Waterboard Dennis Hastert

More On GOP House Leadership Scandal

DemFromCT at Daily Kos:

The GOP House leadership knew about a pedophile for a year, including Hastert (soon to be the ex-Leader, and a dead man walking), and did nothing.

Glenn Greenwald at Unclaimed Territory:

As much as anything else, that is what this scandal is about -- GOP House Leaders prancing around as the Protectors of our nation's children from Internet Predators while, at the same time, apparently knowing that there was such a predator in their midst. And they not only failed to do anything about it, but they actively worked to conceal the behavior (by, as noted below, ensuring that all Democrats -- including even the Democrat on the House Page Board -- were blocked from learning about these accusations).

Stalin, Pol Pot, Pinochet, Bush...

So Long, It's Been Good to Know Ya

Ellis Weiner at Huffington Post:

From the N.Y. Times of 9/29: The legislation broadens the definition of enemy combatants beyond the traditional definition used in wartime, to include non-citizens living legally in this country as well as those in foreign countries, and also anyone determined to be an enemy combatant under criteria defined by the president or secretary of defense.

Italics, of course, added. Why? Why go to all the bother of adding italics? Because I'm leaving it as a clue for Stabler and Benson, or Goren and Eames, or Benson and Hedges, or whomever the cops send to find us after we've been disappeared.

Like you, I dislike using "disappear" as a transitive verb. (I'm also not crazy about the phrase "grow the economy.") But the honorable men and women of Congress leave us no choice. They've empowered the most mendacious and destructive president in history to do exactly what the military juntas in Argentina and Brazil used to do. Note, too, that--as the italicized quote explains--he can do it, not just to Islamic evildoers, but to anythingdoers, anywhere in the country, at all.

Tammy didn't cut and run

Illinois National Guard Major Tammy Duckworth delivers the Democratic party's response to the Chicken Hawk-in-Chief's weekly radio address.

Almost two years ago, the Black Hawk helicopter I was co-piloting in Iraq was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. When I woke up at Walter Reed Army Medical Center ten days later, my husband Bryan told me that I had lost both my legs.

Despite that, I don't regret my service for a minute. I was honored to serve when my country called. In fact, I'm still an active member of the National Guard.

{ ... }

Just this past week, the National Intelligence Estimate revealed the unhappy truth: the war in Iraq has led to more terrorism, not less. These are the conclusions of our sixteen national intelligence agencies. Yet the response from the White House is a predictable "stay the course."

And anyone who challenges our failed policies, or suggests the need for a new strategy, is accused of "cutting and running."

Well, I didn't cut and run, Mr. President. Like so many others, I proudly fought and sacrificed.

My helicopter was shot down long after you proclaimed "Mission Accomplished."

And I believe the brave men and women who are serving in Iraq today, their families and the American people deserve more than the same empty slogans and political name-calling.

Duckworth is the Democratic candidate for the Illinois Sixth Congressional District seat being vacated by GOP Rep. Henry Hyde (remember him?).

What a difference between her and the Deserter-in-Chief.

'A corporate takeover of our voting system'

Will The Next Election Be Hacked?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in Rolling Stone:

In late July, to speed deployment of the new machines, Cox quietly signed an agreement with Diebold that effectively privatized Georgia's entire electoral system. The company was authorized to put together ballots, program machines and train poll workers across the state - all without any official supervision. "We ran the election," says Hood. "We had 356 people that Diebold brought into the state. Diebold opened and closed the polls and tabulated the votes. Diebold convinced Cox that it would be best if the company ran everything due to the time constraints, and in the interest of a trouble-free election, she let us do it."

Then, one muggy day in mid-August, Hood was surprised to see the president of Diebold's election unit, Bob Urosevich, arrive in Georgia from his headquarters in Texas. With the primaries looming, Urosevich was personally distributing a "patch," a little piece of software designed to correct glitches in the computer program. "We were told that it was intended to fix the clock in the system, which it didn't do," Hood says. "The curious thing is the very swift, covert way this was done."

Georgia law mandates that any change made in voting machines be certified by the state. But thanks to Cox's agreement with Diebold, the company was essentially allowed to certify itself. "It was an unauthorized patch, and they were trying to keep it secret from the state," Hood told me. "We were told not to talk to county personnel about it. I received instructions directly from Urosevich. It was very unusual that a president of the company would give an order like that and be involved at that level."

According to Hood, Diebold employees altered software in some 5,000 machines in DeKalb and Fulton counties - the state's largest Democratic strongholds. To avoid detection, Hood and others on his team entered warehouses early in the morning. "We went in at 7:30 a.m. and were out by 11," Hood says. "There was a universal key to unlock the machines, and it's easy to get access. The machines in the warehouses were unlocked. We had control of everything. The state gave us the keys to the castle, so to speak, and they stayed out of our way." Hood personally patched fifty-six machines and witnessed the patch being applied to more than 1,200 others.

{ ... }

Computer experts have demonstrated that a successful attack would be relatively simple. In a study released on September 13th, computer scientists at Princeton University created vote-stealing software that can be injected into a Diebold machine in as little as a minute, obscuring all evidence of its presence. They also created a virus that can "infect" other units in a voting system, committing "widespread fraud" from a single machine. Within sixty seconds, a lone hacker can own an election.

And touch-screen technology continues to create chaos at the polls. On September 12th, in Maryland's first all-electronic election, voters were turned away from the polls because election officials had failed to distribute the electronic access cards needed to operate Diebold machines. By the time the cards were found on a warehouse shelf and delivered to every precinct, untold numbers of voters had lost the chance to cast ballots.

It seems insane that such clear threats to our election system have not stopped the proliferation of touch-screen technology. In 2004, twenty-three percent of Americans cast their votes on electronic ballots - an increase of twelve percent over 2000. This year, more than one-third of the nation's 8,000 voting jurisdictions are expected to use electronic voting technology for the first time.

Olbermann: How Bush cut and ran

No, Mr. Bush, YOU cut and run

Republicans The Real Cut-And-Run Cowards

Bob Geiger at Huffington Post:

Republicans have become so accustomed to using the phrase "cut and run" that they probably mumble it while sleeping and their childlike leader, George W. Bush, babbled it again yesterday, saying at yet another GOP fundraiser that "the party of FDR and the party of Harry Truman has become the party of cut and run."

That takes a ton of nerve coming from a Chickenhawk like Bush, who used Daddy's connections to avoid Vietnam and then went AWOL from his cushy stateside post. But we've heard that empty phrase from the cretins in the right-wing of the Republican party so many times that it barely even registers any longer.

{ ... }

Whether he's in a cave, a nice hotel in Karachi or a CIA safe house, bin Laden must be laughing himself silly over the crisis of heart, soul and character he has so easily inflicted on the Bush Administration and, thus, our country.

It's trivial for a nation to stand by its creed when times are easy. But it's times like these, when circumstances and conditions are tough, that give us the real test of our national strength, courage and resolve.

Under Republican leadership, we are failing that test in the most miserable and pathetic way.

Geiger is right, Mr. Bush; YOU are the one who cuts and runs.

You cut and ran from your sworn responsibilities in the Texas Air National Guard.

You cut and ran from your pledge to capture or kill Osama bin Laden.

You cut and ran from supporting US troops.

And you have cut and run from your sworn obligation to uphold the Constitution.

Mr. Bush, you are the Cutter-and-runner-in-Chief.

Waterboard GOP Rep. Mark Foley

Waterboard GOP Rep. Mark Foley

John in DC on AmericaBlog:

GOP Rep. Mark Foley of Florida was caught initiating a rather creepy email exchange with a 16 year old boy, a former congressional page. The emails include Foley discussing what a great body a teenage friend of the boy had, and asking the boy for a "pic" - or "picture" in America Online "pick up" vernacular.

{ ... }

The Co-Chair of the US House Missing and Exploited Children Caucus cannot be someone even under the appearance of possibly being a potential child sex offender (soliciting a minor is a crime). No one is saying Foley is a child sex offender, but his email exchange has raised understandable concerns in some minds. It's time to get to the bottom of this, for the sake of our children. It's time to waterboard GOP Rep. Mark Foley.

Why shouldn't we waterboard Mark Foley? Is there anything more important in America, and to our future, than our children? Is the molestation of a child somehow less a crime than terrorism. Aren't they both really a form of terrorism against the innocent, the weak? Isn't protecting those who can't protect themselves what America is all about? You know, putting the rights of the victims before the rights of the criminals?

