Driftglass: Quoth the Hammer

Driftglass channels Poe--Dictynna

Nevermore.

With all respect to Edgar Poe, who's work I love and admire without reserve...

Once upon a bender bleary, while I pondered, weak and beery,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,


With my nod on, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
(Actually more like a serious bitch-slapping),

...smacking at my chamber door.
”WTF," I mumbled, "I’m on vacation! Ask Dick; he runs the nation.
Get off my ass and let Karl do it," I loud and soddenly swore.

Digby: Black Talk

I hesitate to get into this because people are sick of my preaching, but the hell with it. The fact is that Bill Bennett's racist statement is actually just one of many that are apparently happening all over right wing radio in the wake of Katrina:

Here's another example:

As if Hurricane Katrina victims didn't have enough going against them, now they're the latest targets of hate radio. Just listen to WFTL-AM (850), the 50,000-watt home of the Florida Marlins. It's also the home of some of the most radical right-wing voices in America.

Digby: He's Gonna Hold His Breath Til He Turns Blue

Via Liberal Oasis, here's the latest from rightwing land on the new supreme nomination:

“Shell shocked,” “confused,” “stumbling,” “full of doubt.” These are all words I have heard used to describe the current White House effort to find Sandra Day O’Connor’s replacement. Batchelder, Williams, and Owen have all been interviewed, but the process continues to sputter along.

Digby: Grey Lady Down

Dan Kennedy writes about Michael Isikoff taking TIME and the NY Times to task for not following up on the Plame story. Isikoff has a very checkered past in these matters, but in this case he is correct. The fact that TIME and The NY Times dropped the ball on these stories because their reporters refused to reveal their sources is really unconscionable. They should have pursued the stories more vigorously, not less.

Digby: Fat Lady Clearing Throat, Not Singing

It's kind of painful watching people talk about Libby and Miller this morning on television when it's clear that they are just riffing. Jonathan Alter is a smart guy, but his main talking point (on MSNBC) is whether Fitzgerald will issue a report that "rebukes" Rove and Libby for discussing a CIA employee even though they didn't do anything illegal. He seems to be resigned to the fact that there will be no indictments.

Digby: Judith Escariot

Murray Waas reports on why Miller's testimony is important to Fitzgerald:

What is perhaps left out of news accounts tonight is that Miller's testimony is central to whether special Fitzgerald brings criminal charges against I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Cheney. Libby was unwavering in telling prosecutors and the FBI that he knew nothing of Plame's covert work for the CIA, even though he spoke to Miller about at length about her and her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. Whether that account is truthful is something only both Miller and Libby know. Miller's testimony on that issue will be central to any final disposition of the criminal probe, sources close to the investigation have told me for some time now.

Digby: Welcome To Our World

Hunter at Daily Kos responds to the delicate pearl clutchers of the right who find themselves simply overwrought at the shocking prospect of all these corruption scandals being exploited for partisan gain. If there's one thing they have never been able to abide it's despicable underhanded politics. What is this world coming to?

Well...

Welcome to the world of the politics of personal destruction, you tubthumping, chin-jutting, Bush humping gits. Welcome to the nasty and partisan world that Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Hugh Hewitt, Grover Norquist, Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, and a legion of insignificant lowest-rung toadies like yourselves nurtured into fruition daily with eager, grubby hands, and now look upon with dull-faced faux horror.

Digby: Idiot Abroad

Ezra Klein once asked something to the effect of "why would Bush send a seven foot tall white woman to aid our public face in the Islamic world?" It's a good question, but more importantly, why would you send a seven foot tall white woman who speaks like a 6th grader to aid our public face in the middle east and convince the entire world that all Americans are as dim-witted as the president and that Osama bin Laden is right?

Digby: The Big Squeeze

So Judy got her super-duper-double-special waiver finally and was sprung. Of course, it makes no more sense today than it did two months ago but the NY Times is intent upon keeping up the fiction for their intrepid girl reporter:

... the discussions were at times strained, with Mr. Libby and Mr. Tate asserting that they communicated their voluntary waiver to Ms. Miller's lawyers more than year ago, according to those briefed on the case. Mr. Libby wrote to Ms. Miller in mid-September, saying that he believed her lawyers understood that his waiver was voluntary.

Others involved in the case have said that Ms. Miller did not understand that the waiver had been freely given and did not accept it until she had heard from him directly.

What a bunch of crap.

Billmon: Enter the Turd Blossom

The standard GOP line on Ronnie Earle is that he's a partisan Democrat on a political witch hunt, nothwithstanding the fact that only three of the 15 politicians Earle prosecuted prior to going after DeLay were Republicans. (Earle once even prosecuted himself because his campaign was late in filing his financial disclosures.)

In DeLay's version of reality, this makes Earle a "partisan fanatic" (which is way worse than being called ugly by a frog). By that same "logic," Patrick Fitzgerald must be the Republican Andrei Vishinsky, because he's also gone after crooked Democratic pols in Chicago, instead of limiting his investigations to the former GOP governor of Illinois and the Bush White House.

Billmon: Pinch and Judy Show

I don't have the time, or the interest, to pick at all the loose ends in this story, but I can sure see a whole bunch of them:

Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter who has been jailed since July 6 for refusing to testify in the C.I.A. leak case, was released from a Virginia detention center this afternoon after she and her lawyers reached an agreement with a federal prosecutor to testify . . . Her decision to testify came after she obtained what she described as a waiver offered "voluntarily and personally" by a source who said she was no longer bound by any pledge of confidentiality she had made to him . . .

That source was I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, according to people who have been officially briefed on the case.

Two Washington Post reporters (Glenn Kessler and Walter Pincus) testified last year under a waiver of confidentiality granted by Libby. So did Time's Matt Cooper. Libby says he granted the same waiver to Miller more than a year ago. And yet St. Judy, the Martyr of Times Square, decided to squat in jail for 85 days, and only then talk to Libby on the phone to confirm that the waiver was "freely given." And now, thanks to that one phone call, she's ready to spill her guts to the grand jury? Does this make sense?

Billmon: Going Backwards

From today's Wall Street Journal:

In a joint appearance on Capitol Hill, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and three senior generals acknowledged significant political and military obstacles and emphasized that it might take as long as nine years before Iraq's insurgency is defeated. The commanders said the number of Iraqi army battalions capable of operating without U.S. help had decreased to one from three over the past year. They declined to specificially explain the decrease but said many Iraqi units had suffered from a lack of stability and managerial expertise within Iraq's Ministry of Defense as successive Iraqi government shuffled the ranks of both the ministry and the armed forces. At the same time, the commanders said, the country's police and army units have become riddled with insurgent sympathizers. (emphasis added).

At this rate, we're going to be in Iraq longer than the British were in India.

Billmon: The 51st State Revisited

The Israeli press is reporting that Larry Franklin -- ex-Pentagon analyst, ex-Israeli intelligence source -- has agreed to a plea bargain in the AIPAC spy case:

Former Pentagon employee Larry Franklin has struck a deal with prosecutors, and plans to plead guilty next week to a number of charges against him . . . Franklin will testify against former AIPAC officials Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, both of whom deny charges against them.

This would seem to leave Rosen and Weissman in a pretty tight spot, since the U.S. Attorney's Office already knows, but isn't prosecuting, their other government contacts -- Little Cats A,B and C etc. The pair's Israeli contacts/handlers, meanwhile, are beyond Uncle Sam's reach.

So if Franklin gives them up, who will they give up?

Dismantling VA

Larry Scott | September 29, 2005

The Senator's aide chuckled rather loudly and said, "What VA? By the time this administration is done there won't be a VA." Our conversation had begun with a discussion of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA's) healthcare budget, and quickly came down to a single, simple point. VA is being dismantled.

Three reasons why the administration would want to dismantle VA immediately come to mind:

VA is a large-scale, publicly funded healthcare system that works: VA works so well it has been used as a model to push the case for nationalized healthcare; something that strikes fear in the heart of every Republican.

Recent studies by the Rand Corporation and the University of Michigan , working with UCLA, prove the point that VA is efficient and provides healthcare that meets the highest standards. If it can work for millions of veterans, it can work for millions of Americans. That concept is antithetical to current administration thinking.

Texas mayors say FEMA didn't deliver on promise to do better

By Bobby White and Alex Friedrich, Knight Ridder Newspapers
Fri Sep 30, 8:33 PM ET

JEFFERSON COUNTY, Texas - The day after Hurricane Rita battered his town, Nederland Mayor Dick Nugent called the Federal Emergency Management Agency with a simple plea: Bring us two generators.

