Celebrities and politics

I've always had mixed feelings about celebrities and politics.

I know many celebrities feel that promoting their opinions in public is bad for business. Politics and religion are always controversial and talking about them might alienate potential customers. Better to keep one's controversial opinions to oneself, and use the money to fund causes close to one's heart. But on to my own mixed feelings about celebrities and politics.

On the one hand they're entitled to their opinions, just like everyone else. And I suppose they are entitled to use their celebrity, if they want, to promote their opinions, just like other people use their money, or writing skills, or other abilities to promote their opinions. The real question is "Should they?"

Let me give two examples, from the right and from the left.

Jane Fonda was famous for her opposition to the war in Vietnam. She came to my university to speak against the war. I was the only person working against the war who spoke against her coming, not because I thought she was wrong to sit in the seat of a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun (although she was), but because she was not an expert on the history or politics of southeast Asia. What difference did it make what she thought? She was not someone was worth listening to about the topic.

I was over-ruled, not on the grounds that anyone respected her opinion (they didn't), but on the grounds that she would draw people to the forum. She did, but how much effect she had on any of them is open to question. We got some starry eyed people who were all agog that they had seen a REAL MOVIE STAR up close. (Big deal! I used to live in L.A. and I am NOT impressed. In fact I'm rather jaded about tourists hunting movie stars.) None of them seemed to pay any attention to what she, or anyone else, had to say about the war, and they crowded out people who came for information, and who would have come anyway. And I was impressed neither with Ms. Fonda's intelligence nor with the extent of her knowledge about the war, at least compared to those of a real expert. She had a right to her opinion, but I wasn't very impressed with it. I am impressed with her films, though. She's a great actress. I have to admit her body is very impressive too. She's kept it in very good shape since the 1960s.

The example I have from the right is Charlton Heston. He has become a spokesperson for the NRA, speaking against gun control. He is a more impressive speaker than Ms. Fonda. He's really got the Moses act down, although he's not much better at reading a script than Ms. Fonda. His movies are at least equally impressive as hers, but that's not why I'm writing this.

Many people told me that they thought Michael Moore had been unfair to him in "Bowling for Columbine" when he pestered him with questions at the end about gun control. I disagree. If Charlton Heston is going to be a spokesperson for the NRA he is going to have to take the tough questions. Unfortunately he couldn't take them. The NRA was unfair to have asked Mr. Heston to take on the task of being their spokesperson. He was a fool to accept. He wasn't qualified.

It's possible, at least theoretically, for a celebrity to be a good spokesperson and advocate for a cause. Maybe George Clooney is finally giving us an example in his campaigning for Darfur. But people have to remember that starring in a movie doesn't necessarily require brains (although it certainly doesn't preclude it, either, any more than having muscles precludes having brains.) Why should I listen to someone who starred in films about any issue other than acting? Why should I listen to a specialist in foreign affairs about their taste in films? No reason at all.

Bennett and Blacks

If you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose -- you could abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down.

That would be an impossibly ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down,

(from CNN.com)

In all the months after Bill Bennett said that I haven't noticed anyone, even The Nation, point out what WOULD happen if we aborted every black baby in the United States. We'd just go back to having Irish criminals. My Irish history professor (no Hibernophile) gleefully claimed to have seen statistics that showed that "every petty thief in the British Isles has an Irish last name." Personally I wouldn't doubt it at all.

Almost immediately someone jumped on him to explain why the Irish, the street criminals of the British Isles, became the stereotyped policemen in the United States, arresting blacks, Puerto Ricans and others who occupied the same social category that the Irish had occupied in the British Isles.

Crime is caused by social conditions, not the existence or non-existence of certain racial and ethnic groups. Until the social conditions that cause crime change crime will continue, regardless of whether we get rid of certain ethnic or racial groups.

A victim of his last conversation?

from the LA Times:

Rice apparently believed that Bush would simply follow the advice of whoever he spoke with. Therefore the one factor determining whether Bush would support the commission was whether Cheney or Rice managed to get to him first.

I've heard Prince Charles described the same way, but no one lets him be the Decider.

Here's what was wrong with Bush from the beginning

He said it himself:

I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style.

For those who don't understand capitalism, a group which unfortunately includes the president, you don't spend capital. You invest it. That's what makes it capital, not money. You spend money, or you save it and it becomes capital. You invest capital. That's why savings = investment (S=I) in economics.

But this president doesn't understand economics, capitalism or capital, so he squandered all the political capital he got from 9/11 and his re-election, and now he is bankrupt. And the way he is running the United States, the country will be too, very soon.

Wes Clark's ideas for Iraq

It's hard to explain a new option in an op-ed format, but if anyone can do it, Wes Clark can.

Here's what he wrote for USA Today:

What about a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawals? Today, setting a rigid, Washington-driven timetable is an option, but a bad one. A precipitous troop reduction could have far-reaching effects: emboldening Iran, weakening U.S. security promises to friendly states, and even sparking military initiatives by other powers — Turkey or Iran — to deal with the resulting security vacuum. Our weakened position in Iraq also could undercut our leverage in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.

What about imposing a tripartite division of Iraq? That would merely feed ethnic cleansing and likely lead to a wider, more intense conflict.

The right approach is a coordinated diplomatic, legal, economic and security campaign drawing upon broader dialogue in the region and intensified political work inside Iraq.

Read the whole thing here.

It's official

from Forbes:

The war in Iraq has now lasted longer than the U.S. involvement in the war that President Bush's father fought in, World War II.

That's the War in Iraq, not the war against Usama bin Ladin and al-Qa'ida. Remember them? The people who attacked us on 9/11? The people Bush and Cheney and Rummy let get away?

The question is, what do we do about it?

George W. Bush's Resume

George W. Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

Past Work Experience

Ran for congress and lost.
Produced a Hollywood slasher B movie.
Bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas; company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock.
Bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money. Biggest move: Traded Sammy Sosa to the Chicago White Sox.
With father's help (and his name) was elected Governor of Texas.
Accomplishments in Previous Positions

Changed pollution laws for power and oil companies and made Texas the most polluted state in the Union.

Replaced Los Angeles with Houston as the most smog-ridden city in America. Cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas government to the tune of billions in borrowed money.

Set record for most executions by any governor in American history.

Became president after losing the popular vote by over 500,000 votes, with the help of my father's appointments to the Supreme Court.

Accomplishments As President

Attacked and took over two countries.
Spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury.
Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history.
Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.
Set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
First president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.
First president in U.S. history to enter office with a criminal record.
First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in U.S. history.
After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history.
Set the record for most campaign fundraising trips than any other president in U.S. history.
In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their job.
Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in U.S. history.
Set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in U.S. history.
Set the record for the least amount of press conferences than any president since the advent of television.
Signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any president in U.S. history.
Presided over the biggest energy crises in U.S. history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
Presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.
Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans.
Set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.
Dissolved more international treaties than any president in U.S. history.
My presidency is the most secretive and unaccountable of any in U.S. history.
Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. history (the 'poorest' multimillionaire, Condoleezza Rice, has an Exxon oil tanker named after her).
First president in U.S. history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously go bankrupt.
Presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the world.
First president in U.S. history to order a U.S. attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation.
Created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
Set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in U.S. history.
First president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the human rights commission.
First president in U.S. history to have the United Nations remove the U.S. from the elections monitoring board.
Removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in U.S. history.
Rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.
Withdrew from the World Court of Law.
Refused to allow inspectors access to U.S. prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.
First president in U.S. history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 U.S. elections).
All-time U.S. (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
My biggest lifetime campaign contributor presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).
Spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in U.S. history.
First president in U.S. history to unilaterally attack a sovereign nation against the will of the United Nations and the world community.
First president to run and hide when the U.S. came under attack (and then lied saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1)
First U.S. president to establish a secret shadow government.
Took the biggest world sympathy for the U.S. after 9/11, and in less than a year made the U.S. the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in U.S. and world history).
With a policy of 'disengagement' created the most hostile Israeli-Palestine relations in at least 30 years.
Fist U.S. president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.
First U.S. president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the U.S. than their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
Changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
Set all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated U.S. law by not selling huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.
Failed to fulfill my pledge to get Osama Bin Laden 'dead or alive.'
Failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capital building. After 18 months I have no leads and zero suspects.
In the 18 months following the 9/11 attacks I have successfully prevented any public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States.
Removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in U.S. history.
In a little over two years created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided the U.S. has ever been since the Civil War.
Entered office with the strongest economy in U.S. history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down.
Records and References

At least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available)
AWOL from National Guard and deserted the military during a time of war.
Refuse to take drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.
All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my father's library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All minutes of meetings for any public corporation I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.
For personal references please speak to my daddy or uncle James Baker (they can be reached at their offices of the Carlyle Group for war-profiteering.)

