Kicking off with Ruth:
Pacifica Radio Archives All-Day Fundraising Special
18-hour natl. simulcast of programming from Pacifica's 50-plus-year history. Focuses: civil rights movement, live music, and the 1970 live reading on WBAI of Tolstoy's War and Peace. On December 6 the entire Pacifica network will pre-empt its regular schedule for an 18-hour simulcast of programming drawn from Pacifica's 50-plus-year history. This will be a fundraiser for the Pacifica Radio Archives that preserves the network's audio treasures. This year we're focusing on three major subject areas: the civil rights movement recordings, live music, and the 1970 live reading on WBAI of Tolstoy's War and Peace.
That's going on right now so make a point to listen. Right now.
Good evening. Let's note Democracy Now! and remember to check Elaine's site for her commentary:
Rice Denies U.S. Engages In Torture
Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice denied Monday that the U.S. is engaging in torture and defended how the Bush administration's waging of the so-called war on terror. Rice's comments came ahead of a trip to Europe where she is expected to be questioned about the existence of secret CIA prisons and about the CIA's practice of kidnapping wanted individuals overseas. Rice did not deny the U.S. has secretly picked up detainees overseas and flying them to other countries but she denied this is being done "for the purpose of being tortured." "The United States does not permit, tolerate, or condone torture under any circumstances. Moreover, in accordance with the policy of this administration, the United States has respected and will continue to respect the sovereignty of other countries," Rice said. "The U.S. does not transport and has not transported detainees from one country to another for the purpose of being tortured. The United States does not use the airspace or the airports of any country for the purpose of transporting a detainee to a country where he or she will be tortured."
Condi denies? Condi lies.
I really don't know what to say about the thing above cause C.I. said it all this morning in
"NYT: 'U.S. Interrogations Are Saving European Lives, Rice Says' (Joel Brinkley)." Read that, C.I. said it all.
I can't believe anyone can take Condi Rice seriously. How many lies are they willing to swallow?
Iraqi VP Al-Yawer Criticizes State of Iraqi Security Forces
The bombings come just a day after Iraq's Vice President Ghazi al-Yawer publicly disputed comments made last week by President Bush about the improved state of the Iraqi security forces. Al-Yawer said the training of Iraqi security forces has suffered a big "setback" in recent months because the army and other forces have been increasingly used to settle personal and political scores. In addition al-Yawer warned that armed Shiite militias in the south might be trying to incite a civil war in Iraq.
It just gets worse and worse. March 2006 will be three years. That's not that far away. Three years of an illegal invasion/occupation and that's what the result is: planned chaos. Well at least Bully Boy is "resolute."
He'll keep troops over there regardless of how many people die. It didn't bother him to lie us into war so what does?
Nothing. It's time to bring the troops home, past time. In fact it reminds me of an editorial I helped with, The Third Estate Sunday Review's "Editorial: Time to Head On Home:"
Are we starting to get the picture yet? The public is. They want the troops home. Polls show that. It's just the media and our leaders that are too timid to address it. "Stay the course!" they chant. This "cakewalk" has now lasted over two years. Donald Rumsfeld says twelve is a possiblity. "Cakewalk?"
How do you define "success" in Iraq? That's difficult since the reasons for the invasion/occupation constantly shift. But it's not been a cakewalk, this war of choice. And we haven't made the world safer for anyone. Iraq's not safer. We're not safer. The London bombings prove the fly paper theory was crap.
Now we're supposed to let the ones who brought us this war go back to the drawing board to . . . think up new excuses? They had no planning other than (as Naomi Klein pointed out in "Baghdad Year Zero") to have a tag sale on the Iraqi assets. Even the Operation Happy Talkers seem to have a case of cat got their tongues. (Sadly, we're sure this is a momentary condition.)
If sane people can agree that the illegal occupation is a disaster for everyone involved (outside of those profitting from the war), how much are we willing to give to "stay the course?" We want the body counts to double? When do we reach the point that we say enough?We steer to you to "Should This Marriage Be Saved?" and ask at what point do we take a realistic look at what's going on?Pig-headed is not a virtue. It's not sane. It's not logical. And it's only going to get more people killed.
