The Afghan chieftain looked older than his 60-odd years, and his bearded face bore the creases of a man burdened with duties as tribal patriarch and husband to four younger women. His visitor, a CIA officer, saw an opportunity, and reached into his bag for a small gift.
Four blue pills. Viagra.
"Take one of these. You'll love it," the officer said. Compliments of Uncle Sam.
The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes -- followed by a request for more pills.
I’m beginning to think that movement conservatism is, at base, a kind of psychological-sexual dysfunction. You know these guys are terrified of women’s sexuality. They’d have us women in burqas and condone stoning of rape victims if they could get away with it. They’d deny that, but in fact, what is the difference between denying a rape victim reproductive rights and stoning her for unchastity? It’s a difference purely in degree, not in kind, rooted in the same twisted views of women and sexuality.
Bush Insider Who Planned To Tell All Killed In Plane Crash: Non-Profit Demands Full Federal Investigation Michael Connell, the Bush IT expert who has been directly implicated in the rigging of George Bush’s 2000 and 2004 elections, was killed last night when his single engine plane crashed three miles short of the Akron airport. Velvet Revolution (“VR”), a non-profit that has been investigating Mr. Connell’s activities for the past two years, can now reveal that a person close to Mr. Connell has recently been discussing with a VR investigator how to tell all about his work for George Bush. Mr. Connell told a close associate that he was afraid that the George Bush and Dick Cheney would “throw [him] under the bus.”
A tipster close to the McCain campaign disclosed to VR in July that Mr. Connell’s life was in jeopardy and that Karl Rove had threatened him and his wife, Heather. VR’s attorney, Cliff Arnebeck, notified the United States Attorney General , Ohio law enforcement and the federal court about these threats and insisted that Mr. Connell be placed in protective custody. VR also told a close associate of Mr. Connell’s not to fly his plane because of another tip that the plane could be sabatoged. Mr. Connell, a very experienced pilot, has had to abandon at least two flights in the past two months because of suspicious problems with his plane. On December 18, 2008, Mr. Connell flew to a small airport outside of Washington DC to meet some people. It was on his return flight the next day that he crashed.
On October 31, Mr. Connell appeared before a federal judge in Ohio after being subpoenaed in a federal lawsuit investigating the rigging of the 2004 election under the direction of Karl Rove. The judge ordered Mr. Connell to testify under oath at a deposition on November 3rd, the day before the presidential election. Velvet Revolution received confidential information that the White House was extremely concerned about Mr. Connell talking about his illegal work for the White House and two Bush/Cheney 04 attorneys were dispatched to represent him.
An associate of Mr. Connell’s told VR that Mr. Connell was involved with the destruction of the White House emails and the setting up of the off-grid White House email system.
Mr. Connell handled all of John McCain’s computer work in the recent presidential campaign. VR has received direct evidence that the McCain campaign kept abreast of the legal developments against Mr. Connell by reading the VR dedicated website, www.rovecybergate.com.
VR demands that the Justice Department conduct a complete investigation into the activities of Mr. Connell and determine whether there was any foul play in his death. VR demands that federal law enforcement officials place the following people under protective custody pending this investigation. Heather Connell who is the owner of GovTech Solutions, Randy Cole, the former President of GovTech Solutions, and Jeff Averbeck, the CEO of SmartTech in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Both GovTech and SmartTech have been implicated in the rigging of the 2000 and 2004 elections and the White House email scandal. Our prior request to have Mr. Connell protected went unheeded and now he is dead.
Beginning as a political campaign worker and Congressional staffer, Connell became a key Republican media consultant who developed Internet strategies for the 2000 and 2004 Bush-Cheney campaigns. He was founder and CEO of Cleveland-based New Media Communications, which built Web sites for President Bush and former presidential nominee John McCain, according to the company's Web site, and he was the chief IT consultant for Karl Rove.
Connell's ties to the Bush family extend back to working on campaigns for George H.W. Bush and Jeb Bush, for whom he built the campaign site jeb.org. In 1999 he told the Cleveland magazine Inside Business, "I'm loyal to my network, I'm loyal to my friends, and I'm loyal to the Bush family."
He was also quoted as saying, when asked to predict the Internet's role in the upcoming presidential race, "There are things we will be doing on Election Day that haven't even been dreamt of yet."