Instead, FEMA showed up with a four-stall temporary shower. No generators.

Throughout Jefferson County, where Rita downed power lines and trees, knocked out communications and damaged homes and oil refineries, mayors and local officials this week voiced similar complaints. They said FEMA failed to keep its promise to deliver emergency aid and avoid making some of the same mistakes that followed Hurricane Katrina.

"There was a lot of frustration on all our parts," said Jefferson County Judge Carl Griffith, who spoke with President Bush on Tuesday when he toured the Jefferson County town of Port Arthur. "And hopefully our government will take a look so no American city will have to go through this."

GOP Senators Look to Shift Spy Management From CIA

By Walter Pincus

Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 1, 2005; Page A09

Republicans on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence want to strip from the CIA its primary role as manager of overseas collection of human intelligence, suggesting that Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte take over that responsibility.

The CIA's Directorate of Operations, the agency's clandestine arm, which now coordinates spying overseas by all U.S. intelligence agencies, in the past "did not effectively exercise the authorities of the national HUMINT [human intelligence] manager often focusing instead on its own structure and operations," the committee majority said in its report on the fiscal 2006 intelligence authorization bill released late Thursday.

Running on Fumes

by SASHA ABRAMSKY

[from the October 17, 2005 issue]

More than 100 miles north of Sacramento, the flat farmlands of California's Central Valley give way to the forested mountains and breathtaking grasslands surrounding the 14,000-foot Mount Shasta. It is a remote landscape--more akin to Wyoming's Big Sky Country than to the rest of California--dominated by the glacier-covered Shasta and the menacing clouds that frequently cluster around its peak; and, when the tourists and the second-homers from the Bay Area and elsewhere in the region are factored out, it is a poor landscape. It is also a place where distance is an irreducible fact of daily life. Because so many residents rely on cars to get between the far-flung towns, they are particularly vulnerable to oil price fluctuations, and many are at risk of economic catastrophe as gas prices at the pump soar.

The towns strung along Interstate 5 and at points east and west of the highway, hamlets like Dunsmuir, Weed, Fort Jones, Callahan and Yreka, ooze character. Yreka--one of the few towns in the region not to have witnessed a population decline since 1990--still calls itself "the Golden City," a throwback to its glory days in the mid-nineteenth century, and still boasts Wild West saloons and elegant Victorian edifices along its central drags, Main and Miner streets. Similarly, the little railway town of Dunsmuir continues to pride itself on its charming, somehow anachronistic, eccentricity--in the window of a downtown law office is a plaster-cast skeleton reclining in a dentist's chair, an aviator's leather cap and goggles adorning its skull.

Chavez: Venezuela Moves Reserves to Europe

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Venezuela has moved its central bank foreign reserves out of U.S. banks, liquidated its investments in U.S. Treasury securities and placed the funds in Europe, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Friday.

"We've had to move the international reserves from U.S. banks because of the threats," from the U.S., Chavez said during televised remarks from a South American summit in Brazil.

"The reserves we had (invested) in U.S. Treasury bonds, we've sold them and we moved them to Europe and other countries," he said.

Can Bush Be Ousted?

By Robert Parry
October 1, 2005

Can American voters impose any meaningful accountability on George W. Bush, including possibly removing him and his team from office?

That’s a question – implicit in our recent stories about his administration’s failures – that has attracted skepticism from some readers. Several have sent e-mails expressing strong doubts that anything at all can be achieved through the electoral process, given the cowardice of the Democratic Party and the complicity of the mainstream news media.

There is much to be said for those arguments. A sub-theme of my book, Secrecy & Privilege, is that the massive conservative investment in media, think tanks and attack groups over the past three decades has led to a systemic change in U.S. politics, the creation of a right-wing machine that can crush almost anyone who gets in the way.

Cursor's Media Patrol - 09/30/05

A change of plea hearing for Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin has been added to the court calendar in the AIPAC case, which is said to have "received relatively little publicity in relation to its importance."

Although Helen Thomas writes that "Bush gives no sign that he has any second thoughts" on invading Iraq, Margaret Carlson observes that "when your mojo fades, little things mean a lot."

A former UPI reporter says the FBI is "at the forefront" of "an expanding Orwellian attack on American environmentalism ... under the pretext of eco-terrorism."

A true story about Bill Bennett

By Reed Hundt | bio

From: Politics

When I was chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (1993-97), I asked Bill Bennett to visit my office so that I could ask him for help in seeking legislation that would pay for internet access in all classrooms and libraries in the country. Eventually Senators Olympia Snowe and Jay Rockefeller, with the White House leadership of President Clinton and Vice President Gore, put that provision in the Telecommunications Law of 1996, and today nearly 90% of all classrooms and libraries do have such access. The schools covered were public and private. So far the federal funding (actually collected from everyone as part of the phone bill) has been matched more or less equally with school district funding to total about $20 billion over the last seven years. More than 90% of all teachers praise the impact of such technology on their work. At any rate, since Mr. Bennett had been Secretary of Education I asked him to support the bill in the crucial stage when we needed Republican allies. He told me he would not help, because he did not want public schools to obtain new funding, new capability, new tools for success. He wanted them, he said, to fail so that they could be replaced with vouchers,charter schools, religious schools, and other forms of private education.

Katha Pollitt: Desperate Housewives of the Ivy League?

[from the October 17, 2005 issue]

September 20's prime target for press critics, social scientists and feminists was the New York Times front-page story "Many Women at Elite Colleges Set Career Path to Motherhood," by Louise Story (Yale '03). Through interviews and a questionnaire e-mailed to freshmen and senior women residents of two Yale colleges (dorms), Story claims to have found that 60 percent of these brainy and energetic young women plan to park their expensive diplomas in the bassinet and become stay-home mothers. Over at Slate, Jack Shafer slapped the Times for using weasel words ("many," "seems") to make a trend out of anecdotes and vague impressions: In fact, Story presents no evidence that more Ivy League undergrads today are planning to retire at 30 to the playground than ten, twenty or thirty years ago. Simultaneously, an armada of bloggers shredded her questionnaire as biased (hint: If you begin with "When you have children," you've already skewed your results) and denounced her interpretation of the answers as hype. What she actually found, as the writer Robin Herman noted in a crisp letter to the Times, was that 70 percent of those who answered planned to keep working full or part time through motherhood. Even by Judith Miller standards, the Story story was pretty flimsy. So great was the outcry that the author had to defend her methods in a follow-up on the Times website three days later.

Insurers Court Elderly for Medicare Plan

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: October 1, 2005

Filed at 12:59 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The hard sell began Saturday as dozens of private insurers tried to sign up some 42 million older and disabled people for the government's new Medicare prescription drug benefit.

The program, which starts in January, is designed to reduce the out-of-pocket cost of medications. Overall, the government will spend an estimated $724 billion on the drug benefit over the coming decade.

More Than Ever, the U.S. Spends and the Foreigners Lend

By FLOYD NORRIS

Published: October 1, 2005

WHO will end up paying for Hurricane Katrina? Or for the war in Iraq? Or for any other spending that Congress chooses to authorize?

To an extent not seen in previous periods of rising federal deficits, the answer is that it will not be Americans who put up the cash, but foreigners.

Buying of News by Bush's Aides Is Ruled Illegal

By ROBERT PEAR

Published: October 1, 2005

WASHINGTON, Sept. 30 - Federal auditors said on Friday that the Bush administration violated the law by buying favorable news coverage of President Bush's education policies, by making payments to the conservative commentator Armstrong Williams and by hiring a public relations company to analyze media perceptions of the Republican Party.

In a blistering report, the investigators, from the Government Accountability Office, said the administration had disseminated "covert propaganda" in the United States, in violation of a statutory ban.

Miller Walks: The Plot Thickens

It’s time for Judy Miller and Arthur Sulzberger to change their talking points.

The claim that Miller “has finally received a direct and uncoerced waiver” is laughable… and, indeed, has already been laughed at by 1) my increasingly frustrated sources within the Times 2) a chorus of voices in the blogosphere (see here, here, and here) and 3) (and much more significantly) Joseph Tate, Scooter Libby’s lawyer, who told the Washington Post yesterday that he informed Miller’s attorney, Floyd Abrams, a year ago that Libby’s waiver “was voluntary and that Miller was free to testify”.

