At least it is in 2004. Just take a look outside - see all those flags? Ronald Reagan has died and for the first time in our country's history, we'll watch the parades and the fireworks and we'll remember our founding fathers while the Stars and Stripes mourns the loss of one of its former elected leaders, and more. I think our founding fathers would be mourning too, if they could join us this Sunday. I think if they saw those flags flying half-mast this Sunday, our Independence Day, they could only assume the existence of a national tragedy of immense proportions. They would be right of course - the events and politics of this past 4 years are something to be mourned.
-Matt
Wednesday, June 30, 2004
Tuesday, June 29, 2004
More Proof of the Marathon Fad
From a news story on how rice yeilds will be affected by global warming.
"If you think about it, world records for the marathon occur at cooler temperatures because it takes much more energy to maintain yourself when running at high temperatures. A similar phenomenon occurs with plants," he said.
"If you think about it, world records for the marathon occur at cooler temperatures because it takes much more energy to maintain yourself when running at high temperatures. A similar phenomenon occurs with plants," he said.
Monday, June 28, 2004
United States Code, Title 36, Chapter 10
United States Code, Title 36, Chapter 10: "The flag shall be flown at half-staff thirty days from the death of the President or a former President"
President Bush ordered the flag lowered for 11 days after Sept. 11, 2001
30 days for an old president. 11 days for 3000 Americans. Fair enough?
President Bush ordered the flag lowered for 11 days after Sept. 11, 2001
30 days for an old president. 11 days for 3000 Americans. Fair enough?
Watching Them Squirm...
It’s fun watching the right wing squirm over the success of Michael Moore’s latest opus, Fahrenheit 9/11. Bushies who have actually taken the time and effort to see the film find themselves both surprised and disappointed at what they learn about their President.
Granted, Moore hates Bush but this film is his fairest and best to date and still does not do Bush any favors. The real fun comes in watching those who will defend Bush at all cost (and in the face of all logic) try to come up with any excuse to try and explain the various missteps of their exalted leader.
But all the rationalizations in the world cannot obscure the sad fact that Bush is a monumental screwup. Even his father, who – as both a former President and director of the Central Intelligence Agency knows a thing or two about war and intelligence – can’t bring himself to publicly endorse his son’s invasion of Iraq.
One keyboard commando’s laughable claim is that Dubya sat dumbfounded like a dazed lamb when he first learned of the attacks because the Secret Service wouldn’t let him leave the classroom where he sat before students at a Florida school.
Unlike too many of these instant Internet experts, I’ve actually worked in a Presidential administration and know a thing or two about how the Secret Service operates and this latest pseudo-excuse fails the smell test. Agents did not have to seal the room because it was sealed before Bush ever set foot on the premises. Agents have the power to forcibly remove the President from a location only if there is a clearly-identified danger and the news that a plane had struck one of the World Trade Center Towers in New York did not rate an “alpha” alert under Secret Service procedures. Until a situation reaches alpha status, the Secret Service continues to answer to the President and his Chief of Staff. Andrew Card gave Bush the news and then watched helplessly as the President of the United States lapsed into a vegative state.
Dubya sat with a dazed look on his face for one reason and one alone: He did not know what to do. White House aides in the back of the room tried desperately to get his attention and urge him to do something decisive but he was so dumb-struck he either did not see them or could not interpret their anxious signals.
Now that Bush’s inaction is out there on the big screen for all to see, the White House apologists, as they have had to do so often, scramble to come up with a plausible excuse for yet another FUBAR. That’s been standard operating procedure at 1600 Pennsylvania since January 20, 2001 and it will remain so until January 20, 2005, or January 20, 2009, depending on the decision of either the voters or the U.S. Supreme Court come November.
Jun 27, 2004, 17:44
I'm Next, Damnit!
You see, they were standing in line at Tom's Coney Cafe in Flint, Michigan, when the argument started over who was next. So both pulled guns.
By the time the argument ended a Detroit man lay dead on the floor, the victim of a gunshot wound. Seems somebody else thought they were next in line.
In all, bullets struck four -- including an innocent bystander who dove for cover under a table but got hit in the leg.
Jun 22, 2004, 11:28
Granted, Moore hates Bush but this film is his fairest and best to date and still does not do Bush any favors. The real fun comes in watching those who will defend Bush at all cost (and in the face of all logic) try to come up with any excuse to try and explain the various missteps of their exalted leader.
But all the rationalizations in the world cannot obscure the sad fact that Bush is a monumental screwup. Even his father, who – as both a former President and director of the Central Intelligence Agency knows a thing or two about war and intelligence – can’t bring himself to publicly endorse his son’s invasion of Iraq.
One keyboard commando’s laughable claim is that Dubya sat dumbfounded like a dazed lamb when he first learned of the attacks because the Secret Service wouldn’t let him leave the classroom where he sat before students at a Florida school.
Unlike too many of these instant Internet experts, I’ve actually worked in a Presidential administration and know a thing or two about how the Secret Service operates and this latest pseudo-excuse fails the smell test. Agents did not have to seal the room because it was sealed before Bush ever set foot on the premises. Agents have the power to forcibly remove the President from a location only if there is a clearly-identified danger and the news that a plane had struck one of the World Trade Center Towers in New York did not rate an “alpha” alert under Secret Service procedures. Until a situation reaches alpha status, the Secret Service continues to answer to the President and his Chief of Staff. Andrew Card gave Bush the news and then watched helplessly as the President of the United States lapsed into a vegative state.
Dubya sat with a dazed look on his face for one reason and one alone: He did not know what to do. White House aides in the back of the room tried desperately to get his attention and urge him to do something decisive but he was so dumb-struck he either did not see them or could not interpret their anxious signals.
Now that Bush’s inaction is out there on the big screen for all to see, the White House apologists, as they have had to do so often, scramble to come up with a plausible excuse for yet another FUBAR. That’s been standard operating procedure at 1600 Pennsylvania since January 20, 2001 and it will remain so until January 20, 2005, or January 20, 2009, depending on the decision of either the voters or the U.S. Supreme Court come November.
Jun 27, 2004, 17:44
I'm Next, Damnit!
You see, they were standing in line at Tom's Coney Cafe in Flint, Michigan, when the argument started over who was next. So both pulled guns.
By the time the argument ended a Detroit man lay dead on the floor, the victim of a gunshot wound. Seems somebody else thought they were next in line.
In all, bullets struck four -- including an innocent bystander who dove for cover under a table but got hit in the leg.
Jun 22, 2004, 11:28
Sunday, June 27, 2004
Welcome to LocalCurrency.org
I missed the conference at Bard, just across the river! A friend from the Mac User Group (www.netstep.net/thug) sent me the link.
But, follow the link to the E.F Schumacher site! Ah, his ideas live.
Published in 1950, this man, economic advisor to the National Coal Board of Britain "Small is Beautiful: economics as if people mattered" is a book of stunning simplicity and impact. I found it a few decades ago, I think, not a clue how or where. I had no idea that these brilliant ideas lived, and are thriving.
But, follow the link to the E.F Schumacher site! Ah, his ideas live.
Published in 1950, this man, economic advisor to the National Coal Board of Britain "Small is Beautiful: economics as if people mattered" is a book of stunning simplicity and impact. I found it a few decades ago, I think, not a clue how or where. I had no idea that these brilliant ideas lived, and are thriving.
Saturday, June 26, 2004
Fuck you George Bush! :-)
From the "he's-right-I-feel-better-already" dept.
"Fuck yourself," said the man who is a heartbeat from the presidency. Cheney, quoted in the washington post
"Fuck yourself," said the man who is a heartbeat from the presidency. Cheney, quoted in the washington post
Thursday, June 24, 2004
Riddick: Provocative political commentary
Steven Spielberg’s pleasurable new picaresque, The Terminal, is an easy movie to praise. The hagiography of Third World man-child Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks) — smart enough to single handedly build a Napoleonic fountain in JFK and learn near perfect English in just days, too stupid to know that one cannot walk through glass or speak into a pager — doesn’t have political subtext so much as hypertext.
[More...]
[More...]
US Losing Terror War
Easy enough for "anonymous" to say but...
CIA Officer's Book Contends US Losing Terror War
VOA News
24 Jun 2004, 15:34 UTC
A new book by a senior Central Intelligence Agency officer says the United States is losing the war on terrorism and that the invasion of Iraq only strengthened the position of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
The author of the book Imperial Hubris is identified as "anonymous" and is still serving in the CIA's counter-terrorism department. He is described as running the hunt for Osama bin Laden from 1996 to 1999.
His book contends the war on terror is failing because U.S. leaders do not understand the real enemy is a worldwide Islamic insurgency, not just al-Qaida.
The book says Saddam Hussein posed no threat to the United States. It also says the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which is home to holy sites for Islam, inadvertently backed Osama bin Laden's claims the United States is at war against Muslims.
CIA Officer's Book Contends US Losing Terror War
VOA News
24 Jun 2004, 15:34 UTC
A new book by a senior Central Intelligence Agency officer says the United States is losing the war on terrorism and that the invasion of Iraq only strengthened the position of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
The author of the book Imperial Hubris is identified as "anonymous" and is still serving in the CIA's counter-terrorism department. He is described as running the hunt for Osama bin Laden from 1996 to 1999.
His book contends the war on terror is failing because U.S. leaders do not understand the real enemy is a worldwide Islamic insurgency, not just al-Qaida.
The book says Saddam Hussein posed no threat to the United States. It also says the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which is home to holy sites for Islam, inadvertently backed Osama bin Laden's claims the United States is at war against Muslims.
Wednesday, June 23, 2004
Hitler and Stalin have been "reborn as new persons."
More than a dozen lawmakers attended a congressional reception this year honoring the Rev. Sun Myung Moon in which Moon declared himself the Messiah and said his teachings have helped Hitler and Stalin be "reborn as new persons."
CapHillBlue? Nope, the Washington Post.
Moon has claimed to have spoken in "the spirit world" with all deceased U.S. presidents, Jesus, Moses, Mohammed and others. At the March 23 event, he said: "The founders of five great religions and many other leaders in the spirit world, including even Communist leaders such as Marx and Lenin . . . and dictators such as Hitler and Stalin, have found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new persons."
Details of the ceremony -- first reported by Salon.com writer John Gorenfeld -- have prompted several lawmakers to say they were misled or duped by organizers. Their complaints prompted a Moon-affiliated Web site to remove a video of the "Crown of Peace" ceremony two days ago, but other Web sites have preserved details and photos.
Campaign finance reform: a modest proposal
The sources of contributions are hidden from the candidate. It would be against the law to breech that confidentiality. (I heard that Chile does that now.)
You can give money, you can collect money, you might even tell the candidate you contributed, but you could NOT provide proof. A clearinghouse would hide individual amounts and dates. (I don't know how well it has worked in Chile, or if there are unanticipated consequences.)
You can give money, you can collect money, you might even tell the candidate you contributed, but you could NOT provide proof. A clearinghouse would hide individual amounts and dates. (I don't know how well it has worked in Chile, or if there are unanticipated consequences.)
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
Nation Evenly Divided on President, Kerry
I can only see this as a victory for Bush. If the election is close his boys will steal it again.
Bush Loses Advantage in War on Terrorism
Nation Evenly Divided on President, Kerry
Public anxiety over mounting casualties in Iraq and doubts about long-term consequences of the war continue to rise and have helped to erase President Bush's once-formidable advantage over Sen. John F. Kerry concerning who is best able to deal with terrorist threats, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
[more...]
Bush Loses Advantage in War on Terrorism
Nation Evenly Divided on President, Kerry
Public anxiety over mounting casualties in Iraq and doubts about long-term consequences of the war continue to rise and have helped to erase President Bush's once-formidable advantage over Sen. John F. Kerry concerning who is best able to deal with terrorist threats, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
[more...]
Monday, June 21, 2004
Who's Bright Idea Was This?
I remember seeing a film about this woman. At the time, watching the experiment, I was both intrigued and revolted. Intrigued because it was a powerful statement and lesson in the roots of racism. Revolted because she knowingly used powerful social pressures for a scientific study on people without their consent. (This, in real science settings is a big "no no".) The glaring omission in this article is that the author did not mention that Ms. Elliott would switch the "good eye color" on day two of her experiment. This article makes it seem like she would choose an eye color and that was that without teaching or explaining anything to the students afterwards.
Ken
_________________
By LINDA SEEBACH
Jun 21, 2004, 06:58
One of the more sadistic exercises practiced by some operators who drive the diversity machine goes by the name "Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes." You may have heard of it, because an elementary-school teacher in Iowa first perpetrated it on her fourth-graders in 1968 and it quickly became notorious.
Jane Elliott divided her students into two groups based on their eye color. The blue-eyed children were forced to wear collars symbolizing inferiority, and were constantly humiliated by the brown-eyed children, egged on by their teacher.
Elliott once told an interviewer, "It was just horrifying how quickly they became what I told them they were." She described how one of the blue-eyed girls changed from a "brilliant, self-confident carefree, excited little girl to a frightened, timid, uncertain little almost-person."
You would think that any normal person would realize that she had just done an evil thing. But not Elliott. She repeated the abuse with subsequent classes, and finally turned it into a fully commercial enterprise, hawking workshops, lectures, books and videos. You can find her on the Web, but I won't give you the address because I think she is a disgrace.
Here's how her Web site advertises the workshop: "This is a one-day seminar in which participants will be exposed to an exercise in discrimination based on eye color. Blue-eyed participants will be identified as the inferior group and all the negative stereotypes ordinarily applied to people of color and women by white people and men will be applied to them. Those people having green or hazel eyes will be designated inferior or superior as the instructor sees fit."
