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04/28/04 "ICH" I've got a few words for George Bush and Dick Cheney, who keep telling me with a smirk and a scowl that "everything has changed" since 9-11. They say I need to show compassion and hug my neighbor -- to find somebody out there I can love like I'd like to be loved myself. We're at war, they say, so just shut up and support the troops.
Back off, chickenhawks.
I've spent a lifetime supporting my troops -- my beloved field artillery -- hugging them, loving them like I'd like to be loved myself and being overwhelmed with the sheer magnitude of hugs and love I got in return. I was there, shaking my head in wonder as boys arriving for basic training clambered off buses -- long-haired, wide-eyed, apprehensive and dishevelled. And I was there, beaming with pride as proud men emerged ten weeks later -- trim, disciplined, confident and eager to serve their country.
Don't look for me to shut up any time soon.
I've got battalions of dogs in this fight, and I take the loss of even one of them personally. There is nothing -- nothing -- more red-white-and-blue than American servicemen and women.
In spite of what you two seem to think, American military are not trained to die, but to live.
Like you, they have lives, families, plans for the future. But, unlike one of you who smirked as he abandoned his post in time of war, and the other who snarled that he had more important things to do than fight for his country, they don't flinch at the prospect of being wounded or even killed if that's what it takes to protect the rest of us.
Dead or alive, every single man or woman who wears the United States military uniform deserves nothing less than honor, support and -- from the top of Echo Mountain -- recognition.
These are MY soldiers -- not yours.
So don't toss me a yellow ribbon to tie around a tree. Don't hand me a sign to stick in my yard.
And don't tell me to shut up.
Trust me, I hang onto your every word and watch your every move in the vain hope that one of you will have the decency to go to military hospitals and stand beside those who have been mentally and physically shattered by your greedy and senseless war.
What a great photo op -- showing your own support for the troops -- showing them you appreciate what they suffered while following your orders. Lie to them if you must. Tell them you know what it's like to spend violent sand-swept nights in spider- and mosquito-infested trenches -- to spend violent sun-blistered days ducking bullets and bombs and shrapnel from enemies coming at you from every direction for reasons that are no longer clear to you. You're good at lying, so tell them that, if for no other reason than they need to hear it.
And, while you're at it, stop hiding them from the public like they were something to be ashamed of.
Two young Norwegian environmentalists have created a pornographic website in an attempt to raise money for various organizations working to protect the environment, one of the two told AFP on Wednesday.
"In light of the turn things are taking in the world today, I think that this is a very honorable way of raising money for environmental causes," said Tommy Hol Ellingsen, the 27-year-old creator of the www.fuckforforest.com website.
Visitors to the site can pay 15 dollars a month to view explicit videos of Ellingsen making love with his 21-year-old girlfriend Leona Johansson.
The two plan to donate most proceeds from the site to different environmental organizations, although, they admit, their organizations of choice are still hesitant to participate in the project.
Tim Dunlop is reading Joe Wilson's book for us. What a stand up guy!
Today's he's got an interesting excerpt: it turns out Wilson talked to Robert Novak several days before Novak's infamous July 14 column in which he outed Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA agent, and told him that speculating on his wife's CIA connections was dangerous and irresponsible. In other words, writing what he did in his column that day wasn't a momentary lapse in judgment on Novak's part. He knew very well he was doing someting dishonorable and he went ahead and did it anyway.
Details are here.
And by the way, they read every word of DU. Hi, agent Mike. This "investigation" no longer passes the stink test.Go give Bev whatever you can spare. She's a true hero, working for us all.
He says not to tell folks about the "investigating" they are doing.
I have cooperated ad nauseum to this absurd investigation of the "VoteHere hack" which looks to me like it is something entirely different. I'll tell you what it looks like to me:
A fishing expedition.
It appears that they may be using the Patriot Act to circumvent some of the civil rights protections laid down in the 60s. You see, it is illegal for a government agency to go in and demand the list of all the members of a group. And you can't investigate leaks to journalists by going in and grabbing the reporter's computer.
After the Diebold memos were leaked, and my web site was shut down, around the time of the California recall election, I started getting solicited to accept VoteHere software. I didn't bite, because it was obvious that this was an entrapment attempt.
Okay, a word about VoteHere: This is the company that has no visible means of support. It doesn't seem to sell anything. Its board is heavily infested with defense industry types -- a former CIA director (Robert Gates, now heads George Bush School of Government); it had Admiral Bill Owens, also Vice-Chairman of SAIC and a member of the Defense Policy Board with Perle and Wolfowitz, a very close friend of Cheney; currently headed by former Washington Secretary of State Ralph Munro.
VoteHere announced that it would be releasing its software for review, back in July 2003. It was planning to release it in September, and was supposed to do so to Dr. David Dill's web site. It never released the code, just a bunch of literature about its product. (It did release some, but not all, of its code this month, making a big splash about it). About a week into October, I got solicited with an email "click this link" for VoteHere software.
Now who would fall for that? Why would anyone in their right mind grab the stuff in some clandestine manner when it was being released into the open momentarily? And this is a company that never sells anything. Who gives a shit anyway, what its software does? It now is trying to peddle yet another alternative to a voter verified paper ballot, an idiotic solution where we turn over auditing of the vote to a handful of cryptographers who work for a private company with defense industry ties. No one I know thinks that is even a viable concept, so why would we care to examine the software these cryptographers make up?
I was in the ending stages of writing my book, putting new chapters online every few days, at that time. Like I'm going to hack into VoteHere (those who know me realize that I couldn't hack my way out of a paper bag) -- this was just dumb.
I turned down the software. In early January this year, VoteHere does a press release that it was "hacked" in October and tries to blame it on the activism community. I published an article expressing doubt that we'd gotten the whole story.
Now, I have been interviewed by the Secret Service on this VoteHere "hack" story about five times. They never spend much time on the hack. Most of the time is spent on the Diebold memos, which they claim they are not investigating.
Here's the deal: The leaking of memos to journalists is not something the government can come in and demand to investigate very easily.
Under the Patriot Act, "hacking" crimes were turned over to a new division, called the CyberCrimes division, and placed under the auspices of the Secret Service. And let me tell you what they want from me now: They want the logs of my web site with all the forum messages, and the IP addresses. That's right. All of them. A giant fishing expedition for every communication of everyone interested in the voting issue. This has nothing to do with a VoteHere "hack" investigation, and I have refused to turn it over.
So, yesterday, they call me up and tell me they are going to subpeona me and put me in front of a grand jury. Well, let 'em. They still aren't getting the list of members of BlackBoxVoting.org unless they seize my computer -- which my attorney tells me might be what they have in mind.
Also, Agent Mike told me he just "happened" to be on the plane with me a couple weeks ago. What's that supposed to do? Scare me? "You were going to Oakland," he said. Yeah, and Diebold lawyer's memos appeared in the Oakland Tribune, but guess what, Mike: That was the first hop of three on my way to Dallas. I left that morning for a speech at the Dallas Democratic Forum that evening. Never even got off the plane. Better luck next time.