Miller testimony to end grand jury CIA probe

By Edward Alden in Washington
Published: September 30 2005 21:34 | Last updated: September 30 2005 23:50
A US grand jury investigation into whether White House officials broke the law by exposing a covert Central Intelligence Agency operative is set to conclude after testimony on Friday from a New York Times reporter.

Judith Miller, who was imprisoned for nearly three months after refusing to testify about her conversations with a top aide to Dick Cheney, vice-president, was released on Thursday when she agreed to testify. She appeared before the grand jury in Washington Friday morning.

Retired general: Iraq invasion was 'strategic disaster'

The Lowell Sun

WASHINGTON -- The invasion of Iraq was the “greatest strategic disaster in United States history,” a retired Army general said yesterday, strengthening an effort in Congress to force an American withdrawal beginning next year., Retired Army Lt. Gen. William Odom, a Vietnam veteran, said the invasion of Iraq alienated America's Middle East allies, making it harder to prosecute a war against terrorists.

The U.S. should withdraw from Iraq, he said, and reposition its military forces along the Afghan-Pakistani border to capture Osama bin Laden and crush al Qaeda cells.

“The invasion of Iraq I believe will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history,” said Odom, now a scholar with the Hudson Institute.

Impervious Iran

Why America is powerless to stop Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
By Vivienne Walt
Posted Friday, Sept. 30, 2005, at 9:54 AM PT

For all those out there trying to coax Iran into abandoning its nuclear program, here's a suggestion: Wander down a leafy side street in north Tehran and drop in on the Petroleum Engineering and Development Co., which is charged with implementing international energy mega-deals for the Iranian government.

That's what I did earlier this year, and here's how it went: The company's deputy managing director, Ali Akhbar Vahidi Aleagha, rushed into his office late for our appointment, explaining that he'd been locked in talks all day with executives from the Chinese petroleum company Sinopec. He sounded like a man who had just come home from his dream date. "China and Iran are perfectly matched for each other," he gushed in almost accentless English, honed while studying engineering at Imperial College London. China needs energy and has lots of hard cash to spend, he said; Iran needs hard cash and has plenty of energy to sell. "It's a win-win situation."

Ground Shifted Beneath Levees

By Ralph Vartabedian Times Staff Writer
Sat Oct 1, 7:55 AM ET

The rapid sinking of the Louisiana coast may have lowered New Orleans levees and contributed to their failure after Hurricane Katrina, resulting in the city's catastrophic flooding, engineers and other experts say.

Levees and storm walls may be as much as 2 feet lower than they were designed to be, both because elevation data were outdated when the levees were built and because the land has continued to sink, they say.

Experts had sounded alarms in recent years about subsidence, as the sinking is known, warning that the coast was far more vulnerable than most people realized. Federal officials and levee managers say they will begin reviewing the problem in coming weeks.

Subsidence is one of several factors experts are scrutinizing to determine why three levees failed, leaving 80% of the city underwater and hundreds dead.

EU Tries to Unblock Internet Impasse

By TOM WRIGHT
International Herald Tribune
Published: September 30, 2005

The United States and Europe clashed here Thursday in one of their sharpest public disagreements in months, after European Union negotiators proposed stripping the Americans of their effective control of the Internet.

The European decision to back the rest of the world in demanding the creation of a new international body to govern the Internet clearly caught the Americans off balance and left them largely isolated at talks designed to come up with a new way of regulating the digital traffic of the 21st century.

In a Melting Trend, Less Arctic Ice to Go Around

By ANDREW C. REVKIN
Published: September 29, 2005

The floating cap of sea ice on the Arctic Ocean shrank this summer to what is probably its smallest size in at least a century of record keeping, continuing a trend toward less summer ice, a team of climate experts reported yesterday.

That shift is hard to explain without attributing it in part to human-caused global warming, the team's members and other experts on the region said.

A Poverty Of Understanding

Nancy Cauthen
September 30, 2005

Dr. Nancy Cauthen is deputy director of the National Center for Children in Poverty, the nation’s leading public policy center dedicated to promoting the health, economic security, and well-being of America’s most vulnerable children and families. NCCP is a non-partisan, public interest organization that creates knowledge to find solutions at the state and national levels. For more information, visit: www.nccp.org.

In the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina—and the contribution of various governments to the catastrophe—we suddenly have national leaders talking about poverty. Not surprisingly, they’re simply talking past one another.

For starters, they can’t agree on the nature and depth of poverty in the United States. Using the federal government’s official poverty measure—which is about $16,000 annually for a family of three and $19,000 for a family of four—17 percent of the nation’s children are living in poor families. That’s 12 million children, and the number is increasing.

Algerians vote massively to bury brutal war

By Hamid Ould Ahmed
Reuters
Friday, September 30, 2005; 11:43 AM

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algerians voted overwhelmingly to turn the page on a decade of civil war that has cost more than 150,000 lives by offering a partial amnesty to hundreds of die-hard Islamic militants, results showed on Friday.

The conflict, which pitted neighbor against neighbor, isolated the oil-producing Arab state from the rest of the world amid atrocities by rebels and allegations of crimes by security forces.

Uzbeks Stop Working With U.S. Against Terrorism

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 30, 2005; Page A14

After cutting off U.S. access to a key military base, Uzbekistan has also quietly terminated cooperation with Washington on counterterrorism, a move that could affect both countries' ability to deal with al Qaeda and its allies in Central Asia and neighboring Afghanistan, U.S. officials said.

The government of President Islam Karimov, one of the most authoritarian to emerge from the collapse of the Soviet Union, has made a broader strategic decision to move away from the 2002 agreement made with President Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and is cooling relations with Europe as well, the officials said.

Cursor's Media Patrol - 09/29/05

DeLay 'Exercises his right to incriminate himself,' during an interview on Fox News in which he said: "The point here is that it was my idea to set up TRMPAC. I got it all organized. Then the people ... ran the day-to-day operations."

The Senate confirms a Chief Justice, but Danny Schechter still wonders 'What Did Roberts Do in Florida?' -- and "did he have a 'double?'"

Hughes is "demonstrating, yet again, that the administration doesn't get it," editorializes USA Today, and according to a not yet posted report by a State Department advisory commission, "For what can be heard around the world ... is that America is less a beacon of hope than a dangerous force to be countered."

USA Today and Time profile the former Marine captain and "accidental star" who believes that his decision to work for Al-Jazeera "puts me where the good fight is."

Dan Rather said he wants to reopen an investigation into the story that led to "Memogate," but "CBS News doesn't want me to do that story," during an interview in which he observed that while three network news shows attract an audience of 30 million, "Fifty million people watch that nymphomaniac housewives show."

Hannity, Coulter "don't believe" that Tillman liked Noam Chomsky, opposed Iraq war; Tillman's mother disagrees

On the September 27 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, co-host Sean Hannity and right-wing pundit Ann Coulter told co-host Alan Colmes that they "don't believe" a report that Army Ranger Pat Tillman was a fan of leftist author Noam Chomsky, opposed the Iraq war, and planned to vote for Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) in the 2004 presidential election. But according to a September 25 San Francisco Chronicle report that Colmes cited, Tillman's mother said that he had planned to meet privately with Chomsky and that "Pat was very critical of the whole Iraq war." Tillman, a former pro football star, served in Iraq before being killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan in April 2004.

Petro: How Noe stole millions from funds

BLADE STAFF

Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro presented evidence today of how Tom Noe stole from the state’s $50 million rare coin funds.

According to a filing with the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas, Mr. Noe bilked the two coin funds established by the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation through a variety of methods, including check forgery.

Mr. Petro has already accused Mr. Noe of running a Ponzi scheme and stealing $4 million, claims he backed up today with a series of affadavits that showed:

N.Y. Times Reporter Released From Jail

Miller to Testify In CIA Leak Probe

By Susan Schmidt and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 30, 2005; A01

New York Times reporter Judith Miller was released from jail late yesterday and is scheduled to testify this morning before a federal grand jury investigating whether any government officials illegally leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame to the media, according to lawyers involved in the case.

Miller, 57, has been jailed for contempt of court since July 6 for refusing to testify about conversations with news sources. She was released from the Alexandria Detention Center shortly after 4 p.m. yesterday after her attorney Robert S. Bennett reached an agreement on her testimony with special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, according to two lawyers familiar with the case.