One of the many companies that sell her videos describes the results this way: "In just a few hours, we watch grown professionals become distracted and despondent, stumbling over the simplest commands."
Why am I telling you about this now? Because an extremely and righteously angry woman wrote me recently that her son, a ninth-grader at Peak to Peak Charter School in Lafayette, Colo., had been subjected to this abusive treatment in his English literature class, which was studying "Othello."
"The teacher made my son wear a blue card on a string around his neck. He was required to smile ingratiatingly, bow his head, and beg people to tie his shoes for him," she wrote. "The teacher wore a yellow card, that of the superior race, and she petted and made much of the other yellow card students."
More [...]
© Copyright 2004 by Capitol Hill Blue
Ken
_________________
By LINDA SEEBACH
Jun 21, 2004, 06:58
One of the more sadistic exercises practiced by some operators who drive the diversity machine goes by the name "Brown Eyes, Blue Eyes." You may have heard of it, because an elementary-school teacher in Iowa first perpetrated it on her fourth-graders in 1968 and it quickly became notorious.
Jane Elliott divided her students into two groups based on their eye color. The blue-eyed children were forced to wear collars symbolizing inferiority, and were constantly humiliated by the brown-eyed children, egged on by their teacher.
Elliott once told an interviewer, "It was just horrifying how quickly they became what I told them they were." She described how one of the blue-eyed girls changed from a "brilliant, self-confident carefree, excited little girl to a frightened, timid, uncertain little almost-person."
You would think that any normal person would realize that she had just done an evil thing. But not Elliott. She repeated the abuse with subsequent classes, and finally turned it into a fully commercial enterprise, hawking workshops, lectures, books and videos. You can find her on the Web, but I won't give you the address because I think she is a disgrace.
Here's how her Web site advertises the workshop: "This is a one-day seminar in which participants will be exposed to an exercise in discrimination based on eye color. Blue-eyed participants will be identified as the inferior group and all the negative stereotypes ordinarily applied to people of color and women by white people and men will be applied to them. Those people having green or hazel eyes will be designated inferior or superior as the instructor sees fit."
One of the many companies that sell her videos describes the results this way: "In just a few hours, we watch grown professionals become distracted and despondent, stumbling over the simplest commands."
Why am I telling you about this now? Because an extremely and righteously angry woman wrote me recently that her son, a ninth-grader at Peak to Peak Charter School in Lafayette, Colo., had been subjected to this abusive treatment in his English literature class, which was studying "Othello."
"The teacher made my son wear a blue card on a string around his neck. He was required to smile ingratiatingly, bow his head, and beg people to tie his shoes for him," she wrote. "The teacher wore a yellow card, that of the superior race, and she petted and made much of the other yellow card students."
More [...]
© Copyright 2004 by Capitol Hill Blue
Saturday, June 19, 2004
As Handover Nears, U.S. Mistakes Loom Large (washingtonpost.com)
A simple measure of some failures. A good accounting of what could have been. BUT if we restrict ourselves to only what is, I suggest a very good picture can (and will) be painted.
When a mountain is climbed, how much attention is paid to the extra time it took, the failures and losses.
When a mountain is climbed, how much attention is paid to the extra time it took, the failures and losses.
Friday, June 18, 2004
Bush Losing Support Among Republicans
By-the-by, say bye bye to ol' Bush and co come November. Just don't let their going down in flames completely destroy the Republican Party.
This from, yes you guessed it, CapHillBlue
"Bob Barr, a staunch conservative and former Republican Congressman from Georgia has teamed up with the American Civil Liberties Union to fight the USA Patriot Act, which he says infringes on rights of Americans."
"Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey says the Justice Department under Bush has “become the biggest threat to personal liberty in the country.”
"Pat Buchanan, the firebrand conservative who ran against both Bushes in GOP primaries, joins the Bush bashers with his new book, Where the Right Went Wrong. Buchanan’s book, scheduled to be released just before the GOP convention this summer, blasts Bush for “igniting a war of civilizations.”
"The Bush campaign took another hit this week when the family of late, and popular, President Ronald Reagan demanded Reagan’s image be removed from an conservative group’s ad endorsing Bush. The family has also told the Bush campaign it does not want the former President’s images and words used in any official campaign ads."
George Meagher of Charleston, South Carolina, is a veteran and lifelong Republican who, by his own admission, put his “heart and soul” into working for George W. Bush in 2000. Meagher organized veterans and once proudly displayed pictures of him and his wife with Bush.
No more. Meagher may vote Democratic this fall because he’s fed up with what he sees as lies and deceit by President Bush and the Republican leadership in Washington.
“I should be all choked up at not supporting the President,” says Meagher. “But when I think about the many Americans killed in a war, with what we’ve done to Iraq and with what we’ve done to our own country, I can’t see any other way. Look at it. We’re already $2 trillion in debt. Something has to be done.”
John Scarnado, a registered Republican and sales manager from Austin, Tex., voted for Bush in 2000 but now says he will vote for John Kerry if the Massachusetts Senator wins the Democratic nomination.
Scarnado cites Iraq and Vice President Dick Cheney’s ties to scandal-scarred Halliburton as two reasons he can’t vote for Bush again.
“It’s just too much old boy politics with the Bush administration,” Scarnado says. “I don’t like that.”
Neither does Londonderry, New Hampshire farmer Mike Cross, who voted Republican in 2000 and who says he doesn’t care much for John Kerry but has “had enough of George W. Bush.”
Pollsters agree, saying Bush’s declining approval ratings – now well below 50 percent – match the last three incumbent Presidents to lose their re-election bids -- Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush.
“Bush is in dangerous territory now,” says GOP pollster John Zogby.
This from, yes you guessed it, CapHillBlue
"Bob Barr, a staunch conservative and former Republican Congressman from Georgia has teamed up with the American Civil Liberties Union to fight the USA Patriot Act, which he says infringes on rights of Americans."
"Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey says the Justice Department under Bush has “become the biggest threat to personal liberty in the country.”
"Pat Buchanan, the firebrand conservative who ran against both Bushes in GOP primaries, joins the Bush bashers with his new book, Where the Right Went Wrong. Buchanan’s book, scheduled to be released just before the GOP convention this summer, blasts Bush for “igniting a war of civilizations.”
"The Bush campaign took another hit this week when the family of late, and popular, President Ronald Reagan demanded Reagan’s image be removed from an conservative group’s ad endorsing Bush. The family has also told the Bush campaign it does not want the former President’s images and words used in any official campaign ads."
George Meagher of Charleston, South Carolina, is a veteran and lifelong Republican who, by his own admission, put his “heart and soul” into working for George W. Bush in 2000. Meagher organized veterans and once proudly displayed pictures of him and his wife with Bush.
No more. Meagher may vote Democratic this fall because he’s fed up with what he sees as lies and deceit by President Bush and the Republican leadership in Washington.
“I should be all choked up at not supporting the President,” says Meagher. “But when I think about the many Americans killed in a war, with what we’ve done to Iraq and with what we’ve done to our own country, I can’t see any other way. Look at it. We’re already $2 trillion in debt. Something has to be done.”
John Scarnado, a registered Republican and sales manager from Austin, Tex., voted for Bush in 2000 but now says he will vote for John Kerry if the Massachusetts Senator wins the Democratic nomination.
Scarnado cites Iraq and Vice President Dick Cheney’s ties to scandal-scarred Halliburton as two reasons he can’t vote for Bush again.
“It’s just too much old boy politics with the Bush administration,” Scarnado says. “I don’t like that.”
Neither does Londonderry, New Hampshire farmer Mike Cross, who voted Republican in 2000 and who says he doesn’t care much for John Kerry but has “had enough of George W. Bush.”
Pollsters agree, saying Bush’s declining approval ratings – now well below 50 percent – match the last three incumbent Presidents to lose their re-election bids -- Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush.
“Bush is in dangerous territory now,” says GOP pollster John Zogby.
Thursday, June 17, 2004
An untreated ex-alcoholic with paranoid and megalomaniac tendencies
New Information Shows Bush Indecisive, Paranoid, Delusional
By TERESA HAMPTON
Editor, Capitol Hill Blue
Jun 17, 2004, 08:47
The carefully-crafted image of George W. Bush as a bold, decisive leader is cracking under the weight of new revelations that the erratic President is indecisive, moody, paranoid and delusional.
“More and more this brings back memories of the Nixon White House,” says retired political science professor George Harleigh, who worked for President Nixon during the second presidential term that ended in resignation under fire. “I haven’t heard any reports of President Bush wondering the halls talking to portraits of dead Presidents but what I have been told is disturbing.”
Two weeks ago, Capitol Hill Blue revealed that a growing number of White House aides are concerned about the President’s mental stability. They told harrowing tales of violent mood swings, bouts with paranoia and obscene outbursts from a President who wears his religion on his sleeve.
Although supporters of President Bush dismissed the reports as “fantasies from anonymous sources,” a new book by Dr. Justin Frank, director of psychiatry at George Washington University, raises many similar questions about the President’s mental stability.
"George W. Bush is a case study in contradiction," Dr. Frank writes in Bush On The Couch: Inside the Mind of the President. "Bush is an untreated ex-alcoholic with paranoid and megalomaniac tendencies."
In addition, a new film by documentary filmmaker, and frequent Bush critic, Michael Moore shows the President indecisive and clearly befuddled when he learned about the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
While conservative critics who have not yet seen Fahrenheit 9/11 dismiss the work as an anti-Bush screed, Roger Friedman of the normally pro-Bush Fox News Network has seen the film and calls it “a tribute to patriotism, to the American sense of duty — and at the same time a indictment of stupidity and avarice.”
Friedman also says the films “most indelible moment” comes when Bush, speaking to a group of school kids in Florida, is first informed of the 9/11 attacks.
“Instead of jumping up and leaving, he instead sat in front of the class, with an unfortunate look of confusion, for nearly 11 minutes,” Friedman says. “Moore obtained the footage from a teacher at the school who videotaped the morning program. There Bush sits, with no access to his advisers, while New York is being viciously attacked. I guarantee you that no one who sees this film forgets this episode.”
Dr. Frank says the episode is typical of how Bush deals with death and tragedy. He notes that Bush avoids funerals.
“President Bush has not attended a single funeral - other than that of President Reagan. In my book I explore some possible reasons for that, whether or not it is "presidential". I am less interested in judging his behavior on political grounds than I am in thinking about its meaning both to him and to the rest of us,” Dr. Frank says. “He has spent a lifetime of avoiding grief, starting with the death of his sister when he was 7 years old. His parents didn't help him with what must have been confusing and frightening feelings. He also has a history of evading responsibility and perhaps his not attending funerals has to do with not wanting to see the damage his policies have wrought.”
In his book, Dr. Frank also suggests Bush resents those in the military.
“Bush's behavior strongly suggests an unconscious resentment toward our own servicemen, whose bravery puts his own (nonexistent) wartime service record to shame,” he wrote.
Supporters of President Bush dismiss Frank’s book as the work of a Democrat who once headed the Washington Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, but his work has been praised by other prominent psychiatrists, including Dr. James Grotstein, Professor at UCLA Medical Center, and Dr. Irvin Yalom, MD, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University Medical School.
Dr. Carolyn Williams, a psychoanalyst who specializes in paranoid personalities, is a registered Republican and agrees with most of Dr. Frank’s conclusions.
“I find the bulk of his analysis credible,” she said in an interview. “President Bush grew up dealing with an absent but demanding father, a tough mother and an overachieving brother. All left indelible impressions on him along with a desire to prove himself at all cost because he feels surrounded by disapproval. He behavior suggests a classic paranoid personality. Additionally, his stated belief that certain actions are 'God's Will' are symptomatic of delusional behavior.”
Ryan Reynolds, a childhood friend of Bush, concurs.
“George wanted to please his father but never felt he measured up, especially when compared to Jeb,” Reynolds said.
Dr. Williams wonders if the Iraq war was not Bush’s way of “proving he could finish something his father could not by deposing Saddam Hussein.”
But Bush's desire to please his father may have backfired. Former President George H.W. Bush has remained silent publicly about the war, saying he will only discuss it with his son "in private." Close aides say that is because he disapproves of his son's actions against Iraq.
"Former President Bush does not support the war against Iraq," says former aide John Rankin. "It is as simple at that."
While current White House aides and officials would not allow their names to be used when commenting about Bush’s erratic behavior, others like former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill confirm concerns about Bush’s mood swings.
O’Neill says Bush was moody in cabinet meetings and would wander off on tangents, mostly about Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Bush, O’Neill says, seemed more focused on Iraq than on finding Osama bin Laden and would lash out at anyone who disagreed with him.
Harleigh says it is not unusual for White House staffers to refuse to go public with their concerns about the President’s behavior.
“We saw the same thing in the Nixon years,” he says. “What is unusual is that the White House has not been able to trot out even one staffer who is willing to go public and say positive things about the President’s mental condition. That says more than anything else.”
Dr. Frank, the Democrat, says the only diagnosis he can offer for the President’s condition is removal from office.
Dr. Williams, the Republican, says she must “reluctantly agree.”
“We have too many unanswered questions about the President’s behavior,” she says. “You cannot have those kinds of unanswered questions when you are talking about the leader of the free world.”
© Copyright 2004 by Capitol Hill Blue
By TERESA HAMPTON
Editor, Capitol Hill Blue
Jun 17, 2004, 08:47
The carefully-crafted image of George W. Bush as a bold, decisive leader is cracking under the weight of new revelations that the erratic President is indecisive, moody, paranoid and delusional.
“More and more this brings back memories of the Nixon White House,” says retired political science professor George Harleigh, who worked for President Nixon during the second presidential term that ended in resignation under fire. “I haven’t heard any reports of President Bush wondering the halls talking to portraits of dead Presidents but what I have been told is disturbing.”