They show up at interviews with printouts of DemocraticUnderground posts (not even mine -- the ones they showed me were from other DU members). And if they were really investigating what they said -- a VoteHere "hack" - can someone explain why they want the logs from the web site -- the "hack" occured in early October, but BlackBoxVoting.org was shut down, triggered by a Diebold cease & desist, from Sept 23 to Oct 23.
And (you know who you are) -- consider this a heads up: If you start bumbling around in my house with U.S. marshalls, the very first thing that will happen is mainstream news coverage that you are misusing the Patriot Act to get at membership lists and private correspondence for a fishing expedition on stuff that isn't even the subject of a legitimate investigation.
By the way. I need to pick up a few things so that, in the event my computer gets seized, I don't lose a whole lot of time being unable to get my work done. I've been advised what backup systems to get, need to buy them, and will head elsewhere until all systems are backed up. So, if you see fit for a small donation (info at http://www.blackboxvoting.org ) this would help me very much with my temporary relocation and purchasing the backup computer stuff.
Yeah, I'm pissed. Taking the pulse of our democracy nowadays, it doesn't feel very healthy, does it?
WASHINGTON - Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, has been pegged as a possible leaker of the name of CIA (news - web sites) operative Valerie Plame to a syndicated columnist, according to accounts in a book by former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, Plame's husband.Stand by for the toll-free numbers to vote for your favorite "American Traitor." But first, the swimsuit competition.
In "The Politics of Truth," to be published Friday, Wilson says Libby is "quite possibly the person who exposed my wife's identity," according to The Washington Post, which obtained an early copy.
The vice president's office did not immediately respond Thursday to a request for comment.
Wilson writes that a "workup" of his background was done by the White House in March 2003, after his public criticism of the administration's Iraq (news - web sites) policy.
"The other name that has most often been repeated to me in connection with the inquiry and disclosure into my background and Valerie's is that of Elliott Abrams, who gained infamy in the Iran-Contra scandal," he writes.
Another suspect named in Wilson's book: White House chief political adviser Karl Rove. "The workup on me that turned up the information on Valerie was shared with Karl Rove, who then circulated it in administration and neoconservative circles," Wilson writes.
Despite the denials by a spokeswoman for the show the action appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq.
While the Sinclair Broadcast Group honors the memory of the brave members of the military who have sacrificed their lives in the service of our country, we do not believe such political statements should be disguised as news content. . . .
We understand that our decision in this matter may be questioned by some. Before you judge our decision, however, we would ask that you first question Mr. Koppel as to why he chose to read the names of 523 troops killed in combat in Iraq, rather than the names of the thousands of private citizens killed in terrorist attacks since and including the events of September 11, 2001. In his answer, we believe you will find the real motivation behind his action scheduled for this Friday.
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: Well, I'll go over everybody that's in there. You have all 10 commission members, you have one member of the commission staff present. Then you have the President and Vice President; Judge Gonzales is there, and two staff members from the Counsel's Office are there as well.
QUESTION: Who are the staff members?
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: I'm not going to get into the names of the staff that's present.
QUESTION: Why?
QUESTION: Why?
QUESTION: Why?
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: Just, Judge Gonzales. They're lawyers on the White House Counsel staff. I know you all want to call them and talk to them afterwards, but I'll just say, two members of the White House Counsel staff.
QUESTION: No, that's not why, we just want their names.
QUESTION: For God's sake, this is a matter of historical record.
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: It's a private meeting, Helen.
QUESTION: It's not a private meeting, it's a public meeting.
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: I just told you who is present.
QUESTION: It's doing the nation's business.
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: These are two members of the Counsel's Office that have been working closely with the September 11th Commission.
QUESTION: Why the secrecy?
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: I don't look at it that way.
QUESTION: But we do.
QUESTION: It is a good question. It is an historic moment. This is -- in a public event.
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: I'll talk back with these individuals and see if -- but --
QUESTION: Just for the record, really, just for the record.
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: I'll talk back with these individuals, but I'm not in the habit of just going and naming every staff members that attend all these meetings.
QUESTION: But this isn't just another meeting.
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: I understand.
QUESTION: You're the spokesman for this White House, and you should give us the basics.
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: I'll check with those individuals, but I'm not going to get into naming staff members without their --
QUESTION: Why did the White House feel there was a need for three staff members --
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: -- without talking to them about it.
QUESTION: -- versus one for the commission of 10 members?
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: Well, you have 10 commission members there, too. So you have a lot of members of the commission. These are two staff members that have been very involved in working on these efforts.
QUESTION: What is their purpose, Scott? Are they there to record what takes place?
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: No.
QUESTION: Are they there to advise the President --
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: No, I'm sure they'll be taking notes.
QUESTION: -- or Judge Gonzales --
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: No.
QUESTION: What is the purpose? What is their purpose?
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: Because they're two members of the Counsel's Office that have been very involved in working on these issues with the September 11th Commission. And they'll be there taking notes, just like a member of the commission staff will be there taking notes.
QUESTION: So they're actually there more to record what happens.
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: Well, take notes, yes.
QUESTION: Are there two note takers?
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: Yes, I expect both of them will be taking notes. I expect members of the commission will be writing information down, as well.
QUESTION: You said there was one note taker. Is there an official note taker or are these both --
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: I said there would be at least one member yesterday, and then yesterday afternoon when I was updated, I said that there would be two members of the Counsel's Office present.
QUESTION: Who are they?
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: Helen, I'll check with them. And I don't want to go and just name them without talking to them first.
But Hughes also takes this opportunity to answer critics who call Bush unintellectual and incurious, a man who simply delivers elegantly constructed speeches. Hughes describes how Bush gave her a trenchant tutorial on effective speechwriting, using lessons he says he learned in “History of American Oratory” at Yale. A strange anecdote about Vladimir Putin’s interest in Bush’s college days seems to be included so Hughes can mention Bush’s underappreciated athleticism: “‘President Putin knew you had played rugby, but he didn’t have the context. I mean you just played for one semester in college, right?’ I said, dismissing it.Fred and Kevin check in, too:
“‘I played for a year,’ the president corrected me, ‘and it was the varsity.’”
A good deal of massaged memory seems to have slipped into these two little paragraphs from Ron Suskind’s review of Karen Hughes’s new book, Ten Minutes from Normal. Bush’s Yale transcript shows no course called “History of American Oratory.” And the underappreciated athlete couldn’t have played varsity rugby because there wasn’t any varsity. Because rugby was a club sport.
And you can take it from one who played club rugby in the sixties — once or twice against Yale — that the point wasn’t so much athleticism. The point was beer.
Now, okay, this isn't that big a deal. I'm not even sure it's a little deal. But the fact is the guy played a bit of intercollegiate intramurals and he likes to tell people that it was more than that -- that he played Ivy League varsity.Hey, Media Whores: Karen played you, yo. See what getting cozy gets you? Hint: Not the truth.
That's kind of smarmy and less than admirable, but whatever.
Still, consider the kind of treatment this story would be getting if it were John Kerry, rather than George W. Bush, who was caught lying about his athletic resume.
