Observations on current events

The National Security State:

The Raw Story: Firefighters asked to report people who express discontent with the government
"It was revealed last week that firefighters are being trained to not only keep an eye out for illegal materials in the course of their duties, but even to report back any expression of discontent with the government.
A year ago, Homeland Security gave security clearances to nine New York City fire chiefs and began sharing intelligence with them. Even before that, fire department personnel were being taught 'to identify material or behavior that may indicate terrorist activities' and were also 'told to be alert for a person who is hostile, uncooperative or expressing hate or discontent with the United States.'
Unlike law enforcement officials, firemen can go onto private property without a warrant, not only while fighting fires but also for inspections. 'It's the evolution of the fire service,' said a Phoenix, AZ fire chief of his information-sharing arrangement with law enforcement.
Keith Olbermann raised the alarm about the program on his show Wednesday, noting that 'if the information-sharing program works in New York, the department says it will extend it to other major metropolitan areas, unless we stop them.' He then asked Mike German, a former FBI agent who is now with the ACLU, 'This program seems to be turning [firefighters], essentially, into legally protected domestic spies, does it not?'..."



David Cole & Jules Lobel (Opinion - LA Times) Are we safer?
"We have more than six years of experience with the Bush administration's war on terror, and there has not been another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. But can the administration take credit for that? Below is a link to a report card on what the administration's counter-terrorism strategy has achieved, and what it has cost. The figures are drawn from official government sources, reliable news accounts, institutional reports and our own continuing review of data. Click here (PDF) to read the report card on the Bush administration's counter-terrorism strategy."



The Rule of Law:

Wall St. Journal: Head of Rove Inquiry in Hot Seat Himself
"The head of the federal agency investigating Karl Rove's White House political operation is facing allegations that he improperly deleted computer files during another probe, using a private computer-help company, Geeks on Call. Scott Bloch runs the Office of Special Counsel, an agency charged with protecting government whistleblowers and enforcing a ban on federal employees engaging in partisan political activity. Mr. Bloch's agency is looking into whether Mr. Rove and other White House officials used government agencies to help re-elect Republicans in 2006. At the same time, Mr. Bloch has himself been under investigation since 2005. At the direction of the White House, the federal Office of Personnel Management's inspector general is looking into claims that Mr. Bloch improperly retaliated against employees and dismissed whistleblower cases without adequate examination.
Recently, investigators learned that Mr. Bloch erased all the files on his office personal computer late last year. They are now trying to determine whether the deletions were improper or part of a cover-up, lawyers close to the case said.
Bypassing his agency's computer technicians, Mr. Bloch phoned 1-800-905-GEEKS for Geeks on Call, the mobile PC-help service. It dispatched a technician in one of its signature PT Cruiser wagons. In an interview, the 49-year-old former labor-law litigator from Lawrence, Kan., confirmed that he contacted Geeks on Call but said he was trying to eradicate a virus that had seized control of his computer.
Mr. Bloch said no documents relevant to any investigation were affected. He also says the employee claims against him are unwarranted. Mr. Bloch believes the White House may have a conflict of interest in pressing the inquiry into his conduct while his office investigates the White House political operation. Concerned about possible damage to his reputation, he cites a Washington saying, 'You're innocent until investigated,'..."


The Environment:

AP: 12 states sue EPA for data on toxins
"Twelve states sued the Bush administration on Wednesday to force greater disclosure of data on toxic chemicals that companies store, use and release into the environment.
The state officials oppose new federal Environmental Protection Agency rules that allow thousands of companies to limit the information they disclose to the public about toxic chemicals, according to New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the lead attorney general in the civil lawsuit.
The EPA this year rolled back a regulation on the Toxics Release Inventory law signed by President Ronald Reagan after the deadly Bhopal toxic chemical catastrophe in India in 1984, according to the states involved in the lawsuit. That law required companies to provide a lengthy, detailed report whenever they store or emit 500 pounds of specific toxins.
The new rule adopted this year requires that lengthy accounting only for companies storing or releasing 5,000 pounds of toxins or more. Companies storing or releasing 500 to 4,999 pounds of toxins would have to file an abbreviated form, said Katherine Kennedy, New York's special deputy attorney general for environmental protection.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in New York City seeks to invalidate the EPA's revised regulations..."


The Middle East:

Alan Weisman: Grooming the Next Ahmad Chalabi Richard Perle is again propping up regime-toppling Mideast dissidents who lack credibility



The Economy

Joseph E. Stiglitz: Reckoning: The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush - CommonDreams.org
"When we look back someday at the catastrophe that was the Bush administration, we will think of many things: the tragedy of the Iraq war, the shame of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib, the erosion of civil liberties. The damage done to the American economy does not make front-page headlines every day, but the repercussions will be felt beyond the lifetime of anyone reading this page..."

Safety Regulation:

Mark Schapiro: Toxic Toys
"What has been the effect of removing toys with phthalates from European playrooms? The shift in production practices failed to trigger the dire economic consequences the toy industry predicted during its annual negotiations with the EU. From 2002 to '04, European toy-industry sales grew by 5 percent, to nearly $20 billion annually, according to the trade group Toy Industries of Europe. Responding to the ban, European industry began developing alternatives..."

Propaganda/Fake News:

AP: FEMA's fake reporters not the first
"The fake October news conference held by the Federal Emergency Management Agency was not the first time a Homeland Security public affairs official has acted like a reporter by asking questions during a briefing.
In January 2006, an official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement asked a question during a news conference in San Antonio, Texas, according to an investigation by the Homeland Security Department — the parent agency of both FEMA and ICE.
The ICE public affairs official was standing with about 12 reporters but did not identify herself when she posed the question, Homeland Security's head of public affairs, J. Edward Fox, wrote in a Nov. 19 letter to the chairman of the House Homeland Security committee. The government employee was verbally reprimanded for asking the question after the news conference, Fox told Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss..."

Corporate Greed:

Paul Krugman: Banks Gone Wild
"...How did things go so wrong?
Part of the answer is that people who should have been alert to the dangers, and taken precautionary measures, instead blithely assured Americans that everything was fine, and even encouraged them to take out risky mortgages. Yes, Alan Greenspan, that means you.
But another part of the answer lies in what hasn’t happened to the men on that Fortune cover — namely, they haven’t been forced to give back any of the huge paychecks they received before the folly of their decisions became apparent.
Around 25 years ago, American business — and the American political system — bought into the idea that greed is good. Executives are lavishly rewarded if the companies they run seem successful: last year the chief executives of Merrill and Citigroup were paid $48 million and $25.6 million, respectively.
But if the success turns out to have been an illusion — well, they still get to keep the money. Heads they win, tails we lose.
Not only is this grossly unfair, it encourages bad risk-taking, and sometimes fraud. If an executive can create the appearance of success, even for a couple of years, he will walk away immensely wealthy. Meanwhile, the subsequent revelation that appearances were deceiving is someone else’s problem.
If all this sounds familiar, it should. The huge rewards executives receive if they can fake success are what led to the great corporate scandals of a few years back. There’s no indication that any laws were broken this time — but the public’s trust was nonetheless betrayed, once again..."


Our (Fleeting) Constitutional Rights:

Washington Post: Cellphone Warrants Granted Without Probable Cause
"Federal officials are routinely asking courts to order cellphone companies to furnish real-time tracking data so they can pinpoint the whereabouts of drug traffickers, fugitives and other criminal suspects, according to judges and industry lawyers.
In some cases, judges have granted the requests without requiring the government to demonstrate that there is probable cause to believe that a crime is taking place or that the inquiry will yield evidence of a crime. Privacy advocates fear such a practice may expose average Americans to a new level of government scrutiny of their daily lives.
Such requests run counter to the Justice Department's internal recommendation that federal prosecutors seek warrants based on probable cause to obtain precise location data in private areas. The requests and orders are sealed at the government's request, so it is difficult to know how often the orders are issued or denied..."