Two weeks ago, Capitol Hill Blue revealed that a growing number of White House aides are concerned about the President’s mental stability. They told harrowing tales of violent mood swings, bouts with paranoia and obscene outbursts from a President who wears his religion on his sleeve.
Although supporters of President Bush dismissed the reports as “fantasies from anonymous sources,” a new book by Dr. Justin Frank, director of psychiatry at George Washington University, raises many similar questions about the President’s mental stability.
"George W. Bush is a case study in contradiction," Dr. Frank writes in Bush On The Couch: Inside the Mind of the President. "Bush is an untreated ex-alcoholic with paranoid and megalomaniac tendencies."
In addition, a new film by documentary filmmaker, and frequent Bush critic, Michael Moore shows the President indecisive and clearly befuddled when he learned about the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
While conservative critics who have not yet seen Fahrenheit 9/11 dismiss the work as an anti-Bush screed, Roger Friedman of the normally pro-Bush Fox News Network has seen the film and calls it “a tribute to patriotism, to the American sense of duty — and at the same time a indictment of stupidity and avarice.”
Friedman also says the films “most indelible moment” comes when Bush, speaking to a group of school kids in Florida, is first informed of the 9/11 attacks.
“Instead of jumping up and leaving, he instead sat in front of the class, with an unfortunate look of confusion, for nearly 11 minutes,” Friedman says. “Moore obtained the footage from a teacher at the school who videotaped the morning program. There Bush sits, with no access to his advisers, while New York is being viciously attacked. I guarantee you that no one who sees this film forgets this episode.”
Dr. Frank says the episode is typical of how Bush deals with death and tragedy. He notes that Bush avoids funerals.
“President Bush has not attended a single funeral - other than that of President Reagan. In my book I explore some possible reasons for that, whether or not it is "presidential". I am less interested in judging his behavior on political grounds than I am in thinking about its meaning both to him and to the rest of us,” Dr. Frank says. “He has spent a lifetime of avoiding grief, starting with the death of his sister when he was 7 years old. His parents didn't help him with what must have been confusing and frightening feelings. He also has a history of evading responsibility and perhaps his not attending funerals has to do with not wanting to see the damage his policies have wrought.”
In his book, Dr. Frank also suggests Bush resents those in the military.
“Bush's behavior strongly suggests an unconscious resentment toward our own servicemen, whose bravery puts his own (nonexistent) wartime service record to shame,” he wrote.
Supporters of President Bush dismiss Frank’s book as the work of a Democrat who once headed the Washington Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, but his work has been praised by other prominent psychiatrists, including Dr. James Grotstein, Professor at UCLA Medical Center, and Dr. Irvin Yalom, MD, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University Medical School.
Dr. Carolyn Williams, a psychoanalyst who specializes in paranoid personalities, is a registered Republican and agrees with most of Dr. Frank’s conclusions.
“I find the bulk of his analysis credible,” she said in an interview. “President Bush grew up dealing with an absent but demanding father, a tough mother and an overachieving brother. All left indelible impressions on him along with a desire to prove himself at all cost because he feels surrounded by disapproval. He behavior suggests a classic paranoid personality. Additionally, his stated belief that certain actions are 'God's Will' are symptomatic of delusional behavior.”
Ryan Reynolds, a childhood friend of Bush, concurs.
“George wanted to please his father but never felt he measured up, especially when compared to Jeb,” Reynolds said.
Dr. Williams wonders if the Iraq war was not Bush’s way of “proving he could finish something his father could not by deposing Saddam Hussein.”
But Bush's desire to please his father may have backfired. Former President George H.W. Bush has remained silent publicly about the war, saying he will only discuss it with his son "in private." Close aides say that is because he disapproves of his son's actions against Iraq.
"Former President Bush does not support the war against Iraq," says former aide John Rankin. "It is as simple at that."
While current White House aides and officials would not allow their names to be used when commenting about Bush’s erratic behavior, others like former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill confirm concerns about Bush’s mood swings.
O’Neill says Bush was moody in cabinet meetings and would wander off on tangents, mostly about Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Bush, O’Neill says, seemed more focused on Iraq than on finding Osama bin Laden and would lash out at anyone who disagreed with him.
Harleigh says it is not unusual for White House staffers to refuse to go public with their concerns about the President’s behavior.
“We saw the same thing in the Nixon years,” he says. “What is unusual is that the White House has not been able to trot out even one staffer who is willing to go public and say positive things about the President’s mental condition. That says more than anything else.”
Dr. Frank, the Democrat, says the only diagnosis he can offer for the President’s condition is removal from office.
Dr. Williams, the Republican, says she must “reluctantly agree.”
“We have too many unanswered questions about the President’s behavior,” she says. “You cannot have those kinds of unanswered questions when you are talking about the leader of the free world.”
© Copyright 2004 by Capitol Hill Blue
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
Words of Wisdom From a Comedian
By DAN K. THOMASSON
Jun 16, 2004, 03:04
Bill Cosby, who may be the only Hollywood personality with a doctorate, had some pretty cogent things to say about parenting awhile back and his remarks have stirred up a debate among fellow educators, leading civil rights figures and public officials, a number of whom think he may have gone too far.
While the remarks delivered on the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, which overturned the doctrine of separate but equal schools for blacks and whites, i.e. segregation, were aimed mainly at blacks at the lower end of the economic scale, Dr. Cosby's admonitions could just have easily applied to parents of all colors and financial position. In fact, mothers and fathers everywhere should pay attention to his sound advice.
Cosby's lecture touched on such subjects as illegitimacy, the breakup of families, overindulgence by parents, dope, fashion, failure to supervise at an early age, deportment, lack of respect in the home that sets the stage for later transgressions, and so forth. As is his style, he didn't mince words condemning "people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange jump suit. Where were you when he was 2? Where were you when he was 12? Where were you when he was 18 and how come you didn't know he had a pistol?"
It is a question that might have been asked the parents of the perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre or any number of similar atrocities committed because someone wasn't paying attention.
"The church is only open on Sunday and you can't keep asking Jesus to do things for you. You can't keep saying that God will find a way. God is tired of you," Cosby said. "I wasn't there when God was saying it. I am making this up, but it sounds like what God would say."
There were and are those among African-Americans who believe Cosby was too harsh. Others felt the address was too long in coming. That is for the black community to decide. As a parent and grandparent, however, I found the remarks as applicable to those in my own race as to his. In discussing them with my children I discovered that they too felt that way about Cosby's criticism, citing several examples of recent incidents among affluent whites in their own communities, including a senseless killing that could have been avoided had parents heeded the warning signs.
What Cosby was telling us was that bringing children into the world carries with it responsibilities no matter the socioeconomic status of the parents. Neither poverty nor affluence can be an excuse for failing to meet those requirements. If blacks have missed the opportunities provided by desegregation of the schools so have the whites who fled those schools into academies that were thinly disguised efforts to get around the law, leaving the public institutions almost as segregated as they were in the first place.
He seriously questioned the role models society now offers our children, citing multimillionaire athletes who can't write a paragraph or read and who show utter disdain for the rules of society. His criticism by implication extends to all sorts of popular icons who treat convention of any kind as though it were a disease and profit beyond all reason because of it. Television panders to the most juvenile of minds and offers hours of vacuous programming.
Reading his remarks, I personally couldn't help recall my own role model as a young aspiring basketball player. He was an African-American of superb natural athletic ability and superior intellect who advanced the cause of desegregation in and out of the classroom at a most difficult time. His mother was an outstanding lady who struggled to keep her family afloat and, in the end, not only persevered but also excelled in parenting against long odds.
My own father grew up similarly disadvantaged, having lost my grandfather to disease at an early age. He succeeded in part because of a kindly stepfather.
This was not meant to be a sermon on the failures in any single culture, black or white, in our society. It is merely an effort to apply the assessment of a wise man to us all. It would behoove as parents to take heed. Cosby, the consummate educator, didn't make it out to be rocket science, just common sense and caring. It's really just a value thing and there can be no greater value than that.
(Dan K. Thomasson is former editor of the Scripps Howard News Service.)
© Copyright 2004 by Capitol Hill Blue
Jun 16, 2004, 03:04
Bill Cosby, who may be the only Hollywood personality with a doctorate, had some pretty cogent things to say about parenting awhile back and his remarks have stirred up a debate among fellow educators, leading civil rights figures and public officials, a number of whom think he may have gone too far.
While the remarks delivered on the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, which overturned the doctrine of separate but equal schools for blacks and whites, i.e. segregation, were aimed mainly at blacks at the lower end of the economic scale, Dr. Cosby's admonitions could just have easily applied to parents of all colors and financial position. In fact, mothers and fathers everywhere should pay attention to his sound advice.
Cosby's lecture touched on such subjects as illegitimacy, the breakup of families, overindulgence by parents, dope, fashion, failure to supervise at an early age, deportment, lack of respect in the home that sets the stage for later transgressions, and so forth. As is his style, he didn't mince words condemning "people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange jump suit. Where were you when he was 2? Where were you when he was 12? Where were you when he was 18 and how come you didn't know he had a pistol?"
It is a question that might have been asked the parents of the perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre or any number of similar atrocities committed because someone wasn't paying attention.
"The church is only open on Sunday and you can't keep asking Jesus to do things for you. You can't keep saying that God will find a way. God is tired of you," Cosby said. "I wasn't there when God was saying it. I am making this up, but it sounds like what God would say."
There were and are those among African-Americans who believe Cosby was too harsh. Others felt the address was too long in coming. That is for the black community to decide. As a parent and grandparent, however, I found the remarks as applicable to those in my own race as to his. In discussing them with my children I discovered that they too felt that way about Cosby's criticism, citing several examples of recent incidents among affluent whites in their own communities, including a senseless killing that could have been avoided had parents heeded the warning signs.
What Cosby was telling us was that bringing children into the world carries with it responsibilities no matter the socioeconomic status of the parents. Neither poverty nor affluence can be an excuse for failing to meet those requirements. If blacks have missed the opportunities provided by desegregation of the schools so have the whites who fled those schools into academies that were thinly disguised efforts to get around the law, leaving the public institutions almost as segregated as they were in the first place.
He seriously questioned the role models society now offers our children, citing multimillionaire athletes who can't write a paragraph or read and who show utter disdain for the rules of society. His criticism by implication extends to all sorts of popular icons who treat convention of any kind as though it were a disease and profit beyond all reason because of it. Television panders to the most juvenile of minds and offers hours of vacuous programming.
Reading his remarks, I personally couldn't help recall my own role model as a young aspiring basketball player. He was an African-American of superb natural athletic ability and superior intellect who advanced the cause of desegregation in and out of the classroom at a most difficult time. His mother was an outstanding lady who struggled to keep her family afloat and, in the end, not only persevered but also excelled in parenting against long odds.
My own father grew up similarly disadvantaged, having lost my grandfather to disease at an early age. He succeeded in part because of a kindly stepfather.
This was not meant to be a sermon on the failures in any single culture, black or white, in our society. It is merely an effort to apply the assessment of a wise man to us all. It would behoove as parents to take heed. Cosby, the consummate educator, didn't make it out to be rocket science, just common sense and caring. It's really just a value thing and there can be no greater value than that.
(Dan K. Thomasson is former editor of the Scripps Howard News Service.)
© Copyright 2004 by Capitol Hill Blue
Michael Newdow is right. Atheists are outsiders in America. (WSJ)
Ah, I like the clarity: then it IS Christians who do the killing! And while they tolerate me, well, I guess I'm OK.
I have to admit, it makes Islam tempting (In numbers, there is strength.)
I have to admit, it makes Islam tempting (In numbers, there is strength.)
Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Let's keep arguing
I gave an informal talk the other night and got a very odd reaction. I was speaking at a small dinner -- 16 people -- of a cultural group in New York. My topic was the sometimes demented culture of American universities. I talked about the repressive speech codes, stolen newspapers, canceled speakers, the de-funded Christian groups, the distortion of the curriculum by powerful diversity bureaucracies, and the indoctrination of students starting with freshman orientation and introductory writing courses.
Nothing in my remarks would have come as a surprise to readers of this column, and it turned out that maybe two-thirds of the people at the dinner strongly agreed with my talk. But it shocked one man -- a former university president of some note -- who denounced my comments as "the most intellectually dishonest speech I have ever heard." I think he meant to say that he disagreed. Or maybe he thought I was attacking his old university. Nobody knows what he thought because he just repeated his "intellectually dishonest" remark and left, closing the door quickly behind him.
This will stick in my mind as a good example of what has happened to debate in this country. Given a chance to speak his piece, the college president just got mad and got out. It never used to be this way. As many reporters reminded us last week, Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan fought sharply during the day but enjoyed having the occasional drink or two together after work. In the old days, William F. Buckley Jr. would hold public debates with all comers (I recall Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Steve Allen), then go out to a pleasant dinner with his opponent. Nowadays, Buckley or his adversary would probably be required to take umbrage, hurl some insult, then stomp out in a snit.
I caught the tail end of the civil-argument culture when Garry Wills and I started out many years ago as the original columnists in the National Catholic Reporter. We would frequently attack each other's ideas, but it never affected our friendship. Why should it?
In the current issue of The Atlantic, P.J. O'Rourke says that "Arguing, in the sense of attempting to convince others, seems to have gone out of fashion with everyone." O'Rourke doesn't pay much attention, he says, to talk radio, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Al Franken or Michael Moore because they just shout things at partisan audiences that already agree with their chosen shouter. Technology reinforces the decline of serious argument -- now we can all go to a TV channel, a radio show, or a Web site that will protect us from those aliens across the moat who disagree with us.
It's true that we have more semistructured "Crossfire"-style debates than ever before. But much of this is rigidly preprogrammed sniping (I was once chastised by a TV producer for not interrupting other speakers more. What a failure!) Even when the sniping is downplayed, TV demands sharp sound bites, which pushes all talking heads toward more vehemence and simplemindedness. Instant certainty becomes mandatory, a delivery style many talking heads start to regret before they're even out of the studio. Where is the real debate?
In my remarks at the dinner, I talked about the birth of a "no debate" style on many campuses. When sensitivity and nonjudgmentalism are the dominant virtues, raising arguments can be perilous; you never know what unauthorized campus opinion will turn out to be a sensitivity violation. Better to keep your head down. This is particularly true now that some speech codes explicitly say that challenging another student's beliefs is forbidden.
This is yet another perverse campus trend. Arguing is crucial to education. It's a kind of intellectual roughhouse that lets students try out new ideas. E.J. Dionne Jr., the Washington Post columnist, sometimes tells his class at Georgetown that he intends to support the argument of whichever group in the class is in the minority. He does this because he wants his students to argue as passionately as possible without fear of intimidation by a dominant group.
In his book "The Revolt of the Elites," the late Christopher Lasch wrote that only in the course of argument do "we come to understand what we know and what we still need to learn ... we come to know our own minds only by explaining ourselves to others." If we wish to be engaged in serious argument, Lasch explained, we must enter into another person's mental universe and put our own ideas at risk.
Exactly. When a friend launches an argument and your rebuttal starts to sound tinny to your own ears, it shouldn't be that hard to figure out that something's wrong -- usually that you don't really agree with the words coming out of your own mouth. Arguing can rescue us from our own half-formed opinions.
©2004 Universal Press Syndicate
Nothing in my remarks would have come as a surprise to readers of this column, and it turned out that maybe two-thirds of the people at the dinner strongly agreed with my talk. But it shocked one man -- a former university president of some note -- who denounced my comments as "the most intellectually dishonest speech I have ever heard." I think he meant to say that he disagreed. Or maybe he thought I was attacking his old university. Nobody knows what he thought because he just repeated his "intellectually dishonest" remark and left, closing the door quickly behind him.
This will stick in my mind as a good example of what has happened to debate in this country. Given a chance to speak his piece, the college president just got mad and got out. It never used to be this way. As many reporters reminded us last week, Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan fought sharply during the day but enjoyed having the occasional drink or two together after work. In the old days, William F. Buckley Jr. would hold public debates with all comers (I recall Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Steve Allen), then go out to a pleasant dinner with his opponent. Nowadays, Buckley or his adversary would probably be required to take umbrage, hurl some insult, then stomp out in a snit.
I caught the tail end of the civil-argument culture when Garry Wills and I started out many years ago as the original columnists in the National Catholic Reporter. We would frequently attack each other's ideas, but it never affected our friendship. Why should it?
In the current issue of The Atlantic, P.J. O'Rourke says that "Arguing, in the sense of attempting to convince others, seems to have gone out of fashion with everyone." O'Rourke doesn't pay much attention, he says, to talk radio, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, Al Franken or Michael Moore because they just shout things at partisan audiences that already agree with their chosen shouter. Technology reinforces the decline of serious argument -- now we can all go to a TV channel, a radio show, or a Web site that will protect us from those aliens across the moat who disagree with us.
It's true that we have more semistructured "Crossfire"-style debates than ever before. But much of this is rigidly preprogrammed sniping (I was once chastised by a TV producer for not interrupting other speakers more. What a failure!) Even when the sniping is downplayed, TV demands sharp sound bites, which pushes all talking heads toward more vehemence and simplemindedness. Instant certainty becomes mandatory, a delivery style many talking heads start to regret before they're even out of the studio. Where is the real debate?
In my remarks at the dinner, I talked about the birth of a "no debate" style on many campuses. When sensitivity and nonjudgmentalism are the dominant virtues, raising arguments can be perilous; you never know what unauthorized campus opinion will turn out to be a sensitivity violation. Better to keep your head down. This is particularly true now that some speech codes explicitly say that challenging another student's beliefs is forbidden.
This is yet another perverse campus trend. Arguing is crucial to education. It's a kind of intellectual roughhouse that lets students try out new ideas. E.J. Dionne Jr., the Washington Post columnist, sometimes tells his class at Georgetown that he intends to support the argument of whichever group in the class is in the minority. He does this because he wants his students to argue as passionately as possible without fear of intimidation by a dominant group.
In his book "The Revolt of the Elites," the late Christopher Lasch wrote that only in the course of argument do "we come to understand what we know and what we still need to learn ... we come to know our own minds only by explaining ourselves to others." If we wish to be engaged in serious argument, Lasch explained, we must enter into another person's mental universe and put our own ideas at risk.
Exactly. When a friend launches an argument and your rebuttal starts to sound tinny to your own ears, it shouldn't be that hard to figure out that something's wrong -- usually that you don't really agree with the words coming out of your own mouth. Arguing can rescue us from our own half-formed opinions.
©2004 Universal Press Syndicate
Ashcroft: Article mentions Critical Art Ensemble
No question: John Ashcroft is the worst attorney general in history.
For this column, let's just focus on Mr. Ashcroft's role in the fight against terror. Before 9/11 he was aggressively uninterested in the terrorist threat. He didn't even mention counterterrorism in a May 2001 memo outlining strategic priorities for the Justice Department. When the 9/11 commission asked him why, he responded by blaming the Clinton administration, with a personal attack on one of the commission members thrown in for good measure.
We can't tell directly whether Mr. Ashcroft's post-9/11 policies are protecting the United States from terrorist attacks. But a number of pieces of evidence suggest otherwise.
First, there's the absence of any major successful prosecutions. The one set of convictions that seemed fairly significant — that of the "Detroit 3" — appears to be collapsing over accusations of prosecutorial misconduct. (The lead prosecutor has filed a whistle-blower suit against Mr. Ashcroft, accusing him of botching the case. The Justice Department, in turn, has opened investigations against the prosecutor. Payback? I report; you decide.)
Then there is the lack of any major captures. Somewhere, the anthrax terrorist is laughing. But the Justice Department, you'll be happy to know, is trying to determine whether it can file bioterrorism charges against a Buffalo art professor whose work includes harmless bacteria in petri dishes.
Perhaps most telling is the way Mr. Ashcroft responds to criticism of his performance. His first move is always to withhold the evidence. Then he tries to change the subject by making a dramatic announcement of a terrorist threat.
For an example of how Mr. Ashcroft shuts down public examination, consider the case of Sibel Edmonds, a former F.B.I. translator who says that the agency's language division is riddled with incompetence and corruption, and that the bureau missed critical terrorist warnings. In 2002 she gave closed-door Congressional testimony; Senator Charles Grassley described her as "very credible . . . because people within the F.B.I. have corroborated a lot of her story."
But the Justice Department has invoked the rarely used "state secrets privilege" to prevent Ms. Edmonds from providing evidence. And last month the department retroactively classified two-year-old testimony by F.B.I. officials, which was presumably what Mr. Grassley referred to.
For an example of changing the subject, consider the origins of the Jose Padilla case. There was no publicity when Mr. Padilla was arrested in May 2002. But on June 6, 2002, Coleen Rowley gave devastating Congressional testimony about failures at the F.B.I. (which reports to Mr. Ashcroft) before 9/11. Four days later, Mr. Ashcroft held a dramatic press conference and announced that Mr. Padilla was involved in a terrifying plot. Instead of featuring Ms. Rowley, news magazine covers ended up featuring the "dirty bomber" who Mr. Ashcroft said was plotting to kill thousands with deadly radiation.
Since then Mr. Padilla has been held as an "enemy combatant" with no legal rights. But Newsweek reports that "administration officials now concede that the principal claim they have been making about Padilla ever since his detention — that he was dispatched to the United States for the specific purpose of setting off a radiological `dirty bomb' — has turned out to be wrong and most likely can never be used in court."
But most important is the memo. Last week Mr. Ashcroft, apparently in contempt of Congress, refused to release a memo on torture his department prepared for the White House almost two years ago. Fortunately, his stonewalling didn't work: The Washington Post has acquired a copy of the memo and put it on its Web site.
Much of the memo is concerned with defining torture down: if the pain inflicted on a prisoner is less than the pain that accompanies "serious physical injury, such as organ failure," it's not torture. Anyway, the memo declares that the federal law against torture doesn't apply to interrogations of enemy combatants "pursuant to [the president's] commander-in-chief authority." In other words, the president is above the law.
The memo came out late Sunday. Mr. Ashcroft called a press conference yesterday — to announce an indictment against a man accused of plotting to blow up a shopping mall in Ohio. The timing was, I'm sure, purely coincidental.
Monday, June 14, 2004
Alternatives to War: the big bang.
Number 1 in a series: no duration specified.
There is plenty for all. No, really.
(link courtesy of Shelly)
There is plenty for all. No, really.
(link courtesy of Shelly)
under God
Interesting take on today's Supreme Court indecision
Why am I reciting all these Jesus-related slights and annoyances? I'm not asking for sympathy: I'm just trying to establish my bona fides when it comes to understanding what's at stake when authority figures at publicly-funded institutions force kids to participate in religious activities that violate their families' beliefs. I know what it feels like.
That being said, I'm actually completely unconcerned, or maybe even relieved, about today's Supreme Court action voiding a prior decision regarding the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. In case you've missed the news, the court actually decided to reject the case on a legal technicality (the plaintiff didn't have standing because of a pending child-custody dispute) rather than to address the underlying constitutionality of the complaint.
The National Enquirer: Bush Sex Scandal
Add this to your list of reliable sources!
Washington is a hotbed of sexual high jinks
The White House has been rocked by an Internet sex scandal that reaches to the highest levels of the Bush administration -- but an ENQUIRER investigation reveals it's just the tip of the hanky-panky iceberg in Washington, D.C.
The scandal was sparked by the new "Monica Lewinsky" -- brunette beauty Jessica Cutler, a 26-year-old aide for Republican Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio.
In a sensational Internet "blog" diary -- posted on the Web under the alias "Washingtonienne" -- Jessica confessed to trading money for sex with a married Bush appointee who's chief of staff at a major government agency
Washington is a hotbed of sexual high jinks
The White House has been rocked by an Internet sex scandal that reaches to the highest levels of the Bush administration -- but an ENQUIRER investigation reveals it's just the tip of the hanky-panky iceberg in Washington, D.C.
The scandal was sparked by the new "Monica Lewinsky" -- brunette beauty Jessica Cutler, a 26-year-old aide for Republican Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio.
In a sensational Internet "blog" diary -- posted on the Web under the alias "Washingtonienne" -- Jessica confessed to trading money for sex with a married Bush appointee who's chief of staff at a major government agency
Military Ignored First Reports of Iraqi Prisoner Abuse
This report came out Saturday on CapHillBlue and today (Monday) in the NYTimes. Boy, those suckers at the times just don't know an unreliable source when they see one...
By Staff and Wire Reports
Jun 12, 2004, 08:29
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At least five soldiers objected last fall to abuses they saw at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. One demanded to be reassigned, saying the behavior he witnessed there "made me sick to my stomach."
[more]
By Staff and Wire Reports
Jun 12, 2004, 08:29
Email this article
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At least five soldiers objected last fall to abuses they saw at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. One demanded to be reassigned, saying the behavior he witnessed there "made me sick to my stomach."
[more]
More on Capitol Hill Blue
Hampton Named Editor of Capitol Hill Blue
By Capitol Hill Blue
Jun 13, 2004, 09:43
Teresa Hampton is the new editor of Capitol Hill Blue, the oldest political news site on the World Wide Web, publisher Doug Thompson announced today.
Hampton, 44, assumes the editorship immediately and becomes responsible for the day-to-day operations of the web site. The St. Louis native is a long-time contributor to CHB and co-authored the award-winning All the President's Women series about the sexual misadventures of former President Bill Clinton.
"Terry Hampton brings both experience and a long-time newswoman's sense of balance to the helm of Blue," Thompson said in announcing the appointment.
Hampton, a graduate of Southern Illinois University, began her career in journalism with alternative weeklies in the St. Louis area, then joined the St. Louis Globe-Democrat before moving on the the Washington Evening Star. After the Star ceased publication, she free-lanced for newspapers and wire services and later for political news sites like Politics USA and Politics Now. She started contributing to Capitol Hill Blue in 1995. Most recently, she co-authored a series of stories on abuses by the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency's Total Information Awareness System, a program that spys on Americans 24/7.
"Like Blue, Terry marches to no political drum and does not let ideology get in the way of her reporting," Thompson said. "She believes, as we do, that our only goal is to follow the story, wherever it leads."
Hampton says she plans to add more writing talent to the web site.
"Our readership is up 600 percent this year and we've been approached by a number of talented reporters who want to join the team," Hampton said. "They believe journalism is best served when it is nonpartisan and always skeptical."
Thompson will continue to serve as publisher, write The Rant, a regular column of commentary and work on selected news stories.
Hampton serves as an unsalaried member of the staff, as do all contributors to the web site. All ad revenue from Blue is contributed to charity and all expenses for running the site are paid out of Thompson's personal resources.
"Capitol Hill Blue is, and always will be, a labor of love," says Thompson. "It is not a business and never will be."
© Copyright 2004 by Capitol Hill Blue
By Capitol Hill Blue
Jun 13, 2004, 09:43
Teresa Hampton is the new editor of Capitol Hill Blue, the oldest political news site on the World Wide Web, publisher Doug Thompson announced today.
Hampton, 44, assumes the editorship immediately and becomes responsible for the day-to-day operations of the web site. The St. Louis native is a long-time contributor to CHB and co-authored the award-winning All the President's Women series about the sexual misadventures of former President Bill Clinton.
"Terry Hampton brings both experience and a long-time newswoman's sense of balance to the helm of Blue," Thompson said in announcing the appointment.
Hampton, a graduate of Southern Illinois University, began her career in journalism with alternative weeklies in the St. Louis area, then joined the St. Louis Globe-Democrat before moving on the the Washington Evening Star. After the Star ceased publication, she free-lanced for newspapers and wire services and later for political news sites like Politics USA and Politics Now. She started contributing to Capitol Hill Blue in 1995. Most recently, she co-authored a series of stories on abuses by the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency's Total Information Awareness System, a program that spys on Americans 24/7.
"Like Blue, Terry marches to no political drum and does not let ideology get in the way of her reporting," Thompson said. "She believes, as we do, that our only goal is to follow the story, wherever it leads."
Hampton says she plans to add more writing talent to the web site.
"Our readership is up 600 percent this year and we've been approached by a number of talented reporters who want to join the team," Hampton said. "They believe journalism is best served when it is nonpartisan and always skeptical."
Thompson will continue to serve as publisher, write The Rant, a regular column of commentary and work on selected news stories.
Hampton serves as an unsalaried member of the staff, as do all contributors to the web site. All ad revenue from Blue is contributed to charity and all expenses for running the site are paid out of Thompson's personal resources.
"Capitol Hill Blue is, and always will be, a labor of love," says Thompson. "It is not a business and never will be."
© Copyright 2004 by Capitol Hill Blue
Former U.S. Officials, Including Republicans, Want Bush Ousted
By Staff and Wire Reports
Jun 14, 2004, 09:36
A group of former U.S. officials, including appointtes of former Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, is urging voters to defeat President Bush in the November election, saying his policies have isolated the United States.
The group of 26 former diplomats and military officials plan to issue an open statement on Wednesday criticizing Bush's foreign policies.
"We just came to agreement that this administration was really endangering the United States," said William Harrop, a former ambassador to Israel under the previous Bush administration.
The signers are a mix of Democrats and Republicans, Harrop said. They include Jack Matlock and Arthur Hartman, two former ambassadors to the former Soviet Union during the 1980s.
Also in the group are several other former ambassadors and retired military officials, the group said.
Signers of the statement are concerned that the administration has undermined U.S. leadership in the world and alienated U.S. allies, Harrop said.
As an example, Harrop cited the decision to launch the war in Iraq without sufficient international support.
"Our view is that the President Bush administration has chosen American domination of the world as in our best interest," Harrop said.
"We don't think that's going to work."
Harrop said the group was not aligned with Bush's Democratic challenger in the November election, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry. "But we want an alternative and that's the alternative," Harrop said.
© Copyright 2004 by Capitol Hill Blue
Jun 14, 2004, 09:36
A group of former U.S. officials, including appointtes of former Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, is urging voters to defeat President Bush in the November election, saying his policies have isolated the United States.
The group of 26 former diplomats and military officials plan to issue an open statement on Wednesday criticizing Bush's foreign policies.
"We just came to agreement that this administration was really endangering the United States," said William Harrop, a former ambassador to Israel under the previous Bush administration.
The signers are a mix of Democrats and Republicans, Harrop said. They include Jack Matlock and Arthur Hartman, two former ambassadors to the former Soviet Union during the 1980s.
Also in the group are several other former ambassadors and retired military officials, the group said.
Signers of the statement are concerned that the administration has undermined U.S. leadership in the world and alienated U.S. allies, Harrop said.
As an example, Harrop cited the decision to launch the war in Iraq without sufficient international support.
"Our view is that the President Bush administration has chosen American domination of the world as in our best interest," Harrop said.
"We don't think that's going to work."
Harrop said the group was not aligned with Bush's Democratic challenger in the November election, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry. "But we want an alternative and that's the alternative," Harrop said.
© Copyright 2004 by Capitol Hill Blue
Bush On the Couch
I read about this from that most unreliable source (CapHillBlue). Boy the lengths they'll go to make themselves seem legit...
Ken
...
Inside the Mind of the President
by Justin Frank
"I don't spend a lot of time trying to figure me out. ... I'm just not into psychobabble."
-- George W. Bush
For all his simplicity and affability, George W. Bush has remained, to paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill, "a mystery wrapped in an enigma." In Bush on the Couch, Dr. Justin A. Frank, a well-respected Washington, D.C.–based psychoanalyst and professor of psychiatry, unwraps that mystery, assembling a comprehensive psychological profile of President Bush. Using the principles of applied psychoanalysis -- the discipline of psychoanalyzing public and historical figures pioneered by Freud -- Frank fearlessly builds his case ... and reaches conclusions that are at once highly persuasive and deeply disturbing.
Through a close analysis of Bush's public statements and behavior, as well as the historical record provided by journalists, biographers, and those who have known the president well, Frank traces the development of Bush's character from childhood to the present day. Examining closely the role of the president's parents -- especially Barbara Bush, an acknowledged disciplinarian whose own insecurities may have prevented her from adequately nurturing her son -- Frank finds in Bush's childhood the roots of a dramatic psychic split that remains a dominant influence on his adult worldview. Frank argues that this split has inevitably hampered Bush's ability to manage his emotions, charging his psyche with restless anxiety, and conditioning him to view the world in the black-and-white terms that have so evidently shaped his administration.
Among the other subjects Frank explores:
* Bush's false sense of omnipotence, instilled within him during childhood and emboldened by his deep investment in fundamentalist religion
* The president's history of untreated alcohol abuse, and the questions it raises about denial, impairment, and the enabling streak in our culture
* The growing anecdotal evidence that Bush may suffer from dyslexia, ADHD, and other thought disorders
* His comfort living outside the law, defying international law in his presidency as boldly as he once defied DUI statutes and military reporting requirements
* His love-hate relationship with his father, and how it triggered a complex and dangerous mix of feelings including yearning, rivalry, anger, and sadism
* Bush's rigid and simplistic thought patterns, paranoia, and megalomania -- and how they have driven him to invent adversaries so that he can destroy them
At once a compelling portrait of George W. Bush and a damning indictment of his policies, Bush on the Couch sheds startling new light on an administration whose record of violence and cruelty seems increasingly dependent on the unstable psyche of the man at its center. Insightful and accessible, courageous and controversial, Bush on the Couch tackles the question no one seems willing to ask: Is our president psychologically fit to run the country?
Ken
...
Inside the Mind of the President
by Justin Frank
"I don't spend a lot of time trying to figure me out. ... I'm just not into psychobabble."
-- George W. Bush
For all his simplicity and affability, George W. Bush has remained, to paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill, "a mystery wrapped in an enigma." In Bush on the Couch, Dr. Justin A. Frank, a well-respected Washington, D.C.–based psychoanalyst and professor of psychiatry, unwraps that mystery, assembling a comprehensive psychological profile of President Bush. Using the principles of applied psychoanalysis -- the discipline of psychoanalyzing public and historical figures pioneered by Freud -- Frank fearlessly builds his case ... and reaches conclusions that are at once highly persuasive and deeply disturbing.
Through a close analysis of Bush's public statements and behavior, as well as the historical record provided by journalists, biographers, and those who have known the president well, Frank traces the development of Bush's character from childhood to the present day. Examining closely the role of the president's parents -- especially Barbara Bush, an acknowledged disciplinarian whose own insecurities may have prevented her from adequately nurturing her son -- Frank finds in Bush's childhood the roots of a dramatic psychic split that remains a dominant influence on his adult worldview. Frank argues that this split has inevitably hampered Bush's ability to manage his emotions, charging his psyche with restless anxiety, and conditioning him to view the world in the black-and-white terms that have so evidently shaped his administration.
Among the other subjects Frank explores:
* Bush's false sense of omnipotence, instilled within him during childhood and emboldened by his deep investment in fundamentalist religion
* The president's history of untreated alcohol abuse, and the questions it raises about denial, impairment, and the enabling streak in our culture
* The growing anecdotal evidence that Bush may suffer from dyslexia, ADHD, and other thought disorders
* His comfort living outside the law, defying international law in his presidency as boldly as he once defied DUI statutes and military reporting requirements
* His love-hate relationship with his father, and how it triggered a complex and dangerous mix of feelings including yearning, rivalry, anger, and sadism
* Bush's rigid and simplistic thought patterns, paranoia, and megalomania -- and how they have driven him to invent adversaries so that he can destroy them
At once a compelling portrait of George W. Bush and a damning indictment of his policies, Bush on the Couch sheds startling new light on an administration whose record of violence and cruelty seems increasingly dependent on the unstable psyche of the man at its center. Insightful and accessible, courageous and controversial, Bush on the Couch tackles the question no one seems willing to ask: Is our president psychologically fit to run the country?
Friday, June 11, 2004
Bush Sr. Told Saddam OK To Invade Kuwait
"'One of those messages, delivered in late July by U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie to Saddam in a private meeting, said that the United States did not take a position ''on Arab-Arab'' disputes. Saddam understood that to mean that the United States would not react to his invasion of Kuwait.'"
Coup D'etat
From the "don't-you-dare-say-Eureaka" dept:
Try this: the CIA planted the bogus yellow cake report to take down the admin, and the admin nailed Plame to retaliate. Next phase is starting: the admin is taking heads as some heads will start to talk.
Boiler plate news is to real news as the Cambell Soup can is to the whole process of producing soup: on the one hand, neat red cans, on the other, farms, people, trucks, sanitary, flavor, and product standards and control processing canning, shipping. The red label words fine... until you find a mouse in the can.
Try this: the CIA planted the bogus yellow cake report to take down the admin, and the admin nailed Plame to retaliate. Next phase is starting: the admin is taking heads as some heads will start to talk.
Boiler plate news is to real news as the Cambell Soup can is to the whole process of producing soup: on the one hand, neat red cans, on the other, farms, people, trucks, sanitary, flavor, and product standards and control processing canning, shipping. The red label words fine... until you find a mouse in the can.
Thursday, June 10, 2004
Bush Fires, Then Praises, CIA Chief Tenet
Actually Tenet resigned, but the author of this article has secret sources throughout the White House that tell him otherwise. This article is a bunch of crap.
From Capitol Hill Blue
Bush Leagues
Bush Fires, Then Praises, CIA Chief Tenet
By Staff and Wire Reports
Jun 3, 2004, 16:19
President George W. Bush fired CIA Director George Tenet Wednesday, but allowed the beleagured intelligence chief to save face by resigning "for personal reasons."
Tenet, buffeted by controversies over intelligence lapses about suspected weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, resigned after an hour-long meeting with Bush. White House sources say Bush asked for the CIA director's resignation.
President Bush continued the charade on Thursday, announcing at a hastily-arranged appearance that Tenet was leaving for personal reasons and "I will miss him."
"Yeah, the President will miss Tenet like a boil on his butt," one White House aide confided today. "He had to go."
Bush announced the news in a hurriedly arranged appearance before television cameras before leaving on a trip to Europe.
Tenet's ouster came amid new storms over intelligence issues, including an alleged Pentagon leak of highly classified intelligence to Ahmad Chalabi, an Iraqi politician. At the same time, a federal grand jury is pressing its investigation of the leak of a CIA operative's name, and Bush acknowledged he might be questioned in the case.
The CIA denied that Tenet's resignation was connected with any of the those issues. "Absolutely not," said Mark Mansfield, CIA spokesman.
Tenet addressed CIA employees and said, "It was a personal decision, and had only one basis in fact: the well being of my wonderful family, nothing more and nothing less."
The news caught Washington by surprise. Bush informed his senior staff Thursday morning at an Oval Office meeting that included Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser. The president told his staff that the official story is that Tenet was leaving for personal reasons.
"He told me he was resigning for personal reasons. I told him I'm sorry he's leaving. He's done a superb job on behalf of the American people," the president said at a hurriedly arranged announcement before boarding a helicopter to begin a trip to Europe. Inside the West Wing, staffers joked about the President's ability to keep a straight face during the televised announcement.
Cheney stood outside the Oval Office to watch Bush's announcement and issued a carefully-worded statement later expressing regret that Tenet was leaving. "I have enjoyed working closely with him and believe he's done a superb job on behalf of the nation," Cheney said.
Tenet and Bush once had a close relationship. The CIA director came to the White House most mornings to personally brief the president on intelligence matters. At one of those sessions in December, 2002, the CIA listed evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Unsure that Americans would find the information compelling, Bush turned to Tenet. "It's a slam-dunk case," Tenet replied. No weapons have ever been found and Bush now blames Tenet for the political morass that Iraq has become.
Sen. John Kerry, Bush's likely Democratic opponent in this fall's elections, said Tenet "has worked extremely hard on behalf of our nation."
"There is no question, however, that there have been significant intelligence failures, and the administration has to accept responsibility for those failures," he said.
"He was caught in a difficult situation...trying to manage a 20th century intelligence community infrastructure to meet 21st century threats. This was not his fault," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.
Tenet will serve until mid-July. Bush said that deputy, John McLaughlin, will temporarily lead America's premier spy agency until a successor is found. Among possible successors is House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss, R-Fla., a former CIA agent, and McLaughlin.
Tenet had given some consideration to leaving last summer, but decided to stay on. Some close to him believe he wanted to catch al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, who remains at large and is believed to be on the Afghan-Pakistani border.
Like many who resign from government, Tenet plans to take time off with his family, and eventually pursue public speaking, teaching, writing or working in the private sector, according to the officials close to him.
"He's been a strong and able leader at the agency. and I will miss him," Bush said of Tenet as he got ready to board Marine One for a trip to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., and on to Europe.