Much has been written about problems at the polls in Ohio that year, where voters in many (predominantly Democratic) precincts were forced to wait hours because of a shortage of working voting machines. A lawsuit being pursued by attorney Clifford Arneback seeks to answer questions about this and other ballot problems. [For example, in Franklin County Mr. Bush received 4,258 votes in a precinct where only 638 voters cast ballots.]
In the end, the shame of Vice President Dick Cheney was total: unmitigated by any notion of a graceful departure, let alone the slightest obligation of honest accounting. Although firmly ensconced, even in the popular imagination, as an example of evil incarnate—nearly a quarter of those polled in this week’s CNN poll rated him the worst vice president in U.S. history, and 41 percent as “poor”—Cheney exudes the confidence of one fully convinced that he will get away with it all.
And why not? Nothing, not his suspect role in the Enron debacle, which foretold the economic meltdown, or his office’s fabrication of the false reasons for invading Iraq, has ever been seriously investigated, because of White House stonewalling. Nor will the new president, committed as he is to nonpartisanship, be likely to open up Cheney’s can of worms.
We have gone, when Reagan came into office we were the largest exporter of manufactured goods and the largest importer of raw materials on the planet. And the largest creditor. More people owed us money than anybody else in the world. Now just twenty eight years later we're the largest importer of finished goods, manufactured goods, exporter of raw materials which is kind of the definition of a third world nation and we're the most in debt of any country in the world. This is the absolute consequence of Reaganomics.
(FBI on the case of man who says he was beaten for wearing Obama shirt)Yesterday, Secretary of State Condelezza Rice sat for an interview with CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo.In a portion of the interview that does not appear to have aired, Bartiromo asked Rice about her “thoughts on the Republican party.” Rice claimed that the GOP has played a large role in bringing the country to a place where “people can look beyond race“:
RICE: [T]he Republican Party also has done a lot for bringing us to a place that — not that race doesn’t matter, but where people can look beyond race. If you look at the last two Secretaries of State, African Americans, they were Republican administrations, the Administration of George W. Bush that appointed them.
Rice’s rosy picture of race relations in America is puzzling. In March of this year, Rice more credibly argued that “America doesn’t have an easy time dealing with race.” Rice noted at the time how prevalent the after effects of our national “birth defect” — slavery — continue to be:
RICE: [T]hat’s not a very pretty reality of our founding, and I think that particular birth defect makes it hard for us to confront [race], hard for us to talk about [race], and hard for us to realize that [race] has continuing relevance for who we are today. … [D]escendents of slaves, therefore, did not get much of a head start. And I think you continue to see some of the effects of that.
More puzzling, however, is her crediting the Republican party with the significant progress that has been made with regard to race and racism in America. In recent years, the party has blocked attempts to protect civil rights. Additionally, Republican power brokers have spouted xenophobic and racist rhetoric, while members of the conservative movement cheer them on. In particular, Republican presidential candidates have a history of exploiting racial and ethnic divides for electoral benefit.
The Republican party’s failure to include minorities is evident by the lack of diversity in the congressional Republican caucus. Of the 247 members in the caucus, none are African-American and just five are Hispanic. Similarly, at the 2008 Republican National Convention, just 2 percent of the delegates were black.
In fact, as former Bush speechwriter David Frum put it in criticizing his party on NPR this morning, the Republican Party is the “party of white America.”
Morgan Johnson, president of the United Auto Workers local representing General Motors workers in Shreveport, said Friday that Sen. David Vitter's role in blocking an auto bailout indicates "he's chosen to play Russian roulette" with Louisiana jobs and the national economy.Link
"I don't know what Sen. Vitter has against GM or the United Auto Workers or the entire domestic auto industry; whatever it is, whatever he thinks we've done, it's time for him to forgive us, just like Sen. Vitter has asked the citizens of Louisiana to forgive him," said Johnson, president of Local 2166. Otherwise, Johnson said of Vitter, it would appear, "He'd rather pay a prostitute than pay auto workers."
U.S. Senator David Vitter visited a Canal Street brothel several times beginning in the mid-1990s, paying $300 per hour for services at the bordello after he met the madam at a fishing rodeo that included prostitutes and other politicians, according to Jeanette Maier, the "Canal Street Madam" whose operation was shut down by a federal investigators in 2001.