Our law enforcement should be given all the tools they need to keep our homeland safe, to keep our children safe. After all, under the new pro-terror legislation that Mr. Foley voted for, Mr. Foley is guaranteed adequate rights while not hindering interrogations. We are dealing with an enemy at war with our children. As GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter said, "In time of war it is not practical to apply the same rules of evidence that we apply in civil trials.” Our nation is facing a faceless and brutal enemy that lurks in the shadows, requiring a new way of thinking on the part of the United States and giving new importance to the ability to freely interrogate them.

{ ... }

In America, children and family are paramount. Nothing is more important to the Republican agenda than family values. It's time to defend those family values and protect our children from potential sexual predators.

It's time to waterboard Mark Foley.

And if he has nothing to hide, no harm no foul. After all, it's not like it's torture.

Thanks to Raw Story.

EDIT: ABC reports Foley has resigned. (Thanks to Crooks and Liars)

'...to create an authoritarian government...'

It's very rare for me to read something which expresses my own thinking precisely. Philip Slater has done so at Huffington post:

Why America's First Major Terrorist Attack is Forgotten, and what it Shows us

Americans need to wake up to the fact that right-wing Republicans don't believe in democracy and never have. They have always admired military dictatorships and seem to be working hard to set up the equivalent here in the United States. Their goal is to create an authoritarian government, with control of the media and the judiciary; to weaken all restraints on executive power and eliminate democratic freedoms; to undermine the public education system through fiscal starvation and rote learning, so that the poor will learn only enough to follow orders; and to create the kind of economic inequality so many Third World countries enjoy--by filling the pockets of a tiny group of extremely rich individuals and impoverishing the rest, thereby providing a mass of cheap labor. This policy began under Ronald Reagan and has made huge leaps under the Bush regime. We don't have too much further to go to achieve this right-wing "ideal".

US Iraq deaths in Sept (so far)

Bob Geiger has the list of 44 US soldiers who died in Iraq between September 1 and September 25. A few of the Pentagon announcements are fairly specific:

2nd Lt. Emily J.T. Perez, 23, of Texas, died on September 12 of injuries sustained in Al Kifl, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device detonated near her HMMWV during combat operations.

Sgt. Jennifer M. Hartman, 21, of New Ringgold, Pa. died in Baghdad, Iraq, on September 14 of injuries suffered when a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device detonated in the vicinity of a West Baghdad Substation where she was located.

Some are mysterious:

Pfc. Anthony P. Seig, 19, of Sunman, Ind., died on September 9, in Baghdad, Iraq, of injuries sustained when he encountered indirect fire from enemy forces while on base.

Many more are extremely vague:

Lance Cpl. Cliff K. Golla, 21, of Charlotte, N.C., died September 1 from wounds received while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.

Lance Cpl. Shane P. Harris, 23, of Las Vegas, N.M., died September 3 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.

Lance Cpl. Philip A. Johnson, 19, of Hartford, Conn., died September 3 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.

Pvt. Ryan E. Miller, 21, of Gahanna, Ohio, died September 3 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.

Pvt. Ryan E. Miller, 21, of Gahanna, Ohio, died September 3 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.

Cpl. Jared M. Shoemaker, 29, of Tulsa, Okla., died September 4 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.

Lance Cpl. Eric P. Valdepenas, 21, of Seekonk, Mass., died September 4 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Christopher G. Walsh, 30, of St. Louis, Mo. died September 4 while his unit was conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Anbar province, Iraq.

Pfc. Vincent M. Frassetto, 21, of Toms River, N.J., died September 7 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.

Cpl. Johnathan L. Benson, 21, of North Branch, Minn., died September 9 from wounds suffered on June 17 while conducting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq.

Petty Officer 2nd Class David S. Roddy, 32, of Aberdeen, Md., died September 16 while his unit was conducting combat operations against enemy forces in the Al Anbar province, Iraq.

Sgt. Christopher M. Zimmerman, 28, of Stephenville, Texas, died September 20 while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Anbar province, Iraq.

Cpl. Yull Estrada Rodriguez, 21, of Alegre Lajas, Puerto Rico, died September 20 while conducting combat operations against enemy forces in Al Anbar province, Iraq.

Then there are these:

Lt. Col. Marshall A. Gutierrez, 41, of New Mexico, died on September 4 in Camp Virginia, Kuwait, from non-combat related injuries.

Pfc. Hannah L. Gunterman, 20, of Redlands, Calif., died on September 4 in Taji, Iraq, from injuries suffered when she was struck by a vehicle.

Sgt. James R. Worster, 24, of Broadview Heights, Ohio, died from a non-combat related incident on September 18 in Baghdad, Iraq.

Who will be the last man or woman to die for a lie in Iraq?

ESPN busted: Fake cheers for Bush 41

ESPN FAKED STADIUM CHEERS FOR BUSH SR.

davefromqueens at Daily Kos:

It started with right winger Mike Tirico announcing George Bush Sr. to the crowd. Instantaneously you could hear an echo of cheers and not a single boo from the audio. But if you listen carefully to the audio, that audio was not live. ESPN shut off the sound of the Superdome crowd for a few seconds and played this audio of fake cheers. About ten seconds later ESPN had to shut their fake tape off and go to the NFL official on the field for the coin toss. That's when you could hear the REAL crowd noise. The audio on the field was a couple of hundred feet away so ESPN was probably thinking that crowd noise could not be picked up. ESPN was wrong.
.
As George Bush Sr. was flipping the coin, you could hear a chorus of boos so loud that ESPN had its proverbial hand caught in the cookie jar. And remember, this was ten seconds after the announcements so imagine what the initial boos sounded like. New Orleans residents know better than anyone else how Bush 43 responded to Katrina and they know better than anyone else about Barbara Bush's comments about poor people and how sleeping in the Astrodome was "working out quite well for them."

Rice caught lying, again

2001 memo to Rice contradicts statements about Clinton, Pakistan

Larry Womack, Raw Story:

A memo received by United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice shortly after becoming National Security Advisor in 2001 directly contradicts statements she made to reporters yesterday, RAW STORY has learned.

"We were not left a comprehensive strategy to fight al Qaeda," Rice told a reporter for the New York Post on Monday. "Big pieces were missing," Rice added, "like an approach to Pakistan that might work, because without Pakistan you weren't going to get Afghanistan."

Rice made the comments in response to claims made Sunday by former President Bill Clinton, who argued that his administration had done more than the current one to address the al Qaeda problem before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. She stopped short of calling the former president a liar.

However, RAW STORY has found that just five days after President George W. Bush was sworn into office, a memo from counter-terrorism expert Richard A. Clarke to Rice included the 2000 document, "Strategy for Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist Networks of al-Qida: Status and Prospects." This document devotes over 2 of its 13 pages of material to specifically addressing strategies for securing Pakistan's cooperation in airstrikes against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Poor Syria...

In Bush's performance before the UN General Assembly last week, he said to Syrians:

Today your rulers have allowed your country to become a crossroad for terrorism. In your midst, Hamas and Hezbollah are working to destabilize the region, and your government is turning your country into a tool of Iran.

And a tool of the US, which deported Maher Arar to Syria in 2002 on the basis, apparently, of no evidence at all. Scott Shane, New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 — When the United States sent Maher Arar to Syria, where he was tortured for months, the deportation order stated unequivocally that Mr. Arar, a Canadian software engineer, was a member of Al Qaeda. But a few days earlier, Canadian investigators had told the F.B.I. that they had not been able to link him to the terrorist group.

{ ... }

An Oct. 4 fax to the F.B.I. from Canadian counterterrorism officials said that they “had yet to complete either a detailed investigation of Mr. Arar or a link analysis on him,” and that “while he has had contact with many individuals of interest to this project we are unable to indicate links to Al Qaeda.”

That was particularly significant because the commission concludes that all, or virtually all, of the United States’ knowledge of any threat posed by Mr. Arar came from the Canadians.

The next day, on Saturday, Oct. 5, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police official spoke by phone with an unidentified F.B.I. official. “During this conversation, the F.B.I. official said that the Americans feared they did not have sufficient information to support charges against Mr. Arar,” the report says.

The Canadian officer said that likewise, “There was insufficient evidence to charge Mr. Arar in Canada.”

