Author: Nag

Over the Rainbow, Under the Radar

We all know how items in the news often escape the corporate media machines. Here are a few juicy tidbits we may have missed:

* Mounting Opposition to the Patriot Act by Business Groups Even business is realizing that inner workings,“Confidential files, … as well as our trade secrets and other proprietary information – can too easily be obtained and disseminated under investigative powers expanded by the Patriot Act,” The Bush regime’s power grabbing is finally setting off alarm bells in the business world. Link to full story

* Rumsfeld’s $22.663 Billion Space Defense Budget in Chaos. Think Rummy’s gross incompetence is limited to his pathetic war planning? Think again. Link to full story

(more below)
*Will Proposed Intelligence Powers for the Pentagon Result in Spying on US Citizens? Not only will they be able to gather intelligence, build a dossier of informants, and spy on any one of us, but they won’t have to disclose a word of it. Link to full story

* Is Congress Planning to Sell Our National Parks to the Energy Industry? Apparently, this proposal is being bandied about by Richard Pombo R-Ca to coerce lawmakers to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling. So land that belongs to every US citizen is being held for ransome. Link to full story

Miers, Dubya & Bin Laden Determined to Strike

[From the diaries by susanhu w minor edits.]

This fairly mundane picture of aide to the president Miers poring over papers with George W Bush was circulated yesterday, after Miers’ nomination for the SCOTUS.

Turns out the date on this photo is Aug 6, 2001. In Crawford, Texas. That’s right.

Does that date sound familiar? Indeed, that was the date, a little over a month before 9/11, that President Bush was briefed on the now-famous “PDB” that declared that Osama Bin Laden was “determined” to attack the U.S. homeland, perhaps with hijacked planes. But does that mean that Miers had anything to do with that briefing?

As it turns out, yes, according to Tuesday’s Los Angeles Times [which] observes that early in the Bush presidency “Miers assumed such an insider role that in 2001 it was she who handed Bush the crucial ‘presidential daily briefing’ hinting at terrorist plots against America just a month before the Sept. 11 attacks.” Editor & Publisher

[From the diaries by susanhu w minor edits.]

This fairly mundane picture of aide to the president Miers poring over papers with George W Bush was circulated yesterday, after Miers’ nomination for the SCOTUS.

Turns out the date on this photo is Aug 6, 2001. In Crawford, Texas. That’s right.

Does that date sound familiar? Indeed, that was the date, a little over a month before 9/11, that President Bush was briefed on the now-famous “PDB” that declared that Osama Bin Laden was “determined” to attack the U.S. homeland, perhaps with hijacked planes. But does that mean that Miers had anything to do with that briefing?

As it turns out, yes, according to Tuesday’s Los Angeles Times [which] observes that early in the Bush presidency “Miers assumed such an insider role that in 2001 it was she who handed Bush the crucial ‘presidential daily briefing’ hinting at terrorist plots against America just a month before the Sept. 11 attacks.” Editor & Publisher

This has little to do with anything, really. It’s just another chance to bring up Bush’s pre-9/11 failures. Katrina put a glaring spotlight on the real George W Bush: disconnected and on vacation. Bush was asleep at the wheel then just as he was during Katrina. People may be more willing to see the pattern now. It’s been our mantra for weeks, incompetence and corruption.

It is incredible, but conservatives and wingers are using the word “cronyism” even more than we are. They see this as a sign of weakness in Bush. Bush’s base isn’t breaking up, no big earthquakes, but tremors for sure.

Tom DeLay is up to two indictments. Now rumours are swirling about indictments in the CIA/Plame investigation. (Rove? Libby? …Cheney?)I wonder what will happen next? Where will the next chink in the unassailable neo-con armour fall out? Instead of getting my blood pressure up, I’m going to get myself a six-pack and a lawn chair and watch the show.

Update: I almost forgot another added bonus to this historical picture: we can bring up the name Bin Laden. The guy that went from being wanted “dead or alive” to a “cold case file”.

Judge Releases Abu Ghraib Photos: Updated

AP is reporting that U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein today ruled that the Abu Ghraib photos be released.

NEW YORK – Saying the United States “does not surrender to blackmail,” a judge ruled Thursday that pictures of detainee abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison must be released over government claims that they could damage America’s image.

U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ordered the release of certain pictures in a 50-page decision that said terrorists in Iraq and
Afghanistan have proven they “do not need pretexts for their barbarism.”

Hallelujia!!!!
So this means that the judge thinks the Government’s argument that release of these photos will be too inflamatory is, well, bull. They will certainly be inflamatory politically.

