JUSIPER
Friday, September 30, 2005
More Dolly Parton
"People ask me if I'm offended when they call me a dumb blonde. And I say, 'No,' because I know I'm not dumb, and I know I'm not blonde!"
9:51 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Larry King's embarrassment of riches
Walter Cronkite making a plug for teacher education (essentially because he thinks the nation has proven it's too dumb to vote), Dolly Parton promoting an album full of antiwar covers.
9:34 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Two weeks into Times Select
And no change in anyone's lifestyle. A Friedmanless and Dowdless world is hardly emptier.
6:32 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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DeLay grand jury foreman speaks
Yikes:
The 12-member grand jury that indicted U.S. Rep. Tom Delay, R-Sugar Land, faces scrutiny from critics who say they are lackeys for Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle.
Foreman William Gibson lives in a Northeast Austin neighborhood.
It's been his philosophy not to have his picture taken because he doesn't want to be harassed, Gibson said.
Gibson isn't really afraid of that. He did his duty and that bound him to look at Tom Delay as just another Texan accused of criminal conspiracy, he said.
"I like his aggressiveness and everything, and I had nothing against the House majority man, but I felt that we had enough evidence, not only me, but the other grand jury members," Gibson said.
The grand jury foreman also takes great exception to accusations that he and 11 other grand jury members followed the lead of Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle instead of following the evidence.
"It was not a rubber stamp deal. It was not an overnight deal. If we needed extra information, it was provided to us," Gibson said. [...]
Gibson thinks there is enough evidence to convict Delay.
"We would not have handed down an indictment. We would have no-billed the man, if we didn't feel there was sufficient evidence," said Gibson.
The evidence is there to prove Delay was involved in wrongdoing and also prove that he and his fellow grand jurors acted independent of political influence, Gibson said.
"It wasn't Mr. Earle that indicted the man. It was the 12 members of the grand jury," Gibson said.
Gibson is a former sheriff's deputy and a former investigator for what is now the Texas Department of Insurance.
5:28 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Blumenthal: Karen Hughes is Bin Laden's little helper
But then, so is her boss.
She may be the most parochial person ever to hold a senior state department appointment, but the president has confidence she can rebrand the US. [...]
This week, Hughes embarked on her first trip as undersecretary. Her initial statement resembled an elementary school presentation: "You might want to know why the countries. Egypt is, of course, the most populous Arab country... Saudi Arabia is our second stop; it's obviously an important place in Islam and the keeper of its two holiest sites ... Turkey is also a country that encompasses people of many different backgrounds and beliefs, and yet is proud of the saying that 'All are Turks'."
Hughes appeared as one of the pilgrims satirised by Mark Twain in his 1869 book Innocents Abroad, on his trip on the Grand Holy Land Pleasure Excursion. "None of us had ever been anywhere before; we all hailed from the interior; travel was a wild novelty... We always took care to make it understood that we were Americans - Americans!" [...]
With these well-meaning arguments, Hughes has provided the exact proofs for Bin Laden's claims about American motives. "It is stunning to the extent Hughes is helping bin Laden," says Robert Pape, a University of Chicago political scientist who has conducted extensive research into the motives of suicide terrorists and is the author of Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. "If you set out to help bin Laden," he says, "you could not have done it better than Hughes."
Pape's research debunks the view that suicide terrorism is the natural byproduct of Islamic fundamentalism or some "Islamo-fascist" ideological strain, independent of certain highly specific circumstances.
"Of the key conditions that lead to suicide terrorism in particular, there first must be the presence of foreign combat forces on the territory that the terrorists prize. The second condition is a religious difference between the combat forces and the local community. The religious difference matters in that it enables terrorist leaders to paint foreign forces as being driven by religious goals.
"If you read Osama's speeches, they begin with descriptions of the US occupation of the Arabian peninsula driven by our religious goals and that it is our religious purpose that must be confronted. That argument is incredibly powerful, not only to religious Muslims but also secular Muslims. Everything Hughes says makes their case."
5:05 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Michael Isikoff
Ouch.
Did that headline in the Los Angeles Times the other day -- the one about "No. 2 Al Qaeda Leader in Iraq is Killed" -- look familiar? There's a reason for that: you've read it before, or at least headlines a lot like it. Consider this one -- "Iraqis Nab Top Zarqawi Aide" -- that ran on the Fox News Web Site last Jan. 24, 2005 over an Associated Press story reporting the arrest of one Abu Omar al-Kurdi. Or the stories a year earlier reporting the apprehension of one, Husam al-Yemeni, described by the U.S. military as the shadowy Abu Musab Zarqawi's "right hand man." It turns out there's quite a pattern here.
"If I had a nickel for every No. 2 and Nov. 3 they've arrested or killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, I'd be a millionaire," Evan Kohlmann, a brainy counter-terrorism analyst who tracks the Iraqi insurgency, told me for my weekly "Terror Watch" column (written with my colleague Mark Hosenball) on the Newsweek web site. (Here's the link...) It turns out that despite the hype about the killing of Abu Azzam by outgoing Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Richard Myers and even President Bush (who called the fallen Azzam " the "second most wanted Al Qaeda leader in Iraq"-- he may not have actually been Zarqawi's "number two" after all. Whatever his ranking, his death doesn't seem to have had any immediate impact on the rate of suicide bombings, if today's news ("Car Bomb Onslaught Kills at least 60 in Iraq") is any yardstick.
4:40 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Bye, bye Freddy
Fifteen points behind in the polls, lost endorsements, and now evidence that the Clintons aren't about to pull out all the stops for the old coalition breaker.
Yet concerns are coursing through his team, particularly that doubts about his political viability could slow his modest fund-raising pace even further and leave him with less money to hone his message on television and radio. Reflecting that point, Mr. Ferrer's aides rolled out a new commercial on Wednesday in hopes of swamping the bad news - yet they did not spend money to immediately extend the purchase of television time beyond yesterday. (Last night, in a turn of good news, the Ferrer campaign received $947,121 from the city in campaign matching funds.)
