html
Here is a transcript from the background briefing:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/07/20080731-8.html
It’s interesting to note that according to the New York Times, Republicans walked out of the congressional briefing McConnell was giving later claiming that they, once again, were left out of the loop,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/us/01intel.html?ref=us
The ACLU has expressed skepticism about this overhaul. Spencer Ackerman has posted a copy of their press release:
http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/aclu-skeptical-about
It’s interesting to note that even though intelligence officials insist that current agencies will retain their own areas of intelligence gathering, it’s the director of the domestic spying program that will now oversee and coordinate all areas of intelligence. As far as I can tell, the NSA has never has a public disagreement or dispute with Bush and the current administration. On the other hand, both the CIA and FBI directors have had some very public battles disputes with Bush administration officials. FBI director Robert threatened to resign over a dispute about what is now believed to be the warrantless wiretap program (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/07/27/news/justice.php .) George Tenet’s reaction to the outing of Valerie Plame is also well documented (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1449003/posts . Infighting and disagreements have also plagued the Defense Department and their interactions with other “security” organizations. (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1017-07.htm )
The New York Times also wrote an extremely article aout what has been happening in Pakistan over the past year while this infighting continued. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/washington/30tribal.html
Historically, there has been much friction between the CIA and the FBI, particularly with the handling of pre-9/11 intelligence and who should have shared what. See: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A01E4D6153FF937A15754C0A9659C8B63 . Here is some good background and commentary about agency disagreements: http://www.slate.com/id/2072266/ .
Time will tell if this will truly be a move to consolidate and oversee intelligence operations with the hope for more efficiency or a blatant move to usurp the autonomy of all of the different intelligence sources under a director that marches lockstep with Bush and his cronies beefing up spying on Americans. I have to agree with the ACLU’s concerns that this was a decision made and implemented in private without consulting all of the groups that usually are called on for advice and oversight. If everything is O.K. then why wasn’t this implemented publically?
Meanwhile, with just months before the November election, Bush continues to leave his mark in yet another questionable move. Since Bush has a way of ruining almost everything he touches, predictions about how this will turn out should be pretty simple – EVERYONE other than Michael McConnell is going to be pretty upset about this new policy and will probably go out of their way to protect the last little bit of turf they consider their own. Infighting will probably get worse and less - not more - intelligence will be shared with one another.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:05 amTP -- I sent you the tip about the new exec order last night and highlighted the repuke walk out. I then spent 2 hours writing my own post (#5) which I submitted this morning and is "awaiting moderation". Dear God, can you please stop doing this to those of us who are trying to contribute and spend more time "moderating" the trolls. RELEASE MY POST!!!
August 1st, 2008 at 9:11 amrE #7 -- tHANK YOU...i STARTED MY HISSY FIT WAY TOO SOON AND APPRECIATE THAT YOU RELEASED IT! gOOD JOB!
August 1st, 2008 at 9:12 am“Federal agents may take a traveler’s laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.” DHS has “the ability to copy a lifetime of files from someone’s laptop, and then examine those files at the government’s leisure.”
Ok, so this means... that nothing should be kept on the laptop. Use Hamachi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamachi to have a FREE VPN so as to keep all your truly important files on your computers at home, or at work, or whereever. THerefore, they will find nothing, expecially if you delete Hamachi from your laptop before flying. This is the ONLY SURE FIRE WAY TO KEEP PRYING EYES FROM SPYING ON YOU.
Also, as I have said before, put various Operating systems on your machine, and make privledged and encrypted partitions, which I am sure NSA can crack.
But then what about using an Ironkey. Hmm, I buy the Ironkey to protect my documents, but the guvmint mandates I let they spy on my documents. Hmmmm. https://www.ironkey.com/
I would love to screw with TSA over this. Make a laptop with like a hundred partitions, each with a different encryption routine, layered on top of encryption routines.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:15 amBruce Ivins, a 62-year old highly-skilled biodefense researcher, “apparently committed suicide just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailings that traumatized the nation in the weeks” following 9/11.
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...but...but...but..."Bruce Ivins" isn't a Muslim name! I thought it was those scary brown people who were responsible? You know, at the orders of Saddam Hussein? The guy with the mass bio weapons? The reason we invaded his country?
...so confused...
August 1st, 2008 at 9:16 amManagers and department heads [at Wal-Mart] “have been summoned to mandatory meetings” stressing the downsides of a Democratic victory and unionization.
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Hmmm...what do they plan to do? How are they going to brainwash all their employees about the evils of unionization? Will they tell the employees that working off the clock is a good thing? That sex discrimination is a good thing? That health insurance and a living wage are bad things?
I'd like to be a fly on the wall for this campaign...
August 1st, 2008 at 9:19 amBruce Ivins, a 62-year old highly-skilled biodefense researcher, “apparently committed suicide just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailings that traumatized the nation in the weeks” following 9/11. Glenn Greenwald has more.
Call me a crazy skeptic, but this seems awfully convenient.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:23 amSexual assault in military 'jaw-dropping,' lawmaker says
A congresswoman said Thursday that her "jaw dropped" when military doctors told her that four in 10 women at a veterans hospital reported being sexually assaulted while in the military. A government report indicates that the numbers could be even higher.
Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, spoke before a House panel investigating the way the military handles reports of sexual assault.
She said she recently visited a Veterans Affairs hospital in the Los Angeles area, where women told her horror stories of being raped in the military.
"My jaw dropped when the doctors told me that 41 percent of the female veterans seen there say they were victims of sexual assault while serving in the military," said Harman, who has long sought better protection of women in the military.
"Twenty-nine percent say they were raped during their military service. They spoke of their continued terror, feelings of helplessness and downward spirals many of their lives have taken since.
"We have an epidemic here," she said. "Women serving in the U.S. military today are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq."
As of July 24, 100 women had died in Iraq, according to the Pentagon.
In 2007, Harman said, only 181 out of 2,212 reports of military sexual assaults, or 8 percent, were referred to courts martial. By comparison, she said, 40 percent of those arrested in the civilian world on such charges are prosecuted.
Defense statistics show that military commanders took unspecified action, which can include anything from punishment to dismissal, in an additional 419 cases.
But when it came time for the military to defend itself, the panel was told that the Pentagon's top official on sexual abuse, Dr. Kaye Whitley, was ordered not to show up despite a subpoena.
"I don't know what you're trying to cover up here, but we're not going to allow it," Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, said to the Defense official who relayed the news of Whitley's no-show. "This is unacceptable."
Read the entire story:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/31/military.sexabuse/index.html
**Bushie’s penchant for secrecy seems to have spilled out and polluted many other governmental agencies. This isn’t a new problem but it seems to be rearing it’s ugly head much more often than in the past. Since “strongly worded letters” don’t seem to be working and really don’t seem appropriate here I think it’s time to cut the purse strings. Comply or lose your funding. FR - Good morning. You posted an excellent story earlier this week about the personal tragedy one family is dealing with. This has got to be dealt with.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:23 amSorry for the double post, I was in Moderating Limbo. I thought it was from my use of a pdf file in the first post.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:24 amA unionized Wal-Mart is a bad thing?? Please tell me how.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:24 amBut Rep. John Mica (R-FL) countered, “There are rude people who do rude things.” To prove his point, Mica pulled out an iPod and began playing a rock song, “Dimension” by Wolfmother. The music filled the committee room as Mica strained to talk over it.