Mickey Kaus would latch onto the story for at least a week, interpreting it as a deeply meaningful and revealing metaphor -- maybe even a "synecdoche." Mickey would begin referring to it through some semi-clever nickname -- "Rugbygate" -- and Slate would publish day after day of his explorations of all the deplorable things such a story might indicate about the senator's character. (All of which would be more substantial than the confused trivialities Kaus has recently been peddling on Microsoft's dime.)
That sounds about right. I don't happen to be either part of Mickey Kaus' fan club or part of the Mickey Kaus death squad, but his unending armchair psychoanalytic bashing of John Kerry with virtually no grounding in actual events is a wonder of the modern world. I wish he could think up something about Kerry that was actually worth saying. Either that or explain what childhood trauma it was that led to his pathological Kerryphobia.
I leave the heat on to leave a trace
of all the things the air was filled with
All the things I never knew and all the words I know
Now they all come out too late for you to realize
Satisfy my luck
This director's cut
doesn't spare an inch
I have never seen this place and no surrounding walls
As the party turns to dust they all understand
Days that are over
Will not continue to last
If you try to construct the past
NewsBlues.com is reporting [no free link] that Sinclair Broadcast Group has ordered its ABC-affiliated stations not to carry tomorrow's "Nightline," which will air the names and photos of soldiers who have been killed in combat in Iraq.I'm the public; I'm interested. What about you?
Sinclair General Counsel Barry Faber tells the site: "We find it to be contrary to the public interest."
The boycott will affect eight ABC-affiliated Sinclair stations.
Corporate HeadquartersPerhaps this is why it's against the "public" interest:
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc.
10706 Beaver Dam Road
Hunt Valley, Maryland 21030
410-568-1500 (Main Telephone)
410-568-1533 (Main Fax)
Investor Relations Contact
Lucy A. Rutishauser
VP Corporate Finance and
Corporate Treasurer
investor@sbgi.net
Sales Questions
Darren Shapiro
VP Sales
410-568-1500
-or-
Jeff Sleete
VP Marketing
410-568-1500
SMITH, DAVID D MR
COCKEYSVILLE,MD 21030
SINCLAIR BROADCAST GROUP/EXECUTIVE
12/8/2003
$2,000
Bush, George W
SMITH, FREDERICK G MR
HUNT VALLEY,MD 21080
SINCLAIR BROADCAST GROUP/BUSINESSMA
10/1/2003
$25,000
Republican National Cmte
SMITH, FREDERICK G MR
HUNT VALLEY,MD 21080
SINCLAIR BROADCAST GROUP/BUSINESSMA
2/17/2004
$25,000
Republican National Cmte
As with every good idea, there are glitches. Every time an article appears in a local paper, or the site gets mentioned on television or radio, local groups get inundated with new members who just don’t get the concept -- who try to barter, buy or sell on the boards, or who post Christmas lists of stuff they want.I'd just like to point out that I was the first person to ask for a laptop, and I got one. I also saw someone giving away a pool table just the other day.
“People ask for pool tables and laptops,” Teutsch said. “Then, again, sometimes they get what they ask for.”
Some groups have instituted an informal rule that a new member’s first posting should be an offering of something he or she has to give away. It’s a way of driving home the point that the board is about giving as much as -- or more than -- taking.
But moderators say even groups that grow rapidly seem to survive and thrive. Membership in the Dallas-Fort Worth group doubled to 850 within five days after an article about it ran in the local paper, said moderator David Neely. The message board now has more than 1,300 members. Some of the newcomers fall away, but others stay and are converted.
In one of Sher's recent e-mails, Celeste said, he asked for food and water. It appalled his family that soldiers were being sent into combat without the provisions to sustain them.As you may recall, I just wrote about this Sunday. My friend's nephew doesn't have food or water, either.
But on Saturday, his brother Raphael, 25, sent a huge package filled with tuna fish, peanut butter, coffee.
Comedy Central is looking for real guys, 21-35, in PHILLY, to star in an upcoming reality series. It could be you or someone you know. The catch? He needs to be, in some specific way, **UN-manly**, lack some skill or trait you think all guys should have and need some help! The more urgent the better! He could win more than $50,000 ? and the adventure of a lifetime!
WHAT WILL IT INVOLVE?
We?ll send a group of guys out for a couple weeks in the fall. Think of it as Outward Bound for the guy who hasn?t quite reached his potential. What will they do, exactly? Depends on the guys we choose ? the guys we need you to tell us about!
WHAT KIND OF GUYS ARE WE LOOKING FOR?
Any guy you?d consider UN-manly. A guy lacking in some skill or characteristic that you think men should have. Think George Costanza, Frasier Crane, or Raymond, without the whole everyone loving him part.
Ladies, we?ll give the minivan-driving soccer dad the ride of his life, that new age vegan ex so intent on saving the world, the chance to experience it. We?ll give that prettyboy metrosexual boyfriend a chance to get ugly.
You note that our esteemed Governor plans to keep out-of-state gay couples from marrying using a 1913 law, originally intended to prevent interracial couples from marrying in Massachusetts if their marriage was illegal in their home state.But wait, I thought Massachusetts was too liberal for the rest of the country?
As it turns out, this statute remains on the books, but -- like many other outdated laws in Mass. -- is actively not enforced:
[quoted from the Boston Globe]
Marriage eligibility wasn't enforced
Clerks in state told to skip status
By Yvonne Abraham, Globe Staff | April 28, 2004
For 27 years, the state has specifically instructed city and town clerks not to enforce eligibility requirements for marriage applicants, including a residency requirement that Governor Mitt Romney wants to use to block out-of-state gay couples from marrying in Massachusetts.
[. . .]
Apparently it's only necessary to require enforcement if a population segment is getting, ah, uppity.
The misperceptions that Cheney was reinforcing are pillars of Bush's support, according to a study conducted by the University of Maryland. Fifty-seven percent of those polled "believe that before the war Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda," and 45 percent "believe that evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda has been found." Moreover, 65 percent believe that "experts" have confirmed that Iraq had WMD. "Among those who perceived experts as saying that Iraq had WMD, 72% said they would vote for Bush and 23% said they would vote for Kerry ... Among those who perceived experts as saying that Iraq had supported al Qaeda, 62% said they would vote for Bush and 36% said they would vote for Kerry." The reason given by respondents for their views was that they had heard these claims from the Bush administration.
It is unfortunate," Justice Anthony Kennedy lamented yesterday, "that our legislators have reached the point of declaring that, when it comes to apportionment, `We are in the business of rigging elections.' " Despite that trenchant analysis of the state of our democracy, Justice Kennedy joined four of his colleagues in rejecting a challenge to Pennsylvania's thoroughly biased Congressional redistricting plan. Yesterday's 5-to-4 ruling was an enormous missed opportunity, one we can only hope the court revisits another day. Until it does, the public must challenge the growing trend of treating reapportionment as an opportunity to rig elections.