Good take on Clark

There's a lot to be said about the fallacy of political pundits and conventional wisdom about Wes Clark, too much in fact.

and too much in the article for me to quote. I'll let you read "The Donkey in the Room" for yourself.

Not the greatest generation any more

Look at this sick sh*t:



And then Americans wonder why they hate us. The kids that grew up in the privation of the Great Depression went on to hand out candy and chocolate bars in Europe and Japan, making friends that helped us win the Cold War. Their grandchildren fighting in Iraq, against people who never attacked us and who might have been our friends, are busy making enemies that will haunt us longer than I care to predict.

Maybe this is an isolated incident, but I don't think so. The Iraqis greeted us as liberators. Now they hate us. Now you know why.

MSNBC won't print this

because it attacks someone else's comments about Wes Clark's op-ed about Iraq.

Gregg says:

"Iraq is far more complicated than any one of you here realize. If the politicians, think-tankers, Bush bashers and everyone none active military would get out of the way, the military could handle this situation ASAP."

Gregg, Iraq is far more complicated than YOU realize. That's why we need someone who does understand it to sort it out. Could you have even found it on a map before we invaded?

BTW, you contradict yourself when you complain that Wes Clark didn't win wars, but ask everyone else to get out of the military's way. The military already won in Iraq, but Wes Clark realizes that war is more than a military problem. You don't. That's why he was a general and you weren't. And for the record I know someone who is being sent to Iraq. Just shared a beer with him AAMOF, and hope to see him again before he goes.

Why do these people hate the Constitution?

from MSNBC:

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The U.S. military called no witnesses, withheld evidence from detainees and usually reached a decision within a day as it determined that hundreds of men detained at Guantanamo Bay were “enemy combatants,” according to a new report.

and why pick on these people? If they are terrorists, there should be evidence. If they are not, they should be released. And if you have no evidence that they are terrorists, why do you believe them to be?

more from MSNBC:

Twenty-one first-year law students at Seton Hall University in Newark, N.J., analyzed the documents to create a database analyzed by eight second- and third-year students.

Among their findings:

* The government did not produce any witnesses in any hearing.
* The military denied all detainee requests to inspect the classified evidence against them.
* The military refused all requests for defense witnesses who were not detained at Guantanamo.
* In 74 percent of the cases, the government denied requests to call witnesses who were detained at the prison.
* In 91 percent of the hearings, the detainees did not present any evidence.
* In three cases, the panel found that the detainee was “no longer an enemy combatant,” but the military convened new tribunals that later found them to be enemy combatants.

“No American would ever consider this to be hearing,” Denbeaux said. “This is a show trial.”

Welcome to Stalinism, American style!

I'm back

I've been busy and I've been busy celebrating the Democratic victory when I wasn't busy otherwise. Maybe I should post a series of short pieces on introducing Islamic studies or something like that? Well, I'll post new messages as I have time.

I still am worried about our democracy, though. We need to do some things ASAP.

1. Get ballots with certifiable paper trails to confirm the voters' choices. The opinion polls very consistently overestimated the actual poll results as far as Democrats went. The obvious explanation to me is that the polls were rigged. Not enough to stop a Democratic landslide but enough to slow it down.

2. Repeal the noxious portions of the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act. I take my oath to defend the Constitution "against all enemies, foreign and domestic" very seriously.

3. Investigate the worst aspects of the Bush regime, to stop their crimes and promote the idea of impeachment. At the very least the public needs to know what the &%$#! has been going on in the Bush regime.

4. Try to change course in Iraq so that we're not going it alone any more. The options are so much worse than they were before or should be now.

5. GET BIN LADIN! Dead or alive. (But I'm not holding my breath waiting for the Commander in Chief to order that one.)

We are in very deep shinola here!

This is from the Military Times newspaper group editorial about Rumsfeld:

It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation’s current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.

Did you get that? Rumsfeld is losing control of the military.

So what is the solution? The Military Times group of Newspapers suggests that Rumsfeld be fired. I have long thought Rumsfeld should have been fired for many, many reasons, but the call for firing him to restore discipline in the military worries me. That would only whet the appetite of political generals in the military. We are lucky to have a nonpolitical military in the US, and to have civilian control of the military. We need to keep that more than almost anything.

What worries me about this editorial is the argument that the opinion of the majority of Americans is not important, but that the opinion of the generals is. That doesn't sound like civilian control.

To be fair, they ambiguously complain that Rumsfeld is losing control of the military, but their solution to his loss of control is to give more power to the top military brass, letting them decide who gets to give them orders.

It's been argued elsewhere that the Cheney gang is so adamant about retaining Rumsfeld because Bill Clinton let the generals (e.g. Wes Clark) call all the shots, and the new administration wanted to restore effective civilian control. I don't know. I do know we are in trouble here. It needs a steady hand. It needs someone who's got a history of strong military experience, and a strong committment to a nonpolitical military and civilian control. Maybe a retired, nonpolitical general?

Rumsfeld should be removed because (1) he has failed, and (2) he has lost the faith of the country at large. That he has lost the trust of the generals is incidental. They have a vote, like everyone else, but they don't have voice. Civil servants in general are "Hatched" but military personnel do not have the same rights of free speech as civilians. Nor should they. They are the core of the government. Lose control of the military and you lose the republic. There's no crossing the Rubicon in reverse. It's that simple.

I thought it would have been Boykin!

How did I miss this? I've been away too long, I guess. But the news is just getting too surreal for my taste.

MIAMI (AFP) - The top US general defended the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying it is inspired by God. "He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," said Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

OK, the guy is under Rummy in the chain of command, so he'd better say nice things about him, but "the good Lord tells him is best for our country"?!? I thought military were supposed to sign oaths to defend the Constitution of the United States. Hasn't this guy even read that Constitution?

Even stranger, OK, suppose this guy believes the Bible literally and thinks King Solomon talked to God. How does he come off thinking Rummy does, too? Or is he just being very subtly sarcastic? That must be it. It's very dry humor, over Rummy's head.

another straw man from a Republican

This Republican is pretty extreme, so I don't think I should use him to speak about all Republicans. David Horowitz does speak for many, though, and he has enough big Republican money behind him to get some attention. Here's his latest straw man argument about Democrats:

if only America left Iraq and focused on killing Osama bin Laden, the Islamic jihad would be over.

Of course he can't actually quote any real Democrat saying something so simplistic. I can quote him, here, confusing Sunni jihadists and Shi'ite jihadists (notice that they are killing each other in Iraq, with our troops in the middle) as "the Islamic jihad" in his blog entry.

Given Horowitz's obvious intelligence, and history of Communism, he's probably making a deliberate misrepresentation of what Democrats have been saying. Still, it's nice to know that we're having some effect, and that they can't just accuse us of supporting the terrorists anymore. Well, some Republicans will always do that, but Horowitz seems to want to be believed in his lies.

This lie is disturbing, though:

Those who attack us from within without offering a constructive policy for winning are helping the enemy. They are not criticizing the Administration; they are sabotaging the war. I have yet to come across a single Democrat who has a plan to prosecute the war more effectively.

If he hasn't "come across a single Democrat who has a plan to prosecute the war more effectively" it's his own fault for not visiting Wesley Clark's "Securing America" site. He's more likely lying again, and setting up Democrats to become inmates of the American Gulag his Republican friends are building.

National security? I don't think so.