The judge said: “Our nation does not surrender to blackmail, and fear of blackmail is not a legally sufficient argument to prevent us from performing a statutory command. Indeed, the freedoms that we champion are as important to our success in Iraq and Afghanistan as the guns and missiles with which our troops are armed.”

Yay Judge Hellerstein.

I just hope they get the darn things released before Rummy’s boys can shoot back.

Update: Thanks to Susanhu for this additional information. The ACLU is positively exhuberant over this victory:

“Today’s historic ruling is a step toward ensuring that our government’s leaders are held accountable for the abuse and torture that happened on their watch,”said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. “The American public has a right to know what happened in American detention centers, and how our leaders let it occur.”

[…]

Today’s ruling underscored the importance of public scrutiny and debate about the torture scandal. “The fight to extend freedom has never been easy, and we are once again challenged, in Iraq and Afghanistan, by terrorists who engage in violence to intimidate our will and force us to retreat. Our struggle to prevail must be without sacrificing the transparency and accountability of government and military officials,” Judge Hellerstein said.

[…]

Amrit Singh, an ACLU attorney who argued the case before the court, added: “These images are of critical public interest because they shed light on the scope and severity of the abuse and on what was authorized or permitted by high-ranking U.S. officials. The government cannot continue to hide the truth about what happened and who was ultimately responsible.”

The Center for Constitutional Rights joined with the ACLU and others to bring the FOIA Litigation against the Department of Defense. Their website had this:

The court’s decision came after four days of argument and many briefs submitted by the parties on a number of key questions regarding the treatment of detainees in Guantánamo and Iraq, including the use of interrogation techniques in the war on terror that constitute torture under the U.S. Constitution and international law, President Bush’s authorization of the creation of CIA detention centers around the world and the use of unlawful interrogation techniques at those centers, and the CIA’s actions in hiding prisoners in detention facilities as “ghost detainees.”

The Court, addressing the CIA’s claim that national security prevented the agency from admitting or denying the existence of documents discussing authorized interrogation methods and the creation of secret foreign detention centers, stated that the discussion of these issues in the press indicated that the purpose of the CIA’s refusal was not to protect intelligence activities but rather to conceal “possible violations of the law in the treatment of prisoners” or other embarrassing acts of the agency. As a result, the Court ruled that that:

• The CIA must admit to the existence of a memorandum from the Department of Justice to the CIA interpreting the Convention Against Torture and either produce it or explain its reasons for withholding the document; and

• The DOD must produce hundreds of additional photographs and videos depicting the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Emphasis mine.

Wow, this is even bigger than I thought. The CIA must admit that the torture memorandum exists? And produce it? This is truely a happy day.

ACLU Statement

Center for Constitutional Rights Statement

Sheehan …like a lioness

“The president doesn’t have the credibility to face the mother of the U.S. soldier who was killed in a war that many in the U.S. say was a fatal mistake,” columnist Muthana Tabaqchali wrote in the Iraqi daily Azzaman, which the U.S. Embassy considers hostile to the American mission in Iraq.

“Sheehan was a lady who stood like a lioness with her lofty staff in front of the president,” he wrote. “She collected all her strength and motherhood to face the strongest president in the world to tell him enough!”

Today George W Bush is at the DOD, flanked by Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Meyers. He is loudly, and with considerable attitude, defending his war on terror. Listening to his voice it is easy to hear the arrogance and miss the message. Cindy Sheehan’s message, given in that soft gentle voice, has echoed here in America with with countless Americans. Now it seems as if Cindy’s voice is also being heard, and discussed, by Iraqis.
Khalda Khalaf is a woman who truely empathizes with Cindy’s pain. Khalda’s son, Majid Khalid Kabi, also lost his life in 2004, just like Spc. Casey Sheehan. Majid was fighting against the US troops.

“Of course, she’s a mother and just like our people are hurting, she’s hurting too,” says Khalaf, a 52-year-old resident of Sadr City, the east Baghdad slum where Sheehan’s son died in April 2004. “Just as she wants America out of Iraq, so do we.”

Now, sattelite television gives Iraqis regular updates on Cindy Sheehan. Many ordinary Iraqis are aware of Cindy and express solidarity with her message. They also share her frustrations with Bush.

“I sympathize with her and her cause, but I don’t think that the American administration will be affected by such a thing,” said Hassan Hashim Mahmoud, a 32-year-old government employee in Najaf.

Not all citizens agree with the sentiments Cindy expresses and there is ongoing debate. Some think of her as a hero, others view her as a political pawn whose purpose is to throw mud at Bush. Because of news coverage by all the major Arabic channels, most are aware of the upcoming march in Washington. Ironic that there is such a dearth of information in Iraq, while the media giants in the US are recently so glaringly quiet about what’s about to happen in our nation’s capitol.