The Bully Boy has sullied this nation's name. He's trashed treaties and conventions. He's had a five-year frat party at our expense. At some point, we need to roll up our sleeves and do some cleaning. And that means tossing in the garbage the notion that after two years of the "cake walk" this is anything like what was sold to us."Stay the course?" We say "head on home." Head on home to what America is supposed to stand for. On what America is supposed to represent. This invasion/occupation isn't what America's supposed to be about. So let's all grow up, sober up and realize that the Bully Boy's taken us on a two-year bender. Comes a time when you gotta head home. It's past time for that.
Iraq had no WMD. It was not a threat to us ("mushroom cloud," Condi?). Someone lied us into war. They took us off course. It's time to get back to what America's all about and it's time to realize that drunk slurring his words and telling us he knows another bar that's still open isn't anyone we want to get a car in with. We're ready to head on home and return to the lives we should be leading. Lives that don't involve wars built on lies. Lives that don't involve trying to impose a system on a people who didn't ask for us to be there. Lives that don't involve falling for the latest Operation Happy Talk. Lives that are reality-based. Bar's closing, let's all head on home. At least the ones who still have that option, the ones who didn't give their lives to a war of choice, one that should have been avoided.
[Note: Since these editorials tend to get reposted elsewhere, we'll note this was written by The Third Estate Sunday Review crew of Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava as well as by C.I. of The Common Ills, Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Kat of Kat's Korner, Mike of Mikey Likes It! and Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man.]
I always love working on the editions but that editorial is one that my friends were all "Way to go, dude!" We wrote that on July 10th. I'm still proud of it to be honest. I think we really hit it out of the park with that editorial.
Now let's do Edmund's e-mail. Edmund's not his real name and his live-in girlfriend isn't really named Britney. Edmund's a 21 year old college student (everything's true but the names) and he's been living with Britney for almost a year now. Sunday night he was finishing up a research paper that he was way behind on cause he was sick with the flu for most of the week before. So he's done finally and it's now Monday, two in the morning. His first class is at seven in the morning. It's a half hour trip to campus. All he's eaten all day was a bag of Gardettos and a Payday. He says he asks himself if he's going to eat or go to sleep? He decides he's too tired to eat.
So he gets pulls off his sweats and hops in bed and Britney rolls next to him. And she's awake and she's wanting to have sex. They kiss and grope a bit but he's wiped out. He just wants to go to sleep. He's hard and Britney knows it and he explains he's just tired so they go to sleep.
But he's worried that he's "old" now because he just passed up sex for the 1st time in his life. For sleep.
I don't know that he's old. I think it's getting over the flu, getting the paper done and being real tired all working together. And it's not like he's not able to get it up which would be a different story.
I wrote him back last night and told him to chill. But he's convinced he's got some gray hair now and feels like next time he'll want to go to sleep and not be able to even get a bone. I think he's making too much of it. What do you think?
Let's go out with Gina Holland's "Justices Hear Military Recruiting Case:"
The Supreme Court appeared ready Tuesday to uphold a law that says colleges cannot turn away military recruiters in protest of the Pentagon's policy on gays if the universities also want to receive federal money.
New Chief Justice John Roberts said schools unhappy with the "don't ask, don't tell" policy have a simple solution: turn down federal cash.
And Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is retiring, said colleges can post disclaimers on campus noting their objections to military policy.
Law school campuses have become the latest battleground over the policy allowing gay men and women to serve in the military only if they keep their sexual orientation to themselves.
Solicitor General Paul Clement said that when the government picks up the tab for things like research and education grants, the military also is entitled to demand "a fair shot" in terms of equal access for its recruiters to a university's "best and brightest."
Clement said the military is receiving nothing more than any other donor would expect.
A few justices, including David Souter, worried that the free speech rights of law schools could be hindered by Congress' action of tying funding to military recruiters' access.
"The law schools are taking a position on First Amendment grounds, and that position is in interference with military recruiting, no question about it," Souter said.
Check Campusantiwar.net for more information.
Remember my motto: The Common Ills community is important and the Common Ills community is important to me. So I'll do my part for the Common Ills community.