Canadian officials told the Americans that if they allowed Mr. Arar to travel home to Canada, he would be kept under surveillance. But by then the Americans were already secretly working on the Syrian option, a legal possibility because Mr. Arar retained his citizenship in Syria, where he was born.

“The American authorities appear to have intentionally kept Canadian officials in the dark about their plans to remove Mr. Arar to Syria,” the report says.

Despite the uncertain report from Canada on Mr. Arar and terrorism, on Oct. 7, an Immigration and Naturalization Service official ruled that evidence “clearly and unequivocally reflects that Mr. Arar is a member of a foreign terrorist organization, to wit, Al Qaeda.” At 4 a.m. the next day, Mr. Arar was bundled aboard a Gulfstream jet that flew him to Jordan, from which he was driven to a prison in neighboring Syria.

Becky Fischer's suicide bomber trainees

Becky Fischer clip from Jesus Camp.



Meanwhile, at TPRS Jack Cluth wonders, Who Would Jesus Waterboard?

Iraq war breeds terrorists *yawn*

Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat

Mark Mazzetti, New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 — A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.

Oh, come on: Is there anyone with a pulse who isn't already aware of the Bush administration's "Incite 'em over there, so we can fight 'em everywhere" strategy? And the White House rejection of the still-classified report's conclusion surely isn't news, either, given Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld's low regard for intelligence, whether it's the nation's spy agencies' or yours and mine. They just wanna torture people.

Not funny

Every week, Bob Geiger posts The Saturday Cartoons so we don't have to track them down ourselves. I'm grateful; if he didn't, I likely would have missed Jeff Danziger's take on the torture license faceoff.

If Senate Democrats don't filibuster that bill, they're no more deserving of office than the Deserter-in-Chief.

Lysistrata lives!

Wives tell gangsters to lay down arms or go without sex

Sibylla Brodzinsky, Guardian:

Gang members in one of Colombia's most violent cities face an ultimatum: give up guns or give up sex. In what is being called a "strike of crossed legs", supported by the Pereira mayor's office, the wives and girlfriends of gang members have said they will not have sex with their partners until they vow to give up violence.

"We want them to know that violence is not sexy," said Jennifer Bayer, 18, the girlfriend of a gang member. She and at least two dozen other women have said the sex strike will continue until their men hand over their weapons to authorities and sign up for vocational training offered by the mayor's office.

Daniel Ellsberg: Leak US Iran plans now

You have to see Ellsberg on the Colbert report, if for no other reason than Ellsberg's incredible Nixon impression.



(Thanks Raw Story)

Off we go, back to the caves

Torture's Long Shadow (thanks Josh Marshall via Raw Story)

Vladimir Bukovsky in the Washington Post:

Investigation is a subtle process, requiring patience and fine analytical ability, as well as a skill in cultivating one's sources. When torture is condoned, these rare talented people leave the service, having been outstripped by less gifted colleagues with their quick-fix methods, and the service itself degenerates into a playground for sadists. Thus, in its heyday, Joseph Stalin's notorious NKVD (the Soviet secret police) became nothing more than an army of butchers terrorizing the whole country but incapable of solving the simplest of crimes. And once the NKVD went into high gear, not even Stalin could stop it at will. He finally succeeded only by turning the fury of the NKVD against itself; he ordered his chief NKVD henchman, Nikolai Yezhov (Beria's predecessor), to be arrested together with his closest aides.

So, why would democratically elected leaders of the United States ever want to legalize what a succession of Russian monarchs strove to abolish? Why run the risk of unleashing a fury that even Stalin had problems controlling? Why would anyone try to "improve intelligence-gathering capability" by destroying what was left of it? Frustration? Ineptitude? Ignorance? Or, has their friendship with a certain former KGB lieutenant colonel, V. Putin, rubbed off on the American leaders? I have no answer to these questions, but I do know that if Vice President Cheney is right and that some "cruel, inhumane or degrading" (CID) treatment of captives is a necessary tool for winning the war on terrorism, then the war is lost already.

Even talking about the possibility of using CID treatment sends wrong signals and encourages base instincts in those who should be consistently delivered from temptation by their superiors. As someone who has been on the receiving end of the "treatment" under discussion, let me tell you that trying to make a distinction between torture and CID techniques is ridiculous. Long gone are the days when a torturer needed the nasty-looking tools displayed in the Tower of London. A simple prison bed is deadly if you remove the mattress and force a prisoner to sleep on the iron frame night after night after night. Or how about the "Chekist's handshake" so widely practiced under Stalin -- a firm squeeze of the victim's palm with a simple pencil inserted between his fingers? Very convenient, very simple. And how would you define leaving 2,000 inmates of a labor camp without dental service for months on end? Is it CID not to treat an excruciatingly painful toothache, or is it torture?

Clapton and Cale together

After too many years, Eric Clapton and J.J. Cale have recorded an album together. The Road to Escondido won't be released until November 7, but DownWithTyranny has heard it:

So wasn't I in for a shock this afternoon when a mutual friend took me for a drive and played me The Road to Escondido the new Clapton/J.J. Cale album due out November 7, election day.

The "political" song is called "When This War is Over" and, like most of the album, it is sung by Eric and J.J.

When this war is over
It will be a better day
But it won't bring back
Those poor boys in their grave

I don't have a copy of the CD and I can't recall all the lyrics but I remember asking if they sat down and wrote some lines with Jack Murtha:

Gotta get a plan
Change our ways, you know

One hand clapping

The Louisville Courier-Journal's editorial on the agreement between Bush and Senators Warner, McCain, and Graham gets it exactly right:

Under the arrangement, the Senate will not accept the President's demands that the Geneva Conventions be formally reinterpreted, endorse "aggressive interrogation" (i.e., torture) or legalize sham military tribunals that the Supreme Court had struck down.

Unfortunately, however, what emerged provides too little protection against a president whose word cannot be trusted and who feels no obligation to live up to the spirit of an agreement with Congress.

The Senate bargain ill-advisedly gives the President room to interpret key parts of the Geneva accords through executive orders -- an invitation to sweeping mischief with this administration. And only hours after the Senate deal was brokered, the White House was using differences between Senate and House approaches to suggest that Senate restrictions on the use of secret evidence in military trials might not be binding.

In short, the prospect is still for trials of such blatant unfairness as to render them instantly illegitimate in the eyes of the world (and many Americans).

Of course, this congressional ballet has never really been about trials or terrorism. The only consideration that requires action now is the urgent Republican strategy of forcing Democrats to vote for or against the President on a supposed security issue, before the election.

Democrats, who stood aside while the GOP senators carried the fight to Mr. Bush, must now decide whether to step into a trap by trying to delay the legislation with a filibuster.

That would carry political risks. But it also would constitute leadership -- and thus might answer the biggest doubt about the Democrats.

Suspected CIA Kidnappers Identified

Suspected CIA Kidnappers Identified

Spiegel Online:

The US intelligence agents involved in wrongly kidnapping a German citizen of Arab descent could soon face warrants for their arrest. Clues to their identity have turned up from Spanish authorities and German TV journalists.

The case of Khaled al-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent who was allegedly kidnapped and tortured in secret CIA prisons, continues to unfold. According to a report in the German press on Thursday, the US intelligence agents who wrongly abducted al-Masri might be confronted with warrants for their arrest, as details of their identities become known to German prosecutors.

Munich's Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that prosecutors had received a list of names of suspected US kidnappers from Spanish officials. "We now have very specific questions for the Spanish authorities," state prosecutor August Stern told the paper.

Torture topics

Bush, GOP rebels agree on detainee bill
Anne Plummer Flaherty, Associated Press:

The White House and rebellious Senate Republicans announced agreement Thursday on rules for the interrogation and trial of suspects in the war on terror. President Bush urged Congress to put it into law before adjourning for the midterm elections.

"I'm pleased to say that this agreement preserves the single most potent tool we have in protecting America and foiling terrorist attacks," the president said, shortly after administration officials and key lawmakers announced agreement following a week of high-profile intraparty disagreement.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona, one of three GOP lawmakers who told Bush he couldn't have the legislation the way he initially asked for it, said, "The agreement that we've entered into gives the president the tools he needs to continue to fight the war on terror and bring these evil people to justice."

"There's no doubt that the integrity and letter and spirit of the Geneva Conventions have been preserved," McCain said, referring to the international treaties covering the treatment of prisoners in wartime.