The question is not, When did George W. Bush accept Jesus as his personal savior? The "Frontline" documentary "The Jesus Factor," on PBS tonight, raises a different issue: Do most Americans realize just how fervent the president's evangelical faith really is?
***
"The Jesus Factor" is an enlightening look at the president and the electoral clout of evangelical Christians. But one drawback of focusing so intently on Mr. Bush's faith is that it screens out other perhaps equally important factors, like political expediencies, personality quirks and clashing interests, that inevitably influence decision making in the Oval Office.
And even some of the president's closest allies say they are not sure when he is speaking from the pulpit and when from the Beltway. "There is no question that the president's faith is calculated, and there is no question that the president's faith is real," Mr. Wead says. "I would say that I don't know and George Bush doesn't know when he's operating out of a genuine sense of his own faith or when it's calculated."
NBC has a new story out this evening which reports that members of the Iraqi National Congress in Iraq are currently being investigated by the Iraqi police for abduction, robbery, "stealing 11 Iraqi government vehicles" and "assaulting police by firing on them during a search".
These stories have been around for some time (in addition to accusations of car-jacking), though I think this is the first time I've seen them reported -- at least in a mainstream publication.
One more detail I hadn't heard thus far is that, according to NBC, an arrest warrant has been issued for the INC's chief of intelligence. My question is why there's no American arrest warrant for the INC's chief of intelligence.
But I guess that's another story.
Senator John F. Kerry, whose attacks on President Bush this week have becoming increasingly personal in tone, told voters yesterday that the Iraq occupation was faltering because of Bush's own "pride" and that the president was afraid to "look the people in the eye who have lost their job."
At a town hall meeting in Toledo, Kerry spoke dismissively of the president, saying Bush had been ''selected" to hold office by the Supreme Court and had broken with most US presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, who had worked with other nations and alliances on global concerns.
Political commentator and columnist Michael Kinsley has been named editorial and opinion editor at the Los Angeles Times, the paper said Wednesday.
Kinsley, 53, will be responsible for the paper's daily editorial and letters page, its commentary page and its Sunday Opinion section, Times editor John Carroll said.
The current editorial page editor, Janet Clayton, will become assistant managing editor for state and local news. Both appointments are effective June 14.
Kinsley has been an editor at The New Republic and Harper's and for six years was the co-host of CNN's "Crossfire."
In 1995, he founded the online magazine Slate.com, financed by Microsoft Corp., and was its editor for six years.
***
Kinsley has worked as a columnist for Slate and The Washington Post and a contributing writer at Time magazine since stepping down from his post at Slate in February 2002.
U.S. military police stacked naked Iraqi prisoners in a human pyramid, and attached wires to one detainee to convince him he might be electrocuted, according to photographs obtained by CBS News which led to criminal charges against six American soldiers.
CBS said the photos, shown Wednesday night on “60 Minutes II,” were taken late last year at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, where American soldiers were holding hundreds of prisoners captured during the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Think of the psychic energy required for the continued maintenance of the pretense so characteristic of 'the evil'! They perhaps direct at least as much energy into their devious rationalizations and destructive compensations as the healthies do into loving behavior. Why? What possesses them, drives them? Basically, it is fear. They are terrified that the pretense will break down and they will be exposed to the world and to themselves. They are continually frightened that they will come face to face with their own evil. Of all emotions, fear is the most painful. Regardless of how well they attempt to appear calm and collected in their daily dealings, 'the evil' live their lives in fear.
Let’s start with this. What’s the signature pattern of Bush’s life?
When he faces a challenge or a tough scrape, he lets his family and friends bail him out. He has always let others do his fighting for him.
You see it in his failed businesses, where well-heeled family friends again and again came in to bail him out. It’s there in the legal scrapes. And it’s there in the whole matter of ducking service in Vietnam — first by getting his father’s and his father’s friends’ help in jumping the queue to get into the Texas Air National Guard, and then again with help cleaning up the subsequent unfortunateness while he was serving in the Texas Air National Guard.
(As was reported this week in Salon, despite assurances to the contrary from the White House, the president still refuses to release his complete Vietnam-era service record.)
The pattern has even come up repeatedly on the campaign trail. Since the president came onto the national political stage, he has faced three main opponents — Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), then-Vice President Al Gore and now Kerry. Each served in Vietnam, though under very different circumstances. And President Bush has had his lieutenants and surrogates attack the service of each one.
So here, with Hughes, we have the same pattern repeating itself. The president knows he’s vulnerable on this issue — after all, he says he supported the war at the time, but he did all he could to avoid the fighting himself.
So he gets Hughes to do his dirty work for him. That means that to shift attention from an earlier time when he couldn’t fight his own fights, Bush is now repeating the pattern.
Tossing a verbal egg at Dick Cheney's military record, Sen. Frank Lautenberg blasted the vice president Wednesday as the "lead chickenhawk," who squawks about John Kerry's Vietnam War record despite never serving himself.And here's another one:
"The chickenhawk has no idea what it means to have the courage to put your life at risk to defend this nation," Lautenberg said on the Senate floor. "But they are quick to disparage those who did sacrifice."
In his speech, Lautenberg, D-N.J., defined chickenhawk "as having the shriek of a hawk but the backbone of a chicken."
"We know who the chickenhawks are," he said. "They talk tough on national defense and military issues and cast aspersions on others, but when it was their turn to serve, they were AWOL from courage."
Hayworth appeared with officials from Tempe, Ariz.-based ArmorWorks, which just received a contract to supply the Army with 1,500 armor kits for the all-terrain vehicle. To illustrate the need, Hayworth told of his trip to Iraq a month ago, when he witnessed an Arizona guardsman fashioning armor himself out of scrap metal.Sounds like the Democrats are starting to eat their Wheaties.
But some on hand were quick to criticize the event. A broadcast reporter asked his cameraman if he had gotten a shot of Hayworth behind the gun of the Humvee, to which the cameraman replied, “Of this guy who never served a day in the service? Yeah, I got it.”
Then, apparently to Hayworth’s complete surprise, Armed Services Committee, members Marty Meehan (D-Mass.) and Silvestre Reyes (D-Texas), took over the podium. “Are you guys trying to score some points politically, or what?” asked
Hayworth as he leaned in. “I’ll be here to watch.”
And watch he did, from only five feet away.
A release distributed by Meehan’s staff quoted him as saying, “This is outrageous. We’re standing next to an armored Humvee here in Washington when it should be in Iraq or Afghanistan.”
Authorities are studying Mahan's case because of questions about her diagnosis. Her death certificate said CJD, and Skarbek was told it occurs in approximately one in every million people.
But Skarbek became suspicious when she stumbled upon Carol Olive's obituary in her local paper three years after her friend's death.
She says, “In the first paragraph, it said she died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. And I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, that's what Carrie died of.’ And in the second paragraph it said she worked at the Garden State Racetrack."
Which is also where Carrie Mahan had worked for years, along with Skarbek's own mother.
Skarbek’s mother, Pat Hammond, says, “I mean, it was just a coincidence, only two, right? But then she took the ball and she read all about what CJD was.”