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Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Monday, December 05, 2005
Not much, blogger's acting up
Good evening. Maybe you can read this, maybe you can't. I got home and tried to read The Common Ills and couldn't. Then I tried the other sites in the community, same thing. Then I tried Delilah Boyd's site and then Atrios and I can't get anything on Blogspot to display.
So maybe you can't read this tonight?
I got ahold of Elaine and she's got the same problem. So I called C.I. who wasn't near a computer but said if that's the case the backup site will be used for The Common Ills tonight and also said I could post there.
If it's the same way tomorrow, I may do that.
But tonight I'll try to post here.
Let's move on to Democracy Now!
U.S. Acknowledges Admits It Paid Iraqi Press to Run Propaganda
The U.S. military acknowledged on Friday for the first time that it has paid Iraqi newspapers to carry positive news about U.S. efforts in Iraq. The admission came after a series of news reports indicated the U.S. paid a private company called the Lincolon Group to plant stories in the Iraqi press and to pay off sympathetic Iraqi journalists. The Knight Ridder news agency reported U.S. psychological-warfare officers have been involved in writing news releases and drafting media strategies for top commanders. In addition the news agency reported that on at least one occasion, psychological warfare specialists took a group of international journalists on a tour of Iraq's border with Syria.
Bully Boy needs his props. He can't get them legitmately so he has to make them up. Take a gander at his props! becomes propaganda. He's just a wanna be rapper. Bully Boy in da house!
Drop it like it's hot! Raise the roof!
Can you see Bully Boy as a rapper? Nope and most people can't see what he's done to Iraq as "democracy."
So he needs lie. And lie some more. Then act shocked that this happened. Are we supposed to believe he missed the briefing on this because he was napping?
There's a great editorial that we did at The Third Estate Sunday Review and I was planning to link to it but I can't because the site, like all the others, won't display.
I'll link to it tomorrow.
My sister just came in to say that using mozilla she was able to pull up The Common Ills and only that. But C.I. posted two entries on the New York Times today, reposted Ruth and posted the Democracy Now! post which is the one I missed that I was hoping to read as soon as I got here. Only the first entry shows. And if she tries to use the links on the site to pull up anyone else she can't.
This is one of those times when Blogger really sucks.
Tens of Thousands in 30 Cities Protest Global Warming
Tens of thousands of people demonstrated Saturday in 30 cities across the globe to call on world governments to do more to halt global warming. The largest protests took place in Montreal which is hosting the UN Climate Change Conference -- the largest international conference ever on global warming. In London environmentalists held banners declaring President Bush to be wanted "for crimes against the planet." In Washington, drivers of hybrid cars circled the White House. And in New Orleans, residents held a "Save New Orleans, Stop Global Warming" party in the French Quarter. On Saturday environmental groups presented a petition signed by 600,000 Americans urging President Bush to do more to stop global warming. The Bush administration has rejected the Kyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse gases. The United States emits 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gases even though it has just five percent of the world's population.
It's kind of hard to believe when I hear my folks talk, though I know they're telling the truth, that long before I was ever born people were working at improving the environment. John Kerry was part of the first Earth Day.
Maybe Bully Boy thinks we can all move to Mars? Maybe that's why he wants those manned missions to Mars?
Way I see it, we only got one earth and we've trashed it up pretty bad. Nina thinks it's going to get a lot worse, weather wise, before it gets better and thinks we may not live to see a balance restored to the earth. That depresses the hell out of me.
I had an e-mail that I wanted to go into but I'll write the guy back tonight and post his question tomorrow.
I'll go ahead and note Maya Schenwar's "Counter-Recruitment Day Sweeps U.S. Colleges:"
According to a recent CAN report, recruiters often lead students to believe that joining the military will enable them to pay for a college education. Yet only 15 percent of soldiers complete a college degree, and less than 10 percent use Army funds to do so. In terms of job training-another promise the military makes to new recruits-an American Friends Service Committee report notes that veterans earn 11 to 19 percent less than non-veterans with similar backgrounds.
"It's very sad to realize that young people graduate from colleges loaded up with loans to repay and that one of the only means to get assistance with education is to enlist in the military," Kelly said. "How much wiser it would be if U.S. wealth and productivity could be directed toward assisting young people, with no requirement to join the military; to learn languages, learn skills desperately needed in third world countries, and learn the basics of community development."