US: detainee bill would clarify access to evidence
Reuters:

"A provision dealing with classified evidence makes sure that no sensitive intelligence will have to be shared with terrorists or their lawyers," White House national security adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters.

U.N. expert: Iraq torture may be worse
Eliane Engeler, Associated Press:

Torture in
Iraq may be worse now than it was under
Saddam Hussein, with militias, terrorist groups and government forces disregarding rules on the humane treatment of prisoners, the U.N. anti-torture chief said Thursday.

Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special investigator on torture, made the remarks as he was presenting a report on detainee conditions at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay as well as to brief the U.N. Human Rights Council, the global body's top rights watchdog, on torture worldwide.

Reports from Iraq indicate that torture "is totally out of hand," he said. "The situation is so bad many people say it is worse than it has been in the times of Saddam Hussein."

Nowak added, "That means something, because the torture methods applied under Saddam Hussein were the worst you could imagine."

Georgia GOP Rep flip-flops on pro-torture statement
Ben Evans, Associated Press:

Georgia congressman Lynn Westmoreland backed away from comments he made suggesting that he supports torturing terrorism suspects, but said intelligence agencies should be given latitude to use "the methods necessary" to get information from detainees.

On Tuesday, the Grantville Republican told a Douglas County Chamber of Commerce luncheon that he "voted for torture" and that "we need to get information out of these people the best way we can," the Douglas County Sentinel reported.

He said Wednesday that he should have "put that another way."

"Maybe I shouldn't have said I voted for torture," he said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I should have said I voted against the anti-torture bill."

The vote he referred to came last year on an amendment reaffirming the United States' commitment to the U.N. Convention Against Torture. The measure passed the House 415-8, with Westmoreland among those opposing it. The U.N. convention defines torture as intentionally inflicting "severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental," to obtain information or a confession.

Are We Cool with Cruel and Degrading Treatment for US Troops?
Cenk Uygur, Huffington Post:

Newsweek has already reported the seven different techniques the CIA has asked permission to use (plus waterboarding, which they have already used but apparently is negotiable). These techniques include slapping detainees around, exposing them to extreme temperatures (clothing optional), throwing water down their nose until they think they're drowning, making them go through extended hours of standing and sleep deprivation. No big deal, right? The terrorists had it coming.

The only problem is that whatever we agree is acceptable interrogation tactics, we obviously have to accept can also be done to our troops when they are captured. It's one thing when we tell other countries to treat our soldiers by the Geneva Conventions when we are following them, it's another to say that when we are not. As Colin Powell tried to explain, we would have lost our moral standing.

This is the point when conservatives start screaming about how terrorists cut people's heads off. Yes, congratulations, you win -- you are slightly better than Al Qaeda. Maybe that should be the slogan of the Republicans supporting the White House position on "tougher interrogations" -- Republicans: Slightly Better than the Terrorists.

Bush binds the hands he seeks to free

Geoffrey S. Corn, Lt. Col. US Army (Ret.), professor, South Texas College of Law, writing in Jurist:

The Field Manual no longer represents “what right normally looks like”; it now represents “the only methods you are permitted to use.” These techniques have thus been “frozen” by law, a result inconsistent with the very concept of “doctrine.”

While the proponents of the Manual have put the proverbial “brave face” on the end result of their efforts, eliminating tactical innovation from interrogators “toolkit” is an unfortunate byproduct of the loss of confidence created by the President’s policies. Even assuming the methods adopted by the Manual are considered both effective and consistent with the principle of humane treatment, as they no doubt are, they are also now restrictive in nature, a result that was not inevitable and could have been avoided. While the Manual does indicate that the techniques may be periodically revised, those revisions will not be developed in accordance with the tried and true method of doctrine development, but instead will have to rely on analysis detached from operational reality.

This is a high price to pay for the President’s decision to exclude detainees from the protection of Common Article 3. To the knowledge of this author, Congress has never before felt compelled to transform doctrine into a binding legal mandate. But the persistent efforts of the President’s advisers to circumvent this most basic obligation set the conditions for this unprecedented method of ensuring such compliance. The end result is that interrogators are now deprived of the opportunity to use their initiative and creativity, within the limits of the law of war, to accomplish their important mission; a result that could have easily been avoided if the legal analysis relied on by the President had not created such a loss of confidence in his decisions – a loss of confidence that is again forcing prominent Senators to make an even more determined effort to preserve the integrity of the law of war.

Judge axes Bush forest road rule

Judge Axes Bush Reversal of Roadless Rule

SAN FRANCISCO, California, September 20, 2006 (ENS) - A federal judge today reinstated a Clinton-era ban on road construction, logging and mining in one-third of U.S national forests, reversing a Bush administration regulation that forced states to petition the federal government for protection of roadless areas.

The Forest Service failed to adequately consider the environmental impacts of replacing the roadless rule with the new regulation, U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Laporte wrote in a 55-page ruling.

Betsy Loyless, senior vice president of the National Audubon Society, called the decision "one of the most important conservation victories of the Bush era."

"The court has made clear that this administration failed to follow environmental safeguards laid out in this country's environmental laws, putting millions of acres of pristine forests at risk of logging and drilling," she said. "It's thrilling to see that our precious roadless forests will remain roadless."

Forest Service officials did not have an immediate comment on the ruling, but the Bush administration is likely to appeal the decision.

'Stop funding climate change denial'

Royal Society tells Exxon: stop funding climate change denial

David Adam, The Guardian:

Britain's leading scientists have challenged the US oil company ExxonMobil to stop funding groups that attempt to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change.

In an unprecedented step, the Royal Society, Britain's premier scientific academy, has written to the oil giant to demand that the company withdraws support for dozens of groups that have "misrepresented the science of climate change by outright denial of the evidence".

The scientists also strongly criticise the company's public statements on global warming, which they describe as "inaccurate and misleading".

Tucker Carlson really doesn't get it

Saying that Virginia Sen. George Allen's ethnic slur against an American of Indian ancestry would be "the worst possible reason to lose a race," Tucker Carlson's demonstrates ineptitude and cluelessness breathtaking even in 21st century American television. He completely misses the irony of Allen, the Confederacy's California carpetbagger, "welcoming" Virginia native S.R. Sidarth (whom Carlson calls "that whiny little kid") to "the real world of Virginia." I think the clip and transcript at Media Matters make it clear who the whiny little kid is.

'The stench of corruption...'

Raw Story quotes an article in Roll Call (subscription only) on Congressional corruption:

In fact, not since the early 1990s, when the House Bank, Post Office and Page scandals were roiling Capitol Hill and prematurely ending dozens of political careers, have so many lawmakers been in prosecutors’ sights.

From 1993 to 1996, 10 Members went to prison for varying lengths of time, and at least four, and possibly as many as six, were imprisoned at the same time, according to media reports. The list of jailed lawmakers included House stalwarts such as Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), the powerful chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. The stench of corruption emanating from the Democrat-controlled House helped Republicans win control of the chamber in 1994, and they immediately instituted a reform agenda that included new restrictions on lobbyists and gifts to lawmakers and staff.

George Orwell interprets Bushspeak

Billmon brilliantly illuminates several Talk Like a Pirate Day utterances by Bush, Cheney, Chirac, et al, with quotes from George Orwell's 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language. You won't enjoy reading it, but you will feel a little less alone.

'...who is responsible for monitoring his medications?'

I am your elder

Garrison Keillor at Salon:

And that crazy Rep. John Boehner. He made a speech, asking whether Democrats are "more interested in protecting terrorists than in protecting the American people." He should have talked to me first. The U.S. House of Representatives, in which Mr. Boehner serves as majority leader, is not an institution held in high esteem these days, and before he chucks road apples at Democrats, he should tend to his own business. The House took a five-week summer vacation, came back into session, debated the Abraham Lincoln Commemorative Coin Act, then spent four hours debating a bill to prohibit slaughtering horses for consumption -- horse meat! In this country, horse meat is served only to carnivores in zoos, but various gasbags had to stand up and laud our equine friends, praise their role in the western migration, the U.S. Cavalry, etc.; meanwhile the subjects of immigration, port security, terrorism and the war went unmentioned in the House chamber.

