National Guard, What's My Name Fool?, male nipples and Rendon Group

Good evening. We'll kick things off with Democracy Now!

National Guard Company Face Abuse & Extortion Allegations
In other news from Iraq, a company of the California Army National Guard has been put on restricted duty following allegations that battalion members mistreated detainees in Iraq and extorted shopkeepers. This according to a report in the Los Angeles Times. Among the allegations is that at least six soldiers from the battalion took part in a scheme to extort over $30,000 from Iraqi shopkeepers, apparently in exchange for protection. Up to 17 soldiers are also under investigation for mistreating Iraqi detainees. A videotape reportedly exists that shows soldiers abusing a handcuffed and blindfolded detainee with a stun gun. In addition, a first sergeant has been relieved of duty after being accused of shooting a water heater during an interrogation, then turning to an Iraqi detainee and saying: "You're next." The sergeant then reportedly held his pistol to the man's head, moved it a few inches to the side and fired.

Now let's go to what C.I. wrote last night:

On the subject of books, let me note that whatever else happens in this Sunday's The Third Estate Sunday Review, there will not be a book discussion about What's My Name Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States. The book, by Dave Zirin, will be noted at some point (hopefully two Sundays from now); however, when Betty called this morning, she mentioned she was having to utilize interlibrary loan for the book and wasn't sure how long it would take. Similarly, Kat's not finding it in her library. (I didn't try, honestly. I called my local independent book store and asked them to hold a copy that I'll pick up as soon as I get a chance -- and had expected to pick it up already.) The book sounds very interesting and is something we're all interested in reading and discussing but I spoke to Jess and Ava tonight and they said they'd rather wait so that Kat and Betty could participate in the discussion.
For those who have no idea what the book is about, here's a report Democracy Now! did on it last week entitled "What's My Name, Fool?: Sports and Resistance in the United States."

I've already started reading the book and I bring that up because Dave Zirin has a story at CounterPunch that C.I. sent me. It's called "Why Lance Armstrong Must Break with Bush."
Here's a part of it.

Armstrong has devoted countless hours to the fight against cancer. There is not more money for cancer research because of the war. It's that simple. It's also not just cancer. In my hometown of Washington, DC, this $800 billion price tag means high rates of infant mortality, shuttered public hospitals, and schools in a constant and eternal state of crisis. This is a battle for priorities. If Lance wants to see victory, chuckling it up with his "fellow Texan is no way to lead this movement forward. Instead Armstrong should ride among the critical mass bikers and anti-war couriers at the national anti-war protests on September 24th in Washington, DC. Consider this an invite, Lance. Consider this a way to continue to "live strong.

I really like Zirin's writing.

Now let's hop into some of the e-mails. The topic tossed out yesterday by Belinda was about the male nipples. My buddy Tony actually e-mailed in on this. He said his are sensitive but he doesn't like to act like he likes them played with because it doesn't seem manly.

Tony, nobody thinks you're manly anyway!

Just joking. A lot of guys wrote in saying stuff like that so we'll go with Tony since if you can't embarass your friends, who can you embarrass?

Gary and Lane wrote in both saying that they like it when their's are touched but like it more when they are licked or sucked. Gary makes a point to note he's straight and Lane makes a point to note he's gay.

Common Ills community member Rachel e-mailed to say that guys are hung up about it because they think it makes them look "girly" but she's never been with a guy that didn't like it. (See Tony, nothing to worry about.) Felecia says she doesn't care if a guy likes it or not, she's not doing it because every guy she's been with always "expects me to do something." She says she never knew guys could be so lazy and that includes her being on top doing all the work.

Laveda e-mailed to say that she's never been with a guy who's liked having his nipples played with and wonders if that's because she hasn't really tried much because she doesn't like it when her's are played with and hates "guys who think grab my tits and I'm ready to go."

Beau e-mails saying this is a "wack" topic and I better watch my back because "you know who" will probably "rip you off again."

Thom says that he hates it when his nipples are touched. He says some shirts are too rough and he wears a t-shirt underneath nearly everything because of the pain.

So hopefully that gives you a cross-section of views Belinda.


Now I want to note something from Democracy Now! one more time.

Navy Hired Rendon Group Ahead of Vieques Vote
This news from Puerto Rico... Evidence has emerged that in 2001 the U.S. Navy paid one point seven million dollars to a public relations firm to increase support for a public referendum over the Navy's use of Vieques. In November 6, 2001 voters in Puerto Rico went to the polls to decide whether the Navy should be allowed to keep use Vieques for live-fire training. Voters overwhelming called on the Navy to stop using the site even though the Navy spent approximately $358 per referendum voter in their PR effort. According to documents obtained by Judicial Watch, the Navy hired the Rendon Group to ". . . organize local leaders to build grassroots communications support . . . ensure the integrity of the voting process . . . develop methods and tracking procedures to increase support among citizens." The Rendon Group is the same PR firm that was used to help form the Iraqi National Congress - the Iraqi exile group that pushed for the U.S. invasion. Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said, "I think most Americans would be shocked to learn that the military had a program to 'ensure the integrity' of our voting process."

The Rendon Group is something Amy Goodman talks about in her book The Exception to the Rulers and we were just discussing that book Sunday at The Third Estate Sunday Review. And that's what I want to close with. I have a blast with The Third Estate Sunday Review and the discussions are probably my favorite part.

"1 Book, 10 Minutes"
We thought we were done. We had a paragraph to go on the editorial and then it was off to bed for all of us. (We hoped.) (C.I. posted an item on our last break at The Common Ills and we were hoping that would mean even C.I. could hit the sack.) But as we finished the editorial and got focused on posting the things already written, Mike asked if we were really not going to do the "Five Books, Five Minutes." Yes, we really weren't going to do that.
We'd slacked off on that during the week.

Mike was disappointed because for two weeks he'd wanted to discuss Amy & David Goodman's The Exception to The Rulers. "Great, write a review and we'll post it!" we cried (lazy, smart asses that we are.) But what Mike wanted was the give and take of a discussion. We all love Mike and he helps out here so the least we can do is help him out. With a ten minute discussion limit, we all agreed to discuss The Exception to the Rulers.

Participating are The Third Estate Sunday Review's Ty, Jess, Dona, Jim and Ava, C.I. of The Common Ills, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Kat of Kat's Korner and Mike of Mikey Likes It!

Here's an excerpt from the book, pages 254 - 255:

The Bush administration recruited some time-tested help for this effort. It retained John Rendon, head of the PR firm The Rendon Group. Rendon is a self-described "information warrior," who has worked on Iraq-related issues for clients including the Pentagon and CIA. Rendon was instrumental in setting up the Iraqi National Congress in 1992, securing the channeling of $12 million from the CIA to the group between 1992 and 1996. The Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence retained Rendon for the invasion of Iraq.
Rendon spoke at a July 2003 conference in London about the propaganda effort around the invasion. Colonel [Sam] Gardiner attended the talk and recounts that Rendon "said the embedded idea was great. It worked as they had found in the test. It was the war version of reality television, and for the most part, they did not lose control of the story."
Rendon did note one problem: "He said one of the mistakes they made was that they lost control of the context. The retired people in the networks had too much control of the context. That has to be fixed for the next war."
The themes of the invasion propaganda effort were twofold. The war on terror is a fight between good and evil (and it didn't hurt to invoke images of a Christian crusade against Islam). And Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 attacks -- "what propaganda theorists would call the 'big lie,'" said Gardiner.
With these two concepts underlying all messages, Gardiner states that the strategic influence campaign around Iraq "distorted perceptions of the situation both before and during the conflict; caused misdirection of portions of the military operation; was irresponsible in parts; might have been illegal in some ways; cost big bucks; will be even more serious in the future."
The media had a starring role in this effort. Propaganda requires a gullible and complacent media in order to thrive. The U.S. corporate media played its part to the hilt."


Jim: Okay, Mike, get us started.

Mike: Well the book's written by two journalists, Amy Goodman and her brother David Goodman. I don't know much about David Goodman but Amy Goodman's the host of Democracy Now! which airs on TV, radio and the internet. It's a one hour news show that airs Monday through Fridays. It's something that we all count on, all of us here, to provide us with real news as opposed to stories about the latest missing blonde or the latest celebrity scandal.

Kat: News you can use. News that informs.

Mike: Exactly.

Dona: What stands out to me, and this is something C.I. and I have spoken about a lot probably starting in January or February, is the critique of The New York Times.

Jess: Which is really strong in terms of what the mea culpa covered and what it didn't and what stories still require corrections but have never gotten them. And we've addressed that at length in roundtables.

Dona: And just as important as that critique is to the present day, to citizens, I'd argue that the critique of the reporting on the atomic bom is just as important. The New York Times likes to cloak themselves in the "We are The New York Times." Yes, they are. And Jayson Blair didn't spring out of thin air. The paper has a history of pushing stories that the parties involved, reporters and editors, should have known better than to push. I'd argue it was a decision that they made to push them. It wasn't ignorance, it wasn't a mistake, it was a deliberate decision.

Betty: Which goes to the points that I felt they were raising in the book, Amy and her brother, about access and how you can trade independence for access and so many do.