This jerk represents the district I reside in. He is a fookin moron.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:25 am“Federal agents may take a traveler’s laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.”
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Meanwhile, the real terrorists will just zip their files and e-mail them to a site here before they enter the country themselves. Or they will send data in some mailable medium. Is Homeland Security searching all international mail now?
This is just another avenue for our government to spy on us. It has absolutely nothing to do with our security, although this will be the warm and fuzzy term our government will use to keep us complacent.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:26 amFreedom Rebel Says:
Sorry for the double post
Good morning Freb...If you think we're gonna pay you DOUBLE, you're wrong :)~
August 1st, 2008 at 9:27 amBruce Ivins, a 62-year old highly-skilled biodefense researcher, “apparently committed suicide just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailings that traumatized the nation in the weeks” following 9/11. Glenn Greenwald has more.
This is more propaganda by our government to instill fear and anxiety into the masses, to pave the way to invade Iraq by falsely accusing them of using Anthrax on key officials in government and the press. With ABC’s help to disseminate this news story to garner the support of the American Public. I’m truly glad we still have journalist’s like Glen Greenwald that are determined to expose the truth.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:30 amWal-Mart managers and department heads “have been summoned to mandatory meetings “to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they’ll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies.”
When I was working at Sears HQ in 2000 our department head sent us all an e-mail explaining how important it was to Sears that George Bush be elected and suggested we all contribute to the Sears PAC which we could do from the comfort of our own workstations.
Of course “team” activities and demonstrations of loyalty to the “family” and company were encouraged and noted in one’s job performance assessments.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:32 am“Republicans want to drive attention away” from the one-year anniversary today of the bridge collapse in Minnesota that killed 13 people because they don’t want to “dampen” their convention in Minneapolis next month by “revisiting an old tragedy” that “spotlighted the nation’s crumbling bridges.”
Well, they went ahead with the gun show after Columbine. There's precedent here. Nothing to see, move along.
Republicans know they're the problem. They know the people know they're part of the problem. The only reaction they have left is to arrogantly dismiss all but the fervently-loyal 23%-ers.
Invitation-only arrogance: The Republican Insurgency (that would be a good book title)
August 1st, 2008 at 9:33 amExit:
I actually thought Mica had a good point and made it in a funny way.
But normally, yeah, he's a tool.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:34 amFederal agents may take a traveler’s laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing....
And what law was passed that makes this legal? If that's not an invasion of privacy, I don't know what is.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:34 am“Republicans want to drive attention away” from the one-year anniversary today of the bridge collapse in Minnesota that killed 13 people because they don’t want to “dampen” their convention in Minneapolis next month by “revisiting an old tragedy” that “spotlighted the nation’s crumbling bridges.”
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Cue the shiny distracting objects...
It's a pity that the GOP wants to bury this tragedy, when improving our country's infrastructure would be a winner for either party. Nobody wants to die on a collapsing bridge. Nobody even wants to read about other people dying on a collapsing bridge.
McCain could adopt the crumbling infrastructure as an issue that would resonate with the American people, and the Minnesota bridge would be a perfect prop for him to use. The only problem he'd have is that it would conflict with his massive tax cuts, warmongering, capitulation to big oil, and his promise to balance the budget.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:36 amPresident Bush’s new executive order revising rules for intelligence agencies expands the national intelligence director’s powers. “House Republicans on the intelligence committee walked out of a Thursday morning briefing” by DNI Mike McConnell to protest the White House’s pattern of disrespect for congressional oversight. “This president is making it impossible for Congress to do oversight of the intelligence community,” said Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI).
Where does Bush get the crazy, unconstitutional idea that it is the president who has the power to decide how much authority one of his people has?
August 1st, 2008 at 9:37 amWonder who they were getting close to. It may be possible but it seems implausible that you can commit suicide with tylenol and codeine. Wonder if we will ever find out how he really died.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:38 amWal-Mart is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors “to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they’ll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies.” Managers and department heads “have been summoned to mandatory meetings” stressing the downsides of a Democratic victory and unionization.
Wal-Mart. Always Low Values. Always.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:39 am“With the drilling issue paralyzing Congressional action on energy, freshman Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA) said he and other Members have communicated to leadership that there needs to be a vote, and he predicted there would be one.”
Why do these blue dogs even pretend that they are Democrats. I'm hoping that their constituents kick them to the curb.
On the other hand, maybe the Democrats should craft a bill saying that they can have off-shore drilling rights 1) as soon as they have drilled all their current holdings, 2) that all the oil gained from off-shore drilling will have to be sold to the US first and 3) if a lease is granted the oil companies have exactly one year to start drilling or they lose the lease. That way they would be covered with the low-information voters who actually think that off-shore drilling will help gas prices in the near future. They should also make part of that energy bill that the oil companies have one year from the date the bill is enacted to start drilling on holdings they already have, or they will lose those also.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:39 amHouse Republicans on the intelligence committee walked out of a Thursday morning briefing” by DNI Mike McConnell to protest the White House’s pattern of disrespect for congressional oversight.
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Waitaminnit -- the REPUBLICANS are protesting the White House's pattern of disrespect for congressional oversight? Icicles must now be forming in H*ll. I always thought the GOP members of Congress were just Bushbots, but apparently they are growing spines.
Now if their Democratic brethren could just do the same thing...
August 1st, 2008 at 9:42 amGiven the amount of corruption, organized crime, waste and fraud involved in a GOPig administration, unionization is absolutely a not bad thing.
Very truly yours,
herr dubyah
August 1st, 2008 at 9:42 amre: no.21
Gosh, isn't it nice to find someone who knows nothing about which they speak? So refreshing.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:42 amTo the resident right winger: Educate yourself and then respond. Right now, you sound just like a very ignorant conservative. Wait, ignorance=conservative. Wow, I just educated myself. Gee!
Reich-wingers support Communism over Unions (the backbone of America). How telling.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:42 amLow information voters = morons
August 1st, 2008 at 9:43 am“House Republicans on the intelligence committee walked out of a Thursday morning briefing” by DNI Mike McConnell to protest the White House’s pattern of disrespect for congressional oversight. “This president is making it impossible for Congress to do oversight of the intelligence community,” said Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI).
It's nice to see the Republicans getting a backbone. Perhaps they will learn to play nicely when they are diminished to the state of a total minority.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:43 amAnd the beat goes on Says:
Sexual assault in military ‘jaw-dropping,’ lawmaker says
**Bushie’s penchant for secrecy seems to have spilled out and polluted many other governmental agencies. This isn’t a new problem but it seems to be rearing it’s ugly head much more often than in the past. Since “strongly worded letters” don’t seem to be working and really don’t seem appropriate here I think it’s time to cut the purse strings. Comply or lose your funding. FR - Good morning. You posted an excellent story earlier this week about the personal tragedy one family is dealing with. This has got to be dealt with.
Good Morning as the beat goes on :) I suffered moderation this morning also. Except for the first time ever they released my posts, go figure.
I agree this has to be dealt with. I don't understand why they are so surprised by the numbers. These men are not being dealt with and the contractors are facing zero criminal penalities. So basically it is a free for all, with only 8% of these guys facing consequences of being tried and convicted. They have never taken this seriously and they never will is the conclusion I have arrived at. It is so unfair how they treat the women in the military, I don't know how they live with that fear day in and day out.
Good to see you :)
August 1st, 2008 at 9:43 amLow information voters = morons = conservatives.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:44 ambratboy:
I've heard that same mantra (unions are bad for workers) from so many people here in the south. It's depressing that the Right has managed to brainwash workers to such a degree that they actually vote against something that would benefit their lives so much.
Unbelievable.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:46 amManagers and department heads “have been summoned to mandatory meetings” stressing the downsides of a Democratic victory and unionization.
Oh, you mean the downside of actually helping the "little man", which has the potential to slightly, and I do mean slightly, decrease your enormous, huge profits?
It took almost 7 years. I repeat, 7 YEARS, to finally file criminal charges for a terrorist attack.
Please, please, please tell me again how this administration is "competent"?
No Bin Laden. No Anthrax mailer.
Oh, but we've lost 4000 of our brave men and women over a country THAT HAD ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11!
For those who are on the fence regarding McSame or Obama, please feel free to reference the above paragraph at anytime!
On another note, my family and I have been invited to a luncheon for the grand opening of Sen. Obama's office in Kalamazoo tomorrow. As this race is tighter than expected, we look forward to the gathering to see what ways we (and all) can help.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:47 amDr. Hussein:
Absolutely.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:47 amExplaining the need for the bill, Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN) complained, “My wife had to listen to a female passenger talk about her sex life the night before. … Who wants to listen to that?
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I, too, find it irritating to listen to other people natter away on their cell phones (at least on an airplane, they only get to do it before the plane takes off and after it lands). However, legislating rudeness is overkill.
Surely Oberstar's wife could have found a creative way to deal with the problem. Such as loudly giving the offender advice on her sex life while she was trying to conduct her phone conversation.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:47 amExit Stage Left Says:
Freedom Rebel Says:
Sorry for the double post
Good morning Freb…If you think we’re gonna pay you DOUBLE, you’re wrong
Good to see you Exit :) I just find it funny this is the first time ever they have released my posts from moderation.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:49 amOh, the inhumanity of it all. Poor Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN) had to listen to his wife's rants about an overheard conversation on an airplane. What difference does it make if it was on a cellphone or in person? Get a life, really.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:49 amDream on missmolly, this is the best indicator we've seen yet that the repbulicans know they are in trouble in november.
What would they do with a democratic president that has the power that bush has claimed. Now that they are losing the presidential seat they want executive powers taken away.......
August 1st, 2008 at 9:49 amHmmm…what do they plan to do? How are they going to brainwash all their employees about the evils of unionization? Will they tell the employees that working off the clock is a good thing? That sex discrimination is a good thing? That health insurance and a living wage are bad things?
What they will do is to tell their workers if they vote Democratic they will most likely lose their jobs. And the $6.70 an hour Walmart workers will probably believe them.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:50 amFred,
Acetaminophen, the ingredient in Tylenol, when taken in massive doses, will cause irreversible liver damage, and lead to death.
Codeine, when taken in massive doses, can cause respiratory depression, and death.
Alot of accidental overdoses have occurred from taking Tylenol w/codeine.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:51 amdary11 Says: Given the amount of corruption, organized crime, waste and fraud involved in labor unions, unionization is absolutely a bad thing.
Prove it. Oh, that's right, faithboy doesn't do facts and evidence, just 'belief' in things that he wishes were so.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:55 amGiven that the decline of unionization has pretty closely tracked the decline of the middle class in this nation, Gigi (aka dary-11) is absolutely bad for the cause of intelligent discussion at TP.
August 1st, 2008 at 9:55 amBilbo Hussein Baggins Says: What they will do is to tell their workers if they vote Democratic they will most likely lose their jobs. And the $6.70 an hour Walmart workers will probably believe them.
Good thing we vote in private... Hmmm... We do still vote in private don't we?
August 1st, 2008 at 9:59 amdary11(getting gigi with it) Says: Given the amount of corruption, organized crime, waste and fraud involved with the current Republican administration, voting for McSame is absolutely a bad thing.
There. Fixed it for you.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:00 amYou're welcome!
Who Planned the Anthrax Attacks?
It's the $5,800,000 question
by Justin Raimondo
Antiwar.com Behind the Headlines
July 4, 2008
You remember the anthrax attacks or do you? It often seems, to me at least, that this important catalyst for the invasion of Iraq and our supremely wrong-headed post-9/11 foreign policy has been flushed down the collective memory hole. For all the attention that's been paid to that spooky chapter in the history of the "war on terrorism" in the intervening years, it may as well have never occurred. That's why news of the former prime suspect's ultimate vindication – and his victory in a $5.8 million lawsuit in which he accused the feds of unfairly targeting him as a "person of interest" (as John Ashcroft put it) – seems like a visitation from another time, the ghost of 9/11 past, haunting and mocking us. It sends chills down my spine – because, you see, the real culprits are still out there.
The FBI's non-investigation of this heinous and sinister crime was a joke from the beginning: after all, since when do FBI probes have official names, and why such a silly one as "Amerithrax"? Such brazen corniness has about it an unmistakable Keystone Kops air, which was certainly evident throughout the long-playing media circus that will evermore be known as the persecution of Steven J. Hatfill.
Hatfill, you'll recall, is the long-suffering victim of this horror story, a bio-weapons expert and "insider" who was targeted as the culprit not only by the FBI and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, but also by dustbin Dylanologist A.J. Weberman, who, with characteristic restraint, accused him of being "the scumbag who killed several people in an attempt to awaken America to the dangers of biological warfare." This profile of the killer or killers as a "rogue insider" was also pushed by Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a biowar expert at the State University of New York at Purchase, who chairs the Chemical and Biological Arms Control Program of the Federation of American Scientists.
It was Rosenberg who became the mainstream media's expert-in-residence at the height of the anthrax scare, and, although she never named Hatfill, it was she who relentlessly pushed the "insider" thesis to the major news organizations, which settled on her detective story as the conventional wisdom. A story that turned out to be spectacularly, disastrously, and tragically wrong. Tragic, that is, from the perspective of poor Hatfill, who found himself vilified and hounded out of his job, deprived of his position in the community, and practically run out of human society by his relentless pursuers.
The Hatfill-haters' narrative went something like this: Senor Hatfill is a right-wing nut-case with dubious connections to South Africa's apartheid regime, and quite possibly a "bio-evangelist" (as Weberman put it) who might conceivably have planned the attacks to "warn" us of the dangers of biowar – by demonstrating, on a small scale, how terrorists might envelop a nation in a miasma of fear.
Which is precisely what the anthrax attacks accomplished. The administration invoked them as part and parcel of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the War Party pointed to Saddam Hussein as the probable culprit. Andrew Sullivan, who had earlier accused the antiwar movement of being part of a bi-coastal "fifth column," was so certain the anthrax attacks were proof of Iraq's perfidy that he called on the U.S. to drop nuclear bombs on the Iraqis in retaliation.
The anthrax letters that arrived at major media outlets as well as the Senate offices of two prominent Democrats certainly added a special fillip of fear to the war hysteria that ensued in the wake of 9/11: the senders definitely had an agenda, and there seems little doubt as to what they aimed at: to prepare the nation for war, for some kind of massive retaliation against the Arab world. That was the agenda, and it largely succeeded – but whose agenda was it? Hatfill's exoneration raises the question: if he didn't mail the anthrax letters, then who did?
The answer is not really a mystery, since all the facts are on the public record, but I'll reiterate them here in case you aren't familiar with my past writings on this fascinating subject.
Just before the anthrax letters became public knowledge but after they'd been mailed, military police headquarters at Quantico, Virginia, received a letter that accused an Arab scientist who once worked at the USAMRID facility, a biowarfare lab at Ft. Detrick, of being a terrorist about to unleash biological warfare against civilian targets in the U.S.
The author of this anonymous missive claimed to have been one of the scientist's former co-workers, and appeared to have a detailed knowledge of Assaad's career and daily routine. When the anthrax letters were opened, the FBI paid a visit to Dr. Ayaad Assaad, a former Ft. Detrick employee, and questioned him extensively.
The FBI cleared Assaad of any connection to the anthrax letters early on, but then seemed to have let this significant clue grow quite cold, failing to follow up on it until the winter of 2004, when they launched an investigation into the Quantico letter. It seems clear that whoever sent that letter had at least foreknowledge of the anthrax attacks, and discovering the writers' identity could certainly lead us to the source of the attacks. Yet for years the FBI did nothing: instead, they chased Hatfill around, following him everywhere, blackening his name – and diverting attention away from the only hard evidence that has so far surfaced in this baffling case.
What were the results of the Quantico investigation? The Hartford Courant, which ran a series of articles on the anthrax case and the attempted framing of Dr. Assaad, was the only media outlet, to my knowledge, that reported on this development, which seems mysterious in itself. As for the outcome, that, too, remains a mystery – as does practically everything connected with this murky affair.
Dr. Assaad, an Egyptian-born biologist who worked at USAMRID in the early 1990s, was the target of a hateful harassment campaign that became the subject of a federal lawsuit later settled out of court. The defendants in the suit were a group of USAMRID employees who targeted Assaad by sending him anti-Arab missives – including a rubber camel outfitted with a sex toy – and composed poems that they left on his desk. An account in the Courant depicts the bizarre atmosphere in which U.S. government scientists worked on toxins powerful enough to kill off entire populations:
"Assaad said he was working on the Saturday before Easter 1991, just after the Persian Gulf War had ended, when he discovered an eight-page poem in his mailbox. The poem, which became a court exhibit, is 47 stanzas – 235 lines in all, many of them lewd, mocking Assaad. The poem also refers to another creation of the scientists who wrote it – a rubber camel outfitted with all manner of sexually explicit appendages.
"The poem reads: 'In [Assaad's] honor we created this beast; it represents life lower than yeast.' The camel, it notes, each week will be given 'to who did the least.'
"The poem also doubles as an ode to each of the participants who adorned the camel, who number at least six and referred to themselves as 'the camel club.' Two – Dr. Philip M. Zack and Dr. Marian K. Rippy – voluntarily left Fort Detrick soon after Assaad brought the poem to the attention of supervisors."
The ideological flavor of the Camel Club's jibes isn't too hard to fathom: they sound just like the participants in the hate-fest over at Little Green Footballs, or, come to think of it, the editorial board of the Weekly Standard. The anthrax-laden letters read "Death to America" and "Death to Israel," and invoked the name of Allah. Clearly this wasn't just an attempt to set up a particular Arab, Dr. Assaad, but to finger all Arab-Americans, and Muslims, as potential terrorists – weeks after bin Laden and his boys downed the World Trade Center and took out the Pentagon.
The trail that leads us to the perpetrators of the anthrax letter terrorist attacks ends at Ft. Detrick, where the "Camel Club" held court. Check out this Courant story that details the incredible laxity of the security controls in place at one of the U.S. government's most sensitive military facilities – and then imagine how easy it was for the terrorists to have smuggled out anthrax and other even more lethal toxins.
Doesn't any of this merit investigation by our "law enforcement' agencies – or are they too busy reading ordinary people's email and spying on antiwar organizations to bother going after a gang of dangerous poisoners and murderers?
In settling with Hatfill for mega-bucks, the U.S. government isn't officially admitting any wrongdoing, – and we shouldn't hold our breath waiting for anything like an apology – but clearly something was going on behind the scenes that looks very much like obstruction of the investigation. Of course it's easy for a libertarian like me to scoff at the inefficiencies of government agencies: that's comes with the territory – and is, furthermore, a well-known fact [.pdf]. Yet there seems something a bit more dicey than mere incompetence at work here.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:00 amIn 2007, Harman said, only 181 out of 2,212 reports of military sexual assaults, or 8 percent, were referred to courts martial. By comparison, she said, 40 percent of those arrested in the civilian world on such charges are prosecuted.
In listening to the snippet of Army Lt. Gen. Rochelle's testimony on NBC Nightly, I believe that while he personally carries no tolerance for sexual assuault in the military, that non-tolerance doesn't trickle down to the smallest units of the military, where action is only effective.
Out of frustration, I think that the military has women enlist for the purpose of relieving all-male aggression within the units. The good ole' boys club makes it permissive, and easier, to cover up sexual mistreatment. Women can be used, made to be distraught, and then dumped from the military. "You came here for a career, baby? Think again."
The inept counselors, the lax commanders, and the individual soldiers-marines-sailors-airmen looking for a sexual ride whenever they can get it, or prove dominance (the numbers game doesn't help, especially in the Marines, where the fewest women enlist), makes for a hostile environment for women in the military.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:01 amUnemployment rate up to a 4 year high. Great job, herr dubyah!
August 1st, 2008 at 10:04 amThe military is just a sample of our society. We are the most violent people on the earth bar none. The same things are happening to women in our society and there is no outrage. The perps walk and the women are left to deal with it alone.
If you think that the percentages of these offenses are higher in the military and therefore more outrageous, well then you just aren't paying attention.
We would much rather put a non-violent offender who smoked some pot in prison for life than a rapist....
August 1st, 2008 at 10:04 amMcWars Says
August 1st, 2008 at 10:01 am
The inept counselors, the lax commanders, and the individual soldiers-marines-sailors-airmen looking for a sexual ride whenever they can get it, or prove dominance (the numbers game doesn’t help, especially in the Marines, where the fewest women enlist), makes for a hostile environment for women in the military.
___________________________________________________
And news like this doesn't exactly make women rush to enlist in large numbers, either.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:04 amunbelievable Says
August 1st, 2008 at 9:59 am
Good thing we vote in private… Hmmm… We do still vote in private don’t we?
________________________________________________________
Fortunately, we haven't become Zimbabwe. Yet. But never say never...
August 1st, 2008 at 10:06 am“Federal agents may take a traveler’s laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.” DHS has “the ability to copy a lifetime of files from someone’s laptop, and then examine those files at the government’s leisure.” (Take action here.)
No, they may not. That would be entirely unconstitutional.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:10 amdary-leven, ever notice how, in SCUM coverage of labor actions, companies ALWAYS "offer," and labor ALWAYS 'demands?
No, i reckon not. Sorry I asked...
August 1st, 2008 at 10:10 amNo, they may not. That would be entirely unconstitutional.
so you might think...but it is not so...the futhermockers are ALREADY DOING IT.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:12 ammisshusseinmolly Says: Fortunately, we haven’t become Zimbabwe. Yet. But never say never…
But if the Bush Regime can eavesdrop on us without our knowing about it, then how do we really know?
August 1st, 2008 at 10:13 amGood thing we vote in private… Hmmm… We do still vote in private don’t we?
if you can read machine code, then "No, we don't"...
August 1st, 2008 at 10:13 amI admitted to my ignorance on the subject but you missed my point. It could have just as easily been a stroke. Seems too convenient to me to be an accidental overdose.
I've never heard of anyone even attempting suicide using tylenol and codeine.....If he had access to deadly substances, why use codeine?
August 1st, 2008 at 10:14 amI wonder if Ivins took a trip recently on Wellstone Airlines?
August 1st, 2008 at 10:15 amAre the corporations throwing a hissy fit in time for the election season? So good to see them pushing their fears in localities across this country -- pushing their myths by taking their own action, because it has no causal basis in reality. (i.e., We'll have to cut jobs in advance of a tax increase that will hypothetically affect our ability to keep people employed. Nevermind that the reason is poor financial planning and money management.)
The corporate hissy fit in response to good legislation is made to be the problem of the people. They can't work it into their daily routine. I say press ahead and it will turn out to be back in the favor of the people.
I have to say, while I've chosen to major in Accounting, I will NEVER concentrate in corporate accounting. They use those employees to sketch out shady tax-break schemes. The concentration be small business and government accounting, as well as audit. That's right, I'm going to audit the bastards.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:17 amChevron made a record $6 billion in the last quarter, up 11% from a year ago and 17% from the first 3 months of 2008.
While demand cratered, prices soared. This throws a major kink in Bush's supply and demand mantra.
But I see Nancy Pelosi is ready to crater on drilling, by bringing a bill to the floor. Thanks to all those corporate owned Blue Dogs.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:19 amAnd finally: The House transportation committee approved a ban on the passenger use of cell phones on domestic airliners yesterday. Explaining the need for the bill, Rep. James Oberstar (D-MN) complained, “My wife had to listen to a female passenger talk about her sex life the night before. … Who wants to listen to that? Certainly not when you’re trapped on an airplane.” But Rep. John Mica (R-FL) countered, “There are rude people who do rude things.” To prove his point, Mica pulled out an iPod and began playing a rock song, “Dimension” by Wolfmother. The music filled the committee room as Mica strained to talk over it.
And if the woman talking on the cell phone about her sex life were talking to the passenger next to her about the same thing, would the committee decide to ban all talking on the plane?
August 1st, 2008 at 10:21 amI think it is hilarious McCain is speaking at the Urban League. just like when he spoke to the NAACP, what is he going to say that doesn't make him look like the Grand Wizard? Another waisted day on the campaign trail.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:21 amThe other problem missmolly, is a cynicism of giving too much thought of past instances of a small percentage of false sexual assault claims, and using that to overly modify investigations into future assault claims. The sham claims are used as a "truth detector" against legitimate ones.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:25 amquestion:
does anyone else notice that, and wonder why, cindy is ALWAYS tagging along with and beside mcSAME?
always...
i don't remember seeing the spouse so much ever before...
i'm guessing she's his nursemaid... what else?
August 1st, 2008 at 10:30 amdary11 Says:
"Given the amount of corruption, organized crime, waste and fraud..."
__________
Totally on board w/ ya on this one, dary11... it's about time we did something the Repub... ah, you were talking about the GOOP here, weren't you?
I mean, talk about a criminal enterprise that's completely out of control...
August 1st, 2008 at 10:31 amtokin librul Says: if you can read machine code, then “No, we don’t”…
Then we're safe, Bush can't read anything that isn't My Pet Goat. :)
Seriously, though, I figure there is someone who can read it who will soon be selling this information to anyone willing to buy it.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:32 am“Federal agents may take a traveler’s laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.” DHS has “the ability to copy a lifetime of files from someone’s laptop, and then examine those files at the government’s leisure.”
We are being asked/told at work to sign a consent form that will allow a third party to do background searches. The consent is "all encompassing" and allows searches of public and private records for as long as you work at the company. My attorney says that I would be waiving attorney-client privilege, doctor-patient privilege, granting access to medical records, purchasing records, snuff film rentals....ANYTHING.
Half of the Good Germans here are signing with a shrug and a "what do you have to hide?" I tell them that we are having a body cavity search next Wednesday but don't worry, you don't have anything to hide do you?
All in the name of Homeland Security.
Anybody know the name of a good ACLU lawyer?
August 1st, 2008 at 10:41 amFederal agents can take my laptop without a warrant when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:41 amdary11 Says:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Hussein Matt Says:
——————————————————————————–
Unemployment rate up to a 4 year high. Great job, Democratic Congress.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:04 am
There, fixed it for ya.
gigi
August 1st, 2008 at 10:42 am
4 years ago , Congress was run by a garbage GOP majority ; it is now a Dem majority.
What's been the only constant throughout that period ?
That's right ; your retarded simian-in-chief , you Chimpy nut hugging tool.......
August 1st, 2008 at 10:47 amPresident Bush’s new executive order revising rules for intelligence agencies expands the national intelligence director’s powers. “House Republicans on the intelligence committee walked out of a Thursday morning briefing” by DNI Mike McConnell to protest the White House’s pattern of disrespect for congressional oversight. “This president is making it impossible for Congress to do oversight of the intelligence community,” said Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI).
Hoekstra is waging complaints against his master? What, is he up for re-election?
August 1st, 2008 at 10:47 amThe scariest part of the Bruce Ivins story is the link by Glen Greenwald is that ABC News continually reported that preliminary tests on the powder showed traces of a specific chemical that was used soley by Saddam Hussein. This info was leaked to ABC by four top inside officials. The story of the chemical traces/link to Hussein were false. This chemical was never detected in the mailed samples. To date ABC refuses to say who in the gov't fed them this info. They are not protecting a legitimate source in witholding who told them. They are complicit in a propaganda story concocted by the gov't to link Saddam Hussein with 9/11 and the domestic anthrax attacks. These seeds were planted in the MSM by ABC in early 2002, I believe. Why won't ABC give up these names? This makes ABC complicit in abetting these gov't officials who helped perpetrate this false flag attack. Yesterday's news about Dick Cheney leading a meeting in his office to shotgun (pun intended) ideas on how they could trick Iran into beginning World War III coupled with all we now know about the Bush Administration's hard-on for war with Iraq even before 9/11 make it a lot clearer and easier to see just who stood to benefit from scaring Democratic leaders and newsmen with anti-american letters laced with anthrax that are becoming onvious were sent from a US Govt facility. Particularly when they were being pressured to pass legislation on the Protect America Act (which was written by the Administration in miraculous time, allmost as though they wrote it before 9/11)
August 1st, 2008 at 10:47 amOn a side note I find it ironic that the lab where Dr. Ivins worked and where the letters most likely originated was the same gov't lab that the WH had do the testing on the laced letters.
Curiouser and curiouser down the rabbit hole we go...
We are now living in a Elected Dictatorship.
We'll be electing an Emperor in Nov.
Welcome to the United Fascist States of America.
God, I detest what this country has become.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:48 ammisshusseinmolly Says:
…but…but…but…”Bruce Ivins” isn’t a Muslim name! I thought it was those scary brown people who were responsible? You know, at the orders of Saddam Hussein? The guy with the mass bio weapons? The reason we invaded his country?
…so confused…
You aren't as confused as ABC News who believed the ridiculous story that, for some reason, Saddam Hussein was trying to poison Tom Brokaw, Tom Daschle, and Patrick Leahy, three people I guarantee he had never heard of.
For some reason, ABC News swallowed that silly tale and never thought to wonder why anthrax was sent to the two Democratic senators who were in a position to stop the Patriot Act. If you remember, at the time, Jim Jeffords had just jumped ship on the GOP and the Democrats had gained control of Congress. Bush was pushing the Patriot Act, and there was quite a bit of opposition to it amongst Democrats. That opposition disappeared after the anthrax mailings.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:50 am#78:
ABC refuses to say who in the gov’t fed them
Because the Media since Day One has been in Bush's pocket and continues to Silence All Truth.
Especially about 9/11.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:52 am#Wayne A. Schneider Says:
Federal agents can take my laptop without a warrant when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:41 am
they're prepared for that eventuality.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:53 amindeed, i think the TSA knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers would actually enjoy shooting you full of holes...
A Patriot Acting Says:
They are complicit in a propaganda story concocted by the gov’t to link Saddam Hussein with 9/11 and the domestic anthrax attacks. These seeds were planted in the MSM by ABC in early 2002, I believe. Why won’t ABC give up these names?
Have you ever seen Dick Cheney when he is really mad?
August 1st, 2008 at 10:53 amHave you ever seen Dick Cheney when he is really mad?
Yah, Darth and Turdblossom when they really mad they each eat 2 dozen of Krispy Kremes (instead of the normal dozen)
August 1st, 2008 at 10:55 amHave you ever seen Dick Cheney when he is really mad?
Have you seen Dick Cheney? Where is he these days?
August 1st, 2008 at 11:02 amoh, he's planning WWIII.
that's all.
(that's all, folks)
August 1st, 2008 at 11:04 amUnemployment rate up to a 4 year high. Great job, Democratic Congress.
August 1st, 2008 at 10:04 am
There, fixed it for ya.
gigi
______________
But... but... Herr Brusch said the tax cuts were working, Li'l G????
How can the economy be tankin'?
I mean, HERR BRUSCH tole us all they was workin'!!!!!!!!!!
August 1st, 2008 at 11:05 amshoeless-
"Have you ever seen Dick Cheney when he is really mad?"
I would love to see a furious Dick Cheney with spittle flying from the corners of his snarling mouth as he is led kicking and screaming to the gallows for being a traitor to the United States of America.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:07 amCheney spends his time in his bunker practicing his patented
August 1st, 2008 at 11:10 amsneer
Glenn Greewald makes some good points regarding Ivins. I think we need to follow that up by examining his political connections. Did he, for instance, donate to the Bush-Cheney campaign in either 2000 or 2004. Has he ever visited the Whitehouse according to the vistor logs? It is somewhat obvious that these anthrax attacks were planned in advance of 9/11 and that 9/11 gave them maximum effect. This story is not done by a long shot. And to think, Steve Hatfil was tried and convicted in the court of public opinion for a horrendous crime for which he was completely innocent. How did that come about? Was Hatfil simply a political enemy? And of whom?
August 1st, 2008 at 11:13 amI don't believe Ivins committed suicide but rather he was ready to reveal something that he knew about those "tests" he supposedly ran on the anthrax. Remember...those tests supposedly showed a contaminant that was used to link it with Saddam, and that has since proved to be untrue...no such contaminant existed. His so-called "suicide" is part of the cover-up of the entire 911 incident. Ask yourselves this: who gained the most from both 911 and the anthrax scare?
August 1st, 2008 at 11:24 amKay, since you mentioned the Turdblossom I wanted to know who else here is beginning to see his blood stained fingerprints all over the McCain campaign lately. Having two scripts ready to go to slander Obama's oversees trip depending on whether he went to visit the soldiers or didn't screams Rovian style politics. Not even making an attempt to discuss any issues of substance in McCain's tv ads and soley trying to discredit Obama's character is another favorite of KKKarl. Obama and his advisers need to be very careful going forward. Let's not forget Rove's history of pushing a seemingly clueless candidate to the public, lulling Americans and the Dems into complacency thinking that they need only plan to counter the befuddled McCain, while the sharper (albeit slimier) plotting of Karl Rove is what is driving McCain's bus behind the scenes. You assume that you are competing with a confused old man when you are in reality competing with the slick evilness of the blossoming turdball. Let's also not forget that he has ensconsed himself onto daily face time on FAUX News where he can have all the airtime he desires to push his lies and slander under the false pretense of being an objective pundit. This man has done more damage to this Country than nearly any other American in it's history all in the name of the Republican Party.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:24 am“It [the Cheshire Cat] vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.”
From an article from US Today on Bruce Ivins :
White House press secretary Dana Perino declined to comment on the case, except to say that President Bush has maintained an interest in it over the years and was aware there were "about to be developments." She would not say how much he knew about the Ivins case.
Why decline to comment ?
There is no "ongoing criminal investigation" , which is the excuse you losers constantly use , because the path would lead back to this garbage administration ...........
August 1st, 2008 at 11:28 amI can't help thinking that the death of Bruce Ivans is like the 'inexplicable' destruction of the records of the 2004 Ohio presidential election. Now they can say, "Sorry, I guess we'll never know ...".
I can't help thinking how convenient that is for them.
I wish I could stop thinking such things about the government which I've been taught is supposed to be OUR government, elected by US, to promote OUR wellfare and best interest. I could be patriotic about a government like that, but I honestly cannot recognize those characteristics in what we've got now.
In the absense of a Democratic party willing to defend the Constitution through the prescribed means of impeachment, I'm left with the tenuous hope that the election in November will turn things around; I think it could. But, in the face of the blatant manipulation of the public mood that was the anthrax scare, the likely manipulation of the mechanics of elections that were the abuses of the process in Ohio and the installation of untrustworthy record-less election equipment, and the blatant interference of the media in the current campaign (with news programs actively editing a candidates gaffs away), I'm afraid that my hope is both fragile and naively optimistic.
My fears, on the other hand, are robust, stubborn, intrusive, and omni-present.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:29 amDallasNE Says:
"Has he ever visited the Whitehouse according to the vistor logs?"
Unfortunately Dick Cheney has allready claimed Executive Privilege over the logs that list visitors to both him and George Bush and blocked the Secret Service from maintaining a copy for their files as well. Visitors of the People's House that came to visit employees of the American citizens. He even had his DC residence (funded by your tax dollars) blurred on Google Earth. I mean c'mon, if you have done nothing wrong then you have nothing to hide, right Mr. Cheney?!
August 1st, 2008 at 11:30 am#91:
I could not agree more.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:34 amWayne A. Schneider Says:
Have you seen Dick Cheney? Where is he these days?
You won't see him around much this time of year since we have nearly 15 hours of daylight.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:35 amPeter C Says:
"I can’t help thinking that the death of Bruce Ivans is like the ‘inexplicable’ destruction of the records of the 2004 Ohio presidential election. Now they can say, “Sorry, I guess we’ll never know …”."
Spot on, Peter. This Administrations best and only hope for avoiding future prosecution...PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY!
There must be a very good reason why Bush/Homeland Security have requested legislation that would require the secret service to protect Cheney for 6 months after leaving office.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:42 amWhat REALLY gets my goat, A Patriot Acting, is that when the Senate has adopted a 'gentlemen's filibuster' where the 'nuclear option' has been replaced by the AUTOMATIC need to have 60 votes to move anything forward, ANY request from the Whitehouse is not met with an AUTOMATIC 'Heck NO! - end of story'. I swear, Harry and Nancy are lucky I can't get near 'em, because (as non-violent as I am) sometimes I really want to slap them.
August 1st, 2008 at 11:55 amThis is for George W. Bush's supply and demand con over the American people:
Fuel consumption in the past 12 months was the lowest since 2004-2005, according to the Energy Department.
And how do prices compare to 2004-2005? Almost double.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a4R756DVAQsM&refer=home
August 1st, 2008 at 11:59 amA Patriot Acting Says:
I believe a court ruled against Bush/Cheney on this but it is currently on appeal. Like everything else, they have successfully kicked the can down the road for the next administration to deal with.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:00 pmi just heard on the radio news that IVANS was working on an antidote to anthrax...
why the hell would he kill himself?
gut feeling, he could easily vindicate himself of charges he tried to kill by using antrax... makes no sense...
he' a patsy, a scapegoat to the REAL crime... i'd bet he would've testified to that and that's why HE WAS OFFED.
just my hunch...
August 1st, 2008 at 12:08 pmPeter C Says:
"What REALLY gets my goat,..."
It makes me angry as well, Peter. However being blackmailed with evidence illegally obtained through domestic spying along with anthrax laced death threat letters sent to your collegues can twist many arms into submission. If you think the WH's scare tactics are harsh and begin and end at terrorizing American citizens then you severely underestimate Dich Cheney's decades old desire and gusto to go to any extreme (and then some) to get what he wants at any and all cost.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:11 pmkaty Says:
he’ a patsy, a scapegoat to the REAL crime… i’d bet he would’ve testified to that and that’s why HE WAS OFFED.
just my hunch…
What katy? Are you saying you don't believe that it was Saddam Hussein who tried to kill Pat Leahy?
August 1st, 2008 at 12:13 pmWayne A. Schneider Says:
And if the woman talking on the cell phone about her sex life were talking to the passenger next to her about the same thing, would the committee decide to ban all talking on the plane?
I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you and Misshusseinmolly and a few others. People's behavior on cell phones is simply not the same as when they're in conversation with someone sitting next to them. I have to put up with this crap on my daily bus commute but being trapped for hours with someone on a flight? No way.
Many cell phone users seem to believe they're in a magical bubble which allows them to have a long, intimate phone call with someone else at peak volume without annoying people around them - or, more likely, they don't care about annoying other people - or, potentially, they think they're entertaining all the people around them. I figure it's one of those, or else they don't really trust the technology and think they need to holler into the phone like a long distance caller in the 1930s.
And, face it, the people who make these calls, whether on the bus or in the airport lounge or wherever they've trapped you, are doing it because they are incapable of entertaining themselves in any way except calling everyone they know to engage them in completely trivial and stupid conversations. What they're sharing with everyone around them is always (at least in my experience) devoid of real content. I had to listen to one woman while we waited for the plane to load, go on for 20 minutes about a fender bender she had been in earlier. Nothing happened! No one got hurt, the car was only scratched, and yet the entire jet got to hear about it as though it was the most traumatic event of the year.
Sorry, this is a pet peeve. /rant
August 1st, 2008 at 12:14 pmSo Katy, what you're saying then is that Dr. Ivans is Dick Cheney's "My Pet Scapegoat"?
August 1st, 2008 at 12:15 pmIvans overdosed just like the DC Madam hung herself. How convenient.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:16 pmgummitch, when I experience someone being rude with their phone, I start talking loudly about them as if they aren't able to hear me.
in your case it woulda been something like "There's a weird woman on the plane that thinks her fender bender is interesting. Wow, she must not be very bright, and from the sounds of it, it must be her fault! I hope her insurance goes up!"
It usually gets the point across.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:19 pmi just want to note that i had not read the greenwald link, nor anything other than the FAST blurb above and the comments up to #88...
that radio spot just called up one of those gut instinct reactions and i wanted to put in my call...
August 1st, 2008 at 12:21 pmRantingTommy Says:
gummitch, when I experience someone being rude with their phone, I start talking loudly about them as if they aren’t able to hear me.
in your case it woulda been something like “There’s a weird woman on the plane that thinks her fender bender is interesting. Wow, she must not be very bright, and from the sounds of it, it must be her fault! I hope her insurance goes up!”
It usually gets the point across.
Yeah, well, I wish I had the nerve to do that, but I'm an old guy and was raised not to make a scene in public and not to be rude, so I suffer in silence. I've certainly done it in my imagination, though.
August 1st, 2008 at 12:26 pmIt's amazing how quickly our congress critters can grow a proto-spine when the President's approval rating is in the tank, the administration's clock is about to run out, and control of Congress/personal re-elections are at stake. Now all of a sudden, we are concerned about the executive branch exceeding its authority? Please. It'll be interesting to see how those proto-spines develop after the election. My guess - fully calcified Republican spines following an Obama victory vs. resorption by fleshy tissue if McCsar wins.
And what were the arguments against gays serving openly in the military? I seem to remember something about arousal, sexual harassment, and sexual assault. We wouldn't want the gays to bring that type of behavior to the military now would we?
August 1st, 2008 at 12:40 pmIvans had to be a suicide. If Deadeye had been onto, he would have died from six shots to the head from a single charge muzzle loader.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:07 pm“House Republicans on the intelligence committee walked out of a Thursday morning briefing” by DNI Mike McConnell to protest the White House’s pattern of disrespect for congressional oversight. “
House REPUBLICANS How pathetic is that? The Democrats have been sheepishly bowing to whatever this administration wants in his drive to destroy the Constitution but representatives of his own party walk out to object to disrespect for oversight.
August 1st, 2008 at 1:17 pmAfrican American protestors heckle Obama
2 hours ago
MIAMI (AFP) — African American hecklers accused Barack Obama of ignoring the plight of the "oppressed" black community Friday, as a rare protest interrupted an appearance by the White House hopeful in Florida.
Three young men, holding a banner reading "what about the black community, Obama?" stood up as the Democratic presumptive nominee discussed economic issues during a townhall meeting in St Petersburg, Florida.
"What about the black community?" the protestors shouted, prompting Obama's supporters to chant his slogan "Yes We Can" to drown them out.
"Excuse me, young man, this is going to be a question and answer session, so you can ask a question later," Obama told one of the protestors.
"Sit down. You'll have a chance to ask your questions, but you don't want to disrupt the whole meeting. Just be courteous," he said, before going back to his prepared remarks.
The unidentified protestor was later given a microphone, and accused Obama of neglecting the African American community.
"Why is it that you have not had the ability to not one time speak to the interests and even speak on behalf of the oppressed and exploited African-American community, or black community in this country," he said.
Obama said the question was an example of "democracy at work."
"I think you're misinformed ... when you say not one time," Obama said.
"Every issue that you've spoken about, I actually did speak out of," he said, arguing he had condemned predatory mortgage practices which hurt African Americans and spoken out on various civil rights causes.
"I was a civil rights lawyer. I passed the first racial profiling legislation in Illinois.
"I passed some of the toughest death penalty reform legislation in Illinois so these are issues I've worked on for decades," he said.
"Now that doesn't mean that I'm going always satisfy the way you guys want these issues framed ... which gives you the option of voting for somebody else. It gives you the option to run for office yourself."
Obama then leveraged the confrontation, carried on US cable television networks, towards his core campaign message.
"The only way that we're going to solve our problems in this country is if all of us come together, black, white, Hispanic, Asians and native American, young, old, disabled, gay, straight."
[...]
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gCxGgPRNvgcPdBMrtMuTbLmwsndA
another, similar, version:
August 1st, 2008 at 2:10 pmObama Engages With Heckler
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/08/obama_engages_with_heckler.php
Obama Heckled on African American Issues
By Jonathan Weisman
ST.PETERSBURG, Fla. -- A day after John McCain's campaign accused Barack Obama of having "played the race card," the senator from Illinois was confronted by self-described members of the "International African Revolution" concerned he doesn't talk enough about race.
A boisterous town hall meeting in the Gibbs High School gym here was repeatedly interrupted by activists from the International People's Democratic Uhuru Movement, a pan-African socialist group, who accused Obama of ignoring the plight of poor blacks targeted by predatory lenders, police brutality and racist attacks. Obama tried to calm the situation, with assists from a supportive crowd that shouted the hecklers down.
Handing the activists the microphone did little to assuage them.
"All these attacks are clearly being made on the African community," one of the hecklers, St. Petersburg resident Diop Olugbulu, 31, said, when Obama recognized him and directed the microphone to him. "Why is it that that you have not spoken to the issues or spoken on behalf of the African community?"
Obama defended his record, saying he had spoken out on every issue the hecklers raised, from the shooting of Sean Bell in New York to the prosecution of the Jena Six in Louisiana to predatory lending targeted at blacks and Hispanics.
"That doesn't mean I'm always going to satisfy the way you guys want me to talk, which gives you the option of voting for someone else, which gives you the option of running for office yourself," Obama replied as the young man stood stony-faced, arms crossed, amid deafening cheers. "But the one thing that is important is that we're respectful toward each other."
[...]
McCain will address the Urban League today in Orlando, and Obama will address the Urban League tomorrow on the second day of his swing through the I-4 corridor of Central Florida.
[...]
i'm hopeful those demonstrators will question mcWHINE also...
August 1st, 2008 at 2:15 pmOur colleague Steve Braun, traveling with Barack Obama's campaign, reports that Obama was just heckled during a town hall gathering in St. Petersburg, Fla., by six black protesters who unfurled a banner that read: "What about the black community, Obama?"
Obama, adopting what has become most political figures' response to such interruptions, turned at the podium inside the high school gym and bantered with the protesters for several seconds as the crowd booed. Finally, Obama said, "Just be courteous, that's all." The protesters quieted and turned their banner over to a an Obama staffer, but later in the speech again began to chant, only to be drowned out by the Obama crowd.
[...]
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/08/hecklers-greet.html
video there also... doesn't look at all like "an Obama staffer quickly swiped the sign out of the protester’s hands and the protesters got quiet when surrounded by Obama’s security."...
LIAR.
August 1st, 2008 at 2:24 pmreading some comments on news blogs, evidently the group -
International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement -
are backed by republicans...
whodduthunkit...
August 1st, 2008 at 2:35 pmI watched the Obama heckler moment as well and sure didn't see what Daryl saw. Obama politely asked the heckler to wait and he would answer his questions. Which Obama did, pointing out what he had done for the Black Community. The banner was pulled down by someone sitting beside the young man, didn't look like security to me. No one was rough, Obama took time to really address this person's issues.
Unlike bush or cheney who arrested and detained anyone wearing T-shirts against the war. Unlike bush/cheney that held townmeetings at our expense but only for those with conservative views allowed in.
Daryl amazing that you can take the scene and twist it to your viewpoint, but you and The View's Elisabeth are just too blind. How sad.
August 1st, 2008 at 2:41 pmI watched three different videos of the Obama town hall today and Daryll must need his glasses checked.
August 1st, 2008 at 3:45 pmTexas Lady, - I just saw the comment - has it about right.
Daryll, Hasselbeck and other lemmings, have been propagandized effectively. They see what they are told to see; believe what they are told to believe.
The Goverment-Industrial Monstrosity and its favorite PEU (private equity underwriter) just got a bit closer:
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/booz-allen-hamilton-completes-separation/story.aspx?guid=%7B3952B54A-00E7-4950-A4DC-87FEF5EBBA96%7D&dist=hppr
The Carlyle Group can now manufacture "intelligence" to start the next war, from which it can also profit.
August 1st, 2008 at 4:50 pmTwo groups competed for attention in The Capital today. The Gang of 10 offered their bi-partisan compromise Renew Energy Act of 2008.
And a group of Republicans lingered after the House closed session, using new media to soapbox on the issue. They're calling for Bush to call Congress back for a special session on energy.
The problem is market data throws cold water on their assumptions. "Drill Now, Pay Less" has been "Drive Less, Pay More" for the second quarter of 2008.
http://stateofthedivision.blogspot.com/2008/08/shifting-sand-in-oil-markets-knocks.html
August 1st, 2008 at 5:16 pm"“Federal agents may take a traveler’s laptop or other electronic device to an off-site location for an unspecified period of time without any suspicion of wrongdoing, as part of border search policies the Department of Homeland Security recently disclosed.” DHS has “the ability to copy a lifetime of files from someone’s laptop, and then examine those files at the government’s leisure.”
No, we don't live in a police state.
August 1st, 2008 at 6:53 pm______
katy Says:
reading some comments on news blogs, evidently the group -
International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement -
are backed by republicans…
whodduthunkit…
August 1st, 2008 at 2:35 pm
______
The group is probably backed by Repubs any time they oppose Obama, but it's unlikely conservatives back them otherwise.
"InPDUM is a grassroots organization, led by the black working-class community. It was founded in 1991 in Chicago by the African People's Socialist Party."
http://www.inpdum.org/about.html
August 1st, 2008 at 9:02 pmHow devious is it when the return address is from a school?
Let alone killing US citizens for self-gains.
August 2nd, 2008 at 5:52 am