Hopefully, come Saturday, what happens in D.C. won’t stay in D.C. no matter how hard the US media tries to ignore it. Cindy’s message has and will resonate with millions of Americans. I have no doubt that Cindy Sheehan will be the lioness heard ’round the world.

Full article at the LA Times, free registration required.

EPA making toxic mud pies [UPDATED]

The EPA gave mayor Ray Nagin very good news orally. Happy happy joy. They are going to open areas in NO where the waters have subsided, as soon as the EPA can produce doctored results that say everything is wonderful… no toxic pollutants here.

This morning on CNN, Miles O’Brien interviewed a cameraman who suited up and joined a hazmat team and went into an area where some, but not all, water had receeded. Their report to Miles was horrific. Miles said that what they were telling him “…Flies in the face of what mayor Ray Nagin has been saying.” …about reopening the areas of the city where the water has receeded. No amount of happy talk from the EPA can change the fact that the mud itself is toxic. The local man who was part of that team remarked that perhaps Mayor Nagin should rethink his plan.

Kind of reminds me of the press conference on Thursday, Sept 1 with Chertoff and others. Here’s Chertoff’s description of evacuation efforts:

Now, the second issue is evacuation. What we do is, when we rescue people, or when we encounter people, we direct them to various evacuation sites around the city. Those sites have water and food and other necessities, and the idea is to have people stage there until we get vehicles to take them out.

Alongside Skeletor on the split screen were evacuees chanting “help! help!” and an angry black man pointing to dead bodies in the street speaking truth to the monumental lies.

The lies and cover ups continue. The whole area is toxic; neighborhoods, industrial zones, marshes… toxic. The list of contaminants is incredible: PCB’s, household chemicals, raw sewage, gasoline, oil. The problem is not confided to New Orleans… all up and down the effected GulfCoast it’s the same story.

The poisonous stew is being pumped out of New Orleans and into the lake and the Mississippi, making life hazardous for those downstream.

Where does it all eventually go? The Gulf. There are horrified fisheries experts making dire warnings about how much damage heavy metals and other pollutants can have on shellfish and other fisheries in the Gulf. Maybe as far away as Florida. For the first time ever, the Society for Enviromental Journalists has released a statement against the official stonewalling of the EPA.

The EPA is just as rife with cronyism and corruption and incompetence as FEMA. This is going to be the all time worst economic and environmental disaster for the US. What is the government doing about it? Are they gathering the best and brightest minds to try to come up with a plan? Nah. They’re covering it up. They’re trying to save what they can politically and throw the rest into the toxic sludge, hoping no one will notice.

Next on my agenda: Gee, they lied about relief, lied about pollution, but I’m sure they’re going to be straight with the American people about the body counts. Um-hmmmm. And I’m the Queen of France.

[UPDATE by Nag at 4pm, 9/14/05: more evidence of EPA coverup]

Hugh Kauffman, a Senior Policy Analyst at the Environmental Protection Agency who specializes in emergency response, told Morning Sedition hosts Marc Maron and Mark Riley that a government cover-up is taking place right now, as we speak, to hide information about the dangerous toxins in the flood waters of the Gulf Coast region.

Kauffman, a 35-year EPA veteran who has served in Republican and Democratic administrations, says that the Bush administration is preventing the EPA from releasing information that oil and chemical companies are mandated by law to provide.

Kauffman says the Bush administration’s cover-up is endangering residents and relief workers throughout the Gulf Coast region, who are being exposed to dangerous levels of toxins, some of which have been proven to cause cancer and birth defects.

Here’s a portion of the transcript:

MARC: Is the government being honest with the people about the safety of the air and water in New Orleans right now?

HUGH: No, they’re not. All of the oil and chemical companies that own storage tanks, facilities in that area that were flooded or impacted are required to publish with our regional office in Dallas instantly—whenever there’s a release; whenever there’s a breakage from pipelines, from storage tanks, refineries. The regional office, under orders, is not releasing that information to the public, and the Society of Environmental Journalists has sued EPA and the Federal Government to try and get that information released, so the public will see the full magnitude of how much toxic material they are being exposed to in that region of the country.

MARC: So, Hugh Kauffman, Senior Policy Analyst from the EPA, you’re telling me they have that information. The EPA office in Louisiana has that information, and you are absolutely sure that that information is horrendous, but they are keeping it under lock and key, because they don’t want the people to know the truth of what’s really going on down there on a toxic level?