Ty: It's not really important to any of us to know what joke some blowhard told at a dinner party in D.C. but to make sure they're at those dinner parties, they cozy up and do the fluff treatment and all the while act like they're in the business of reporting when in fact they are more often than not concealing. That's their business.

Betty: I'm so glad you said that! I was reading the stuff on "It's Only a Summer Scandal" at The Common Ills this past week and I love the song but what stood out to me was I don't believe that Gwen Ifill ever told viewers, before her "Condi gets accountable" NewsHour interview with Rice, that she and Rice often dine together and that Condi's bragged publicly about what a great cook Rice is. I'm not a huge fan of Diane Sawyer and haven't watched her in years but when she was co-hosting Prime Time Live, if someone came on from ABC or any of it's divisions, she'd note that. If she was interviewing Carly Simon or someone else that she knew outside of work, she'd note that. Public television needs accountability and at the very least, viewers of the NewsHour, and I'm remembering this as Condi's damage control for the news of the PDB finally coming out, should have been told at the start of the interview that Condi and Ifill were close friends. The public was owed that.

Ty: And if it had been disclosed, as it should have been, the question on most people's minds would have been why is Gwen Ifill doing this interview? This wasn't "Getting to Know Condi!"This was about the public needing serious answers about a PDB prior to 9/11 that warned of coming attacks. There is no reason in the world that she should have been interviewed by a friend when the public needed and deserved answers. It's shameful that anyone would be allowed to do what she and Condi Rice did.

Kat: Agreed.

Mike: I was also amazed by the pack mentality and, for instance, Charlie Rose having his hissy fit because Amy Goodman quotes Dan Rather and Charlie's sweating about "I can't imagine Dan saying that, I'm not doubting you that he said it . . ." And then minutes later he is doing just that and Amy has to remind him, "I was just quoting Dan Rather." Or Lesley Stahl rescuing the guy --

C.I.: Richard Holbrooke.

Mike: Right so he doesn't have to answer questions from the press. Or Tom Brokaw omitting part of the title of the documentary film because it might offend the corporate sponsors.

C.I.: In fairness, it might have been a flub. He's made his share of his flubs such as his infamous comment when filling in on The Today Show about how coming to work so early that morning he was envisious or jealous, this is a paraphrase -- look it up if you care about it, of the homeless asleep on the street. Far more damning to me was his refusal to allow questions to be asked or to be concerned that a journalist was being roughed up at an awards banquet for journalists. At an awards banquet for journalists where the one being roughed up is winning an award! Or his pandering remarks to flatter Holbrooke during the ceremonies. He comes off like a first class kiss ass. And this is when Brokaw had some actual power so to see him kissing ass like that is embarrassing. And don't forget Holbrooke's own jokes.

Ava: Laughing, with the journalists in the room laughing along, that a Serb TV station had been bombed. I want to quote the Goodmans on that:

Laughter broke out in the room.
"It is an enormously important and I think positive development," Holbrooke added.
Here were hundreds of reporters supposedly upholding the highest principles of journalism, and they chuckled on cue -- at a war crime committed against journalists.Now, what would have been different if Milosevic had stood up to announce, "We just bombed CBS!" and a bunch of Serb journalists had laughed? Radio Television Serbia, whatever its faluts as a mouthpiece for Milosevic, is not a military target. We went back to our office later that night to see the pictures of body parts being pulled out of the wrecked TV studios in Belgrade. It wasn't soldiers blown to pieces in the rubble. It was the people who apply makeup, the cameramen, and the journalists who were inside. People like 27-year-old technician Ksenija Bankovic, whose mother Borka we interviewed on Democracy Now! Borka asked how journalists could laugh at the killing of her daughter, whose only crime was going to work that night. In all, sixteen media workers were killed in the bombing.

Can we get a link for that Democracy Now! report?

C.I.: Dallas is already searching. You hear those stories and it's hard to say, "Well it's the jaded press corp." It's quite frankly disgusting. The pages are 286-287 that's Ava's referring to.

Jess: Which brings up the section I was wanting to quote and I'm not sure if we have enough time but it's page 152:

The media has the responsiblity to show the true face of war. It is bloody. It is brutal. Real people die. Women and children are killed. Families are wiped out; villages are razed.

Jim: Which is Falluja, let's be honest. Dexter Filkins turned it into a rah-rah video game. You never got the sense of the fact that a city was being destroyed, that people, males, were prevented from leaving the city. It was a turkey shoot and it was disgusting. But Filkins comes in with his rah-rah reporting and it's put it in the X-box and let's all play! Is it gallows humor? I don't know but it's not reporting.

C.I.: And Dona's indicating time's up but before that happens, let's let Mike talk about what stood out to him the most since he's the one who wanted this feature. Mike?

Mike: Well the parts everyone named are great and they're informative and anyone wanting to read a book that's going to tell it like it is needs to grab this book. I'm sure East Timor stood out for everybody. And that section was probably the one that spoke to me. Amy Goodman and Allan Nairn stayed on that story even when the media didn't care and didn't want to know and they pushed that story into the news, into the mainstream news, with their actions. It's the kind of thing that causes my mother to say Amy Goodman's a candle in darkness. And to me, that's what's so great about the book and so great about Democracy Now! because it's not "here's what everyone is talking about so we better get on message." It's about telling the story that might not get told. Or showing you the part of the story that you might not see. That's what this whole books about --

Dona: I'll play Amy Goodman, ten seconds.

Mike: and that's why people should be reading it. Make sure you look this book up. Look it up at a bookstore or a library --

Jim: Or the link which takes you to a Democracy Now! web page where you can order it directly, it's now out in paperback.

Mike: But like if you can physically hold it in your hands and just read two pages, I think you'll realize how important this story is.


C.I.: And the link Jim's talking about does provide an excerpt to the book. So you can follow Mike's advice and read a bit of it even if you're ordering it online.

Dona: (laughing) And that was not one book in ten minutes, more like twenty. Amy Goodman and David Goodman's Exception to The Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicans, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them.

Yea for Jane, boo for Hillary

Good evening.

So this morning I grab some eggs, toast and plop down in front of the computer in the kitchen this morning and Ma says, "Did you know C.I. had computer problems?" No, cause I thought they were fixed or almost fixed. I felt really bad because I would have taken down dictation and posted and would have offered that last night if I'd known about it. There's a really strong post up and now the Democracy Now! post is up too. But I did call C.I. today and make the offer. UK Computer Gurus think they've either figured it and can fix it or can put on a bandaid for it.

I feel bad cause I haven't had a single problem at all. I could copy and paste and use different browsers just like always.

I also want to note another thing about the community, I really think Elaine's doing a great job subbing for Rebecca. Yesterday's post had her noting some stuff she thought Rebecca would note and I'm sure Rebecca appreciated the effort but I'm also sure Rebecca wants Elaine to write about her stuff. And applause and props for Jane Fonda. I learned about that from Elaine's post. I had an e-mail from Kat about how the same day Fonda comes on strong for peace Hillary Clinton's trying to prove . . . Well what is she trying to prove?

I never disliked Hillary until that speech she gave yesterday. She's not one of my senators so I didn't pay as close to attention to her as I did to Kerry and Kennedy. But she was our First Lady and I thought she did a pretty good job of that. Yesterday she embarrassed herself. Now maybe she appealed to some cowards and stuff but she came off pretty cowardly to me.

So let's focus on Jane Fonda who is a strong woman taking a strong stand.


That's Isaiah's drawing and thank you C.I. and Isaiah for permission to put it up here.

My sister said she had the TV on this afternoon and some idiot show called The Insider with that nasal jerk who's off the drugs or whatever and trying to rebuild his career had an interview with the jerk that spit on Jane Fonda. Made me wonder what's next? An interview with the guy who stalked Sharon Stone? An interview with the guy who shot down that woman from My Sister Sam? I don't know The Insider but my sister said it does a lot of "Page Six" nonsense which means it's probably a Murdoch property. Figures, right? My Dad was talking about him the other night wondering if Murdoch would switch his citenzship to China to get a better deal for his networks like he switched to American? Ma jokes that he probably has already but we just don't know.

So that's what the talks been last night and today around the house. Let's move on to Democracy Now!

Report: Iraq Resistance Has Infiltrated Iraqi Police
Another government study on Iraq is also making news this week. A joint report by the Pentagon and State Department has concluded that the Iraqi police force has been infiltrated by the Iraqi resistance. The report also criticizes the U.S. military for failing to adequately train the local police forces.

Poll: 64% Say Bush Has No Clear Strategy in Iraq
Meanwhile a new poll by the Pew Research Center has found that 64 percent of Americans believe President Bush does not have a clear strategy for bringing the situation in Iraq to a successful conclusion.

Yeah, I'm giving you two things to think about today. That's because Hillary embarrassed herself yesterday and people seem afraid to say so. She wants more troops on the ground. While America wants their sons and daughters home, Hillary wants to put more over in the quagmire. Not her own daughter, of course, but other people's kids. She keeps this up she'll be less than popular than Nancy Reagan.