Karen Hughes, Stay Home!

Karen Hughes, Stay Home!
What on earth is she doing in the Middle East?
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Thursday, Sept. 29, 2005, at 1:27 PM PT

Could someone please explain to me what Karen Hughes is doing. Her maiden voyage to the Middle East has turned into a fiasco. She assures a room of Saudi women that they, too, will someday drive cars; they tell her they're actually happy right now, thank you. She meets with a group of Turkish women—hand-picked by an outfit that supports women running for political office—who brusquely tell her she has no credibility as long as U.S. troops occupy Iraq.

US forces 'out of control', says Reuters chief

Julia Day
Wednesday September 28, 2005

Reuters has told the US government that American forces' conduct towards journalists in Iraq is "spiralling out of control" and preventing full coverage of the war reaching the public.

The detention and accidental shootings of journalists is limiting how journalists can operate, wrote David Schlesinger, the Reuters global managing editor, in a letter to Senator John Warner, head of the armed services committee.

The Reuters news service chief referred to "a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by US forces in Iraq".

Republicans See Signs That Pentagon Is Evading Oversight

By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: September 29, 2005

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 - Republican members of Congress say there are signs that the Defense Department may be carrying out new intelligence activities through programs intended to escape oversight from Congress and the new director of national intelligence.

The warnings are an unusually public signal of some Republican lawmakers' concern about overreaching by the Pentagon, where top officials have been jockeying with the new intelligence chief, John D. Negroponte, for primacy in intelligence operations. The lawmakers said they believed that some intelligence activities, involving possible propaganda efforts and highly technological initiatives, might be masked as so-called special access programs, the details of which are highly classified.

President Bush Pardons 14 People

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28, 2005

(CBS/AP) President Bush granted pardons Wednesday to 14 people, including a member of the mineworkers union who was convicted for his role in bombings at a West Virginia coal mine, a counterfeiter and a bootlegger.

Jesse Ray Harvey of Scarbro, W.Va., was given a 25-month sentence in 1990 after his conviction for using explosives to damage Milburn Colliery. The mine had been the target of a long strike by about 45 members of a United Mine Workers local.

DeLay Must Appear in Austin on Charge

By SUZANNE GAMBOA, Associated Press WriterWed Sep 28, 7:52 PM ET

The next step in the criminal proceedings against Republican leader Tom DeLay is a trip to Austin to be fingerprinted and photographed.

DeLay was indicted Wednesday on one count of criminal conspiracy for his alleged role in a campaign finance scheme that helped give Republicans power in the Texas House and in Congress.

DeLay's attorneys were working out the details of when the 11-term congressman would return to Texas in hopes of saving him from further embarrassment, they said.

"What we're trying to avoid is Ronnie Earle having him taken down in handcuffs, and fingerprinted and photographed. That's uncalled for and I don't think that's going to happen," said Dick DeGuerin, DeLay's attorney.

Scholar says Bush has used obscure doctrine to extend power 95 times

Jennifer Van Bergen

President BushThe Bush administration has been using an extreme version of an obscure doctrine called the Unitary Executive Theory to justify executive actions that far exceed past presidents' power, RAW STORY has learned.

The doctrine assumes, in its extreme form, nearly absolute deference to the Executive branch from Congress and the Judiciary.

According to Dr. Christopher Kelley, a professor in the Department of Political Sciences at Miami University, as of April 2005, President Bush had used the doctrine 95 times when signing legislation into law, issuing an executive order, or responding to a congressional resolution.

Justice DeLayed

Why neither side wants the House majority leader gone.
By John Dickerson
Posted Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2005, at 4:56 PM PT

Democrats seemed delighted today when Tom DeLay had to step down as majority leader after the announcement of his indictment on a charge of conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws. The Texan and his GOP colleagues had anticipated today's indictment, and last November they tweaked the House ethics rules so that when the grand jury spoke, DeLay would still be able to keep his leadership post. But after a public outcry, Republicans were shamed into reversing that clubby rule change. So today, DeLay was forced to take his medicine and step down. Score one for the minority!

Except that Democrats would have to be nuts to root for DeLay's scalp, something many of them admit in private. He's the best villain they'll ever have. DeLay's got troubles hanging from him like charm bracelets. Not only does he have the Texas mess, but he's been knocked three times by the House ethics committee for misusing his post, and he's been closely linked to indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. At the level of personality, he positively oozes meanness, making him a perfect foil for Democrats. His poll numbers have been tanking. And now he's under indictment. DeLay makes an even more potent symbol bookended by Senate Majoriy Leader Bill Frist, who is having his own ethical inquiries into his stock sales.

PrintPrint DeLay Charges May Be Overshadowed by Abramoff Probe (Update1)

Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Representative Tom DeLay, the highest- ranking U.S. House leader ever to face criminal charges, called his indictment yesterday ``one of the weakest, most baseless'' in American history. Even if he's right, bigger legal battles may lie ahead.

The larger legal challenge for DeLay may center on a task force led by the U.S. Justice Department that is investigating Jack Abramoff, the indicted lobbyist who boasted of his relationship with DeLay.

Americans Raid Two Sunni Officials' Homes

By SAMEER N. YACOUB
Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. forces raided the homes of two officials from a prominent Sunni Arab organization Thursday, arresting bodyguards and confiscating weapons, Sunni officials said.

Adnan al-Dulaimi, secretary-general of the Conference for Iraq's People, said soldiers in tanks and Humvees, with two helicopters circling overhead, broke into his home in western Baghdad at 2:30 a.m., put him and his family in one room, and searched the house.

Energy Intelligence?

George Monbiot
September 28, 2005

George Monbiot is the author of Manifesto for a New World Order (New Press) and a columnist for The Guardian. His archived articles can be read at www.monbiot.com.



Are global oil supplies about to peak? Are they, in other words, about to reach their maximum and then go into decline? There is a simple answer to this question: No one has the faintest idea.

Consider these two statements: 1. "Last year Saudi Aramco made credible claims that as much as 500 billion to 700 billion barrels remain to be discovered in the kingdom." 2. "Saudi Arabia clearly seems to be nearing or at its peak output and cannot materially grow its oil production."

The first comes from a report by Energy Intelligence, a consultancy used by the major oil companies. The second comes from a book by Matthew Simmons, an energy investor who advises the Bush administration. Whom should we believe? I have now read 4,000 pages of reports on global oil supply, and I know less about it than I did before I started. The only firm conclusion I have reached is that the people sitting on the world's reserves are liars.

Marching To Irrelevance

David Corn
September 29, 2005

David Corn writes The Loyal Opposition twice a month for TomPaine.com. Corn is also the Washington editor of The Nation and is the author of The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception (Crown Publishers).


Was it 100,000? Or 150,000? Or 227,000? Or 301,294 and three dogs?

That's one reason I'm a bit down on come-to-Washington demonstrations. Following the gathering, the debate often focuses on the body count. And organizers, I suspect, usually adopt the tactic of the military in exaggerating both the number and its meaning. So after the protesters leave town, what remains? A dispute more than a debate. Which is what happened following the anti-war rally that occurred this past Saturday.

Three decades after Vietnam, perhaps it's time to rethink the utility of mass demonstrations. Back in the 1960s, such events had the power of novelty. Never before had so many citizens protested a war. That was news. And in the days before daily polling that is regurgitated by cable news, newspapers and blogs, these demonstrations were necessary signs that something was happening here—or there. But today, anyone who bothers to read newspapers knows that a majority of Americans believe the war in Iraq was a mistake. Thus, the news footage of an anti-war demonstration carries less impact.

Digby: Nothing To See Here

I'm sure most of you have already read Rick Perlstein's op-ed that never ran over on Eschaton this morning. If you haven't, go read it.

For some reason, no editorial board wanted to hear from a historian who was pointing out that wild rumors about racial violence are a regular feature of urban disturbances in America and should be treated skeptically by the press until real evidence emerges.

Digby: Your Lyin' Eyes

It's depressing that you have to get this elementary with the American press, but you do. There is something called cause and effect. Any of you out there who don't know what that means can use your friend, Mr Google, to find out what it is.

New Orleans is a largely black city. Most of those who did not evacuate were poor African Americans. In the day after Katrina, pictures of victims standing on rooftops emerged. Heroic rescues were filmed. In short order we saw pictures of looting --- which immediately sent the wingnuts into a frenzy. This immediately led to cries for martial law --- stories of shooting, killing and rape followed. (Interestingly, this story in which photojournalists on the scene were interviewed early on indicates that while looting and theft were common, the violence they observed was mostly perpetrated by nervous police.)