Counter-recruitment, then, is not simply about getting recruiters out of the schools: it's about presenting young people with alternatives to enlisting. Many of the Counter-Recruitment Day actions will involve direct protests staged at recruiting stations, in which protestors will distribute information to potential recruits. The Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, an endorser of the Dec. 6 protests and a key player in the counter-recruitment movement, councils prospective recruits in the dangers of military involvement, non-military ways to finance college and alternative service learning opportunities.
In the past couple of months, the counter-recruitment movement has seen a string of successes. Sixty percent of voters in San Francisco approved a proposition last month to kick recruiters off campuses and fund non-military scholarships. The first national student-organized anti-recruitment day, Not Your Soldier Day of Action, rocked 40 campuses on November 17. As the verdict on FAIR v. Rumsfeld draws closer, activists are crossing their fingers for another victory, hoping that if given the chance, schools will say no to recruiters on campus.
"The majority is with us in opposing the war and military recruitment," Wrigley-Field said. "It's time to get that majority organized to get recruiters out of our schools."
To find out about National Counter-Recruitment Day events near you, see www.campusantiwar.net.
Elaine says she'll post later if Blogger's behaving. So you can check, if you can ever see this entry, Like Maria Said Paz.
the common ills
democracy now
like maria said paz
mikey likes it
So maybe you can't read this tonight?
I got ahold of Elaine and she's got the same problem. So I called C.I. who wasn't near a computer but said if that's the case the backup site will be used for The Common Ills tonight and also said I could post there.
If it's the same way tomorrow, I may do that.
But tonight I'll try to post here.
Let's move on to Democracy Now!
U.S. Acknowledges Admits It Paid Iraqi Press to Run Propaganda
The U.S. military acknowledged on Friday for the first time that it has paid Iraqi newspapers to carry positive news about U.S. efforts in Iraq. The admission came after a series of news reports indicated the U.S. paid a private company called the Lincolon Group to plant stories in the Iraqi press and to pay off sympathetic Iraqi journalists. The Knight Ridder news agency reported U.S. psychological-warfare officers have been involved in writing news releases and drafting media strategies for top commanders. In addition the news agency reported that on at least one occasion, psychological warfare specialists took a group of international journalists on a tour of Iraq's border with Syria.
Bully Boy needs his props. He can't get them legitmately so he has to make them up. Take a gander at his props! becomes propaganda. He's just a wanna be rapper. Bully Boy in da house!
Drop it like it's hot! Raise the roof!
Can you see Bully Boy as a rapper? Nope and most people can't see what he's done to Iraq as "democracy."
So he needs lie. And lie some more. Then act shocked that this happened. Are we supposed to believe he missed the briefing on this because he was napping?
There's a great editorial that we did at The Third Estate Sunday Review and I was planning to link to it but I can't because the site, like all the others, won't display.
I'll link to it tomorrow.
My sister just came in to say that using mozilla she was able to pull up The Common Ills and only that. But C.I. posted two entries on the New York Times today, reposted Ruth and posted the Democracy Now! post which is the one I missed that I was hoping to read as soon as I got here. Only the first entry shows. And if she tries to use the links on the site to pull up anyone else she can't.
This is one of those times when Blogger really sucks.
Tens of Thousands in 30 Cities Protest Global Warming
Tens of thousands of people demonstrated Saturday in 30 cities across the globe to call on world governments to do more to halt global warming. The largest protests took place in Montreal which is hosting the UN Climate Change Conference -- the largest international conference ever on global warming. In London environmentalists held banners declaring President Bush to be wanted "for crimes against the planet." In Washington, drivers of hybrid cars circled the White House. And in New Orleans, residents held a "Save New Orleans, Stop Global Warming" party in the French Quarter. On Saturday environmental groups presented a petition signed by 600,000 Americans urging President Bush to do more to stop global warming. The Bush administration has rejected the Kyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse gases. The United States emits 25 percent of the world's greenhouse gases even though it has just five percent of the world's population.
It's kind of hard to believe when I hear my folks talk, though I know they're telling the truth, that long before I was ever born people were working at improving the environment. John Kerry was part of the first Earth Day.