{ ... }

You want to know what I think? Members of Congress should leave town. Move north to where they can feel the crisp chill breeze of reality. Maybe a place in the middle of the country, along the Mississippi River.... No need to spend money on a dome and pillars -- just pitch two big circus tents, one for the House, one for the Senate, bring in FEMA trailers for housing, and let's see if we can't get more work out of these people.

Celts' ancestors were Spanish

Celts descended from Spanish fishermen, study finds (thanks Robot Wisdom)

Guy Adams, The Independent:

A team from Oxford University has discovered that the Celts, Britain's indigenous people, are descended from a tribe of Iberian fishermen who crossed the Bay of Biscay 6,000 years ago. DNA analysis reveals they have an almost identical genetic "fingerprint" to the inhabitants of coastal regions of Spain, whose own ancestors migrated north between 4,000 and 5,000BC.

The discovery, by Bryan Sykes, professor of human genetics at Oxford University, will herald a change in scientific understanding of Britishness.

People of Celtic ancestry were thought to have descended from tribes of central Europe. Professor Sykes, who is soon to publish the first DNA map of the British Isles, said: "About 6,000 years ago Iberians developed ocean-going boats that enabled them to push up the Channel. Before they arrived, there were some human inhabitants of Britain but only a few thousand in number. These people were later subsumed into a larger Celtic tribe... The majority of people in the British Isles are actually descended from the Spanish."

'...the thing that they replaced your heart with...'

John Stewart on Robert Novak (thanks Raw Story).

Avast, me hearties...

In the interest of observing Talk Like a Pirate Day, I thought I'd offer some examples of how real pirates speak...

Walden W. O'Dell, then CEO of Diebold, Inc.: "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." (O'Dell resigned last December after Diebold was hit with a pair of class-action lawsuits charging insider trading and misrepresentation, and a county in Florida concluded that Diebold's voting machines could be hacked.)

National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley: "I'm saying that nobody knows what humiliating treatment is. What does it mean?"

House Armed Services Committee chairman Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-California: "Since violation of Common Article 3 is a felony under this act, it is necessary to amend U.S. law to provide clarity and certainty to the interpretation of this statute." (The "act" to which Hunter refers is the 1996 War Crimes Act, which was co-sponsored by... Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-California.)

Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq 1979-2003: "Don't provoke a snake unless you have the intention and power to cut off its head."

George W Bush, President of the United States: "The Patriot Act has increased the flow of information within our government and it has helped break up terrorist cells in the United States of America. And the United States Congress was right to renew the terrorist act -- the Patriot Act."

Rep. William Jefferson, D-Louisiana: "I wish to say emphatically that in all of my actions that are here under scrutiny, that I have never intended to dishonor my office, or you, the public, and I certainly did not sell my office."

Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio: "It is outrageous to know that security procedures are apparently so lax at the Department of Veterans Affairs that a single bureaucrat had the ability to put the personal information of over 26 million Veterans at risk for sale to the highest criminal bidder." (Ney has agreed to plead guilty to Federal corruption charges, but not to leave Congress.)

Rep. Katherine Harris, R-Florida: "If you're not electing Christians, then in essence you are going to legislate sin." (As Florida Secretary of State, Harris oversaw vote recounting in the 2000 presidential election.)

Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of War: "It seems that in some quarters there's more of a focus on dividing our country than acting with unity against the gathering threats."

Dick Cheney, former CEO, Halliburton: "The president will not relent in tracking the enemies of the United States with every legitimate tool in his command."

Sen. Joe Lieberman, formerly D-Connecticut: "I also know that there have been many times in our history when the proximity of an election has induced exactly the kind of leadership and consensus-building that produce progress in our democracy."

Former Rep. Tom Delay, R-Texas: "I am the federal government."

Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pennsylvania: "We're at war with Islamic fascism, and Afghanistan and Iraq and Southern Lebanon and every country around the world is a front."

Prime Minister Tony Blair: "Mine is the first generation able to contemplate the possibility that we may live our entire lives without going to war or sending our children to war."

Sen. George Allen, R-Virginia: "Lets give a welcome to Macaca, here. Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia."

George W Bush: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

Prophet without honor

From career US diplomat John Brady Kiesling's letter of resignation to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, as published in the New York Times on Febrary 27, 2003:

It is inevitable that during twenty years with the State Department I would become more sophisticated and cynical about the narrow and selfish bureaucratic motives that sometimes shaped our policies. Human nature is what it is, and I was rewarded and promoted for understanding human nature. But until this Administration it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer.

The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests. Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America’s most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security.

{ ... }

The September 11 tragedy left us stronger than before, rallying around us a vast international coalition to cooperate for the first time in a systematic way against the threat of terrorism. But rather than take credit for those successes and build on them, this Administration has chosen to make terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally. We spread disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq. The result, and perhaps the motive, is to justify a vast misallocation of shrinking public wealth to the military and to weaken the safeguards that protect American citizens from the heavy hand of government. September 11 did not do as much damage to the fabric of American society as we seem determined to so to ourselves. Is the Russia of the late Romanovs really our model, a selfish, superstitious empire thrashing toward self-destruction in the name of a doomed status quo?

{ ... }

Have we indeed become blind, as Russia is blind in Chechnya, as Israel is blind in the Occupied Territories, to our own advice, that overwhelming military power is not the answer to terrorism? After the shambles of post-war Iraq joins the shambles in Grozny and Ramallah, it will be a brave foreigner who forms ranks with Micronesia to follow where we lead.

{ ... }

When our friends are afraid of us rather than for us, it is time to worry. And now they are afraid. Who will tell them convincingly that the United States is as it was, a beacon of liberty, security, and justice for the planet?

GOP flip-floppers: Hunter and Inhofe

Two leaders of the Bush administration's effort to gut the 1996 War Crimes Act, House Armed Services Committee chairman Rep. Duncan Hunter and Sen. James Inhofe, were sponsors of the law they seek to eviscerate. Mark Benjamin's The GOP's tortured logic at Salon has details.

Hadley the clueless

National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley on CNN's Late Edition:

I'm saying that nobody knows what humiliating treatment is. What does it mean?

'George W, find yourself another country...'

...to be part of. The late Phil Ochs knew not to end a sentence with a preposition; he also knew when to break the rule. Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder did a solo acoustic version of the song, updated to last spring. Crooks and Liars has the video.

No leniency for ex-Enron exec

Judge rejects mercy plea in sentencing ex-Enron exec

Bruce Nichols, Reuters:

A U.S. federal judge on Monday rejected a plea for mercy from prosecutors and sentenced a former Enron Corp. executive who testified against Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling to 30 months in prison.

David W. Delainey, a Canadian who pleaded guilty to insider trading in 2003 and cooperated extensively with the U.S. Justice Department's Enron Task Force, had been praised by prosecutors for his help in the case.

Enron collapsed in a tangle of fraud in 2001, causing investors to lose billions and costing employees their jobs and retirement savings. Delainey's testimony helped convict Lay, the former Enron chairman, and Skilling, the former chief executive, last summer.

'Breathtakingly incompetent'

'Breathtakingly incompetent' investigation leads to torture of innocent

Ian Austen, New York Times:

OTTAWA A government commission on Monday exonerated a Canadian computer engineer of any ties to terrorism and issued a scathing report that faulted Canada and the United States for his deportation four years ago to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured.

The report on the engineer, Maher Arar, said American officials had apparently acted on inaccurate information from Canadian investigators and then misled Canadian authorities about their plans for Arar before transporting him to Syria.

"I am able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Arar has committed any offense or that his activities constituted a threat to the security of Canada," Justice Dennis O'Connor, head of the commission, said at a news conference.

{ ... }

The Syrian-born Arar was seized on Sept. 26, 2002, after he landed at Kennedy Airport in New York on his way home from a holiday in Tunisia. On Oct. 8, he was flown to Jordan in an American government plane and taken overland to Syria, where he says he was held for 10 months in a tiny cell and beaten repeatedly with a metal cable. He was freed in October 2003, after Syrian officials concluded that he had no connection to terrorism and returned him to Canada.

Hacking Diebold voting machines, redux

'Hotel minibar' keys open Diebold voting machines

Ed Felten, Freedom to Tinker:

A little research revealed that the exact same key is used widely in office furniture, electronic equipment, jukeboxes, and hotel minibars. It’s a standard part, and like most standard parts it’s easily purchased on the Internet. We bought several keys from an office furniture key shop — they open the voting machine too. We ordered another key on eBay from a jukebox supply shop. The keys can be purchased from many online merchants.

