Bush Flips Off Protesters

Bearing banner "MORE TREES, LESS BUSH"

Pennsylvania Protesters Get the Bird From Bush

...The action got started off right when we arrived on the scene, and seven or eight teenage guys decided to "re-enact" the prison abuse scandals in Iraq by stripping down to thongs and making a human pyramid, while donning black hoods. The police officers on the scene immediately tackled them and led them out in handcuffs...

After waiting around for about 45 minutes, the motorcade passed by us again. A few police cars, followed by a van or two, drove by. Then, a Bush/Cheney bus passed, followed by a second one going slower. At the front of this second bus was The W himself, waving cheerily at his supporters on the other side of the highway...[We] rose our banner...and he turned to wave to our side of the road. His smile faded, and he raised his left arm in our direction. And then, George W. Bush, the 43rd president of the United States of America, extended his middle finger.

Read that last sentence again.
I got flipped off by George W. Bush.

Funny how Mr. Bush never says "Bring 'em on" to those who disagree with him.

Absolutely Unacceptable

U.S. Mulling How to Delay Nov. Vote in Case of Attack

Don't even think, for one tiny minute, that we can permit this.

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge warned last week that Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al Qaeda network want to attack within the United States to try to disrupt the election.

[House Intelligence Committee member, Jane] Harman said Ridge's threat warning "was a bust" because it was based on old information.

Newsweek cited unnamed sources who told it that the Department of Homeland Security asked the Justice Department (news - web sites) last week to review what legal steps would be needed to delay the vote if an attack occurred on the day before or on election day.

The department was asked to review a letter from DeForest Soaries, chairman of the new U.S. Election Assistance Commission, in which he asked Ridge to ask Congress for the power to put off the election in the event of an attack...

The commission was created in 2002 to provide funds to states to replace punch card voting systems and provide other assistance in conducting federal elections...

In his letter, Soaries wrote that while New York's Board of Elections suspended primary elections in New York on the day of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, "the federal government has no agency that has the statutory authority to cancel and reschedule a federal election."

That's because, Mr. Soaries, if someone drives another plane into a tower somewhere, that should not stop an election in Des Moines. Or Kansas City. Or Irvine. Unless the tower happens to be located there. Delaying ALL of an election because of something happening in one state infringes on *my* right, in *my* state, to cast my vote. The appropriate response to another terrorist attack is to hold announcing the results of the election, until all the votes have been counted, including those in the specific precincts, districts, municipalities, counties, or states that could not keep their polls open or report their ballots received properly.

The US Election Assistance Commission referred to in this article was created in 2002 by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which means...

The people who brought us Diebold, in all their unsafe and election-fixing glory, would like to 'delay' your vote.

The appropriate phrase here, is, "over my dead body". Got it? Good.

Will These Children Cost Bush More Allies?

Over 100 Children Abused in Custody in Iraq

According to information from the International Red Cross, more than a 100 children are imprisoned in Iraq, including in the infamous prison Abu Ghraib.

The German TV magazine "Report" revealed that there has been abuse of children and youth by the coalition forces.

US soldiers are to have abused arrested children (Google-translated from German)

An account of mistreatment of girls and boys in Iraqi prisons: “Undressing, blows and cold water”

Internal UNICEF report: USA intern children for an indefinite time without legal process

USA: Pattern of brutality and cruelty -- war crimes at Abu Ghraib

Abu Ghraib 'a win' for terrorists

Brits Admit: No WMDs

We were wrong on WMD, admits Britain's former envoy to Iraq

Well, how do you like them apples?

Brig Gen Janis Karpinski Interview

This interview is amazing.

Prison Chief: Rumsfeld Authorized Torture, Iraqis Involved

(The Signal is the local paper for Santa Clarita, CA, in the Antelope Valley, a little north of Los Angeles.)

Signal: Last week the Pentagon released memos showing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld approved particular interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay. To your knowledge, are there documents showing he also approved particular interrogation techniques for Abu Ghraib?

Karpinski: I did not see it personally, but since all of this has come out, I've not only seen, but I've been asked about some of those documents, that he signed and agreed to.

Signal: About Abu Ghraib?

