Enough!

I just sent the following email to NPRs comment unit. Maybe they'll read it on air!

Hi, Yesterday (Monday, August 27) during Morning Edition, reporting about the resignation of AG Gonzales, the reporter (sorry, forget which), describing the US Attorney firings controversy, said that "Democrats" believe the firings to be politically motivated. The fired attorneys themselves believe the firings to be politically motivated. It is misleading (and politically motivated!) to attribute that point of view only to Democrats! NPR is usually the voice of reason and objectivity - please ensure that it remains that way.

Monique

The next day I got the following response:

Dear Monique,



Thank you for contacting NPR's Morning Edition.

We appreciate your comments concerning an NPR broadcast.

As the primary news source for millions of Americans, NPR takes our responsibility to be accurate very seriously.

We welcome praise, as well as criticism, and your suggested correction will be taken into consideration.

Thank you for listening to Morning Edition, and for your continued support of public broadcasting. For the latest news and information, visit NPR.org.




Sincerely,

Preston
NPR Services
(202)513-3232
www.npr.org



And yesterday I sent the following article with a note to my Minnesota congressfolk and Speaker Pelosi:

Hi Nancy,
Please read this article about whistle-blowers uncovering fraud in Iraq - taxpayer money appropriated to the rebuilding effort is being squandered or pocketed by thieves and not going into the rebuilding effort - and how they are being treated for their fidelity to the American people. These are citizens and heroes! What have we become?!

Associated Press Whistleblowers on Fraud Facing Penalties By DEBORAH HASTINGS 08.24.07, 3:16 PM ET

One after another, the men and women who have stepped forward to report corruption in the massive effort to rebuild Iraq have been vilified, fired and demoted. Or worse. For daring to report illegal arms sales, Navy veteran Donald Vance says he was imprisoned by the American military in a security compound outside Baghdad and subjected to harsh interrogation methods. There were times, huddled on the floor in solitary confinement with that head-banging music blaring dawn to dusk and interrogators yelling the same questions over and over, that Vance began to wish he had just kept his mouth shut. He had thought he was doing a good and noble thing when he started telling the FBI about the guns and the land mines and the rocket-launchers - all of them being sold for cash, no receipts necessary, he said. He told a federal agent the buyers were Iraqi insurgents, American soldiers, State Department workers, and Iraqi embassy and ministry employees. The seller, he claimed, was the Iraqi-owned company he worked for, Shield Group Security Co. "It was a Wal-Mart (nyse: WMT - news - people ) for guns," he says. "It was all illegal and everyone knew it." So Vance says he blew the whistle, supplying photos and documents and other intelligence to an FBI agent in his hometown of Chicago because he didn't know whom to trust in Iraq. For his trouble, he says, he got 97 days in Camp Cropper, an American military prison outside Baghdad that once held Saddam Hussein, and he was classified a security detainee. Also held was colleague Nathan Ertel, who helped Vance gather evidence documenting the sales, according to a federal lawsuit both have filed in Chicago, alleging they were illegally imprisoned and subjected to physical and mental interrogation tactics "reserved for terrorists and so-called enemy combatants." Corruption has long plagued Iraq reconstruction. Hundreds of projects may never be finished, including repairs to the country's oil pipelines and electricity system. Congress gave more than $30 billion to rebuild Iraq, and at least $8.8 billion of it has disappeared, according to a government reconstruction audit. Despite this staggering mess, there are no noble outcomes for those who have blown the whistle, according to a review of such cases by The Associated Press. "If you do it, you will be destroyed," said William Weaver, professor of political science at the University of Texas-El Paso and senior advisor to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. "Reconstruction is so rife with corruption. Sometimes people ask me, `Should I do this?' And my answer is no. If they're married, they'll lose their family. They will lose their jobs. They will lose everything," Weaver said. They have been fired or demoted, shunned by colleagues, and denied government support in whistleblower lawsuits filed against contracting firms. "The only way we can find out what is going on is for someone to come forward and let us know," said Beth Daley of the Project on Government Oversight, an independent, nonprofit group that investigates corruption. "But when they do, the weight of the government comes down on them. The message is, 'Don't blow the whistle or we'll make your life hell.' "It's heartbreaking," Daley said. "There is an even greater need for whistleblowers now. But they are made into public martyrs. It's a disgrace. Their lives get ruined." Bunnatine "Bunny" Greenhouse knows this only too well. As the highest-ranking civilian contracting officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, she testified before a congressional committee in 2005 that she found widespread fraud in multibillion-dollar rebuilding contracts awarded to former Halliburton (nyse: HAL - news - people ) subsidiary KBR (nyse: KBR - news - people ). Soon after, Greenhouse was demoted. She now sits in a tiny cubicle in a different department with very little to do and no decision-making authority, at the end of an otherwise exemplary 20-year career. People she has known for years no longer speak to her. "It's just amazing how we say we want to remove fraud from our government, then we gag people who are just trying to stand up and do the right thing," she says. In her demotion, her supervisors said she was performing poorly. "They just wanted to get rid of me," she says softly. The Army Corps of Engineers denies her claims. "You just don't have happy endings," said Weaver. "She was a wonderful example of a federal employee. They just completely creamed her. In the end, no one followed up, no one cared." But Greenhouse regrets nothing. "I have the courage to say what needs to be said. I paid the price," she says. Then there is Robert Isakson, who filed a whistleblower suit against contractor Custer Battles in 2004, alleging the company - with which he was briefly associated - bilked the U.S. government out of tens of millions of dollars by filing fake invoices and padding other bills for reconstruction work. He and his co-plaintiff, William Baldwin, a former employee fired by the firm, doggedly pursued the suit for two years, gathering evidence on their own and flying overseas to obtain more information from witnesses. Eventually, a federal jury agreed with them and awarded a $10 million judgment against the now-defunct firm, which had denied all wrongdoing. It was the first civil verdict for Iraq reconstruction fraud. But in 2006, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III overturned the jury award. He said Isakson and Baldwin failed to prove that the Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-backed occupier of Iraq for 14 months, was part of the U.S. government. Not a single Iraq whistleblower suit has gone to trial since. "It's a sad, heartbreaking comment on the system," said Isakson, a former FBI agent who owns an international contracting company based in Alabama. "I tried to help the government, and the government didn't seem to care." One way to blow the whistle is to file a "qui tam" lawsuit (taken from the Latin phrase "he who sues for the king, as well as for himself") under the federal False Claims Act. Signed by Abraham Lincoln in response to military contractors selling defective products to the Union Army, the act allows private citizens to sue on the government's behalf. The government has the option to sign on, with all plaintiffs receiving a percentage of monetary damages, which are tripled in these suits. It can be a straightforward and effective way to recoup federal funds lost to fraud. In the past, the Justice Department has joined several such cases and won. They included instances of Medicare and Medicaid overbilling, and padded invoices from domestic contractors. But the government has not joined a single quit tam suit alleging Iraq reconstruction abuse, estimated in the tens of millions. At least a dozen have been filed since 2004. "It taints these cases," said attorney Alan Grayson, who filed the Custer Battles suit and several others like it. "If the government won't sign on, then it can't be a very good case - that's the effect it has on judges." The Justice Department declined comment. Most of the lawsuits are brought by former employees of giant firms. Some plaintiffs have testified before members of Congress, providing examples of fraud they say they witnessed and the retaliation they experienced after speaking up. Julie McBride testified last year that as a "morale, welfare and recreation coordinator" at Camp Fallujah, she saw KBR exaggerate costs by double- and triple-counting the number of soldiers who used recreational facilities. She also said the company took supplies destined for a Super Bowl party for U.S. troops and instead used them to stage a celebration for themselves. "After I voiced my concerns about what I believed to be accounting fraud, Halliburton placed me under guard and kept me in seclusion," she told the committee. "My property was searched, and I was specifically told that I was not allowed to speak to any member of the U.S. military. I remained under guard until I was flown out of the country." Halliburton and KBR denied her testimony. She also has filed a whistleblower suit. The Justice Department has said it would not join the action. But last month, a federal judge refused a motion by KBR to dismiss the lawsuit. Donald Vance, the contractor and Navy veteran detained in Iraq after he blew the whistle on his company's weapons sales, says he has stopped talking to the federal government. Navy Capt. John Fleming, a spokesman for U.S. detention operations in Iraq, confirmed the detentions but said he could provide no further details because of the lawsuit. According to their suit, Vance and Ertel gathered photographs and documents, which Vance fed to Chicago FBI agent Travis Carlisle for six months beginning in October 2005. Carlisle, reached by phone at Chicago's FBI field office, declined comment. An agency spokesman also would not comment. The Iraqi company has since disbanded, according the suit. Vance said things went terribly wrong in April 2006, when he and Ertel were stripped of their security passes and confined to the company compound. Panicking, Vance said, he called the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, where hostage experts got on the phone and told him "you're about to be kidnapped. Lock yourself in a room with all the weapons you can get your hands on.'" The military sent a Special Forces team to rescue them, Vance said, and the two men showed the soldiers where the weapons caches were stored. At the embassy, the men were debriefed and allowed to sleep for a few hours. "I thought I was among friends," Vance said. The men said they were cuffed and hooded and driven to Camp Cropper, where Vance was held for nearly three months and his colleague for a little more than a month. Eventually, their jailers said they were being held as security internees because their employer was suspected of selling weapons to terrorists and insurgents, the lawsuit said. The prisoners said they repeatedly told interrogators to contact Carlisle in Chicago. "One set of interrogators told us that Travis Carlisle doesn't exist. Then some others would say, 'He says he doesn't know who you are,'" Vance said. Released first was Ertel, who has returned to work in Iraq for a different company. Vance said he has never learned why he was held longer. His own interrogations, he said, seemed focused on why he reported his information to someone outside Iraq. And then one day, without explanation, he was released. "They drove me to Baghdad International Airport and dumped me," he said. When he got home, he decided to never call the FBI again. He called a lawyer, instead. "There's an unspoken rule in Baghdad," he said. "Don't snitch on people and don't burn bridges." For doing both, Vance said, he paid with 97 days of his life.

Where and when will it become so outrageous you scream "STOP!! ENOUGH!!" I hope you all get your priorities straight and start putting a stop to the lies and misdeeds of this administration and their emmisaries. Your voice should be the loudest calling for investigations and/or impeachment of those responsible: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Rove, Wolfowitz and the rest of the posse.

Monique

Constitutional Crisis

It's likely you didn't get the chance to watch Bill Moyers recent PBS installment on impeachment, but if you're interested -- and you should be -- you can still see in online. I say "unlikely" because there's just so much to try to keep track of that I wasn't even aware of it -- and I've been all over this issue since they invaded Iraq illegally --- until I was made aware through one of my email alerts from Freepress.org.

The thing that struck a cord for me was when The Nation's John Nichols said he doesn't believe Congressfolk understand the constitution, that it is their DUTY to check abuse of power and that impeachment is the appropriate tool. This must be the case because I think impeachment is such a "duh!" How can we be electing people to office, any office, who don't know the constitution backwards and forwards? But does that mean they must all be lawyers or law experts? What about people like Wellstone? And while we're at it, shouldn't they also be speed-readers so they can get through those 400-page amendments that are thrown in at the 11th hour to understand what it is they are voting on?

And I was infuriated to learn today that Congress is set to provide Bush with more wiretapping authority. Let's do the time warp again. This is from and ACLU email received today:

Bush lied by omission when he called on Congress to "modernize" FISA. In his Saturday radio address, he said, “this important law was written in 1978, and it addressed the technologies of that era. This law is badly out of date — and Congress must act to modernize it.”
What Bush conveniently failed to mention is that FISA has been updated more than 50 times since 1978, including multiple times since Bush was elected president, to keep up with changes in technology and the needs of the intelligence community. What President Bush is proposing is not an update or even a modernization — it’s a complete overhaul that will strip Americans of their rights. The FISA “modernization” bill is actually an administration power grab — expanding the National Security Agency’s access to all of our international telephone and email communications — regardless of any known connection to terrorists. And the plan rubberstamps the illegal warrantless wiretapping program the Bush administration has been engaging in for the past six years.
The president is lying to the people, spinning his proposal as a modest reform to allow spying on calls from one foreigner to another foreigner. But the White House has repeatedly rejected bipartisan legislation to do just that. The administration won’t be satisfied until it’s torn down FISA’s sensible legal safeguards. President Bush wants to monitor every U.S. citizen’s calls and e-mails, without a warrant or any court oversight — whenever you call or e-mail with someone overseas.

I sent my email and made my phone calls. I was pretty worked up but the staff taking the calls were very professional.

28 years later . . . .

About 28 years ago, 1979 give or take, I was living in Pullman, ostensibly attending Wazzu but really doing most of my learning outside the classroom. I was djing a campus radio show - I can't remember what kind of music, probably just a mix of pop. The guy who was on before me played a lot of 60s and 70s folk rock, you know, Fairport Convention, John Lennon, Dan Hicks, Grateful Dead and Joni Mitchell. I had never heard of her. I mean, I recognized some of her hits but I wasn't a Joni zealot -- yet. The guy let me play some of his albums on my show, and within weeks we were swapping music and life stories - stories of our lives up until that point, of course. I was all of 21. The guy became my very good friend and sometime lover George C.

George was from New York and had that great accent that makes a guy sound seasoned, jaded even. He was (is) really smart and thoughtful and interested in what I had to say. We'd spend rainy afternoons reading to ourselves or each other, drinking chamomile tea, listening to Colin Blunstone or John and Yoko's "Double Fantasy" and Joni Mitchell. "For the Roses" echoed my youthful introspection and insecurity and we'd set the record player to repeat so it played over and over and over and over. John Lennon hadn't been killed yet. I hadn't begun to see the inequities and atrocities of the world yet. But just because the scales hadn't fallen from my eyes doesn't mean there wasn't any pain. Of course there was, like when I almost slept with his best friend at what I thought was his approval. That was a year later and George played me like a yo-yo, wanting me one day then repulsed by me the next.

At my summer job that year, working in one of the academic offices, included making copies of assignments and tests on a mimeograph machine. Remember that smell? I don't remember if I had recording capabilities, whether I was able to make copies of George's records or not, but I know I bought several of those albums for my own music collection. Twenty-eight years later, maybe even to the day, I just burned a copy of my new cd of Joni's "For the Roses" for a fellow Joni zealot, whose birthday is today.

Of course, now I can Google "joni mitchell for the roses," upload an image of the album cover, get the lyrics, buy it with a couple clicks and have it shipped to me or to anyone else in the world. Maybe I should send it to George.

Summer Reading

The books by my bed stand or in the back seat of my car or in my hand bag are Andre Codrescu's "New Orleans, Mon Amour," Salinger's "Nine Stories," a compilation of literary journalism (to get a jump on my fall class reading), "Blessed Unrest" by Paul Hawken, Maureen Dowd's "Are Men Necessary" and one my mom just sent me called "Palace Walk," whose author won a Nobel for literature. I tried to start James Joyce's "Ulysses" but couldn't get past the first page.

The one that is most immediately holding my interest and giving me hope is "Blessed Unrest." Hawken is one of the founders of "Smith & Hawken," which started as a "green" company selling "green" goods, but I don't think he owns anymore interest in the company. I'm not sure where they stand now in terms of earth-friendly products. I wouldn't be surprised if S&H had some of their products made by 12-yr-old indentured servants in sweat shops in China. There was a story on mpr this morning about a family who went a year without buying anything that came from China, but I digress. Or do I?

The complete title of the new book is "Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming." It's from a quote by Martha Graham that refers to artists restlessness, I guess: "There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the other." Hawken used it to talk about the one, maybe two, million non-governmental organizations active throughout the world addressing poverty, globalisation, imperialism, peace, climate change and other environmental issues.

But after spending years researching this phenomenon, including creating with my colleagues a global database of its constituent organizations, I have come to these conclusions: this is the largest social movement in all of human history. No one knows its scope, and how it functions is more mysterious than what meets the eye. What does meet the eye is compelling: coherent, organic, self-organized congregations involving tens of millions of people dedicated to change.

I'm only 87 pages into it but so far he's given a history of the environmental movement and explained connections between the social justice and environmental movements, including the influence of Ralph Waldo Emerson on Henry David Thoreau, the influence of Thoreau on Mohandas Gandhi and the influence of Gandhi on Martin Luther King, Jr. I got this book from the library, but I think I'm going to buy several copies to give as gifts to friends who might need inspiration - I know I need an attitude adjustment when it comes to my world view, and I think this book is helping.

If you want to hear/read/watch Paul Hawken talking to Amy Goodman about his book and the "largest movement" no one saw coming, you can do so on her website.

Mexican murals, happy butts, etc.

We are enjoying some fine weather this week, after several weeks of above normal temps, mostly in the 90s. Because it was no longer too hot to be outside on a ladder, I got back to my painting project earlier in the week, but then have spent the rest of the week getting the inside of the house in shape for weekend company.

I'm painting my house a yellowy orange with white trim. Mexican-inspired. Needless to say, here in Minnesota, the land of white houses - or, the most daring, pastel-colored - it will be turning some heads and getting some eyeballs rolling. When I say I, I mean me, by myself. On one of the smaller sides, the one facing the backyard and garden, I had some help with the primer coat by some very generous girlfriends. Pat thought he'd hit the jackpot with an all-girl painting crew. But the next sides will be all me.

On one of the long sides I want to paint a mural, for which I hope to have help from my friend and neighbor who's an artist and whose painting I have hanging on my living room wall. I'm thinking something like this, one of the many colorful murals of the expat town of Ajijic, on Lake Chapala, south of Guadalajara:



Practically the whole town was covered in murals. Here's a few more:





That's me 'n' Pacho in the last one. The smaller pueblo, San Juan Cosola, the retirement home of some of Peter's LA friends, was more a "real" town, just as colorful but not as polished.





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You're probably wondering about the "happy butts" in the title, right? You must go to see the TOTO website. This is the website of a Japanese company that has upgraded the bidet.

El Sonero Australiano

My friend Peter, who is called Pacho in Latin America and who refers to me as his "equis esposa," met me in Mexico City last December where we had a couple good meals, visited the Blue House - Fridha Kahlo's estate - and witnessed some bizarre street, or rather, subway, theatre: A young man, maybe 16 or so, squatted on the floor of a subway car. He was only wearing cut off pants, so was barefooted and shirtless. Although I speak Spanish, I didn't understand his rantings as he laid out a piece of cloth that contained shards of glass. He swept the shards into a small mound with his hands, then threw himself backwards onto the mound. When he rose I saw that his back was slashed with white scars and red cuts. He put out his hand for money as he passed through our car and onto the next, where he repeated the performance.

I still laugh when I remember the look on Peter's face, the pinched look of shock and disgust on the face of a man who has practically seen it all, lived and traveled all over the world, and has had enough notable and weird experiences to fill many books (one of them, I am assured, will mention me). When I met him he was living in the house rented by an old middle school friend of mine in Hermosa Beach, scraping by on his silk screened t-shirt business. During a time while I lived in New York and flew for Pan Am, he lived in East Berlin - this was before the fall of the wall - and ran with a revolutionary crowd and, if I remember correctly, produced a literary or political 'zine. After many years in the states he returned to Oz and got his barrister's license and now works for, among other things, aboriginal land rights.

After several days in Mexico Peter went on to Cuba for a three-week visit. I had originally planned to go along but after hearing a news report about secret service agents waiting in Mexican airports to catch Americans returning from Cuba I thought better of it. Peter had been telling all of us he was going to make a record while in Havana, and damn if that isn't exactly what he did.

To listen to a new voice interpreting some old Cuban standards and read about the famous Cuban band that helped it happen, go to http://www.myspace.com/pacho11.

Friday News Peruse

Last night Tavis Smiley and other non-white journalists moderated a forum for the "Democrat" candidates on PBS, which I guess is the first of it's kind because it's moderated by non-whites and will focus on the issues of non-whites (I swear I saw Condi in the audience, wearing something between a grin and a smirk. To verify, look at the "Aids Epidemic" section, almost at the end. ). This Mike Gravel guy, whom I'm ashamed to say I haven't even heard of, is the Ralph Nadar of the group, keeping it real and letting the crowd know that the candidates are equally guilty for the unequal system under which we live. It was the first time I've listened to the candidates, except for what seeps through on the news, and I was fairly impressed. I think they should all be co-presidents, a round table of conscientious and intelligent minds to run this over-sized country.

Smiley said on Democracy Now yesterday, speaking about the forum: "You know, there are some issues, Amy, that haven't even been raised. I’ve been so disappointed in these previous debates with issues having not even been raised yet . . . Now, if every white brother, if every white sister was like Amy Goodman, I know the questions would be asked that mattered to all of us anyway, but we don’t live in that world, unfortunately. And so, at some time, at some point, we have to take a moment to say that these are issues that matter to everybody in America, but particularly because they disproportionately impact black and brown people, these questions need to be asked." Cornell West also called Amy "my sister."

Have you seen the oddly-creepy-yet-funny YouTube endorsement for Kucinich?

If they are not already cringing from revelations of misdeeds and ludicrous denials, Republicans should be embarrassed by this event, or lack thereof:

"The Republican candidates have blown off Hispanics in Florida," said state Rep. Juan Zapata, a Republican who helped bring the NALEO event to the state.

Read the whole AP article here.

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Listening to NPR on my mp3 player on my morning walk yesterday, I heard in an interview with one of the commanders in Iraq refer to some insurgents as "Al-Qaeda." I thought, Why do they get away with that? Not all insurgents are al-qaeda, in fact, now every terrorist or enemy seems to be referred to as al-qaeda. I'm glad to hear I wasn't the only one to notice, which makes me hopeful that others of you are noticing, too. A Salon.com writer wrote this:

That the Bush administration, and specifically its military commanders, decided to begin using the term "Al Qaeda" to designate "anyone and everyeone we fight against or kill in Iraq" is obvious. All of a sudden, every time one of the top military commanders describes our latest operations or quantifies how many we killed, the enemy is referred to, almost exclusively now, as "Al Qaeda."

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(if you have to squint to read this, click cartoon to enlarge)


Here's a special treat, a NYT Select column you don't have to pay to read:

A Vice President Without Borders, Bordering on Lunacy
By Maureen Dowd The New York Times Sunday 24 June 2007

It's hard to imagine how Dick Cheney could get more dastardly, unless J. K. Rowling has him knock off Harry Potter next month. Harry's cloak of invisibility would be no match for Vice's culture of invisibility. I've always thought Cheney was way out there - the most Voldemort-like official I've run across. But even in my harshest musings about the vice president, I never imagined that he would declare himself not only above the law, not only above the president, but actually his own dark planet - a separate entity from the White House. I guess a man who can wait 14 hours before he lets it dribble out that he shot his friend in the face has no limit on what he thinks he can keep secret. Still, it's quite a leap to go from hiding in a secure, undisclosed location in the capital to hiding in a secure, undisclosed location in the Constitution. Dr. No used to just blow off the public and Congress as he cooked up his shady schemes. Now, in a breathtaking act of arrant arrogance, he's blowing off his own administration. Henry Waxman, the California congressman who looks like an accountant and bites like a pit bull, is making the most of Congress's ability, at long last, to scrutinize Cheney's chicanery. On Thursday, Mr. Waxman revealed that after four years of refusing to cooperate with the government unit that oversees classified documents, the vice president tried to shut down the unit rather than comply with the law ensuring that sensitive data is protected. The National Archives appealed to the Justice Department, but who knows how much justice there is at Justice, now that the White House has so blatantly politicized it? Cheney's office denied doing anything wrong, but Cheney's office is also denying it's an office. Tricky Dick Deuce declared himself exempt from a rule that applies to everyone else in the executive branch, instructing the National Archives that the Office of the Vice President is not an "entity within the executive branch" and therefore is not subject to presidential executive orders. "It's absurd, reflecting his view from the first day he got into office that laws don't apply to him," Representative Waxman told me. "The irony is, he's taking the position that he's not part of the executive branch." Ah, if only that were true. Then maybe W. would be able to close Gitmo, which Vice has insisted he not do. And Condi wouldn't have to worry every night that she'll wake up to find crazy Dick bombing Iran, whispering to W. that they have to do it before that weak sister Hillary takes over. "Your decision to exempt your office from the president's order is problematic because it could place national security secrets at risk," Mr. Waxman, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, wrote to Cheney. Of course, it's doubtful, now that Vice has done so much to put our national security at risk, that he'll suddenly listen to reason. Cheney and Cheney's Cheney, David Addington, his equally belligerent, ideological and shadowy lawyer and chief of staff, have no shame. After claiming executive privilege to withhold the energy task force names and protect Scooter Libby, they now act outraged that Vice should be seen as part of the executive branch. Cheney, they argue, is the president of the Senate, so he's also part of the legislative branch. Vice is casting himself as a constitutional chimera, an extralegal creature with the body of a snake and the head of a sea monster. It's a new level of gall, to avoid accountability by saying you're part of a legislative branch that you've spent six years trying to weaken. But gall is the specialty of Addington, who has done his best to give his boss the powers of a king. He was the main author of the White House memo justifying torture of terrorism suspects, and he helped stonewall the 9/11 commission. He led the fights supporting holding terrorism suspects without access to courts and against giving Congress and environmentalists access to information about the energy industry big shots who secretly advised Cheney on energy policy. Dana Perino, a White House press spokeswoman, had to go out on Friday and defend Cheney's bizarre contention that he is his own government. "This is an interesting constitutional question that legal scholars can debate," she said. I love that Cheney was able to bully Colin Powell, Pentagon generals and George Tenet when drumming up his fake case for war, but when he tried to push around the little guys, the National Archive data collectors - I'm visualizing dedicated "We the People" wonky types with glasses and pocket protectors - they pushed back. Archivists are the new macho heroes of Washington.

Some other juicy editorial rants can be read here and here.

In case you didn't watch the Daily Show clip about Cheney declaring he's not part of the executive branch, please give it look-see, it's hysterical!

And, if you can't get enough and are looking (as I was) for the series of articles the Washington Post did on Darth Cheney, you can go to this page.


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Some good news:

Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest, discusses what he sees as the largest social movement in human history, and why that movement is so invisible to the media - and itself.

I heard him interviewed on Democracy Now a few weeks ago and it reinforces my opinion about why everyone should have equal and unlimited access to the internet, our last (and maybe only) public commons. I believe it should be operated as a public utility, if anyone cares to know. Maybe I should sit on that presidential round table.

And on tap for Amy's show today:

“Another World Is Possible, Another U.S. Is Necessary”: Thousands of Activists Gather in Atlanta for the First-Ever U.S. Social Forum

"The Social Forum is a massive gathering. It’s almost like a big networking meeting. People come to talk about the campaigns they’re undertaking, talk about the situations in their cities around the issues, and to share and to learn from each other, which is the most critical part, and then, something that we're doing that is different from the other Social Forums, actually sitting together and figuring out strategies for how we move our vision for another world forward."

Michael Moore's "Sicko" opens today across the country. Amy had him on a few weeks ago, but if he annoys you you can check out what some of the critics and pundits are saying, like Roger Ebert and Marie Cocco of the Washington Post. I understand even Oprah is endorsing the movie, which is the least she can do, considering she failed to speak out in either the 2000 or 2004 election and can shoulder some responsibility for not getting out the word on BushCo in time to save us from it.

I was a little apprehensive about "Ratatouille" because it's about some French rats, which would just be too easy a plot to further malign my cousins, but the first review I've read, from the San Francisco Chronicle, is favorable, as is the one from New York Times:

“Ratatouille” is a nearly flawless piece of popular art, as well as one of the most persuasive portraits of an artist ever committed to film. It provides the kind of deep, transporting pleasure, at once simple and sophisticated, that movies at their best have always promised.


Finally, for some good boys-will-be-boys fun, check out this jeep that . . . well, I don't want to spoil the surprise!

What the dogs are up to now

Amy Klobuchar, our freshman Senator, is making news lately with her goal to create a national carbon registry, where industry would have to report their emissions. Imagine polluters being held accountable? She was also on Minnesota Public Radio's "Midday" program yesterday and gave some thoughtful and fairly detailed answers to constituents who called or emailed with questions. A few of those callers were mad about the seeming inaction, but she gave a list of some accomplishments that made me a bit more optimistic about this class, especially when it comes to ethics and rules violations.

And Greg Palast sent an update on the U.S. Attorney firings and that Conyer's has collected Palast's evidence that Tim Griffin - Rove's caging co-conspirator - deliberately created a list of voters that would appear to be fraudulent, at least on paper. It's a tangled web that seems to be coming undone little by little. Read "The Tears of a Clone" on his website.

Buster Found!!

Talk about instant karma! Barely minutes after I'd posted the request to the Universe to return my kitty, my cell phone rang and a guy from animal control was on the other end of the line. He said they had Buster. They picked him up on Tues, not a block from my house! They scanned him but nothing registered, that is, it seemed as though he didn't have a microchip. He was scheduled to be put down today! Someone thought to try one more time, which was when they got a blip from the chip.

I have already been to their "shelter" and back. I guess I didn't hear the guy tell me they didn't open until 2:00. Now I'm trying to keep distracted with news of the world - much more dire than a missing kitty.

Buster is AWOL

My cat, Buster, AKA Bubba, has not been home for a week. The last anyone saw of him was the morning of May 31 when he went out for his morning constitutional. He is wearing a microchip that, when scanned, will identify him and our contact information. I have verified that the city's animal control unit and the nearest humane society scan each animal, dead or alive, that is brought to them. Pat and I have plastered the neighborhood with flyers bearing his mug shot and I have stopped dog walkers and joggers whose route takes them through our hood to let them know of my search.

I have received a couple phone calls from neighbors alleging sitings, including one from my next-door-neighbor who should recognize him. She said he ran across the street in front of her about 6 blocks from us, but she described him as "scrawny and messed up." By no stretch would anyone describe Buster as scrawny. I can't believe he is on the loose. I think he is trapped somewhere or dead. This cat is a home-body; he doesn't stray (no pun intended) far from his food dish or his favorite napping nests. The longest he has ever been away from the house, to hunt bunnies or visit some of his homies, is about 5 hours. Pat suggested I offer a reward, but I think being released from his highly annoying pestering to get out, 5 am meowing and constant begging for food would be reward enough. I showed his picture to my yoga teacher, Jeanne, who claims to be a pet psychic, and she said she got the revelation that he is in someone's house. I was glad to hear he is not dead, but I'm starting to get impatient for his release. She suggested I try to communicate with him during dreamtime. I tried that, but so far no Buster. So I'm sending this message out into the Universe: Please send my kitty home!!

Earbud wearin' fool

This morning I joined the throngs of jogging, dork walking, rollerblading, dog-escorting fools with mp3 players dangling from their ears. I bought an mp3/fm radio player yesterday, set my alarm clock and strutted to the morning news bright and early before work today. I was a little self-conscious, like a wanna-be wearing the same new brand of jeans as everyone else, trying to fit in. I don't like to walk or skate alone so I usually go to the gym and read the New Yorker, but it's a shame to be inside during this sublime season. True, I'll fall behind on my subscription, but I can study what other people in the neighborhood are doing with their gardens.

Weeee HA!!!

Gonzales, not Rove, will be next

So, it's probably wishful thinking on my part to think that Rove would be next on the cut list. There's buzz that "Abu" Gonzales (thanks for the nickname, Jacabrooke) will be next to be thrown into the tank, and a list of possible replacements is being assembled, even as the White House continues to stand by him. Bush will try to keep Rove from testifying about the firing scandal, and may have to sacrifice Gonzales in the process.

Republican officials operating at the behest of the White House have begun seeking a possible successor to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whose support among GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill has collapsed, according to party sources familiar with the discussions . . . "Democrats smell blood in the water, and (Gonzales') resignation won't stop them," said a well-connected Republican Senate aide. "And on our side, no one's going to defend him. All we can do is warn Democrats against overreaching."


But I still hold out hope for Rove's downfall.

With the scandal clearly not going away, Sampson then urged others at the department to try to get Cummins not to join other fired prosecutors in testifying on March 6. Cummins had warned officials that if called to Washington, he "would tell the truth about his circumstances" of being fired so Rove's operative, Timothy Griffin, could take over in Little Rock.

Amores

I opened my email this morning to find this note from my friend Pacho, whom I met up with Mexico City recently, and who knows well my great appreciation for this particular actor's talent, as well as my lust for his pulchritude:

"ken n joy were thrilled to recive your amores perroes by the way, talking of which i supose you recognise the guy with me in the foto...... love peter"

Afterwhich followed a photo of my friend with Gael Garcia Bernal at the Habana airport. Since he didn't send it in a format for me to share it with you here, I went online to find other pictures for us to dream over.

This is such a fantastic report from NPR this morning I just decided to copy the whole thing here - I've bolded the good stuff (to listen to it - and hear our commander-in-chief speaking Spanish - go to the NPR website):

By David Greene

Latin America Trip Not Entirely Business as Usual

March 14, 2007 · President Bush is wrapping up a week-long tour of five Latin American countries with his last stop in Mexico. NPR White House Correspondent David Greene has been following the president, and covering the news of the trip. Greene has also been taking note of some of the stranger moments along the way — and he wanted to offer a few observations.

Covering the commander in chief is not always the sexiest job. Except, apparently, when you're in Brazil. That country's president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, said that when it comes to intense, ongoing trade talks, he just wants to find that spot where everyone's satisfied.

"We're moving on solid ground to find a chance for the so-called G-point," Silva said.

That was the English translation for Brazil's leader, who has been known to spice up a news conference. Brazil was President Bush's first stop. And evidently, he was pretty hungry after the trip down.

"So, Mr. President, it has been a great first meeting here," Bush said. "I appreciate the fact that you're about to buy me lunch. I'm kind of hungry. Looking forward to eating some of that good Brazilian food."

But he may not have been quite satisfied with the Brazilian fare, because when he got to Uruguay, and met up with the president there, Mr. Bush still seemed a little peckish.

"I appreciate your willingness to cook some Uruguayan beef," he said. "You've told me all along how good it is, and after we answer a few questions, we're about to find out."

Uruguay, get ready. The White House chef might be calling soon to get some of your food on the menu.

"It turns out Uruguay produces a fantastic blueberry," Mr. Bush said later.

But nothing seemed to excite the president as much as the lettuce in Guatemala. Mr. Bush spent time in a small village, loading crates of lettuce onto a truck. He proclaimed this stop one of the special moments of his entire presidency.

"It was really, really fun," he said.

Maybe the president was day-dreaming about the lettuce when he came to talk to reporters. Surely, he didn't mean to say this.

"The American people would have been incredibly proud of watching our military folks dispense with basic health care needs to people who needed help," Bush said.

Clearly he meant that the U.S. military is offering health care. Because he said if Guatemalans, for example, needed eye glasses, they might be able to turn to U.S. military personnel.

"Or you have a perpetual tooth ache and somebody shows up, in this case in military uniforms, and says, how can I help," he said.

But there were times on this trip when Mr. Bush seemed a little cranky. At another stop, he was talking about Iraq, and a regional conference on how to stabilize it. And he didn't exactly praise the U.S. officials who were there. He said for the next conference, he's sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"In other words, it's a step up in — I'm not dissing anybody, but it's a step up in the pay grade, let's put it that way," he said.

Mr. Bush was also able to turn to his usual punching bag — the press. All week, reporters kept asking him about Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's leader, who was trying to upstage Mr. Bush during his visit. The president refused to answer. He wouldn't once say Chavez's name in public. White House officials kept telling reporters they were making too big a deal out of Chavez, and should be focusing on Mr. Bush's agenda. And at one point Mr. Bush declared: "We welcome a free press — most of the time."

In fact, in a session with reporters in Guatemala, Mr. Bush tried to bring things to an abrupt close. But maybe that's because something else was on his mind.

"This will be your last question, Mr. President, and then we can start thinking about dinner, la cena," Bush said. "Que vamos a comer?"

A television reporter was ready to ask that last question. But she was forced to just stand there. The president of Guatemala, Oscar Berger, took Mr. Bush's comment about dinner to mean he wanted to hear about the menu, right there, in the middle of the press conference.

"Tortillas," Berger said.

"Tortillas? Que bueno," Bush replied.

Even the translator jumped in to help.

"We have tortillas with guacamole and beans," the translator said.

"Con el muerso, hoy," Bush said.

(I think that last bit should have been transcribed, "con almuerzo hoy.")

Throwing Rove to the Sharks?

With the latest revelations about White House involvement in the political firings of those eight U.S. attorneys comes more proof of the authortarian ambitions of the President. We've seen Libby get thrown to the sharks in an effort to protect Rove. Back in January, Jason Leopold and Marc Ash wrote in a Truth Out report:

Thus, Cheney's notes would have read "not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy this Pres. asked to stick his head in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others." The words "this Pres." were crossed out and replaced with "that was," but are still clearly legible in the document.

The reference to "the meat grinder" was understood to be the Washington press corps, Wells said. The "protect one staffer" reference, Wells said, was White House Political Adviser Karl Rove, whose own role in the leak and the attacks on Wilson are well documented.

Furthermore, Cheney, in his directive to McClellan that day in September 2003, wrote that the White House spokesman needed to immediately "call out to key press saying the same thing about Scooter as Karl."

Cheney was pissed about his having to sacrifice Libby for Karl, but went along with it to protect the President. Since the sharks continue to circle, they seem to be willing to throw another piece of food into the drink to forestall their own inevitable demise.

The White House acknowledged on Sunday that presidential adviser Karl Rove served as a conduit for complaints to the Justice Department about federal prosecutors who were later fired for what critics charge were partisan political reasons.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Rove had relayed complaints from Republican officials and others to the Justice Department and the White House counsel's office. She said Rove, the chief White House political operative, specifically recalled passing along complaints about former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias and may have mentioned the grumblings about Iglesias to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

100 Worst Movies

I just went through the list of the 100 worst-reviewed movies of all time on Rotten Tomatoes, what they call the "worst of the worst." I have to believe there are plenty missing from that list, especially since most (if not all) on the list have been released in the past five or so years. "A Walk in the Clouds" is not listed, for example, nor is "Far and Away," which is far and away one of the worst movies I've ever seen. The first time I saw "Con Air" I thought it was at least in the top 10 worst films, but on second viewing I realized it is fabulously over the top campy.

I have been known to enjoy a bad movie. My rock 'n roll lifestyle requires a certain amount of couch time. It's hard for me to define what makes a bad movie good. But I once watched - and got a kick out of - a movie about skate board gangs. You know the kind of 80s movie in which there is at least one guy who dresses in wild pants (think zubbas) and wears a pork pie hat. I can tell you that in our movie collection we have "Big Trouble in Little China," "Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey," "Point Break" and "All The Right Moves" (that one I watched again last weekend, and they are so proud of the really bad 80s music that at the end they role the music credits first, before the acting credits).

So I went through this list of movies to see if any of my favorite bad movies were listed. Like just about any Keanu Reeves movies, or "Robin Hood," the Kevin Costner version (Alan Rickman as the Sheriff of Notingham is not to be missed!). They were not. But there were a few listed that I have seen at least partially. They were indeed bad, and not good bad.

"A Night at the Roxbury" I know I have seen some of. "Kangaroo Jack" I think I saw on t.v. or maybe on a plane. I know I saw "I Know What You Did Last Summer," which is not on this list, but I can't remember if I saw the sequel, "I Still Know . . . ." Freddie Prinze, Jr. is in that one, and he appears in at least four on this "worst" list, to prove that looks and provenance only get you so far.

My girlfriend, Kate, rented Madonna's version of "Swept Away" for us to watch together on a sleepover night, which surprised me because she has such great taste. It was pretty bad but we laughed a lot. And I think I rented "Mod Squad" with Giovanni Rabisi, who kills me as Ralph on "My Name is Earl." It was bad in a formulatic kind of way, but not one of the worst I've subjected myself to.

I didn't recognize many of the others, and the ones I did you couldn't have paid me to see, like "Baby Geniuses" and "Baby Geniuses 2" and "Norbit" and just about any of the horror flicks listed. So, yes, the "worst of the worst" list covers some pretty bad movies, in my opinion.

On another note, we got through about an hour of "The Departed" last night before bedtime. I am still pissed off that "Goodfellas" didn't win best picture, and since then I put no stock in the Oscar picks. But I was happy for Scorsese to finally get the recognition he deserves. Still, I can't believe the Martin Sheen or Markie Mark characters haven't figured out that Matt Damon is the rat - he was the only one to use his cell phone during that video stakeout, and Sheen was standing right there! These guys call themselves detectives? And how in the hell did Leo get so close to Nicholson to become one of his right-hand guys in less than a year? Defies logic. I was just starting to appreciate Matt Damon's acting chops but his performance here is nothing special. We'll finish watching it tonight; I can't wait to see how it gets wrapped up.

Big Balls in Cowtown

Deb and Paul, Pat and I had a drink at the VFW bar and then drove to another bar where we were told we could get some food. The four of us had just seen Ricky Skaggs in concert at Grand Casino in Mille Lacs. Ricky's band is the tightest in blue grass, and they gave a high energy performance, from which we were still buzzing with booze and conversation.

The second spot was in Isle, a few miles off, aptly called Buzzy's. Inside the door stood three or four giant men, at least 6 feet 4 inches and 300 pounds each. Bulging arms hanging from beer barrel chest and shoulders. We headed toward some seats at the bar when I heard one of them say something about shots to the bartender. I asked what kind of shots, thinking we'd be included in the round. The guy turned around and says something like hey, how's it going, but didn't offer any info about the shots. I started to walk away when he grabbed my arm and said "hey, my buddy's got the biggest pair of balls, would you like to see them?"

I tried to keep my expression as bland as possible, trying not to smile. My companions were standing around me, us and the giants. The guy says to his friend, "show her your balls." He must have remembered his manners at this point and turned to Pat to ask him if it was OK for his friend to show me his balls, to which Pat said something to the effect that I was free to see them if I wanted to. Deb, who wasn't planning to engage in conversation with these guys, mumbled something like, "I've gotta see this."

His friend then reached into his jeans and rummaged around, kind of like the scene in "Zoolander" when Owen Wilson prepares to remove his underwear without removing his pants. I thought this was all for show and figured he expected us to stop him. What he was doing was wrapping his balls around his penis such that when he pulled them out, his penis would stay hidden, shy guy that he was.

Keep in mind, this guy was so tall that his crotch was almost eye level to me, and when he pulled out those balls, I had a pretty up-close and personal vantage point. They were huge, at least the size of tennis balls. As if this presentation were not enough, he proceeded to lick his middle finger and wipe it on one of those taught sacks.

We waited until we were out of range to double over laughing. We asked the bartender if this was standard entertainment, and he said "more often than we'd like." Just when you think you've seen it all . . . .

Scooter Review

Here's some world reaction, in a audio clip from NPR program "The World"'s Lisa Mullins.

And the New York Times reported today about the buzz about a possible pardon, including how Wall Street is handling the news:

Some legal experts believe that any appeals will take so long that the issue of a pardon may outlast the 2008 campaign, minimizing the political risks to Republicans and President Bush.

Meanwhile, the online futures exchange Intrade.com has offered Libby pardon futures.

“There’s good interest in the market already,” John Delaney, the Intrade chief executive, said by telephone from Dublin. He said traders so far had collectively predicted a 23 percent chance of a pardon by the end of 2007 and 63 percent by the end of President Bush’s term.

(Once you go to the Intrade link, look toward the right under "Scooter Libby Pardon Contract."

Wonder

It's ironic that conservatives, including the Bush administration, have so demonized and convinced the public to distrust the mainstream media, especially the media elites like the New York Times and CBS, while at the same time successfully using them to disseminate their war-mongering, hegemonic message.

Say "No" to New Coal Plants

This is from a letter sent to the Pioneer Press yesterday that I'm hoping will be published this week:

Coal-burning power plants are the biggest producers of greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Yet, federal and state governments are funding new coal gasification plants, such as the Mesaba Energy Project in Taconite, Minn. The project proposes to use “clean” coal technology that will have lower CO2 emissions than traditional plants, but there are no good examples to prove that assertion. Pawlenty has agreed to have the state help fund Mesaba, increasing not just property taxes but also our contribution of greenhouse gases and our exposure to airborne and water pollutants - mercury, sulfur dioxide, soot particles, etc. Water used to cool the plants will eventually be dumped into the Mississippi, from which many of us get our drinking water, and increased particulate matter in the air will exacerbate respiratory conditions. “Clean” coal is antiquated technology gussied up with dubious promises.

God was right

I think god was right when she sent Michele "Fool for Christ " Bachmann to Washington. Her election to the U.S. House got her out of Minnesota and into a crowded room where she can't do as much damage.

A sad, sad day

“A Total Rollback Of Everything This Country Has Stood For”: Sen. Patrick Leahy Blasts Congressional Approval of Detainee Bill

AMY GOODMAN: You gave an example, Senator Leahy, when you talked about what would happen here. And, I mean, even the fact that “habeas corpus” is in Latin, I think, distances people. They don’t quite understand what this is about.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: “Bring the body.”

AMY GOODMAN: You gave a very -- sorry?

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: “Bring the body.”

AMY GOODMAN: You gave a very graphic example. You said, “Imagine you’re a law-abiding lawful permanent resident. In your spare time you do charitable fundraising for international relief agencies that lend a hand in disasters.” Take that story from there, the example you used.

SEN. PATRICK LEAHY: You send money. You don’t care which particular religious group or civic group it is. They’re doing humanitarian work. You send the money. It turns out that one of them is giving money to various Islamic causes that the United States is concerned about. They come to your house. Maybe somebody has called into one of these anonymous tipster lines, saying, “You know, this Amy Goodman. I’m somewhat worried about her, simply because she’s going -- and I think I’ve seen some Muslim-looking people coming to her house.” They come in there, and they say, “We want to talk to you.” They bring you downtown. You’re a legal alien, legal resident here. And you say, “Well, look, I’ve got my rights. I’d like to talk to a lawyer.” They say, “No, no. You don’t have any rights.” “Well, then I’m not going to talk to you.” “Well, then now we’re twice as concerned about you. We’re going to spirit you down to Guantanamo, and we’ll get back to in a few years.” And, I mean, that could actually happen under this. And these are not far-fetched ideas, as the professor knows. He’s seen similar things.

And with that, and I would love to continue this conversation, unfortunately I’ve got to go back to my day job, back to the judiciary. I think this is going to go down as one of those black marks in the Congress. You know, I wasn’t there at the time, but virtually everybody voted for the Tonkin Gulf resolution. When I came to the Senate, you couldn’t find anybody there who thought that was a good idea. They knew it was a terrible mistake. You had members of congress supported the internment of the Japanese Americans during World War II. Everybody knows that was a terrible mistake now. That day will come when everybody will look at this and say, “What were we thinking?”

AMY GOODMAN: Patrick Leahy, thanks very much for joining us. We only have about 30 seconds. Michael Ratner, president of Center for Constitutional Rights, your final comment on this.

MICHAEL RATNER: This was really, as the senator said, probably the worst piece of legislation I’ve seen in my 40-year career as a lawyer. The idea, and even the example Senator Leahy gave, of someone being picked up, you don’t need anything. The President can decide tomorrow that you, Amy, or me, or particularly a non-citizen, can be picked up, put in jail forever, essentially, and if you're a non-citizen in Guantanamo or anywhere else in the world, you never get a chance to go to court to test your detention. It’s an incredible thing, and any senator who voted for this, in my view, is essentially guilty, guilty, guilty of undermining basic fundamental rights and may well be guilty of war crimes, as well.

do you want lots and lots of pie or would you like a kidney infection

Stevens' Net Neutrality Poll Down The Tubes Jason Lee Miller Staff Writer Published: 2006-09-20 Ted Stevens thinks we're stupid. Trying to put this Net Neutrality debate to rest in the Senate, Stevens (R-AK) distributed the results of a "bipartisan" poll indicating that the vast majority of Americans would rather watch more TV than have a neutral Internet. Neither Stevens nor the pollsters mention that Verizon paid $60,000 for the poll, or that the questions were phrased using classic push-poll tactics. In fact, the poll didn't seem to even be about the "series of tubes" that comprises "an internet." The poll questions centered around cable TV choice and didn't mention anything related to Net Neutrality until the end of the poll. There was mention of a Consumer Bill of Rights, which would guarantee full access to legal Internet content, matching language already in Stevens' telecom bill. Opponents have said the "bill of rights" doesn't provide any meaningful protection of Net Neutrality. The majority of respondents agreed that the bill of rights was important, but it was last on the list of important issues when compared to making sure nobody dies because communications networks don't work, or ensuring that poor kids get an education, or getting more TV channels, or making sure the blind and deaf can "participate more fully in the modern information economy." But the real kickers came at the end of the poll. When the 800 respondents were asked if they'd heard of Net Neutrality (this is the first mention of the concept in the poll), about 7 percent had heard of it. Does this mean that Net Neutrality is a non-issue because America doesn't care? Or does it mean that the pollsters at Glover Park Group and Public Opinion Strategies conducted a biased, telecom-funded poll, asking people that know nothing about the issue how they felt about it? The last question tops it off: Which of the following two items do you think is the most important to you: Delivering the benefits of new TV and video choice so consumers will see increased competition and lower prices for cable TV OR Enhancing Internet neutrality by barring high speed internet providers from offering specialized services like faster speed and increased security for a fee Well, since you put it that way…more TV sounds a lot better than slow Internet and bad security. Turns out 73 percent of respondents agreed. "The rest of the questionnaire is similarly structured along the lines of 'do you want lots and lots of pie or would you like a kidney infection'," writes Matt Stoller. "What's particularly amazing is that 17 percent of the respondents chose the kidney infection," answers Tim Karr at SaveTheInternet.com, where 1.3 million people have heard of Net Neutrality, compared to Stevens' 800 people who missed part of a Seinfeld rerun to answer the poll. A rough translation of the questions: 1. Do you like TV? 2. Would you like to watch more TV? 3. Which is better: cheap TV or expensive TV? 4. What if your TV breaks? Would you like someone to fix it? 5. Do you like good TV or bad TV? 6. Put these in order from most important to least important: a.) helping people stay alive b.) more TV c.) healing the blind d.) slow Internet, less TV, and killing people Stevens and company interpreted the results to mean that "onerous Net Neutrality regulations" would interfere with the nation's TV watching and therefore should be put to rest. This poll is the next in a string of recent dirty tricks attempted by bridge-to-nowhere-but-a-series-of-tubes Stevens. The octogenarian telecom-funded senator in charge of rewriting telecommunication laws recently tried to sneak a vote while opposition was away for the August recess, and secretly put a hold on a bill that would make federal funding more transparent. But it's not all so bleak. Rumor has it that Stevens plans to retire soon. But then, who will protect our TV?

Life After Net Neutrality

In his article Replaced by a Chimp: Life After Net Neutrality, in The Nation online edition this week, Jeffrey Chester argues that, if Network Neutrality protections are not included in Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens’ telecom bill, which may yet be put to a vote by the senate this year, not only will the public interest of equal access to information, goods and services be undermined, but the network will become little more than another conduit for mainstream, low-brow “infotainment.”

The global media landscape has become fragmented at the same time that media power, that is the power of media outlets, has become consolidated. In 1983, 50 companies controlled 90% of the media. Today it's 10 companies. That equal access to the data housed and shared on the Internet is at risk directly threatens the democratic value of the World Wide Web. But by allowing corporate interests to control that access, through tiered pricing, we further erode the principles of equal access to information for all. Chester writes, “The Stevens bill not only proposes to scuttle network neutrality rules but also undermines key policies designed to insure community influence over how broadband networks serve the public interest . . .” Not surprisingly, the Bush administration and much of the GOP are arguing for less government control, not more. But if the services of telecom companies aren’t regulated, it’s likely that the greater proportion of information and messages crisscrossing the network would do what autocratic government media do: support the administration’s goals, which these days lean toward suppression of information rather than disseminating it. The telecom companies are spending piles of money, mostly heaped on those in the ruling party, to defeat Net Neutrality. This point is clearly stated in the article: “Stevens's talking points are actually being scripted--and paid for--by phone industry lobbyists.” What do the telecoms have to gain? One can surmise it would be mountains of money. And what would the ruling party gain from telecoms having more control over levels of access? For the administration, it’s a consistent message, which seems to include the persistent admonition not to change our way of life, to keep everything status quo. The status quo doesn’t appear to include protecting the current rights and protections afforded by the constitution, no, it seems to mean preserving the right of comfortable complacency. Remember, after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we were encouraged to go back to our daily lives, get back to the mall. “Such dumbing-down of broadband is more likely in the absence of network neutrality rules. Expect media conglomerates and advertisers to flood our broadband networks with chimps selling beer and ketchup-colored clowns pushing fast food.” To this end, global mass media is more efficient than local, community-produced media. And it’s no coincidence that the telecoms lobbying for the authority to set their own usage fees are the same cabal that supplied the administration’s security agency with the phone and email records of their customers earlier this year.

The representatives who are reaping the cash bonuses are hardly of one mind (or even one party). Republicans may not all have the same motivations as the administration, but they are acting from the same playbook: they want to continue as the ruling party. “The GOP--including the White House--is still pushing hard to kill network neutrality. For example, at a hearing last week before Stevens's committee on his renomination for another term, FCC chair Kevin Martin came out in defense of the big cable and phone companies. The FCC chair said he thought it was fine for Verizon and others to begin charging extra fees to those content providers that want to be placed on faster Internet lanes.”

It’s clear that at least one outcome of media consolidation is global, social hegemony, assurance of complicity of the public at large in the objective of the ruling class. The message that society receives from the Power’s That Be comes in many forms: news, advertisement, “infotainment,” etc, and the media corporatocracy controls most outlets. It’s a tragedy that the Internet, perhaps the last public commons, may be incorporated into that entity (no pun intended). Hugo Chavez described what many believe is the sinister objective at the UN on Wednesday: “The government of the United States doesn't want peace. It wants to exploit its system of exploitation, of pillage, of hegemony through war.”

Blood from a turnip

Amazing, an insurance company selling ersatz malpractice insurance to CIA agents to cover their asses if they are sued for torturing detainees. Guess who ultimately picks up the tab for these policies?

Worried CIA Officers Buy Legal Insurance

Plans Fund Defense In Anti-Terror Cases

By R. Jeffrey Smith

Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 11, 2006; Page A01

CIA counterterrorism officers have signed up in growing numbers for a government-reimbursed, private insurance plan that would pay their civil judgments and legal expenses if they are sued or charged with criminal wrongdoing, according to current and former intelligence officials and others with knowledge of the program. Read on . . .

Dismembered

Hahahahahaaah! I wish that weren't funny, or that it wasn't an issue in current events that a cartoonist was compelled to characterize. I wish a lot of things, as we all do these days, of course.

Looks like the talk about Iraq being a staging ground for military forays (doesn't 'forays' make it sound fun?) into Iran, etc, wasn't all that cynical. After all, we had to pull out of Saudi Arabia after the attacks of 9/11/01, which was what bin Ladin (and possibly the House of Saud) was aiming for, and if we're gonna shine the light of Democracy across the Middle East, we need a base of operations.

If you haven't yet picked up the Guardian muckraker Greg Palast's book, "Armed Madhouse," you must. I was up later than I should have been reading and even laughing - thankfully, or I would have been crying. He's a bit of a ranter and kinda hard to follow in some of his narratives, but he sure has uncovered a tangled web, and man-oh-man is our government up to some shit. They can't even agree on what their mission is in the Middle East; it's unfortunate they agree we oughta be there. With the "madhouse" chock full of megalomaniacs, it makes sense they would all have their own ideas about how to run the world.

Rob Brezsny says:

Philosopher William James proposed that if our culture ever hoped to
shed the deeply ingrained habit of going to war, we'd have to create a
moral equivalent. It's not enough to preach the value of peace, he said.
We have to find other ways to channel our aggressive instincts in order to
accomplish what war does, like stimulate political unity and build civic
virtue.

Astrology provides a complementary perspective. Each of us has the
warrior energy of the planet Mars in our psychological make-up. We can't
simply repress it, but must find a positive way to express it. How you
might go about this project?