I was one of those people who voted in their first presidential election last year. That was the first year I was old enough. And I really did think John Kerry was the only hope and all. But I mean he was lousy at telling people what he thought. I know C.I.'s talked about how some of that was the press but a lot of it was Kerry.

And that convention was embarrassing to watch. John Edwards coming off like super warrior, like just because he was on the ticket with Kerry he was honorary military or something. When the debates were going on, Mike Papantonio talked about how John Edwards did a lousy job during his debate with Cheney and I agreed with that. Not just cause his voice does that annoying thing where it rises and rises until it's almost a high pitched squeak but because he never nailed Cheney. Like Pap said, Edwards was supposed to be bringing trial experience to the ticket but he didn't even debate well.

So with Hillary embarrassing herself Monday, I've thinking about 2008 and what it's going to take to get my vote. The person is going to have to talk straight and they're going to have to draw a line between themselves and the Republican Party. That may mean I vote Green if Hillary's actions yesterday are any indication of the way the Democratic Party is headed.

I heard this woman going on and on about the Democrats in Congress were lied to and that's why they went along with Bully Boy's invasion of Iraq. The country was lied to but that didn't stop my dad from knowing we were being lied to. If my dad can know, then somebody who thinks they're fit to be in Congress should have known. He doesn't have a staff working for him that he can send out to hunt down facts for him.

The truth is no one wanted to look "weak" before the 2002 elections. And then they painted themselves into a corner if they supported the invasion. They need to get honest about why they voted the way they did and people need to quit giving them wiggle room.

When I spoke to C.I. Jeremy Scahill's "The Smoking Bullet in the Smoking Gun" came up and C.I.'s meant to highlight that and not just link to it. Knowing there were computer problems that might continue tonight I said I'd grab it.

On the eve of the official invasion, on March 8, 2003, Bush said in his national radio address: "We are doing everything we can to avoid war in Iraq. But if Saddam Hussein does not disarm peacefully, he will be disarmed by force." Bush said this after nearly a year of systematic, aggressive bombings of Iraq, during which Iraq was already being disarmed by force, in preparation for the invasion to come. By the Pentagon's own admission, it carried out seventy-eight individual, offensive airstrikes against Iraq in 2002 alone.
"It reminded me of a boxing match in which one of the boxers is told not to move while the other is allowed to punch and only stop when he is convinced that he has weakened his opponent to the point where he is defeated before the fight begins," says former UN Assistant Secretary General Hans Von Sponeck, a thirty-year career diplomat who was the top UN official in Iraq from 1998 to 2000. During both the Clinton and Bush administrations, Washington has consistently and falsely claimed these attacks were mandated by UN Resolution 688, passed after the Gulf War, which called for an end to the Iraqi government's repression in the Kurdish north and the Shiite south. Von Sponeck dismissed this justification as a "total misnomer." In an interview with The Nation, Von Sponeck said that the new information "belatedly confirms" what he has long argued: "The no-fly zones had little to do with protecting ethnic and religious groups from Saddam Hussein's brutality" but were in fact an "illegal establishment...for bilateral interests of the US and the UK."
These attacks were barely covered in the press and Von Sponeck says that as far back as 1999, the United States and Britain pressured the UN not to call attention to them. During his time in Iraq, Von Sponeck began documenting each of the airstrikes, showing "regular attacks on civilian installations including food warehouses, residences, mosques, roads and people." These reports, he said, were "welcomed" by Secretary General Kofi Annan, but "the US and UK governments strongly objected to this reporting." Von Sponeck says that he was pressured to end the practice, with a senior British diplomat telling him, "All you are doing is putting a UN stamp of approval on Iraqi propaganda." But Von Sponeck continued documenting the damage and visited many attack sites. In 1999 alone, he confirmed the death of 144 civilians and more than 400 wounded by the US/UK bombings.

1999 was Bill Clinton. There's a reason he plays dumb on the Downing Street Memo and a reason he couldn't come out against the war. But now we got a bunch of dumb asses with boners for another Clinton era and they don't want to address reality.

Looks like Bill O'Reilly ain't the only one who's not looking out for you.

Let's dip into the e-mail before I spoil everyone's good night. Cody e-mails to say thanks to my mother because he's in his early twenties and his drawers stink. He's always trying to save some money and when the dryer stops, he takes the load out. He asked if there was anything he could do about it. Ma says you can hang your underwear to dry immediately. She also says that if they're white, you can use bleach on them in the wash and that will cut out the mildew too.

Belinda e-mails wondering why every guy she's ever been with has gone straight for her breasts but guys freak out when she wants to play with their nipples?

Well any ideas? If so, send them in.

I know I never thought about my own until the summer of eleventh grade when I was at the lake with my then girlfriend. She's putting lotion on my back and then moves to the front and her hands run over my nipples and it's like, "Woah now! What's that!" It was a jolt of lightening.

So maybe some guys don't know that their nipples are sensitive? Or maybe they don't have sensitive nipples? Or maybe they think only women's can be played with?

So we'll open that up.

Lucas e-mails wanting to know what I'm listening to. White Stripes nonstop when I can listen to music. Lucas says he's been going through an uncle's CDs and has gotten heavy into Pearl Jam and Smashing Pumpkins.

I want to close with my buddy Ty from The Third Estate Sunday Review because he weighed in on Hillary over at The Common Ills today.

Ty: Anyone trying to clampdown on questions for Hillary Clinton better be prepared to stand with her and the DLC. Corporate welfare types like the DLC have repeatedly betrayed the public. As Paul Krugman has pointed out repeatedly, the slow slide for the working class begins in the 1960s. Having aligned herself with corporate cheats and war mongers like the DLC, Clinton's now raised issues that will have to be addressed. As for Al From, he's never spoken for me. As a black man, he's offered no program that speaks to me. The DLC's racist tactics include the shaming of Sister Souljah to prove Bill Clinton could "stand up" to blacks. I'll stand with Michael Moore and prepare for the battle the DLC has just launched on the people of America.

I think that about says it all but if you don't, get over to The Common Ills and read that post because there's a lot about the DLC in there. Hope everybody's surviving in this heat.

Lots of stuff including Military Freeze Zone and crotch rot advice from Ma

Good evening. Let's start off with Democracy Now!

Pentagon Refuses to Hand Over Abu Ghraib Photos
The Defense Department is refusing to cooperate with a judicial order to release photographs and videos taken by the military at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. In June, a federal judge ordered the Pentagon to hand over 87 photos and four videotapes to the American Civil Liberties Union because the group had filed a Freedom Of Information Act. Bush administration attorneys have said that the release of the photos would violate the Geneva Conventions by subjecting detainees to additional humiliation or embarrassment. The photos are expected to show widespread torture of Iraqi detainees and even incidents where Iraqis were raped and murdered inside the U.S. run jail. Last year Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "There are other photos that depict incidents of physical violence towards prisoners, acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhumane -- it's going to get a good deal more terrible, I'm afraid."

This ties in with the editorial over at The Third Estate Sunday Review.


Editorial: The Gang That Couldn't Talk Straight

Jimmy Breslin wrote about The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight. Plauging our nation today is The Gang That Couldn't Talk Straight. Whether it's "privatization" or "tort reform" or "Clean Skies" or "No Child Left Behind" everything's hidden behind a phrase that implies something directly opposite from the actual meaning. (And no, we don't find that "ironic.")

We've seen it play out since before the Bully Boy started occuyping the White House. "The votes have been counted and recounted!" (When in fact the majority had never been counted.) So maybe it shouldn't be shocking, for instance, that Bully Boy now says he'll fire whomever outed Plame in his administration only if they're found to have committed a crime.

Unless Bully Boy was seeking to establish a precedent, wasn't that always a given? Is he trying to tell us that's what he meant all along? "You go to prison, I'll fire you." That is where he draws the line?His concept of integrity baffles the mind. But we're seeing that and a lot worse play out. Over and over, they try to divert and obscure. The gang that couldn't talk straight fails to grasp that conviction or not, Rove and Libby have already done enough that demonstrates they need to go. Enough has also come out that a Congressional investigation is needed to find out who else helped and (just as important) who failed to do anything when news of the impending outing reached the administration (as early as July 7th, 2003, Valerie Plame was outed on January 14th, 2003).

From Watching the Watchers' "Child Abuse at Abu Ghraib" by A! of Watching the Watchers, we learn that:

Data is emerging, no matter how the administration attempts to hide it, that the new photos and video of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison include the torture of children.
Norway's Prime Minister's office says it plans to address the situation with the U.S. "in a very severe and direct way."
Could this mean losing yet another ally in the Iraq occupation? Amnesty International in Norway has said that Norway can no longer continue their occupation of Iraq, or their support of US policy in this matter.
And some countries, as Tom Tomorrow notes, actually listen to their activists.
While there isn't even an inkling of this in the US Mainstream media, all over the world people are beginning to read about the US abusing children at Abu Ghraib.

We weren't supposed to worry about that either, remember? Remember Operation Happy Talk of "a few bad apples" and that the photos just showed more of the same as the already released photos? Remember the GOP senators rushing to tell the public that releasing the photos could hurt us as a nation?

So they sat on them, after apparently lying about them, and a surprise only to the administration (which never seems to grasp that eventually the truth will come out), the photos haven't gone away.