George Bush, the Connecticut cowboy, the good old boy from Yale is a man of mediocre intelligence, little imagination, and great stubbornness and vindictiveness. He may be the Decider but his handlers have long known how to manipulate him. The key is to hook him with short, simple sells. Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice knew that once he has consulted his gut and perhaps his higher father his decision is forever. So whoever gets to him first is likely to carry the day because he doesn’t like to be challenged and is, quite simply, too lazy to change his mind. The Bubble is a natural consequence of this decision making process where logic, reason, and facts have little or no role.
Bush’s Presidency began in the shadow of a contested and likely stolen election and promised to be unsuccessful in a largely forgettable and unremarkable way. 911 changed all that and transformed a plodding, and essentially AWOL one termer into an accidental hero. Enormous power flowed to his office but Bush had no idea how to use it. He liked to campaign, not govern. In those around him, he prized loyalty over competence and honesty. A believer in the notion of "to the victor go the spoils," he was the perfect mark for every conniver, bumbler, bungler, hack, hanger on, and would be crony that Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and their friends could find. In the normal course of things, this would have spelled failure. Post-911, it was catastrophic.
At this critical juncture in our history we needed an adult but got an adolescent. Instead of responsibility, we got a truant. In place of flexibility we got obduracy. In the face of great and complex challenges, we got strawmen, a black and white universe, my way or the highway, regurgitated stump speeches, and a steadfast refusal to compromise not just with opponents but with reality.
What all this comes down to is that George Bush should never have become our President. He is not just a bad President but the worst one we could have had, the worst our country has ever seen. This is a judgment that many Americans have come to but which our political establishment and media, even after 7 years, have yet to acknowledge, accept, and act on. This is the tragedy and crime of our times.
Afterward, of course, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told the press: "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile." (As a matter of fact, just such a scenario had been foreseen by intelligence officials in 1998, as Rice later admitted.)
Then there was the Aug. 6, 2001, presidential daily briefing titled "Bin Laden determined to strike in US," which concluded:
" We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ---- service in 1998 saying that Bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel Rahman and other U.S.-held extremists.
Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full-field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers bin Laden-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group or bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives."
We also remember that New York Times report, summed up by Eric Alterman:
"Tenet briefed Condi Rice about a potentially catastrophic terrorist attack on the United States on July 10, 2001. Rice ignored the briefing, just as she and Bush both ignored the August 6 "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" memo, when Bush told the CIA briefer who delivered the memo to him that he had "covered his ass" and then went fishing for the rest of the day. Rice not only ignored the briefing, but also misled the 9-11 Commission and then lied when confronted with the evidence by Bob Woodward."
Rice and the Bush administration also went to great measures to cover up their own incompetence, too.
Then there was the Hart-Rudman Commission report, which warned the White House in May 2001 that it needed to take serious steps to prevent a terrorist attack. The report was ignored.
So was Richard Clarke's memo of January 2001 warning of the terrorist threat.
I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. … It’s no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me — unless you don’t count American soldiers as Americans.
The Ethnic Group Most Disproportionately Represented in the Military is...
Native Americans.
"Native Americans make up barely one percent of the population, but 1.6% of our military forces.
Yesterday - November 28th, 2008 - was Native American Heritage Day. A day set aside by federal legislation to "honor the contributions American Indians have made to the United States"
Contributions like, you know, losing their land so we could have a nation.
If you had zero idea that today was a special day, don't get panicky and self-conscious. The legislation creating the day was only signed last month and only covers 2008.
Insult to injury. An afterthought that's not even an annual afterthought.
Tribal reps, however, are pushing to make the day a regular calendar event. Though, probably not the day after Thanksgiving as Thanksgiving's like a big, flipped middle finger to a lot of Native Americans.
And reason #2 that I bring up the stat about Native Americans serving in the military? It's another opportunity to remind people that, ironically, it seems those most historically disenfranchised by the government often have the least reluctance to step up and serve their country. Blacks. Japanese-Americans. Gays. When it comes to fighting for freedom, those who are willing to fight should not be limited by our bigotry. Only rewarded with our gratitude.
No, you didn't know about Native American Heritage Day - neither did I - and it might not be around next year. But while it's on our minds, and while we're giving thanks for those willing to protect our country, let's take a moment to recall the sacrifices past and present of Native Americans.
via J Ridley
Through credit default swaps, AIG was basically collecting insurance premiums and assuming it would never pay out on a failure - let alone a collapse of the entire market it was insuring. It was a scheme that couldn't be beat: money for nothing.