The Rule of Law:

David G. Savage: Justice Stevens and the Tipping Point
"...How the Supreme Court would look if its strongest liberal voice, now 87, were to exit may well depend on the presidential election..."


Presidential Lies And The Retalliatory Leak:

Robert Parry: Bush's Plame-Gate Coverup
"...even as Bush was professing his curiosity and calling for anyone with information to step forward, he was withholding the fact that he had authorized the declassification of some secrets about the Niger uranium issue and had ordered Cheney to arrange for those secrets to be given to reporters.
In other words, though Bush knew a great deal about how the anti-Wilson scheme got started - since he was involved in starting it - he uttered misleading public statements to conceal the White House role..."


The Revolving Door In D.C. Politics:

It pays to be connected!

The Star-Ledger (NJ) - Justice Department Awards Ashcroft $52 Million Contract
"When U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie announced a $311 million settlement to end a probe into kickbacks by leading manufacturers of knee and hip replacements, he touted the agreement as a groundbreaking development for consumers and the industry.
The deal also proved to be lucrative for Christie's old boss.
Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft was one of five private attorneys whom Christie hand-picked to monitor the implant makers. Now Ashcroft's D.C.-based firm is poised to collect more than $52 million in 18 months, among the biggest payouts reported for a federal monitor.
Disclosed in SEC filings, the arrangement calls for Zimmer Holdings of Indiana to pay Ashcroft Group Consulting Services an average monthly fee between $1.5 million and $2.9 million. The figure includes a flat payment of $750,000 to the firm's 'senior leadership group,' individual legal and consulting services billed at up to $895 an hour, and as much as $250,000 a month for expenses including private airfare, lodging and meals..."

JFK:

Raw Story: Posthumous book claims Ford knew of CIA coverup in Kennedy assassination
"In the book, Ford argues that the CIA destroyed information about the assassination, but he 'contends with interesting specificity that Oswald was the only shooter,' Miller says. 'There was a conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy,' says Tim Miller, CEO of FlatSigned.com, in the release. 'There is no doubt that President Gerald Ford knew more about the JFK death. There is no doubt President Clinton knows more. Has he or any other US President since November 22, 1963 ever swore under oath that they know no more?'..."


Targeting Iran:

Mother Jones: Focus Grouping War with Iran
"Laura Sonnenmark is a focus group regular. 'I've been asked to talk about orange juice, cell phone service, furniture,' the Fairfax County, Virginia-based children's book author and Democratic Party volunteer says. But when she was called by a focus group organizer for a prospective assignment earlier this month, she was told the questions this time would be about something 'political.' On November 1, she went to the offices of Martin Focus Groups in Alexandria, Virginia, knowing she would be paid $150 for two hours of her time. After joining a half dozen other women in a conference room, she discovered that she had been called in for what seemed an unusual assignment: to help test-market language that could be used to sell military action against Iran to the American public. 'The whole basis of the whole thing was, 'we're going to go into Iran and what do we have to do to get you guys to along with it?' says Sonnenmark, 49..."


Thanks Of A Grateful Nation?

KDKA TV (Pittsburgh) Military Asks Wounded Soldiers To Return Portions Of Signing Bonuses
"The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments. To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases. Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back..."


Government Of, For, and By The People?

AlterNet: Naomi Wolf: The End of America May Happen
"If you think we are living in scary times, your worst fears may be confirmed by reading Naomi Wolf's newest book, The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot. In it, Wolf proves the old axiom that history does repeat itself. Or more accurately, history occurs in patterns, and in order to understand where our country is today and where it is headed, we need to read the history books.
Wolf began by diving into the early years leading up to fascist regimes, like the ones led by Hitler and Mussolini. And the patterns that she found in those, and others all over the world, made her hair stand on end. In 'The End of America,' she lays out the 10 steps that dictators (or aspiring dictators) take in order to shut down an open society. 'Each of those ten steps is now under way in the United States today,' she writes.
If we want an open society, she warns, we must pay attention and we must fight to protect democracy.
I met with Wolf to discuss what she learned while researching this book, how the American public has received her warnings, and what we can do to squelch the fascist narratives we are fed in this country each day..."


Government Contracting Graft:

Raw Story: Contractor charged in Army bribery probe
"...Terry Hall, 41, was indicted by a grand jury in the District of Columbia. His companies received more than $20 million in military contracts, but federal prosecutors say he delivered or transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars to at least one Army official to get the business. A federal prosecutor said at a detention hearing Tuesday in Atlanta that evidence suggests Hall made more than $2.5 million in bribe payments, and that there may be another indictment soon. Hall, who has not filed a plea, has been linked to Army Maj. John L. Cockerham in one of the Pentagon's largest probes of military graft. The connection was first reported by the San Antonio Express-News, which relied on court documents in confirming that the Army and FBI had been looking into Hall's dealings with Cockerham, who is based at Fort Sam Houston in Texas and is accused of bribery, conspiracy, money laundering and obstruction..."


Energy:

Kelpie Wilson: Give Thanks for Oil - and OPEC
"...Lester Brown reports that the German Energy Watch Group is projecting that oil production will now decline by seven percent a year and fall to 58 million barrels a day by 2020. Brown points out that the United States is more vulnerable to an oil production decline than some other countries: 'For example, the United States - which has long neglected public transportation - is particularly vulnerable because 88 percent of the US workforce travels to work by car.'
Brown, who founded the World Watch Institute in 1974, is like Perez Alfonzo. He has long urged a different path for economic development. To cope with what he calls 'a seismic event, marking one of the great fault lines in world economic history,' he proposes calling an emergency meeting of the G-8 to coordinate decisive action to reduce oil use. He says, 'If governments fail to act quickly and decisively to reduce oil use, oil prices could soar as demand outruns supply, leading to a global recession or - in a worst-case scenario - a 1930s-type global depression.'
It seems like we might have a choice then: either back to the 70's with gas rationing, speed limits and lowered thermostats, or back to the 30's.
We should be thankful that we have a choice. It may not be the choice we want, but it's the choice we have.
Unfortunately, there are still plenty of voices trying to downplay this message of oil depletion and lull us back to sleep. Last week, NPR did a series of special reports on high oil prices. Smooth tones and heavily modulated language made the listener feel that the troubles were a just a temporary speed bump, certainly no 'seismic shift.'
The stories seemed to evoke every reason for high prices but a geological limit on supply, from the falling value of the dollar, to Iran, to 'excessive demand' from China and India. Listeners were reassured that the high prices would stimulate more production and that prices would eventually fall again. The current high prices were described as 'an 'oil bubble,' one that will pop, sooner or later.' The unstated message was: 'Don't wake up! At least not until after Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year! Please give us one more great retail season so the American consumer can continue to fill his/her divinely sanctioned role as the driver of the world economy!'..."


Sarah Anderson: Wal-Mart's New Greenwashing Report
"Two years ago, Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott announced a bold initiative to turn the world's largest corporation green. After numerous delays, the company has finally released its first progress report. So how much greener are they?..."

Pakistan:

These two men have obviously gone stark raving mad, but are still getting published.

Fred Kagan (American Enterprise Institute)and Michael O’Hanlon (Brookings): Pakistan’s Collapse, Our Problem
"...One possible plan would be a Special Forces operation with the limited goal of preventing Pakistan’s nuclear materials and warheads from getting into the wrong hands. Given the degree to which Pakistani nationalists cherish these assets, it is unlikely the United States would get permission to destroy them. Somehow, American forces would have to team with Pakistanis to secure critical sites and possibly to move the material to a safer place.
For the United States, the safest bet would be shipping the material to someplace like New Mexico; but even pro-American Pakistanis would be unlikely to cooperate. More likely, we would have to settle for establishing a remote redoubt within Pakistan, with the nuclear technology guarded by elite Pakistani forces backed up (and watched over) by crack international troops. It is realistic to think that such a mission might be undertaken within days of a decision to act. The price for rapid action and secrecy, however, would probably be a very small international coalition..."


