BakerMuckraker
Blogs in the Month of
November - 2005
- November 29, THE
GORE REPORT (not Al Gore, for sure)
- November 22, BUSH’S
CHINESE WALLS
- November 18, THE
PURE SCIENCE BLOG
- November 16, SAUDI-INSURGENT
CONNECTION
- November 11, HOT
TIP: CONGRESSMEMBERS FOR SALE CHEAP
- November 08, PRIVACY?
NO DICE
- November 03, A
TENNYSON IRAQ MOMENT
- November 01, A
FRIEND WRITES……
Got the above by e-mail. Not sure if it is a real Time cover, though nothing in the news indicates that Bush has resigned. Proooobably untrue.
THE GORE REPORT (not Al Gore, for sure)
Last night, I heard Daniel Ellsberg speak at Black Oak Books in Berkeley, California. He was joined by Norman Solomon, author of “War Made Easy,” a book I reviewed earlier this year. Ellsberg, the heroic US government official who released the Pentagon Papers more than three decades ago, was, as always, passionate and direct. Among other things, he warned about the darkness enveloping American democracy. (And speculated that (the above spoof Time cover notwithstanding), Bush and company would dearly like to find a way not to relinquish power at all in 2008. His scenario speculates what might happen if there is another 9-11 type attack before then, and what measures the Administration might take to further protect us by taking away our rights and curtailing freedom.
But he also spoke about what is going on in Iraq, and why, as in Vietnam, there is no hope for a military victory by the US and its allies (whoever those might be in that murky situation.)
Along those lines, this morning, I read a piece of fine enterprise reporting by the Los Angeles Times. It’s pretty grim, but if you want a taste of the madness in Iraq, try to make it through the article. Every paragraph hits you like a knife or sledgehammer. The following are my brief comments and extensive excerpts from the piece itself:
In summary: Many Iraqi police (including paramilitary Interior Ministry commandoes) are simultaneously members of Shiite militias loyal to Iran. Many others are members of militias loyal to a US-hating cleric against whom US troops have battled. Still others are thugs who served in Saddam’s police forces.
Some of the Shiite policemen are members of death squads that indiscriminately arrest, torture and murder Sunni civilians. Many are members of a so-called 'Punishment Committee' that is suspected of going after civilians believed to be flouting Islamic laws.
One Sunni ex-general by the name of Alwaan recounts what happened when commandoes descended on his family May 15, arriving in a 20-car convoy in the middle of the night:
> "They showed my
brother's wife an intelligence office arrest warrant," said Alwaan, who
was in Jordan at the time of the raid. His sister-in-law related the
events of that night to him, he said. "They took away my brother's
mobile phone and his gun and arrested him.
"About a week later, we heard from the forensic department," Alwaan
said.
The body of Khalid Hussein Alwaan, 43, was discovered in a Baghdad
garbage dump. His eyes had been gouged out and his corpse had wounds
consistent with holes made by a power drill. <
His other brothers, suspected as well of being in cahoots with Sunni insurgents, were also killed.
Many of these gruesome scenes are intended as revenge for previous acts by the other side, but they often target innocent people, and manage mostly to unleash new spirals of retribution.
Now a little more perspective…
>According to conservative
estimates, more than 26,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq by
violence since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
The number of armed groups and the monumental scale of violence in Iraq
make it difficult to assign blame. There are multiple Sunni Arab
insurgent groups, from Baathist supporters of Hussein to members of
Islamic militant groups such as Ansar al Sunna and Al Qaeda in Iraq.
Violent crime also clouds the issue. Kidnappings and murders are a daily
occurrence in Iraq, and with inadequate investigative capabilities and
limited judicial resources, many crimes go unpunished.
When presented with witnesses' claims that police have committed abuses,
many ministry officials discount police involvement and blame street
criminals impersonating officers.
But the revelation of the ministry's secret prison confirmed the fears
of some Iraqis who have for months complained about police abuses.<
Saddam’s trial for crimes against humanity takes on more subtle hues given the reality of life without father. Had the US occupation of Iraq gone incredibly smoothly, as imagined by Rumsfeld and Chalabi -- with everyone signing up for debate classes and posting lawn signs for their favorite candidates -- that would be one thing. But now we see the powderkeg upon which Saddam sat, and we begin to understand why so many knowledgeable figures in US intelligence and diplomatic circles did not want to be involved in unseating the dictator and unleashing what was to come.
>The Sunni Arab teenager stretched out his arms to show the scabbed ligature marks that encircled his wrists. "That's where the police handcuffed me and hung me on a hook," he said.
He rolled up his pants and took off his shirt so journalists could see red welts, glossy scabs and fresh burn marks where he said police had beat him with pipes and shocked him with wires attached to a car battery.
The interview with the boy was arranged by the Muslim Scholars Assn., which in addition to documenting abuses, has served as a go-between for kidnap victims in Iraq and insurgent kidnappers.
Two days after his alleged release Nov. 7, the 15-year-old boy spoke for more than two hours about his allegations of abduction and torture by militia-affiliated police officers.
His account could not be corroborated because it is too dangerous to interview people in his Baghdad neighborhood, a known Al Mahdi militia stronghold, which will go unnamed out of concern for his safety. The boy will go unnamed for the same reason.<
Please note the above paragraph. The reporter could not personally visit the neighborhood, nor could he even mention the name of the neighborhood or of the boy. Try counting the number of qualifiers in such articles. If usually fearless and even reckless war-zone reporters are so constrained, that gives you a good sense of the utter hopelessness of the situation.
>The teenager said he was watching television at 1 p.m. on Nov. 2 when about 10 armed, masked men stormed into his home.