Karpinski: Yes. About using the same techniques that were successful in Guantánamo Bay, at Abu Ghraib.

Signal: Those documents have not been released yet.

Karpinski: No.

Signal: What can you characterize about them?

Karpinski: I know that Col. Pappas, on three occasions, sent a request to Gen. Sanchez to escalate their interrogations, and that involved using - and he lists them. And in one case he said they wanted to use dogs, and they wanted to increase the length of time that they could be isolated, food deprivation, that kind of - sleep deprivation. And in at least two of those cases, there is a signature of approval from Gen. Sanchez.

Signal: And you've seen these documents.

Karpinski: Yes, I have.

[...]

Signal: What about CIA activities? Specially, Mr. Rumsfeld's recent acknowledgement that he hid a so-called "ghost detainee" at another detention facility in Baghdad at the request of ex-CIA director George Tenet.

Karpinski: Right.

Signal: Did you have knowledge of that?

Karpinski: I certainly did.

Signal: So you knew at the time that there was a ghost detainee.

Karpinski: I absolutely did. And we objected.

Then, and Now

Their George and Ours Barbara Ehrenreich traces parallels between King George and 'King' George W.

• "depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial by Jury."
• tax burden imposed to support the king's wars
• "obstructed the Administration of Justice." -- evading judicial review by hiding detainees in Gitmo, or not checking detainees in at all (in Iraq).
• "taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments." -- Bush's 'inherent' powers as Commander in Chief.
• "transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation." -- Ehrenreich suggests you change the word 'mercenaries' to 'contractors' and read the sentence again.

Read the whole thing.

O Canada

Happy Canada Day

Recent American Constitution Society Speeches

Yesterday:

Al Gore: Democracy is in danger. I agree. In fact, I do not think the case can be stated strongly enough: the precedent set by Bush v. Gore in the first place has placed us on such a dangerous, dangerous road. I'm pleased to see recognition of that, (see my next link).

That the most serious threat to democracy is usually the accumulation of too much power in the hands of an executive, whether he be a king or a president. Our ingrained American distrust of concentrated power has very little to do with the character or persona of the individual who wields that power. It is the power itself that must be constrained, checked, dispersed and carefully balanced, in order to ensure the survival of freedom. In addition, our founders taught us that public fear is the most dangerous enemy of democracy because under the right circumstances it can trigger the temptation of those who govern themselves to surrender that power to someone who promises strength and offers safety, security and freedom from fear.

Last Saturday:

AUDIENCE GASPS AS JUDGE LIKENS ELECTION OF BUSH TO RISE OF IL DUCE. 2nd Circuit’s Calabresi Also Compares Bush’s Rise to That of Hitler.

“In a way that occurred before but is rare in the United States…somebody came to power as a result of the illegitimate acts of a legitimate institution that had the right to put somebody in power.That is what the Supreme Court did in Bush versus Gore. It put somebody in power,” said Guido Calabresi, a judge on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which sits in Manhattan.

“The reason I emphasize that is because that is exactly what happened when Mussolini was put in by the king of Italy,” Judge Calabresi continued, as the allusion drew audible gasps from some in the luncheon crowd Saturday at the annual convention of the American Constitution Society.

“The king of Italy had the right to put Mussolini in, though he had not won an election, and make him prime minister. That is what happened when Hindenburg put Hitler in. I am not suggesting for a moment that Bush is Hitler. I want to be clear on that, but it is a situation which is extremely unusual,” the judge said.

Judge Calabresi, a former dean of Yale Law School, said Mr. Bush has asserted the full prerogatives of his office, despite his lack of a compelling electoral mandate from the public.

“When somebody has come in that way, they sometimes have tried not to exercise much power. In this case, like Mussolini, he has exercised extraordinary power. He has exercised power, claimed power for himself; that has not occurred since Franklin Roosevelt who, after all, was elected big and who did some of the same things with respect to assertions of power in times of crisis that this president is doing,” he said.

The 71-year-old judge declared that members of the public should, without regard to their political views, expel Mr. Bush from office in order to cleanse the democratic system.

Deceive, Inveigle, Obfuscate

Po-tay-to, po-tah-to, let's call the whole thing off.


Noonday in the Shade by Paul Krugman. When is a terrorist not a terrorist? When he's a white supremacist, that's when.

U.S. Approved Use of Dogs Against Prisoners

Prozac, stat!

Never mind that anti-depressants may encourage suicide in preteens/teens, Bush wants us all on drugs.

Antidepressant Medications for Children -- "...antidepressant medications themselves may induce suicidal behavior and be ineffective in treating depression in youths"

FDA Issues Public Health Advisory on Cautions for Use of Antidepressants in Adults and Children --

...it is not yet clear whether antidepressants contribute to the emergence of suicidal thinking and behavior. The agency is advising clinicians, patients, families and caregivers of adults and children that they should closely monitor all patients being placed on therapy with these drugs for worsening depression and suicidal thinking, which can occur during the early period of treatment. The agency is also advising that these patients be observed for certain behaviors that are known to be associated with these drugs, such as anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, impulsivity, akathisia (severe restlessness), hypomania, and mania, and that physicians be particularly vigilant in patients who may have bipolar disorder.

FDA is asking manufacturers to change the labels of ten drugs to include stronger cautions and warnings about the need to monitor patients for the worsening of depression and the emergence of suicidal ideation, regardless of the cause of such worsening.

Bush plans to screen whole US population for mental illness

What is the ulterior motive, here? Getting all of us to commit suicide? Antidepressants as a weapon of mass destruction?

No, it's probably simpler than that (remember, money: follow it), as the British Medical Journal article cited above tells us -- "Drug companies have contributed three times more to the campaign of George Bush,...than to that of his rival John Kerry." He has to do something for them, now, and fishing for customers could work just fine.

Now, just as an aside...where would the money for this 'drugging America' program come from? That doesn't come from the pharmeceutical companies -- they're donating to political campaigns, you see -- so...other social programs, perhaps?

Class War in America

The Fight of Our Lives -- Bill Moyers sings it loud. June, 2004.

I don't have to tell you that a profound transformation is occurring in America: the balance between wealth and the commonwealth is being upended. By design. Deliberately. We have been subjected to what the Commonwealth Foundation calls "a fanatical drive to dismantle the political institutions, the legal and statutory canons, and the intellectual and cultural frameworks that have shaped public responsibility for social harms arising from the excesses of private power." From land, water and other natural resources, to media and the broadcast and digital spectrums, to scientific discovery and medical breakthroughs, and to politics itself, a broad range of the American commons is undergoing a powerful shift toward private and corporate control. And with little public debate. Indeed, what passes for 'political debate' in this country has become a cynical charade behind which the real business goes on -- the not-so-scrupulous business of getting and keeping power in order to divide up the spoils.

We could have seen this coming if we had followed the money. The veteran Washington reporter, Elizabeth Drew, says "the greatest change in Washington over the past 25 years -- in its culture, in the way it does business and the ever-burgeoning amount of business transactions that go on here -- has been in the preoccupation with money." Jeffrey Birnbaum, who covered Washington for nearly twenty years for the Wall Street Journal, put it more strongly: "[campaign cash] has flooded over the gunwales of the ship of state and threatens to sink the entire vessel. Political donations determine the course and speed of many government actions that deeply affect our daily lives." Politics is suffocating from the stranglehold of money. During his brief campaign in 2000, before he was ambushed by the dirty tricks of the religious right in South Carolina and big money from George W. Bush's wealthy elites, John McCain said elections today are nothing less than an "influence peddling scheme in which both parties compete to stay in office by selling the country to the highest bidder."

Follow the money. Always.

Is the Press getting their Feces Cohesive?

Press Briefing by Scott McClellan June 17, 2004.

Q:...you were saying this morning that the findings of the 9/11 Commission, which definitively say that there was no collaborative relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, are completely consistent with your position that there was such a collaborative relationship. And I'm just wondering if you could explain how those two disparate thoughts are completely consistent.

MR. McCLELLAN: Sure. If you go back and look at what the September 11th Commission said, they talked about how there had been high-level contacts between the regime in Iraq and al Qaeda. And they specifically pointed out to contacts between Iraqi intelligence officials and bin Laden in Sudan; and they talked about other contacts. And if you go back and look at what Secretary Powell outlined before the United Nations, this was back in February of 2003, he talked about how we know -- this is quote, "We know members of both organizations met repeatedly and have met at least eight times at very senior levels since the early 1990s. In 1996, a foreign security service tells us that bin Laden met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Khartoum and later met the director of the Iraqi intelligence service." So he talked about some of contacts in his presentation to the United Nations.

Q: Right, but the 9/11 --

MR. McCLELLAN: And that is perfectly consistent with what the September 11th Commission talked about in their report yesterday.

Q: But here's where the two positions diverge, and that is that the 9/11 Commission says, yes, there were these contacts, but they did not result in any kind of collaborative relationship. It means the same thing as you and I contact each all the time, but I don't think anybody here at the White House would account you of having --

MR. McCLELLAN: John, we made it clear a long time ago --

Q: -- a collaborative relationship with me.

Or just read the excerpts over at Tom Tomorrow.


I have two things to say:

1. *snicker*
2. About Fripping Time, mainstream press. What, were you waiting for an engraved invitation?

Convention? What Geneva Convention?

Pentagon Admits Violating Geneva Convention

"In a rare admission of violating the Geneva Conventions on prisoners of war..."

Oh, so it's not 'consistent with the principles' of the Geneva Convention anymore?

Glad we got that cleared up, because I thought the President had announced his dedication to the principles behind the convention, even though some of the prisoners in our custody are not legally POWs.

Statement by the Press Secretary on the Geneva Convention May, 2003.

What this announcement signifies is the President's dedication to the importance of the Geneva Convention and to the principles that the Geneva Convention holds. In terms of the treatment of the prisoners, even though the President has determined that they will not be treated legally as prisoners of war, they will be afforded every courtesy and every value that this nation applies to treating people well while they're in our custody. So it will not change their material life on a day-to-day basis; they will continue to be treated well because that's what the United States does.

Now, that was specifically regarding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, although, one year later,

And when it comes to Iraq, we are bound by the Geneva Convention. It is our policy to adhere to all of our laws and our treaty obligations...

...the President set out some guidelines when it comes to the enemy combatants and the detainees that you may be referring to at Guantanamo Bay, for instance. Al Qaeda obviously was not a signatory to the Geneva Conventions. But the President set out some broad and clear guidelines stating that these detainees should be treated humanely and consistent with the Geneva Conventions...

...the President's guidelines were very clear; they should be treated humanely and consistent with the Geneva Conventions.

Press Briefing by Scott McClellan (May 12, 2004)

Interesting References:

White House Press Briefings
Former U.S. Officials Say Bush Must Go
9/11 Commission

Sigh

Our* (biological) father has cancer. He's had it for a few years now. Colon, now liver. Of all the things that have made me feel bad for him, bad about this whole situation, it is the email I got Friday (or, that was waiting for me since Friday) wherein he mentioned he's down to 2 hours a week of work and on disability.

He can't work. That's the thing that hurts. Without work, what is there to do?

No. Really. This is a serious question.

If you don't have something to *do* with your life, with your hands, with your mind, with your heart and soul -- what do you do?

The eternal question, I guess, faced not only by the ill but by the downtrodden with no chance for advancement in their lives. Those who are stuck being stuck.

*That's the twin 'we'.

What an interesting thing, timing

Unit Says It Gave Earlier Warning Of Abuse In Iraq

Starting in mid-November, one member of the unit began asking detainees, "How have you been treated since you have been in U.S. custody?" It was intended as a tactic meant to make the detainee feel like the interrogator cared, military intelligence personnel said. But the question soon began eliciting vivid and disturbing answers.

When did Miller visit with his 'suggestions' about 'gitmo-izing' Abu Ghraib? September, 2003, wasn't it?

Doesn't that sound like a reasonable amount of time for

a. 'suggestions' to have been implemented broadly
b. someone suffering under these 'suggestions' to be deemed as no longer useful and sent to the Detainee Assessment for a final interview/interrogation?


N.B.: The question hadn't been part of routine assessments previously, so this could be a coincidence.