Digby: Criminals Much?

So, we have a federal probe implicating the president's number one political advisor and the vice president's chief of staff in the violation of laws protecting CIA agents and possibly lying to federal investigators.

We have a multi-pronged investigation into a lobbyist who happens to be a very close associate of Tom DeLay,Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed, Karl Rove and the entire Republican leadership going back to their youth as members of the College republicans. This lobbyist is now implicated in a mafia murder plot and has been arrested on charges affiliated with that crime.

Digby: Librulism 'R Us

In case you are tired of hearing me rail on about racism and other topics that make people uncomfortable, check out this extremely well-reasoned argument by Scott Lemiuex of Lawyers, Guns and Money on the topic of abortion.

Digby: Keep Your Children Out Of The Room

I spoke too soon when I said earlier that there have been no blow jobs in Washington since the Honor and Integrity crowd took over.

I just watched Brit Hume "interview" Tom DeLay.

Billmon: Quiz Show

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank isn't usually completely clueless -- only about 60% of the time, which isn't a bad batting average for a corporate journalist. But he swung at a real sucker pitch in his coverage of yesterday's congressional flogging of Mike Brown:

The House Select Committee on Hurricane Katrina did a heck of a job on Brownie yesterday.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) ordered a Democratic boycott of the hearing, calling it a "sham" and a "photo opportunity." But, as defrocked FEMA director Michael D. Brown can attest, Pelosi's concerns about a whitewash proved unjustified.

The story is filled with examples of Republicans (plus the two Demopublicans who showed up for the hearing) saying nasty things about Brown, and even more examples of Brown tripping all over his own tongue in his pathetic attempts to defend himself.

Billmon: Down the Memory Hole

I'm having a 1984 moment on the Internet tonight -- one in which the "news" I thought I read just a few hours has already been replaced with a different set of facts, without any acknowledgement from Minitrue that something has changed.

Earlier today, I scanned Google News to see what was going down in the House GOP shark tank now that the DeLay indictment has dumped a big bucket of bloody chum in the water. And I came across many stories about the impending "temporary" elevation of Rep. David Dreier, R-Closet, to replace the Bug Man while he tries to beat the rap down in Texas. Several of them specifically said that the number three guy, House Whip Roy Blunt, was staying put, at least for now.

Or at least, that's what I remember.

But by the time I got home from work this evening, the stories I had read earlier in the day had all been changed.

Venezuela Condemns U.S. Ruling

Suddenly squeamish over torture...--Dictynna

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: September 28, 2005

Filed at 9:00 p.m. ET

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuela on Wednesday condemned a U.S. court ruling that blocks the deportation of a Cuban militant wanted in the South American country for a 1976 airliner bombing, denying a judge's claims that he could be tortured if handed over. Cuba called the decision ''disgraceful.''

President Hugo Chavez said the decision by a U.S. immigration judge in the case of Luis Posada Carriles protects a terrorist and shows the ''cynicism of the empire,'' a term he uses for President Bush's government.

A Texas Prosecutor With a Reputation for Challenging the Powerful

By VIKAS BAJAJ

Published: September 28, 2005

Ronnie Earle, who announced the indictment of the House majority leader Tom DeLay today by an Austin grand jury, has long defied easy characterization throughout his colorful tenure as the district attorney in the Texas state capital.

Mr. Earle, who put off retirement to see through a three-year-long investigation into the use of corporate money by committees tied to Mr. Delay, has built a reputation since 1976 as an eager antagonist of people who hold the reins of power in Austin and, sometimes by extension, in Washington.

DeLay Is Indicted and Forced to Step Down as Majority Leader

By DAVID STOUT

Published: September 28, 2005

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 – Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the powerful House Republican majority leader, was accused by a Texas grand jury today of criminal conspiracy in a campaign fund-raising scheme.

Mr. DeLay was indicted on one count charging that he violated state election laws in September 2002. Two political associates, John D. Colyandro and James W. Ellis, were indicted with him.

Arctic Ice Cap Shrank Sharply This Summer, Experts Say

By ANDREW C. REVKIN

Published: September 28, 2005

The floating cap of sea ice on the Arctic Ocean shrank this summer to what is probably its smallest size in a century, continuing a trend toward less summer ice that is hard to explain without attributing it in part to human-caused global warming, various experts on the region said today.

Navy Secretly Contracted Jets Used by CIA

By SETH HETTENA, Associated Press WriterSat Sep 24, 2:23 PM ET

A branch of the U.S. Navy secretly contracted a 33-plane fleet that included two Gulfstream jets reportedly used to fly terror suspects to countries known to practice torture, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

At least 10 U.S. aviation companies were issued classified contracts in 2001 and 2002 by the obscure Navy Engineering Logistics Office for the "occasional airlift of USN (Navy) cargo worldwide," according to Defense Department documents the AP obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Two of the companies — Richmor Aviation Inc. and Premier Executive Transport Services Inc. — chartered luxury Gulfstreams that flew terror suspects captured in Europe to Egypt, according to U.S. and European media reports. Once there, the men told family members, they were tortured. Authorities in Italy and Sweden have expressed outrage over flights they say were illegal and orchestrated by the U.S. government.

Gene Lyons: To the cronies go the spoils

"It ain’t what you don’t know that will hurt you, it’s what you think you know that ain’t so." —Will Rogers

The most telling description of the Bush administration may have come from a White House aide who used the term "reality-based" as an insult. According to journalist Ron Suskind, who described the incident in a 2004 New York Times Magazine article, the aide mocked the stuffy, pedantic, presumably liberal view "that solutions [to political problems] emerge from... judicious study of discernible reality." "That’s not the way the world really works anymore, " he added. "We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study, too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." Well, history’s actors are suddenly hunting for a revised script. According to The Washington Post, with the president’s poll numbers sinking, White House aides "who never betrayed self-doubt now talk in private of failures selling the American people on the Iraq war, the president’s Social Security plan and his response to Hurricane Katrina."

Where has all the money gone?

Ed Harriman follows the auditors into Iraq

US House of Representatives Government Reform Committee Minority Office
| Link: http://www.democrats.reform.house.gov/

US General Accountability Office
| Link: http://www.gao.gov/

Defense Contract Audit Agency
| Link: http://www.dcaa.mil/

International Advisory and Monitoring Board
| Link: http://www.iamb.info/

Coalition Provisional Authority Inspector General
| Link: http://www.cpa-ig.com/

Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction
| Link: http://www.sigir.mil/

On 12 April 2004, the Coalition Provisional Authority in Erbil in northern Iraq handed over $1.5 billion in cash to a local courier. The money, fresh $100 bills shrink-wrapped on pallets, which filled three Blackhawk helicopters, came from oil sales under the UN’s Oil for Food Programme, and had been entrusted by the UN Security Council to the Americans to be spent on behalf of the Iraqi people. The CPA didn’t properly check out the courier before handing over the cash, and, as a result, according to an audit report by the CPA’s inspector general, ‘there was an increased risk of the loss or theft of the cash.’ Paul Bremer, the American pro-consul in Baghdad until June last year, kept a slush fund of nearly $600 million cash for which there is no paperwork: $200 million of this was kept in a room in one of Saddam’s former palaces, and the US soldier in charge used to keep the key to the room in his backpack, which he left on his desk when he popped out for lunch. Again, this is Iraqi money, not US funds.

Mark Morford: Kneel Before The Meteorologist

At last, one scientist BushCo will definitely -- albeit resentfully -- listen to. Sometimes

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

So now we know. This is what it takes. This is how far the nation has to crumble and this is how many people have to die and this is how many tens of billions it has to cost and this is how far his dirt-low poll numbers have to fall before Bush will finally come out and say he agrees with one of those godforsaken gul-dang book-learned scientist types.

Cursor's Media Patrol - 09/28/05

After being 'Indicted in Campaign Finance Probe,' Rep. Tom Delay announced that "I will temporarily step aside from my position as majority leader."

'When We Were Psychos' Michael Atkinson says that "Winter Soldier" may have been "the most important film of the Johnson-Nixon era, and yet it was effectively censored. Its release, 33 years too late, is also a few years overdue this decade."