All of this comes as Mr. Ferrer, who had been on a post-primary roll with political endorsements, lost an important prize Tuesday night: the vote-getting ballot line of New York's Working Families Party, which the Ferrer campaign had been aggressively lobbying for support. The party ended up nominally endorsing Mr. Ferrer, but Mayor Bloomberg won out by keeping the ballot line vacant, thanks to several party leaders who support him.
Two polls, conducted after Mr. Ferrer was nominated, have shown the mayor with a double-digit lead.
"To beat an incumbent who has very broad approval ratings like Mayor Bloomberg, an opponent has to make a very compelling case about why voters are now going to change regimes," said Harold M. Ickes, a Democratic political consultant who advised Mr. Ferrer during his 2001 mayoral bid. "That hasn't happened with Freddy, at least not yet. And it needs to, especially with the huge disparity of resources in Bloomberg's favor."
Mr. Ickes, who has also worked for the two most influential Democrats in New York, former President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, said he was not aware if they shared his views on mayoral campaign strategy. Yet several Democrats noted yesterday that Mr. Clinton, who works in Harlem and lives in Westchester County, campaigned yesterday in New Jersey for the Democratic nominee for governor, Jon S. Corzine. The former president has yet to appear with Mr. Ferrer, nor has his estimable political appetite led to regular chats with Mr. Ferrer about strategy akin to those with Democratic candidates during last year's presidential race.
"Clinton will be out there at some point with Ferrer, but you get the sense with both the president and Senator Clinton that they generally feel the mayor has done a good job," said one Democratic operative who speaks regularly to both Clintons.
4:08 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Bye bye, Tom Delay
He only won re-election with 55% of the vote in 2004, and even though a staggering 47% of his constituents still approve of him, 48% do not.
4:04 PM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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Death penalty for Rove?
And some interesting, Judy-less, Traitorgate-related news here.
1:44 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Thursday, September 29, 2005
Depressing thought of the decade
"Should Chief Justice Roberts serve until he is as old as Justice Stevens, he will still be chief justice in the year 2040."
6:08 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Says Ronnie Earl
"Being called partisan and vindictive by Tom DeLay is like being called ugly by a frog."
4:11 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Cong. Steve Buyer R-IN: Idiot
Wow:
Hastert's challenge was vividly highlighted yesterday by the mood at a private late-afternoon meeting of the House Republican Conference, with nearly all members in attendance.
Some lawmakers, such as Zach Wamp (Tenn.) challenged Republican leaders to set a date for formal leadership elections instead of allowing party bosses to impose their choices. At the same time, conservatives such as Steve Buyer (Ind.) rose to say Republicans should have allowed DeLay to remain majority leader even with an indictment. Earlier this year, under pressure from Democrats and a few in his own party, Hastert reversed a rule designed expressly for DeLay that would have allowed indicted leaders to retain their positions.
Rep. Tom Feeney (Fla.) said afterward that the rules change "was like waving a red flag to Ronnie Earle," the Texas prosecutor who pushed for DeLay's indictment. Feeney said some conservatives may push for still another reversal, allowing DeLay to return even before his legal problems are resolved.
1:31 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Bill Bennett
You can't make this stuff up:
But I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down. That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky.
12:23 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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The end for Joementum?
Lowell Weicker is the one guy who could make it happen, if "somebody pisses him off enough."
12:22 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Republicans fearful
From the New York Times.
One Republican strategist, who asked not to be identified because of his work with Republicans on Capitol Hill, said of the DeLay indictment: "When you pile it on top of everything else - Iraq, Katrina, gas prices - it's pretty grim. We're still waiting for some sign of good news, something our candidates can run on. This isn't it."
The strategist added: "The Democrats will make the case that Republicans are too busy dealing with their own ethical issues to care about the problems facing the country. And guess what? That charge worked pretty well for us in '92 and '94."
Whether Democrats will be able to make that case is another question; they have internal problems of their own, notably their chronic problem in unifying around a clear message , a challenge the Republicans met with the Contract With America.
But for the Republican majority, the problem in many ways is not the challenge from without, but the second-term problems within.
12:20 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Snuff for porn story makes CNN.com
Still no political impact, however.
8:31 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Ronnie Earle on the GOP response
From the Houston Chronicle:
"We regret the people of Texas will once again have their taxpayer dollars wasted on Ronnie Earle's pursuit of headlines and political paybacks," Madden said.
"That kind of attack is what they believe of themselves," Earle said of allegations that the indictment was politically motivated. "I don't know what else they would say."
6:28 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Family Research Council: Moneylaunderers are our friends
They announce their continued backing of the indicted former Majority leader, and the soon to be indicted new one!
FRC Pres. Tony Perkins has released the following statement after a Texas grand jury indicted House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) today:
We must all remember that in this country you are innocent until proven guilty.
DeLay has been a stalwart friend of the family, and FRC is not a fair-weather friend. He is a great leader for pro-family public policies of enduring importance to the nation. Many Democrats want to turn the indictment of Tom DeLay into an indictment of the ideas he champions. [...]
I am confident that House Whip Roy Blunt will continue Tom DeLay's efforts to move forward with pro-family public policies which drove turnout among values voters in the last election. Congressman Blunt has been a recipient of Family Research Council's 'True Blue Award' which is given to members of Congress who have consistently voted pro-life and pro-family.
"Family Research Council looks forward to working with Congressman Blunt in the coming days as Congress considers tax relief for charitable giving, an amendment protecting marriage, a fetal pain bill and a ban on human cloning."
6:25 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Chuck Todd on McCain in 2008
I don't see Bushlickers seen as RINO's by the party base like McCain and Giuliani getting the nomination either. But what then?
Not since Colin Powell in 1996 have so many pundits been so sure of one thing: if McCain is on the ballot in November 2008, he'll be president. But that's the rub, getting on that November ballot.
The conventional-wisdom crowd is convinced that the conservative bar may be too high for McCain to win the GOP nod. They believe that no matter how truly conservative the guy has been (and he has the voting record to prove it), the personal animosity that grassroots social conservatives have developed for McCain over the years will trump the facts.
However, the McCain team seems to have decided that the bar isn't going to be as high as the national media thinks. And they have some evidence to back this up; namely, the 40-plus percent he received in the 2000 South Carolina and Virginia primaries (two of the states cited as potential tripping points for McCain in 2008). In addition, no one's been more consistent in being anti-pork and anti-spending than McCain. Right now, it's the issue du jour for the base conservatives, and there's nothing McCain is saying now (or has said in the past) that would make them believe he's not truly an economic conservative.
While this may be the case, we still have doubts based on three issues: taxes, judges and global warming. [...]
This all leads to one nagging question for us in regards to McCain running as a Republican: Is there anything the senator can do to prove to conservatives that he's an acceptable heir to the Reagan-Bush legacy? We just don't think he'll ever be able to satisfy the most vocal minority within the Republican electorate. And, it's that vocal minority that will do either one of two things: 1) torpedo him in the primaries by coalescing various social and economic conservative constituencies around a more believable conservative (a la George Allen) or, 2) run a conservative, third-party alternative in the general and deny him the presidency by siphoning 5 percent or more from the Republican ticket.
Interestingly, while the inner-McCain circle will hear nothing of the running-as-an-independent talk, there's a wider circle within the GOP establishment that is quietly urging/hoping the senator will do just that. As one former Reagan official whispered to us recently: "What would you think of a John McCain-Mark Warner fusion ticket?"
Here's the thinking behind the group of moderate Republicans who believe McCain ought to run as an independent:
- It's the only way McCain can run like he did in 2000: as the insurgent. Rare is it that the declared front-runner in a party primary can also be an insurgent. Reagan sort of pulled it off in '80, but he's an exception. Running in the primaries in '08 is also going to come with all sorts of unrealistic expectation bars for McCain to surpass. For example, if he wins New Hampshire by just 5 points, it might be considered a "loss." Also, there are no cherry-picking states to compete in when you're the front-runner. It means competing in Iowa (After all, it's a swing state in the general, so he can't blow it off).
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But the more important point that this group of McCain supporters makes is that it guarantees he won't alienate his actual base -- conservative Democrats, independents and liberal Republicans -- by passing social/religious litmus tests. -
For independent or third-party candidates running for president, the Internet makes their biggest hurdle -- ballot access -- much easier to clear. - Finally, the biggest issue, at least according to these folks, is going to be divisiveness -- the country is growing incredibly hungry to end the partisanship and isn't going to quite believe either party is ready to do that. Consequently, the only alternative is electing an independent president as a way to, essentially, punish both parties.
The political junkie in us always yearns for unpredictability and a serious third-party candidacy in 2008 would do just that. As for McCain, it's easier to see him win the presidency as an independent than it is to see him win the GOP nomination. But, both are plausible and doing it as a Republican is certainly more expedient.
Of course, as one person we know who advocates the independent route tells us, this whole McCain-wooing-conservatives could be nothing more than an attempt stay Republican and then reluctantly leave when it's clear the rank-and-file doesn't want him. Stranger things have happened.
5:57 PM |
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GOP says no to closet, yes to corruption
Roy Blunt has been named the new acting majority leader. He is on Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics' list of the 13 most corrupt members of Congress.
Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) is a fifth-term Member of Congress, representing the 7 district of Missouri. Rep. Blunt is also Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s right-hand man. 1 In 1999, two years after taking office, Rep. Blunt was handpicked by then-Whip DeLay to serve as Chief Deputy Whip, and he became Whip in 2003, when DeLay became the Majority Leader. Rep. Blunt’s ethics issues stem from the misuse of his position to benefit family members, his connection to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and a trip paid for by a foreign agent.
In 2003, Rep. Blunt divorced his wife of 31 years to marry Philip Morris (now Altria) lobbyist Abigail Perlman. Before it was known publicly that Rep. Blunt and Ms. Perlman were dating – and only hours after Rep. Blunt assumed his new role as Majority Whip – he tried to secretly insert a provision into Homeland Security legislation that would have benefitted Philip Morris, at the expense of competitors. Rep. Blunt’s provision would have made it harder to sell tobacco products over the Internet, and would have cracked down on the sale of contraband cigarettes.
In addition, Rep. Blunt’s son Andrew lobbies on behalf of Philip Morris, a major client he picked up only four years out of law school. Notably, Altria is Rep. Blunt’s largest campaign contributor, having donated more than $270,000 to political committees tied to him. Legislative Assistance for United Parcel Service, Inc. and FedEx Corp. In 2003, Rep. Blunt also helped his lobbyist son Andrew by inserting a provision into the $79 billion emergency appropriation for the war in Iraq to benefit U.S. shippers like United Parcel Service, Inc. and FedEx Corp. The provision required that military cargo be carried only by companies with no more than 25% foreign ownership. The two companies were seeking to block the expansion of a foreign-owned rival’s U.S. operations. Andrew Blunt lobbies on behalf of UPS in Missouri, (in addition to Philip Morris) and UPS and FedEx have contributed at least $67,500 to Rep. Blunt since 2001.
Members of the House are prohibited from “taking any official actions for the prospect of personal gain for themselves or anyone else.” [...]
In 2000, Rep. Blunt was involved in an apparent scheme to funnel money through a local party committee into Matt Blunt’s campaign committee when he was running for Secretary of State. Rep. Blunt’s campaign committee (Friends of Roy Blunt) and his “leadership” PAC (Rely on Your Beliefs Fund) gave $90,000 to the 7 th District Congressional Republican Committee which, in turn, contributed $76,000 to Matt Blunt’s campaign committee, Missourians for Matt Blunt. Of note, Altria -- the company for which Blunt’s wife is the top lobbyist -- made a $24,000 contribution to Matt Blunt’s campaign, the maximum amount allowed under state law. Altria also made a $100,000 contribution to the 7 th District Congressional Republican Committee. The IRS has defined “related entity” to include those entities that have “substantial common direction or control.” Given that the two organizations list the same deputy treasurer and custodian of records in their IRS 8871 forms, the IRS would likely find them related. Despite the IRS regulations, Missourians for Matt Blunt and the 7 th District Congressional Republican Committee failed to disclose that they were related. [...]
The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct should investigate these campaign funding schemes to determine whether Rep. Blunt violated 5CFR §2635.702(a) by improperly using his political connections to fill the coffers of his son’s campaign chest.
Moreover, Rule 23 of the House Ethics Manual requires all members of the House to conduct themselves “at all times in a manner that reflects creditably on the House." This ethical standard is considered to be “the most comprehensive provision of the code.” [...]
Rep. Blunt has ties to uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is the subject of criminal and congressional probes. In June 2003, Mr. Abramoff persuaded Majority Leader Tom DeLay to organize a letter, co-signed by Speaker Hastert, Whip Roy Blunt, and Deputy Whip Eric Cantor, that endorsed a view of gambling law benefitting Mr. Abramoff’s client, the Louisiana Coushatta, by blocking gambling competition by another tribe. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Mr. Abramoff has donated $8,500 to Rep. Blunt’s leadership PAC, Rely on Your Beliefs. If, as it appears, Rep. Blunt was accepting campaign contributions from Mr. Abramoff in exchange for using his official position so support a view of gambling law that would benefit Mr. Abramoff’s client, he would be in violation of 18 U.S.C. §201(b)(2)(A), discussed above.
Who knows, maybe there will be indictments against Blunt down the road. So maybe this is for the best.
4:57 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Coy Josh Marshall
Befitting a man of his standing:
Shades of Speaker Livingston. Will Dreier ascend? Cold hand of James Dobson grips the House.
3:50 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Jeffrey Toobin's take on Delay
"The simplest way to describe the charge is moneylaundering."
3:36 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Dreier's Bush connections:
Says the Los Angeles Times:
He also has strong ties to President Bush, whom he met at a GOP congressional candidate seminar in 1978 before both were defeated in their initial bids for federal office. It was Dreier who late last month introduced Bush to a gathering during a stop in Rancho Cucamonga.
And the Bush connections don't stop there:
According to Kitty Kelley's book The Family, Doro Bush dated Dreier for a year, during which time they never had sex. Kelley says Barbara Bush complained that he "never laid a hand on her."
According to a February 1995 article in the Daily News Record, the Congressman exhibits a great deal of fashion sense:
Dreier, who shops at Nordstrom, Brooks and Pin Stripes in Kansas City (his hometown), says, "I don't consider myself much of a fashion plate." On the other hand, he says he never takes advice on fashion, noting that it was his own idea to wear a royal-blue crewneck sweater when he appeared recently on David Brinkley's Sunday morning TV show. As for who he considers well dressed in the political arena, he names Prince Charles, and especially the late Anwar Sadat of Egypt.
"I always thought of him as extraordinarily dapper and meticulous."
I still don't believe he will be moved up, even temporarily.
3:35 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Dreier: "I'm not gay, look at my voting record!"
For the record, here's Dreier's voting record on gay issues:
2004: Voted for the Marriage Protection Act. 2001: Supported legislation allowing federally funded charities to discriminate against gays and lesbians, despite local laws. 1999: Opposed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (as he had in 1996 and ’97). 1998: Voted to prohibit gays and lesbians in the District of Columbia from adopting children (D.C. is 3,000 miles from Dreier’s own district); opposed restoration of funding to the Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS program. 1997: Opposed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act; opposed increases in state AIDS Drug Assistance Programs. 1996: Voted for the Defense of Marriage Act; opposed the Housing Opportunities for People With AIDS program.
3:29 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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David Dreier
He has been tapped to temporary replace DeLay, even though Majority Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri clearly wants the job. There is grumbling within the GOP--Hastert is from Illinois, Dreier is from California. Why should the party of Southern White Power be led by Yankees?
Much less, of course a (closeted) gay one?
UPDATE: Here's the reaction from the inimitable blogACTIVE, which first reported the Dreier story.
3:21 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Immigration down
The legal kind anyway. Illegal immigration continues at a record pace. That's because people who are not desperate to come here don't really care to anymore. A nation's reputation is what attracts people who can choose where to live. That reputation is now gone.
And that is very, very bad news for the American technological, educational, industrial and military sectors. It will have long-term impact on the American economy and national security.
For years it seemed that immigration to the United States could only rise. Now a new study, based on a year-by-year analysis of government data, shows a startlingly different pattern: Migration to the United States peaked in 2000 and has declined substantially since then.
And in New York, the historic gateway to the nation's newcomers, the influx is now lower than it has been for more than 15 years.
Both phenomena underscore the growing importance of illegal immigrants from Mexico, said Jeffrey S. Passel, a senior researcher at the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research group, which released the study yesterday. And they indicate that post-9/11 security measures have had a greater impact on legal immigration than on illegal entry. [...]
The study calculated that the number of legal permanent residents entering the United States declined to 455,000 last year from 647,000 at the peak in 2000. The number of unauthorized immigrants, including those who overstay visitors' visas, surpassed the number of legal entrants at the peak with 662,000 and remained higher; it was estimated at 562,000 last year. Legal, temporary residents declined to 174,000 from a peak of 268,000.
"There seems to have been a tradeoff here between legal and illegal immigration," Mr. Passel said. "Basically, we got about 1.1 to 1.2 million throughout the '90s and post-2002. We're getting roughly the same number, but the legals went down." The proportion of authorized immigrants went from more than half to 4 out of 10, he said. [...]
"On the legal immigration side, it's like a crowd pushing against a gate: There's only room for so many to get through," he said. "We have a real drop in legal inflows. Illegal inflows went up. New York's affected by that, because it doesn't get its proportionate share of illegals."
2:25 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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"Stupidest people alive"
Brad DeLong's accurate takedown of idiot GOP deficit hawks.
2:02 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Did 517 drown in Orleans Parish Prison?
It sure looks like it.
AMY GOODMAN: And so how did you escape?
[former Orleans Parish Prison inmate, now transferred to Grand Prairie, TX] DAN BRIGHT: Well, we had to kick -- like I said, we had to kick the cells maybe like hours. You had to squeeze out of the cells. We found pipes, anything that we could find to pry the cells open downstairs to help the guys downstairs. We broke the windows to try to signal for help. No one came to our rescue.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you made your way out of the windows?
DAN BRIGHT: We made our way out of the cells and to our own -- the lower levels where most of the water was at. And we broke that window and climbed out. The dorm was made strictly like a dorm, a college dorm, just like two cells into one. You have to forgive me -- I'm kind of still groggy, because I'm just getting up. So I'm trying to explain myself the best I can.
AMY GOODMAN: Thank you. So, some of you made it out. What about people who were locked in cells?
DAN BRIGHT: They couldn't get out. We couldn't help all of them.
AMY GOODMAN: Could you hear them?
DAN BRIGHT: Yeah, they were trying to get them out. We couldn't help everybody. The water was constantly rising.
AMY GOODMAN: The water was constantly rising. So, when you got out, what did you do?
DAN BRIGHT: When we got out, they had maybe like ten deputies outside the building with boats.
AMY GOODMAN: They had deputies outside the building but none of the deputies inside the building to help you?
DAN BRIGHT: None. It was like, if you get out, you get out. It's not too bad. So when we got out, they took us to a bridge, what’s called an overpass bridge, and they just put us on these boats, brought us to this bridge and left us there for maybe like three days without food or water or anything. They just left us there.
AMY GOODMAN: Could you see the jail from where you were on the overpass?
DAN BRIGHT: Right. Yeah. You stare at guys in the windows trying to get their attention. They wasn’t even paying attention. They had guys burning stuff, putting up signs, trying to get any kind of help they could get.
AMY GOODMAN: They were burning things to get people’s attention?
DAN BRIGHT: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: What were the signs they were putting up that you could see from the overpass?
DAN BRIGHT: Help signs.
AMY GOODMAN: Saying “Help”?
DAN BRIGHT: Yes. You had guys burning blankets trying to get their attention. The helicopter would pass over. Guys would burn sheets up or blankets or something to try to get their attention also.
AMY GOODMAN: So you're saying helicopters would fly over. They would see the burning sheets. You were with deputies on the bridge. They could see like you could see?
DAN BRIGHT: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: So, what did they say, when you said there are men still in there?
DAN BRIGHT: They didn't say anything. These -- most of the deputies had, you know, just was gone. They didn't even bother to try to help us. And not only that, they had – these same deputies were stealing property, our personal property. My daughter was trying to telephone me and find out where I was at, and a deputy answered my phone.
AMY GOODMAN: Your daughter called, and the deputy answered your cell phone?
DAN BRIGHT: Correct.
AMY GOODMAN: Did you ever get your personal property back?
DAN BRIGHT: No.
AMY GOODMAN: Did any of the men?
DAN BRIGHT: No, ma'am.
AMY GOODMAN: Did you --
DAN BRIGHT: All of the guys was complaining about what was missing. Phones, their jewelry. You know. Watches. Stuff like that. [...]
[Director of the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center] NEAL WALKER: Orleans Parish Prison, for your listeners, is really not a prison. It's a jail. It's a temporary detention facility. Other parts of the country you refer to county jails. We call them parish prisons in Louisiana. Orleans Parish Prison is, in fact, one of the country's largest jails, although New Orleans was far from one of the country's largest cities before the storm. At any given time, there would be 7,500 to 8,000 prisoners being held at Orleans Parish Prison.
Now, some of these prisoners were in fact serving misdemeanor sentences, and others were picked up for parole violations, but the vast, vast majority of the prisoners being held at Orleans Parish Prison were pretrial detainees. They had only been charged. They had not been tried and convicted.
Now, the complex itself includes not only the facility known as Orleans Parish Prison, the original old jail facility, but it describes a complex of other detention buildings, as well, including the house of detention, Templeman I, II, and III, and central lockup, which is a one-story facility where prisoners are processed after their arrest. And I heard accounts of that building being completely underwater. The prisoners were looking at it from the windows at Templeman III and could see that central lockup was completely underwater.
1:55 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Question of the hour
Will Ronnie Earl indict Tom DeLay tomorrow? The answer, until today, was no, on jurisdictional grounds. Suddenly, the answer seems to have become maybe.
Could Dick Cheney, Bill Frist and Tom DeLay be permanently out of Washington by 2007? No one knows, but the odds have gone from 0 to 5%, and that's saying quite a lot.
1:47 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Honor among thieves
From the Times-Picayune. This piece by Jarvis DeBerry was forwarded to me, so I don't have the link:
Not the New Orleans Police Department. Not the United States Army. Not the U.S. Coast Guard or the Louisiana National Guard. Not the New Orleans Fire Department or the Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries. And certainly not the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
When Vivian Buckner, her mother Jessie Richardson and dozens of others huddled at the Lafon Nursing Home needed relief after Hurricane Katrina, the items they needed to sustain them arrived on a mail carrier's truck. But the occupants were not affiliated with the United States Postal Service.
They were thieves. They had stolen the postal truck and were using it not only to deliver needed supplies to people along Chef Menteur Highway, but they were also offering rides to the Superdome for those who wanted to go.
I know Buckner and her 94-year-old mother. We all attend the same church. When I called Buckner in Houston Saturday I teased her for missing the service we had at 7:30 a.m. Aug. 28. By that Sunday morning, though, most people had either fled, were fleeing or had picked the spot where they'd ride out the storm. Buckner had already arrived at the nursing home. She expected to ride out of New Orleans on the same bus that would drive her mother and the other nursing home residents to safety.
Buckner had attended four meetings since April explaining what would be done during an evacuation, she told me. The nursing home had had a practice evacuation. Yet, the buses Buckner was waiting for never came. According to The Washington Post, they weren't requested.
Sister Augustine McDaniel, who runs the Sisters of the Holy Family facility, reportedly decided that it would be better to stay put than try to leave. Because the state attorney general is investigating how McDaniel handled the crisis, the nun has been advised by an attorney not to talk. Because she witnessed what went on that week investigators have told Buckner to expect a subpoena.
She told me she witnessed death and despair, a dedicated staff of employees and volunteers trying to save everyone they could and then a stolen mail truck pulling up outside Tuesday.
"First when they came we were really afraid of them," Buckner told me. "We knew the Post Office wasn't open."
But the people on the truck didn't menace them. Instead, "They said, 'Y'all need anything?'"
Buckner said she and the rest of the ad hoc staff could look through the open door and see what was on the truck: water, juice, potato chips, cookies, peanut butter and crackers. So that became the list of things they needed.
The thieves promised to return, and Wednesday they brought back baby wipes and adult diapers, night gowns and Gatorade. They also brought back chicken and red beans and rice they'd taken from Popeye's. Buckner told me she didn't know how or when the food had been cooked, but the residents hadn't eaten since Monday, so they had no choice but to serve it. "Everybody ate it," she told me, "and nobody got sick."
The thieves were also good stewards of their loot. "They told us, 'Take whatever you need, but you gotta give us back the rest.' "
She had used the word "they" so often, that I finally asked Buckner how many men were on the truck.
"They weren't men," she corrected me. "They were boys."
"Boys?!"
"I don't guess they were over 18," she said. "That's how we knew they didn't work for the postal service." She paused. "They didn't work for nobody."
I tried in vain Monday to reach a spokesperson with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. I wanted to know if the boys who had stolen the truck had been arrested. If so, I wanted to know if her agency was aware that they had used the truck to save lives. Buckner said she saw a car from the postal inspection service drive past on Chef Menteur Wednesday -- after the boys had made their delivery. Like almost every other official vehicle she saw that week, that car zoomed by without stopping.
"Everybody passed," she said. "Even the army trucks passed."
Everybody except two thieves who provided aid when the government did not.
1:22 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Death-porn story
Worse and worse the more you read about it.
3:47 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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No hell hot enough for these folks
The bankruptcy bill passed the House 302-126. It passed the Senate 74-25. Every single Republican voting was for it, was was every single Southern senator, regardless of party. A united Democratic Party could have filibustered the debt-peonage bill in the upper chamber, but nearly half of the people's party whored itself out to MBNA, Citibank, and other credit card corporations.
Now many of those same lawmakers' constitutents are about to go into a lifetime of debt because of the bill they passed. But the bulk of the Republicans who favored the bill don't seem to care. In fact, they made sure to insert a provision in the bill to shut any possible loopholes for disaster victims:
When Congress agreed this spring to tighten the bankruptcy laws and crack down on consumers who took on debt irresponsibly, no one had the victims of Hurricane Katrina in mind.
But four weeks after New Orleans flooded and tens of thousands of other residents of the Gulf Coast also lost their homes and livelihoods, a stricter new personal bankruptcy law scheduled to take effect on Oct. 17 is likely to deliver another blow to those dislocated by the storm.
The law was intended to keep individuals from taking on debts they had no intention of paying off. But many once-solvent Katrina victims are likely to be caught up in the net intended to catch deadbeats.
Right after Hurricane Katrina struck, several lawmakers - mostly Democrats but including some Senate Republicans - suggested that storm victims along the Gulf Coast should get relief from the new law's stricter provisions, which are intended to screen filers by income and make those with higher incomes repay their debts over several years. Under the old law, which remains in effect until mid-October, many more filers can have their debts canceled quickly in federal bankruptcy courts.
But House Republicans, who fought off a proposed amendment that would have made bankruptcy filings easier for victims of natural disasters, said there was no reason to carve out a broad exemption just because of the storm.
Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, rejected the notion of reopening the legislation, saying it already included provisions that would ensure that people left "down and out" by the storm would still be able to shed most of their debts. Lawmakers who lost the long fight over the law, he said, "ought to get over it," according to The Associated Press.
A White House spokesman, Trent Duffy, said the administration "doesn't see a lot of merit" in calls to delay the law's effective date but was considering making allowances for hurricane victims.
In the meantime, many victims of Hurricane Katrina - and the much smaller group ruined by Hurricane Rita - will face a kind of Catch-22. Those who try to beat the Oct. 17 deadline in hopes of filing under the less-onerous current law may find it impossible to do so, because residence rules generally require that individuals seek protection against creditors in their hometowns. (Assuming people in New Orleans can find their lawyers and records, they can file for bankruptcy protection in their bankruptcy court, which has reopened and is sharing space with another court in Baton Rouge.)
Moreover, most people displaced by the storm will probably not know for months if they even need to file for bankruptcy. By that time, the tougher new law will be in force.
"Six to nine months from now, FEMA will be gone, the church groups will be gone and creditors will once more be demanding their money," said Bradford W. Botes, a bankruptcy lawyer whose firm represented victims of Hurricane Ivan, which struck Florida a year ago.
1:47 AM | Post or Read Comments (8)
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Molly Ivins
So here are all the liberals going into a giant snit just because George W. Bush appointed a veterinarian to head the women's health section of the Food and Drug Administration. For Pete's sake, you whiners, the only reason he chose the vet is because Michael Brown wasn't available.
If you recall, Ol' Heckuva-Job Brownie had to go home, walk his dog and then hug his wife after exhausting himself in his triumphal handling of Hurricane Katrina. Otherwise, he'd have been Bush's first pick.
Now, even the veterinarian doesn't get the job -- just because those professional feminists raised such a stink. What's wrong with a vet? They know a lot about birth and udders and stuff. If the mother is having trouble giving birth, you grab the baby by the legs and pull it out -- it's not brain surgery. Then you worm 'em, you tag 'em and you spray for fleas. Why the fuss?
The only reason Bush even needed a new head of the Office of Women's Health is because the last one, Susan Wood, quit. She was upset because the political hacks who run the agency refused to allow over-the-counter sale of the emergency contraceptive pill Plan B. [...]
There's a doctoral dissertation to be written about Bush appointees named during the administration's frequent fits of Petulant Pique. These PP appointments are made in the immortal childhood spirit of "nanny-nanny boo-boo, I'll show you." Susan Wood resigns in protest over the politicization of women's health care? Ha! We'll show her -- we'll put a vet in charge instead!
The PP appointments are less for reasons of ideology or even rewarding the politically faithful than just in the old nyeh-nyeh spirit. You could, for example, put any number of people at the Department of Labor who are wholly unsympathetic to the labor movement -- Bush has installed shoals of them already. But there is a certain arch, flippant malice to making Edwin Foulke assistant secretary in charge of the health and safety of workers.
Republican appointees who oppose the agencies to which they are assigned are a dime a dozen, but Foulke is a partner from the most notorious union-busting law firm in the country. What he does for a living is destroy the only organizations that care about workers' health and safety.
Here's another PP pick: put a timber industry lobbyist in as head of the Forest Service. How about a mining industry lobbyist who believes public lands are unconstitutional in charge of the public lands? Nice shot. A utility lobbyist who represented the worst air polluters in the country as head of the clean air division at the EPA? A laff riot. As head of the Superfund, a woman whose last job was teaching corporate polluters how to evade Superfund regulations? Cute, cute, cute. A Monsanto lobbyist as No. 2 at the EPA. A lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute at the Council on Environmental Quality. And so on. And so forth.
The Federal Trade Commission was finally embarrassed enough by demands from Democratic governors to start an investigation into recent price gouging by oil companies. But the investigation will be headed by a former lawyer for ChevronTexaco. Is this fun or what? Nanny-nanny boo-boo.
Read the rest.
1:36 AM | Post or Read Comments (1)
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You will need to sit down
Americablog has unearthed this.
I have a feeling that it won't be necessary to release the suppressed Abu Ghraib anymore.
If this hits the mainstream media anywhere, I am afraid there will be hell to pay.
1:26 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Alan Greenspan: The U.S. has "lost control" of the deficit
Via Brad DeLong:
U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told France's Finance Minister Thierry Breton the United States has "lost control" of its budget deficit, the French minister said on Saturday. "'We have lost control' -- that was his expression," Breton told reporters after a bilateral meeting with Greenspan. "The United States has lost control of their budget at a time when racking up deficits has been authorized without any control" from Congress, Breton said. "We were both disappointed that the management of debt is not a political priority today," he added.[...]
Breton said: "The situation that is creating tension today on the currency market ... is clearly the American deficit." The United States needed to address its budget deficit, he said, adding: "It seems to me that my counterpart John Snow is completely aware of this, he wants to harness the problem, but it seems to me he doesn't have the room for maneuver." Breton added that after hearing Greenspan talk about inflation: "One has the feeling -- though he didn't say so -- that interest rates will probably continue to rise slightly until his departure."
So the man who caused the deficit by giving the green light for Bush's massive tax cut and redistribution to the wealthy in 2001 now says the U.S. has lost control.
Isn't it remarkable how traitors become "institutions" just by being around long enough?
1:06 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Just when you thought the world couldn't get creepier
Comes news that Saudi Arabia has upped its stake in News Corp:
Rupert Murdoch's efforts to retain control over his News Corp media empire were boosted today when a billionaire Saudi prince upped his stake in the company.
Prince Alwaleed bin Talal now has 5.46% of voting shares in News Corp through his investment company, Kingdom, replacing a 3% stake in non-voting shares he held previously.
The prince repeated his support for Mr Murdoch, whose grip on the company through his family's 30% shareholding has been threatened since rival media mogul John Malone built up an 18% stake earlier in the year.
"Last November I said that I had the utmost confidence in Mr Murdoch, his management team and his succession planning, and that if necessary, the Kingdom companies would replace their non-voting shares with voting shares," Prince Alwaleed said in a statement today.
"The Kingdom companies now own a significant interest in News Corporation voting shares and may purchase more if the situation warrants."
1:02 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Abramoff coverup
I'm beginning to wonder whether this one might end up causing more heads to roll than the Valerie Plame case.
The Justice Department's inspector general and the F.B.I. are looking into the demotion of a veteran federal prosecutor whose reassignment nearly three years ago shut down a criminal investigation of the Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, current and former department officials report.
They said investigators had questioned whether the demotion of the prosecutor, Frederick A. Black, in November 2002 was related to his alert to Justice Department officials days earlier that he was investigating Mr. Abramoff. The lobbyist is a major Republican Party fund-raiser and a close friend of several Congressional leaders.
Colleagues said the demotion of Mr. Black, the acting United States attorney in Guam, and a subsequent order barring him from pursuing public corruption cases brought an end to his inquiry into Mr. Abramoff's lobbying work for some Guam judges.
Colleagues of Mr. Black, who had run the federal prosecutor's office in Guam for 12 years, spoke on condition of anonymity because of Justice Department rules that bar employees from talking to reporters. They said F.B.I. agents questioned several people in Guam and Washington this summer about whether Mr. Abramoff or his friends in the Bush administration had pushed for Mr. Black's removal. Mr. Abramoff's internal e-mail messages show that he boasted to clients about what he described as his close ties to John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, and others at the department.
Mr. Black's colleagues said that similar questions had been raised by investigators for the Justice Department's inspector general's office, which serves as the department's internal watchdog.
Josh Marshall has been one of the prime sources on this case from the beginning.
12:49 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Brownie is back
And thank goodness, since at least it will remind people that someone was responsible for his hiring. Says Josh Marshall:
CBS says FEMA has rehired Brownie as a consultant "to evaluate it's response following Hurricane Katrina." The Times-Picayune says merely that he "is continuing to work at the Federal Emergency Management Agency at full pay, with his Sept. 12 resignation not taking effect for two more weeks."
While there, says, DHS spokesman Russ Knocke, said Brownie will advise the department "some of his views on his experience with Katrina."
Long goodbye or not, aren't pearls of wisdom such as Brown appears to have on offer usually extracted not with paychecks but with subpoenas?
Buzzflash words it a bit differently:
Omerta. The Busheviks Were Afraid that Michael 'Arabian Horse Association Failure' Brown Would Spill the Beans on White House Incompetence So They Hired Him Back as a FEMA Consultant to Evaluate Why He, Bush and Rove Couldn't Respond to a Disaster for Four Days! Buying Silence! Corruption, Incompetence and Cronyism: the GOP Motto for Ripping Off America. The Mafia Couldn't be This Innovatively Immoral and Unaccountable!
12:46 AM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Monday, September 26, 2005
Even Bob Novak has had it with the GOP
When you're Opus Dei like Mr. Novak you don't have to choose between money and God. That's because you are part of God's army, and your role is to preserve and accumulate wealth for the greater good, which is not the Catholic Church or Catholic charities, but the Opus Dei itself.
And because you are a warrior, money can no longer corrupt you, even though it would certainly corrupt an unconscripted Catholic. It's rather similar to how jihadists are allowed to have sex with American prostitutes; their version of Allah looks askance when faced with a martyr's sins of the flesh.
Maybe that's why Novak is so self-righteously brazen in lionizing the only two GOP budget hawks left standing in Congress.
The beleaguered conservatives see all this spending leading inexorably to a tax increase, which would redistribute the tax burden to the disadvantage of the successful and threaten an economic recession. Barry Goldwater long ago assailed Dwight D. Eisenhower for presiding over a "Dime Store New Deal." That stinging rebuke no longer would be appropriate for today's Republicans. They outdo Democrats on pork and are in the same ballpark on entitlements. Even Katrina and now Rita do not restrain them.
8:39 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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So long, Ted Koppel
You will be missed.
Howie the Hack reports that James Goldston has been hired to head up the new version of the show. "I'm absolutely committed to 'Nightline' remaining a serious, substantive show," says the British producer says, insisting that "that he has no plans to dumb-down 'Nightline.'"
To prove it, he has fired serious, substantive journalists Dave Marash, Chris Bury and John Donvan.
He has hired Martin Bashir, best known for his interviews of Michael Jackson and Princess Diana.
7:56 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Take a look
At George Friedman's wonderful piece on New Orleans and the American economy in the New York Review of Books.
7:38 PM | Post or Read Comments (0)
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Bill Frist: Insider trader and abortionist
Who knew? Apparently enough people--this was published in 2002 by a pro-life writer on a Republican website:
Bill Frist, R-Tenn., reportedly the White House choice to succeed Trent Lott, R-Miss., as Senate majority leader, is a major shareholder in HCA, a for-profit hospital chain founded by his father and brother. HCA reportedly provides abortions to its customers.
So now Republicans face this question: If it is disqualifying for their Senate leader to make offensive remarks interpreted as endorsing an immoral policy that denied African-Americans equal rights, is it also disqualifying for their Senate leader to make money from a hospital chain that denies unborn babies the right to life? [...]
HCA does not trumpet its reported involvement with abortion. But, in April, Catholic Financial Services Corporation, a mutual fund company, announced that it was starting an S&P 500 Index Fund that would "exclude companies on the abortion issue" – and that HCA was one of only six companies on the index that would be excluded on these grounds. A spokesman for the mutual fund explained to me last week that the company excludes hospital chains that perform abortions and pharmaceutical companies that deal in drugs that induce abortion.
On Dec. 18 and 19, I placed several calls to HCA corporate spokesman Jeff Prescott, to ask him directly whether abortions were performed in HCA facilities, or whether the company refuted CFSC’s determination that they were. I left him voice messages to this effect, and repeatedly told his secretary my questions. At 5:00 p.m. on the 19th, as press time approached, the secretary left me lingering on hold with no answer. When I hung up and called back, I got Prescott’s voice mail again and left him one last message. He never returned my call.
I also spoke with Sen. Frist’s spokesman, Nick Smith. I explained to Smith my understanding that the terms of Frist’s "blind" trust allowed the administrators to maintain a heavy concentration in HCA, while allowing Frist to order the sale of this stock, and while also compelling the administrators to inform Frist if they divested entirely from HCA or any other holding. I cited the specific passages in the trust to this effect. I also asked Sm