"George Tenet is the kind of public servant you like to work with," the president added. "He's strong, he's resolute. He's served his nation as the director for seven years. He has been a strong and able leader at the agency. He's been a strong leader in the war on terror."
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III praised Tenet. "George has sought at every turn to bridge the gap between the CIA and FBI with one goal in mind - the security of the American public," Mueller said. "Due to his constant efforts to bring the intelligence agencies closer together, we are better able to predict the actions of our adversaries and to protect Americans from evolving transnational threats."
But Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the intelligence community had to be held accountable for its failings.
"Simply put, I think the community is somewhat in denial over the full extent ... of the shortcoming of its work on Iraq and also on 9/11," Roberts, unaware of Tenet's decision, said at a breakfast Thursday, "We need fresh thinking within the community, especially within the Congress, to enable the intelligence community to change and adapt to the dangerous world in which we live."
Tenet had been under fire for months in connection with intelligence failures related to the U.S.-led war against Iraq, specifically assertions the United States made about Saddam Hussein's purported possession of weapons of mass destruction, and with respect to the threat from al-Qaida.
In April, a panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks released statements harshly criticizing the CIA for failing to fully appreciate the threat posed by al-Qaida before the terrorist hijackings. Tenet told the panel the intelligence-gathering flaws exposed by the attacks will take five years to correct.
"I'm surprised," said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. "I don't think anyone saw it coming. I think we need to know more about the reasons why this surprise announcement came today," the South Dakota Democrat said.
"Mr. Tenet's been under very harsh criticism. I think clearly he's been under great pressure and some criticism. Whether or not that's a factor is not something I can comment on," Daschle said.
Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Tenet "restored morale and provided stability and continuity at a crucial time."
"I have been critical of the prewar intelligence on Iraq's WMD and ties to terror, as well as failures leading up to the attacks of 9-11," she noted. "With Tenet's departure, the president has the opportunity to fix these problems by transforming the job that Tenet held."
Said Goss: "Just boat loads of stuff have been dumped on him by all kinds of people. He was given the job of rebuilding an agency that had been depleted."
House Speaker Dennis Hastert said: "He served his country a long time. History will tell what the implications of his tenure were."
"I think history will tell," the Illinois Republican said when asked how Tenet's performance would be judged. "It's too early to make that snap judgment."
"I think history will either vindicate him or say, 'Hey there was a problem there'," Hastert said.
Retired Adm. Stansfield Turner said he thought Tenet was pushed out.
"I think the president feels he's in enough trouble that he's got to begin to cast some of the blame for the morass that we are in in Iraq to somebody else, and this was one subtle way to do it," said Turner, himself a former CIA director.
© Copyright 2004 Capitol Hill Blue
From Capitol Hill Blue
Bush Leagues
Bush Fires, Then Praises, CIA Chief Tenet
By Staff and Wire Reports
Jun 3, 2004, 16:19
President George W. Bush fired CIA Director George Tenet Wednesday, but allowed the beleagured intelligence chief to save face by resigning "for personal reasons."
Tenet, buffeted by controversies over intelligence lapses about suspected weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, resigned after an hour-long meeting with Bush. White House sources say Bush asked for the CIA director's resignation.
President Bush continued the charade on Thursday, announcing at a hastily-arranged appearance that Tenet was leaving for personal reasons and "I will miss him."
"Yeah, the President will miss Tenet like a boil on his butt," one White House aide confided today. "He had to go."
Bush announced the news in a hurriedly arranged appearance before television cameras before leaving on a trip to Europe.
Tenet's ouster came amid new storms over intelligence issues, including an alleged Pentagon leak of highly classified intelligence to Ahmad Chalabi, an Iraqi politician. At the same time, a federal grand jury is pressing its investigation of the leak of a CIA operative's name, and Bush acknowledged he might be questioned in the case.
The CIA denied that Tenet's resignation was connected with any of the those issues. "Absolutely not," said Mark Mansfield, CIA spokesman.
Tenet addressed CIA employees and said, "It was a personal decision, and had only one basis in fact: the well being of my wonderful family, nothing more and nothing less."
The news caught Washington by surprise. Bush informed his senior staff Thursday morning at an Oval Office meeting that included Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser. The president told his staff that the official story is that Tenet was leaving for personal reasons.
"He told me he was resigning for personal reasons. I told him I'm sorry he's leaving. He's done a superb job on behalf of the American people," the president said at a hurriedly arranged announcement before boarding a helicopter to begin a trip to Europe. Inside the West Wing, staffers joked about the President's ability to keep a straight face during the televised announcement.
Cheney stood outside the Oval Office to watch Bush's announcement and issued a carefully-worded statement later expressing regret that Tenet was leaving. "I have enjoyed working closely with him and believe he's done a superb job on behalf of the nation," Cheney said.
Tenet and Bush once had a close relationship. The CIA director came to the White House most mornings to personally brief the president on intelligence matters. At one of those sessions in December, 2002, the CIA listed evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Unsure that Americans would find the information compelling, Bush turned to Tenet. "It's a slam-dunk case," Tenet replied. No weapons have ever been found and Bush now blames Tenet for the political morass that Iraq has become.
Sen. John Kerry, Bush's likely Democratic opponent in this fall's elections, said Tenet "has worked extremely hard on behalf of our nation."
"There is no question, however, that there have been significant intelligence failures, and the administration has to accept responsibility for those failures," he said.
"He was caught in a difficult situation...trying to manage a 20th century intelligence community infrastructure to meet 21st century threats. This was not his fault," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.
Tenet will serve until mid-July. Bush said that deputy, John McLaughlin, will temporarily lead America's premier spy agency until a successor is found. Among possible successors is House Intelligence Committee Chairman Porter Goss, R-Fla., a former CIA agent, and McLaughlin.
Tenet had given some consideration to leaving last summer, but decided to stay on. Some close to him believe he wanted to catch al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, who remains at large and is believed to be on the Afghan-Pakistani border.
Like many who resign from government, Tenet plans to take time off with his family, and eventually pursue public speaking, teaching, writing or working in the private sector, according to the officials close to him.
"He's been a strong and able leader at the agency. and I will miss him," Bush said of Tenet as he got ready to board Marine One for a trip to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., and on to Europe.
"George Tenet is the kind of public servant you like to work with," the president added. "He's strong, he's resolute. He's served his nation as the director for seven years. He has been a strong and able leader at the agency. He's been a strong leader in the war on terror."
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III praised Tenet. "George has sought at every turn to bridge the gap between the CIA and FBI with one goal in mind - the security of the American public," Mueller said. "Due to his constant efforts to bring the intelligence agencies closer together, we are better able to predict the actions of our adversaries and to protect Americans from evolving transnational threats."
But Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the intelligence community had to be held accountable for its failings.
"Simply put, I think the community is somewhat in denial over the full extent ... of the shortcoming of its work on Iraq and also on 9/11," Roberts, unaware of Tenet's decision, said at a breakfast Thursday, "We need fresh thinking within the community, especially within the Congress, to enable the intelligence community to change and adapt to the dangerous world in which we live."
Tenet had been under fire for months in connection with intelligence failures related to the U.S.-led war against Iraq, specifically assertions the United States made about Saddam Hussein's purported possession of weapons of mass destruction, and with respect to the threat from al-Qaida.
In April, a panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks released statements harshly criticizing the CIA for failing to fully appreciate the threat posed by al-Qaida before the terrorist hijackings. Tenet told the panel the intelligence-gathering flaws exposed by the attacks will take five years to correct.
"I'm surprised," said Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. "I don't think anyone saw it coming. I think we need to know more about the reasons why this surprise announcement came today," the South Dakota Democrat said.
"Mr. Tenet's been under very harsh criticism. I think clearly he's been under great pressure and some criticism. Whether or not that's a factor is not something I can comment on," Daschle said.
Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Tenet "restored morale and provided stability and continuity at a crucial time."
"I have been critical of the prewar intelligence on Iraq's WMD and ties to terror, as well as failures leading up to the attacks of 9-11," she noted. "With Tenet's departure, the president has the opportunity to fix these problems by transforming the job that Tenet held."
Said Goss: "Just boat loads of stuff have been dumped on him by all kinds of people. He was given the job of rebuilding an agency that had been depleted."
House Speaker Dennis Hastert said: "He served his country a long time. History will tell what the implications of his tenure were."
"I think history will tell," the Illinois Republican said when asked how Tenet's performance would be judged. "It's too early to make that snap judgment."
"I think history will either vindicate him or say, 'Hey there was a problem there'," Hastert said.
Retired Adm. Stansfield Turner said he thought Tenet was pushed out.
"I think the president feels he's in enough trouble that he's got to begin to cast some of the blame for the morass that we are in in Iraq to somebody else, and this was one subtle way to do it," said Turner, himself a former CIA director.
© Copyright 2004 Capitol Hill Blue
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Try this: both Bushes CREATED the wars. Yep.
"I think he gets more joy, he gets a bigger rush, out of doing world war," she said of Bush. "The United States economy just bores him or confuses him, I guess."
Patricia Smith, 70, a Republican in Newport News, sensed the same problem: "He's gotten so overwhelmed with these other things that he's forgotten what he promised he would do for us."
Gee. Deja vu.
See the common paths, two men, wealthy and pampered, out of touch with people-America, their lives cushioned and padded with stuffed sychophant:
Saddam Hussein was a snake (and who isn't) and he was provoked in the first Gulf War, and given the go ahead* by a bumbling state department.
Then 9/11 which with which Saddam had significantly less to do with (if anything at all)than the ineptitude of our own security under Star Wars and Drill for Oil! Bush administration.
Two presidents, father and son, both go to war, on the same country, both fouling it up but rather liking the whole war game stuff and, oh, the US isn't really very interesting: taking care of a bunch of loser Americans, looking for work, worrying about education and clean air: bor-ing!
It's deadly clear this war in Iraq is of George Bushes choosing. What now becomes clear is that the first Gulf War of George Bush Sr. Choosing: these guys like war! Shit, Shrub so much as said it.
*yep, that's true. Iraq was told by the US that their dealings with Kuwait was in internal problem: there was NO suggestion that, with troops moving, that there would be dire consequence if Kuwait were invaded. Nope, we watched it happen, and were in full diplomatic contact with Iraq prior to their invasion of Kuwait.
Patricia Smith, 70, a Republican in Newport News, sensed the same problem: "He's gotten so overwhelmed with these other things that he's forgotten what he promised he would do for us."
Gee. Deja vu.
See the common paths, two men, wealthy and pampered, out of touch with people-America, their lives cushioned and padded with stuffed sychophant:
Saddam Hussein was a snake (and who isn't) and he was provoked in the first Gulf War, and given the go ahead* by a bumbling state department.
Then 9/11 which with which Saddam had significantly less to do with (if anything at all)than the ineptitude of our own security under Star Wars and Drill for Oil! Bush administration.
Two presidents, father and son, both go to war, on the same country, both fouling it up but rather liking the whole war game stuff and, oh, the US isn't really very interesting: taking care of a bunch of loser Americans, looking for work, worrying about education and clean air: bor-ing!
It's deadly clear this war in Iraq is of George Bushes choosing. What now becomes clear is that the first Gulf War of George Bush Sr. Choosing: these guys like war! Shit, Shrub so much as said it.
*yep, that's true. Iraq was told by the US that their dealings with Kuwait was in internal problem: there was NO suggestion that, with troops moving, that there would be dire consequence if Kuwait were invaded. Nope, we watched it happen, and were in full diplomatic contact with Iraq prior to their invasion of Kuwait.
Cold Turkey
By Kurt Vonnegut
In These Times (Web Ezine)
Monday 10 May 2004
Many years ago, I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought and often died for that dream during the Second World War, when there was no peace.
But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America's becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.
When you get to my age, if you get to my age, which is 81, and if you have reproduced, you will find yourself asking your own children, who are themselves middle-aged, what life is all about. I have seven kids, four of them adopted.
Many of you reading this are probably the same age as my grandchildren. They, like you, are being royally shafted and lied to by our Baby Boomer corporations and government.
I put my big question about life to my biological son Mark. Mark is a pediatrician, and author of a memoir, The Eden Express. It is about his crackup, straightjacket and padded cell stuff, from which he recovered sufficiently to graduate from Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Vonnegut said this to his doddering old dad: "Father, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is." So I pass that on to you. Write it down, and put it in your computer, so you can forget it.
I have to say that's a pretty good sound bite, almost as good as, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." A lot of people think Jesus said that, because it is so much the sort of thing Jesus liked to say. But it was actually said by Confucius, a Chinese philosopher, 500 years before there was that greatest and most humane of human beings, named Jesus Christ.
The Chinese also gave us, via Marco Polo, pasta and the formula for gunpowder. The Chinese were so dumb they only used gunpowder for fireworks. And everybody was so dumb back then that nobody in either hemisphere even knew that there was another one.
But back to people, like Confucius and Jesus and my son the doctor, Mark, who've said how we could behave more humanely, and maybe make the world a less painful place. One of my favorites is Eugene Debs, from Terre Haute in my native state of Indiana. Get a load of this:
Eugene Debs, who died back in 1926, when I was only 4, ran 5 times as the Socialist Party candidate for president, winning 900,000 votes, 6 percent of the popular vote, in 1912, if you can imagine such a ballot. He had this to say while campaigning:
As long as there is a lower class, I am in it.
As long as there is a criminal element, I'm of it.
As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
Doesn't anything socialistic make you want to throw up? Like great public schools or health insurance for all?
How about Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes?
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. ...
And so on.
Not exactly planks in a Republican platform. Not exactly Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney stuff.
For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.
"Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!
There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.