That's when Skarbek found yet another local man, radio announcer John Weber, a season-pass holder at the track who had also died from CJD. And it didn't stop there.
Skarbek says, “Right now, I'm up to 12 confirmed cases of CJD, where it says CJD on their death certificates and where they all ate at the racetrack.”
Skarbek believes the common thread that ties the CJD deaths together is meat tainted with mad cow disease served at the Garden State Park racetrack sometime between 1988 and 1992. Today, after years of sagging ticket sales, the track is being demolished to make way for an office park.
The Justice Department's Public Integrity Section is reviewing allegations that Attorney General John D. Ashcroft may have violated federal campaign finance and disclosure laws based on information developed by the Federal Election Commission.
The section is responsible for determining whether allegations merit investigation as potential criminal violations of campaign finance and disclosure laws and for making recommendations as to whether a special counsel would be needed when a potential conflict of interest with senior Justice officials exists.
CasinoFortune.com, one of the leading Internet casino sites announced today a poll amongst gamblers nationwide for the upcoming Presidential election. John F. Kerry has a commanding lead over the incumbent George W. Bush, in the poll in which 5,400 people have voted so far.The free market has spoken.
As of this release, John Kerry (news - web sites) leads 68 percentage points over George W. Bush's 32 points.
"I hope that we shall not be prompted or obliged by any evil to go back or to look backwards," he said after defending his past support for militant third world freedom fighters.
"We do hope that we shall not be obliged or forced one day to go back to those days when we bombed our cars or put explosive belts around our beds and around our women so that we will not be searched and not be harassed in our bedrooms and in our homes, as it is taking place now in Iraq and in Palestine."
Col Gaddafi's sinister threat appeared to be an attempt to deflect mounting criticism from radical elements in the Middle East that he has deserted the cause and a sign of concern that his about-turn could invite terrorist attacks on him.
His visit, intended to mark his new spirit of co-operation with the West, may yet prove an embarrassment to Romano Prodi, the president of the European Commission.
A damning new report reveals that the Bush administration has quietly removed 25 reports from its Women's Bureau Web site, deleting or distorting crucial information on issues from pay equity to reproductive healthcare.
Even as the prospect of high-skilled American jobs moving to low-wage countries like India ignites hot political debate, some entrepreneurs are finding that India's vaunted high-technology work force is not always as effective as advertised.UPDATE: Kevin Drum agrees - under some circumstances.
"For three years we tried all kinds of models, but nothing has worked so far," said the co-founder and chief technology officer of Storability Software in Southborough, Mass. After trying to reduce costs by contracting out software programming tasks to India, Storability brought back most of the work to the United States, where it costs four times as much, and hired more programmers here. The "depth of knowledge in the area we want to build software is not good enough" among Indian programmers, the executive said.
If it sounds like "Made in the U.S.A." jingoism, consider this: The entrepreneur, Hemant Kurande, is Indian.
Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has moved to make sure that same-sex couples from out of state will not be eligible to marry in the US state next month, based on a 1913 statute originally designed to avoid issuing licences to interracial couples.
Romney is backing up his interpretation of the law by initiating new forms and new requirements for town clerks. Once same-sex marriages become legal on May 17, town clerks will be obliged to ask for proof of residency, and some press reports suggest that clerks who ignore Romney's policy may be violating the law themselves.
U.S. President George Bush Monday called for computerized personal health records to cut down medical errors and streamline the health care process.Those standards already exist, in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. It was passed in 1996.
Computerization of health care records would include filling out and ordering prescriptions, sending of x-rays via the Internet for quick evaluation and easy transfer or reference of medical history.
"The 21st century health care system is using a 19th century paperwork system," Bush said to a meeting of community college administrators and educators in Minneapolis. "Doctors use paper files to keep track of their patients. Pharmacists have to figure out the handwriting of a doctor. Vital medical information is scattered in many places. X-rays get misplaced.
"... Medicine ought to be using modern technologies in order to better share information, in order to reduce medical errors, in order to reduce costs to our health care system by billions of dollars."
Bush called for the adoption of standards for storing medical information and sharing it electronically while protecting privacy.
Canadian research centers have reported that during the war against Iraq the U.S. military used depleted uranium (DU) weapons which caused the radiation level to rise at least 300 times above normal, and the weapons caused similar effects in Afghanistan.
U.S. troops have recently begun removing contaminated topsoil in Iraq, taking it to an unknown location.
The method of topsoil removal and replacement at U.S.-occupied bases, living facilities, and administrative buildings is mechanically resuspending tons of potentially contaminated particulate. The dust clouds are lofting above and spreading over the entire area -- 5,000,000 residents in Baghdad alone. It is also exposing thousands of U.S. military personnel and the many frequent foreign visitors including NGO staff, reconstruction crews, business and trade delegates, and diplomatic and foreign service employees.
"And I think those are the kind of policies that the American people can support, particularly at a time when we're facing an enemy, and really the fundamental difference between us and the terror network we fight is that we value every life," she added. "It's the founding conviction of our country, that we're endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, the right to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately our enemies in the terror network, as we're seeing repeatedly in the headlines these days, don't value any life, not even the innocent and not even their own."Hey, Karen, we get it. You're used to us not fighting back, and you thought you'd get away with it.
A man whose son was killed 11 years ago in a gruesome workplace accident urged Congress on Tuesday to give prosecutors the threat of felony convictions against employers whose neglect for federal safety rules causes a death.UPDATE: As always, check Confined Space for the latest outrages.
Ron Hayes, a Fairhope, Ala., resident who in December ended his two-year term on the advisory panel overseeing the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, was in Washington to lobby for a proposal by Sens. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.
In past visits, Hayes has blasted what he calls lax oversight by OSHA and the Department of Labor.
[snip]
Commerce Secretary Donald Evans called the Corzine-Kennedy proposal "just another policy to destroy jobs." House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said the proposal would be "the worst thing that you could do - telling a small business person that they could go to prison over an OSHA violation."
In an investigative series on workplace deaths, The New York Times last year found 1,242 cases between 1982 and 2002 in which OSHA concluded workers had died because of "willful" safety violations by employers. OSHA sought prosecution on only 93 percent of those cases. There were only 11 convictions.
Kerry, a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, is seriously considering choosing former Sen. Warren Rudman of New Hampshire as his running mate, campaign sources told UPI. They stressed that no final decision had been made. However, they said Rudman was indeed under possible consideration.
Rudman, 69, served two terms as a Republican senator from New Hampshire from 1981 to 1993. He did not run for a third term. He was the joint author of the 1986 Gramm-Rudman Act to try and balance the budget and rein in federal and congressional spending. In recent years, he helmed the Hart-Rudman Commission on national security problems with fellow former Sen. Gary Hart, D-Colo.
Would you say from your own experience and others you’ve talked to that feelings among the rank-and-file of the armed forces are more or less or about the same in their criticism of the war – is it increasing or decreasing?
It’s definitely increasing as the length of the occupation goes on ‘cuz they don’t see themselves getting anywhere. They’re doing things almost like something they heard about in Vietnam where in Vietnam guys would go on patrol and they’d sit outside of the base and they’d make false radio reports. Instead, you’ve got guys who are sent on patrol and instead of a real patrol they jump in a humvee and drive through town as fast as possible to avoid any kind of confrontation. And that’s not the point of a patrol. On a patrol you’re trying to find intelligence, you’re trying to make some difference there. These guys are just trying to get through without getting killed.
There’s two different opinions about what soldiers opposed to the war should do. There’s one opinion that more or less says: you should stand up and raise your hand and say to your commanding officer “sir, I have a moral objection to this war and I will not fire upon the enemy.” And then there are others who lean towards the Vietnam model where people very quietly and carefully organized networks to oppose the war before standing up. I mean they didn’t do Kamikaze stuff. What’s your opinion on that?
I think it’s going to take a lot of both. Just like in the civil rights movement you had Martin Luther King who was organizing and doing the peaceful route and but back then you had guys like Malcolm X who were really the fanatics and going at it and threatening violence. So you’re going to need both sides, you’re going to need the guys who will just stand up out of nowhere and say “I’m not doing this” and you’re going to need the other people organizing underneath it.
If the editorial writers of the New York Times are talking about a new draft that would send young men and women to die in the deserts of Iraq fighting crazy religious fanatics, then the idea is certainly being whispered about in the upper echelons of American society. A draft would not be proposed before the election -- if it were, Bush would be wiped out in a landslide. But a wise person would not bet against the draft being proposed next January.UPDATE: My buddy Mike Gutierrez responds:
What in the world is the Times talking about? Why should Americans sacrifice for the Iraq War? Not by the wildest stretch of the imagination can one seriously argue that the war in Iraq is to defend vital American interests. We found that there were no weapons of mass destruction there and no connection with al-Qaida or the Sept. 11 attack. The only issue seems to be whether we can impose democracy on Iraqis who don't seem seriously to want it or to prevent a civil war that will happen anyway as soon as our army leaves. Americans are supposed to accept the need to sacrifice their unwilling sons and daughters to fight for such absurd goals?
There are many authoritarian liberals who have a kind of illicit romance with the draft. Young people owe their a country a part of their lives, even their lives itself (not their own sons and daughters' lives, of course). Military service is good for you, some veterans insist. It will make a man out of a drifting late adolescent. What it will do for a young woman remains to be seen -- probably teach her how to live in a world where rape is commonplace.
Building up the army with a draft will serve only the needs of the Bush administration to "win" a war. Gen. Eric Shinseki, then-chief of staff of the Army, said that 200,000 would be needed to pacify Iraq. Donald Rumsfeld made fun of him in public. Now the Defense Department seems to be engaged in remote planning for a draft army that will be much larger.
How many men and women, it must be asked, will be required to pacify Iraq and to turn it into a freedom-loving democracy? How long will it take, how many lives must be sacrificed to protect the honor and the legacy of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and Rumsfeld and their crowd of imperialists?
Doubtless it will be argued in favor of a draft that we all must make sacrifices for a war on terrorism. It might be better if one sent men and women in their 40s to fight in a foolish, unjust, immoral, criminal war. It would be good for them. They'd have to lose weight and get back in physical condition.
Bush has made "the war on terrorism" a mantra to cover everything his administration has done. But the Iraq war has nothing to do with the war on terrorism, as we now know. It was a plan of Cheney and Rumsfeld and their coterie of "neo-conservative" intellectuals (like Paul Wolfowitz) long before they came to power. It was supposed to make the United States a major power in the Middle East; to provide a democratic alternative to the typical Arab autocracy; to give the United States control of major oil fields; to take pressure off Israel, and to establish that the United States was a superpower that could go anywhere in the world and do anything it wanted. The "war on terror" was only a pretext to implement this plan, as accounts of the early White House reaction to the Sept. 11 attack seem to indicate.
Does one have to say that none of these goals have been achieved or can be achieved?
I wonder why Sen. John Kerry sounds so much like Hubert Humphrey in his support of the continuation of the war. I hope at least he makes opposition to a new draft a major issue in the election.
I have to disagree with Mr. Greeley on the issue of a draft. I think he misses the point badly. We don't need a draft in order to pacify Iraq. We need a draft because this foolish quest for empire has left us weak and unable to defend national interests on so many other fronts.
In my opinion, North Korea still poses the greatest threat to world peace. It is a frightening thought that a madman like Kim has nuclear weapons. He also has, I might point out, missiles that can carry those weapons as far as Anchorage City Hall, where I work. If Kim were to launch an all-out, desperation attack on the South, would we have the ability to stop him? Not likely. And while the rest of the country may not care if Anchorage, Alaska becomes a glow-in-the-dark parking lot, it is a place near and dear to my heart.
Yes, we could use more troops in Iraq (and Afghanistan as well - did everyone forget we still occupy that country too?). I'm no "authoritarian Democrat" as Mr. Greeley would suggest. But our bonehead, jackass President has put this country at risk to real threats because he chased the imaginary threats posed by Iraq. We cannot simply pull out of Iraq as the more radical elements in our party would suggest. We not only have a moral obligation to repair the devastation we brought on that country, but a national security obligation to ensure Iraq doesn't become another Afghanistan.
A draft is necessary because George Bush has weakened this country. That's the sad truth in my opinion.
By recalling the U.S. signature from the Kyoto Protocol and opening hostilities against Iraq based on false intelligence, in breach of international law and bypassing the U.N. system, President George Bush has demonstrated blatant disregard for world opinion and the interests of others.
In the first two years of his presidency, under the pretext of liberating business growth, Bush made several major changes to national environmental policies that have substantially undermined the central pillars of ecological legislation in America established during the previous four decades. Yet he did not think twice before spending billions (not to mention thousands of human lives) on the war in Iraq.
Such a course of action is fraught with danger, not only for the environment but also because it exacerbates the global conflicts between the North and the South, between the rich and the poor. The terrible events of Sept. 11, 2001, were a graphic display of what can emerge from deep disparity.
***
Today I am convinced that the citizens of the world need a reformulated "glasnost" to invigorate, inform and inspire them to put the staggering resources of our planet and our knowledge to use for the benefit of all. We must not go back to the days of prolific military spending and fear of people whose ways are different from our own. Once they know that they have the power to change it, people cannot long tolerate living on a planet where millions of children have no clean water to drink and go to sleep hungry.
Glasnost could serve as a catchall phrase for all means and methods in the struggle for global awareness. Glasnost is a demanding, long-term process of awakening that inevitably leads to calls for fundamental changes.
Such a process is urgently needed to address the dominance of short-term interests and lack of transparency at the level where the planet's fate is being decided.
I have faith in humankind. It is this faith that has allowed me to remain an active optimist.
"We're saving more people than should be saved, probably," Lt. Col. Robert Carroll said. "We're saving severely injured people. Legs. Eyes. Part of the brain."
Carroll, an eye surgeon from Waynesville, Mo., sat at his desk during a rare slow night last Wednesday and called up a digital photo on his laptop computer. The image was of a brain opened for surgery earlier that day, the skull neatly lifted away, most of the organ healthy and pink. But a thumb-sized section behind the ear was gray.