"They hit me in the back of the head and pulled me away by the collar," the boy said. "They led me to a Caprice car." He said the gunmen forced him to lie on the floor of the back seat and that they drove to a house he did not recognize.
The men took him inside, blindfolded him and started to beat him, the boy said. He said he could hear other beatings taking place around him and the screams of other captives.
"And when we scream or shout, they told us to shut up or they'll use electricity on us," he said. "They were telling us, 'You will confess that you exploded an IED [improvised explosive device] on civilians.' They told me, if I don't confess they would beat me harder."
When night fell, the men drove the blindfolded youth to a police station where officers locked handcuffs tightly around his wrists. The boy, who said his blindfold was removed after his arrival, recognized and identified the police station.
After one night, police blindfolded him again, put him in a car and drove for what he estimated was about two hours. The boy said that as he was taken into a large room, his blindfold had slipped enough so that he could see approximately 50 other handcuffed and blindfolded men.
The boy said that he and others were shocked with wires hooked up to a car battery. The boy also described how some prisoners were tortured by guards pressing superheated silverware into their skin. Some guards rubbed salt into wounds they inflicted on inmates, the boy said.
Two or three days into his ordeal, the boy heard guards angrily questioning a man somewhere in the room.
"They told him, 'You are the guy with the booby-trapped car." And the man said, 'Yes.' And they said, 'You want to kill people, don't you?' and I heard them cock the gun and shoot him." Later, when the guards had left the room, the boy peeked under his blindfold and saw the man lying in a pool of blood.
The boy said that after three or four days, three guards appeared to take pity on him. They allowed him to use the bathroom and spoke more kindly to him than the other guards. He believes they managed to win his release.<
And what do Iraqi officials have to say about all this?
> Gen. Rashid Flaih
Mohammed, commander of the Maghawir [Interior Dept. commandos],
acknowledged [Shiite] militia infiltration among his commandos but
downplayed their influence. He said that new policing procedures issued
by the ministry were reining in his forces.
"We receive more information now from the Ministry of Defense about
targets," he said. "Then we assign our surveillance people to study them
before we decide what size force we need to do the job. We are very
clear here, very transparent. We don't have secret things."<
When the head of the government commandos claims to be appreciative about superiors reining in his own men – and notes that he is now actually ‘receiving information’ and doing surveillance before whacking potentially innocent people, you know that you have….what’s that word…CHAOS.
This is what it has come to, and this is why there does not seem to be any elegant way for the United States to handle this situation. Nor that the US troops will be able to hand security over to Iraqis with any reasonable sense that a stable situation will result.
The John McCains and the Hillary Clintons who are calling for increases in troop levels have a lot of explaining to do about how this will improve anything.
ME WANT ROLLS ROYCE
Meanwhile, back in the land of the responsible, Congressman Randy Cunningham, whom Baker Muckraker readers will recall from a prior blog (scroll down to Nov. 11), has now pled guilty to accepting bribes in return for funneling our tax dollars to dodgy defense contractors with unnecessary and generally dubious projects. Cunningham could get 10 years, but that’s unlikely since he is expected to implicate others in return for leniency. (Perhaps all of his colleagues -- who participate in all the pork barrel legislative trades?)
Cunningham, yet another conservative Republican moralist and tough-defense guy who looks best in stripes, was basically selling out the public interest so he could get a nicer house, fancy rugs, access to a yacht, and a Rolls Royce. Who could blame him? Most of us are just offered Toyotas to commit felonies.
As Eric Umansky of Slate aptly notes, the newspapers haven’t yet figured out exactly how Cunningham’s shenanigans worked, and don’t adequately explain how it is that a single congressman is able to direct millions of dollars to specific defense contractors, even over Pentagon objections.
On a broader level, how well do you and I actually understand the legislative process at all? Although the minute details of our elected representatives’ daily actions have a powerful impact on our daily lives, we rarely hear anything about them. The news organizations can’t devote the resources, because they have to keep lots of staff free to report how Wal-Mart did in its holiday sales. Maybe just one reporter could be redirected to explain representative democracy on a regular basis?
Oh, never mind....
BUSH’S CHINESE WALLS
The New York Times yesterday had an intriguing series of four photos -- an action sequence, if you will. Don’t recall the paper doing that before, but I like it.
This grouping shows President Bush in Beijing, having concluded a meeting with reporters, trying without success to exit through a locked door -- before being shown another way out by an aide. Bush mock-grimaces, clown-like, and, according to The Times, later jokes, “I was trying to escape. It didn’t work.”
Well, no, it didn’t. And I’m not sure he was simply joking. Bush, like many people, employs humor (in his case, a particularly barbed, snide humor) when more direct forms of communication just don't feel right. My quick Freudian take is that he does want to escape – escape his responsibilities, escape a job that is no longer much fun, escape the morass of his own making. "Hey, this was supposed to be a blast, but now everything's falling apart!" He may have also been commenting on how distasteful it is to deal with the Chinese leadership which, economic and other progress notwithstanding, remains a ruthless force that continues to enslave large portions of the Chinese population. Even Bush must have heard about the multitudes who remain unjustly and horribly imprisoned there. And try posting some criticism on the Internet there -- capital punishment to the people!
On another level, too, the mock-grimace is revealing. Bush can't simply accept a minor mistake and silently correct his action, nor can he publicly acknowledge an error without hamming it up ('hmm...no WMD under this desk?') He can’t simply try a door, find it locked, and walk away. He's embarrassed, and has to play the class clown. Listen, guy, I know a good shrink.....
DEM BONES, GUATEMALA STYLE
The off-lead in yesterday’s Times was about the discovery in Guatemala of towering archives of rotting National Police records, testimony to decades of government-sponsored atrocities. The documents include the commonplace paperwork of ordinary lives snuffed out – drivers license applications, traffic tickets and such, along with logs of surveillance and interrogation. More than 200,000 died in what is routinely characterized as a civil war where everyone did wrong. There’s no call for this false equivalency. The vast majority of the deaths were caused by government and government-sponsored forces, and many of the victims were mothers, teenagers, innocent peasants whose only crime was to speak up or harbor ‘dangerous’ political views – or just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Anyone who has ever visited that beautiful and tragic country has met people who lost relatives during those terrifying years.
As with so much of Latin American history, there's a heavy background of US funding and training support for the military. Not that most Americans were aware: I recall some years back calling the New York Times to ask why there was always endless reportage on Nicaragua and El Salvador in the paper, and so little about Guatemala. The editor with whom I spoke was clearly irritated by my impertinence. He snapped at me that, obviously, the paper covers what the US government says and does, and that Guatemala was not subjecto numero uno on the geopolitical agenda, and hence, what a ridiculous question. End of story. End of phone call.
I can't reveal the man's name, but it was definitely not I.F. Stone.
MACHETE-WIELDERS FOR DEMOCRACY
News reports in the past day or so have covered incidents in which Egyptian government-backed mobs have attacked members of the opposition Muslim Brotherhood to create chaos and halt the Brotherhood's growing record of electoral victories. Television was full of pictures of mobs armed with knives, clubs, and machetes, on the attack against unarmed civilians. Some accounts by human rights observers described the rampagers as high on drugs or drunk, and noted that they were brought into poor neighborhoods by government security forces.
Karen, Condi? Any comment? A US-funded and –backed regime rounds up young thugs, pays them and/or supplies them with chemical substances that turn them into homicidal maniacs, and then transports them into key neighborhoods to interfere with elections and maim and kill a bunch of people in the process. Please to explain how exactly the US is helping create favorable conditions for democracy in that part of the world? Sounds even worse than Palm Beach, November, 2000.
ZERO TOLERANCE AT HOME DEPOT
(Following via Progressive Review:)
HOME DEPOT HARASSES MAN FOR WALKING OFF WITH USED PENCIL
http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=113157&format=text
Check this out:
BRIAN BALLOU, BOSTON HERALD - Home Depot did the math and has decided not to ban a Lawrence man for a year after he accidentally walked out of a Metheun store with a 41-cent used pencil in his pocket Thursday.
"We will not be pursuing any claims against Mr. Panorelli for this incident," read a statement from Home Depot. "We welcome Mr. Panorelli back as a customer in our stores at any time."
On Thursday, Michael Panorelli, 51, a regular customer, was treated like a common thief by the store's security detail and, despite a corporate apology, he's fuming. "That apology doesn't mean much to me," he said. "I'm not happy with the way I was treated. I didn't deserve to have a security guard asking me why I needed a pencil so bad I had to steal one."
Panorelli said that after he was stopped by security, he was escorted into a back office, where he was instructed to sign a document that banned him from Home Depot. He was told that the company's lawyers would be contacting him in within the next two months and might pursue civil charges. ##
Now, another news report on the same incident:
EAGLE TRIBUNE MA - Michael E. Panorelli, 51, was shopping at the Methuen outlet on Thursday with George Salas, owner of Salas Auto Repair on Lawrence Street. Panorelli said that as he purchased $117 worth of lumber, he asked Salas for a pencil to write down some figures. Salas took a carpenter's pencil from the cash register, and Panorelli said that, without thinking, he put the pencil in his pocket after using it. As they walked toward the parking lot, security guards approached them and accused Panorelli of stealing the pencil. . .
Casey said the loss-prevention investigator who stopped Panorelli, Jordan Scott, was following procedures "to the T" but made "an error in judgment by applying our zero-tolerance policy a little too broadly." . . .
Salas said he believes the security guard was targeting the pair because of their race. Salas is Hispanic, and said that Panorelli looks Hispanic despite being Italian. Regardless of the reason, Salas said he will not return to Home Depot. "Mike doesn't want to say it, but the whole thing was racist, that's for sure," he said. "I'll never go back there. Ever." Asked if the incident was the result of racial profiling, Casey said he would not dignify the accusation with an answer.
http://www.ecnnews.com/cgi-bin/15/etstory.pl?-sec-News+fn-pencilfolo.as
THE PURE SCIENCE BLOG
The news today is about Woodward & Plame, and Murtha and Iraq, and of course I should have profound thoughts on both, but look: It’s easy to opine, but it’s hard to do so quickly, thoughtfully, entertainingly – and with any kind of confidence that what I say won’t look absurd in 24 hours.
Not that such concerns have stopped me before, but since I don’t earn the big bucks as a tv pundit, I simply don’t have to have any instant analysis, especially if I am feeling too lazy to read through another contorted account of whose lawyer anonymously claimed what about that which someone else’s client may or may not have said. And, honestly, I have no idea what to inject, beyond expressing my general doubts about oh so many things Woodwordian.
However, by Monday I should have formulated sentiments that are really smart and pithy, and shall express myself on the website www.tompaine.com . Meanwhile, if your friends ask, over the weekend, and if you’re like the millions of others who depend on me to tell you what’s what, try to stall.
Now, away from pure politics to the spot where the rubber of science meets the road of policy….
DOPES ABOUT DEPRESSION
Yet another warning about marijuana gets debunked. Doh! (insert forehead-smack here)
Forever, it seems, the US government, irrespective of who is in the White House, has tried to convince us to alter our moods with all manner of corporate-owned and -operated dope, but certainly not the kind that may simply be plucked. Marijuana, we are warned, causes homicidal mania, vote theft, delusions of grandeur, triple chins and worse. It can even land you in a funk. Claims a May press release from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy: "Marijuana use, particularly during the teen years, can lead to depression, thoughts of suicide and schizophrenia."
But the largest-ever study of the subject now shows that daily or weekly marijuana users actually got less depressed than other people. Paaarty!
"Not only does marijuana not cause depression, it looks like it may actually alleviate it," said Mitch Earleywine, associate professor of psychology at the University at Albany, State University of New York, and co-author of the new study, which appears in the journal Addictive Behaviors, a magazine I personally find an addictive pleasure.
Suddenly, I’m in a really good mood. And I don’t even use the stuff.
NICKOTINE AT NIGHT
While the government is busy warning us about smokes produced by Latin American peasants and Northwestern hothousers, Hollywood is convincing kids to start smoking the legal -- and infinitely more harmful -- form of cigarettes. A new study, cited in a full-page advertisement in today’s New York Times (page A19), shows that a majority of live-action PG-13 flicks feature characters glamorously sucking their way through a pack. More disturbingly, 10-14 year-olds who see a lot of on-screen smoking are, shockingly, three times more likely to begin imbibing ash than those who are exposed to very little cellluloid puffery.
The undersigners of the ad, mostly health advocates, would like to see the film industry extend the R-rating to tobacco imagery. Industry executives, out at the screening of Harry Potter and the Magical Extra-Light 100's, couldn’t be reached for comment.
GENE FOR DARING!
By removing a single gene from a mouse, scientists have been able to turn a timid rodent into a daring one, according to the journal, Cell. You can read about it in your favorite newspaper, including the Times. The discovery, it seems, may work in humans – and my anonymous insider sources tell me that the Democratic Party is already lining up to participate in early trials.
SAUDI-INSURGENT CONNECTION
So, a well-connected internationalist friend in Washington says that the big coming story is the role of the Saudis in financing the Iraqi insurgency. And its training camps in Syria. Iraqi intelligence officials, he says, have made that claim directly to him, and the notion is starting to pop up here and there, even in a speech by the Iraqi foreign minister. I have no idea whether it’s true, but certainly, the insurgency couldn’t be as broad and relentless as it is without substantial organization and resources.
The Saudis clearly wouldn’t want on their doorstep the kind of Iraq that’s looking increasingly likely – dominated by radical Shiites and possessed of the kinds of notions that might be exportable, to some extent – so they have every reason to cast their lot with the Sunnis, including Saddam’s former cronies.
Anyway, the insurgency also gets tons of money from Sunni businessmen worldwide – it’s sort of their equivalent of the United Jewish Appeal, and no one wants to say no. Hence, this thing isn’t going to end anytime soon, whether there are fewer US troops or more of them. Not with lots of moolah and endless bodies available on the other side.
If this is true, that means that Bush is in an impossible bind. On the one extremity, he’s holding hands (literally, in some cases – see the photos) with his old Saudi chums, and on the other, his entire presidency is dependent on saving face in Iraq. So what to do?
Well, you turn to Ahmad Chalabi, aka Shiite Lite, who promises the administration that he’s best positioned to control both the Syrians and Iranians. Of course, he tells the Syrians and Iranians the same thing – that they’re about to be attacked, which, according to various sightings and claims and predictions, perhaps they are--and that they’d do well to talk with him, since he controls what Washington does. Who knows? Maybe he can be US secretary of state.
As I like to point out, years back Chalabi and I had a very pleasant lunch near Union Square in NYC (he's a fine conversationalist and a great intellectual, notwithstanding his substantial shortcomings) and when I suggested that sitting outside might not be good for his health if, as he believed, Saddam’s hit men were after him, he readily agreed to move indoors, and to keep his back to the wall. We had fish, incidentally.
On his current trip to the US, Chalabi took so many $5,500-a-night suites, that, by my quick calculation, he spent about $400,000 on Washington hotel rooms alone, crackers of the Ritz brand. Has anyone asked why he needs such a mammoth entourage, and who is paying for this luxury? (You are, bubba, indirectly or directly.)
Chalabi is a longtime friend of the US ambassador to Iraq, who apparently sees himself in the role of Chalabi’s campaign manager for the country’s top post. If they get it together, maybe Judith Miller, who's looking for her next gig, can play the role of Karen Hughes. Personally, I’d like to be minister of no-bid contracts. I hear that’s kinda fun.
TORTURED LOGIC
A reader writes:
< Could you please address what in the world is going on in the Senate, with McCain's amendment prohibiting torture, then Graham sliding in that amendment taking away detainees' rights to trial? Although they at first appeared to be champions of human rights, I am beginning to wonder if the McCain-Graham-Warner cabal is actually the true axis of evil. One night McCain is on Jon Stewart talking against torture while still proclaiming that the "war on terror" is the right thing to do, then I see McCain on some sports talk show the next day, schmoozing with the host. Am I losing my mind, or is this just politics as usual? >
Well, I have no idea what the others are up to, or why McCain likes mixing up torture with a little schmooze on a sports talk show (or what’s wrong with doing so – after all, torture increasingly is treated as sport, with the latest human rights allegation that prisoners in Iraq were put in a cage with a lion), but he’s clearly positioning himself for another presidential run. To pull off a moderate act in the Republican primaries is, however, a tad difficult. Hence, McCain stays unpredictable so he can’t get pegged one way or the other. Frankly, it would be truly more interesting if he announced that he was switching parties – then, instead of trying to prove to Republicans that he is both ‘on the team’ and a man of conscience, he could be seen by Democrats simply as a man of conscience. It almost wouldn’t matter to Dems that so many of his positions are Republican-ish – in fact, they might trade someone like Joe Lieberman.
ANIMALS AND WARM FUZZIES BREAK
From the If Animals Can Get Along Department… (and forwarded by a reader, and stolen from Snopes.com , a great website that checks out urban legends. Apparently, this story is TRUE….)
Befriended Hippo
Claim:
Photograph shows a baby hippo and a tortoise who have become friends
in captivity.
Status:
True.
Example:
[Collected on the Internet, 2005]
|
NAIROBI, Jan 6: A baby-hippopotamus that survived the tsumani waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise, in an animal facility in the port city of Mombasa.
|
>
Origins:
The above-quoted account, which has been circulated widely on the
Internet, is but one of the many news articles about this unusual pair.
Bereaved by the forces of nature and discovered by wildlife rangers near
certain death in the Indian Ocean off Malindi, the one-year-old male
hippo calf dubbed Owen was on 27 December 2004 placed in Haller Park, a
wildlife sanctuary in the coastal city of Mombassa, Kenya.
As soon as he was placed in his enclosure, the orphaned youngster
immediately ran to the tortoise also housed in that space. The 100
year-old tortoise named Mzee (Swahili for "old man") was not immediately
taken with the brash newcomer — he turned and hissed, forcing the hippo
to back away. Yet within days, the pair had forged a friendship, and now
eat and sleep together. Owen has even been seen to lick the tortoise,
whom he regards as his new mother.
Some news accounts (including the one being sped from inbox to inbox)
assert the little orphan was swept into the sea by the tsunami that
devastated numerous coastal countries in the Indian Ocean on 26 December
2004, yet wildlife officials were alerted to the imperiled hippo before
Christmas, when hoteliers in Malindi spotted the little fellow, in the
company of a number of adults of his kind, floundering in the surf off
the coast. By the time wildlife officials arrived, Owen was alone,
having become separated from his herd. Had he not been rescued, the
ocean's waters would have done in the youngster because long immersion
in salt water would have led to fatal dehydration.
It is hoped that Owen will eventually mature into a romantic companion
for a lonely female hippo named Cleo who is also housed at this wildlife
park. <
HOT TIP: CONGRESSMEMBERS FOR SALE CHEAP
Earlier this week, USA Today published an important piece, and, like a lot of good work that paper does, it doesn’t seem to have gotten much attention.
USAT’s military affairs reporters took a hard look at the dynamics surrounding an obscure firm and the two congressmembers who have helped the firm grow into a behemoth with $200 million in military contracts.
The bottom line is that this company, MZM, was able to get military deals that even the military didn’t want. The congressmembers pushed them through, often under cover of classified programs that get virtually no scrutiny. Such classified Pentagon spending, USAT notes, has increased by nearly 48 percent, to $27 billion, since Sept 11.
If even the military didn’t want the deals, how did they get through? Simply put, the company donated a lot of money to two House members, Rep. Virgil Goode (R-Va.) and Rep. Randy Cunningham (R-Calif.) Cunningham is already under investigation because he sold his home to MZM’s chief executive at a huge profit. Mr MZM obviously didn't really want the roost and knew he had overpaid, because he turned around and sold it at a big loss, while Cunningham traded up, at no cost, for a much nicer place.
Now USAT has documented, with the help of the Center for Responsive Politics, a brow-furrowing congruence of contributions and favorable legislative actions, with donations in some cases coming the day before or after MZM got some gain in Congress, usually aided by one of this dynamic House duo.
Cunningham's real estate prowess notwithstanding, these public servants appeared largely motivated by campaign contributions, which of course are primarily to scare away potential opponents and keep the incumbents in power so they can do more of this good work into the future. The math on this is that MZM gets a lot, the congressmen get a bit, and you and I get bupkis. Once Goode had collected $33,000 in campaign contributions from a PAC and individuals connected with MZM, the firm landed an initial contract for $3.6 million. On this deal, talking bottom line here, MZM paid a paltry one percent commission (finder's fee?). This proves once again that there's scarcely a better investment than buying a congressman.
Naturally, the legislators have answers ready. Pressed as to why he helped the company get the contracts, Rep Goode gamely noted that MZM promised to create jobs in his district. So there’s the “public benefits” bottom line: At the same time other big congressional donors are (with impunity) shipping jobs offshore as fast as they can, we are supposed to be subsidizing domestic corporate job creation via rotten military contracts that even the Pentagon spendthrifts want no part of.
And speaking of high quality job creation…..
NEW SPECIALS AT BUSH-MART
With the Bush administration inviting industries to self-regulate, and with Wal-Mart racing to impoverish the American workforce and destroy competition, it was just a matter of time until these predestined lovers were found together, in flagrante delicto.
Their trysting was documented in a recent report from the Labor Department’s inspector general. The IG was stunned -- as any sentient being would be -- to learn that the administration had agreed to give Wal-Mart stores 15 days’ advance notice before sending in investigators to look for child labor violations.
What a novel way to shrink government and lighten its enforcement burden -- give every possible perp a heads-up! We can start notifying restaurants when health inspectors are coming, and maybe even tip off bank robbers that we’ve identified their lair, so they can make a clean get-away.
As the New York Times’ Steven Greenhouse (a rare actual labor reporter) wrote earlier this month:
The report by the inspector general faulted department officials for making “significant concessions” to Wal-Mart…without obtaining anything in return. The report also criticized department officials for letting Wal-Mart lawyers write substantial parts of the settlement and for leaving the department’s own legal division out of the settlement process.
Labor Department inspectors, who were, outrageously, trying to do their jobs, had found 85 child labor violations at Wal-Marts in Connecticut, New Hampshire and Arkansas. They discovered teens operating dangerous machinery, including chain saws. How would you like your discount baloney sliced -- with or without neighbor's kid’s thumb? Wal-Mart would not admit wrongdoing, but settled for a positively whopping fine of $135,540.
Get out and see Robert Greenwald’s new documentary on Wal-Mart, and then pick up some discount beer for me at Costco.
Dear Diary:
Living in New York City, I am often struck by the disappointingly conservative lifestyles of most Gothamites. The city is hardly the den of iniquity playing prominently in the fevered imaginings of Pat Robertson, Rush Limbaugh and their compatriots.
And yet, NYC does not always disappoint. I hit the voyeuristic jackpot just the other day while I was sitting in a Greenwich Village café, trying to put together my thoughts on the state of civilization. I found myself repeatedly distracted by a very loud and decidedly exhibitionist conversation at another table. Two middle-aged fellows, overgrown lads really, were expansively and with great relish giving each other advice in two popular areas: satanic worship and genital herpes.
Best as I could divine, they were for the former and neutral on the latter. I recall the more verbose of the duo chortling over some incompetent fool who had incorrectly positioned the satanic cross. Well, I wanted to interject, hope you gave him a good lashing.
As one might expect in such literarily distinguished environs, both these gents were well-spoken, even glib, the kind you might otherwise invite to a dinner party– though they lacked a certain sensitivity to the poor souls around them aspiring to nothing more controversial than a good cup of cocoa and some time with Bridget Jones’s latest misadventures.
Speaking of which, Dear Diary, let’s move on to the doings in Washington, where it’s not dull either.
PRIVACY? NO DICE
We start with “National Security Letters.” Have you gotten one of these? Probably not, since they’re invisible. Let’s let Slate explain the Washington Post explaining this latest ominous development and screwy program:
"National security letters" have been around for decades, the Post reports, but since the Patriot Act became law in October 2001 their use has expanded from 300 to 30,000 per year. Such a letter can compel an institution to hand over "transaction records" on a suspect—who[m] he called, what Web sites he visited, where he traveled, what he bought, etc. Unlike issuing a regular subpoena, issuing an NSL requires no grand jury investigation or judicial oversight, allows for the dissemination of compelled information among multiple government agencies, and prohibits the suspect from even knowing he is being investigated. Since the Patriot Act, an FBI agent need merely request authorization—with little-to-no justification—from one of five-dozen bureau supervisors. NSL-obtained information used to be destroyed when a suspect was cleared; now information on cleared suspects is permanently stored in a database.
The Post notes one particularly massive instance of such data mining. To investigate a terror threat on Las Vegas in 2003, the feds compelled the release of transaction info (hotel and plane reservations, car rentals, etc.) on everyone who visited the city over a two-week period—about a million people. This data was sifted and yielded no suspects, yet it still sits in a government database.
…[O]nly one figure in the government—the inspector general—monitors the use of national security letters. How exactly does he do this monitoring? By waiting for complaints from suspects … who, of course, are never told they are being investigated. Guess what! He has found no evidence of abuse. "'We do rely upon complaints coming in,' [the inspector general] said in House testimony in May. He added: 'To the extent that people do not know of anything happening to them, there is an issue about whether they can complain. So, I think that's a legitimate question.' "
Thus the writer adds a nice piece of context, and begins to touch on the essential absurdity of life.
Speaking of which, a few days ago, USA Today reported how FEMA has sent Louisiana a disaster bill for $3.7 billion. And before you can say, ‘Oy, FEMA again,’ please note that this time, you can’t blame the agency. Congress long ago stipulated that states foot a portion of the bill for digging themselves out. The important thing, however, is that $3.7 billion represents half of Lousiana’s entire pre-Katrina annual budget—which, given the state’s vanished tax base, is now a fantasy anyway.
So, I got to thinking: who could actually help pay that bill? Well, if we hurry before they ban all tort actions, we can start identifying likely culprits in the mess, and dunning them for their fair share. We could start by selling off the vacation homes of executives whose firms didn’t bother to drive levee pilings deep enough, and maybe collect a billion here and there from corporations whose emissions practices seem to have something to do with the striking increase in really ugly weather patterns. And then there is whoever decided to hire Brownie to run disaster relief. Bet you can think of more revenue-enhancers. Send in those ideas.
JOYOUS RESTRAINTS
Anyone who thinks it is a good idea to make Louisiana pay that whopping tab – much of it going to cover those cozy, dubious no-bid cleanup contracts, will appreciate this: Last week, the Senate quietly passed $35 billion in domestic spending cuts (over the next five years) – touting them as “an exercise in fiscal discipline.”
So who gets disciplined by the Senate? Why, those who clearly have it much too cushy to begin with: students, farmers, the poor, and the elderly. A similar House bill will reduce health-care spending for 6 million children. I heard nary a public peep about all of this, which is hardly surprising, since media organizations don’t want to bore the audience with <groan> budgets and such. That’s too bad, because, as the neighborhood satanic worshipper knows only too well, the devil is in the details.
A TENNYSON IRAQ MOMENT
With 2000+ Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis now dead and still little serious discussion of some resolution, it’s time for a poetic pause. And what can be more so than the gut-wrenching front-page piece in Wednesday’s LA Times about a battalion with stunningly high casualties. Thus far, out of 700 troops in that unit, 100, or one in seven, have been wounded. The commander, a colonel, had recently assured his troops that the injury rate could and would not continue. Forty-eight hours later, while that commander was coming to the aid of a wounded soldier, a roadside bomb killed him.
I’m thinking that this story has some kind of iconic potential, in the right hands. It embodies everything horrible and pointless about the conflict from the standpoint of one group suffering: the well-meaning American servicemembers who have unquestioningly gone to do their duty, ignorant of the precise reasons why they are being asked to lay their lives and limbs on the line. It’s one of those powerful cannon fodder scenes from Tennyson on the Crimean War, or from a World War One movie. The difference is this: the movie comes to an end.
GOODNIGHT, AND COURAGE: IS IT ALL OVER AT CBS?
Let’s see…. The new president of CBS News comes out of CBS sports and donated money to George Bush, but he’s supposed to be a pretty decent guy who maybe can somehow energize the place. The anchor, Texan Bob Schieffer, is brother of Bush’s friend, Texas Rangers partner and ambassador to Japan, Tom Schieffer. Dan Rather was ousted from the anchor’s chair, the aggressive newsmagazine show 60 Minutes II was canceled and a bunch of news staffers forced out. That all related to a MemoGate investigation by a panel co-chaired by Dick Thornburgh, who was an advisor to George Bush’s 2000 campaign.
Oh….and then there’s the ombudsguy. Name of Vaughn Ververs. He was brought in to assure balance at CBS, which is a good thing since he’s from the home of Fair and Balanced, Fox News. Try reading his blog. He writes about the MemoGate panel report, and he’s…..well, he’s…well, a nut.
Here’s a choice excerpt, in which he complains that the 60 Minutes II crew was 'biased':
"My biggest quibble with the report concerns its finding that they could not find a political bias behind the story. As in the case of the documents, the lawyers found that a lack of absolute proof left them unable to make that charge. But there are several things that make a pretty convincing circumstantial case of some type of bias to me."
Yo, Vaughn....How about Dick Thornburgh? No bias? And does Ververs have no idea of the difference between bias and passion for telling a story that needs to be told? For Pete's sake, Bush's folks were destroying John Kerry with false allegations through the dubious 'Swift Boat Veterans' while Bush skated completely on his own service record. But there's more:
".. The story itself has dubious value. The panel found that competitive pressure was the main force behind rushing the story to air since other news organizations were actively pursuing the same story. But that fact does not make the story worthwhile. Perhaps I was too close to politics, having covered President Bush since he first ran for governor of Texas. But as an analyst, I failed to see tremendous importance in the story. If, in running for a second term, a story happened to turn up of an extra-marital affair, President Clinton engaged in 20 years before, I would have felt the same way — as, I suspect, would most of the public.
I don’t think there are many people who would be surprised if someone told them President Bush had gotten into the Texas Air National Guard with a little help from his family’s high-placed friends. I don’t think it’s a secret that many young men at that time benefited from similar connections. More newsworthy perhaps, as detailed in the report, was the revelation that some interviewed by Mapes said Mr. Bush had volunteered to go to Vietnam but was turned down.
Any big break in the story that proved that Mr. Bush had not honorably completed his service or had manipulated the levers of power would have been big news. Even had the '60 Minutes Wednesday' story been airtight, it contained nothing that moved the story to that level. Given some of President Bush’s statements regarding his service, was this story of some worth? Yes. Was it worth cutting corners and 'crashing' it to air? No."
Aside from the fact the afore-cited analysis is almost unreadable because of its inconsistencies, fuzzy logic and more, Ververs is such a marginal newsman that he misses the story entirely. It’s not about whether Bush got into the unit with help from high-placed friends – the only aspect of the story that covered that ground was an interview with former Texas Lt. Gov Ben Barnes. The questioned documents themselves related to other, substantive evidence that Bush had been up to something, behaviorwise, which led him to duck out of his annual flight physical and leave his unit altogether – long before his obligatory service period was up.
And one reason they rushed the story to air without checking the documents more carefully – which they obviously should have – was because when you’re already into the fall of a presidential campaign year, you run a growing risk that the longer you wait, the more likely you are to be accused of a ‘October Surprise.’ That is, certain people accuse you of ‘political bias’ in airing such a provocative report anytime close to election day.
SPEAKING OF OMBUDSMEN……
Someone on the Internet named Tom, seemingly a lively-minded fellow, posted on the New York Observer’s website a complaint about NPR’s ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin, who recently made the following assertion:
" T]he journalistic community seems to be taking an unseemly delight in [Judith] Miller's predicament and the problems it poses for The New York Times. "The Germans have a word for this: Schadenfreude. It means taking pleasure in the discomfort of others."
To which Tom responds:
"Hey, while we've got the dictionary out, why don't we look up another word? 'Ombudsman: n. A man who investigates complaints and mediates fair settlements, especially between aggrieved parties such as consumers or students and an institution or organization.'
So what institution are you ombudsing, Jeffrey Dvorkin? Not NPR. Dvorkin's employer, he wrote, had done 'some of the best reporting,' producing 'a spellbinding hour of radio.' No, the 'strong lather of sexism' and 'innuendo and personal attacks' against Miller that he lamented were coming from somewhere else.
But where? Dvorkin didn't cite a single example. He merely tut-tutted about the 'smell' of 'old-fashioned newsroom sexism.' From us? Maureen Dowd? Andrea Peyser? Jack Shafer? Who knows?
The Media Mob smells somebody who needs to om-butt out and get back to minding his own om-business.
And that brings up the trouble with this whole ombudsman fad: Nobody is running quality control on the quality-control cops.
Or nobody was. Enter the Ombudsman Ombudsman!"
Tom, sorry to ombut-in, but I agree with your criticism of Dvorkin's criticism, and I like this idea of an Ombudsman's Ombudsman. Only, I worry whether you, Tom, will always do this faithfully. So I have a solution. I intend to be the Ombudsman’s Ombudsman’s Ombudsman. Or something like that. Whatever would have made my great, great grandfather proud. Or someone's someone's someone like that. Point is, it's great we're keeping an eye on each other.
[I probably screwed up somewhere in what I just said, and thus await the corrective emails. Ain't digital life grand?]
New disclaimer: This blog is for entertainment purposes only, and should not be construed as necessarily reflecting the views of the management, nor serve as a basis for Bill O'Reilly to proclaim the author a traitor, terrorist or worse....
***
Since, unlike the more democratic blogs, mine does not yet include a place for readers to post their thoughts, I have decided to initiate a temporary and occasional feature I call (not very originally) “A friend writes.” Here’s the first installment (I’m keeping the friend’s identity confidential unless I am instructed otherwise)
A FRIEND WRITES……
I was thinking for your blog there could be nothing better to riff on than Novak. His is truly the Sherlock Holmes case of the dog that did not bark. Where is his name in this indictment? Apparently there is one inconsequential reference. The question of who told Novak still is not answered in the slightest. Did he in fact talk? Was neither of his sources Libby, and that is why we did not read his name? Will we get another indictment, this one of Rove, with Novak's name all over it?
What is also strange in terms of Libby: if he in fact was at the head of daisy chain, with him talking to reporters, who were the reporters, if not Novak? Libby never mentioned Plame to Russert, but rather called to complain. Matt Cooper called Libby with the news of Plame and asked if could confirm it, leaving the question of where Cooper got the info.
Maybe Cooper got it from Rove, who said call Libby, he knows more than I do. He did indeed tell Miller. Was that the entire length of the daisy chain? Sure doesn't sound like much of a campaign of disinformation unless another shoe drops.
Of course, I have no idea what this person is talking about.
Well, to be frank, I actually do, but I think I could imagine that someone who doesn’t have at least four hours a day to devote to this highly arcane matter would certainly be lost. I spend at least 12 hours a day on nothing but the Valerie Plame affair and I still can barely figure out the basics, or why any of this matters.
Still, being a devoted pundit, I will take a shot. I think that Times reporter Judy Miller was Robert Novak’s original source on the Plame story, the one he refers to as “no partisan gunslinger.” Since Novak is pretty much inaccurate about everything that counts, he’s got that one wrong, except that Miller is (or perhaps ‘was’ should be the operative term, or ‘has been’) not really a partisan gunslinger so much as a remorseless scheisse-schlepper for all manner of goggle-eyed war enthusiast. Basically, in this highly speculative scenario, Miller suggested to Novak that since she couldn’t do the story – being as deeply implicated as she already was in the WMD mess— he do it, and then call Karl Rove so he could claim to have followed the journalistic 'two-source' rule.
He probably told this to Fitzgerald, who found it interesting, but ultimately learned of nothing that would constitute a crime, so he moved on, then hit paydirt when Libby got careless (probably was hopped-up on whatever Cheney gives him to fuel that manic, 24-hours-a-day scheming).
That’s it. The grand theory. Send me your thoughts and your questions, and I will try to forge on with this subject anon (that’s old English or something, for ‘shortly’ – does NOT mean ‘anonymous.’ Have to be careful, or I could end up involved in the Plame Affair myself.)
A TWIST ON DRAFT RESISTING
The New Statesman, a fine English magazine that had the infinite wisdom to publish one of my articles last year, reports that a British officer is facing court martial for refusing, after two tours of duty in Iraq, to go back. What’s especially interesting about this is that his reason for not going back is not that 'two’s the charm, three's the body bag', it’s that the war itself is illegal. As John Pilger writes,
They are right to worry; Britain is a signatory to the treaty that set up the International Criminal Court, which draws its codes from the Geneva Conventions and the 1945 Nuremberg Charter. The latter is clear: "To initiate a war of aggression . . . is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."
The idea is that if, as seems increasingly clear, the Bush Administration and, to some extent British Prime Minister John Major (oh, sorry, Tony Blair -- having increasing trouble distinguishing the two), pursued a war under false pretenses.
Basically, what we’re seeing is that the insane
calculation to take down Saddam was so insane that it then required
everything else these regimes did from then on to be a giant cover-up.
To wit, the refusal to participate in world courts that could become
international war crimes tribunals, the decision to appoint probable
co-conspirators White House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court
and nonproliferation guy John Bolton to the United Nations, etc – it is
all to shut down revelations, to block testimony, confessions, the day
of reckoning and possibly worse that will come when this all gets
figured out. Will explain more once I myself have figured out exactly
how this all worked.
ANOTHER FRIEND (DBA SIBLING) WRITES (mature audience only, please – Clinton references follow)
Loved your Fitzmas Carol and the piece on the crickets. (Blank) received an email from a liberal friend in New Mexico (who she went to high school with and who emails the world with the political stuff) who said we need somebody to give Bush, Cheney and Rove a ‘[deleted] job’ so they can be impeached. (Blank) responded with an email to the effect that she would personally perform the service if she could get them impeached. Apparently the email group included a bunch of people that (Blank) went to High School with. Now she is getting calls from guys she hasn't heard from in years.
Please, don’t you wait that long. Let me hear from you soonest. But no 'jobs', of any kind, required.