But, when you stop to think about it, only a nut case would want to be a human being, if he or she had a choice. Such treacherous, untrustworthy, lying and greedy animals we are!
I was born a human being in 1922 A.D. What does "A.D." signify? That commemorates an inmate of this lunatic asylum we call Earth who was nailed to a wooden cross by a bunch of other inmates. With him still conscious, they hammered spikes through his wrists and insteps, and into the wood. Then they set the cross upright, so he dangled up there where even the shortest person in the crowd could see him writhing this way and that.
Can you imagine people doing such a thing to a person?
No problem. That's entertainment. Ask the devout Roman Catholic Mel Gibson, who, as an act of piety, has just made a fortune with a movie about how Jesus was tortured. Never mind what Jesus said.
During the reign of King Henry the Eighth, founder of the Church of England, he had a counterfeiter boiled alive in public. Show biz again.
Mel Gibson's next movie should be The Counterfeiter. Box office records will again be broken.
One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.
And what did the great British historian Edward Gibbon, 1737-1794 A.D., have to say about the human record so far? He said, "History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind."
The same can be said about this morning's edition of the New York Times.
The French-Algerian writer Albert Camus, who won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, wrote, "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide."
So there's another barrel of laughs from literature. Camus died in an automobile accident. His dates? 1913-1960 A.D.
Listen. All great literature is about what a bummer it is to be a human being: Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, The Red Badge of Courage, the Iliad and the Odyssey, Crime and Punishment, the Bible and The Charge of the Light Brigade.
But I have to say this in defense of humankind: No matter in what era in history, including the Garden of Eden, everybody just got there. And, except for the Garden of Eden, there were already all these crazy games going on, which could make you act crazy, even if you weren't crazy to begin with. Some of the games that were already going on when you got here were love and hate, liberalism and conservatism, automobiles and credit cards, golf and girls' basketball.
Even crazier than golf, though, is modern American politics, where, thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.
Actually, this same sort of thing happened to the people of England generations ago, and Sir William Gilbert, of the radical team of Gilbert and Sullivan, wrote these words for a song about it back then:
I often think it's comical
How nature always does contrive
That every boy and every gal
That's born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative.
Which one are you in this country? It's practically a law of life that you have to be one or the other? If you aren't one or the other, you might as well be a doughnut.
If some of you still haven't decided, I'll make it easy for you.
If you want to take my guns away from me, and you're all for murdering fetuses, and love it when homosexuals marry each other, and want to give them kitchen appliances at their showers, and you're for the poor, you're a liberal.
If you are against those perversions and for the rich, you're a conservative.
What could be simpler?
My government's got a war on drugs. But get this: The two most widely abused and addictive and destructive of all substances are both perfectly legal.
One, of course, is ethyl alcohol. And President George W. Bush, no less, and by his own admission, was smashed or tiddley-poo or four sheets to the wind a good deal of the time from when he was 16 until he was 41. When he was 41, he says, Jesus appeared to him and made him knock off the sauce, stop gargling nose paint.
Other drunks have seen pink elephants.
And do you know why I think he is so pissed off at Arabs? They invented algebra. Arabs also invented the numbers we use, including a symbol for nothing, which nobody else had ever had before. You think Arabs are dumb? Try doing long division with Roman numerals.
We're spreading democracy, are we? Same way European explorers brought Christianity to the Indians, what we now call "Native Americans."
How ungrateful they were! How ungrateful are the people of Baghdad today.
So let's give another big tax cut to the super-rich. That'll teach bin Laden a lesson he won't soon forget. Hail to the Chief.
That chief and his cohorts have as little to do with Democracy as the Europeans had to do with Christianity. We the people have absolutely no say in whatever they choose to do next. In case you haven't noticed, they've already cleaned out the treasury, passing it out to pals in the war and national security rackets, leaving your generation and the next one with a perfectly enormous debt that you'll be asked to repay.
Nobody let out a peep when they did that to you, because they have disconnected every burglar alarm in the Constitution: The House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the FBI, the free press (which, having been embedded, has forsaken the First Amendment) and We the People.
About my own history of foreign substance abuse. I've been a coward about heroin and cocaine and LSD and so on, afraid they might put me over the edge. I did smoke a joint of marijuana one time with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, just to be sociable. It didn't seem to do anything to me, one way or the other, so I never did it again. And by the grace of God, or whatever, I am not an alcoholic, largely a matter of genes. I take a couple of drinks now and then, and will do it again tonight. But two is my limit. No problem.
I am of course notoriously hooked on cigarettes. I keep hoping the things will kill me. A fire at one end and a fool at the other.
But I'll tell you one thing: I once had a high that not even crack cocaine could match. That was when I got my first driver's license! Look out, world, here comes Kurt Vonnegut.
And my car back then, a Studebaker, as I recall, was powered, as are almost all means of transportation and other machinery today, and electric power plants and furnaces, by the most abused and addictive and destructive drugs of all: fossil fuels.
When you got here, even when I got here, the industrialized world was already hopelessly hooked on fossil fuels, and very soon now there won't be any more of those. Cold turkey.
Can I tell you the truth? I mean this isn't like TV news, is it?
Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.
And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we're hooked on.
In These Times (Web Ezine)
Monday 10 May 2004
Many years ago, I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought and often died for that dream during the Second World War, when there was no peace.
But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America's becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.
When you get to my age, if you get to my age, which is 81, and if you have reproduced, you will find yourself asking your own children, who are themselves middle-aged, what life is all about. I have seven kids, four of them adopted.
Many of you reading this are probably the same age as my grandchildren. They, like you, are being royally shafted and lied to by our Baby Boomer corporations and government.
I put my big question about life to my biological son Mark. Mark is a pediatrician, and author of a memoir, The Eden Express. It is about his crackup, straightjacket and padded cell stuff, from which he recovered sufficiently to graduate from Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Vonnegut said this to his doddering old dad: "Father, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is." So I pass that on to you. Write it down, and put it in your computer, so you can forget it.
I have to say that's a pretty good sound bite, almost as good as, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." A lot of people think Jesus said that, because it is so much the sort of thing Jesus liked to say. But it was actually said by Confucius, a Chinese philosopher, 500 years before there was that greatest and most humane of human beings, named Jesus Christ.
The Chinese also gave us, via Marco Polo, pasta and the formula for gunpowder. The Chinese were so dumb they only used gunpowder for fireworks. And everybody was so dumb back then that nobody in either hemisphere even knew that there was another one.
But back to people, like Confucius and Jesus and my son the doctor, Mark, who've said how we could behave more humanely, and maybe make the world a less painful place. One of my favorites is Eugene Debs, from Terre Haute in my native state of Indiana. Get a load of this:
Eugene Debs, who died back in 1926, when I was only 4, ran 5 times as the Socialist Party candidate for president, winning 900,000 votes, 6 percent of the popular vote, in 1912, if you can imagine such a ballot. He had this to say while campaigning:
As long as there is a lower class, I am in it.
As long as there is a criminal element, I'm of it.
As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
Doesn't anything socialistic make you want to throw up? Like great public schools or health insurance for all?
How about Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes?
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. ...
And so on.
Not exactly planks in a Republican platform. Not exactly Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney stuff.
For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.
"Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!
There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.
But, when you stop to think about it, only a nut case would want to be a human being, if he or she had a choice. Such treacherous, untrustworthy, lying and greedy animals we are!
I was born a human being in 1922 A.D. What does "A.D." signify? That commemorates an inmate of this lunatic asylum we call Earth who was nailed to a wooden cross by a bunch of other inmates. With him still conscious, they hammered spikes through his wrists and insteps, and into the wood. Then they set the cross upright, so he dangled up there where even the shortest person in the crowd could see him writhing this way and that.
Can you imagine people doing such a thing to a person?
No problem. That's entertainment. Ask the devout Roman Catholic Mel Gibson, who, as an act of piety, has just made a fortune with a movie about how Jesus was tortured. Never mind what Jesus said.
During the reign of King Henry the Eighth, founder of the Church of England, he had a counterfeiter boiled alive in public. Show biz again.
Mel Gibson's next movie should be The Counterfeiter. Box office records will again be broken.
One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.
And what did the great British historian Edward Gibbon, 1737-1794 A.D., have to say about the human record so far? He said, "History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind."
The same can be said about this morning's edition of the New York Times.
The French-Algerian writer Albert Camus, who won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, wrote, "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide."
So there's another barrel of laughs from literature. Camus died in an automobile accident. His dates? 1913-1960 A.D.
Listen. All great literature is about what a bummer it is to be a human being: Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, The Red Badge of Courage, the Iliad and the Odyssey, Crime and Punishment, the Bible and The Charge of the Light Brigade.
But I have to say this in defense of humankind: No matter in what era in history, including the Garden of Eden, everybody just got there. And, except for the Garden of Eden, there were already all these crazy games going on, which could make you act crazy, even if you weren't crazy to begin with. Some of the games that were already going on when you got here were love and hate, liberalism and conservatism, automobiles and credit cards, golf and girls' basketball.
Even crazier than golf, though, is modern American politics, where, thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.
Actually, this same sort of thing happened to the people of England generations ago, and Sir William Gilbert, of the radical team of Gilbert and Sullivan, wrote these words for a song about it back then:
I often think it's comical
How nature always does contrive
That every boy and every gal
That's born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative.
Which one are you in this country? It's practically a law of life that you have to be one or the other? If you aren't one or the other, you might as well be a doughnut.
If some of you still haven't decided, I'll make it easy for you.
If you want to take my guns away from me, and you're all for murdering fetuses, and love it when homosexuals marry each other, and want to give them kitchen appliances at their showers, and you're for the poor, you're a liberal.
If you are against those perversions and for the rich, you're a conservative.
What could be simpler?
My government's got a war on drugs. But get this: The two most widely abused and addictive and destructive of all substances are both perfectly legal.
One, of course, is ethyl alcohol. And President George W. Bush, no less, and by his own admission, was smashed or tiddley-poo or four sheets to the wind a good deal of the time from when he was 16 until he was 41. When he was 41, he says, Jesus appeared to him and made him knock off the sauce, stop gargling nose paint.
Other drunks have seen pink elephants.
And do you know why I think he is so pissed off at Arabs? They invented algebra. Arabs also invented the numbers we use, including a symbol for nothing, which nobody else had ever had before. You think Arabs are dumb? Try doing long division with Roman numerals.
We're spreading democracy, are we? Same way European explorers brought Christianity to the Indians, what we now call "Native Americans."
How ungrateful they were! How ungrateful are the people of Baghdad today.
So let's give another big tax cut to the super-rich. That'll teach bin Laden a lesson he won't soon forget. Hail to the Chief.
That chief and his cohorts have as little to do with Democracy as the Europeans had to do with Christianity. We the people have absolutely no say in whatever they choose to do next. In case you haven't noticed, they've already cleaned out the treasury, passing it out to pals in the war and national security rackets, leaving your generation and the next one with a perfectly enormous debt that you'll be asked to repay.
Nobody let out a peep when they did that to you, because they have disconnected every burglar alarm in the Constitution: The House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the FBI, the free press (which, having been embedded, has forsaken the First Amendment) and We the People.
About my own history of foreign substance abuse. I've been a coward about heroin and cocaine and LSD and so on, afraid they might put me over the edge. I did smoke a joint of marijuana one time with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, just to be sociable. It didn't seem to do anything to me, one way or the other, so I never did it again. And by the grace of God, or whatever, I am not an alcoholic, largely a matter of genes. I take a couple of drinks now and then, and will do it again tonight. But two is my limit. No problem.
I am of course notoriously hooked on cigarettes. I keep hoping the things will kill me. A fire at one end and a fool at the other.
But I'll tell you one thing: I once had a high that not even crack cocaine could match. That was when I got my first driver's license! Look out, world, here comes Kurt Vonnegut.
And my car back then, a Studebaker, as I recall, was powered, as are almost all means of transportation and other machinery today, and electric power plants and furnaces, by the most abused and addictive and destructive drugs of all: fossil fuels.
When you got here, even when I got here, the industrialized world was already hopelessly hooked on fossil fuels, and very soon now there won't be any more of those. Cold turkey.
Can I tell you the truth? I mean this isn't like TV news, is it?
Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.
And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we're hooked on.
Complements of the Bush Administration
"'We have a police state far beyond anything George Orwell imagined in his book 1984,' says privacy expert Susan Morrissey. 'The everyday lives of virtually every American are under scrutiny 24-hours-a-day by the government.'”
Thank goodness those Democrats aren't in power, you know how they hate freedom and love government...
Is the story true? Who knows anymore...
Thank goodness those Democrats aren't in power, you know how they hate freedom and love government...
Is the story true? Who knows anymore...
Tuesday, June 08, 2004
U.S. Supreme Court - SANTA CLARA COUNTY v. SOUTHERN PAC. R. CO., 118 U.S. 394 (1886)
This is a watershed decision that granted the corporation personhood. That pattern has had over 100 years in which to iterate, in which to grow: it is a deadly one, inimical to a society of individual rights, placing every citizen as a reluctant David in the looming shadow of a Goliath. Except this Goliath is bigger and guess what: practically immortal.
"So, who's your new neighbor?"
"Oh, that's International Waste Disposal."
"You like them?"
"ummm, well, no. The fumes and trucks and such... But I went over to talk to them, you know... There are 3000 of them, so it's kind of hard"
"So, who's your new neighbor?"
"Oh, that's International Waste Disposal."
"You like them?"
"ummm, well, no. The fumes and trucks and such... But I went over to talk to them, you know... There are 3000 of them, so it's kind of hard"
Monday, June 07, 2004
Forgot how you voted? The government didn't.