"See all that dark stuff? That's dead brain," he said. "That ain't gonna regenerate. And that's not uncommon. That's really not uncommon. We do craniotomies on average, lately, of one a day."
"We can save you," the surgeon said. "You might not be what you were."
Accurate statistics are not yet available on recovery from this new round of battlefield brain injuries, an obstacle that frustrates combat surgeons. But judging by medical literature and surgeons' experience with their own patients "three or four months from now 50 to 60 percent will be functional and doing things," said Maj. Richard Gullick.
"Functional," he said, means "up and around, but with pretty significant disabilities," including paralysis.
'Broken soldiers'
The remaining 40 percent to 50 percent of patients include those whom the surgeons send to Europe, and on to the United States, with no prospect of regaining consciousness. The practice, subject to review after gathering feedback from families, assumes that loved ones will find value in holding the soldier's hand before confronting the decision to remove life support.
From what I could observe firsthand about Friday, April 23, 1971, Kerry did not make even the slightest effort to pretend that he was throwing all of his military decorations over that fence. He did what he did in plain view, and in my case in the view of someone close enough to kick him in the shins.
It was clear to me that Kerry had arrived here with only the ribbons he wore on his shirt -- which, by the way, were referred to as "medals" by the late Stuart Symington of Missouri, one of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee members present for his famous antiwar statement.
While the idea of turning back decorations had been talked about prior to that week, there was no clear plan when the veterans arrived. The night before, the men had had a long, loud argument about whether to throw their stuff or simply place it on a long table in front of the Capitol. I watched Kerry argue for the less dramatic approach and lose.
It was clear from our conversations back then and ever since that Kerry made no distinction among his various decorations, though others have. Some in the military don't either. I remember once asking my father (who was awarded a Bronze Star in the Pacific during World War II), what he called the ribbon and lapel ornament he received in addition to the star; he said they were all the Bronze Star.
I have always found the political junk served up by Kerry's detractors to be undignified as well as largely inaccurate.
I write now because the political junk is much higher profile now, though no less misleading -- and not, by the way, because in her fourth job in the public arena, my daughter just joined Kerry's staff. I just happened to be there that long-ago day. I saw what happened and heard what Kerry said and know what he meant. The truth happens to be with him.
The ribald radio host scored major gains in listenership during the winter quarter ended March 31 in the three biggest U.S. markets -- New York, Los Angeles and Chicago -- according to figures made public on Monday by the Arbitron radio ratings service.
In Stern's home market of New York, where his show is broadcast on WXRK-FM, he topped all morning drive-time competition with a 7.2 share in total audience, up 22 percent from the fall quarter and 18 percent from last winter, Arbitron said.
A radio ratings share is based on the number of people tuned to a particular program and how much time they spend listening for an average quarter hour. Stern's show had dipped slipped to No. 2 in total audience last fall.
Stern also returned to No. 1 during the first quarter among New York listeners aged 18 to 34 and 25 to 54. Overall, it was his best showing in the nation's top market since the fall of 2000, according to Viacom Inc.-owned Infinity Broadcasting, which syndicates Stern.
As Linda Greenhouse recently pointed out in The New York Times, the legal arguments the administration is making for the secrecy of the energy task force are "strikingly similar" to those it makes for its right to detain, without trial, anyone it deems an enemy combatant. In both cases, as Ms. Greenhouse puts it, the administration has put forward "a vision of presidential power . . . as far-reaching as any the court has seen."
That same vision is apparent in many other actions. Just to mention one: we learn from Bob Woodward that the administration diverted funds earmarked for Afghanistan to preparations for an invasion of Iraq without asking or even notifying Congress.
What Mr. Cheney is defending, in other words, is a doctrine that makes the United States a sort of elected dictatorship: a system in which the president, once in office, can do whatever he likes, and isn't obliged to consult or inform either Congress or the public.
Not long ago I would have thought it inconceivable that the Supreme Court would endorse that doctrine. But I would also have thought it inconceivable that a president would propound such a vision in the first place.
More likely Hughes was just being her disingenuous self when suggesting Kerry's wartime behavior hadn't gotten enough scrutiny. At any rate, she isn't in the best position to accuse Kerry or anyone else of false pretenses. Among the press corps that covered the 2000 campaign, her instinct to conceal and dissemble was well known. Indeed, conservative journalist Tucker Carlson suggested last year that her willingness to lie for Bush "almost crosses over ... into mental illness." Feigning indigation over comments made by Kerry more than 30 years ago would pose no challenge for Hughes.Tom Burka adds:
She deserves to be challenged, however, about her own role in the concealment of Bush's actual service record. Although she is currently peddling her new bestseller, the most pertinent questions concern "A Charge to Keep," that slim promotional volume with Bush's name and likeness on the cover.
While including plenty of filler and self-serving rhetoric, Hughes needed only five pages to recount Bush's military career -- from his decision to apply for pilot training to the lessons he learned during his National Guard service. The deceptions begin on Page 51, when Bush claims that during Christmas vacation in Houston, he "heard from contemporaries that there were openings for pilots in the Texas Air National Guard, and I called to ask about them ... I met the qualifications and was accepted into the Texas Air National Guard." It's a nice, simple story, but it omits most of the facts and distorts others, as this investigation by the Los Angeles Times explains.
The gripping but brief account of Bush's training and service ends vaguely, with this sentence: "I continued flying with my unit for the next several years." That's false; he quit flying after less than two years. He and his ghostwriter don't mention that he quit flying no later than August 1972, after he missed a flight physical and was suspended. His disappearance into Alabama to work on a Republican Senate race, when he was supposed to be pulling duty, is also left out.
On that chapter's concluding page, Bush proclaims: "I am proud of my service. Yet I know it was nothing comparable to what our soldiers and pilots were doing in battle in Vietnam." Having written those words, Hughes should remember them whenever she feels the urge to demean Kerry, who still carries a piece of shrapnel in his left buttock. And should she open her mouth about this subject again, someone should ask her what the president did with his medals.
"Whatever Kerry did or didn't do with the medals he earned for saving men's lives in dangerous combat, it's a disgrace," she said. "His so-called defense of this country makes me puke."'Nuff said.
"If George W. Bush had earned a medal for anything that he did, you can bet he wouldn't have faked throwing out any award that he would possibly have earned," she said. "If they gave out medals for running out on National Guard duty, for disregarding a direct order, or for practically flunking the National Guard pilot's exam, you can bet the President would have taken a principled stand on them, if he had any principles."
Hughes derided the bravery and valor that led Kerry to get the medal in the first place. "Anyone can get medals," she said. "It's keeping them or throwing them out that's the hard part."
"I don't know if you can get a medal for driving drunk," she said defiantly, "but if you could, the President would have a whole deskful."