Using such a standard key doesn’t provide much security, but it does allow Diebold to assert that their design uses a lock and key. Experts will recognize the same problem in Diebold’s use of encryption — they can say they use encryption, but they use it in a way that neutralizes its security benefits.

Felton led the Princeton team whose investigation of Diebold voting machines I've previously posted here.

Fallacy and fear

Patrick Smith, Salon:

There's plenty of blame to be divvied up among obvious suspects: a shortsighted airline industry, the TSA and its welter of pedantic foolery, and a strangely recalcitrant press. But these are symptoms and not the disease. The disease has a name, and that name is fear. I'm generally not a conspiratorial sort but I urge you to reevaluate just who, exactly, is responsible for terrorizing the American public over the past month? Was it the failed London cabal, or your own government, with an eye toward elections and beholden to pollsters and those who stand to profit from billions of dollars poured into the gullet of the Homeland Security beast?

Thomas C Greene, The Register:

It should be small comfort that the security establishments of the UK and the USA - and the "terrorism experts" who inform them and wheedle billions of dollars out of them for bomb puffers and face recognition gizmos and remote gait analyzers and similar hi-tech phrenology gear - have bought the Hollywood binary liquid explosive myth, and have even acted upon it.

We've given extraordinary credit to a collection of jihadist wannabes with an exceptionally poor grasp of the mechanics of attacking a plane, whose only hope of success would have been a pure accident. They would have had to succeed in spite of their own ignorance and incompetence, and in spite of being under police surveillance for a year.

But the Hollywood myth of binary liquid explosives now moves governments and drives public policy. We have reacted to a movie plot. Liquids are now banned in aircraft cabins (while crystalline white powders would be banned instead, if anyone in charge were serious about security). Nearly everything must now go into the hold, where adequate amounts of explosives can easily be detonated from the cabin with cell phones, which are generally not banned.

Nafeez Ahmed, Raw Story:

Lieutenant-Colonel (ret.) Nigel Wylde, a former senior British Army Intelligence Officer, has suggested that the police and government story about the "terror plot" revealed on 10th August was part of a "pattern of lies and deceit."

{ ... }

"This story has been blown out of all proportion. The liquids would need to be carefully distilled at freezing temperatures to extract the required chemicals, which are very difficult to obtain in the purities needed."

Once the fluids have been extracted, the process of mixing them produces significant amounts of heat and vile fumes. "The resulting liquid then needs some hours at room temperature for the white crystals that are the explosive to develop." The whole process, which can take between 12 and 36 hours, is "very dangerous, even in a lab, and can lead to premature detonation," said Lt. Col. Wylde.

If there was a conspiracy, he added, "it did not involve manufacturing the explosives in the loo," as this simply "could not have worked." The process would be quickly and easily detected. The fumes of the chemicals in the toilet "would be smelt by anybody in the area." They would also inevitably "cause the alarms in the toilet and in the air change system in the aircraft to be triggered. The pilot has the ability to dump all the air from an aircraft as a fire-fighting measure, leaving people to use oxygen masks. All this means the planned attack would be detected long before the queues outside the loo had grown to enormous lengths."

US outsources spying

Spy Agencies Outsourcing to Fill Key Jobs

Greg Miller, Los Angeles Times:

WASHINGTON — At the National Counterterrorism Center — the agency created two years ago to prevent another attack like Sept. 11 — more than half of the employees are not U.S. government analysts or terrorism experts. Instead, they are outside contractors.

At CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., senior officials say it is routine for career officers to look around the table during meetings on secret operations and be surrounded by so-called green-badgers — nonagency employees who carry special-colored IDs.

{ ... }

Senior U.S. intelligence officials said that the reliance on contractors was so deep that agencies couldn't function without them.

"If you took away the contractor support, they'd have to put yellow tape around the building and close it down," said a former senior CIA official who was responsible for overseeing contracts before leaving the agency earlier this year.

{ ... }

Contractors are subject to the same background checks and security clearance requirements as full-time employees, officials said. But some of that clearance work itself has been outsourced, officials said, and even the screening done by the CIA hasn't been infallible.

In one well-known case, David A. Passaro was hired as a contractor with the CIA's paramilitary service even though he had a record of abusive behavior and had been fired by a Connecticut police department. Passaro was convicted of felony assault earlier this year in federal court in North Carolina for his role in the beating of a detainee who died in Afghanistan in 2003.

{ ... }

Another worry is that the reliance on contractors is eroding agency budgets. Sanders said a recent personnel study by the Senate Intelligence Committee found that contractors were typically paid 50% to 100% more than staff officers to perform comparable work — a disparity that can create internal tensions.

"It's a serious morale problem when you've got a guy in the field making $80,000 and a contractor making $150,000," said the former case officer who served in Iraq. "And the [staff employee] is supposed to supervise the guy making twice the money."

Greenwald: Filibuster Specter bill

Senate Democrats must filibuster the Specter bill

Glenn Greenwald at Crooks and Liars:

he FISA bill proposed by Arlen Specter, in collaboration with the White House, is one of the most pernicious pieces of legislation introduced during the Bush presidency. Today, Specter’s Senate Judiciary Committee voted along party lines, 10-8, to send the Specter bill to the full Senate (along with competing bills from Sen. DeWine and one jointly sponsored by Sens. Specter and Feinstein).

Because the Specter bill has the support of several supposedly "independent" Republicans (at least) as well as the White House, the only real chance to prevent its enactment is a Democratic-led filibuster in the Senate. This bill, for reasons I have set forth here and here, is incomparably destructive on numerous levels. It would, in sum, abolish all meaningful restrictions and oversight on the President’s eavesdropping powers, formally adopt the administration’s radical theories of limitless executive power, and destroy the ability to subject the President’s eavesdropping conduct to meaningful judicial review (including holding the President accountable for past lawbreaking).

Hacking Diebold voting machines

Hack the vote? No problem

Brad Friedman reports at Salon on the results of a study by computer scientists at Princeton University:

The study reveals that a computer virus can be implanted on an electronic voting machine that, in turn, could result in votes flipped for opposing candidates.

{ ... }

The Princeton report shows that a virus could be inserted onto a Diebold voting system by a single individual "with just one or two minutes of unsupervised access to either the voting machine or the memory card," which is used with the system to store ballot definitions and vote tabulations.

The Princeton investigators' report includes a video demonstration of the mechanics of hacking the system.

'Don't ask, don't tell' debate warms

Gay Groups Renew Drive Against ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’

Lizette Alvarez, New York Times:

As the Pentagon’s search for soldiers grows more urgent, gay rights groups are making the biggest push in nearly a decade to win repeal of a compromise policy, encoded in a 1993 law and dubbed “don’t ask, don’t tell,” that bars openly gay people from serving in the military.

{ ... }

In addition, 24 foreign armies, most notably those of Britain and Israel, have integrated openly gay people into their ranks with little impact on effectiveness and recruitment. In Britain, where the military was initially forced to accept gay troops by the European Court of Human Rights, gay partners are now afforded full benefits, and the Royal Navy has called on a gay rights group to help recruit gay sailors.

The new debate on “don’t ask, don’t tell” also coincides with multiple deployments that are being required of many American troops by a military that has lowered its standards to allow more high school dropouts and some convicted criminals to enlist.

“Would you rather have a felon than a gay soldier?” said Capt. Scott Stanford, a heterosexual National Guard commander of a headquarters company who returned from Iraq in June. “I wouldn’t.”

{ ... }

On the other side of the divide, Elaine Donnelly, president of the conservative Center for Military Readiness, said permitting gay men and lesbians to serve openly would prompt recruitment rates to drop and disrupt unit cohesion, a linchpin in the decision to allow gay troops to serve only in silence.

“People in the military live in conditions of little or no privacy,” said Ms. Donnelly, who advocates a full ban on gay troops. “In conditions of forced intimacy, people should not have to expose themselves to other persons who are sexually attracted to them.”

Curiously, Ms. Donnelly's bio omits any reference to her own service in the military.

Bush on the flag

Tim Grieve in Salon's War Room shows President Bush's stand on the flag on 9/11.

Arab reflections on 9/11

Mark Lynch at Abu Aardvark summarizes Arab reflections on the fifth anniverary of 9/11, with links (thanks Robot Wisdom).

