UN REPORT ACCUSES AFGHAN OFFICIALS OF WAR CRIMES
DECLAN WALSH, GUARDIAN - A controversial UN report that has been shelved for 18 months names and shames leading Afghan politicians and officials accused of orchestrating massacres, torture, mass rape and other war crimes. The 220-page report by the UN high commissioner for human rights, which the Guardian has obtained, details atrocities committed by communist, mujahideen, Soviet and Taliban fighters over 23 years of conflict. Originally scheduled for release in January 2005, the report's publication has been delayed repeatedly due to sensitivities over identifying former warlords still in positions of power. . . Debate over the role of former warlords has grown more heated since anti-foreigner riots rocked Kabul two weeks ago, casting clouds over the $12bn western-funded reconstruction effort. European diplomats are angered that days after the riots President Hamid Karzai appointed 13 former commanders with links to drugs smuggling, organized crime and illegal militias to senior positions in the police force. The names were inserted at the last minute into a list of 86 police chiefs that had been selected by US, German and Afghan officers as part of a drive to professionalize the corrupt force. . .
A European official said the 13 appointments had strained Mr Karzai's relationship with foreign donors and further eroded his credibility with ordinary Afghans. "This is not acceptable to us. If we let people who have committed human rights abuses and economic crimes slip through, Afghans are going to start asking what we are doing here," he said.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13582.htm
Thursday, June 15, 2006
NEWS FROM THE COLONIES
UN REPORT ACCUSES AFGHAN OFFICIALS OF WAR CRIMES
DECLAN WALSH, GUARDIAN - A controversial UN report that has been shelved for 18 months names and shames leading Afghan politicians and officials accused of orchestrating massacres, torture, mass rape and other war crimes. The 220-page report by the UN high commissioner for human rights, which the Guardian has obtained, details atrocities committed by communist, mujahideen, Soviet and Taliban fighters over 23 years of conflict. Originally scheduled for release in January 2005, the report's publication has been delayed repeatedly due to sensitivities over identifying former warlords still in positions of power. . . Debate over the role of former warlords has grown more heated since anti-foreigner riots rocked Kabul two weeks ago, casting clouds over the $12bn western-funded reconstruction effort. European diplomats are angered that days after the riots President Hamid Karzai appointed 13 former commanders with links to drugs smuggling, organized crime and illegal militias to senior positions in the police force. The names were inserted at the last minute into a list of 86 police chiefs that had been selected by US, German and Afghan officers as part of a drive to professionalize the corrupt force. . .
A European official said the 13 appointments had strained Mr Karzai's relationship with foreign donors and further eroded his credibility with ordinary Afghans. "This is not acceptable to us. If we let people who have committed human rights abuses and economic crimes slip through, Afghans are going to start asking what we are doing here," he said.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13582.htm
DECLAN WALSH, GUARDIAN - A controversial UN report that has been shelved for 18 months names and shames leading Afghan politicians and officials accused of orchestrating massacres, torture, mass rape and other war crimes. The 220-page report by the UN high commissioner for human rights, which the Guardian has obtained, details atrocities committed by communist, mujahideen, Soviet and Taliban fighters over 23 years of conflict. Originally scheduled for release in January 2005, the report's publication has been delayed repeatedly due to sensitivities over identifying former warlords still in positions of power. . . Debate over the role of former warlords has grown more heated since anti-foreigner riots rocked Kabul two weeks ago, casting clouds over the $12bn western-funded reconstruction effort. European diplomats are angered that days after the riots President Hamid Karzai appointed 13 former commanders with links to drugs smuggling, organized crime and illegal militias to senior positions in the police force. The names were inserted at the last minute into a list of 86 police chiefs that had been selected by US, German and Afghan officers as part of a drive to professionalize the corrupt force. . .
A European official said the 13 appointments had strained Mr Karzai's relationship with foreign donors and further eroded his credibility with ordinary Afghans. "This is not acceptable to us. If we let people who have committed human rights abuses and economic crimes slip through, Afghans are going to start asking what we are doing here," he said.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13582.htm
RHODE ISLAND COPS TO 4TH AMENDMENT: FERGETABOUTIT
BOSTON GLOBE - The Rhode Island General Assembly is considering legislation that could give police access to Internet and phone records and credit card and bank information without a warrant or other court review, civil libertarians said. The state police said the legislation would help track down the increasing instances of Internet-based crime, including fraud and child exploitation. They say they are only seeking expanded access to Internet records, not phone or banking records.
But lawyers familiar with this area of law say the bills as crafted would give Rhode island police the right to obtain the same information that some of the nation's major communication companies have been accused of giving to the National Security Agency illegally. . . State police say going before a judge to get a warrant can be time-consuming and cumbersome. Cpl. John Killian, the state police's computer crime specialist, said it can take three to four hours of work to obtain a warrant. "There's a balance between privacy and police authority," Killian said.
BG Article Here...
But lawyers familiar with this area of law say the bills as crafted would give Rhode island police the right to obtain the same information that some of the nation's major communication companies have been accused of giving to the National Security Agency illegally. . . State police say going before a judge to get a warrant can be time-consuming and cumbersome. Cpl. John Killian, the state police's computer crime specialist, said it can take three to four hours of work to obtain a warrant. "There's a balance between privacy and police authority," Killian said.
BG Article Here...
BUSH CAN'T EVEN DEFEND ILLEGAL SPYING IN COURT
GREGG KRUPA, DETROIT NEWS - The Bush Administration argued in U.S. District Court on Monday that it cannot defend itself against accusations that a domestic spying program is illegal and unconstitutional because details of the program would be revealed, rendering it ineffective and jeopardizing national security. "The president has decided that the program is necessary to protect and defend the United States," Anthony Coppolino, a lawyer for the Department of Justice said in the nation's first court hearing on the program. "Without evidence that goes to the heart of the matter, the president's claims cannot be addressed.". . .
A lawyer for the plaintiffs argued that the Bush Administration's position about state secrets is of little relevance."The issue in this case is simply whether the National Security Administration is violating the law and the Constitution in eavesdropping on the telephone calls of Americans without a warrant," said Ann Beeson, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/3963728.html
A lawyer for the plaintiffs argued that the Bush Administration's position about state secrets is of little relevance."The issue in this case is simply whether the National Security Administration is violating the law and the Constitution in eavesdropping on the telephone calls of Americans without a warrant," said Ann Beeson, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/3963728.html
Donald Hall, Poet Laureate
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
The question, What is poetry for? has a corollary: What is everything that is not poetry for? That's what I found myself wondering as I reread Donald Hall's poem "The One Day" after hearing the good news that he will be the next poet laureate of the United States. The question has a circular, elliptical answer. In the life of a poet, what is not poetry is for the making of poems. It is the raw stuff, like "a bad patch of middle-life," as Mr. Hall puts it in his note on "The One Day." It took 17 years to make that 60-page poem, and 17 years for a poem of that magnitude is a decent rate of exchange.
In this country there is no job description for the poet laureate. And yet the title, which carries a stipend and a travel grant, is not entirely honorific. It's assumed that the laureate will try to advance the cause of poetry — especially the public awareness of poetry — in a manner somehow separate from the writing of poems. To speak on behalf of poetry sounds like a natural task for a poet, and for some poets it certainly is. I don't know whether Donald Hall will turn out to be that kind of laureate, and, in a way, I hope he doesn't. So much of his poetry has emerged from the rigor of his privacy — from what appears in his verse to be a deep, unsettling sense of what's possible in one's life. There's always the temptation for the laureate to find some anodyne ground to stand on. But these are not anodyne times.
To many readers, Donald Hall has lived what appears to be an eminently poetical life — in an ancient farmhouse in New Hampshire. The setting is pastoral, and yet there is a ferocity in Mr. Hall's voice that undoes the pastoral, which is always waiting to be undone. As Mr. Hall once wrote in an essay about the withering of the National Endowment for the Arts, "the mathematics of poetry's formal resolution does not preclude moral thought, or satisfaction in honest naming, or the consolation of shared feeling." I'm looking forward to the mathematics and the morality of this new laureate. After all, it doesn't matter where you watch life from if your gaze takes in the whole world.
NYT Editorial...
The question, What is poetry for? has a corollary: What is everything that is not poetry for? That's what I found myself wondering as I reread Donald Hall's poem "The One Day" after hearing the good news that he will be the next poet laureate of the United States. The question has a circular, elliptical answer. In the life of a poet, what is not poetry is for the making of poems. It is the raw stuff, like "a bad patch of middle-life," as Mr. Hall puts it in his note on "The One Day." It took 17 years to make that 60-page poem, and 17 years for a poem of that magnitude is a decent rate of exchange.
In this country there is no job description for the poet laureate. And yet the title, which carries a stipend and a travel grant, is not entirely honorific. It's assumed that the laureate will try to advance the cause of poetry — especially the public awareness of poetry — in a manner somehow separate from the writing of poems. To speak on behalf of poetry sounds like a natural task for a poet, and for some poets it certainly is. I don't know whether Donald Hall will turn out to be that kind of laureate, and, in a way, I hope he doesn't. So much of his poetry has emerged from the rigor of his privacy — from what appears in his verse to be a deep, unsettling sense of what's possible in one's life. There's always the temptation for the laureate to find some anodyne ground to stand on. But these are not anodyne times.
To many readers, Donald Hall has lived what appears to be an eminently poetical life — in an ancient farmhouse in New Hampshire. The setting is pastoral, and yet there is a ferocity in Mr. Hall's voice that undoes the pastoral, which is always waiting to be undone. As Mr. Hall once wrote in an essay about the withering of the National Endowment for the Arts, "the mathematics of poetry's formal resolution does not preclude moral thought, or satisfaction in honest naming, or the consolation of shared feeling." I'm looking forward to the mathematics and the morality of this new laureate. After all, it doesn't matter where you watch life from if your gaze takes in the whole world.
NYT Editorial...
A Leap of Faith, Off a Cliff
On Monday, the Bush administration told a judge in Detroit that the president's warrantless domestic spying is legal and constitutional, but refused to say why. The judge should just take his word for it, the lawyer said, because merely talking about it would endanger America. Today, Senator Arlen Specter wants his Judiciary Committee to take an even more outlandish leap of faith for an administration that has shown it does not deserve it.
Mr. Specter wants the committee to approve a bill he drafted that tinkers dangerously with the rules on wiretapping, even though the president has said the law doesn't apply to him anyway, and even though Mr. Specter and most of the panel are just as much in the dark as that judge in Detroit. The bill could well diminish the power of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, which was passed in 1978 to prevent just the sort of abuse that Mr. Bush's program represents.
The committee is considering four bills. Only one even remotely makes sense now: it would give legal standing to groups that want to challenge the spying in court. The rest vary from highly premature (Senator Dianne Feinstein's proposed changes to FISA) to the stamp of approval for Mr. Bush's claims of unlimited power that Senator Mike DeWine drafted.
Mr. Specter's bill is not that bad, but it is fatally flawed and should not go to the Senate floor. He is trying to change the system for judicial approval of government wiretaps in a way that suggests Congress is facing a technical problem with a legislative solution, when in fact it is a constitutional showdown.
There is also a practical problem: a bill on the floor of this Senate becomes the property of the Republican leadership, which will rewrite it to the specifications of Vice President Dick Cheney, the man in charge of this particular show of imperial power. Mr. Specter, of all people, should have no doubt of that, having been forced to watch in embarrassment last week as Mr. Cheney seized control of the committee's deliberations on the spying issue.
Mr. Specter says his bill would impose judicial review on domestic spying by giving the special court created by FISA power to rule on the constitutionality of the one program that Mr. Bush has acknowledged. But the review would be optional. Mr. Specter's bill would eliminate the vital principle that FISA's rules are the only legal way to eavesdrop on Americans' telephone calls and e-mail. It would give the president power to conduct surveillance under FISA "or under the constitutional authority of the executive." That merely reinforces Mr. Bush's claim that he is the sole judge of what powers he has, and how he exercises them.
Mr. Specter's lawyers have arguments for many of these criticisms, and say the bill is being improved. But the main problem with the bill, like most of the others, is that it exists at all. This is not a time to offer the administration a chance to steamroll Congress into endorsing its decision to ignore the 1978 intelligence act and shred constitutional principles on warrants and on the separation of powers. This is a time for Congress to finally hold Mr. Bush accountable for his extralegal behavior and stop it.
NYT Editorial...
Mr. Specter wants the committee to approve a bill he drafted that tinkers dangerously with the rules on wiretapping, even though the president has said the law doesn't apply to him anyway, and even though Mr. Specter and most of the panel are just as much in the dark as that judge in Detroit. The bill could well diminish the power of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA, which was passed in 1978 to prevent just the sort of abuse that Mr. Bush's program represents.
The committee is considering four bills. Only one even remotely makes sense now: it would give legal standing to groups that want to challenge the spying in court. The rest vary from highly premature (Senator Dianne Feinstein's proposed changes to FISA) to the stamp of approval for Mr. Bush's claims of unlimited power that Senator Mike DeWine drafted.
Mr. Specter's bill is not that bad, but it is fatally flawed and should not go to the Senate floor. He is trying to change the system for judicial approval of government wiretaps in a way that suggests Congress is facing a technical problem with a legislative solution, when in fact it is a constitutional showdown.
There is also a practical problem: a bill on the floor of this Senate becomes the property of the Republican leadership, which will rewrite it to the specifications of Vice President Dick Cheney, the man in charge of this particular show of imperial power. Mr. Specter, of all people, should have no doubt of that, having been forced to watch in embarrassment last week as Mr. Cheney seized control of the committee's deliberations on the spying issue.
Mr. Specter says his bill would impose judicial review on domestic spying by giving the special court created by FISA power to rule on the constitutionality of the one program that Mr. Bush has acknowledged. But the review would be optional. Mr. Specter's bill would eliminate the vital principle that FISA's rules are the only legal way to eavesdrop on Americans' telephone calls and e-mail. It would give the president power to conduct surveillance under FISA "or under the constitutional authority of the executive." That merely reinforces Mr. Bush's claim that he is the sole judge of what powers he has, and how he exercises them.
Mr. Specter's lawyers have arguments for many of these criticisms, and say the bill is being improved. But the main problem with the bill, like most of the others, is that it exists at all. This is not a time to offer the administration a chance to steamroll Congress into endorsing its decision to ignore the 1978 intelligence act and shred constitutional principles on warrants and on the separation of powers. This is a time for Congress to finally hold Mr. Bush accountable for his extralegal behavior and stop it.
NYT Editorial...
US 'biggest global peace threat'
People in European and Muslim countries see US policy in Iraq as a bigger threat to world peace than Iran's nuclear programme, a survey has shown.
The survey by the Pew Research Group also found support for US President George W Bush and his "war on terror" had dropped dramatically worldwide.
Goodwill created by US aid for nations hit by the 2004 tsunami had also faded since last year, the survey found.
The survey questioned 17,000 people in 15 countries, including the US.
The latest in a series of annual polls by the Pew Global Attitudes Project interviewed respondents between 31 March and 14 May 2006.
Its release coincides with a surprise visit by President George W Bush to Baghdad in an effort to shore up support for US policy in the region.
'Fading goodwill'
The latest survey shows the worldwide reputation of the US continues to suffer over its prosecution of the "war on terror".
Sharp declines in the public perception of the US were particularly apparent in India, Spain and Turkey.
Goodwill towards the US had fallen from 71% to 56% in India, from 41% to 23% in Spain and from 23% to 12% in Turkey.
A majority of people in 10 of the 14 countries outside the US surveyed said the war in Iraq had made the world a more dangerous place.
Some 60% of people in the UK, which is the US biggest ally, felt the Iraq war had made the world less secure, while 30% said it had made the world safer.
According to the survey:
The survey also found little remaining evidence of the goodwill the US had earned over its aid for victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
In Indonesia, a major recipient of US tsunami aid, favourable opinions of the US had fallen from 38% in 2005 to 30% this year.
"Last year we saw some good news in countries like Russia and India," Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Centre, told the Associated Press news agency.
"That good news being wiped away is a measure of how difficult a problem this is for the United States."
Muslim differences
According to the survey, people in the US and Europe have grown increasingly concerned in the last year over Iran's nuclear programme.
The US has accused Iran of seeking to build a nuclear bomb - but Iran says its nuclear programme has a purely civilian objective.
Almost half of the Americans surveyed, 46%, viewed the current government in Iran as a "great danger" to stability in the Middle East and to world peace - a figure that has risen from 26% in 2003.
In Germany, Spain, France and the UK, the percentage of people who regard Iran as a great danger is roughly three times greater than it was three years ago.
However, the poll showed public opinion in predominantly Muslim countries was far less troubled by Tehran's nuclear programme.
Muslim people also appeared less concerned than Europeans and Americans by the victory of the Hamas militant group in Palestinian elections earlier this year.
The survey found concern over bird flu was largely confined to Asia, while two-thirds of people surveyed in each country said they were worried by global warming.
Concern over the greenhouse effect was highest in India and Japan and lowest in the US and China.
The survey interviewed people in China, Egypt, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Spain, Turkey and the US.
Its margin of error was two to six percentage points.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/5077984.stm
The survey by the Pew Research Group also found support for US President George W Bush and his "war on terror" had dropped dramatically worldwide.
Goodwill created by US aid for nations hit by the 2004 tsunami had also faded since last year, the survey found.
The survey questioned 17,000 people in 15 countries, including the US.
The latest in a series of annual polls by the Pew Global Attitudes Project interviewed respondents between 31 March and 14 May 2006.
Its release coincides with a surprise visit by President George W Bush to Baghdad in an effort to shore up support for US policy in the region.
'Fading goodwill'
The latest survey shows the worldwide reputation of the US continues to suffer over its prosecution of the "war on terror".
Sharp declines in the public perception of the US were particularly apparent in India, Spain and Turkey.
Goodwill towards the US had fallen from 71% to 56% in India, from 41% to 23% in Spain and from 23% to 12% in Turkey.
A majority of people in 10 of the 14 countries outside the US surveyed said the war in Iraq had made the world a more dangerous place.
Some 60% of people in the UK, which is the US biggest ally, felt the Iraq war had made the world less secure, while 30% said it had made the world safer.
According to the survey:
* Worldwide support for the "war on terror" has remained the same or declined
* European confidence in Mr Bush has sunk even lower than it was last year
* A majority of people in most countries feel the US will not achieve its goals in the "war on terror"
The survey also found little remaining evidence of the goodwill the US had earned over its aid for victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami.
In Indonesia, a major recipient of US tsunami aid, favourable opinions of the US had fallen from 38% in 2005 to 30% this year.
"Last year we saw some good news in countries like Russia and India," Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Centre, told the Associated Press news agency.
"That good news being wiped away is a measure of how difficult a problem this is for the United States."
Muslim differences
According to the survey, people in the US and Europe have grown increasingly concerned in the last year over Iran's nuclear programme.
The US has accused Iran of seeking to build a nuclear bomb - but Iran says its nuclear programme has a purely civilian objective.
Almost half of the Americans surveyed, 46%, viewed the current government in Iran as a "great danger" to stability in the Middle East and to world peace - a figure that has risen from 26% in 2003.
In Germany, Spain, France and the UK, the percentage of people who regard Iran as a great danger is roughly three times greater than it was three years ago.
However, the poll showed public opinion in predominantly Muslim countries was far less troubled by Tehran's nuclear programme.
Muslim people also appeared less concerned than Europeans and Americans by the victory of the Hamas militant group in Palestinian elections earlier this year.
The survey found concern over bird flu was largely confined to Asia, while two-thirds of people surveyed in each country said they were worried by global warming.
Concern over the greenhouse effect was highest in India and Japan and lowest in the US and China.
The survey interviewed people in China, Egypt, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Spain, Turkey and the US.
Its margin of error was two to six percentage points.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/5077984.stm
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
CANADA'S NEW IMMIGRATION PROBLEM (Satire)
MANITOBA HERALD, CANADA - The flood of American liberals sneaking across the border into Canada has intensified in the past week, sparking calls for increased patrols to stop the illegal immigration. The actions of President Bush are prompting the exodus among left-leaning citizens who fear they'll soon be required to hunt, pray, and agree with Bill O'Reilly.
Canadian border farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal-rights activists and Unitarians crossing their fields at night. "I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota. The producer was cold, exhausted and hungry. "He asked me if I could spare a latte and some free-range chicken. When I said I didn't have any, he left. Didn't even get a chance to show him my screenplay."
Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage and renting all the good Susan Sarandon movies. "I feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said.
Canadian border farmers say it's not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, animal-rights activists and Unitarians crossing their fields at night. "I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn," said Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota. The producer was cold, exhausted and hungry. "He asked me if I could spare a latte and some free-range chicken. When I said I didn't have any, he left. Didn't even get a chance to show him my screenplay."
Canadian citizens have complained that the illegal immigrants are creating an organic-broccoli shortage and renting all the good Susan Sarandon movies. "I feel sorry for American liberals, but the Canadian economy just can't support them," an Ottawa resident said.
WHY THE MEDIA ISN'T REPORTING THE BILDERBERG STORY
The Bilderberg Conference is an ideal example of how the American elite turns its back on facts even as it denigrates those who wonder what the hell is going on.
As of Saturday night, no major American media had reported the meeting of 130 of the world's most powerful and wealthiest individuals, a meeting so secret that one reporter was arrested for merely flying into the host city and the Ottawa police had to show credentials to private security guards to be permitted on the premises. The invited also include some nasty individuals such as Richard Perle and Ahmad Chalabi. You don't invite such types to a secret meeting if you plan to do anything worthwhile. There are no reports of any person of known moral standing being invited.
How does one explain the utter lack of journalistic curiosity about all this? One could come up with a conspiratorial explanation but the answer is probably even more troubling: no conspiracy was needed at all. Like a well trained child, the media doesn't even want to know what is going on.
Well, that isn't completely true since past participants have included the likes of Don Graham of the Washington Post and Paul Gigot of the Wall Street Journal.
Many city councils in America operate under some sort of freedom of information and/or sunshine law. Why is it so important that we know what our town council is talking about behind our backs and so irrelevant what 130 of the most powerful individuals in the world are talking about secretly? Sorry, the American media is not cleared to give you an answer.
As of Saturday night, no major American media had reported the meeting of 130 of the world's most powerful and wealthiest individuals, a meeting so secret that one reporter was arrested for merely flying into the host city and the Ottawa police had to show credentials to private security guards to be permitted on the premises. The invited also include some nasty individuals such as Richard Perle and Ahmad Chalabi. You don't invite such types to a secret meeting if you plan to do anything worthwhile. There are no reports of any person of known moral standing being invited.
How does one explain the utter lack of journalistic curiosity about all this? One could come up with a conspiratorial explanation but the answer is probably even more troubling: no conspiracy was needed at all. Like a well trained child, the media doesn't even want to know what is going on.
Well, that isn't completely true since past participants have included the likes of Don Graham of the Washington Post and Paul Gigot of the Wall Street Journal.
Many city councils in America operate under some sort of freedom of information and/or sunshine law. Why is it so important that we know what our town council is talking about behind our backs and so irrelevant what 130 of the most powerful individuals in the world are talking about secretly? Sorry, the American media is not cleared to give you an answer.
Monday, June 12, 2006
Rove 'truth' to come 'out'
By Evan Derkacz
Posted on June 12, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/37460/
Several weeks back, Truthout investigative reporter Jason Leopold reported that a source informed him of an imminent Rove indictment in the Valerie Plame investigation.
As you know, that indictment never occurred. A flurry of "ohmygod are there hacks in the progressive media?" questions ensued and Leopold's reputation (along with Truthout's) hung in the balance.
Neither TO nor Leopold budged and now reveal that they have a case number for the indictment. Hmm. Via Dave Johnson at Seeing the Forest:
As of Friday afternoon that indictment, returned by the grand jury the week of May 10th, remains under seal - more than a month after it was handed up by the grand jury.
The case number is "06 cr 128." On the federal court's electronic database, "06 cr 128" is listed along with a succinct summary: "No further information is available."
Johnson writes: "He is not backing off. Truthout isn't either. Maybe there is something to this." (SeeingTheForest)
Evan Derkacz is a New York-based writer and contributor to AlterNet.
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/37460/
Posted on June 12, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/37460/
Several weeks back, Truthout investigative reporter Jason Leopold reported that a source informed him of an imminent Rove indictment in the Valerie Plame investigation.
As you know, that indictment never occurred. A flurry of "ohmygod are there hacks in the progressive media?" questions ensued and Leopold's reputation (along with Truthout's) hung in the balance.
Neither TO nor Leopold budged and now reveal that they have a case number for the indictment. Hmm. Via Dave Johnson at Seeing the Forest:
As of Friday afternoon that indictment, returned by the grand jury the week of May 10th, remains under seal - more than a month after it was handed up by the grand jury.
The case number is "06 cr 128." On the federal court's electronic database, "06 cr 128" is listed along with a succinct summary: "No further information is available."
Johnson writes: "He is not backing off. Truthout isn't either. Maybe there is something to this." (SeeingTheForest)
Evan Derkacz is a New York-based writer and contributor to AlterNet.
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/37460/
Thursday, June 08, 2006
WE DID IT! THE FMA HAS BEEN DEFEATED!
In the battle for fairness, the Federal Marriage Amendment suffered a resounding defeat this morning in the U.S. Senate.
Not only did not a single Senator from the compromised left buckle to pressure and advertising campaigns from right-wing groups to switch their vote, but we gained two Senators, Senators Gregg (R-NH) and Specter (R-PA), who voted the other way in 2004.
President Bush and the Republican leadership gambled their dwindling political capital on a discriminatory amendment and came up empty.
To read the coverage in the press, visit http://www.hrc.org/voteno/headlines.htm.
Not only did not a single Senator from the compromised left buckle to pressure and advertising campaigns from right-wing groups to switch their vote, but we gained two Senators, Senators Gregg (R-NH) and Specter (R-PA), who voted the other way in 2004.
President Bush and the Republican leadership gambled their dwindling political capital on a discriminatory amendment and came up empty.
To read the coverage in the press, visit http://www.hrc.org/voteno/headlines.htm.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Sunday, June 04, 2006
Tomdispatch Interview: Ehrenreich, The Prey and the Predators
A Guided Tour of Class in America
A Tomdispatch Interview with Barbara Ehrenreich
You turn into a middle-class, suburban housing project on the periphery of Charlottesville, Virginia, and at a row of attached homes, you pull up in front of the one with the yellow "for sale" sign on the tiny patch of grass. Ushered inside, you take in an interior of paint cans, a mop and pail, and cleaning liquids. On the small porch that overlooks a communal backyard, workmen are painting the weathered wood railings a nice, clean white. Later, when they're gone, we step out for a minute, on a balmy late spring afternoon, and she says, "You know what I need out here? Flowers!" And it's true, the nearest neighbor's small porch is a riot of red, orange, and purple blooms, while hanging from her railing are three plant holders with only dirt and the scraps of dead vegetation in them.
Not surprising really. Barbara Ehrenreich, our foremost journalist of, and dissector of class is regularly not here. Practically a household name since she entered the low-wage working class disguised as herself and, in her already classic account, Nickel and Dimed, reported back on just how difficult it is for so many hard-working Americans to get by. Then, a few years later, she repeated the process with the middle class, only to find herself not in the workforce but among the desperately unemployed who had fallen out of an ever meaner corporate world. Her most recent book, Bait and Switch, The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream, was the result. Now, she spends much time traveling the country talking to audiences about her -- and their -- experiences. She has become a blogger, is involved in launching a new group to help organize the middle-class unemployed, and in her spare time she's even finished a new book.
Now, after four years in Virginia (at least some of the time), she's about to head north. She gestures at the bookshelves. "There are a lot fewer books this week than last. I'm giving them to the Virginia Organizing Project." And it's true, the place is clearly being stripped down for sale. But you have the feeling, looking around, that it was a no-frills life to begin with, as Ehrenreich herself, in her short hair, jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers, presents a distinctly no-frills look. (Suddenly, imagining her with an image make-over advisor in Bait and Switch trying to give herself that perfect corporate look of employability seems amusing.)
Her mind is wide-ranging and daring indeed. Some years back, in a book entitled Blood Rites, she even managed to turn traditional ideas about the origins of war on their head. She is a thoroughly no-nonsense national resource.
Looking forward to a trip to the local gym followed by a visit with her two grandchildren (the daughters of her daughter Rosa Brooks, a law professor and columnist for the Los Angeles Times), we sit down at a paper-and-book cluttered dining-room table, which shows no evidence of having held a meal in some time, and -- eye on the clock, no fooling around -- begin.
Tomdispatch: You were at a graduation ceremony recently where the students were bouncing beach balls in the stands. The college president leaned over and whispered, "This is the problem with having the commencement in the afternoon. Some of these people have been partying for hours." In response, you wrote: "There are reasons, whether the graduates know them or not, to want to greet one's entrance into the work world with an excess of Bud." Could you start by explaining why an excess of Bud might be an appropriate response to leaving college today?
Barbara Ehrenreich: Well, a lot of graduates are simply not going to find jobs appropriate to their credentials. They're going to be wait staff. They're going to be call-center operators. Their twenties could be spent like that. I recently got Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute to do some research on this. It's still tentative, but he found that 17% of people in jobs that do not require college degrees have them. Those are very often people in their twenties who can't get professional-type employment, or people in their fifties who have been through one too many lay-off and are no longer employable because they're quote too old. So I was thinking of that, and then I was thinking that for a lot of those who do get jobs, you know, the fun is over. They're going to be sitting in cubicles and they won't be able to bounce balls around when they're in boring meetings with their bosses.
TD: The real earnings of college graduates fell by 5% between 2000 and 2004, so they also have that to look forward to.
Ehrenreich: There still is a real big earnings gap between college and non-college graduates, but it's begun to shrink. Jared tells me that the reason it was growing so fast in the nineties was not that college graduates were doing so well, but that low-wage people, blue-collar people, were doing so poorly. Their wages were being held down -- and that remains true.
TD: In 1989, you published a book about the middle class, or the professional-managerial class as you call them, entitled Fear of Falling. The book was way ahead of its time. If you were titling a work on the subject today you might just call it, Falling.
Ehrenreich: What I was thinking about then was the fear of intergenerational falling, the fear a lot of upper-middle class people have that their children will not get into the same class, because you can't just bequeath your class status to them. They can't inherit. They have to go through this whole education thing. Now, it could be Free Fall, though it isn't quite that bad… yet.
TD: In Bait and Switch, the book where, as an investigative reporter, you sought a corporate job and found yourself in the world of the middle-class unemployed or anxiously employed, you wrote, "On many fronts, the American middle class is under attack as never before." What happened to the middle class between then and now?
Ehrenreich: In Fear of Falling, I was concerned with the distance between the professional managerial class and the traditional working class. I thought I saw a new class developing. The strict Marxist idea is: You've got the bourgeoisie. Everybody else is a wage earner and they're not that different, whether they're accountants or laborers. And I was saying, no, there's a real difference here. The white-collar worker who sits at a desk is telling other people what to do in one way or another. Such workers are in positions of authority when compared to blue and pink-collar people.
Back then, I was emphasizing the differences. Today, in Bait and Switch, what I'm emphasizing is the lack of difference, that the security the professional-managerial class thought it had is gone. The safest part of that class, when I was writing in the eighties, seemed to be the professionals and managers with corporate positions. Then something happened in the nineties. Companies began to look at even those people as expenses to be eliminated rather than assets to be nurtured. What I was seeing in the late eighties was this pretty tight middle class where, really, the only problem was to get your kids into it, too.
Much More here...
A Tomdispatch Interview with Barbara Ehrenreich
You turn into a middle-class, suburban housing project on the periphery of Charlottesville, Virginia, and at a row of attached homes, you pull up in front of the one with the yellow "for sale" sign on the tiny patch of grass. Ushered inside, you take in an interior of paint cans, a mop and pail, and cleaning liquids. On the small porch that overlooks a communal backyard, workmen are painting the weathered wood railings a nice, clean white. Later, when they're gone, we step out for a minute, on a balmy late spring afternoon, and she says, "You know what I need out here? Flowers!" And it's true, the nearest neighbor's small porch is a riot of red, orange, and purple blooms, while hanging from her railing are three plant holders with only dirt and the scraps of dead vegetation in them.
Not surprising really. Barbara Ehrenreich, our foremost journalist of, and dissector of class is regularly not here. Practically a household name since she entered the low-wage working class disguised as herself and, in her already classic account, Nickel and Dimed, reported back on just how difficult it is for so many hard-working Americans to get by. Then, a few years later, she repeated the process with the middle class, only to find herself not in the workforce but among the desperately unemployed who had fallen out of an ever meaner corporate world. Her most recent book, Bait and Switch, The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream, was the result. Now, she spends much time traveling the country talking to audiences about her -- and their -- experiences. She has become a blogger, is involved in launching a new group to help organize the middle-class unemployed, and in her spare time she's even finished a new book.
Now, after four years in Virginia (at least some of the time), she's about to head north. She gestures at the bookshelves. "There are a lot fewer books this week than last. I'm giving them to the Virginia Organizing Project." And it's true, the place is clearly being stripped down for sale. But you have the feeling, looking around, that it was a no-frills life to begin with, as Ehrenreich herself, in her short hair, jeans, T-shirt, and sneakers, presents a distinctly no-frills look. (Suddenly, imagining her with an image make-over advisor in Bait and Switch trying to give herself that perfect corporate look of employability seems amusing.)
Her mind is wide-ranging and daring indeed. Some years back, in a book entitled Blood Rites, she even managed to turn traditional ideas about the origins of war on their head. She is a thoroughly no-nonsense national resource.
Looking forward to a trip to the local gym followed by a visit with her two grandchildren (the daughters of her daughter Rosa Brooks, a law professor and columnist for the Los Angeles Times), we sit down at a paper-and-book cluttered dining-room table, which shows no evidence of having held a meal in some time, and -- eye on the clock, no fooling around -- begin.
Tomdispatch: You were at a graduation ceremony recently where the students were bouncing beach balls in the stands. The college president leaned over and whispered, "This is the problem with having the commencement in the afternoon. Some of these people have been partying for hours." In response, you wrote: "There are reasons, whether the graduates know them or not, to want to greet one's entrance into the work world with an excess of Bud." Could you start by explaining why an excess of Bud might be an appropriate response to leaving college today?
Barbara Ehrenreich: Well, a lot of graduates are simply not going to find jobs appropriate to their credentials. They're going to be wait staff. They're going to be call-center operators. Their twenties could be spent like that. I recently got Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute to do some research on this. It's still tentative, but he found that 17% of people in jobs that do not require college degrees have them. Those are very often people in their twenties who can't get professional-type employment, or people in their fifties who have been through one too many lay-off and are no longer employable because they're quote too old. So I was thinking of that, and then I was thinking that for a lot of those who do get jobs, you know, the fun is over. They're going to be sitting in cubicles and they won't be able to bounce balls around when they're in boring meetings with their bosses.
TD: The real earnings of college graduates fell by 5% between 2000 and 2004, so they also have that to look forward to.
Ehrenreich: There still is a real big earnings gap between college and non-college graduates, but it's begun to shrink. Jared tells me that the reason it was growing so fast in the nineties was not that college graduates were doing so well, but that low-wage people, blue-collar people, were doing so poorly. Their wages were being held down -- and that remains true.
TD: In 1989, you published a book about the middle class, or the professional-managerial class as you call them, entitled Fear of Falling. The book was way ahead of its time. If you were titling a work on the subject today you might just call it, Falling.
Ehrenreich: What I was thinking about then was the fear of intergenerational falling, the fear a lot of upper-middle class people have that their children will not get into the same class, because you can't just bequeath your class status to them. They can't inherit. They have to go through this whole education thing. Now, it could be Free Fall, though it isn't quite that bad… yet.
TD: In Bait and Switch, the book where, as an investigative reporter, you sought a corporate job and found yourself in the world of the middle-class unemployed or anxiously employed, you wrote, "On many fronts, the American middle class is under attack as never before." What happened to the middle class between then and now?
Ehrenreich: In Fear of Falling, I was concerned with the distance between the professional managerial class and the traditional working class. I thought I saw a new class developing. The strict Marxist idea is: You've got the bourgeoisie. Everybody else is a wage earner and they're not that different, whether they're accountants or laborers. And I was saying, no, there's a real difference here. The white-collar worker who sits at a desk is telling other people what to do in one way or another. Such workers are in positions of authority when compared to blue and pink-collar people.
Back then, I was emphasizing the differences. Today, in Bait and Switch, what I'm emphasizing is the lack of difference, that the security the professional-managerial class thought it had is gone. The safest part of that class, when I was writing in the eighties, seemed to be the professionals and managers with corporate positions. Then something happened in the nineties. Companies began to look at even those people as expenses to be eliminated rather than assets to be nurtured. What I was seeing in the late eighties was this pretty tight middle class where, really, the only problem was to get your kids into it, too.
Much More here...
Saturday, June 03, 2006
Today's Quote
"Enough details have emerged from survivors and military personnel to conclude that in the town of Haditha last November, members of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment perpetrated a massacre. The killings may have been in retaliation for the death of a Marine lance corporal, but this was not the work of soldiers gone berserk. The targets (children from 3 to 14, an old man in a wheelchair, taxi passengers), the hours-long duration of killings, the number of Marines involved, the careful mop-up--all amount to willful, targeted brutality designed to send a message to Iraqis. As Representative John Murtha has pointed out, the patently false story floated afterward, blaming the killings on roadside bombs, and Marine payoffs to survivors imply a cover-up that may extend far up the chain of command."
~~ The Nation Editors, Why Haditha Matters
CNN's White Supremacist Sourcing
By Evan Derkacz
Posted on May 24, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/36625/
The thin, thin line between Lou Dobbs' punitive conservative views on immigration and unabashed bigotry was crossed, erased and spat upon yesterday.
Bill Scher writes:
The above map that accompanied the report was provided by the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens classified as a hate group by the ADL.
Dave Neiwert explains the fundamental misunderstanding in hysterical reporting and rightwing gumflapping on the "reconquista" issue:
Silly Dave. This is called nuance and rationality, two qualities melting away from the public discourse like polar ice caps in a quaint belief system once known as "science." (LiberalOasis, Orcinus)
--Evan Derkacz is a New York-based writer and contributor to AlterNet.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/36625/
Posted on May 24, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/36625/
The thin, thin line between Lou Dobbs' punitive conservative views on immigration and unabashed bigotry was crossed, erased and spat upon yesterday.
Bill Scher writes:
During a piece about illegal immigrants in Utah, reporter Casey Wian said, "Utah is also part of the territory some militant Latino activists refer to as Aztlan, the portion of the southwest United States they claim rightfully belongs to Mexico."
The above map that accompanied the report was provided by the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens classified as a hate group by the ADL.
Dave Neiwert explains the fundamental misunderstanding in hysterical reporting and rightwing gumflapping on the "reconquista" issue:
The belief that the Southwest is part of their historical homeland is a legitimate belief for most Latinos, and the marchers [the Washington Times] cite[s] seem to be expressing that point. They're also expressing the belief that this historical claim overrides the latter-day borders that would deny them their heritage. What's utterly absent is any claim that they intend to retake the Southwest for Mexico, which is what the reconquista theory is all about. On the contrary, they seem intent on becoming American -- but they also are claiming they have a right, by virtue of their heritage, to become one.
Silly Dave. This is called nuance and rationality, two qualities melting away from the public discourse like polar ice caps in a quaint belief system once known as "science." (LiberalOasis, Orcinus)
--Evan Derkacz is a New York-based writer and contributor to AlterNet.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/36625/
From the "Wha', Where?" File...
During an interview with the Early Show concerning BushCo's new bid for isolationism in the U.S. while rampant corporate globalization is shoved down the throat of "developing" nations, one can actually see immigrants jumping the "most technologically advanced" border barrier ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BqDtHOE5zs
Priceless!
Thanks to Jack Spellman (and Bryan, whoever you are)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BqDtHOE5zs
Priceless!
Thanks to Jack Spellman (and Bryan, whoever you are)
Friday, June 02, 2006
Kennedy: 2004 Election was rigged
Via Alternet
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/36993/
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. writes, in Rolling Stone:
On Exit Polls:
On Ohio:
There's more. Much more.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/36993/
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. writes, in Rolling Stone:
...what is most anomalous about the irregularities in 2004 was their decidedly partisan bent: Almost without exception they hurt John Kerry and benefited George Bush. After carefully examining the evidence, I've become convinced that the president's party mounted a massive, coordinated campaign to subvert the will of the people in 2004. Across the country, Republican election officials and party stalwarts employed a wide range of illegal and unethical tactics to fix the election.
On Exit Polls:
On the evening of the vote, reporters at each of the major networks were briefed by pollsters at 7:54 p.m. Kerry, they were informed, had an insurmountable lead and would win by a rout: at least 309 electoral votes to Bush’s 174, with fifty-five too close to call. In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair went to bed contemplating his relationship with President-elect Kerry.
As the last polling stations closed on the West Coast, exit polls showed Kerry ahead in ten of eleven battleground states – including commanding leads in Ohio and Florida – and winning by a million and a half votes nationally. The exit polls even showed Kerry breathing down Bush’s neck in supposed GOP strongholds Virginia and North Carolina. Against these numbers, the statistical likelihood of Bush winning was less than one in 450,000.
On Ohio:
[Ohio Sec of State Kenneth Blackwell] has openly denounced Kerry as ''an unapologetic liberal Democrat,''(50) and during the 2004 election he used his official powers to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Ohio citizens in Democratic strongholds. In a ruling issued two weeks before the election, a federal judge rebuked Blackwell for seeking to ''accomplish the same result in Ohio in 2004 that occurred in Florida in 2000.''
There's more. Much more.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
If Free Borders Are Good Enough For Corporations, Then Why Not For People, Too?
JONATHAN ROWE - There is an egregious disconnect in the case for the global economy, corporate version. We are told that the world should be without borders, for corporations and stuff. Borders are clogs in the celestial mechanism of the market. They are protectionism, which is darkness to the market's light.
But when the discussion turns to people, somehow the argument flips. Then it's troops, fences, regulations up the kazoo. Corporations get magic visas; cars and video games get them too. But when an actual human being tries to cross the border - well, call out the National Guard.
To which one has to say, "Wait a minute." If the world should be borderless for artificial persons called corporations, then why not for real people? If Ford can go to Mexico to find cheaper labor, then why should not Mexican workers be able to come to the U.S. to find higher-paying jobs - or jobs period? The proponents of global corporatism think that real people should be content with second-class status. I don't think so.
http://onthecommons.org/node/904
But when the discussion turns to people, somehow the argument flips. Then it's troops, fences, regulations up the kazoo. Corporations get magic visas; cars and video games get them too. But when an actual human being tries to cross the border - well, call out the National Guard.
To which one has to say, "Wait a minute." If the world should be borderless for artificial persons called corporations, then why not for real people? If Ford can go to Mexico to find cheaper labor, then why should not Mexican workers be able to come to the U.S. to find higher-paying jobs - or jobs period? The proponents of global corporatism think that real people should be content with second-class status. I don't think so.
http://onthecommons.org/node/904
Morning Line
Courtesy of Sam Smith, The Progressive Review
WE'RE SURPRISED by how many are dismissing the FBI raid on Capitol Hill as permissible law enforcement. The danger is not just the threat of blackmail, but the broader intimidation of Congress by the executive branch. As former House solicitor Charles Tiefer pointed out, "The framers, who were familiar with King George III's disdain for their colonial legislatures, would turn over in their graves." . . .
Now details of the raid suggest the FBI was up to far more than an ordinary search. They were in the office for 18 hours without any legal representation from the Congress and they downloaded all of Rep. Jefferson's computer files.
Let's say, to be kind, that 5% of the material related to bribery or other malfeasance. That means 95% of what the FBI was up to was spying on Congress' constitutional operations and documents that it had no business viewing. Not to mention the possibility that Jefferson's files contain memos outlining Democratic strategy for the next election and, as Tiefer notes, the personal business of "countless innocent constituents."
This is far worse than the Valerie Plame affair. This involves executive branch thuggery designed to intimidate Congress now and perhaps blackmail some of its members later.
Let's impeach the motherfucker already! --Pete
WE'RE SURPRISED by how many are dismissing the FBI raid on Capitol Hill as permissible law enforcement. The danger is not just the threat of blackmail, but the broader intimidation of Congress by the executive branch. As former House solicitor Charles Tiefer pointed out, "The framers, who were familiar with King George III's disdain for their colonial legislatures, would turn over in their graves." . . .
Now details of the raid suggest the FBI was up to far more than an ordinary search. They were in the office for 18 hours without any legal representation from the Congress and they downloaded all of Rep. Jefferson's computer files.
Let's say, to be kind, that 5% of the material related to bribery or other malfeasance. That means 95% of what the FBI was up to was spying on Congress' constitutional operations and documents that it had no business viewing. Not to mention the possibility that Jefferson's files contain memos outlining Democratic strategy for the next election and, as Tiefer notes, the personal business of "countless innocent constituents."
This is far worse than the Valerie Plame affair. This involves executive branch thuggery designed to intimidate Congress now and perhaps blackmail some of its members later.
Let's impeach the motherfucker already! --Pete
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