HUGH: That’s correct. And that’s why the Society of Environmental Journalists are suing under the Freedom of Information act to try and get that information.

Just like after 9/11. Here’s the link from Buzzflash

The Iraqification of Katrina

[From the diaries by susanhu. Great reporting. It’s a distillation of, well, sickening information.]


or

How I learned to stop worrying and love the profiteers.

You remember how well we did with bags of cash and shady deals during the early days of the Iraq construction?

Well, hold on to your wallet, because we are about to witness the same style of reconstruction in the wake of Katrina.

CORPORATE POWER

The Disaster Profiteers

First came the phone calls — 6,300 by last Wednesday to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers alone, from contractors offering “‘cure-all’ technologies and services” for the Gulf Coast reconstruction effort. Then came the cash: more than $500 million a day is being spent already, much of it on Iraq-style no-bid contracts, since normal federal contracting rules were “largely suspended” in the days following Katrina’s landfall. The White House mindset, according to Time magazine: “Spend freely, and worry about the tab and the consequences later. ‘Nothing can salve the wounds like money,'” one official said. It’s the same mindset that has governed the reconstruction efforts in Iraq, which have lined the pockets of politically connected corporate interests while leaving Iraqis with an infrastructure less capable than it was under Saddam Hussein. “This is very painful,” says Danielle Brian, director of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit government spending watchdog group. “You are likely to see the equivalent of war profiteering — disaster profiteering.”

How does that grab you?


MORE BELOW:
How about this: you know that 51.8 Billion that Congress just approved? Remember who gets to distribute that money? Yeah, that’s right, FEMA. You know, the agency that is rife with incompetence and political appointees. That’s comforting.

Bush took some time out from his posturing and posing on the Gulf Coast to sign a special order regarding reconstruction contractors:

BEYOND CONTRACTS — LOW WAGES, BIG PAYOUTS:
Big contracts aren’t the only post-Katrina kickbacks being served up in Washington. For years congressional conservatives “doggedly tried — and repeatedly failed — to repeal a Depression-era law (the Davis-Bacon Act) that requires federal contractors to pay workers the prevailing wages in their communities.” Following Hurricane Katrina, it took President Bush all of eleven days to banish the requirement, “at least temporarily, with the stroke of his pen.” Congress also passed a major White House-backed change to federal contracting regulations. The new rules allow holders of government-issued credit cards “to spend up to $250,000 on Katrina-related contracts and purchases, without requiring them to seek competitive bids. … Before Thursday, only purchases of up to $2,500 in normal circumstances or $15,000 in emergencies were exempt.”

The fact that they are using Iraq as a model of reconstruction just floored me. That means that they think they had some measure of success. Well, Iraq is not reconstructed, it’s a bloody mess, but a lot of money changed hands and lined pockets and fortunes were made and THAT’s the part they consider worth repeating. The Bush Administration is about to plunder the treasury …again.

This level of incompetence and corruption has become the hallmark of an administration that has sold out to corporate cronyism and ‘privatization’. Will they get away with it again?

[all emphasis mine]
Much more to read and explore at the Progress Report

Katrinalist.net on Wiki Up & Running

Photo by Totem Graphics Inc.

Open for data entry again at Wiki’s page for KatrinaList
Go to page, then look on right side of page under “People Finder Volunteer”, click on the second item down,”People Finder Assignments” to get to the actual lists to claim. Don’t know if they changed the instructions for the process, I just got their email and flew over here to post it for all you folks who have gotten involved. Happy Data Entry!!!
Oh I almost forgot… for those of you who do not know what this is. Wiki is collecting the many of thousands of posts of storm victims… both lost and found, and entering all info into a huge central database so victim’s and their families and friends can have one central place to search. I can tell you, it’s eyestraining and heartwrenching at times but very cathartic, just knowing that your efforts could be the difference. You only do what you can.

READYYYYYYYYYY……… TYPE!!!

Katrina: Net Volunteers Needed Now

Want to help? There are many many (many) people who are looking for loved ones. There are multiple places where these people are posting the information. There is now a massive Wiki effort to consolidate the information into one massive database for people to search. They need volunteers to take chunks of data and enter information into a web form. It’s super easy, all it takes is your time. There is a lot to do, so let’s get together and get it done.

People Finder Volunteer – Katrina Help Wiki

Just click on the link… all instructions are right there. All you have to do is register, pick a chunk of information, grab a coffee and get typing.

Stuff You May Have Missed

Katrina has filled our our collective consciousness for 5 days now. It just may be time to take a deep breath… nah, that was a gasp, try again. Now take a long slow deep breath… that’s better. Let’s check on some stories we may have missed in the last day (or so.)

*George Tenet refusing to roll over and be Bush’s (pet) Scapegoat
Sorry, I absolutely could not resist.
This WaTimes editorial tells how Inspector General John Helgersonjust delivered ” A scathing report…” to Congress pointing bony fingers at Tenet and others at the CIA for Al Queda and intelligence failures leading up to 9/11. Thing is, one George promised not to blab and other George promised not to blame. Then they got pinned (Presidential Medal of Freedom). Tenet is fighting back… and he’s blabbing. Other George is going to have a very bad time of it, I’m afraid. (giggle)

*OK, this one’s a bona fide absolute rumour. But I bet it’s true:US Offered USD 75 Million to Iraqi Sunnis for Signature under Constitution
See? Told ‘ya … it’s probably true. The entire news release is one long sentence, but follow the link and you’ll see where the rumour comes from.

*The insurgents are back in Fallujah.
Yeah, this is really bad news. They’re attacking US and Iraqi forces, but may be missing command structure. Not good.

*Rove can’t resist sneaking around Camp Casey
Bradblog has the story, and the pics.

Ah well, sigh, it’s been a horrific week. I just saw on the tube that now they’re turning away buses in Houston. So, you know, I gotta go. Hope you were able to take more than one deep breath.

The Squeeze is on

August has not been good to Republicans. Poll numbers are lower than dirt, protestors are dogging Bush like fleas on an old dog and that flushing sound you hear is Iraq’s Constitution being trashed by sectarian fighting. Iran, however, loves the fact that another Islamic state is being born.
So what do you suppose Congress will be up to upon their return from summer vacations? How about this for starters:

Critical Votes Loom For Hill Republicans
Party to Set Cuts to Entitlement Spending

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 28, 2005; A04

Lawmakers are drafting proposals that would cut billions of dollars from the growth of Medicaid, slice into student loans just as students return to college, pare back food stamps and trim farm price supports in the midst of a midwestern drought.

[emphasis mine]
Sigh… here we go again.

How bad will it be this time?

The raft of bills, due out of 16 committees in the House and Senate by Sept. 16, will present the Republican Party its toughest test of fiscal austerity in nearly a decade. For years, the party has embraced the rhetoric of small government while overseeing legislation that has helped boost federal spending by more than a third since the GOP took control of Congress 10 years ago. Now, Republican lawmakers will be faced with the tough votes needed to slow that growth and enact the first cuts in entitlement spending since 1997.

The impact of the bills will be broad:

· The energy committees will produce legislation to open Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling to secure $2.4 billion in royalties and other payments.

· The Senate Finance Committee is trying to find as much as $10 billion in savings from Medicaid, trimming anticipated growth by as much as 13 percent at a time when states such as Tennessee and Missouri are throwing tens of thousands of people off their Medicaid rosters.

· The Senate agriculture committee will try to trim farm price supports by $2.4 billion through 2010 while cutting an additional $600 million from food stamps.

· Senate aides are crafting legislation to cut $7 billion from the federal student loan program.

· The House and Senate education and labor committees are expected to draft legislation to raise the premiums corporations pay to the troubled Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. from $16 to $31 per worker, a move that would improve the government’s balance sheet by $6.5 billion.

The bills are mandated by a budget resolution that passed this spring, after acrimonious debate. The budget blueprint mandated $35 billion in entitlement savings over five years, along with $70 billion in tax cuts over that period. By parliamentary rules, the resolution ensures that both the spending and tax cut packages cannot be filibustered, and thus can pass the Senate with a simple majority of 51 votes.

[emphasis mine]

Sounds like it’s about as bad as it gets. What are we going to do about this disgusting bald faced grab of our tax revenues to be distributed among the wealthy and the corporate thieves? Do we have to light a fire under our Democratic leaders? Maybe, just maybe, they will light those fires themselves.
“It’s been off the radar screen, but I can assure you it will be front and center very soon,” said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.).“
[….]
“Democrats intend to make the Republicans squirm, especially since the sixth tax cut in five years will be moving simultaneously.”
[….]

“These [spending] cuts are deeply misguided and are only needed to make a partial down payment on the deep tax cuts coming,” said Thomas S. Kahn, Democratic staff director of the House Budget Committee.“

We need to tie all the pain these cuts will cause to tax cuts for the wealthy and Corporate give-aways. Their bad behavior is causing real pain to good people, as well as doing damage to our social structure, so let’s hold Republicans’ feet to the fire on this until they scream in political pain.
WaPost article via Buzzflash.com.
crossposted at Dkos