Targeting Iran:

Le Fiagro (FR) - Riyadh Fears an American Attack on Iran
"'If the Iranians want to hurt the United States, they'll try to shut down our oil supply lines,' explains the Saudi Social Affairs Minister. Fearing reprisals from Tehran against its oil installations, Saudi Arabia has approached Moscow, which has the Iranians' ear in the nuclear crisis..."


Tom, The Unwise:

Glenn Greenwald: The Tom Friedman of 2002 has not gone anywhere
"For all the self-satisfied talk about how George Bush is incapable of ever admitting mistakes or changing his mind, our elite pundit class is exactly the same way. Tom Friedman single-handedly did more than anyone else to convince liberals and Democrats to support the invasion of Iraq; the only competitors for that ignominious distinction are Colin Powell and Ken Pollack. And while he has spent the last year or so feigning angst over his years of pro-war cheerleading, he has not changed in the slightest. His column this morning argues that if Barack Obama becomes President, 'he might want to consider keeping Dick Cheney on as his vice president,' because Cheney's crazed warmongering is desperately needed to balance Obama's excessive love of negotiations..."


Outlawing Dissent?

Ralph E. Shaffer and R. William Robinson: Here come the thought police
"The proposed commission is a menace through its power to hold hearings, take testimony and administer oaths, an authority granted to even individual members of the commission - little Joe McCarthys - who will tour the country to hold their own private hearings. An aura of authority will automatically accompany this congressionally authorized mandate to expose native terrorism.
Ms. Harman's proposal includes an absurd attack on the Internet, criticizing it for providing Americans with 'access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda,' and legalizes an insidious infiltration of targeted organizations. The misnamed 'Center of Excellence,' which would function after the commission is disbanded in 18 months, gives the semblance of intellectual research to what is otherwise the suppression of dissent.
While its purpose is to prevent terrorism, the bill doesn't criminalize any specific conduct or contain penalties. But the commission's findings will be cited by those who see a terrorist under every bed and who will demand enactment of criminal penalties that further restrict free speech and other civil liberties. Action contrary to the commission's findings will be interpreted as a sign of treason at worst or a lack of patriotism at the least.
While Ms. Harman denies that her proposal creates 'thought police,' it defines 'homegrown terrorism' as 'planned' or 'threatened' use of force to coerce the government or the people in the promotion of 'political or social objectives.' That means that no force need actually have occurred as long as the government charges that the individual or group thought about doing it.
Any social or economic reform is fair game. Have a march of 100 or 100,000 people to demand a reform - amnesty for illegal immigrants or overturning Roe v. Wade - and someone can perceive that to be a use of force to intimidate the people, courts or government..."


Attacking the New Deal:

Dean Baker: The Social Security Scare Squad
"Halloween has come and gone, but the Social Security Scare Squad (SSSS) refuses to take off their masks. This group of ghouls will not stop until they have substantially dismantled and/or privatized the nation's most important social program..."


On Torture:

Bill Quigley: Twenty Thousand Protest at Fort Benning
"In what has become the nation's largest annual gathering for peace and human rights, over twenty thousand people protested outside the gates of Fort Benning, GA, on November 18, 2007. Eleven people were arrested on federal criminal charges and face up to six months in prison.
Fort Benning is the site of the internationally notorious US Army training school for Latin American military and security personnel. For decades it was called the School of the Americas (SOA) - it is now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). The school has graduated hundreds of military officers who have led or participated in nearly every human rights atrocity in the hemisphere. Organizations across the world, including Amnesty International USA, have called for its closure since discovering copies of torture manuals used at the school. In June 2007, 203 members of the US House of Representatives voted to close the scandal-ridden school - six votes shy of the margin of victory.
Thousands listened quietly as Adriana Portillo-Bartow told how her father, stepmother, sister, sister-in-law and two daughters, ages nine and 11, were 'disappeared' in Guatemala in a war directed and carried out by graduates of the US Army School of the Americas. Thousands moved towards the gates of the Fort and called out 'presente!' as the names of hundreds of other victims of graduates of the school were sung out..."

Security vs Privacy:

Daily Mail (UK) - Terror crackdown: Passengers forced to answer 53 questions BEFORE they travel
"Travellers face price hikes and confusion after the Government unveiled plans to take up to 53 pieces of information from anyone entering or leaving Britain.
For every journey, security officials will want credit card details, holiday contact numbers, travel plans, email addresses, car numbers and even any previous missed flights.
The information, taken when a ticket is bought, will be shared among police, customs, immigration and the security services for at least 24 hours before a journey is due to take place.
Anybody about whom the authorities are dubious can be turned away when they arrive at the airport or station with their baggage.
Those with outstanding court fines, such as a speeding penalty, could also be barred from leaving the country, even if they pose no security risk.
The information required under the 'e-borders' system was revealed as Gordon Brown announced plans to tighten security at shopping centres, airports and ports.
This could mean additional screening of baggage and passenger searches, with resulting delays for travellers.
The e-borders scheme is expected to cost at least £1.2billion over the next decade.
Travel companies, which will run up a bill of £20million a year compiling the information, will pass on the cost to customers via ticket prices, and the Government is considering introducing its own charge on travellers to recoup costs..."


Nuclear Proliferation:

Democracy Now! - Deception: British Reporter Adrian Levy on How the United States Secretly Helped Pakistan Build Its Nuclear Arsenal
"Adrian Levy examines how five consecutive US administrations from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush have been complicit in building and protecting Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. Levy is co-author of the new book: 'Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons,'..."


On Torture:

Elizabeth de la Vega: Real DOJ Trial Attorneys on Torture
"If there is one thing the Bush administration is good at, it's talking points: simple, stupid slogans. And when it comes to torture, the theme du jour is that we are all too simple and too stupid to understand just what is and is not prohibited. More than anything, White House officials want us to believe that the law of torture is so terribly confusing and vague that no lay person could comprehend its complexities. Hell, not even the attorneys can really sort it all out. How, then, the not-so-subtle implication would be, could anyone be held responsible for violating it?
Consider, for example, Dana Perino on October 5, 2007. This was the press conference where the White House spokesperson made it clear, stopping just short of stamping her feet, that she was not pleased about the reporters repeatedly asking her to define the term 'torture.' She had already told them the day before: 'It's a very complicated legal matter' better left to the experts - particularly Steven Bradbury, interim head of the Office of Legal Counsel. Unfortunately, Bradbury's memos were, and are, secret, so she couldn't talk about those. At the same time, she noted, the memo that is public - written in December 2004 by the former acting head of OLC, Dan Levin - 'is extremely dense. It's very complicated.' Since Dana Perino is not an attorney, she couldn't really say much about that either.
Newly sworn Attorney General Michael Mukasey, on the other hand, is an attorney, not to mention a former federal prosecutor and veteran federal judge. But, hiding behind a mask of lawyerly caution, he has deliberately perpetuated the same false idea, refusing to acknowledge to the Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats the starkly obvious conclusion that waterboarding is illegal under US law on the ground that legal opinions must be based on 'real life.' Further, as if to somehow prove the difficulty of the issue, Mukasey padded his written response with a nearly full-page listing of statutes and treaties he would have to analyze before voicing an opinion on the matter.
What Perino and Mukasey are doing, of course, is deliberately obfuscating the law of torture to support the president's effort to inoculate himself and his henchmen against possible future prosecution. Perhaps they can succeed in confusing at least some percentage of the public (an increasingly small percentage, it appears), but they are not fooling the prosecutors. Indeed, before uttering even one more patently ridiculous and legally unsupportable word in furtherance of this shameful campaign, Bush administration officials should find out what their own Justice Department career attorneys have already said about the law of torture - not in secret memos, but in publicly filed court documents.
They needn't look far. As it happens, while the president and his many talking heads have been defending torture in Washington, lawyers from the Department of Justice and the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida have been prosecuting it. In a case officially titled United States v. Charles Emmanuel, they have charged Charles 'Chuckie' Taylor Jr., son of the former president of Liberia, Charles McArthur Taylor, with committing and conspiring to commit acts of torture on behalf of the former Liberian government's Anti-Terrorism Unit. The statute under which Taylor Jr. is charged - Title 18, United States Code, Section 2340 - is the very law that contains the definition of torture Bush administration appointees seem to find so befuddling.
The DOJ trial attorneys handling the real-life prosecution of Chuckie Taylor Jr. are, on the other hand, not confused in the least about the law of torture. Here is what they've had to say:
First, a defendant doesn't get to walk merely because the indictment charges acts - such as pouring hot water over a victim's body and administering electric shocks to his genitalia - that are not specifically prohibited by the statute.
This argument - that a person cannot know whether his conduct falls within the definition of torture unless it is expressly proscribed by Section 2340 - is precisely the one we've heard from Michael Mukasey with regard to waterboarding. Unfortunately for the new attorney general, however, his subordinates on the front lines consider this contention barely worthy of discussion..."