The world's food system is broken. Or, more accurately, the giant food companies and their allies in the U.S. and other rich country governments, and at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, broke it.
For this food regime to work," Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved, told the U.S. House Financial Services Committee at a May hearing, "existing marketing boards and support structures needed to be dismantled.
"The result of these interventions and conditions," explained Patel, "was to accelerate the decline of developing country agriculture.
Thirty years ago, most developing countries produced enough food to feed themselves [CHECK]. Now, 70 percent are net food importers.
So the media did a better job in the 2004 campaign, in highlighting Bush's failures? going public with the warrantless wire-tapping? calling out the Swiftboat Liars smears of Kerry? following up on the truthfulness of Bush's dubious record in the Texas Guard (rather than on the narrow authenticity of a letter about Bush) in avoiding service in Vietnam? in evaluating the economic impact of Bush's tax cuts for the rich and his exploding deficits? in pressing Bush on who authorized torture at Abu Ghraib? on communicating to the public the total failure of Bush to plan for the occupation of Iraq? If it had done even a half-assed job on any of those, Bush would have lost in 2004. So, don't tell me the "bias in the 2008 campaign was worse than any other in living memory". That's crap.
In the run-up to the 2006 Congressional elections, Halperin predicted that George W. Bush would be "back over 53% any day now" and warned "If I were them [Democrats], I'd be scared to death about November's elections". In fact, the Democrats regained control of both houses of Congress and George W. Bush's approval rating remained in the 30s.
The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.
In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government’s actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.
But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.”
NEW YORK (AP) -- Holocaust survivors said Monday they are through trying to negotiate with the Mormon church over posthumous baptisms of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, saying the church has repeatedly violated a 13-year-old agreement barring the practice.
Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints say they are making changes to their massive genealogical database that will make it more difficult for names of Holocaust victims to be entered for posthumous baptism by proxy, a rite that has been a common Mormon practice for more than a century.
Church spokesman Otterson said the church kept its part of the agreement by removing more than 260,000 names from the genealogical index.
But since 2005, ongoing monitoring of the database by an independent Salt Lake City-based researcher shows both resubmissions and new entries of names of Dutch, Greek, Polish and Italian Jews. Gulp..Wha?
First approached by the Roman Catholic archbishop of San Francisco a few weeks after the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in May, the Mormons were the last major religious group to join the campaign, and the final spice in an unusual stew that included Catholics, evangelical Christians, conservative black and Latino pastors, and myriad smaller ethnic groups with strong religious ties.
Shortly after receiving the invitation from the San Francisco Archdiocese, the Mormon leadership in Salt Lake City issued a four-paragraph decree to be read to congregations, saying “the formation of families is central to the Creator’s plan,” and urging members to become involved with the cause.
“And they sure did,” Mr. Schubert said.
So, the Catholic hierarchy in California decided to cut a deal with a group who most Catholics don't really consider a religion, but, when it comes to gay bashing, nothing is off-limits. The Catholics don't have much spare cash these days because they've spent hundreds of millions to settle sex abuse cases. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles paid out $660 million in 2007.
But, that also got me thinking of things the Catholic hierarchy has in common with the Mormon leaders. They're both very aggressive when it comes to covering up the sex abuse of children, of course. The Mormons and the Catholics both have gone to great lengths -- and great expense -- to hide this problem.
We know how widespread the Catholic problem is. But, the Mormons have done a better job of hiding abuse. Last year, the PBS show, Expose: America's Investigative Reports, did a show on Peter Zuckerman, a reporter in Idaho Falls, Idaho, who busted open a scandal involving sex abuse, the Boy Scouts and the Mormons. Apparently, the Mormons pretty much control the Boy Scouts in several Western states. The perp involved in the case molested a lot of young kids and a lot of adults in the Boy Scouts and the Mormon Church knew what was going on and did nothing to stop it. In fact, they kept putting the perp in positions where he was in contact with kids. They went to great lengths to cover it up. After Zuckerman exposed the scandal, he was attacked personally. And, that included going after him because he was gay. Yeah, surprise. Supporters of the Boy Scouts and Mormons played dirty and launched homophobic attacks on the reporter. According to Zuckerman, there were times when he was actually fearful for his life.