Ever since he was in college George W. Bush talked down Social Security. He thought it would be his legacy to turn back the New Deal, especially it's cornerstone, the Social Security program. And it looks like he won't give up. Here's the latest:

Oct. 22 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush said Republicans can hold their congressional majority by focusing on national security and the economy, and that he will return to overhauling Social Security as a top domestic priority for his last two years in office.

He thinks that being a War President gives him "political capital" and that then he gets to spend it. The sap doesn't understand that you don't spend capital, you invest it. That's what makes capital different from money. This president doesn't even get the basics of capitalism. No wonder he wants to abolish Social Security. He doesn't realize that it saved capitalism, because he doesn't understand capitalism.

Could Bush secretly be a Communist? No, I think he's just a little dense. After all, even intelligent Communists understand the difference between capital and money. They've read Das Kapital.

The Ox-Bow President

Does anyone else remember when America stood for the rule of law, for justice and fair play? Does anyone else remember when our wartime movies, even the ones that didn't have Nazi villains, even the ones that weren't overt propaganda, featured the kind of values that made the United States the last best hope of earth? Not anymore. Habeas Corpus has been flagrantly abolished without even a pretense of invasion or rebellion to justify it.

From the New York Times editorial:

While the Republicans pretend that this bill will make America safer, let’s be clear about its real dangers. It sets up a separate system of justice for any foreigner whom Mr. Bush chooses to designate as an “illegal enemy combatant.” It raises insurmountable obstacles for prisoners to challenge their detentions. It does not require the government to release prisoners who are not being charged, or a prisoner who is exonerated by the tribunals.

The law does not apply to American citizens, but it does apply to other legal United States residents. And it chips away at the foundations of the judicial system in ways that all Americans should find threatening. It further damages the nation’s reputation and, by repudiating key protections of the Geneva Conventions, it needlessly increases the danger to any American soldier captured in battle.

In the short run, voters should see through the fog created by the Republican campaign machine. It will be up to the courts to repair the harm this law has done to the Constitution.

I think a Hollywood writer said it far better in the darkest days of World War II, when the US and the world faced an enemy far greater than al-Qa'ida and Usama bin Ladin:

A man just naturally can't take the law into his own hands and hang people without hurtin' everybody in the world, 'cause then he's just not breaking one law but all laws. Law is a lot more than words you put in a book, or judges or lawyers or sheriffs you hire to carry it out. It's everything people ever have found out about justice and what's right and wrong. It's the very conscience of humanity. There can't be any such thing as civilization unless people have a conscience, because if people touch God anywhere, where is it except through their conscience? And what is anybody's conscience except a little piece of the conscience of all men that ever lived?

I agree with what he said, but I can't defend his right to say it

General Dannatt wants British troops out of Iraq immediately:

The point that I'm trying to make is the mere fact that we are still in some places exacerbates violence from those who want to destabilise Iraqi democracy.

I've always been amazed at two types of people: those who said it was inapproriate for retired generals to speak out against the war, and those who complained that no serving generals spoke out against it. No serving generals spoke out because such speech is insubordination and a breech of discipline. If you're in the service and you want to criticize any higherups in the chain of command, you have to get out of the service. It's called military discipline.

It feels strange to say this, but I agree with what the general said, but I have to oppose his right to say it. Billy Mitchell was right about Air Power, too, and today everybody knows it. We have an Air Force, an Air Force Academy, a Department of Defense and everything else he asked for. We even know that he was right about the Japanese attacking Pearl Harbor. But he shouldn't have said it without resigning from the military first, and the court martial was right to convict and punish him.

If you've ever seen an insubordinate, undisciplined military you would understand what I am talking about. It's dangerous.

Wes Clark says what needs to be said!

and he says it so well. Listen for yourself:



Here's more from coverage of his speech in Alabama:

Bin Laden’s strategy, Clark said, is to encourage the U.S. to invade Iran and Syria.

“His strategy is to create zones of chaos and savagery," Clark said. “He wants more Iraqs … where he can go in and emerge with leadership.

“Why do we want to play his game, when it is totally against our interests?"

I only hope his voice holds out until the 2008 election.

Fair and balanced? How?

Faux news claims to be fair and balanced, but here's what they did in a report on what they called

Vanderbilt Univ. discussion on 9/11 turns into a Bush-bashing festival

There was no chance for any of the faculty members to defend themselves, only the prosecution, and a witness for the prosecution. Faux News did have their punching bag "liberal" to make some mealy mouth comments that were supposed to be a defense of something (free speech?) but the accused were not given a chance to defend themselves, nor were any witnesses for the defense allowed to testify.

That's Faux News for you! Liberals are guilty, guilty, guilty of treason, treason, treason!

And the idea of debate between two sides is a quaint relic of liberalism. Which means freedom.

Remember, the president says the terrorists hate us become we are free, so as soon as we become unfree the terrorists will stop hating us and the GWOT will be over. Unless we try to become free again. So don't even think about freedom anymore. Much less a fair and balanced debate.

It's all Clinton's fault!

I don't believe these people. When Bush finally leaves office in 2009, they will still swear that everything bad that ever happened during his eight years was Clinton's fault. I guess the "Party of Personal Responsibility" was the party of other people's personal responsibility.

Et tu, McCain?

Yes, John McCain blames Clinton, too:

Sen. John McCain, a likely 2008 U.S. presidential contender, blamed former President Bill Clinton on Tuesday for failing to stop an unfolding nuclear threat from North Korea in the 1990s.

The Arizona Republican also took a swipe at Clinton's wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, a New York senator and possible Democratic rival for the White House.

It's time for Bush to take responsibility for his own policies and their failures. Clinton's policy on North Korea wasn't perfect. What policy could be for a country that expects to be applauded for its nuclear test? But Bush's policy is clearly worse, and if Bush won't admit making a mistake with it, McCain should be adult enough to tell him to change course again.

And blaming Hillary is really low, even for a Republican.

How to get the Usama clock?

Colorado Bob, who runs "Thank you, Keith Olbermann" among other blogs, wants to know where to get the Usama clock. I just copied and pasted the source code from another blog. I suggest everyone else do the same.

I rewrote the shpiel, and changed the spelling. There are only three vowels in Arabic (a, i, u). The other two vowels (e, o) are written in Roman script to to try to show short vowels, but I think it's confusing. There's no good method of showing vowel length in English. But I digress. You can write "Osama bin Laden" if you want.

Put up the clock and edit it yourself. I don't think we can remind enough people that this is the first time in American history that it has taken more than four years to catch the people responsible for an attack on the US and put a stop to their activities. The Confederates and the Japanese military were both out of action four years after Fort Sumter and Pearl Harbor, respectively. We can't let bin Ladin get away!

The president's voices

are getting stranger and stranger. "The President hears what he wants. . . . He hears things that only he can hear." I couldn't have said it better than Keith Olbermann: Watch here!

Clinton on Faux News!

Did he flip out, or did he smack them down?

Check out the video here, and decide for yourself?

Surprise, surprise!

Read it and weep:

WASHINGTON - The war in Iraq has become the primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers are increasing faster than the United States and its allies are eliminating the threat, U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded.

I'm back, and I want my country! (I love country)

As you can probably guess from those last few posts, I've been getting pretty depressed considering the state the country is in, but I just got cheered up. By a country song of all things! Check this out:



I've always loved country music (yes, "I was Country when Country wasn't Cool" FWIW), and I'm a big Merle Haggard fan. In fact I've been a fan of his since before "Okie from Muskogee" and I really loved his last albums. Especially the one with "Rebuild America First!"

I guess I can't close a blog entry about Country music without mentioning Willie Nelson's drug bust. Marijuana prohibition is at best a waste of everyone's time, at worst a policy disaster that is making things worse than legalization would be. LEGALIZE MARIJUANA NOW!!!

Who was B. Traven?

(OK, I'm a little drunk so this may not make total sense.)

If you don't know who B. Traven is, just google the name or google "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" instead.

He spoke German and English, was an anarcho/socialist, and wanted to keep his identity totally secret.

In other words,

He was a Wobbly, full of their cult of anonymity and wanted to keep his identity secret, which was harder and harder as his books kept selling and even became best selling movies, and everyone wanted to know who he was.

You want to know who he was? Look for a Wobbly who spoke German and had to flee, who disappeared. But there are too many people who fit that description, aren't there? You'll never find him now. Which was his idea. And I sympathize. Totally.

B. Traven went to Mexico and tried to be anonymous, tellling lie after lie after lie to be anonymous. Wouldn't you? If you were smart, and he was, wasn't he? If you were a Wobby wanted by the law in the US, and probably Germany, too. I don't know who he was, but I'm sure everything told by now is full of lies. B. Traven was a Wobbly, probably (almost certainly) wanted by the law, and afraid of being found out until he died.

I'll drinkn to the wobblies. Especially if B. Traven was one of them.

Maybe more when I'm sober. Hasta la vista, baby!

In the meantime, here's to B . Traven!

The fix is on!

TRENTON, N.J. - A Princeton University computer science professor added new fuel Wednesday to claims that electronic voting machines used across much of the country are vulnerable to hacking that could alter vote totals or disable machines.

That's right. The election is already rigged. But I'm not giving up.

Read more here.

Watch the video:

The right still believes it was just a "Wag the Dog" distraction!

Does anyone want evidence of my claim at the beginning of this blog that the Right was not on the ball about bin Ladin?

When Bin Ladin attacked the US and Bill Clinton went after him a lot of Republicans insisted this was a "wag the dog" distraction from the real threat to the republic, Monica Lewinsky's mouth. Some of this is still up on the Internet

This is from Redstate:

Everybody thought his response to the embassy bombings was sleight of hand to distract from Lewinsky. I know I did.

We got hit on 9/11 because the Republican right didn't believe that the threat was real. They have continued to blow the war ever since. We have to get rid of them.

5 years after 9/11, a reason for the Iraq invasion

But it's not new. It's the old, original claim that Iraq was an immediate threat. It wasn't. And they knew it at the time.

I don't want to hear about this president anymore. He's an embarrassment to the nation. Get rid of him. Look, he even promised he wouldn't politicize this speech, then, when I listened to it, he seemed to spend more time on Iraq than on what he was supposed to talk about, 9/11.

Get rid of him!

Just in case you think Bush was behind use of the "g" word in Darfur

It's a black thang:

Almost two years ago when the U.S. Congress declared the atrocities Genocide, I was so elated and proud, believing that we were going to do something to save lives. I was so sure that this time around it was going to be different, assuming we learned from Rwanda. I must confess I never thought I was going to succeed even getting the resolution passed in the House, let alone see our government declare Genocide.

That's from "Africa: Remarks of Congressman Donald M. Payne - 36th Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference" as reported by AllAfrica.com

Bush's real priorities

Here it is, from Yahoo! News.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush hopes to revive his plan to overhaul the U.S. Social Security retirement program if his Republican party keeps control of the Congress in the November midterm elections, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

That's right, Bush doesn't care any more about national security than he did before the last election, and as soon as this next one's over he's going to go after Social Security instead.

Despite polls suggesting Democrats have their best chance in years to regain control of the House of Representatives, Bush told the newspaper in an interview he was confident a power shift was "not going to happen."

And that's right, too. Preprogrammed voting machines are in place to keep the Republicans in power until Kingdom come. Let's hope that's soon.

Dems lay into Bush about bin Ladin

Here's the webad!



Of course, some people think the US government is actually going after bin Ladin. How do we explain to these people that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 or bin Ladin, that we took our troops out of the search for bin Ladin in Afghanistan to put them in a needless, counterproductive war in Iraq, and that that's why we can't find bin Ladin?

Where do people get this?!?

from CNN

Asked whether former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, 52 percent [of Americans] said he was not, but 43 percent said they believe he was. The White House has denied Hussein's 9/11 involvement -- most recently in a news conference August 21, when President Bush said Hussein had "nothing" to do with the attacks.

So if Bush denies that Saddam was involved, and they have NEVER said he was, where the &%$#! do 43% of Americans get the idea that he WAS involved?

I mean, people, PLEASE, if Saddam was involved in the 9/11 attacks, he has gotten off too lightly.

But please, somebody, tell me WHERE THE &%$#! DO 43% OF AMERICANS GET THE CRAZY &%$#! IDEA THAT SADDAM HUSSEIN WAS INVOLVED IN THE SEPTEMBER 11TH ATTACKS?!?!?

Has half the country gone stark raving lunatic?

Darfur on the brink?

There are serious predictions of an impending bloodbath. Kofi Annan is trying to get UN troops in but the Sudanese government won't cooperate. They've even thrown out the AU troops that they said they had no objection to. According to the very reliable BBC the AU has agreed to get out. But according to the VoA Nigeria is sending more troops without asking the Sudan's permission. The Sudanese government, on the other hand, is launching a major new offensive.

PlameGate isn't over yet!

It seems that Armitage wasn't the only one to finger Plame:

But officials at the White House also told reporters about Wilson's wife in an effort to discredit Wilson for his public attacks on Bush's handling of Iraq intelligence. Karl Rove confirmed to Novak that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA, and days later offered the same information to Time reporter Matt Cooper.

So Armitage was one of the sources, but not the most important one, or the one who kept the story out running for so long.

Darfur, D-Kos and diaries

(crossposted at Securing America)

At least two D-Kos diaries (1, 2) about the UN vote on Darfur have already scrolled offscreen. That's typical of Darfur diaries on D-Kos, but nothing has appeared about it at the Clark site, either. I reckon y'all were a-waitin' for me? ;-)

from Aljazeera (the island? the peninsula? It obviously refers to the "Arab island" that Mecca is on, so it doesn't include the Sudan, but I digress)

The UN security council has approved a resolution authorising the deployment of up to 17,000 peacekeepers to Darfur, with the Sudanese government swiftly rejecting the plan.

from the Beeb:

The Sudanese government has vehemently rejected a UN Security Council resolution that would send a UN force to Sudan's Darfur region.

from Monsters and Critics:

Acting in the shadow of the Rwanda genocide, UN Security Council members said Thursday their decision to send troops to Sudan's Darfur region without government consent is aimed at protecting civilians caught in the conflict despite the Sudanese government's objection.

from The International Herald Tribune:

Sudan on Thursday rejected a U.N. resolution giving the world body authority over peacekeepers in the war-torn region of Darfur on condition that the government in Khartoum gives its consent.

from Africa Action via AllAfrica.com:

This morning at the United Nations (UN) Security Council, a resolution authorizing the deployment of peacekeepers to Darfur passed with a vote of 12 in favor, with China, Russia and Qatar abstaining. This resolution, introduced two weeks ago by the U.S. and the U.K., was altered in negotiations this week to include a provision requiring the consent of the Sudanese government. Africa Action, which has been calling for the deployment of UN peacekeepers for more than two years, recognized the importance of this step and expressed concern that the resolution will be rendered useless without a diplomatic action plan that ensures Sudanese consent for a UN intervention.

Just to be fair and balanced, here is the article from Faux News:

The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution Thursday that would give the United Nations authority over peacekeepers in Darfur as soon as Sudan's government gives its consent — which it has so far refused to do.

The resolution is meant to give more power and funding to a force, now run by the African Union, that has been unable to stop the humanitarian catastrophe in Darfur that has killed more than 200,000 people and continues to worsen.

background from the Beeb:

Rwanda's army spokesman says there have been delays in paying peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur region because the African Union is short of cash. Some of the Rwandan troops who make up over 2,000 of the 7,000-strong AU force in Darfur have complained they have not received their $25 daily allowance.

Maj Jules Rutaremara told the BBC the AU mission is reliant on international funding which has not been forthcoming.

and I can't help editorializing that it would be MUCH CHEAPER AND MORE EFFECTIVE to fund the AU force that is already there on the ground than to authorize a UN force. It is hard for me to avoid the suspicion that the Bush administration is just grandstanding. What UN forces are they going to send? They don't have enough forces for Lebanon!

Here is an analysis from Sudan Tribune:

Will the supporters of Al-Qaida strike in East Africa Sooner than later??

By Scott A. Morgan

August 31, 2006 — The supporters of Al-Qaida and their supporters and colleagues in the upper Nile Basin must realize that they may soon be in a target rich environment. They are having a currently successful campaign to consolidate their power within Somalia, Reports indicate that the Government of Eritrea is currently arming the currently successful Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) as they attempt to install the Government that they want. Sudan whose Government is under current Pressure from the UN Security Council to accept a more powerful peacekeeping force for the long-standing strife plagued region of Darfur.

What would embolden these groups to take such actions? There are two answers that are plausible. First is the current situation within Iraq where successful insurgency has tied down thousands of Amercan troops with over a thousand fatalities. The second answer is the recent war in Lebanon. This conflict which can be seen as a Public Relations Disaster for Israel and major coup for Hizbullah demonstated that it was possible to tie down their enemies in a protracted Miltary Campaign. US Forces have been in Iraq since 2003 and the UN stepped in to end the violence in Southern Lebanon

And I can't help but add my comment (they were almost identical) from the two D-Kos diaries:

UN resolution says they "invite" Sudan's approval

but isn't clear whether said permission is required or not. Now the lawyers have to argue about it. However, even if we can pressure the Sudan's government into approving it means little because:

1. What troops are they going to send? Butros Butros-Ghali wanted a permanent military force under the office of the S-G (himself) along with tax powers to fund it. (This is the same B B-G who was so upset that African genocide doesn't get the attention that genocide in Europe does.) Jesse Helms went ballistic and considered the UN making an explicit threat to US sovereignty. (This is the same Jesse Helms who was upset about the United States's threat to North Carolina's sovereignty, i.e. the Civil War.)

2. How are they going to fund the troops? There are troops already there on the ground, the African Union force, but they don't have enough money to do their job. They could be augmented with more troops and do a better job for less money than a UN force of troops from outside the continent, they have already been approved for the job, even by the government of the Sudan, but they don't have enough money for the force that is there now. Who is going to pay for it?

This UN resolution is simply a way for the US to wash its hands of the mess without doing anything, while convincing Arab conspiracy theorists that it is all a US plot against the "Arab nation". If they really wanted to do something they would pony up some more $$$$$ for the African Union force that is already there and call the Arab League's bluff about helping finance the AU force. In the meantime, Darfur is a test case for the AU. If it doesn't act, it should be replaced by a United States of Africa that can act.

No sense of irony! (or humor?)

From the Christian Broadcasting Network news (i.e. Pat Robertson):

"For the U.N. to be effective,” Bush said, “there must be consequences if people thumb their nose at the U.N. Security Council."

Well, Mr. Bush, let's face the consequences of your thumbing your nose at the U.N. Security Council, shall we?

Hurricane Katrina won't go away!

Looks like the ethnic cleansing explanation might not be paranoia:

Forensic engineers have since uncovered design and construction flaws that some say border on criminal negligence.

I already talked about Lieberman

Here it is:

Building a majority party involves creating coalitions within the party, not circular firing squads. That means we all have to compete cleanly within the party primary, then swallow our pride and support the nominee who was chosen by the majority of our fellow Democrats, who are not really our political opponents, much less enemies.

I was talking about Hackett and Senator Schumer there, but it goes for Lieberman, too. It even goes for anyone who loses to a Democrat to their right. We can't afford to fight each other this year. There is too much at stake!

Let's keep focussed on reality

Let's all remember what really happened in the latest terror plot.

Pakistan found out about the plot and notified the British:

Reports from Pakistani intelligence, suggesting the direct involvement of senior Kashmiri militants linked to al-Qaeda, convinced British intelligence that the plot had to be taken seriously. Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist branch was brought in to the operation last December.

The Bush administration had nothing to do with it..

No, the US administration is too busy in Iraq to do anything about al-Qa'ida.

But how will the latest terror plot play in the US heartland?

We all know that the Republicans and their media will try to paint the Democrats as soft on terror. They've already started by saying that the Democrats have been hijacked by extremists.

Thank God some papers at least report it right:

Democrats contend that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a distraction from the war against al-Qaida. A new CNN poll shows that 60 percent of Americans now oppose the war in Iraq.

And it looks like the American people are finally starting to wake up:

Democrats were favored over Republicans by 46 to 38 percent in an ABC-Washington Post poll early this week when people were asked whom they trusted more to handle the fight against terrorism.

Let's hope they stay awake through election day!

More on the Arab League and Darfur

I've already complained that expecting the Arab League to stop the killing in Darfur is like expecting the Ku Klux Klan to stop the lynching of Blacks in the US. (Yes, there are people, even Black people, who actually expect the Arab League to intervene to stop the killings.)

Now someone else seems to have picked it up:

The message seems clear: the Arab League is not as concerned with the DEPTH of the evil as they are with PERPETRATORS of the evil. Two hundred Arab civilians killed by Israel is a more newsworthy story than 20,000 Africans killed in an Arab League country. Perhaps the urge to be self-critical is unwise and bad for “Arab morale” in this time of asymmetrical warfare, entropy in Iraq and widely rampant anti-Arab sentiments. But further neglect of Darfur will be for the Arab League what Rwanda was for the UN: the grossest moral failing of its existence . . . the beginning of the end.

I don't know if Rwanda was the beginning of the end for the UN. I don't claim to foretell the future. I will reiterate that the Arab League should not be expected to intervene when Arabs kill non-Arabs. That's not why it was created. It was created to support the ethnic interests of Arabs, i.e. to foster Arab nationalism. I don't think it should continue to exist. And anyway, it can't even defend the ethnic interests of Arabs in Lebanon. It is at best impotent, at worst evil. Get rid of it.

And for humanity's sake, someone please fund an adequate African Union force, and if necessary an OIC force, to Darfur.

How to solve the Israel/Palestine problem:

Meteor Blades asked everyone on D-Kos, and my position got a lot of good ratings, more than almost any on the message thread, so I thought I should put it up here too.

1. Palestinians have to recognize that Israel exists. It's not going anywhere. It's not part of the International Elders of Zion Conspiracy. It's people who started out as poor refugees, just like the Palestinians are today. It's not even a European invasion. As much as it is Holocaust refugees, it is the Jewish millets of the Ottoman Empire coming together. If the Palestinians want to blame anyone for that, they can blame their "Arab brothers" the same "brothers" who don't do anything for the Palestinians except say "Let's you and him fight." and "Here are some guns. Please kill our Jews for us. We'd do it ourselves, but we're scared of the big bad Jews."

2. Israel has to recognize that Palestinians exist. Not Arabs, Palestinians. Arabic has been called a dead language that they refuse to bury. Israelis and their apologists have to stop insisting that other Arab countries have to take in refugees the way Germans took in refugees after World War II. Besides the fact that Germans realized that they had brought their problems on themselves, while Palestinians blame others for the situation, Arabs are coming to speak different languages. Arab nationalism is bull[bleep] and even Colonel Qaddafi has come around to realizing it.

3. Obviously that means a two-state solution. Recognizing the need for a Palestinian State is probably the only thing G. W. Bush has gotten right his whole time in office. But he hasn't moved it forward, he's moved it backward. That's why going back to a Democratic administration is necessary to solve this problem. Carter and Clinton moved things forward. Bush balled it all up.

4. Back when Clinton was helping the negotiations they almost got it solved. They had everything divvied up except for one small hill in Jerusalem. The only way I can see out of that is to internationalize the city under religious control. I know many Muslims and Jews think this is just a Christian conspiracy to take over without fighting, because Christians outnumber Muslims and Jews put together. Tough. The Jews and Muslims have, between them, driven out almost all the Christians. The least they could do is let the Christians share in the rule of one city.

That's my two cents, FWIW.

Ah, the white man's burden!

Remember the push to get a UN force into Darfur, where genocide is happening? Notice how long it is taking to agree on that force, and get approval, and coordinate the logistics? Notice how by the time anything is done, at the rate things are moving, that all the non-Arabs in Darfur will be dead?

This news is just in from the Middle East:

Planning for the force is in early stages, but officials said they anticipate it including 10,000 to 20,000 troops led by a contingent from France or Turkey.

That's right, the world body, allegedly dominated by third world governments and their concerns, is once again rushing to stop attacks against white people. In this case they do not even rise to the level of genocide. This is not to argue in favor of Israel's attacks on Lebanon, which I consider disproportionate. It is simply to point out that systematic murder of people from other ethnic groups, genocide, is going on in Africa, while the world dithers. There are plenty of African troops willing to go into Darfur, they just don't have the money. Now watch the "international community" (anyone have any idea who that is? I sure don't) send their money to Lebanon instead.

Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, first African Secretary General of the United Nations, put it best:

A genocide in Africa has not received the same attention that genocide in Europe or genocide in Turkey or genocide in other part of the world. There is still this kind of basic discrimination against the African people and the African problems.

Crazier and crazier

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Tuesday once again charged that the Holocaust was a fantasy concocted for the West to take over the Middle East through Israel, and proclaimed that Israel was on the verge of collapse, the news agency ISNA reported.

I wonder what kind of historical research is permitted in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The government is active in publishing copies of The International Jew by Henry Ford and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and distributing them around the world.

Worst president ever?

You gotta read this article by Sean Wilentz in Rolling Stone magazine:

George W. Bush's presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace. Barring a cataclysmic event on the order of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, after which the public might rally around the White House once again, there seems to be little the administration can do to avoid being ranked on the lowest tier of U.S. presidents. And that may be the best-case scenario. Many historians are now wondering whether Bush, in fact, will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.

From time to time, after hours, I kick back with my colleagues at Princeton to argue idly about which president really was the worst of them all. For years, these perennial debates have largely focused on the same handful of chief executives whom national polls of historians, from across the ideological and political spectrum, routinely cite as the bottom of the presidential barrel. Was the lousiest James Buchanan, who, confronted with Southern secession in 1860, dithered to a degree that, as his most recent biographer has said, probably amounted to disloyalty -- and who handed to his successor, Abraham Lincoln, a nation already torn asunder? Was it Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, who actively sided with former Confederates and undermined Reconstruction? What about the amiably incompetent Warren G. Harding, whose administration was fabulously corrupt? Or, though he has his defenders, Herbert Hoover, who tried some reforms but remained imprisoned in his own outmoded individualist ethic and collapsed under the weight of the stock-market crash of 1929 and the Depression's onset? The younger historians always put in a word for Richard M. Nixon, the only American president forced to resign from office.

Now, though, George W. Bush is in serious contention for the title of worst ever. In early 2004, an informal survey of 415 historians conducted by the nonpartisan History News Network found that eighty-one percent considered the Bush administration a "failure." Among those who called Bush a success, many gave the president high marks only for his ability to mobilize public support and get Congress to go along with what one historian called the administration's "pursuit of disastrous policies." In fact, roughly one in ten of those who called Bush a success was being facetious, rating him only as the best president since Bill Clinton -- a category in which Bush is the only contestant.

They're not even pretending to look for bin Ladin!

This has been going around the news lately. Here's the New York Times take:

C.I.A. Closes Unit Focused on Capture of bin Laden

WASHINGTON, July 3 — The Central Intelligence Agency has closed a unit that for a decade had the mission of hunting Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants, intelligence officials confirmed Monday.

The official administration spin is that it doesn't mean anything:

Agency officials said that tracking Mr. bin Laden and his deputies remained a high priority, and that the decision to disband the unit was not a sign that the effort had slackened. Instead, the officials said, it reflects a belief that the agency can better deal with high-level threats by focusing on regional trends rather than on specific organizations or individuals.

"The efforts to find Osama bin Laden are as strong as ever," said Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, a C.I.A. spokeswoman. "This is an agile agency, and the decision was made to ensure greater reach and focus."

What does the guy who knows most about it have to say?

Michael Scheuer, a former senior C.I.A. official who was the first head of the unit, said the move reflected a view within the agency that Mr. bin Laden was no longer the threat he once was.

Mr. Scheuer said that view was mistaken.

"This will clearly denigrate our operations against Al Qaeda," he said. "These days at the agency, bin Laden and Al Qaeda appear to be treated merely as first among equals."

So why are they really doing this?

In recent years, the war in Iraq has stretched the resources of the intelligence agencies and the Pentagon, generating new priorities for American officials.

That's right, the War in Iraq is making it impossible to fight the people who really attacked the United States.

Is George Bush really so stunningly incompetent, or doesn't he want to catch the people who attacked us on September 11th?

That's the real question about almost all of the administration's policies. Stupidity and incompetence, or deliberate sabotage of the United States? Was the Hurricane Katrina response just an incredible foulup, or deliberate ethnic cleansing? The list goes on and on and on and on and . . . .

Let me get this straight

The same people in the American administration who hate the UN, who think it is incompetent and worthless and ought to be scrapped or at least totally overhauled, want it to take over the African Union mission in Darfur?WTF?

What did I tell you?

Everybody's entitled to a day in court.

At least in America.

And I don't care what John Yoo says about it.

Japan subsidizing political thugs in the Gambia

Gambia: Donated Japanese Rice Back in Town

GRTS radio has announced the arrival of a consignment of donated Japanese rice at the port of Banjul. The rice has been coming in consignment since 2004. It is donated to The Gambia by Japanese government, through its agency, JICA, Japanese International Cooperation Agency.

Though the donation is meant for alleviating food poverty in the country, most of the rice is sold to Government civil servants and ruling party militants. The rice that use to come in 25 kg bags, will now come 30 kg ones. The rice which is popular with people here, is to be sold at D250 per bag. Proceeds from "the sales will be paid in a special account said to be meant for meeting costs in the agricultural sector.

There is no famine in the Gambia. The money paid by civil servants and "party militants" (the usual euphemism for political thug is "party stalwart" so I am surprised at the forthrightness of the writer) will go to a special account, but they are buying the rice at a subsidized price and can earn more by selling the rice on the market. Japan is subsidizing political thuggery in Africa.

More:

What really is going on in the Gambia?

from the New York Times:

U.S. Suspends Development Aid to Gambia

By CELIA W. DUGGER
Published: June 17, 2006

The Millennium Challenge Corporation, an American aid agency that provides large grants to well-governed poor countries, suspended Gambia's eligibility, citing a sharp deterioration in press freedom, political rights and anti-corruption efforts. As elections near, the government has barred opposition parties from holding public gatherings and has arrested opposition leaders, according to Freedom House, a research group the aid agency relies on for country evaluations.

Think about that. There are some regimes even the Bush administration won't subsidize but that Japan's Liberal Democrat administration will. What are they getting for their money? A vote on the International Whaling Commission? A contract for Toyota? Support for their permanent UN Security Council Seat?

Here's another story about it:

Gambia: Japan Gives 3814 Tons of Rice to Gambia

The Daily Observer (Banjul) May 24, 2006
Alhagie Jobe

The Japanese government, through the Japanese Food Aid Programme for The Gambia, yesterday handed over 3814 tons of rice to the government of the Gambia at a ceremony held at the Gambia Ports Authority warehouse in Banjul.

The Japanese Food Aid Programme aims at ensuring food self-sufficiency which is a key factor for socio-economic development. It also aims at helping Gambians to satisfy their basic needs and improve their living conditions.

The provision of this rice is the result of a grant agreement amounting to 180 million Yen amounting to D450 million between the two countries signed on 25 April 2005 within the framework of a food aid program, which is one of the priority fields of the Japanese cooperation in The Gambia.

Handing over the rice, Mr Hisanobu Hasama, Consular at the Japanese embassy, representing the Japanese Ambassador to The Gambia, said the 3814 tons of rice are offered to The Gambia in order to meet the basic needs of the Gambian people. He said being aware of the difficulties faced by the Gambia government in ensuring food self-sufficiency in the country, the Japanese government has been extending food aid in a regular manner for the purpose of improving the living conditions of the Gambian populations.

Mr Hasama said the government of the Gambia can realise socio-economic projects by utilising the counterpart fund which would be constituted by the Gambian authorities. He expressed hope that the project of the provision of agricultural support service approved by the government of Japan last year shall give the maximum of benefit to the Gambian population.

Mr Hasama then reconfirmed that this food Aid programme is a symbol of solidarity and friendship between the two countries noting that the government of Japan is willing to support as much as possible The Gambia's self-reliance efforts aimed at meeting socio-economic and sustainable development. He expressed hoped that the food aid will promote and strengthen the excellent relations already existing between the two countries and called on the authorities to make sure that the rice is distributed as soon as possible.

In receiving the rice on behalf of the Gambia Government, Yankuba Touray, secretary of state for Agriculture, said the latest gift is the third time that the government and people of Japan are giving such aid under the Kennedy Round (KR) programme, to The Gambia. He said the assistance is welcome owing to the fact that rice is the staple food of this country and always in high demand. He said as agreed with the Japanese government, proceeds from the sale of the rice will be lodged in a seperate account at the Central Bank of The Gambia meant exclusively for counterpart funds for KR 2004 which he said will be seperated from the account of KR 2003.

SoS Touray added that as agreed with the government of Japan, bank statements will be submitted regularly to the government of Japan for confirmation of the deposits of funds in the Central Bank of The Gambia noting that proposals for the utilisation of the counterpart fund have been approved by the embassy of Japan in Dakar and proceeds for the sale of consignments of rice will be utilised for funding the country's ongoing agricultural improvement programmes.

SoS Touray thanked the Government and Japan for the assistance which he said will help the Gambia address the issue of food security at the household level "but concomitantly will allow The Gambia to mitigate the key constraints facing the agricultural sector through the implementation of our agricultural improvement programme." He assured the Japanese government that the rice will reach all Gambian households and the proceeds of the monetisation process will be utilised soley for the intended purpose.

The ceremony was chaired by Badara Loum, permanent secretary at the department of state for Agriculture.

Islamist controls access to Bush!

By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Wanted: Face time with President Bush or top adviser Karl Rove. Suggested donation: $100,000. The middleman: lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Blunt e-mails that connect money and access in Washington show that prominent Republican activist Grover Norquist facilitated some administration contacts for Abramoff's clients while the lobbyist simultaneously solicited those clients for large donations to Norquist's tax-exempt group.

That's right, Islamist Grover Norquist, an avowed enemy of the US government, controls access to President Bush.

No wonder Bush won't go after his family friend, Bin Ladin.

Why Karl Rove isn't being indicted

Didn't he out a CIA agent? Isn't that a federal offense? Not if the president says he authorized declassification of her identity, which, after loud mouthing about how he was going after anyone who leaked the identity in question to "take care" of them, he now claims he did, maybe retroactively. (Doesn't he have to sign and date anything about that?)

So the prosecution can't prove it was illegal for the president's hatchet man to reveal the identity of a US secret operative for political reasons. Does that make it right? Does that mean the public shouldn't be outraged about this?

Why is the media spin all about how the White House is now exonerated because nothing illegal was done, or at least nothing illegal could be proven. As Cicero noted about another threat to another Republic:

O tempora! O mores!

The Cole appointment at Yale

Remember all those right wingers who insist they are for intellectual freedom in the Universities? How they insist that they are only fighting for equal time for conservatives who are discriminated against by a cabal of liberals in academia?

Well, guess what? These same right wing guardians of academic freedom are now all rejoicing about a liberal being turned down for a job he was accepted for by the department that wanted to hire him. That's right, they are bragging about having a qualified professor denied a job that the departments involved agreed he was qualified for. Here's the story from "Inside Higher Education":

A joint appointment in history and sociology had already been approved at the departmental levels. But on Friday, the blog Power Line reported that a senior appointments committee at Yale has overruled those votes,

In other words, historians and sociologists recognized that Cole was the best qualified for the post, but senior administrators, subjected to pressure from anti-intellectual right wing extremists, over-ruled their own faculty members.

So much for the right as defenders of academic freedom.

Zarqawi in al-Akhira

Yes, he's in the afterlife. I am much relieved, and I can't help but be happy about it.

US Military Statement on Zarqawi's Death

You can argue, and I would agree, that without our invading Iraq he might never have joined his group to al-Qa'ida. You can argue that he would have stayed bottled up in some isolated, irrelevant corner of Iraq. And again, I would agree with you. You can even argue, and again I would agree with you, that it would have been better to have captured him instead of just wiping him out with air attacks. But come on, who could NOT be happy, or at least relieved, that the guy is out of the action. Hey, I'm happy.

Now we have to see what effect this will have on the war in Iraq.

People friendly forces?

from the Beeb:

The Nato commander in Afghanistan has pledged to use new tactics to win over the support of disenchanted Afghans.

"Lt Gen David Richards said Nato soldiers would be a "people-friendly force" when they take over security in the south from US forces in July.

So why don't they just get bin Ladin and leave?

Or is that too easy?

another Bush anti-terror fiasco?

Has the feckless Bush administration been meddling in Somalia?

from Somali Net:

Powerful warlords got together last February and announced a new self-appointed ant-terror group called Alliance of Anti-Terror and Peace Restoration. They held a press conference the next day and told the world they are in business of hunting Al-Qaeda members who were suspected of hiding in Mogadishu. This new union surprised almost everyone who is keen to Somalia’s political landscape since these men were at each other’s throat for so long.

So where did this new alliance of warlords come from?

Many analysts agreed that either the Pentagon or the CIA recruited and financed Mogadishu warlords to fight a proxy war against Al-Qaeda or its sympathizers. Unlike US involvement in Somalia in early 1990s, Mogadishu warlords will do the dirty job of hunting US wanted men for a bounty price. The warlords and the US government agreed there are Al-Qaeda affiliates operating out of Mogadishu and unverified but widely believed reports say the US and Ethiopia are heavily involved in the war.

Looks like the Bush administration can't figure out what's going on anywhere, but if you scream "TERRORIST!" You can get a lot of money and guns from them.

And of course they still can't find bin Ladin.

O'Reilly lies to smear US troops

I am not making this up, as Dave Barry would say. It's too outrageous to make up. No one would believe that Bill O'Reilly of Fox News would lie to smear American troops and whitewash Nazis, but he did. He lied and smeared the US military while exonerating the Nazi SS of atrocities. It's so outrageous even I wouldn't believe it without solid evidence.

Here's the video in Quicktime.

Here it is in Windows Media.

Here's the audio.

Here's the transcript.

O'Reilly: "in Malmedy, as you know, US forces captured SS forces who had their hands in the air, and they were unarmed, and they shot them down."

Untrue. That was Nazi SS troops who killed unarmed US prisoners. Confederate troops did the same thing to US troops at the infamous Fort Pillow Massacre, but US troops who do things like that are supposed to be punished for it.

Here are the facts, from Wikipedia, from History.Net, and one with photographs.

This massacre, this Nazi atrocity, is too well known for anyone to doubt it, much less to attribute it to Americans.

Problem is, O'Reilly is a Nazi who thinks he's an American. He's just very confused. Just like anyone who thinks they are getting real information from Faux News, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, or any of the other right wing liers.

Unfortunately, you can't legally libel the dead. They can't sue. But everyone should make this as public as possible. O'Reilly has no shame, but maybe pressure can be put on Fox News to replace him. This is outrageous, even by the standards of Fox.

Clinton last freely, democratically elected US president?

From Rolling Stone

something deeply troubling had taken place in 2004. Nearly half of the 6 million American voters living abroad never received their ballots -- or received them too late to vote -- after the Pentagon unaccountably shut down a state-of-the-art Web site used to file overseas registrations. A consulting firm called Sproul & Associates, which was hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters in six battleground states, was discovered shredding Democratic registrations. In New Mexico, which was decided by 5,988 votes, malfunctioning machines mysteriously failed to properly register a presidential vote on more than 20,000 ballots. Nationwide, according to the federal commission charged with implementing election reforms, as many as 1 million ballots were spoiled by faulty voting equipment -- roughly one for every 100 cast.

The reports were especially disturbing in Ohio, the critical battleground state that clinched Bush's victory in the electoral college. Officials there purged tens of thousands of eligible voters from the rolls, neglected to process registration cards generated by Democratic voter drives, shortchanged Democratic precincts when they allocated voting machines and illegally derailed a recount that could have given Kerry the presidency. A precinct in an evangelical church in Miami County recorded an impossibly high turnout of ninety-eight percent, while a polling place in inner-city Cleveland recorded an equally impossible turnout of only seven percent. In Warren County, GOP election officials even invented a nonexistent terrorist threat to bar the media from monitoring the official vote count.

What goes around comes around, I guess. They have pulled this stuff in too many Latin American countries, especially in Central America, and justified it to themselves so often that they have really come to believe that they were doing what was right. Old time political machines did this locally, and just did it for the money. Of course the Republicans, at least the rich ones at the top, are ripping off the US treasury like crazy, but the guys on the bottom really are blinded by Faux News and Ann Coulter screaming that liberals are traitors. What makes it really sad is not just the way the Republicans have been mortgaging the country to the Red Chinese to get money to buy votes with (they call it "tax cuts", but it's not a tax cut when the government is this far in the red). What's really sad is the way they let bin Ladin get away by shifting most of the troops to Iraq. Was it incompetence or deliberate? I don't know. Was the response to Katrina incompetence or deliberate ethnic cleansing? You tell me.

There better be an investigation of this administration. I know we won't have one until after this fall's Congressional elections, if then. If the Democrats don't win it will be a good sign that those elections were fixed to. What to do then?

Searching Congress vs. Searching Citizens.

From the U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 6:

The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

I don't see anything there that says the offices of Congressional representatives can't be searched. I don't see anything that says they can't be arrested for bribery. I don't see anything that says William Jefferson can't be searched, arrested or indicted or anything else that can happen to an ordinary citizen who breaks the law. It does say he can't be forced to hold a press conference, much less be questioned by the F. B. I., but he's not above the law.

Why are Republicans insisting that Congressional offices can't be searched for evidence of wrong-doing? What have they got to hide? Why doesn't violation of the 4th Amendment to the Constitution bother them?

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Wole Soyinka and Darfur

Wole Soyinka (on Democracy Now) expects the Arab League to clean up Dar Fur:

"The Arab League has a clear responsibility, and I think that if a family member of the Arab world, you know, if a family member errs, then the entire family has a responsibility to say, “You cannot do this in our name. And if you do this, we expel you, we cut you off, we denounce you, and we proscribe you from our community.” I expect that kind of action of deep and profound moral integrity from the Arab world."

Personally I think that expecting the Arab League to stop the genocide in Darfur is like expecting the Ku Klux Klan to take responsibility to stop lynching of African Americans.

The Arab League is an ethnically based organization designed to promote the interests of Arabs as an ethno-linguistic group. Not a race, Arabs are not a race, but they are the largest ethnic group in Africa. The Arab League should be abolished and the African Union should become a federal government designed to defend the rights of all people regardless of their ethnicity or their language.

The problem with Soyinka and his politics is that he can't see things in any political paradigm other than ethnic. That's why he expects the Arab League to take action in Darfur to stop genocide. That's why he doesn't support the African Union. That's why his book about Nigeria blames everything on northerners and why he supports Yoruba, as long as those Yoruba will criticize other ethnic groups in Nigeria and end what he insists is northern domination of Nigeria. He doesn't mention that northerners are the majority of Nigerians, and calling for ending northern domination of Nigeria is about as democratic as calling for ending black domination of South Africa. I won't even go into the fact that northerners are deeply split politically, as are Yoruba, as any ethnic group should be. I don't like ethnic separatism.

Sure, celebrities have as much right to talk about politics as anyone else. However, I have to wonder if it is always a good idea. Soyinka's plays are great, but they don't show much political sophistication.

Read it and weep!

from Wikipedia:

"Voting locations that used electronic or other types of voting machines that did not issue a paper receipt or offer auditability correlate geographically with areas that had discrepancies in Bush's favor between exit poll numbers and actual results."

Why is a paper trail for elections even an issue? OK, so the handicapped people need the electronic voting so they can vote by themselves, but there could still be paper trails. Justice must not only be done, it must be SEEN to be done, and without a paper trail how could anyone be expected to trust the result? This shouldn't be a partisan issue.

Iran to require oil payments in euros

"TEHRAN, May 15 (UPI) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced Friday that in July Iran will abandon dollar payments for its oil and natural gas exports in favor of euros.

. . .

"Some observers speculate that the Iranian switch to euros could negatively affect the dollar, as many central banks from oil importing nations could choose to stock up their currency reserves with euros rather than dollars."

Yes, folks, the same thing happened in Iraq just before the US invasion. Well, this time Bush doesn't have the wherewithal to invade. It looks like the dollar really is going to tank this time, and there's nothing we can do about it.

MORE TAX CUTS?!?!?

Let me get this straight:

If the economy is booming, we need tax cuts. Presumably this is to cool off the economy, so it doesn't overheat or something.

BUT, if the economy is tanking, we also need tax cuts. (Look for the section entitled "A Slowing Economy" in the plan.)

So which is it? Have these people ever heard of the business cycle? Or do they really think the proper response to both boom and bust phases of the cycle is cutting taxes? Do they ever stop? Do they think there are any functions of government that ought to be paid for? Whom do they think should pay for them?

Whatever happend to countercyclical spending?

Whatever happened to fiscal conservatism?

Legalize "drugs"?!?!?!

The whole debate about legalizing "drugs", most recently in Mexico, is completely ridiculous. We already have legal drugs, and no, I'm not talking about pharmaceuticals, either "over the counter" or prescription. I'm talking about recreational drugs.

I regularly recreate myself with alcohol. I mostly stay away from the hard (i.d. distilled) stuff, but most nights find me imbibing some beer or wine. Don't laugh, this used to be a crime in the United States, in fact it was against the Constitution.

I don't smoke tobacco anymore, and that's still legal, even in California, for the time being. I try not to be one of those ex-smokers who can't be around the stuff. I understand, because I remember, how nicotine after a meal can be very satisfying. Just don't smoke it while I'm still eating. It interferes with the flavors of my food. You shouldn't smoke while you're eating either. Wait until you've finished eating, then savor a fine cigar (or at least a nicotine fix) and a snifter of brandy. That's it!

OK, what about those illegal drugs? I'm in favor of legalizing marijuana. Period. End of story. I've known too many people who take too many drugs. Heroin is vicious. People lose all control, then they lose their friends when the friends wake up to how they've been used. Cocaine? Yeah, in the '70s people said it was harmless. Friends of mine really got messed up. One lost his job because he was always away from work trying to score. He's still in the service as an enlisted man because he couldn't get away from coke any other way. Legalize it and he wouldn't have spent so much time scoring? Get real. Even tobacco doesn't get people craving the way cocaine does. This guy used marijuana and other drugs but none messed him up like cocaine. He could always wait until after work before he went around scoring pot.

Speed? I knew meth monsters back in the 60s. They called it "the drug even hippies were afraid of" and Allen Ginsberg singled it out as an inherently bad drug, something he did for no other psychoactive substance. I remember him saying that most of the souvenirs he brought back from India were ripped off by meth monsters. I really have no problem with government's cracking down on amphetamines.

Marijuana has been used for thousands of years. It's less addictive than the recreational drugs that are already legal. You can't overdose on it. Gateway drug? Don't make me laugh. That's a common post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, but even if it weren't, the percentage of hard drug users who first used alcohol or tobacco is even higher than the percentage who used marijuana. Shouldn't we go back to prohibiting alcohol? Really? Why not? Oh, right. It turned out that the negative consequences of alcohol prohibition were worse than the negative consequences of alcohol itself. And alcohol is the United States's number one drug problem.

No, I don't use marijuana myself. I used to be addicted to nicotine, I still use alcohol, and I'm still addicted to caffeine. But it doesn't bother me if people use other drugs. I'm not out to impose my values on other people. Stoners get high, giggle a lot, eat snacks and go to sleep. If you think they should be thrown in jail for that I really have to wonder about you, not them.

And if you're worried about underage smoking, the best thing to do about it is to legalize marijuana. No one ever got thrown out of a pot party for being underage. Legalizing it and regulating it would go a long way to minimizing the harm that is done by it. You would take organized crime out of the equation, make a serious dent in underage smoking, and be able to start teaching peole responsible use. Not to mention end one cause of disrespect for the law. After all, if the law comes down so hard on marijuana, then the law is an ass. Read the facts.