Health

This is likely why cannabis remains ILLEGAL in the U.S.. The pharmaceutical companies tell the FDA/DEA their preference (selling only patented pills), and the FDA/DEA does as it's told.

BBC News: Cannabis compound 'halts cancer'
"A compound found in cannabis may stop breast cancer spreading throughout the body, US scientists believe.
The California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute team are hopeful that cannabidiol or CBD could be a non-toxic alternative to chemotherapy.
Unlike cannabis, CBD does not have any psychoactive properties so its use would not violate laws, Molecular Cancer Therapeutics reports..."


Bernie, The Man Rudy Made:
Frank Rich: What ‘That Regan Woman’ Knows
"..But how quickly and stupidly we forgot about the other Judith in the Rudy orbit. That would be Judith Regan, who disappeared last December after she was unceremoniously fired from Rupert Murdoch’s publishing house, HarperCollins. Last week Ms. Regan came roaring back into the fray, a silver bullet aimed squarely at the heart of the Giuliani campaign. Ms. Regan filed a $100 million lawsuit against her former employer, claiming she was unjustly made a scapegoat for the O. J. Simpson 'If I Did It' fiasco that (briefly) embarrassed Mr. Murdoch and his News Corporation. But for those of us not caught up in the Simpson circus, what’s most riveting about the suit are two at best tangential sentences in its 70 pages: 'In fact, a senior executive in the News Corporation organization told Regan that he believed she had information about Kerik that, if disclosed, would harm Giuliani’s presidential campaign. This executive advised Regan to lie to, and to withhold information from, investigators concerning Kerik.'
Kerik, of course, is Bernard Kerik, the former Giuliani chauffeur and police commissioner, as well as the candidate he pushed to be President Bush’s short-lived nominee to run the Department of Homeland Security. Having pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors last year, Mr. Kerik was indicted on 16 other counts by a federal grand jury 10 days ago, just before Ms. Regan let loose with her lawsuit. Whether Ms. Regan’s charge about that unnamed Murdoch 'senior executive' is true or not — her lawyers have yet to reveal the evidence — her overall message is plain. She knows a lot about Mr. Kerik, Mr. Giuliani and the Murdoch empire. And she could talk.
Boy, could she! As New Yorkers who have crossed her path or followed her in the tabloids know, Ms. Regan has an epic temper. My first encounter with her came more than a decade ago when she left me a record-breaking (in vitriol and decibel level) voice mail message about a column I’d written on one of her authors..."

The So-Called War On Terror As A War On The Rights Of Americans:

Robert Parry: The Military Commissions Act's Hidden Wording
"In a memorable scene from Michael Moore's 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' Rep. John Conyers explains how it was that Congress passed the USA Patriot Act without knowing many of its provisions. 'Sit down, my son,' the courtly Michigan Democrat said. 'We don't read most of the bills.'
That reality does not appear to have changed much. In back-to-back years, Congress rushed through two sweeping pieces of legislation - the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the Protect America Act of 2007 - without a full understanding of the powers being granted to President George W. Bush.
Now, the U.S. Senate is expected to consider legislation scrapping one part of the 2006 law, its denial of habeas corpus - the ancient protection against arbitrary arrests - to foreigners whom Bush has designated 'unlawful enemy combatants.'
The lead New York Times editorial on Sept. 17 praised this effort to 'reverse one of the worst aspects of the 2006 law' that 'established military tribunals to try any foreigner that Mr. Bush labels an illegal combatant.' But the Times editors - like many members of Congress - don't appear to have read the law through to the end.
If they had, they would know that the Military Commissions Act creates a parallel legal system not limited to foreigners. The law could put 'any person,' including those 'in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States' before a military tribunal if the person 'knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States.'
Who has 'an allegiance or duty to the United States' if not an American citizen? That provision would not presumably apply to Osama bin Laden or al-Qaeda, nor would it apply generally to foreigners.
This section of the law appears to be singling out American citizens who are deemed (by the Bush administration) enemy fellow travelers. It seeks to put them inside Bush's 'star chamber' proceedings if they are alleged to aid and abet foreign enemies.
'Any person is punishable as a principal under this chapter who commits an offense punishable by this chapter, or aids, abets, counsels, commands, or procures its commission,' according to the law, passed by the Republican-controlled Congress in September 2006 and signed by Bush on Oct. 17, 2006..."


Mr. Giuliani's Poor Judgement:

Democracy Now! - Biographer Wayne Barrett on Ex-New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani
"JUAN GONZALEZ: And the overall Kerik indictment, here is a man who basically owes his entire career to Rudy Giuliani and was on the verge of being named the head of Homeland Security of the entire country. The impact of that indictment on his judgment as a leader?

WAYNE BARRETT: Well, you know, you take a guy who was really only in the NYPD for seven years. He had the scantest police background. He never passed an exam in the NYPD. He was twenty-four credits shy of a college degree, and a college degree is required of lieutenants. He was competing with -- for the police commissioner's job -- a thirty-seven-year veteran who had gone completely up the ranks to the highest-ranking uniformed officer in the department, and Rudy picks his buddy Bernie.
And I think that says it all, because if you go from selecting Bill Bratton as the first police commissioner at the start of the administration to going to Bernie Kerik, I think that says something about the evolution of Rudy Giuliani’s judgment and character as a public official. When he first comes into office, he hires a total police professional. He winds up firing him, because the guy winds up on the cover of Time magazine before he does. And so, even though Bratton is the one who gives him all the police strategies that prove to be effective during the course of those years, he winds up with a complete crony, as you say, a complete creature, whose professional career is entirely attributable really to Rudolph Giuliani...

...AMY GOODMAN: Talk about Rudolph Giuliani's role in elevating -- trying to get Bernard Kerik to become the Homeland Security commissioner.

WAYNE BARRETT: Well, I think, you know, if I was running the negative commercials for a candidate running against him, I’d just take that Washington Post story that came out when Bernie Kerik was nominated, and it said that Bush decided to pick Kerik after an impassioned phone call from Rudolph Giuliani. It was an impassioned phone call. 'You’ve got to pick my guy!'

And, you know, it’s one thing to make a mistake, as the mayor likes to put it -- 'Oh, I made a lot of decisions; this one was a mistake' -- but the entire core of his presidential campaign, the rationale for it, is 'I’m the best man to defend America.' Well, he had one opportunity to prove that, unless you consider being down at Ground Zero an opportunity to prove that he’s the man to defend America, but he had one opportunity to prove it, which was he got to select -- the President of the United States was all ears to Rudy -- he got to select the next Homeland Security secretary, and he came up with a bum..."