Frist acknowledged in a 1989 book that he routinely killed cats while an ambitious medical student at Harvard Medical School in the 1970s. His office said it had no record on how many cats died. Frist disclosed that he went to animal shelters and pretended to adopt the cats, telling shelter personnel he intended to keep them as pets. Instead he used them to sharpen his surgical skills, killing them in the process.I'm not one of those people who "Bambi-ize" animals. I like animals but can't have them as pets (severe allergies). I'm not above offing them when they invade my turf or get to be too annoying (you already know how I feel about squirrels; just last night I killed a wasp in my kitchen) - but damn! This is just plain sleazy.
The newly elected leader of the Senate Republicans revealed the practice in his book "Transplant: A Heart Surgeon's Account of the Life-and-Death Dramas of the New Medicine."
"It was a heinous and dishonest thing to do," Frist wrote, in a passage quoted by The Boston Globe. On Tuesday, Frist's press aide, Nick Smith, told United Press International that "Senator Frist denounces the activities that he did while he was in medical school -- as he has done before."
It is not clear if Frist's actions were illegal. Many states ban shelters from knowingly letting their animals be taken for such purposes.
My Community Service, by a Hipublican
I'm gonna holla!
I'm a GOP-baller!
I'ma bitch-smack anyone prayin' to Allah!
Dead fuckin' meat all over Ramallah!*
N' fuck them losers livin' in squalor!
Rudy shoot their asses with a service revolva!
Keep 'em outta sight, build the wall taller!
But service is my right when my crime is white collar!
I'm Karl Rove Jr., right down to the pallor!
Like Ken Mehlman's dick, nobody's smaller!
The second nugget got far less attention, unless you're inclined to read the truly radical press: Business Week. In the April 12 issue, reporters Stanley Holmes and Wendy Zellner penned a terrific piece called, "The Costco Way," with an even more provocative sub-title: "Higher wages mean higher profits. But try telling Wall Street."
The authors point out that Costco recently posted a 25 percent profit gain, as well as a 14 percent sales hike. Yet Wall Street punished Costco's stock, driving it down 4 percent. What gives? As the authors report: "One problem for Wall Street is that Costco pays its workers much better than archrival Wal-Mart Stores Inc. does, and analysts worry that Costco's operating expenses could get out of hand. 'At Costco, it's better to be an employee or a customer than a shareholder,' says Deutsche Bank analyst Bill Dreher."
And there it is in a nutshell. In today's economy (or, for that matter, yesterday's economy), whether a company treats its workers fairly and satisfies consumers does not matter to Wall Street. Stock analysts don't reward such a feat—preferring instead that a company conform to Wall Street standards by wringing out every cent from regular people's wallets.
But the great piece of reporting (and public service) that Holmes and Zellner perform is that they actually run the numbers and get beyond the rhetoric. They compare Costco to Wal-Mart's Sam's Club, the unit with which it directly competes. Costco, which has about a 20 percent unionization rate, pays workers 40 percent more than Sam's Club and gives them comparatively superior benefits (for example, health care and profit-sharing plans) to Sam's Club.
Costco, surprise, has a lower turnover rate and a far higher rate of productivity: it almost equaled Sam's Club's annual sales last year with one-third fewer employees. Only six percent of Costco's employees leave each year, compared to 21 percent at Sam's. And, by every financial measurement, the company does better. Its operating income was higher than Sam's Club, as was operating profit per hourly employees, sales per square foot and even its labor and overhead costs. Here's a quote to emblazon for corporate America: "Paying your employees well is not only the right thing to do but it makes for good business," says Costco CEO James D. Sinegal.
U.S. Secret Service agents were in Prosser on Friday afternoon to interview a 15-year-old art student about political drawings he had shown his Prosser High School teacher.
The student turned in several sketches keyed to the war in Iraq as part of an art class assignment to keep a notebook of drawings, said Kevin Cravens, a Richland friend of the student's family.
The most controversial one showed a man in what appeared to be Middle-Eastern-style clothing with an AK-47 rifle.
He was holding a stick with the oversized head of President Bush on it. The student said the head was enlarged because it was intended to be an effigy, Cravens said. The caption called for an end to the war in Iraq.
Another sketch showed Bush dressed as a devil and launching a missile. The caption read "End the war -- on terrorism."
Another drawing urged votes for Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nadar.
The teacher turned the drawings over to school administrators.
"We involve the police anytime we have a concern," said Prosser Superintendent Ray Tolcacher. "From our perspective it was an incident that needed to be reported to the police on campus."
It was not a freedom of speech issue, but a concern over the depiction of violence, he said.
The Justice Department on Monday asked the new U.S. attorney in New York to investigate how Republicans got access to Democrats' computer memos in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
A report by the Senate sergeant-at-arms earlier this year faulted two of committee chairman Orrin Hatch's employees for the intrusion into the Democrats' computer documents. It says 4,670 files were found on a GOP aide's computer, "the majority of which appeared to be from folders belonging to Democratic staff."
Democrats have called for an outside investigation, and the Justice Department on Monday sent the case to David Kelley, the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Kelley, a Democrat, took James Comey's position as U.S. attorney after Comey left to become deputy attorney general, the No. 2 job at the Justice Department.
There is no doubt that sales are hot for handbags bearing an insult -- in French -- aimed at "our president." The question is: Which president?Oh, don't be so modest...
The bag's designer Tom Bihn never guessed that purses with the message, "We're sorry our president is an idiot. We didn't vote for him" -- inscribed in French -- would be blowing out of the stores.
"It is a mystery, but since we launched the bags with the label sewn, sales have doubled," said Bihn, 43. "It is a record in the history of the company."
He denies the message is targeting US President George W. Bush.
"If George Bush wants to ask me questions about that through his surrogates, he owes America an explanation about whether or not he showed up for duty in the National Guard. Prove it. That's what we ought to have," Kerry told NBC News in an interview. "I'm not going to stand around and let them play games."You go, John!
Ten companies with billions of dollars in U.S. contracts for Iraq (news - web sites) reconstruction have paid more than $300 million in penalties since 2000 to resolve allegations of bid rigging, fraud, delivery of faulty military parts and environmental damage.
The United States is paying more than $780 million to one British firm that was convicted of fraud on three federal construction projects and banned from U.S. government work during 2002, according to an Associated Press review of government documents.
A Virginia company convicted of rigging bids for American-funded projects in Egypt also has been awarded Iraq contracts worth hundreds of millions. And a third firm found guilty of environmental violations and bid rigging won U.S. Army approval for a subcontract to clean up an Iraqi harbor.
Seven other companies with Iraq reconstruction contracts have agreed to pay financial penalties without admitting wrongdoing. Together, the 10 companies have paid to resolve 30 alleged violations in the past four years. Six paid penalties more than once. But the companies have been awarded $7 billion in Iraq reconstruction contracts.
Dan Conley makes a point for the Kerry campaign to consider: "If the Bush White House is intent on making an issue out of John Kerry's antiwar demonstrating in the early 70s, it seems pretty obvious to me that the President must surrender his claim of youthful foolishness for his activities in the early 70s."
Update: It seems Kerry is listening. On Good Morning America he said, "This comes from a president and a Republican Party that can't even answer whether he showed up for duty in the National Guard."
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