I could find only a handful of columnists arguing that the war on terror has made things better for the United States, its ideas, or its allies (they mainly vary on whether they see all this as a good or a bad thing). Whether writing in opposition to America or in support of it, Arab columnists seem pretty unanimously to see Islamist extremism on the rise, democracy in retreat, and American influence in tatters. They almost universally blame Bush for making things worse than they had to be, and particularly identify the invasion of Iraq as the key mistake, the point where things all went wrong.

The Sixteen Acre Ditch

Billmon on the US five years after 9/11:

The old feedback mechanisms are broken or in deep disrepair, leaving America with an opposition party that doesn't know how (or what) to oppose, a military run by uniformed yes men, intelligence czars who couldn't find their way through a garden gate with a GPS locator, TV networks that don't even pretend to cover the news unless there's a missing white woman or a suspected child rapist involved, and talk radio hosts who think nuking Mecca is the solution to all our problems in the Middle East. We've got think tanks that can't think, security agencies that can't secure and accounting firms that can't count (except when their clients ask them to make 2+2=5). Our churches are either annexes to shopping malls, halfway homes for pederasts, or GOP precinct headquarters in disguise.

Colbert on 'The Path to 9/11'

Crooks and Liars has the clip.

Olbermann on 9/11

Really?!

Disney's forked tongue, redux

At AMERICAblog, John in DC reports that the Disney propaganda piece blames American Airlines for failing to stop Mohamed Atta on the morning of 9/11. The problem with this allegation, he says, is that Atta flew from Portland, Maine to Boston on a US Airways flight, prior to the hijacking of the United flight in which he allegedly participated.

Meanwhile, on the ABC News blog The Blotter, Brian Ross and Rhonda Schwartz report that an undercover ABC News team stored half a ton of ammonium nitrate only a few miles from the White House and the U.S. Capitol. The blog doesn't say whether this occurred during the Clinton admininstration or on Bush's watch.

Another Halliburton fraud suit

Whistle-blower slams Iraq contractor

Deborah Hastings, Associated Press:

Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root charged millions to the government for recreational services never provided to U.S. troops in
Iraq, including giant tubs of chicken wings and tacos, a widescreen TV, and cheese sticks meant for a military Super Bowl party, according to a federal whistle-blower suit unsealed Friday.

Instead, the suit alleges, KBR used the military's supplies for its own football party.

Filed last year in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., by former KBR employee Julie McBride, the lawsuit claims the giant defense contractor billed the government for thousands of meals it never served, inflated the number of soldiers using its fitness and Internet centers, and regularly siphoned off great quantities of supplies destined for American soldiers.

Halliburton was headed by Dick Cheney until he stepped down to become Vice President of the company's subsidiary, United States of America.

A couple days ago, we posted a couple of clips from Iraq for Sale, Robert Greenwald's documentary of fraud and waste. If you can't wait for the September 28 release of the DVD, there are more clips at youTube.

DNC calls Bush on bin Laden flip flop

Hold On

For a friend with whom I share a certain mulish tendency to hold onto too many things.

Disney's forked tongue

Disney/ABC is telling Americans that its alternate-universe fantasy production, "The Path to 9/11," is "a dramatization, not a documentary, drawn from a variety of sources, including the 9/11 Commission Report, other published materials and from personal interviews." But STOPGeorge has posted the trailer being shown in Europe and elsewhere, which claims the propaganda piece is the "OFFICIAL TRUE STORY."



Greg Sargent has posted a letter to ABC from the widowed husband of a Disney Records executive killed on 9/11, urging that the movie not be shown.

Horsewhipping

Down the Homestretch, the House Wanders Off Course

Dana Milbank, Washington Post:

Returning from a five-week summer vacation, GOP lawmakers have much to worry about: war in Iraq and Afghanistan, terrorism and border problems, high energy prices and health-care costs, and none of the federal government's annual spending bills enacted.

So what did House leaders decide to make the centerpiece of the week? H.R. 503: the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act. This legislation, passed yesterday, followed Wednesday's action on a full slate of bills including H.R. 2808, the Abraham Lincoln Commemorative Coin Act.

Near the end of the predictably pun-punctuated piece, Milbank observes:

Even before the horse bill, House leaders had been a bit sensitive about their legislative pace. The People's Representatives have been in session for all of 80 days this year, and with 15 days remaining on the legislative calendar, the House is on pace to shatter all records for inactivity. The "Do-Nothing" House of 1948 was positively frenetic by comparison, passing 1,191 measures in 110 days in session.

The current House has passed barely 400 measures, including this week's lineup of legislative priorities: H. Res. 912, "Supporting the goals and ideals of National Life Insurance Awareness Month" and H. Res. 605, "Recognizing the life of Preston Robert Tisch and his outstanding contributions to New York City, the New York Giants Football Club, the National Football League, and the United States."

(billmon's comment on the debate: "The scene reminds me of the old World War II joke about the worker in a defense plant who's asked what he's building. 'The front ends of horses,' he replies, 'to be shipped to Washington for final assembly.'")

The American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act was sponsored by Rep. John Sweeney ("R-Saratoga Race Course," says Milbank). Check out this campaign advertisement for Sweeney's opponent, Kirsten Gillibrand:

Not just lies, but boring lies

Accuracy aside, ABC's '9/11' deserves to bomb

Doug Elfman, Chicago Sun-Times:

This is what happens during 4 1/2 lonnnng hours of "Path." Terrorists talk about killing Americans for Allah. FBI and other security officials try to track them but fail. 9/11 happens.

You don't say.

This is the most anticlimactic, tension-free movie in the history of terrorist TV.

{ ... }

Controversy could boost viewership, except "Path" is the dullest, worst-shot TV movie since ABC's disastrous "Ten Commandments" remake. It substitutes shaky handheld cameras and dumb dialogue for craftsmanship. It could not be more amateurish or poorly constructed unless someone had forgotten to light the sets.

An appalling secondary concern is the tone makes almost every pre-9/11 American look like a fool.

At the Huffington Post, Max Blumenthal traces the project's history back to far right activist David Horowitz and Loren Cunningham, founder of the right-wing evangelical group Youth With A Mission and father of director David Cunningham.

Ex EPA head blames NYC for 9/11 health woes

Former EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman is blaming New York City officials for not forcing Ground Zero workers to wear respirators during the 9/11 cleanup. But Congressman Jerrold Nadler called Whitman's remarks on 60 Minutes "a pathetic attempt by someone desperate to escape prosecution in federal court, and in the court of public opinion." Background: Nadler's April 12, 2002 white paper (PDF) and Abrahm Lustgarten's The toxic fallout of 9/11 in Salon, August 15, 2003.

'Mocking Bush is my patriotic duty'

Bill Maher at Salon:

So yes, for the sake of homeland security, I ridicule the president -- but it gives me no pleasure to paint him as a dolt, a rube, a yokel on the world stage, a submental, three bricks shy of a load, a Gilligan unable to find his own ass with two hands. Or, as Sean Hannity calls it, "Reaganesque."

No, it pains me to say these things, because I know deep down George Bush has something extra -- a chromosome. Cruel? Perhaps, but it may just have saved lives. By doing the extra chromosome joke, I sent a message to a young Muslim man somewhere in the world who's on a slow burn about this country, and perhaps got him to think, "Maybe the people of America aren't so bad. Maybe it's just the rodeo clown who leads them. Maybe the people 'get it.'" We do, Achmed, we do!

How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times...

...and live? Blind Alfred Reed's song asked that question not long after the 1929 stock market crash. Ry Cooder recorded Reed's song on his first album in 1970, and has been reworking it ever since. In this 1987 concert performance, Flaco Jimenez cracks up as Ry plays the old slide guitar player game, "How high can I go?" (Answer: Past the humbucker in his frankenStrat, and damn near to the Rickenbacker horseshoe magnet pickup.) But he returns incisively to the question.

Eye Candy

Ready for a break from the intense partisanship of national politics? In Eye Candy, the Dallas Observer's Jim Schutze takes a long, slow stroll around a local issue in Dallas, a city for which I've no fondness, and interests me-- no, he makes me care about it. That's pretty good writin'.

Iraq for Sale

Robert Greenwald's Iraq for Sale will be released September 26, and trailer / preview clips are now available (thanks tristero at digby). Here's one.



And here's another.

'...rewritten history with my armies and my crooks...'