Karl Rove and Karen Hughes may have instructed, "Clap your hands if you believe in Bully Boys." If so, not enough people clapped because not enough people believe. Operation Happy Talk goes into motion and at best disguises reality for a few weeks. Truth does come out.

And what's coming out is that this administration with all their talk of "integrity" and "honor" has been the least accountable administration in recent history. They've fixed reports. They've lied about PDBs. They've outed a CIA agent. They've tried to cover up abuse that we should have dealt with a long time ago.

If America is hurt by the release of the photos, the Happy Talkers have themselves to blame.

They should have owned up to what was happening when they saw the photos. Instead, they tried to obscure the issue. As if it weren't bad enough that the torture occurred, our administration is now seen as trying to cover it up.

That's not the way the United States is supposed to behave.

Make no mistake, Bully Boy and his Bullies Without Borders have had a lot of enablers. Including wishy-washy Democrats who didn't want to speak up or, when they did speak up, wanted to immediately cave, buckle, wimp out in the face of criticism.

The only apologies in the last five years have been coming from Democrats and, frequently, they're apologizing for things that don't require an apology. While the Dems bend over backwards to apologize for words, the administration demonstrates no accountability for its actions.

That needs to stop. The unwarrented apologies from Dems who try to speak the truth and the lack of accountability for the most mismanged administration that any of us can recall.

Congress better start excersizing their oversight because if they don't, accountability may come in the form of votes on election day in 2006. We need a truth movement in this country. Actually, we have it. You saw it on Saturday with people meeting to discuss and raise attention on the Downing Street Memo. As with Valerie Plame, the public's the one pushing for the truth.

Hopefully, the mainstream press will also take part. But they haven't driven this. One person who is asking questions that need to be asked is Robert Parry. From his "Rove-Bush Conspiracy Noose Tightens:"

The second new fact is what Rove did after his conversation with Cooper.Although supposedly in a rush to leave on vacation, Rove e-mailed Stephen J. Hadley, then Bush's deputy national security adviser (and now national security adviser). According to the Associated Press, Rove's e-mail said he "didn’t take the bait" when Cooper suggested that Wilson’s criticisms had hurt the administration.
While it’s not entirely clear what Rove meant in the e-mail, the significance is that Rove immediately reported to Hadley, an official who was in a position to know classified details about Plame’s job. In other words, the e-mail is evidence that the assault on Wilson was being coordinated at senior White House levels.
Cooper also told the grand jury that his second source on the allegations about the Niger trip and Wilson’s wife was Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a leading neoconservative advocate for invading Iraq. According to Cooper, Libby said on a not-for-attribution basis about Plame, "Yeah, I’ve heard that, too."

See last week's editorial and you'll know why we're glad he's raising it and surprised that everyone else (including Richard W. Stevenson in today's New York Times) isn't also on it.

As the public begins asking what Parry's asking, The Gang That Couldn't Talk Straight is going to find itself in even hotter water. What we've constantly seen is avoidance in the place of accountability. With consistently bad polling results, we like to hope the sheen is finally off the Bully Boy.

Speeches and phrases based upon coded antonyms and the refusal of others in place to hold the administration accountable (the press, the Congress) have resulted in our current state. But at a time when things could seem hopeless, what we're seeing is a public getting active and asking the questions and raising the issues that others won't. That's healthy for democracy. And having grown weary waiting for leadership, the public's now ready to set the agenda and lead on their own.
[This editorial was written by the following: The Third Estate Sunday Review's Ty, Jess, Dona, Jim and Ava, C.I. of The Common Ills, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix, Kat of Kat's Korner and Mike of Mikey Likes It!]


I want to say that working with The Third Estate Sunday Review on Saturday nights and Sunday morning is both a lot of fun and really a learning experience. Jim, Ty, Jess, Dona and Ava are really astute people and Betty and I were talking about that this time and how it was educational. And Betty and Kat and this time Cedric just add to it. What about C.I.?

They call C.I. an honorary member. So I'm not sure where to put C.I. but it's fun to work with C.I. too. It was weird not having Rebecca there this time. I hope she's enjoying her vacation though. We were hoping Elaine would join in but her attitude was that she barely managed to get through four days of substitute blogging for Rebecca's site. Maybe next time.

Now for e-mails. Becky wrote to say the phone call with her boyfriend actually went well. She said she appreciated that people weighed in. Her boyfriend gets back next week and she says that's when she'll find out if the talk went as well as she thought but that right now she feels real good about it.

I mentioned Ma in a thing at The Third Estate Sunday Review and she was happy about that. But she did have a problem about something else. The crotch rot topic. Ma said she was a little disappointed and it's because I didn't bring up a point. It never would be something I'd think about. I'm glad Ma did.

Okay, we live in a rush-rush world. And guys starting out doing their own laundry and living alone may be short on cash. So they use a washing machine at a laundry mat and then a dryer there. And they load everything up as much as they can to save a little money, right?
Well if the clothes aren't all the way dry, you can get a mildew smell. You might not even know it at the time because you use a fabric sheet or something. But when they sit for a bit, the smell will be there.

Ma says that if there's mildew in your drawers, you're causing the smell right there. She said this is an important point because if people are using coin dryers, the guys might stop when the machine stops. Some of the clothes might by dry but not all. If they're not dry, you're asking for mildew. You get mildew in your drawers, you end up with a smell on your crotch.

I'm not so lazy that I don't do my own laundry but we've got all that stuff here in the house so it would never be something I'd think about, how you might be out of quarters when the machine goes off and just pull the stuff out if it was dry or not.

So good point from my mother. She's a smart woman.

Okay, I got a web site for you. It's on my blogroll, just added. And thanks to C.I. for passing it on.It's Militaryfreezone.org and it's got lots of stuff up there so check it out. There's a lot of great stuff up there but I'd recommend "Debunking the Myth" which demonstrates the reality versus the hype of "a paid college education!" if you sign up with the military.

Told ya not so fast, army's going to miss recruiting goals for the year!

Good morning. We're all pulling together to help with The Third Estate Sunday Review and all grabbed a break to do a number of things. (Rest, install new software UK Computer Gurus recommended.) C.I. slid a story from this morning's New York Times over to me and said that if I was planning to blog today, it was an issue I talk about here and that if I did it on a break, that would be one less thing to do later today.

I appreciate that. The story's by Eric Schmitt and it's called "Army Likely to Fall Short in Recruiting, General Says:"


The Army's top personnel officer acknowledged this week that the service will probably miss its recruiting goal this year, the first public admission by a senior Army official and a stark reminder of the Iraq war's impact on enlistments.
The officer, Lt. Gen. Franklin L. Hagenbeck, said in testimony to the House Armed Services military personnel subcommittee on Tuesday that an improving economy, competition from private industry and an increasing number of parents who are less supportive of military service meant that the active-duty Army, as well as the Army Reserve and Army National Guard, would fall short of their annual quotas.
"We will likely miss recruiting missions for all three components," said General Hagenbeck, voicing publicly what many senior Army officials have said privately for weeks.

Schmitt goes on to note that this will be the first time since 1999 that the army has missed it's recruitment figures.

Remember when the army was trumpeting their monthly figures right after high school graduation? We talked about that in "Are the numbers for June really up? Not so fast."

Remember when we talked about the desire to raise the age level for recruitment? From 35 to 42? We talked about that in "Iraqi casualities continue to mount, recruiters want to raise age limit, spicing up foreplay and a song."

You need to be paying attention and thinking because besides destroying the economy, Bully Boy's got us in two wars presently (Afghanistan and Iraq) and he's on the bone for at least one more (probably Iran). We're short in recruits and it will only get worse. Maybe that will mean the draft, maybe it will mean something else. But we are over extended.

Time's up for the break so I got to get back to Third Estate Sunday Review. Hope everybody else is either asleep or about to get there. Shout out to C.I. for sliding the Schmitt story my way. Peace.