Mike Davis asks '25 Questions about the Murder of New Orleans,' where most of the 'Prisoners Abandoned to Floodwaters' "had not even been brought before a judge and charged, much less been convicted."

Atrios runs an op-ed by Rick Perlstein that was "rejected or simply ignored" by major newspapers, in which rumors of "fake evacuees trying to stir up trouble and riot" remind him of the image of "a farmer quaking at the vision of black looters invading the cornfields of Iowa" in the 1960s.

At 60, the United Nations is still taking fire

The Hudson Institute's new 'EYE On The UN' website aims to make sure the UN is transparent, accountable and doing what the US wants

"If member countries want the United Nations to be respected and effective, they should begin by making sure it is worthy of respect," President Bush told the U.N. General Assembly during a September 15 speech at organization's New York City headquarters. "When this great institution's member states choose notorious abusers of human rights to sit on the U.N. Human Rights Commission, they discredit a noble effort and undermine the credibility of the whole organization," Bush said.

Like many projects that have languished in the backrooms of some of the nation's right wing think tanks -- immigration, or the fight against "judicial activism," which dates back to the John Birch Society's beef with Earl Warren's Supreme Court -- the United States-out-of-the-United Nations and the United Nations-out-of-the United States crowd is growing, and getting ready for its close up.

Atta known to Pentagon before 9/11

By John Crewdson and Andrew Zajac
Washington Bureau

September 28, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Four years after the nation's deadliest terror attack, evidence is accumulating that a super-secret Pentagon intelligence unit identified the organizer of the Sept. 11 hijackings, Mohamed Atta, as an Al Qaeda operative months before he entered the U.S.

The many investigations of Sept. 11, 2001, have turned up a half-dozen instances in which government agencies possessed information that might have led investigators to some part of the terrorist plot, although in most cases not in time to stop it.

Trust Us, We're Experts

Chris Mooney
September 28, 2005

Chris Mooney is Washington correspondent for Seed magazine and author of the newly released book, The Republican War on Science (www.waronscience.com).

There has been much talk, of late, about how the Bush administration has reached a new low when it comes to the misuse of science to appease its political base. That base, of course, centrally comprises two key interest groups—industry and the Christian right—that want the science to go their way on issues ranging from global warming (of keen interest to fossil fuel companies) to evolution (of keen interest to religious conservatives). Under the current administration, these groups are clearly getting what they want. But does this alone explain why so many political fights over science are erupting right now?

The answer is, not quite. There's another crucial factor: The two constituencies have themselves changed, over the last several decades, in ways that have made them more inclined to misuse and abuse science than before. One key enabling factor is that both of these phalanxes of the right have been involved in generating their own sources of alternative (and sympathetic) expertise—often set up in opposition to more traditional university-based sources. In a pinch, political actors in the White House, the administration or Congress can then draw upon these founts of sympathetic "knowledge," distorting science in the process.

Energy Intelligence?

George Monbiot
September 28, 2005

George Monbiot is the author of Manifesto for a New World Order (New Press) and a columnist for The Guardian. His archived articles can be read at www.monbiot.com.

Are global oil supplies about to peak? Are they, in other words, about to reach their maximum and then go into decline? There is a simple answer to this question: No one has the faintest idea.

Consider these two statements: 1. "Last year Saudi Aramco made credible claims that as much as 500 billion to 700 billion barrels remain to be discovered in the kingdom." 2. "Saudi Arabia clearly seems to be nearing or at its peak output and cannot materially grow its oil production."

The first comes from a report by Energy Intelligence, a consultancy used by the major oil companies. The second comes from a book by Matthew Simmons, an energy investor who advises the Bush administration. Whom should we believe? I have now read 4,000 pages of reports on global oil supply, and I know less about it than I did before I started. The only firm conclusion I have reached is that the people sitting on the world's reserves are liars.

Intimidation Alleged On 'Intelligent Design'

Teacher Cites School Board Pressure

By Michael Powell
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 28, 2005; Page A03

HARRISBURG, Pa., Sept. 27 -- Parents in federal court Tuesday described an atmosphere of intimidation and anger when school board members in Dover, Pa., last year decided to require high school biology teachers to read a statement that casts doubt on the theory of evolution.

Bryan Rehm, a parent who also taught physics at Dover High School, testified of continual pressure from board members not to "teach monkeys-to-man evolution." He said that the board required teachers to watch a film critical of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution and that board members talked openly of teaching creationism alongside evolution.

Texas grand jury weighs DeLay indictment: report

Reuters
Wednesday, September 28, 2005; 11:43 AM

HOUSTON, Texas (Reuters) - A Texas grand jury is deciding whether to indict U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader Tom DeLay on conspiracy charges related to fund-raising activities by a political action committee he created, the Austin American-Statesman said on Wednesday.

If indicted, DeLay would be required under Republican Party rules to leave his leadership post, but he could remain in Congress.

Harold Meyerson: Outsourcing Our Safety

Wednesday, September 28, 2005; Page A21

Amid the horrific images that flashed across our TV screens during the past month, there was one last week that stood out because it was so unexpectedly reassuring: that of a supremely competent pilot steering a JetBlue airliner with jammed front wheels to a safe landing at Los Angeles International Airport.

Since last week's landing, though, we've learned a couple of other things that aren't quite so comforting -- for instance, that this was at least the seventh time that the front wheels on an Airbus A-320 have gotten locked in the wrong position.

Brookings Ends Research on Welfare Reform

Think Tank Opens Center On Broader Familial Issues

By Amy Goldstein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 28, 2005; Page A19

The Brookings Institution announced yesterday that, nine years after the government redefined the welfare system, the Washington think tank is ending its examination of welfare reform in favor of a new research center that will more broadly explore the circumstances of children and families.

Two worrisome signs

Consumer sentiment and new homes both tumble, pointing to a slowdown in economic growth ahead.
September 27, 2005: 4:36 PM EDT
by Kathleen Hays

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The optimistic view of plunging consumer confidence is that it's due mainly to back-to-back monster hurricanes and the spike in gas prices that resulted.

According to this rosy view, as the Gulf Coast rebuilds and gas prices head south, consumer confidence will rebound as quickly as President Bush dumped his former FEMA chief.

The pessimistic view is that high gas prices aren't going away anytime soon and that this could continue to crimp consumers for awhile.

What to Do About the Bush Problem

By Robert Parry
September 23, 2005

Disaster experts will tell you that a key to surviving a catastrophe is to quickly discard the old paradigm of normalcy and to act with urgency and creativity in facing the new reality. There is no time for fretting or wishful thinking; decisiveness and imagination are crucial.

The same holds true for nations. History has taught us that sometimes when a leader has made catastrophic choices, others – from within the ruling elite or from without – must do something to shatter the old paradigm of normalcy and protect the nation.

Green rules seen on "chopping block" post-Rita

Tue Sep 27, 2005 6:55 PM ET

By Chris Baltimore

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House Republicans on Wednesday will launch a rapid-fire assault against environmental protections on the pretext of helping the U.S. oil and gas industry recover from hurricane damage, environmental groups charge.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Resources Committee are holding separate meetings to finalize legislation on Wednesday, with the aim of combining them into a single energy bill for the full House to debate next week.

Post reveals Halliburton sponsored summit to divide Katrina relief

RAW STORY

Hallliburton sponsored a "Katrina Reconstruction Summit," hosted by Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL), aimed at offering the company and lobbyists a chance to push "private sector involvement" in the distribution of Katrina reconstruction funds, RAW STORY has learned.

The story, by Dana Milbank in Tuesday's Washington Post, was caught by Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall. Excerpts from the Post.

Just Vote No

Iraqis should reject the constitution.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2005, at 12:52 PM PT

When Iraqis go to the polls Oct. 15 to vote on the constitution, it would probably be best if they rejected it. Elections for a new parliament are scheduled to take place this December in any case. Let them be for a new constitutional assembly (as current law provides in the event of a rejection), and let the process start over again. Further delay may prolong the chaos, but passage of this parchment will almost certainly make things worse—and for much longer still.

I say this with nothing but dismay. The Bush administration wants to withdraw most U.S. ground troops from Iraq by the end of next year, as do I. The official rationale will be: We've done our job; Iraq has a new government and a new constitution; we'll keep a cadre of troops behind for training and essential security, but otherwise the defense of Iraq is up to the Iraqis. But if there is no new constitution, no new government, a major pullout will be harder to justify.