NPR : All Things Considered for Monday, June 7, 2004: "As NPR's Martin Kaste reports, the Chavez government now knows the names and ID numbers of millions of its opponents. "
You may know how you voted, but your government will....
Shucks, you might not even know IF you voted or how, but, again, your government will. Come to think of it, with electronic voting: why even show up. It can all be done by machine.
Machines cannot put your mark on a ballot. Ok, well, yeah, but it is harder.
You may know how you voted, but your government will....
Shucks, you might not even know IF you voted or how, but, again, your government will. Come to think of it, with electronic voting: why even show up. It can all be done by machine.
Machines cannot put your mark on a ballot. Ok, well, yeah, but it is harder.
Petals Around the Rose
"I was introduced to 'Petals Around the Rose' by Dr. Richard Duke at the University of Michigan . Dr. Duke used to begin each of his gaming/simulation courses with this exercise. While some students would solve the problem right away, others would struggle all semester. It had taken Dr. Duke well over a year himself, and he would always explain that the smarter you were, the longer it took to figure it out."
What people seem to always fail to realize is that there is a very big difference between being smart and being well trained...
Ken
What people seem to always fail to realize is that there is a very big difference between being smart and being well trained...
Ken
Sunday, June 06, 2004
Saturday, June 05, 2004
GetReligion: Hearing a ghost: NPR, HIV-AIDS, ABC and GOD
You get an 80% reduction in AIDS with what is a "just say no" program. Problem is 1) it's too damn cheap and nobody gets to spend money or make any 2) they include condoms in the program and maybe 3) there is church stuff in there that is NOT "pure at any cost"
Search on AIDS, Uganda, and ABC and you'll get lots of hits.
Meantime, we're waiting of 15 billion that Bush promised and delivered squat, which is actually not even needed.
Oh shit.
Search on AIDS, Uganda, and ABC and you'll get lots of hits.
Meantime, we're waiting of 15 billion that Bush promised and delivered squat, which is actually not even needed.
Oh shit.
Kerry Might Well Pause, Listen to Nader
Gee. This really would make sense. IF Nader can make it to the debate, Kerry had better have picked up these Nader items: how stupid to not do it. And a bigger question: why not?
A three way debate would be excellent.
A three way debate would be excellent.
Friday, June 04, 2004
Detroit Free Press
Trailer for Michael Moore's new film, 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' in theaters today
June 4, 2004
Day by day, the Michael Moore hype grows.
The trailer for the Flint satirist and pseudo-documentarian's incendiary new film "Fahrenheit 9/11" debuts in theaters today. But the curious can find it on his Web site anytime.
The Academy Award-winning filmmaker's new movie criticizes President Bush's response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
It portrays the Iraq war as a conflict that has unnecessarily endangered the American military, and connects the Bush family to Osama bin Laden's.
"Fahrenheit 9/11" recently won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, hosted in a country, France, that refused to participate in the Iraq war and where anything that riles American political sensibilities is raised to iconic status.
As most of the Western world knows by now, it attracted controversy before it was ever screened, when Moore announced the Walt Disney Co. had refused to let its Miramax Films division distribute the movie.
Moore accused Disney of wanting, among other things, to protect alleged tax breaks in Florida, where the governor is the president's brother, Jeb.
Miramax chiefs Bob and Harvey Weinstein bought the $6-million movie personally and are distributing it through a partnership with Lions Gate Films and IFC Films.
They will probably laugh all the way to the bank.
The film's publicist said the trailer was set to be posted on Moore's Web site, www.michaelmoore.com.
Said Moore: "With Frodo (Harvey) and Sam (Bob) now in charge of the Fellowship, I welcome the addition of Lions Gate and IFC to our quest in bringing good family entertainment to the viewing public."
Moore said he expects the film to open on a "record" number of screens across the country June 25. Local theaters have not yet been announced.
June 4, 2004
Day by day, the Michael Moore hype grows.
The trailer for the Flint satirist and pseudo-documentarian's incendiary new film "Fahrenheit 9/11" debuts in theaters today. But the curious can find it on his Web site anytime.
The Academy Award-winning filmmaker's new movie criticizes President Bush's response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
It portrays the Iraq war as a conflict that has unnecessarily endangered the American military, and connects the Bush family to Osama bin Laden's.
"Fahrenheit 9/11" recently won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, hosted in a country, France, that refused to participate in the Iraq war and where anything that riles American political sensibilities is raised to iconic status.
As most of the Western world knows by now, it attracted controversy before it was ever screened, when Moore announced the Walt Disney Co. had refused to let its Miramax Films division distribute the movie.
Moore accused Disney of wanting, among other things, to protect alleged tax breaks in Florida, where the governor is the president's brother, Jeb.
Miramax chiefs Bob and Harvey Weinstein bought the $6-million movie personally and are distributing it through a partnership with Lions Gate Films and IFC Films.
They will probably laugh all the way to the bank.
The film's publicist said the trailer was set to be posted on Moore's Web site, www.michaelmoore.com.
Said Moore: "With Frodo (Harvey) and Sam (Bob) now in charge of the Fellowship, I welcome the addition of Lions Gate and IFC to our quest in bringing good family entertainment to the viewing public."
Moore said he expects the film to open on a "record" number of screens across the country June 25. Local theaters have not yet been announced.
Bush's Erratic Behavior Worries White House Aides
Is this stuff true? Not sure. Is it believable? It sure is.
-----
President George W. Bush’s increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader’s state of mind.
In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as “enemies of the state.”
Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge, increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home.
“It reminds me of the Nixon days,” says a longtime GOP political consultant with contacts in the White House. “Everybody is an enemy; everybody is out to get him. That’s the mood over there.”
In interviews with a number of White House staffers who were willing to talk off the record, a picture of an administration under siege has emerged, led by a man who declares his decisions to be “God’s will” and then tells aides to “fuck over” anyone they consider to be an opponent of the administration.
“We’re at war, there’s no doubt about it. What I don’t know anymore is just who the enemy might be,” says one troubled White House aide. “We seem to spend more time trying to destroy John Kerry than al Qaeda and our enemies list just keeps growing and growing.”
Aides say the President gets “hung up on minor details,” micromanaging to the extreme while ignoring the bigger picture. He will spend hours personally reviewing and approving every attack ad against his Democratic opponent and then kiss off a meeting on economic issues.
“This is what is killing us on Iraq,” one aide says. “We lost focus. The President got hung up on the weapons of mass destruction and an unproven link to al Qaeda. We could have found other justifiable reasons for the war but the President insisted the focus stay on those two, tenuous items.”
Aides who raise questions quickly find themselves shut out of access to the President or other top advisors. Among top officials, Bush’s inner circle is shrinking. Secretary of State Colin Powell has fallen out of favor because of his growing doubts about the administration’s war against Iraq.
The President's abrupt dismissal of CIA Directory George Tenet Wednesday night is, aides say, an example of how he works.
"Tenet wanted to quit last year but the President got his back up and wouldn't hear of it," says an aide. "That would have been the opportune time to make a change, not in the middle of an election campaign but when the director challenged the President during the meeting Wednesday, the President cut him off by saying 'that's it George. I cannot abide disloyalty. I want your resignation and I want it now."
Tenet was allowed to resign "voluntarily" and Bush informed his shocked staff of the decision Thursday morning. One aide says the President actually described the decision as "God's will."
God may also be the reason Attorney General John Ashcroft, the administration’s lightning rod because of his questionable actions that critics argue threatens freedoms granted by the Constitution, remains part of the power elite. West Wing staffers call Bush and Ashcroft “the Blues Brothers” because “they’re on a mission from God.”
“The Attorney General is tight with the President because of religion,” says one aide. “They both believe any action is justifiable in the name of God.”
But the President who says he rules at the behest of God can also tongue-lash those he perceives as disloyal, calling them “fucking assholes” in front of other staff, berating one cabinet official in front of others and labeling anyone who disagrees with him “unpatriotic” or “anti-American.”
“The mood here is that we’re under siege, there’s no doubt about it,” says one troubled aide who admits he is looking for work elsewhere. “In this administration, you don’t have to wear a turban or speak Farsi to be an enemy of the United States. All you have to do is disagree with the President.”
The White House did not respond to requests for comment on the record.
© Copyright 2004 by Capitol Hill Blue
-----
President George W. Bush’s increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader’s state of mind.
In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as “enemies of the state.”
Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge, increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home.
“It reminds me of the Nixon days,” says a longtime GOP political consultant with contacts in the White House. “Everybody is an enemy; everybody is out to get him. That’s the mood over there.”
In interviews with a number of White House staffers who were willing to talk off the record, a picture of an administration under siege has emerged, led by a man who declares his decisions to be “God’s will” and then tells aides to “fuck over” anyone they consider to be an opponent of the administration.
“We’re at war, there’s no doubt about it. What I don’t know anymore is just who the enemy might be,” says one troubled White House aide. “We seem to spend more time trying to destroy John Kerry than al Qaeda and our enemies list just keeps growing and growing.”
Aides say the President gets “hung up on minor details,” micromanaging to the extreme while ignoring the bigger picture. He will spend hours personally reviewing and approving every attack ad against his Democratic opponent and then kiss off a meeting on economic issues.
“This is what is killing us on Iraq,” one aide says. “We lost focus. The President got hung up on the weapons of mass destruction and an unproven link to al Qaeda. We could have found other justifiable reasons for the war but the President insisted the focus stay on those two, tenuous items.”
Aides who raise questions quickly find themselves shut out of access to the President or other top advisors. Among top officials, Bush’s inner circle is shrinking. Secretary of State Colin Powell has fallen out of favor because of his growing doubts about the administration’s war against Iraq.
The President's abrupt dismissal of CIA Directory George Tenet Wednesday night is, aides say, an example of how he works.
"Tenet wanted to quit last year but the President got his back up and wouldn't hear of it," says an aide. "That would have been the opportune time to make a change, not in the middle of an election campaign but when the director challenged the President during the meeting Wednesday, the President cut him off by saying 'that's it George. I cannot abide disloyalty. I want your resignation and I want it now."
Tenet was allowed to resign "voluntarily" and Bush informed his shocked staff of the decision Thursday morning. One aide says the President actually described the decision as "God's will."
God may also be the reason Attorney General John Ashcroft, the administration’s lightning rod because of his questionable actions that critics argue threatens freedoms granted by the Constitution, remains part of the power elite. West Wing staffers call Bush and Ashcroft “the Blues Brothers” because “they’re on a mission from God.”
“The Attorney General is tight with the President because of religion,” says one aide. “They both believe any action is justifiable in the name of God.”
But the President who says he rules at the behest of God can also tongue-lash those he perceives as disloyal, calling them “fucking assholes” in front of other staff, berating one cabinet official in front of others and labeling anyone who disagrees with him “unpatriotic” or “anti-American.”
“The mood here is that we’re under siege, there’s no doubt about it,” says one troubled aide who admits he is looking for work elsewhere. “In this administration, you don’t have to wear a turban or speak Farsi to be an enemy of the United States. All you have to do is disagree with the President.”
The White House did not respond to requests for comment on the record.
© Copyright 2004 by Capitol Hill Blue
Thursday, June 03, 2004
Bush just fought, and WON!, WW II. Again. Faster, and better!
It's really easy, if you will just believe.
Friendly Congregations
I found this hidden within an article on Trent Lott putting another foot in his mouth.
---
Anger Over Campaign's Call
Two religious watchdog groups cried foul yesterday over an e-mail from a Bush reelection staffer looking for churches and synagogues to serve as hubs for campaign activity in Pennsylvania.
"The Bush-Cheney '04 national headquarters in Virginia has asked us to identify 1600 'Friendly Congregations' in Pennsylvania where voters friendly to President Bush might gather on a regular basis," the e-mail said. "In each of these friendly congregations, we would like to identify a volunteer coordinator who can help distribute general information to other supporters."
The e-mail was forwarded to news organizations by the Interfaith Alliance and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, called it an effort to build "a church-based political machine" and said it could endanger the congregations' tax-exempt status, because IRS rules forbid churches from endorsing candidates or engaging in partisan campaigns.
Campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said, "This e-mail is being sent to individual Bush supporters asking them to organize other volunteers within their faith community, and people of faith have as much right to participate in the political process as any other Americans."
---
Anger Over Campaign's Call
Two religious watchdog groups cried foul yesterday over an e-mail from a Bush reelection staffer looking for churches and synagogues to serve as hubs for campaign activity in Pennsylvania.
"The Bush-Cheney '04 national headquarters in Virginia has asked us to identify 1600 'Friendly Congregations' in Pennsylvania where voters friendly to President Bush might gather on a regular basis," the e-mail said. "In each of these friendly congregations, we would like to identify a volunteer coordinator who can help distribute general information to other supporters."
The e-mail was forwarded to news organizations by the Interfaith Alliance and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, called it an effort to build "a church-based political machine" and said it could endanger the congregations' tax-exempt status, because IRS rules forbid churches from endorsing candidates or engaging in partisan campaigns.
Campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said, "This e-mail is being sent to individual Bush supporters asking them to organize other volunteers within their faith community, and people of faith have as much right to participate in the political process as any other Americans."
What did the president know and when did he know it?
Witnesses told a federal grand jury President George W. Bush knew about, and took no action to stop, the release of a covert CIA operative's name to a journalist in an attempt to discredit her husband, a critic of administration policy in Iraq.
Their damning testimony has prompted Bush to contact an outside lawyer for legal advice because evidence increasingly points to his involvement in the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to syndicated columnist Robert Novak.
Their damning testimony has prompted Bush to contact an outside lawyer for legal advice because evidence increasingly points to his involvement in the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to syndicated columnist Robert Novak.
Wednesday, June 02, 2004
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