Sgt. Kevin Benderman

We'll start out this Friday night with Elaine's work at Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude where she's filling for Rebecca:

Sgt. Kevin Benderman
Day three. I want to thank C.I. who is on the phone with me and has been a huge help. I want to thank everyone who's written via common_ills@yahoo.com. I think I've replied to every e-mail. Rebecca didn't give me the password for the e-mail to this site. Mike said some nice words in his post today and thank you for that, Mike.
I've got two things tonight. At the bottom is another peace quote. Before that, I'm posting something in full. I didn't write this and I'm not attempting to claim credit for it. I found it at Not In Our Name which is a great organization.
I'm posting it in full. If I'm asked to take it down, I will do so and put it up in a small excerpt but today is July 21st and, as you will see when you read it, there's not a great deal of time. I'll probably hit on this tomorrow as well.
This is by Monica Benderman and it's entitled "One Soldier’s Fight to Legalize Morality: Army Sgt. and conscientious objector Kevin Benderman to face court martial July 28:"
On July 28, 2005, in a small non-descript courtroom on Ft. Stewart, Georgia, a Courts Martial is scheduled to begin. Again. One Army NCO who decided that he had no choice but to make a conscious choice NOT to return to war is being put on trial for caring about humanity.
This soldier fulfilled his commitment, he kept his promise to his enlisted contract, and when ordered to deploy to Iraq at the start of the invasion, he went, not because he wanted to "kill Iraqis" or "destroy terrorist cells," but because he wanted the soldiers he served with to come home safely. He returned knowing that war is wrong, the most dehumanizing creation of humanity that exists. He saw war destroy civilians, innocent men, women and children. He saw war destroy homes, relationships and a country. He saw this not only in the country that was invaded, but he saw this happening to the invading country as well – and he knew that the only way to save those soldiers was for people to no longer participate in war. Sgt. Kevin Benderman is a Conscientious Objector to war, and the Army is mad.
Sgt. Kevin Benderman, after serving one tour of duty in Iraq, filed for Conscientious Objector status, his Constitutional right. His commander refused to accept his application and one called him a coward. One chaplain was ashamed of his lack of moral fortitude, another, of higher rank, testified to the true sincerity of Sgt. Benderman’s beliefs, in writing. A military intelligence officer decided that he knew matters of the soul better than a man of God, and recommended to deny the CO claim. Five commissioned officers who had never met Sgt. Benderman agreed with the "intelligent officer" and the claim was denied, twice.
More than two weeks after my husband was placed in the Rear Detachment unit here at Ft. Stewart, charges of Missing Movement and Desertion were filed against him, even though he has never missed a single day of duty in almost ten years. At the first Courts Martial proceedings, the investigative hearing was over turned. According to the judge's decision, the presiding officer had shown implied bias toward Sgt. Benderman, and a new hearing was ordered. As the session adjourned, the same command that brought the first charges were marching up the aisle in the courtroom to file a new charge, Larceny, against Sgt. Benderman. The command that brought the charge, had erroneously ordered combat pay to be paid to Sgt. Benderman, along with 7 other soldiers in their unit. Rather than accept their responsibility for the error, these leaders chose to punish Sgt. Benderman for the mistake, and have yet to discipline any of the remaining soldiers for the officers' gaffe.
The new investigating officer strongly recommended dismissing this larceny charge, but the convening authority, Ft. Stewart’s garrison commander, pressed on and filed the charges anyway, along with desertion and missing movement. The Courts Martial is scheduled to begin on July 28. The games began in January.
At the conclusion of the first hearing, I returned to the courtroom briefly for some things I had forgotten. The lights were dimmed, and no one was there. This small dark room, vintage WW II, had a reverent calm. Desks and chairs sat waiting, slightly turned, empty jurist panel, attorney’s podium – the stage had been set. I look back on it now, and the feeling is strangely surreal.
Last week we learned that the United States Supreme Court allows itself to keep the Ten Commandments hanging on the walls of its chambers, as a testimony to another form of law. The guardian of the Constitution of our country, presiding over the human rights of our people, maintains that the Ten Commandments, religious context aside, represent a form of law that is powerful enough to occupy a place in its chambers.
In a small, quiet courtroom, on the Ft. Stewart military installation, the stage is set. One soldier who, after firsthand experience with the destructive force of war, decided to take the Ten Commandments at their word – "Thou Shall Not Kill" – and use the rights given to him to declare his conscious objection to war, to no longer be in a position to voluntarily have to kill another human being, is now on trial for not wanting to kill.
The Army has removed itself so completely from its moral responsibility, that its representatives are willing to openly demand, in a court of law, that they be allowed to regain "positive control over this soldier" by finding him guilty of crimes he did not commit, and put him in jail – a prisoner of conscience, for daring to obey a moral law.
It is "hard work" to face the truth, and it is scary when people who are not afraid to face it begin to speak out. Someone once said that my husband's case is a question of morality over legality. I pray that this country has not gone so far over the edge that the two are so distinctly different that we can tell them apart.
A sixteen year old in New York, was charged with involuntary manslaughter yesterday for stabbing another teen in the chest twice, over a computer game. There is no question of why. He broke a law – a legal, MORAL law – "Thou Shall Not Kill."After seeing war firsthand, Sgt. Kevin Benderman chose to follow a legal, MORAL law – "Thou Shall Not Kill." A form of law significant enough to be represented on the walls of our Supreme Court. The US Army cannot let him go. I have to ask – "WHY?"
Sgt. Kevin Benderman is stationed at Ft. Stewart, Georgia.
He has served on combat tour in Iraq. After seeing war firsthand, he made the decision to file for Conscientious Objector status in December 2004. His command refused the request, and filed charges of Missing Movement and Desertion against him. They have since added a charge of Larceny.
Sgt. Benderman is scheduled to face a second attempt at Court Martial for these charges on July 28, 2005 and Ft. Stewart.
Please try to pass that on.-- Elaine
"Peace Quotes" (Peace Center)
Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.
Thomas Edison

All the flag waving, support our troops spouting, fright wingers turn their heads and ignore this.
July 28th is next week. The media may not tell you about this. You heard it here and that's something but you need to take it to people you know so that they know about it too.

As for Elaine's thanks for my kind words, right back at you!

One thing that I want to note from Democracy Now! is this:

Did Rove and Libby Mislead Investigators in CIA Leak?
The Bloomberg News Agency is reporting that the two figures at the center of the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame may have intentionally misled investigators. The agency says that President Bush's senior advisor Karl Rove and Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff Scooter Libby both gave accounts to the special prosecutor about how reporters told them the identity of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said. Libby told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned Plame's identity from NBC News reporter Tim Russert. Bloomberg says Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn't tell Libby of Plame's identity. Rove, meanwhile, told Fitzgerald that he first learned the identity of the CIA agent from syndicated columnist Robert Novak. But Bloomberg cites a source saying that Novak has given a different version to the special prosecutor. Fitzgerald is investigating whether Libby, Rove, or other administration officials made false statements during the course of the investigation.

Becky e-mailed to thank everyone for their advice. She's thinking it over and will be attempting to talk to her boyfriend tonight on the phone. She says she'll e-mail tomorrow to say how things are going.

What's My Name Fool?

First off, Dad told me I better recommend C.I.'s "NYT: Nobody Fluffs It Better than Bumiller." Dad says he laughed all day thinking about that so do yourself a favor, click the link and grab a chuckle as C.I. explains why Bumiller is the squad leader of the Elite Fluff Patrol.

Second off, Rebecca's taking a vacation and while she's gone, a friend of her's is filling in for her.
Elaine's filling in and she's doing a great job. So far she's offered a peace quote each day and I hope she continues to do that because I'm really enjoying it.

Now I want to share something from Democracy Now!:

London Mayor Blames Western Policy for London Bombs
The mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said yesterday that western foreign policy has fuelled the Islamist radicalism behind the July 7 London bomb attacks. In an interview with the BBC on Wednesday, Livingstone said: "You've just had 80 years of Western intervention into predominantly Arab lands because of a Western need for oil. We've propped up unsavory governments, we've overthrown ones that we didn't consider sympathetic." Livingstone continued, "I think the particular problem we have at the moment is that in the 1980s ... the Americans recruited and trained Osama bin Laden, taught him how to kill, to make bombs, and set him off to kill the Russians to drive them out of Afghanistan. They didn't give any thought to the fact that once he'd done that, he might turn on his creators." Livingstone also blasted the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the US prison camp at Guantanamo. An opinion poll this week showed two-thirds of Britons see a connection between the Iraq occupation and the bombings.

Shows you that the British people are a lot smarter than their leader Tony Blair and a lot smarter than most of us have been in this country.

Now let's go to the e-mails. Yesterday, I told you about Becky's problem and asked if you had any thoughts or advice. Here's what stood out.

Greg says pour the honey on him and start licking because maybe he'll hate it and stop doing it to you. Lenny says just tell him to knock it off. Starla says Becky's problem's not so big and that when it's dealt with "have I got a real problem, a real one, for you." Joe says that since Becky says it tickles sometimes, she should move her leg real quick and knock her boyfriend's nose and "that'll make him stop." Ellen says she should tell him this isn't working for him.

This time, I'm with Ellen. This isn't about a haircut or an odor that somebody's going to worry about forever. This is about something that can easily be changed. Tell him it's annoying you, not exciting you. You can say that it was fun at first if you want. You can even say that being summer, it's too hot outside to enjoy. But let him know that you're not enjoying it.

Now I want to talk about this great story Amy Goodman had today called "What's My Name, Fool?: Sports and Resistance in the United States." Dave Zirin was the guest and he wrote the book on sports. I listened online via WBIA because I had the day off from school and work and because Jonah's been sharing at The Common Ills that Democracy Now! is two hours long on WBAI this week because it's pledge week.

So you got two hours with Dave and he is just so smart and Goodman's so great at what she does that if you go to the link for the story you still won't be able to picture out how great it was.