Digby: Modern GOP Noblesse Oblige

The internal polls must be worse that we thought. They are really grasping at straws:

Facing criticism that he appeared disengaged from the disaster wrought by Hurricane Katrina, President Bush has been looking for opportunities to show his concern. But the White House will take the effort a step further Tuesday, venturing into untested waters by putting the nation's first lady on reality television.

Laura Bush will travel to storm-damaged Biloxi, Miss., to film a spot on the feel-good, wish-granting hit "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." Mrs. Bush sought to be on the program because she shares the "same principles" that the producers hold, her press secretary said.

Digby: Twisted Psyches

Via John at Americablog, I found this article about the warporn site from the Online Journalism Review that is quite interesting.

Near the end the author briefly addresses what I think is the most disturbing aspect of this disheartening story --- the combination of sexual pornography and real violent images.

While it was difficult for me to ascertain the motivation for people who were posting gory photos to NTFU, I did talk to Steven Most, a psychology postdoctoral fellow at Yale University who has studied the effects of violent and sexual images. He helped explain what these horribly violent images had in common with the nude photographs of women.

Digby: Another "F" Word

I hesitate to bring this up because nothing is more impolitic these days. After reading excerpts from this article over at the Cunningrealist, I was quite taken aback. I knew that Pat Tillman's death by friendly fire was covered up but I was unaware that he was also a vocal opponent of the Iraq war.

Digby: The Negroes Were Rising

Monday, April 6 1741

About ten o'clock in the morning, there was an alarm of a fire at the house of serjeant Burns, opposite fort Garden....

Towards noon a fire broke out in the roof of Mrs. Hilton's house...on the East side of captain Sarly's house....Upon view, it was plain that the fire must have been purposely laid.... There was a cry among the people, the Spanish Negroes; the Spanish Negroes; take up the Spanish Negroes. The occasion of this was the two fires...happening so closely together....and it being known that Sarly had purchased a Spanish Negro, some time before brought into his port, among several others....and that they afterwards pretending to have been free men in their country, began to grumble at their hard usage, of being sold as slaves.

Digby: And So It Begins

Via media matters:

LIMBAUGH: From the Associated Press, Mary Dalrymple doing the honors of writing this story. "House and Senate tax writers agreed yesterday to a package of tax breaks designed to help Hurricane Katrina victims recoup their losses and access needed cash. The Congressional Research Service, an office that provides lawmakers with nonpartisan legislative analysis, said some of those tax breaks could do more for higher income survivors than for the neediest."

Digby: Losing Its Honor

Americablog has a long post up about the warporn, which I wrote about last week. I do not suggest that you click through to the pictures unless you have a very strong stomach.

It's worth noting that this site and the stories of prisoner torture that came out in the last week are part of a story that nobody wants to deal with --- that is, the story of individual soldiers committing depraved acts on their own. Shystee over at Corrente, takes me to task for suggesting such a thing, and I plead guilty. There is a point at which individual soldiers have to take responsibility as well as the higher ups, whom I agree bear the brunt of the blame.

Digby: Goldilocks

The Note is a wee bit ruffled because Pre$$titutes called them "a stinking repository of Bush-licking Pre$$titution" and uses the novel defense that Bush defenders say they are biased against them so they must be juuuust right.

I suppose it never occurs to them that while it is true that they cannot be biased both for and against Bush it is entirely possible that they could be biased for or against Bush --- and one side or the other is working them. Which side, do you suppose, is most likely to be doing that?

Digby: Amusement

A new horrifying prisoner abuse scandal, this time revealed by a West Point officer and backed up by two sergeants.

Support for some of the allegations of abuse come from a sergeant of the 82nd Airborne who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Human Rights Watch quotes him as saying that, "To 'F____ a PUC' means to beat him up. We would give them blows to the head, chest, legs, and stomach, pull them down, kick dirt on them. This happened every day. To 'smoke' someone is to put them in stress positions until they get muscle fatigue and pass out. That happened every day. Some days we would just get bored so we would have everyone sit in a corner and then make them get in a pyramid. This was before Abu Ghraib but just like it. We did that for amusement.

The Daily Howler - 09/27/05

TOO GRAND TO SIT IN THOSE CHAIRS! A letter writer helps us recall what’s at stake in that Times report: // link // print // previous // next //

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2005

TOO GRAND TO SIT IN THOSE CHAIRS: What’s happenin’ in North Carolina’s public schools? Here at THE HOWLER, we don’t have the foggiest. But we got an e-mail from a Chapel Hill reader which we thought was interesting. He too had the impression which was conveyed in Sunday’s New York Times report (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 9/26/05)—the impression that the Wake County schools have really been rockin’:

E-MAIL (/26/05): Here is an added little tidbit on your piece today. I live in Chapel Hill, which boasts one of the premiere school systems in America. We have two high schools in this town, each with somewhere between 10 and 12 percent black students, I think. We do not need to bus. Kids go to one "great" school or the other because here is where they live. But while this school system has the highest SAT scores by far in the state, and one of the highest nationally, the performance of the black kids in this school system on end-of-grade tests lags way behind Raleigh and the rest of the state. Socioeconomic integration in this case has not worked at all, and has perhaps produced the opposite effect.

Billmon: Karma

With Rita about to make landfall, and people already starting to die, this isn't really the right time to speculate about the cosmic justice of hurricanes. But I'm going to do it anyway, because after reading this story, I'm not so sure the entire fucking country doesn't deserve to be drowned like rats in a sewer pipe:

Visitors to the amateur porn website nowthatsfuckedup.com were given a much closer view of the action . . . Originally created as a site for men to share images of their sexual partners, this site has taken the concept of user-created content to a grim new low: US troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan are invited to display graphic battlefield photos apparently taken with their personal digital cameras. And thousands of people are logging on to take a look.

I'm not sure even the Nazis would have thought up something like that -- they generally tried to keep their war crimes hidden from the volks back home.

Billmon: General Morons

I meant to post this bit from yesterday's Wall Street Journal, but got sidetracked. It's a sharper commentary on the hopeless condition of U.S. energy policy (not to mention the country's largest automaker) than anything I could come up with:

General Motors is pinning its turnaround on a series of new full-sized SUVs -- the very models whose sales have fallen as gas prices have climbed. GM previewed the redesigned Chevrolet Tahoe and several other 2007 models last week.

Granted, when it was planning the 2007 model year, GM couldn't have foreseen that twin hurricanes would play havoc with U.S. oil production and refining in the fall of 2005. But the trends in global oil supply and demand have been reasonably clear for several years now.

Cursor's Media Patrol - 09/27/05

As Paul Krugman proposes a game called "Find the Brownie," a FEMA spokesman tells CBS News that Mike Brown is still on the payroll and will remain on board for another month so the agency can get the "proper download of his experience."

A Wall Street Journal-sponsored online poll finds that most Americans feel government should have been better prepared to care for the sick and frail in New Orleans, and "half of all adults are skeptical about whether or not the U.S. government will learn from Katrina."

The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson, hearing a familiar echo, says that "now comes the part where the administration looks for a way to get out of its unpopular and expensive war 'with honor,' while at the same time continuing to flood the Gulf Coast with a storm surge of cash."

Nurses put Schwarzenegger up 'for sale' on eBay

Never mess with a nurse!--Dictynna

RAW STORY

The California Nurses Association is selling California's Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger -- on eBay.

RAW STORY was tipped to the story from an inside source Tuesday afternoon. The eBay auction is now in progress.

"As Governor of the state, Arnold has provided corporate bidders unfettered access to 35 million Californians so that they can realize profits beyond wildest dreams!" the nurses write.

The Politics of Distraction

By Dan Froomkin

Special to washingtonpost.com
Tuesday, September 27, 2005; 1:19 PM

President Bush yesterday called for Americans to cope with gasoline shortfalls by cutting down on their driving. And he continued to push for increased military authority in national disasters.

What do these two campaigns have in common? They're both red herrings, to some extent -- distractions in the wake of the shockingly botched government response to Hurricane Katrina.

Billmon: Heart of Darkness

The website has become a stomach-churning showcase for the pornography of war -- close-up shots of Iraqi insurgents and civilians with heads blown off, or with intestines spilling from open wounds. Sometimes photographs of mangled body parts are displayed: Part of the game is for users to guess what appendage or organ is on display . . .