Washington:

The Rew Story: Republicans call for withdrawal of 'hidden cost of wars' report
"Two Republican senators say Democrats can't do math. Or not exactly. Senior Republicans on Congress' Joint Economic Committee, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KN) and Rep. James Saxon (R-NJ) are calling on Democrats to retract a staff report alleging the hidden costs of the Iraq war could total more than $1.5 trillion. In a joint statement issued to the Washington Post, the committee's Republicans called the report 'another thinly veiled exercise in political hyperbole masquerading as academic research.' 'All wars involve costs, and the war on terror is no exception,' Brownback and Saxton said. 'The Democrats' report would have benefited from more analysis and quality control, and less political content. We call on [Economic Committee Chairman Charles] Schumer (D-NY) and the Democratic leadership in the House and the Senate to withdraw this defective report.' The Democratic analysis claimed that President Bush's six-year invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq would end up costing Americans about $1.5 trillion, or nearly twice as much as the White House has actually spent to fight its wars, because of unseen costs like inflation, rising oil prices and expensive care for wounded veterans..."

The Raw Story: US withholding Iraq strategy document from Democratic lawmakers
"The Pentagon has denied repeated requests from Democratic lawmakers to view a key document outlining the chief US strategy to achieve stability in Iraq.
Created by General David Petraeus and US Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, the Joint Campaign Plan details military and diplomatic steps intended to dramatically heighten security in Iraq by 2009. The exact nature of the plan, however, has been withheld from Congress thus far, according to Roll Call's Rachel Van Dongen..."


Outsourcing The So-Called War On Drugs:

The Wall St. Journal: Next Test for Blackwater
"A Defense Department contract involving antidrug training missions may test the durability of the political controversy over Blackwater Worldwide's security work in Iraq.
The Moyock, N.C., company, which was involved in a September shooting in Baghdad that left 17 Iraqis dead, is one of five military contractors competing for as much as $15 billion over five years to help fight a narcotics trade that the government says finances terrorist groups.
Also competing for contracts from the Pentagon's Counter Narcoterrorism Technology Program Office are military-industry giants Raytheon Co., Lockheed Martin Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp., as well as Arinc Inc., a smaller aerospace and technology contractor.
The contracts are expected to be awarded as the need arises, so the Pentagon's level of concern about employing Blackwater will likely be measured over time and by whether the company wins leading roles or is shut out.
Companies competing for the work might be called on to develop detection or surveillance technology; train U.S. and foreign forces; or provide logistics, communications and information-technology systems, among other areas.
Blackwater faces the question of whether it is too tainted to be tapped for such work, even though the contract doesn't involve the kind of security detail that it performs in Iraq..."


Pakistan:

Greg Palast: Hillary’s Musharraf
"...unlike Saddam and Osama, creations of Ronald Reagan’s and George Bush Sr.’s Frankenstein factories, Musharraf was a Clinton special. And it all began with an unpaid electricity bill. In 1998, Pakistan wouldn’t pay up millions, and they owed billions, to British and American electricity companies. And for good reason: the contracts called for paying insanely high prices. It smelled of payola - and ultimately, the government of Pakistan filed charges against power combine executives and canceled the contracts. That’s the rule under international law: companies can’t collect on contracts they obtained by pay-offs. But these weren’t just any companies. One was a Tony Blair favorite, Britain’s National Power. The other was Entergy International, a sudden big-time player in the international power market based out of, oddly, Little Rock, Arkansas. Despite the Clinton Administration’s claim to fight foreign corruption, this was an exception. Clinton and Blair voted to cut off Pakistan’s funding from the IMF. Pay-up the power pirates, they told Pakistan, or starve..."

Itching For A Fight With Iran:

The Guardian (UK) - Iraqi fighters 'grilled for evidence on Iran'
"US military officials are putting huge pressure on interrogators who question Iraqi insurgents to find incriminating evidence pointing to Iran, it was claimed last night. Micah Brose, a privately contracted interrogator working for American forces in Iraq, near the Iranian border, told The Observer that information on Iran is 'gold'. The claim comes after Washington imposed sanctions on Iran last month, citing both its nuclear ambitions and its Revolutionary Guards' alleged support of Shia insurgents in Iraq. Last week the US military freed nine Iranians held in Iraq, including two it had accused of links to the Revolutionary Guards' Qods Force.
Brose, 30, who extracts information from detainees in Iraq, said: 'They push a lot for us to establish a link with Iran. They have pre-categories for us to go through, and by the sheer volume of categories there's clearly a lot more for Iran than there is for other stuff. Of all the recent requests I've had, I'd say 60 to 70 per cent are about Iran.
'It feels a lot like, if you get something and Iran's not involved, it's a let down.' He added: 'I've had people say to me, "They're really pushing the Iran thing. It's like, shit, you know." '
Brose said that reports about Washington's increasingly hawkish stance towards Tehran, including possible military action, chimed with his experience. 'My impression is they're just trying to get every little bit of ammunition possible. If we get something here it fits the overall picture. The engine needs impetus and they're looking for us to find the fuel - a particular type of fuel..."


The Rule of Law:

Wall St. Journal: Pentagon Forbids Marine to Testify
"The Bush administration blocked a Marine Corps lawyer from testifying before Congress today that severe techniques employed by U.S. interrogators derailed his prosecution of a suspected al Qaeda terrorist. The move comes as the administration seeks to tamp down concerns about detainee policies that flared up after attorney general-designate Michael Mukasey declined to tell senators whether he believes that waterboarding, or simulated drowning of prisoners, constitutes torture. The debate has focused on whether severe interrogation practices, some of which critics consider to be torture, are legal, moral or effective.
In a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing today, Lt. Col. V. Stuart Couch, a former Guantanamo Bay prosecutor, was set to testify regarding another concern that has long troubled uniformed lawyers: Regardless of their accuracy, statements obtained under torture or certain other forms of duress are inadmissible in legal proceedings. Because most evidence against Guantanamo prisoners comes from detainee statements, convictions hinge on whether they can be used in court..."

Our (Fleeting) Constitutional Rights:


ABC News: Is U.S. Government Reading Your Email?
"It would be difficult to say whose e-mail, text messages or Internet phone calls the government is monitoring at any given time, but according to a former AT&T employee, the government has warrantless access to a great deal of Internet traffic should they care to take a peek. As information is traded between users it flows also into a locked, secret room on the sixth floor of AT&T's San Francisco offices and other rooms around the country -- where the U.S. government can sift through and find the information it wants, former AT&T employee Mark Klein alleged Wednesday at a press conference on Capitol Hill.
'An exact copy of all Internet traffic that flowed through critical AT&T cables -- e-mails, documents, pictures, Web browsing, voice-over-Internet phone conversations, everything -- was being diverted to equipment inside the secret room,' he said.
Klein, who worked for more than 20 years as a technician at AT&T, said that the highly secretive electronics-focused National Security Agency began working with telecom companies to gain wholesale access to vast amounts of data traveling over the Internet..."

The Guardian (UK) - Definition Changing for People's Privacy: "As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy. Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information. Kerr's comments come as Congress is taking a second look at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act..."


Is Congress Still Relevant?

New York Times Editorial: Abdicate and Capitulate
"It is extraordinary how President Bush has streamlined the Senate confirmation process. As we have seen most recently with the vote to confirm Michael Mukasey as attorney general, about all that is left of “advice and consent” is the “consent” part. Once upon a time, the confirmation of major presidential appointments played out on several levels — starting, of course, with politics. It was assumed that a president would choose like-minded people as cabinet members and for other jobs requiring Senate approval. There was a presumption that he should be allowed his choices, all other things being equal. Before George W. Bush’s presidency, those other things actually counted. Was the nominee truly qualified, with a professional background worthy of the job? Would he discharge his duties fairly and honorably, upholding his oath to protect the Constitution? Even though she answers to the president, would the nominee represent all Americans? Would he or she respect the power of Congress to supervise the executive branch, and the power of the courts to enforce the rule of law?..."