AMY GOODMAN: Let's go back to another clip of When We Were Kings. Muhammad Ali was known as an anti-war symbol to some. This is a news clip from that film.
NEWS CLIP: Cassius Clay, at a federal court in Houston, is found guilty of violating the U.S. Selective Service laws by refusing to be inducted. He is sentenced to five years in prison and fined $10,000.
AMY GOODMAN: What happened to Muhammad Ali then?
DAVID ZIRIN: Well, Muhammad Ali was stripped of his title, and he was forced to report to a draft board in El Paso, Texas. Now, this was very interesting, because, you know, Ali was offered the same deal that many past heavyweight champions had been offered, which was, you know, that he could just – you know, it’s not like he was going to be sent to, you know, to Saigon or anything. He could have worn red, white, and blue trunks, boxed at some U.S.O. shows and kept the title.
But instead, what Ali said was – he was quite clear -- he said, "The enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my people, my religion, or myself by fighting against other people" -- speaking about the National Liberation Front in Vietnam – "who are fighting for their own freedom, justice and liberty." And so he came out very -- there was no mistaking where he stood on this.
So they stripped him of his title for his anti-war views, and he was sent down to the draft office there. And as he went down there, it wasn't known exactly what Ali was going to do when he got there, because he was facing a prison sentence of five years, you know, in a federal prison. So there was actually a rally outside the El Paso area that was organized by H. Rap Brown and the students at Texas Western, now Texas El Paso. And they were out there, a couple hundred of them, with a huge banner, and what it said was "Draft Beer, Not Ali." And when Ali went in there and when they called his name to take the step forward, I don't – I mean, I don’t know if this made a difference, but they made quite a mistake when they called his name in that they called for Cassius Clay to take a step forward, and he absolutely refused. Then they asked for Muhammad Ali to take a step forward, and he absolutely refused.
And there’s a tremendous quote by a writer named Gerald Early who said that "when Ali refused to take that step forward, I felt more than pride in him, I felt as if my honor as a young black boy had been defended. He was the dragon slayer, and I went home into my room that night and I cried. I cried for myself and I cried for our black possibilities." I mean, that's just the power that that moment had for people was incalculable, but not something that’s talked about when ESPN Classic does a look at Muhammad Ali.

There's a second part to it that I hope they air tomorrow but the second hour on WBAI isn't in the link. And he was talking about so many important things and talking about Steve Nash and so much more. His book sounds way cool and as soon as I finish the book I'm reading for The Third Estate Sunday Review. So make a point to look for it, it's called What's My Name Fool?
It sounds incredible. I'm going to suggest we all read it for next week, not this Sunday but the one after, for The Third Estate Sunday Review.

Iraqi casualities continue to mount, recruiters want to raise age limit, spicing up foreplay and a song

From Democracy Now! this morning:

New Study Says 24,000 Iraqi Civilians Killed
A new independent report released Tuesday puts the number of Iraqi civilians who died violent deaths in the two years since the US-led invasion began at more than 24,000. The study found that US and coalition military forces were responsible for 37% of the deaths, with anti-occupation forces and the resistance responsible for 9%. A further 36% were blamed on criminal violence. Figures obtained last week from the Iraqi interior ministry put the average civilian and police officer death toll in insurgent attacks from August 2004 to March 2005 at 800 a month. The report was done by Iraq Body Count and the Oxford Research Group.

24,000 seems like a big number to me. But I guess not to other people. My sister and I were talking about this today and wondering what the magic number was? What magic number do we have to reach before we care?

It's like the guys and gals we have dying over there. I'm looking at ICCC and the count right now is 1770 US soldiers have died.

What's the magic number on that?

You look around and it's hard to believe we're a country at war as we waste time worrying if Brad loves Angelina now and if it's more than he loved Jennifer.

We'll get to the e-mail in a moment but I want to tie in something else.

We are a country at war and for those who still don't get it, let's take a look at CounterRecruiter today:

The Defense Department has asked Congress to raise the age limit for military recruits from 35 to 42. According to a report from the Army Times, this is one of a series of what defense department officials are calling "urgent wartime support initiatives."

Still think it's not serious? They want to add seven years to the age limit. When's the draft coming?

Let's go to the e-mails. There are two I want to note.

First, Tonya e-mailed. She says she appreciates what Ellen's saying but that if she'd been honest with her boyfriend about this, they'd still be fighting over it. She says Ellen's advice may work for some couples but it wouldn't have worked for her.

Now we've got another woman with a question. Becky is in her thirties and divorced for ten years now. She says she's dated a lot of jerks but has a guy she likes now except for one thing.

Here's Becky's problem. He likes to add to foreplay. And Becky really doesn't care for what he adds. When they're in the mood, he brings out things like chocolate syrup or honey and will pour it on her inner thigh and lick it off.

Becky says that besides tickling, it's too hot for her to have someone's tongue on her like that and that even if he licks for thirty minutes, which he sometimes does, he never gets it all off. So she's left with spit and honey or chocolate still on her.

Besides the fact that she likes the guy and he's the first one she's liked since her divorce, she worries about saying anything because before the honey and chocolate got added, she was asking him to "spice it up" a little and this was his idea of "spicing it up."

She says, "It was fun for about a week. But five weeks later, I'm tired of it."

I have a few answers but Becky says he's out of town on business for the week. So I'll toss this to everyone and we'll share some answers tomorrow. I'll stick with mine and I'm looking for ideas that are different. So if Ellen's got an answer and it's different than mine, I'll include it.

If you've followed the news even slightly in the last 24 hours, you know that John Roberts Jr. is Bully Boy's nominee for the Supreme Court and you know that almost any other news has been pushed aside. You know that it's awfully interesting how Bully Boy's buddy Rove has vanished from the headlines and news. The outing of the CIA agent married to Joe Wilson is so pre-Supreme Court nominee.

C.I. had a funny song up about that. Ma sang it to me because I don't know the song it's based on ("It's Only a Paper Moon").

When Ma was singing it, I was laughing so I want to share it with you.

Say, it's only a summer scandal
Bully Boy will soon have the handle
He's the king of the make-believe
Do you believe in me?

Yes, it's only a scandal de sum
Reporters move on if we play mum
King George of the make believe
Do you believe in me?
. . .

It's a Bully and Cheney world
Just as phony as it can be
But it wouldn't be make-believe
If you believed in me

C.I. calls it "It's Only a Summer Scandal."

I also want to note that Elaine is filling in for Rebecca while Rebecca's on vacation over at Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude. She has a really good post on peace. So check that out.

And let me give a shout out to Common Ills community member Cedric who has just started his own blog called Cedric's Big Mix. It's up on my blog roll.

Violence in Iraq, Seymour Hersh on Democracy Now! and CounterRecruiter

We'll start off with Democracy Now!:

Bloodshed Continues in Iraq
In Iraq, gunmen opened fire on a minibus carrying Iraqi workers to a U.S. airbase in the central resistance stronghold of Baquba, killing more than a dozen people. The deaths came after assailants in two cars attacked the bus. This came a day after gunmen killed at least 24 police, soldiers and government workers on Monday. The latest violence follows a weekend in which more than 150 Iraqis died from suicide bombings.

Maybe it was yesterday or maybe it was last week, but Amy Goodman made a point on Democracy Now! about how we get upset about the London bombings. We should. But when we hear of Iraqis dying we don't react the same way. Why do you think that is? Why do we say "this life is important and that life isn't?"

Which reminds me of something Seymour Hersh said on Democracy Now! today:

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Westmoreland, one of the main U.S. military leaders during the Vietnam War, retired General William Westmoreland has died at the age of 91. You won your Pulitzer Prize covering Vietnam, exposing a massacre, the My Lai massacre. Your response?
SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, Peter Davis, the filmmaker, did a marvelous documentary called Hearts and Minds, in which Westmoreland is filmed saying, ‘Well, the Vietnamese’ he said, ‘are not like Americans and us in the West. They don't feel losses. They don't feel. They don’t have the same kind of family feelings we do. Death to them is not like death to us.’ And that's what he said on camera. I'm paraphrasing because it's a 30-year-old memory.
The movie, the documentary, was done in the 1970s, but his suggestion was somehow they're less human than we are. And that kind of institutional racism, which may have something to do with our, you know, the casualness with which we look at the daily atrocities in Iraq. You know, this is a stigma for all of us. And unfortunately, those who say that this is not like Iraq, should just start listening to the way the military in the last six months have begun talking about insurgents killed, 100 insurgents killed here, 80 insurgents killed there. It's all that talk and the same language we had and the body counts back in Vietnam. You know, they are less than real.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to thank you very much for being with us, Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter. And thank your family for giving us this time on your vacation.
SEYMOUR HERSH: Amy, for you, anything. Bye.


So let's dip into the e-mails.

We'll focus on Ellen who writes that she can't believe I encouraged Tonya to lie to her boyfriend about his crotch rot yestereday. Ellen says nothing gets done with a lie. Uh, war in Iraq?

But her point is that she thinks Tonya should have been upfront with her boyfriend. In fact, she composed a little speech for Tonya to give her boyfriend:

Mr. Happy may still waggle but the fumes are putting me to sleep. Shave 'em, spray 'em but do something because my nose ain't getting near that.

Ellen says he either gets it together or Tonya splits but her boyfriend gets the message and addresses the problem before Tonya's problem becomes some other woman's problem.

Ellen may have a point but I honestly don't know that this solution wouldn't have led to more problems. Besides, we got an e-mail from Tonya.

She tried what my sister suggested. He was rushing around so she had to jump in there and said she was nervous and he was looking at her like she was crazy when she grabbed his deodorant until she pulled off his towel. She said the only problem after that was getting him to put on clothes and that the smell was gone that evening when they got back.

He even commented on it and goes, "I don't know if you noticed but I was smelling pretty gamey." Tonya pretended like she hadn't noticed.

Was it honest?

Probably not.

But relationships aren't strapping lie detectors to your heart. I think sometimes you tell a little lie. I mean the last woman (see I'm watching my words) I was dating got a really goofey haircut and all her friends were telling her that. It was going to be 3 to 4 weeks before it looked half way decent. Did she need me going, "It really does look stupid."

I didn't think so. I told her it was cute and it made her feel good.

You really think she would have wanted to be around me for 3 or 4 weeks if I had told her, "It looks so stupid and it makes your ears look so huge." No.

There are things you can be honest about and there are things where you have to think is this comething you would say? Is there a reason to tell someone something hurtful? If not, then it's better to keep it to yourself or find a nice way to say it.

And from CounterRecruiter, I want to note this on recruiters:

The CBS story also notes that the Army needs over 101,000 new soldiers this year. And this is putting pressure on recruiters, who face declining enthusiam for the military, along with a continuing decrease in new recruits.
"It's very stressful," said former recruiter Jeffery Bacon.
Bacon says he's been busted from Sergeant to Specialist for not meeting his quota of 24 soldiers a year. "I'm losing my house because I'm losing my job, you know. I'm in financial debt," Bacon said.

I'm not feeling too sorry for Bacon or any of the others. They trick people and they do it to meet their quotas. I won't be shedding any tears that they have trouble meeting them. I hope they have a lot of trouble meeting them. Lots and lots of trouble.

Aidan Delgado, Hadley, Rove, crotch rot

It's Monday and before we go any further, thanks to C.I. and Isaiah for letting me rerun the cartoon this morning. A lot of you e-mailed to say you really enjoyed it.
In fact, we all enjoyed it so much that I'm going to rerun it again!



















Now let's go to Democracy Now!

Rove Watch: Time’s Cooper Speaks About Grand Jury Testimony
The Sunday talk shows this weekend were dominated by the ongoing investigation into the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame. One of those at the center of the story, Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper, appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" where he discussed his testimony in front of the Grand Jury. Cooper also has an article piublished last night by Time in which he says that President Bush's senior advisor, Karl Rove, was the first person to tell Cooper that Valerie Plame was a CIA officer. Cooper said he told that to a grand jury last week and that Rove ended the call by saying "I've already said too much." Cooper wrote that Rove did not disclose Valerie Plame's name, but told him in July 2003 that information would be declassified that would cast doubt on the credibility of her husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson. Cooper wrote, "So did Rove leak Plame's name to me, or tell me she was covert? No. Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes. Did Rove say that she worked at the 'agency' on 'WMD'? Yes," Cooper continues, "When he said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don't know. Is any of this a crime? Beats me." Cooper wrote he had previously told the grand jury he had also discussed Wilson and his wife with Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. He said he asked Libby about Wilson's wife playing a role in the Niger trip, and Libby replied, "Yeah, I've heard that too." This all raises serious questions about whether several administration officials intentionally misled the public and investigators about the involvement of Libby and Rove. White House spokesperson Scott McClellan said in October 2003 that Rove, Libby and another official had assured him they were uninvolved in the leak.

So what's everyone thinking about all this? From the e-mails, most of you are wondering why no one's name checking Hadley? Well I put up C.I.'s thing and C.I. caught that on Saturday. Cynthia wrote in about that and said I could share her thoughts.

Before I do that, I should probably make sure everyone's on the same page. So let me quote from C.I.'s thing:

If people are paying attention to today's talking point, Rove just ratted somebody out (though he probably doesn't realize it). Did he tell who he got the information from?
No.
But the talking point advises us that the deputy of national security knows the press is talking about Valerie Plame being a CIA agent. Did Hadley follow up?
Don't toss out any nonsense that, "They may not have known she was undercover!" Hadley's job should have required him to find out what Plame's position was. Regardless of what her job was, the CIA should have been advised what was about to break. And Plame should have been warned.
Was the CIA advised? I don't know. But from Joseph Wilson's reactions, Plame sure wasn't warned. From his statements, she didn't get a heads up. Novak's column appears on the 14th of July. Rove talks to Cooper on the 11th of July. In those three days, what did Hadley do? What was the administration doing? (Yeah, I know, probably helping the story along, but that's not in their talking points.)
How did Hadley follow up? Did he report it to his superior? (Condi Rice.) What measures did they take to protect Plame? She wasn't assigned body guards at the time. Wilson's made no reference to her getting a call that said, "Hey Val, just a heads up, the press are talking about you, you're probably going to be the topic of a story and be named. Those friends and neighbors that don't know anything about who you really work for -- you might want to break it to them."
Hadley's job was not to protect Bully Boy from fading poll numbers. His job was national security.
If people are paying attention to today's talking point, one question should be, "What was done when Hadley was informed?" What steps got taken?
Was the CIA informed what was coming down the pike?
Or was everyone who is supposed to be working for the nation suddenly under the impression that their job was serving on the election committee for the Bully Boy?

Let me toss out something else before I get that topic. Know how Cynthia found the thing C.I. did? Not from my site. She just started going to The Common Ills this weekend and she's been going around to different links and getting to know the community. So how she'd find it?

Something called Waypath. It indexes posts by things mentioned in them and all. Cynthia found it at Waypath while looking up news on Matt Damon!

C.I. does this thing in there where there's an illustration of what Rove did and C.I. asks you to pretend you're a reporter and C.I. is a flack for Matt Damon. It's funny and you should read it.
But like Saturday when we were all working on The Third Estate Sunday Review, Jim was telling C.I. how great the post was and the only thing he'd change was the Matt Damon part. And C.I. goes, "Really, cause that's the only thing I wouldn't change." I have Jim's permission to tell that story and Jim doesn't think C.I. will mind because it goes to one of C.I.'s big points and all.

Which is? People need to speak in their voices. If I'm answering a question about oral sex who knows who comes by to read that? And this is advice C.I. gave me and I think it's okay to share and it's when I get on to blog, I don't need to try to sound like Bob Somerby. C.I. goes "Bob Somerby is the best Bob Somerby. You be the best you. That's how you'll enjoy yourself and how you'll reach people."

And it may not be serious enough for some people (and I'm not attacking Jim who's a buddy now) but that might be just what gets someone to notice. Jim is against talking points too. And he'll tell you that the talking points have pretty much reached everyone that they are going to reach on any subject. You have to do more than talking points unless you just want to reach only the same group of people.

And I called Jim when I read Cynthia's e-mail and he goes, "See, I was dead wrong. C.I. was right about the Matt Damon part." (There's a longer version of that conversation Saturday and if I get C.I.'s permission to put it up here, I will.) Jim goes it's like Ava & C.I.'s TV reviews and how they pull people into The Third Estate Sunday Review. And some of those people will check out the editorial and other stuff but the drawing power is the TV reviews that Ava & C.I. do. And Jim went into this thing about how their TV reviews are political and they are political but I don't want to get lost on that.

But Jim goes he was really amazed that Matt Damon grabbed someone and that proves C.I. was right to do it that way because I told him what Cynthia said about being burned out on going to some sites that are just too cut and dried and "have a stick up their ass" and she just wants to scream, "Okay, I got that already!" She said reading that stuff is like sitting in her geomerty class and "politics shouldn't be boring!" (She uses a lot of exclamation points.) "Make me laugh! Make me angry! But don't make me bored!!!!"

I hear you, Cynthia!!!! :D

So Cynthia's theory is two parts. She thinks that in terms of online, people didn't notice Hadley and they won't now because it's out there and it wasn't them that noticed. She's talking about people who wrote about that article. Now in print ("coporatocracy" is what Cynthia calls it), they're not going to touch it. "Maybe later but right now it's too scary!" Why is that?

Because it does lead up. It does ask questions. She said it's like any other scandal, the "corporatocracy" will focus on the individuals named already because "they don't lead!" And she's right. They haven't led on any of this. Online has driven this story for two years. So Cynthia thinks that unless they're "forced to get their heads out of their asses" they won't do a damn thing on this.

For the people who wrote going no one touched this, it was brought up at The Third Estate Sunday Review. I'm going to reprint their editorial (I helped with it and so did others, there's a credit at the end):

Editorial: What did Hadley know and what did he do?

Karl Rove's latest defense (as pointed out by The Common Ills) is that after speaking with Matt Cooper when Valerie Plame's name came up he immediately e-mailed then deputy national security advisor Stephen J. Hadley. And then what?
And then what?
Did the e-mail confuse Hadley? Was their a follow up conversation of "Karl, what's this e-mail about?" Did Hadley immediately notify his boss (Condi Rice) what was going on? Did she follow up by notifying the Bully Boy?
For those who forget, before she moved over to the State Department, Condi Rice was in charge of national security issues. It's easy to forget that because 9-11 happened while she was in charge and there was no accountability for her. There needs to be accountability on this.
Did Hadley do his job? If so, did others do their job?
We're not foolish enough to think the White House wasn't orchestrating the outing of Plame. But if that's going to be the spin point ("I prove I'm not guilty with my e-mail to Hadley!") then let's examine that spin point.
The spin argues Rove passed the news on up. Did it stop there? If so Hadley didn't do his job.
Did it go higher? How much higher? A CIA agent was a national security issue. The outing of an agent was a national security issue.
No one's attempting to say Rove's absolved and innocent. We think he's neither. But if he's going to push this latest point, then we say let's explore it.
Once someone in charge of national security was notified, it was incumbent upon them (due to their position) to immediately determine the nature of Valerie Plame's work. It was also incumbent upon them to notify then CIA director George Tenet. If they themselves did not alert Plame, the reason should be because they were given assurance from within the CIA that someone in the agency would alert Plame.
Plame doesn't appear to have been alerted. Nothing in the public record suggests that she was anything but surprised when Robert Novak outed her in a July 14, 2003 column. Cooper spoke to Rove on the 11th of July. Rove's spin is that he e-mailed Hadley immediately upon getting off the phone with Cooper. What was being done by the administration in those three days? Rove's conversation with Cooper, by Rove's account, made it obvious that the press knew Valerie Plame was CIA. What did Hadley do? If he didn't know who Plame was or what her position was, he should have checked with the CIA (or maybe read the memo that the State Department prepared). That was Hadley job.
Unless Condi relieved him of the responsibility. Then it became her job. (And regardless, his actions reflect upon her because she was his boss.)
Did anyone contact the CIA to alert them? If Plame had been a translator for the CIA, we'd argue a notification would be required. If she'd been an office assistant, we'd argue a notification would be required. If Hadley and/or Rice had done any work on the issue, they'd know that she had been an undercover agent.
And as such, regardless of when she was last undercover, it was their job to ensure that she and those she worked with while undercover knew what was coming. This goes beyond the quibbling by Republicans of whether a law was broken due to some five year rule on when you were last undercover. Plame appears to have been undercover as late as 1999 so the rule is in place and outing her was a violation of the law.
But in terms of procedures and responsibilities, it didn't matter if Plame had retired from the CIA ten years prior. It terms of procedures and responsibilities, the administration should have been working overtime to ensure that all working with Plame and Plame herself knew what was about to come out.
Whether you personally favor the use of undercover CIA agents or not, it should be obvious that having gone undercover for their government, when their cover is about to be blown, it's the government's responsibility to alert them.
That was the administration's responsibility. Did they carry it out? If not, why not?
Were any agents currently undercover and in the field, agents who had worked with Plame, alerted that someone who'd taken part in missions with them was about to be outed and that, therefore, their own cover was in danger?
It doesn't appear that they were.
The latest spin is "Rove's not guilty! He alerted Hadley!" The spin doesn't prove that. But the spin argues that the administration knew (Hadley) and that they did nothing. The spin suggests that Plame was outed with the administration's knowledge while the administration (with at least a three days heads up) sat around and waited for the explosion.
The spin's imploding. This talking point is cratering. Not only does it not clear Rove, it suggest incompetence (at best) on the part of the administration. It's time to know what Hadley did after he received the e-mail from Rove. If he did nothing, he needs to explain why. If he passed it up, we need to hear what those above him did.
It's time for Congressional hearings on this matter. We're no longer dealing with only the outing of a CIA agent. We're now dealing with, by Rove's talking point, the impression that the administration sat by and waited for a CIA agent to be outed. There need to be some answers and there needs to be some accountability.
[This editorial was written by the following: The Third Estate Sunday Review's Ty, Jess, Dona, Jim and Ava, C.I. of The Common Ills, Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man, Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Kat of Kat's Korner and Mike of Mikey Likes It!]

So is Cynthia right? Do you think it won't become an issue? Or do you think some people may start to notice?

It's a good question. Cynthia also said she read some of my old stuff from a few weeks back and was wondering what made me decide to blog?

It was seeing stuff like Cynthia saw at The Common Ills and wondering why no one else was talking about it. Like the Rainbow Warrior getting sunk. Two weeks before the news broke about the president of France in the 70s giving the okay to sink the Rainbow Warrior, a guy who died on the ship, his daughter was in the news. "Who was Fernando Pereira?" was about that. And C.I. didn't pretend to be an expert and even writes about not pretending to know about this event before. So we get a walk through of the events and what happened and the questions that still remain on June 26, 2005. So like when July 10th rolls around and suddenly it's news that the former president of France, they got documents that prove he gave the okay, we already have a basic knowledge of the events when "Where is Fernando Pereira in 'Report Says Mitterrand Approved Sinking of Greenpeace Ship'" comes up. Stuff like that happens all the time and my folks say it's the difference between writing about the same topic everyone else is writing about or going elsewhere. They're big on social justice, my folks, so they really love The Common Ills. (But since I'm their son, they love my site best!)

So, Cynthia, it's like what you're feeling, "Why isn't anyone else talking about this!" That's why I started blogging. And that's why I love Democracy Now! and why I'm really loving Amy Goodman and her brother David's book The Exception to the Rulers. That is an amazing book. I'm half-way through it and I'll talk about it next week because it's one of the books we're going to be doing at The Third Estate Sunday Review this coming Sunday. But Amy Goodman is a candle in darkness. That's why Ma says. She says that if there's a story that matters to you and it's not being discussed anywhere else on a TV or radio show, you know it will be discussed on Democracy Now! because Amy Goodman's not going for the easy stuff. Dad agrees but he says it's also that the network guys anchoring have gotten too fat and rich to give a damn about what effects most of us.

If you haven't checked out Democracy Now!, Cynthia, I hope you'll look into it. From your e-mail, I think it's a show you would really enjoy.

Now for other e-mails. Tonya says thanks for writing about crotch rot but wonders how you bring the subject up with someone? Her boyfriend's got a problem there. It just started in the last week, she writes, and it's never been a problem before. But she's not in the mood for oral and keeps telling him no to her and no to her doing him because she wants to gag. She put "911" on her headling for her e-mail cause she doesn't think she can wait long for an answer.

I thought she should just tell him. Then I thought, "Wait, cause I probably wouldn't just tell some woman I was seeing if she had a problem like that." So I asked my sister to get her point of view.

My sister never had the experience and first thought the guy just wasn't watching. So, Tonya, I told her how you said he takes a shower or a bath at least one time a day and now that it's summer and it's hot and he's sweating, he's taking at least two and sometimes three. (This is my youngest sister by the way. She's still in high school.) I was explaining to her about what I had to do that summer and she said you should be with him when he's getting ready to go out on a date. She said like tell him you want to help him pick out what to wear.

So while he's using his deodorant, she said grab it and go, "I really like the smell of this." And then laughingly start applying it around his groin.

I think it would work too because if you pull off his towel and are anywhere near his equipment, he's not going to argue with you. He's going to be wondering what's coming next. So then go out on your date and see if it didn't clear up the crotch rot by the time you two are winding down.

Hope that helps you, Tonya. If it doesn't, drop a line and I'll try to take another shot at it.

Now I want to note a story called "A Different Duty." It's from In These Times magazine and it was written by Lisa Sousa and it's about Aidan Delgado.

Unlike most soldiers, Delgado speaks Arabic, having grown up in Egypt as a diplomat's son, and was able to communicate with Iraqis. He thought differently about fighting after interacting with prisoners of war. "When I came face to face with the people who were supposed to be my enemies, I thought that I had no reason to fight them," he says. "They were the same as the guys in my unit." The captured men were mostly young and uneducated, and did not have many choices in life.
"I felt like they were trapped in the war as much as I was and we were all victims of it, so I felt that fighting them would be wrong," he says.
During his third month in Iraq, Delgado told his commander that he wanted to be a conscientious objector. "I turned in my weapon, I said 'I'll stay. I'll finish my duty, but I'm not going to fight. I'm not going to kill anyone.'"
Obtaining conscientious objector status was difficult. Delgado endured investigative interviews, bureaucratic paper work, and harassment from his superiors and his peers, some of whom regarded him as a traitor. His commanders also confiscated part of his body armor, rescinded his leave time and assigned him to 16-18 hour shifts. Delgado was granted conscientious objector status and an honorable discharge only after completing his year-long tour in Iraq.

Now the guy goes around trying to educate people about what's going on.

He's really making a difference and I think that's cool and something we should know about.

Cause like, he's trying to make a difference by talking about it. But that only works if people listen and they talk about it. And like that's what Cynthia was asking about kind of. When she was asking me about why I started a blog and all. (And that's also what C.I. was asking about this weekend when I got asked what I was hoping to accomplish.) So that's the sort of thing I feel like we should know about. And maybe you'll see it elsewhere and maybe you won't. But you saw it in In These Times, you saw it at The Common Ills (that's how I found it) and you saw it here. And like maybe it's not being talked about when you get together with your friends? Well you can bring it up. That's the only way word gets out or that we make a difference. The guy's name is Aidan Delgado so try to find someone to pass on his story too.

Why Ain't The Spin Working?

From Isaiah's The World Today Just Nuts (with Isaiah & C.I. of The Common Ills' permission), here's a cartoon that made me grin.