A series of photos showing two men slumped over in a pickup truck, with nothing visible above their shoulders except a red mass of brain matter and bone, is described as "an Iraqi driver and passenger that tried to run a checkpoint during the first part of OIF." The post goes on to say that "the bad thing about shooting them is that we have to clean it up." Another post, labeled "dead shopkeeper in Iraq," does not explain how the subject of the photo ended up with a large bullet hole in his back but offers the quip "I guess he had some unsatisfied customers."

The Nation
The Porn of War
September 22, 2005

Billmon: Blessed No More

Q Does the President believe that, given the amount of energy Americans consume per capita, how much it exceeds any other citizen in any other country in the world, does the President believe we need to correct our lifestyles to address the energy problem?

MR. FLEISCHER: That's a big no. The President believes that it's an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policy makers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one. And we have a bounty of resources in this country. What we need to do is make certain that we're able to get those resources in an efficient way. . .

Q So Americans should go on consuming as much more energy than any other citizens in any other countries of the world, as long as they want?

MR. FLEISCHER: Terry, the President believes that the American people are very wise and that, given the right incentives, they will know how and they will make their own right determinations about how much they can conserve . . . But the President also believes that the American people's use of energy is a reflection of the strength of our economy, of the way of life that the American people have come to enjoy.

Ari Fleischer
Press briefing
May 7, 2001

Billmon: Men of Honor

When Army Captain Ian Fishback went to his company commander to report what he knew about the torture of Iraqi detainees during Operation Stomp Fallujah, he says he was told:

“remember the honor of the unit is at stake” or something to that effect . . .

It appears that in the Army of Looking Out for Number One, "honor" now has approximately the same meaning as "cover my bureaucratic ass."

What Baker-Carter Got Right

Rob Richie and Steven Hill
September 27, 2005



Rob Richie is executive director of FairVote. Steven Hill is an Irvine Senior Fellow with New America Foundation and author of Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner Take All Politics.

Last week’s release of the report of the election reform commission headed by Jimmy Carter and James Baker has drawn fierce fire from civil rights and electoral reform organizations for recommending that voters be required to present photo identification at the polls. Because the ID recommendations in isolation would shrink the electorate, many reformers have pronounced the Baker-Carter recommendations DOA.

We believe it a mistake to condemn the entire report because of the understandable voter ID objections. Dominated by aging politicians of the creaky two-party duopoly, the Commission on Federal Election Reform certainly was less than bold in many important areas. But building on his vast experience observing elections around the world and experiencing elections in the South, Carter earned bipartisan support for several forward-looking recommendations.

Frank Rich: Bring Back Warren Harding

by Frank Rich
The New York Times
September 25, 2005

THERE are no coincidences. On Monday, as L. Dennis Kozlowski was slapped with 8 to 25 years in jail for looting Tyco International of some $150 million, the feds were making their first arrest of a high-ranking member of the Bush administration. The official was David Safavian, the chief of White House federal procurement policy who once worked for Jack Abramoff, the sleazy Republican lobbyist whose disreputable client list, in another noncoincidence, included Tyco. While it's an accident of timing that Mr. Safavian was collared at his suburban Virginia home just as Mr. Kozlowski was sent to the slammer in New York, the two events could not better bracket a corrupt era worthy of the Gilded Age.

Bush eyes bigger military role in disasters

White House says debate raises 'a lot of issues to address'

Tuesday, September 27, 2005; Posted: 12:01 a.m. EDT (04:01 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush said he wants to make it easier for the military to take charge after a disaster like Hurricane Katrina, but the White House acknowledged Monday the proposal raises "a lot of issues" that need resolution.

Critics argue that putting active-duty troops on American streets would violate a long-standing tradition that keeps the military out of domestic law enforcement.

Brown serving as consultant to FEMA

'Omerta Hush Money at Our Expense. The Busheviks Were Afraid that Michael "Arabian Horse Association Failure" Brown Would Spill the Beans on White House Incompetence So They Hired Him Back as a FEMA Consultant to Evaluate Why He, Bush and Rove Couldn't Respond to a Disaster for Four Days! Buying Silence! Corruption, Incompetence and Cronyism: the GOP Motto for Ripping Off America. (CBS News has changed its account of this three times since we first posted it, from his being rehired, to his being retained as a consultant, to his just being there two more weeks. It's probably because FEMA got political heat and changed ITS story three times.)'

--BUZZFLASH

Ousted chief says he should have pushed for federal troops

From Ed Henry
CNN
Tuesday, September 27, 2005 Posted: 0753 GMT (1553 HKT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A congressional panel on Tuesday is expected to scrutinize the decision to keep ousted Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown on the federal payroll.

Brown told congressional investigators Monday that he is being paid as a consultant to help FEMA assess what went wrong in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, according to a senior official familiar with the meeting.

TALKLEFT: Bush May Announce Supreme Court Pick Friday

CNN reports that President Bush may announce his nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on Friday - the day after the Senate votes to confirm John Roberts as Chief Justice.

Reading between the lines of what sources tell CNN:

* It will be a woman or a minority
* It will not be an extremist like Priscilla Owen, or Janice Rogers Brown or even conservative Edith Clement
* It could be former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson

I would add to the list of possible nominees: 9th Circuit Judge Consuelo Callahan. Like 5th Circuit Judge Ed Prado, she was put on the Court by Bush - and overwhelmingly supported by Democrats on the Judicary Committee.

Three arrested in gangland-style murder of Suncruz founder 'Gus' Boulis

By CURT ANDERSON
Associated Press
Posted September 27 2005, 11:56 AM EDT

FORT LAUDERDALE -- Three men were charged with the 2001 gangland-style slaying of Miami businessman Konstantinos ``Gus'' Boulis, whose sale of a casino boat fleet to Jack Abramoff and a partner has led to federal charges against the prominent Washington lobbyist.

Anthony Ferrari was arrested at his North Miami Beach home Monday evening, Fort Lauderdale police said in a statement Tuesday. Fort Lauderdale homicide detectives arrested Anthony Moscatiello, 67, at his Howard Beach home in New York late Monday, police said.

Cursor's Media Patrol - 09/26/05

Leon Daniel, who covered the Vietnam War for UPI, weighs the cost of 'Saving America's Face' after its "grandiose misadventure fueled by the president's hubris."

Summarizing her second take on Iraq's draft constitution, Baghdad Burning's Riverbend asks: "federalism based on ethnicity and sect? Why not simply declare civil war and get it over with?"

'Heart of Darkness' A tour of a Web site, about which the press is said to be 'strangely silent,' leads Billmon to conclude that "we really do need to get the troops out of Iraq -- before hell is the consequence."

Juan Cole is now advocating withdrawal, citing a just-released Human Rights Watch report as further proof that U.S. troops are "being fatally brutalized by their own treatment of Iraqi prisoners." Plus: 'Did the press miss widespread prisoner abuse in Iraq?'

The Beaumont Enterprise reports that Hurricane Rita victims are suffering from "the same foot-dragging federal response" seen following Katrina, and that stories of "lessons learned" are "ringing hollow."

Asking 'How Many More Mike Browns Are Out There?', Time reports that "scientists' drug-safety decisions at the Food and Drug Administration are being second-guessed by a 33-year-old doctor turned stock picker."

Select This! Frank Rich's call to 'Bring Back Warren Harding' is liberated, as well as recent columns by Maureen Dowd and Thomas Friedman, discussed during their appearance on "Meet the Press." Plus: Times' ombudsman concedes that 'Even Geraldo deserves a fair shake.'

What's Bigger Than Cisco, Coke, Or McDonald's?

Steve Feinberg's Cerberus, a vast hedge fund that's snapping up companies -- lots of them

Shares of Albertson's Inc. (ABS ) were soaring in mid-September on rumors of an impending bid for the Boise (Idaho) grocery chain. A pair of private-equity funds -- giant pools of capital just waiting to pounce on takeover targets -- had been circling, preparing offers that were said to top $16 billion. But then a new player showed up: hedge-fund group Cerberus. The Albertson's drama is still playing out. But even as Cerberus Capital Management LP pursues the grocer, it has been quietly discussing an offer for Morgan Stanley's (MWD ) aircraft-leasing business for up to $2 billion and negotiating for a big stake in Israel's second-largest bank, Bank Leumi. And it's still digesting a $2.3 billion purchase in May of Meadwestvaco Corp.'s (MWV ) paper businesses -- a deal that included 900,000 acres of forest.