"...invented memories... I did burn all the books." Dire Straits in concert.

'It is unconscionable to mislead the American public...'

Greg Sargent at TPM Cafe has obtained the full text of the letter sent by Bill Clinton's lawyers to ABC's Bob Iger regarding "The Path to 9/11:"

ABC claims that the show is based on the 9/11 Commission Report and, as Steve McPherson, President of ABC Entertainment, has said: “When you take on the responsibility of telling the story behind such an important event, it is absolutely critical that you get it right.”

By ABC’s own standard, ABC has gotten it terribly wrong. The content of this drama is factually and incontrovertibly inaccurate and ABC has a duty to fully correct all errors or pull the drama entirely. It is unconscionable to mislead the American public about one of the most horrendous tragedies our country has ever known.

EDIT: Several blogs, including Media Matters and Daily Kos, report that ABC has partnered with Scholastic to use "The Path to 9/11" crockumentary in classrooms. Kos links to the lesson plans on both Scholastic's and ABC's Web sites; however, both links are now broken. For me, the ABC link redirects to the home page for the show; so does the Scholastic link, but not before giving me a glimpse of the index page for the lesson plans.

EDIT 2: Scholastic explains the decision to pull the lesson plans:

“After a thorough review of the original guide that we offered online to about 25,000 high school teachers, we determined that the materials did not meet our high standards for dealing with controversial issues,” said Dick Robinson, Chairman, President and CEO of Scholastic.

Jamie Holly at Crooks and Liars is wondering why Scholastic Scholastic chose to do this "thorough review" of the lesson plans after they were already published. So am I.

Eurasia, Eastasia

Flip-floppery? Tony Snow on Tuesday:

To the charge that somehow this administration is staying the course, we are going to be laying out ways just to remind people that, far from staying the course, we have been trying to respond vigorously, aggressively, with ingenuity and with determination, using any and all means at our disposal, and also cooperation with members of the international community, to foil terrorists who constantly change their tactics, change their aims and even change some of the arguments that they have educed for trying to go after people who are guilty of committing the sin of trying to live in free societies.

{ ... }

So the idea that somehow we're staying the course is just wrong. It is absolutely wrong.

Erm, Tony, check the video at Think Progress... (Thanks TPRS)

Some Google Archive results are free

One must pay to read most articles turned up by Google's new News Archive Search. That's certainly fair; it costs money to digitize printed material, the vast majority of which will be of very limited interest to most of us. But some search results are free.

My initial test search term for the new tool was "Dean Corll," the name of a serial rapist-killer. (As a news reporter, I covered the trials of his two teenaged accomplices thirty-odd years ago.) As expected, most search results led to archives requiring payment, but a couple did not.

I was not asked to pay to read all of TIME's The Mind of the Mass Murderer, from August 27, 1973. Whoa-- TIME's archive is free? Apparently so; a search for "Alger Hiss" offered me "about 273 results" (with what margin of error, I wonder?), none requiring payment. I didn't look them all, but the oldest I saw, from Monday, Jul. 9, 1945, was an account of the San Francisco conference which established the United Nations-- though that was not apparent from the article's title, Looking Back. Some excerpts you likely wouldn't see in the magazine today:

Day after day the hard-working delegates, experts, correspondents rode the grey Navy busses from their hotels to the Veterans' building. Perhaps the girl drivers of these juggernauts had something to do with the charter's repeated affirmation of belief in the equality of the sexes. One day a slim, red-haired driver slung her bus across Union Square, air-braked at the curb, and cried: "St. Francis Hotel! Brazilians, French, Russians and so forth-ski! And Gawd bless you all!" Her Latin American passengers shuddered.

{ ... }

To prepare the way for the new organization's Preparatory Commission, which will meet in London, a clean-up team including Evatt, the conference's able Secretary General Alger Hiss, the U.S. State Department's Leo Pasvolsky and China's Dr. Hsu Mo, stayed over a few days in San Francisco.

Then Hiss locked the official U.S. copies of the charter in a 75-lb. safe, attached a parachute, and took the whole thing with him in a plane. In event of mishap, the safe was marked: "Finder! Do Not Open. Send to Department of State, Washington."

The other free article to which the Google Archive search for Dean Corll led me was news to me, despite being ten years old. Peter Gilstrap's Was Ted Bundy Framed? afforded readers of the Phoenix New Times (and now you and me) a window into the world of collectors of art by serial killers. Yes, the article's title is capital punishment.

The Crass and 9/11

Open Letter to ABC is keeping track of the absurdities revolving around the mockumentary which Disney/ABC plans to show next week. Among them:

Two Disney Movies, Two Titles Containing "9/11," Two Strangely Different Outcomes

Jonathan Schwartz at A Tiny Revolution contrasts Disney's $30 million GOP campaign contribution (ABC will show the piece without commercials) with the firm's refusal to distribute Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, which has earned over $200 million.

Clinton Administration Officials Assail ABC's 'The Path to 9/11'

The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz contrasts ABC's refusal to make copies of the show available to Clinton admininstration officials, who say the show depicts them falsely, with its spamming of advance copies to right-wingers.

Digby raises another question:

If Disney/ABC is giving away free air time for conservative projects and denying distribution to programs that don't favor the Republican Party, then perhaps somebody needs to look at whether this stuff is legal. There are laws regulating corporate giving to campaigns. By not showing advertising it seems to me that it's not impossible to make a case that this latest is a free gift to the Republican party just weeks before an important election.

Red Staggerwing

I haven't yet purchased Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris's All The Roadrunning CD, so my discovery of Red Staggerwing at youTube was a jolt. The video was shot from the audience; it's fun, but audio and video quality aren't great, so I had to check the lyrics to make sure that they were singing about the most beautiful airplane ever made. They were indeed. I imprinted on a Model 17 at an air show more than half a century ago-- a yellow one. Since then, aircraft designers have made some really graceful planes. Keep trying, folks...

Imagine

Mark Knopfler and Chet Atkins. You know the words.

Can't Make It Here

By now I hope you've seen the "official" video version of James McMurtry's We Can't Make It Here. There's also a live concert performance video of the song on youTube, from Corporate Country Sucks, which I think is worth a look and listen despite somewhat distorted audio, at least on my system. But this solo acoustic performance of the song may be the best singing I've ever heard from James.

Bush claims "sovereign immunity" from EPA whistleblowers

Bush Declares Eco-Whistleblower Law Void for EPA Employees

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, YubaNet:

The Bush administration has declared itself immune from whistleblower protections for federal workers under the Clean Water Act, according to legal documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). As a result of an opinion issued by a unit within the Office of the Attorney General, federal workers will have little protection from official retaliation for reporting water pollution enforcement breakdowns, manipulations of science or cleanup failures.

Citing an "unpublished opinion of the [Attorney General's] Office of Legal Counsel," the Secretary of Labor's Administrative Review Board has ruled federal employees may no longer pursue whistleblower claims under the Clean Water Act. The opinion invoked the ancient doctrine of sovereign immunity which is based on the old English legal maxim that "The King Can Do No Wrong."

Wiretapping, ten years ago

By now you're probably aware of Sen. Arlen Specter's efforts to eliminate judicial oversight of NSA wiretapping.

Brian Beutler, Raw Story:

The judiciary committee originally sought to bring the NSA wiretapping program into compliance with FISA, but in practice, critics claim, Specter’s FISA amendments actually give the president freedom to expand his wiretapping activities.

A statement released by the office of Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) states that Specter’s bill “gives him even more power than he has asserted under his illegal NSA wiretapping program.”

Senate Republicans were not so responsive to the Clinton administration's concerns about terrorism ten years ago.

John in DC, Americablog:

...Bill Clinton, rather than just breaking the law as Bush did (then again, perhaps this is why Bush broke the law - he knew from history that the Republicans controlling the congress would oppose his efforts to expand wiretapping), decided to go to the Republican congress in 1996 and ask them for increased authority to do more eavesdropping in order to stop the terrorists - stop September 11. Senior Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, one of the GOP's top picks for the Supreme Court and a GOP committee chair, objected.

The Republicans stopped President Clinton from getting all the tools he needed to stop the next September 11 - well, no, actually they opposed giving President Clinton all the tools he needed to stop the actual September 11. Could September 11 have been stopped if the GOP had given President Clinton the tools he requested to stop Osama and Mohammad Atta from killing 3,000 people in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington?