Author: Books Alive

This is going to be a treat! First time for me to see C-Span covering a Senate-House conference committee meeting. Starts about 4:30pm.

Give ’em hell, Harry offers the Senate Leader a chance to promote his own petitions. 100,000 responded to his request for signatures supporting the Supplemental funding bill. He’s just sent his thanks, saying the response helped secure that 48-50 vote.

Reid’s short video on the US Attorney scandel [sic – I’m so fatigued that I couldn’t spell it right until I saw it later on Digby] is pretty animated.

Late night browsing turns up an anonymous column in today’s Washington Post. This reports on the person’s experience with having been served one of the National Security letters.

He no longer has to report to the FBI on any client’s information, but he isn’t free to admit that he received the letter. In fact, he must lie to friends and family about the situation, cannot admit the circumstances that he has gone to the ACLU and filed a suit for relief.

This would be a dreadful way to be constrained!

Note: Found this at Democratic Underground, but the link is to the Post.

Update [2007-3-24 14:32:33 by Books Alive]:

Written statement of House testimony by Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office is on their website. Out of the 140,000 national security letters sent from 2003 to 2006, only one conviction and 153 criminal proceedings (federal grand juries, search warrant, indictments and trials) resulted.

Sen Leahy’s statement includes his objections and reasons for voting against the reauthorization of the Patriot Act. Inspector General Fine’s written testimony is at the Judiciary Committee website.

CNN is advertising that Sen Obama will be on Larry King on Monday, 9pm.

Secondly, just saw on Balkinization that Jeremy Scahill is publishing a new book on Blackwater, the private security firm that I’m prone to post about.

If you think a 4 minute video is about right for a teaser, here’s one at The Nation.

I just finished reading his new book. As usual for Chris, this book is provocative and eye-opening. Certain words and passages ring out with an eerie familiarity, for example, “transformation.” Awhile back, there was a spate of discussion that progressive politics ought to be “transformative.” Chris’ book lets us know right-wing fundamentalists incorporate this as a theme and a slogan.

A paragraph on p 81 moves from Karen McCarthy Brown’s explanation of fundamentalists and their world view, to his own “They create a parallel reality, one that allows them to escape from the reality-based world into a world of their own creation.”  Sound familiar to you?

In a later chapter devoted to one especially powerful church leader, Hedges writes about how viewers of the church broadcasts are led to donate well beyond their means. “The triviality of American popular culture, its emptiness and gossip, accelerates this destruction of critical thought” begins one section that delves into capsule stories of believers.

The chapter, “The War on Truth,” describes how creationists market their world view. A series of Creation Museums are being erected in Kentucky, Arkansas, Texas, California, Tennessee and Florida to teach the tenets of Intelligent Design to eager visitors. School texts are slanted, and even the Grand Canyon bookstore stocks one book that adheres to the creationists’ warped beliefs.

National Park employees have had to battle to keep out such pseudo-science; PEER published a release last December on the Grand Canyon controversy.

A new chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State has been formed where I live. We are taking on the task of assisting a school district under “siege” by fundamentalists who may be determined to take over the school board. Chris Hedges would approve of our intent to counter such right-wing encroaching attempts, I’m certain. This promises to be a long-term effort for many communities.

The book is advertised here on BT, making it a snap to purchase. There is much food for thought in it!

According to today’s Salt Lake Tribune, last Friday, Rep Jim Matheson of Utah introduced the bill that will result in an elected Representative from the District of Columbia, and, for balance, a new, at-large fourth Representative from Utah. The new tool, OpenCongress.org, covers his bills up to March 5, so it is not listed there. I’d expect that the Utah paper is correct.

Dueling authorities hold opposite opinions that the bill is within the constitution.

Update [2007-3-13 10:55:11 by Books Alive]: H.R. 1433 District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2007 was voted out by 24-5 this morning. Chairman Waxman’s hearing was webcast and lasted just short of two hours. Both sides confirm that they have consulted the parliamentarian. The sponsors agree this legislation would give the vote to 600,000 residents of the District of Columbia by statute. As Del Norton says, it “returns” the vote held by residents when the district was part of Maryland and Virginia.

Media Matters has a succinct story today with contact information for the major broadcast networks who are not covering the stories of the US Attorney Generals who have been forced out of their positions in several states. (H/T to my local 10th Illinois Dems website for the link.) This is a substantial story that ought to be given more airtime, so let’s see what we can do with our letters and e-mails.

e Pluribus Media continues to track the story, which they label “The Gonzales Seven.” In this Feb 28 entry, we may read their research on each case. Both articles ought to give us ideas for letters to the networks, etc. If hearings in the Senate take place as we expect, that ought to bubble up to attract the notice, I’d hope!

[Corrected title 3-4-07]

The Sun-Times reporter traveling with Barack blogs frequently. This column shows where he’s getting help in the House of Representatives. It might also give a hint as to who might be in the “gang” that BooMan was speaking about on Monday. The gang that a candidate would take to leadership with him.

Today’s LA Times’ article by Dan Morain has stats on individual and corporate donors to political campaigns and candidates nationwide. Very interesting cameos of how some of the families made their fortunes, and to whom they are inclined to support.

The Houston Chronicle online edition has a story today on the number of American contractors killed and wounded since they “flowed” into Iraq after the fall of Saddam. The data was obtained by FOIA requests to the US Labor Department, which keeps the statistics. The number of contractors killed up through the end of 2006 is 769 and the number wounded or injured seriously enough to miss 4 or more days of work is 3,367. The article reports there are as many as 120,000 American contractors, employees of Halliburton/KBR, Blackwater and Wackenhut. I believe there may be more companies, as I’ve seen other names in past years, organizations providing translators, for example.

This number is double the 388 killed as currently shown for contractors on the iCasualties.org website. This list is clearly marked “Partial,” and it even includes all nationalities.

Wounded contractors are cared for by US medics, as we learned from the National Guardsman who spoke to our group this week.

On February 7, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky introduced HR 897, concerning contracting oversight:

HR 897 Sponsor: Janice Schakowsky (D-IL-9)
“To require the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, Secretary of the Interior, and the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development to provide to Congress copies and descriptions of contracts and task orders in excess of $5,000,000 for work to be performed in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Introduced: February 7, 2007

Cosponsors: 27 Democrats, see THOMAS

Summary: H.R. 897, also known as the “Iraq and Afghanistan Contractor Sunshine Act,” seeks to increase oversight of reconstruction contracts issued for Iraq projects by laying out detailed instructions for monitoring these contracts and reporting back to Congress.

This is one of 35 House and 16 Senate bills listed in reverse chrono order having to do with the Iraq war! If interested in reading the entire list, go to MoveCongress.org.