Frank Rich: The Coup at Home
"As Gen. Pervez Musharraf arrested judges, lawyers and human-rights activists in Pakistan last week, our Senate was busy demonstrating its own civic mettle. Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, liberal Democrats from America’s two most highly populated blue states, gave the thumbs up to Michael B. Mukasey, ensuring his confirmation as attorney general.
So what if America’s chief law enforcement official won’t say that waterboarding is illegal? A state of emergency is a state of emergency. You’re either willing to sacrifice principles to head off the next ticking bomb, or you’re with the terrorists. Constitutional corners were cut in Washington in impressive synchronicity with General Musharraf’s crackdown in Islamabad.
In the days since, the coup in Pakistan has been almost universally condemned as the climactic death knell for Bush foreign policy, the epitome of White House hypocrisy and incompetence. But that’s not exactly news. It’s been apparent for years that America was suicidal to go to war in Iraq, a country with no tie to 9/11 and no weapons of mass destruction, while showering billions of dollars on Pakistan, where terrorists and nuclear weapons proliferate under the protection of a con man who serves as a host to Osama bin Laden...
...But there’s another moral to draw from the Musharraf story, and it has to do with domestic policy, not foreign. The Pakistan mess, as The New York Times editorial page aptly named it, is not just another blot on our image abroad and another instance of our mismanagement of the war on Al Qaeda and the Taliban. It also casts a harsh light on the mess we have at home in America, a stain that will not be so easily eradicated.
In the six years of compromising our principles since 9/11, our democracy has so steadily been defined down that it now can resemble the supposedly aspiring democracies we’ve propped up in places like Islamabad. Time has taken its toll. We’ve become inured to democracy-lite. That’s why a Mukasey can be elevated to power with bipartisan support and we barely shrug..."

For-Profit Health Care:

Los Angeles Times: Health insurer tied bonuses to dropping sick policyholders
"One of the state's largest health insurers set goals and paid bonuses based in part on how many individual policyholders were dropped and how much money was saved. Woodland Hills-based Health Net Inc. avoided paying $35.5 million in medical expenses by rescinding about 1,600 policies between 2000 and 2006. During that period, it paid its senior analyst in charge of cancellations more than $20,000 in bonuses based in part on her meeting or exceeding annual targets for revoking policies, documents disclosed Thursday showed.
The revelation that the health plan had cancellation goals and bonuses comes amid a storm of controversy over the industry-wide but long-hidden practice of rescinding coverage after expensive medical treatments have been authorized..."

Energy:

The Saturn Aura Hybrid and Chevy Tahoe Hybrid cited in the article below are insufficient, but that does not stop GM from labeling them 'green.'

Weight-reduction, via materials & design choices need not reduce safety. A you tube video of a 70-mph crash of a SmartCar I saw recently made this point quite clear.
Formula 1 uses advanced-materials-technology to allow drivers to walk away from 200 mph crashes.

Toward the goal of reducing CO2 emissions and fuel consumption, the newest-generation diesels represent technology that is available now, but only the least of it is available in the U.S.

BMW and MB could bring the 1, 3-series, and the B- and C-class, respectively, with 2.0 (or smaller) liter turbo diesels to the U.S., but they seem to be more interested in being 'luxury & power' car companies, rather than sellers of cars people would truly demand, due to their excellent fuel efficiency.
VW has made a dent in the US diesel market, but it, too, is not bringing smaller cars with smaller engines. Audi will start soon, but their first offering is a 3.0 liter V6 TDI, a real torque-monster, but thirstier than it's 2.0 liter.
GM could employ the diesels used in Opels in Germany.
Nissan could use it's sister company's (Renault) excellent diesels.
Ford could bring its excellent diesels from Europe.

Why the delay?

This UK magazine
will give you a taste of what's available in Europe (remember to convert Imp. Gallons to U.S. Gallons, though, when looking at the MPG. 60 Imp ~ 49 U.S., 50 Imp ~ 42 U.S.)

NY Times: Green Car Award: None Of The Above

The Warfare State:

Washington Post: Blackwater's Owner Has Spies for Hire
"First it became a brand name in security for its work in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now it's taking on intelligence. The Prince Group, the holding company that owns Blackwater Worldwide, has been building an operation that will sniff out intelligence about natural disasters, business-friendly governments, overseas regulations and global political developments for clients in industry and government.
The operation, Total Intelligence Solutions, has assembled a roster of former spooks -- high-ranking figures from agencies such as the CIA and defense intelligence -- that mirrors the slate of former military officials who run Blackwater. Its chairman is Cofer Black, the former head of counterterrorism at CIA known for his leading role in many of the agency's more controversial programs, including the rendition and interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects and the detention of some of them in secret prisons overseas.
Its chief executive is Robert Richer, a former CIA associate deputy director of operations who was heavily involved in running the agency's role in the Iraq war..."


Taxpayer Money Flowing To The Well-Connected:

NY Times: Neil Bush Under Investigation by Inspector General
"The inspector general of the Department of Education has said he will examine whether federal money was inappropriately used by three states to buy educational products from a company owned by Neil Bush, the president's brother.
John P. Higgins Jr., the inspector general, said he would review the matter after a group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, detailed at least $1 million in spending from the No Child Left Behind program by school districts in Texas, Florida and Nevada to buy products made by Mr. Bush's company, Ignite Learning of Austin, Tex. Mr. Higgins stated his plans in a letter to the group sent last week.
Members of the group and other critics in Texas contend that school districts are buying Ignite's signature product, the Curriculum on Wheels, because of political considerations. The product, they said, does not meet standards for financing under the No Child Left Behind Act, which allocates federal money to help students raise their achievement levels, particularly in elementary school reading.
Ignite, founded by Neil Bush in 1999, includes as investors his parents, former President George H. W. Bush and his wife, Barbara. Company officials say that about 100 school districts use the Curriculum on Wheels, known as the Cow, which is a portable classroom with software to teach middle-school social studies, science and math. The units cost about $3,800 each and require about $1,000 a year in maintenance..."

Stacking The Deck:

The Boston Globe: Bush maneuver alters civil rights panel's direction
"The US Commission on Civil Rights, the nation's 50-year-old watchdog for racism and discrimination, has become a critic of school desegregation efforts and affirmative action ever since the Bush administration used a controversial maneuver to put the agency under conservative control..."


The So-Called War On Terror:

A stealth war on The New Deal and The Great Society is increasingly what Team Bush's strategy looks like. They must be hoping that it will eventually become impossible to fund anything other than endless wars of choice, from which all the 'right' parties benefit. Any additional quarter that DoD contractors can continue to be paid is a very, very, good thing. But not if you're a U.S. taxpayer...

Maya Schenwar: $471 Billion, 'War on Terror' Not Included
"In a closed session on Tuesday, a Congressional appropriations conference committee approved $471 billion in defense spending for 2008, a 9.5 percent increase over last year. Although a separate bill allocating war funds will probably follow soon, Democrats succeeded in keeping money specifically for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan out of this general defense appropriations bill.
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) raised an amendment in conference to add a $70 billion 'bridge fund' for the 'war on terror' to the bill, but the proposal was defeated with a vote along party lines, according to Jesse Jacobs, press secretary for Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia)..."

The Rule of Law:

I wonder if the mainstream media are going to report the significance of the GOP voting against a measure that would have killed an impeachment measure.

The Raw Story: Kucinich not stopping with Cheney, plans Bush impeachment resolution too
"In an unexpected move, House Republicans on Tuesday voted against a measure to kill an impeachment resolution introduced against Vice President Dick Cheney by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH).
A motion to table, which would have ended debate on the resolution, had been brought by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) soon after Rep. Kucinich took to the floor to read from his proposed articles of impeachment.
'Impeachment is not on the agenda,' Rep. Hoyer had told Fox News earlier on Tuesday. 'We have some major priorities. We need to focus on those.'
Although the roll call vote had initially appeared to favor Hoyer's motion, Republicans -- who had at first voted in with the majority leader -- began to switch their votes.
That decision is being widely interpreted as an attempt to embarrass the Democratic leadership, which is not keen on seeing further action on the impeachment resolution. 'I am surprised that Republicans would treat an issue as important as the potential impeachment of a vice president of the United States as a petty political game,' Hoyer said in a statement.
'Republicans gleefully said they wanted the debate to show the public how many Democrats would actually support impeaching Cheney, which they consider a move supported only by a fringe element of anti-war activists,' reports the Washinton Post.
According to The Hill newspaper, Republican sources credit Sen. John Shadegg (R-AZ) with the idea of trying to keep the debate afloat. The final vote count on the measure was 251-162.
Following the failure of his motion, Rep. Hoyer immediately moved to have the resolution sent to the House Judiciary Committee, which the House eventually approved in a 218-194 vote along strict party lines..."


On Torture:

Keith Olberman: George Bush’s Criminal Conspiracy of Torture
"Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment on the meaning of the story of former U.S. Acting Assistant Attorney General Daniel Levin.
It is a fact startling in its cynical simplicity and it requires cynical and simple words to be properly expressed:
The presidency of George W. Bush has now devolved into a criminal conspiracy to cover the ass of George W. Bush.
All the petulancy, all the childish threats, all the blank-stare stupidity;
All the invocations of World War Three, all the sophistic questions about which terrorist attacks we wanted him not to stop, all the phony secrets; all the claims of executive privilege, all the stumbling tap-dancing of his nominees, all the verbal flatulence of his apologists…
All of it is now — after one revelation last week — transparently clear for what it is: the pathetic and desperate manipulation of the government, the re-focusing of our entire nation, towards keeping this mock president, and this unstable vice president, and this departed wildly self-over-rating Attorney General — and the others — from potential prosecution for having approved or ordered the illegal torture of prisoners being held in the name of this country.
'Waterboarding is torture,' Daniel Levin was to write.
Daniel Levin was no theorist and no protestor.
He was no troublemaking politician.
He was no table-pounding commentator.
Daniel Levin was an astonishingly patriotic American, and a brave man.
Brave not just with words or with stances — even in a dark time when that kind of bravery can usually be scared — or bought — off.
Charged — as you heard in the story from ABC News last Friday — with assessing the relative legality of the various nightmares in the Pandora’s box that is the Orwell-worthy euphemism 'Enhanced Interrogation,' Mr. Levin decided that the simplest, and the most honest, way to evaluate them… was to have them enacted upon himself.
Daniel Levin took himself to a military base and let himself be water-boarded.
Mr. Bush — ever done anything that personally courageous?...
...your sleazy sycophantic henchman Mr. Gonzales had him append an asterisk suggesting his black-and-white answer wasn’t black-and-white, that there might have been a quasi-legal way of torturing people, maybe with an absolute time limit and a physician entitled to stop it, maybe, if your administration had ever bothered to set any rules or any guidelines…
And then when your people realized that even that was too dangerous, Daniel Levin was branded 'too independent' and 'someone who could (not) be counted on.'
In other words, Mr. Bush, somebody you couldn’t count on to lie for you.
So, Levin was fired.
Because if it ever got out what he’d concluded, and the lengths to which he went, to validate that conclusion, anybody who had sanctioned water-boarding, and who-knows-what-else...anybody — you yourself, sir — you would have been screwed..."

The Raw Story: ACLU learns of third 'secret' torture memo from Gonzales Justice Department
"Legal papers filed in federal court Monday in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations disclose that the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued three secret memorandums relating to interrogation practices of detainees -- one more than has been publicly revealed. The New York Times revealed two memoranda authored in 2005 relating to 'harsh interrogation' of prisoners held by the CIA. One explicitly authorized interrogators to use combinations of psychological 'enhanced' interrogation practices including waterboarding, head slapping, and stress positions. The second declared that none of the CIA’s interrogation methods violated a law being considered by Congress that outlawed 'cruel, inhuman and degrading' treatment. More details in a press release sent by the ACLU Tuesday afternoon follow. Until now, the existence of only two of those memos had been reported and it was not known precisely when the memos had been written. The memos are believed to have authorized the CIA to use extremely harsh interrogation methods including waterboarding..."

Fabricated Iraq Intel:

60 Minutes: Faulty Intel Source 'Curve Ball' Revealed
"Did Saddam Hussein have weapons of mass destruction? No, he did not. We've known that for some time now. So where did the intelligence come from that he was building up his arsenal? Fantastically, the most compelling part came from one obscure Iraqi defector who came in and out of history like a comet. His code name, ironically, was 'Curve Ball' and his information became the pillar of the case Colin Powell made to the United Nations before the war. Who is Curve Ball and how did he fool the world's elite intelligence agencies? 60 Minutes spent two years, and traveled to nine countries, trying to solve the mystery. We talked to intelligence sources, to people who knew Curve Ball and to people who worked with him. As correspondent Bob Simon reports, Curve Ball's real name has never been made public, nor has any video of him, until now..."


Nukes:

Jason Leopold: Cheney Pursuing Nuclear Ambitions of His Own
"While Dick Cheney has been talking tough over the years about Iran's alleged nuclear activities, the vice president has been quietly pursuing nuclear ambitions of his own.
For more than two years, Cheney and a relatively unknown administration official, Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell, have been regularly visiting the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to ensure agency officials rewrite regulatory policies and bypass public hearings in order to streamline the licensing process for energy companies that have filed applications to build new nuclear power reactors, as well as applications for new nuclear facilities that are expected to be filed by other companies in the months ahead, longtime NRC officials said.
Before being sworn in as deputy energy secretary in March 2005, Sell, a lawyer whose roots extend to Bush's home state of Texas, was a White House lobbyist working on energy issues. He had also participated in secret meetings with Cheney's Energy Task Force.
In April, Sell and Cheney had both met with NRC officials to sign off on the final regulatory policies related to new nuclear reactors. Following the meeting, Sell had alerted a group of energy companies they could begin to take advantage of the faster application process, NRC officials said.
NRC officials said that Cheney has expressed a desire to see applications for nuclear reactor projects approved by the NRC when he and Bush leave the White House in January 2009.
The energy corporations Cheney and Sell have been personally lobbying the NRC on behalf of this year have advised the vice president and his staff on energy policy in a way that would boost their companies' profit margins. These corporations have also donated millions of dollars to President Bush's and Cheney's past presidential campaigns..."


On Torture:

Evan Wallach: Waterboarding Used to Be a Crime
"As a JAG in the Nevada National Guard, I used to lecture the soldiers of the 72nd Military Police Company every year about their legal obligations when they guarded prisoners. I'd always conclude by saying, 'I know you won't remember everything I told you today, but just remember what your mom told you: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.' That's a pretty good standard for life and for the law, and even though I left the unit in 1995, I like to think that some of my teaching had carried over when the 72nd refused to participate in misconduct at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.
Sometimes, though, the questions we face about detainees and interrogation get more specific. One such set of questions relates to 'waterboarding.'
That term is used to describe several interrogation techniques. The victim may be immersed in water, have water forced into the nose and mouth, or have water poured onto material placed over the face so that the liquid is inhaled or swallowed. The media usually characterize the practice as 'simulated drowning.' That's incorrect. To be effective, waterboarding is usually real drowning that simulates death..."


Our (Fleeting) Constitutional Rights:

The Register (UK) - No email privacy rights under Constitution, US gov claims
"On October 8, 2007, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati granted the government's request for a full-panel hearing in United States v. Warshak case centering on the right of privacy for stored electronic communications. At issue is whether the procedure whereby the government can subpoena stored copies of your email - similar to the way they could simply subpoena any physical mail sitting on your desk - is unconstitutionally broad. This appears to be more than a mere argument in support of the constitutionality of a Congressional email privacy and access scheme. It represents what may be the fundamental governmental position on Constitutional email and electronic privacy - that there isn't any. What is important in this case is not the ultimate resolution of that narrow issue, but the position that the United States government is taking on the entire issue of electronic privacy. That position, if accepted, may mean that the government can read anybody's email at any time without a warrant..."


The Military Industrial Complex:

San Antonio Express-News: Whistleblowers Claim Contractor Fraud Ignored
"Barrington 'Barry' Godfrey of Houston tried to get mega-contractor KBR to quit overcharging the government for thousands of troops he said the company never fed.
He alleges he was forced out for raising the issue, and that the Justice Department tried unsuccessfully to keep his allegations secret and then refused to join him in a whistleblower suit.
Iowa businesswoman Beth A. Hanken says she sounded the alarm more than a year ago about the military's principal food distributor in Kuwait, Public Warehousing Co., over allegations it was taking kickbacks from a subcontractor that helped it inflate prices of food for U.S. troops.
A Defense Department official, she claims, responded by forwarding her allegations to Public Warehousing, touching off legal threats that she believes were meant to silence her. The Justice Department this year declined to join a whistleblower lawsuit she filed. The companies deny any wrongdoing, but Godfrey and Hanken are among a growing list of people who contend they were abandoned by the government when they stuck their necks out to protect taxpayers footing the bill for the war in Iraq..."


Energy:

IEEE Spectrum: The Charge of the Ultra - Capacitors
"In 1995, a small fleet of innovative electric buses began running along 15-minute routes through a park at the northern end of Moscow. A decade later, a few dozen seaport cranes in Asia, a couple of light-rail trains in Europe, and a battalion of garbage trucks in the United States have joined their high-tech ranks. A smattering of mass-transit vehicles and industrial machines may seem like one wimpy revolution, but revolutionary they are. Unlike most of their electric relatives, these vehicles all share one key attribute: they don't run on batteries. Instead, they are powered by ultracapacitors, which are souped-up versions of that tried-and-true workhorse of electrical engineering, the capacitor. A bank of ultracapacitors releases a burst of energy to help a crane heave its load aloft; they then capture energy released during the descent to recharge. Buses, trams, and garbage trucks powered by the devices all run for short stretches before stopping, and it's during braking that the ultracapacitors can partially recharge themselves from the energy that's normally wasted, giving the vehicles much of the juice they need to get to their next destinations..."

The Politics of Fear:

Paul Krugman: Fearing Fear Itself
"...Mr. Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary and a founding neoconservative, tells us that Iran is the 'main center of the Islamofascist ideology against which we have been fighting since 9/11.' The Islamofascists, he tells us, are well on their way toward creating a world "shaped by their will and tailored to their wishes.' Indeed, 'Already, some observers are warning that by the end of the 21st century the whole of Europe will be transformed into a place to which they give the name Eurabia.'
Do I have to point out that none of this makes a bit of sense?
For one thing, there isn't actually any such thing as Islamofascism - it's not an ideology; it's a figment of the neocon imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn't. And Iran had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 - in fact, the Iranian regime was quite helpful to the United States when it went after Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies in Afghanistan.
Beyond that, the claim that Iran is on the path to global domination is beyond ludicrous. Yes, the Iranian regime is a nasty piece of work in many ways, and it would be a bad thing if that regime acquired nuclear weapons. But let's have some perspective, please: we're talking about a country with roughly the G.D.P. of Connecticut, and a government whose military budget is roughly the same as Sweden's...
...In the wake of 9/11, the Bush administration adopted fear-mongering as a political strategy. Instead of treating the attack as what it was - an atrocity committed by a fundamentally weak, though ruthless adversary - the administration portrayed America as a nation under threat from every direction.
Most Americans have now regained their balance. But the Republican base, which lapped up the administration's rhetoric about the axis of evil and the war on terror, remains infected by the fear the Bushies stirred up - perhaps because fear of terrorists maps so easily into the base's older fears, including fear of dark-skinned people in general. And the base is looking for a candidate who shares this fear.
Just to be clear, Al Qaeda is a real threat, and so is the Iranian nuclear program. But neither of these threats frightens me as much as fear itself - the unreasoning fear that has taken over one of America's two great political parties."


Politization Of The DoJ:

Sydney Blumenthal: The sad decline of Michael Mukasey
"...Mukasey is not a free agent. He had been strictly briefed and in his testimony was following orders. He has avoided calling waterboarding torture because that is consistent with the administration's position and past practice. Mukasey's refusal to disavow waterboarding reveals his acceptance of his assignment to a secondary role as attorney general, an inferior agent, not a constitutional officer, to certain political appointees in the White House. Those who are responsible for waterboarding have defined and dictated Mukasey's evasions. His acquiescence demonstrates that no one in his position could take a contrary view to that of David Addington, Vice President Cheney's former counsel and now chief of staff, who directed and coauthored the infamous memos by former deputy assistant director of the Office of Legal Counsel John Yoo justifying torture, and charged the current acting director of OLC, Stephen Bradbury, to issue new memos rationalizing it. Addington is the reigning legal authority within the administration, presiding over the attorney general no matter who would fill the job. Addington rules by decree and tantrum, intolerant of any alternative opinion, which he suppresses with intimidation and threat. Gonzales, as White House counsel and then attorney general, was the marionette of Karl Rove and Addington. Rove is gone, but Addington remains.
In his confirmation hearings, Mukasey has proved he will dance as the strings are pulled. His positions on waterboarding express precisely the relationship between the Bush White House and its Justice Department. Mukasey's testimony telegraphs that the White House will continue to call the shots. He has already ceded the essence of his power even before assuming it. His vaunted integrity and independence have been crushed, short work for Addington.
Addington's dominion over the law -- controlling the writing of the president's executive orders and the memos from OLC, the office of the White House counsel and the carefully placed network of general counsels throughout the federal government's departments and agencies -- is a well-established and central aspect of Cheney's power. Addington has been indispensable to the vice president since he served as his counsel on the joint congressional committee investigating the Iran-Contra scandal, when Cheney was the ranking minority member. In that capacity, Addington wrote, under Cheney's signature, the notorious minority report that was an early clarion call for the imperial presidency..."


Public Education:

McClatchy Newspapaers: Study: Most students in South are poor
"For the first time in more than 40 years, the majority of children in public schools in the South are poor, according to a report released Tuesday. In 11 Southern states, including Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida, a significant increase in the number of poor children attending public school has sent district officials scurrying for solutions on how to best educate kids who are coming from economically disadvantaged homes..."


Energy Politics:

Remember that Bush and his friends of the nuclear industry in Congress want to build many more plants that will produce waste than needs to be dealt with...

AP: Nuke Landfill to Close; 36 States Left in Lurch
"Starting next summer, many power plants, hospitals, universities and companies in 36 states will be forced to store low-level radioactive waste on their own property because a South Carolina landfill is closing its doors to them.
The states have known for years that this day would come. But because of political opposition, environmental fears and cost concerns, most of them have done almost nothing to construct new landfills in the meantime.
At issue is the Barnwell County dump site, a 235-acre expanse that opened in 1971 close to the Georgia line. The equivalent of more than 40 tractor-trailers full of radioactive trash from 39 states was buried there each year before South Carolina lawmakers in 2000 ordered the place to scale back because they no longer wanted the state to be the nation's dumping ground.
As of July 1, the landfill will take waste only from South Carolina and the two states with which it formed a partnership: New Jersey and Connecticut.
State and industry officials say the not-in-my-backyard resistance will ironically lead to 'temporary' storage sites in backyards across the nation.
'I'm concerned about it, that my hospitals in my neighborhood will have to store this stuff on site,' said Rita Houskie, administrator for disposal of the waste in Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. Other states affected by the shutdown include California, New York, Illinois, Florida and Texas.
The danger, some officials say, is that storing the waste in potentially hundreds of locations across the country could allow radiation to escape..."


The Military Industrial Complex:

BBC News: US army contracting alarms panel
"An independent panel has strongly criticised the way the US army manages contracts to supply its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The panel said there were high levels of fraud and waste in relation to contracts worth $4bn (£1.9bn) a year. It blamed a lack of oversight and said only about half the army's contracting staff were properly qualified. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said he was 'dismayed' by the report and the Pentagon would pursue its suggestions. The army says it is pursuing 83 criminal inquiries related to contract fraud and more than $15m in bribes have been exposed..."