Maybe Bully Boy thinks we can all move to Mars? Maybe that's why he wants those manned missions to Mars?
Way I see it, we only got one earth and we've trashed it up pretty bad. Nina thinks it's going to get a lot worse, weather wise, before it gets better and thinks we may not live to see a balance restored to the earth. That depresses the hell out of me.
I had an e-mail that I wanted to go into but I'll write the guy back tonight and post his question tomorrow.
I'll go ahead and note Maya Schenwar's "Counter-Recruitment Day Sweeps U.S. Colleges:"
According to a recent CAN report, recruiters often lead students to believe that joining the military will enable them to pay for a college education. Yet only 15 percent of soldiers complete a college degree, and less than 10 percent use Army funds to do so. In terms of job training-another promise the military makes to new recruits-an American Friends Service Committee report notes that veterans earn 11 to 19 percent less than non-veterans with similar backgrounds.
"It's very sad to realize that young people graduate from colleges loaded up with loans to repay and that one of the only means to get assistance with education is to enlist in the military," Kelly said. "How much wiser it would be if U.S. wealth and productivity could be directed toward assisting young people, with no requirement to join the military; to learn languages, learn skills desperately needed in third world countries, and learn the basics of community development."
Counter-recruitment, then, is not simply about getting recruiters out of the schools: it's about presenting young people with alternatives to enlisting. Many of the Counter-Recruitment Day actions will involve direct protests staged at recruiting stations, in which protestors will distribute information to potential recruits. The Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors, an endorser of the Dec. 6 protests and a key player in the counter-recruitment movement, councils prospective recruits in the dangers of military involvement, non-military ways to finance college and alternative service learning opportunities.
In the past couple of months, the counter-recruitment movement has seen a string of successes. Sixty percent of voters in San Francisco approved a proposition last month to kick recruiters off campuses and fund non-military scholarships. The first national student-organized anti-recruitment day, Not Your Soldier Day of Action, rocked 40 campuses on November 17. As the verdict on FAIR v. Rumsfeld draws closer, activists are crossing their fingers for another victory, hoping that if given the chance, schools will say no to recruiters on campus.
"The majority is with us in opposing the war and military recruitment," Wrigley-Field said. "It's time to get that majority organized to get recruiters out of our schools."
To find out about National Counter-Recruitment Day events near you, see www.campusantiwar.net.
Elaine says she'll post later if Blogger's behaving. So you can check, if you can ever see this entry, Like Maria Said Paz.
the common ills
democracy now
like maria said paz
mikey likes it
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Democracy Now review in Spanish and English
Almost midnight. Sunday's the start of the week officially but most of my buds and me consider Monday the start because it was always back to school on Monday. Sunday's like still part of the weekend to me.
It was a busy week last week. I tried to get some of my Christmas shopping done but I still got stuff to do. And I may be late posting one night this week because I really need to get to one store in particular. Can't say what I'm trying to get because it's for my youngest sister who says she never reads this but anytime I mention her here, she somehow "knows."
I've got a lot of brothers and sisters so what we do is all go in together for the gifts for our folks and since my kid sister's still in high school we get her a gift gfit. But for the rest of us, we get something like a bag of M&Ms if that's your favorite candy or something like that.
I'm the second to the youngest and until I started college I always got a gift gift from my brothers and sisters. I feel bad about that because we're such a big family that for my oldest brother and sister (that brother is the oldest in the family and that sister is the second oldest of us kids), they were probably freaking out every Christmas trying to buy for all of us.
I actually liked last Christmas best gift wise. Instead of gifts gifts, I got all my favorite candies and I just sat in front of the tube watching sports and chowing down for days. :D
But another week has passed. Hope you checked out The Third Estate Sunday Review. And if you missed some of the big stories last week, we've got Maria's rundown of the headlines from Democracy Now! in Spanish and then in English. So check your knowledge and figure out what you caught and what you remembered.
"Ex primer ministro iraquí: La tortura es igual de mala ahora que bajo el régimen de Hussein"
Maria: Hola. De parte de "Democracy Now!" doce cosas que vale hacer notar este fin de semana. Paz.
Ex primer ministro iraquí: La tortura es igual de mala ahora que bajo el régimen de Hussein
El ex primer ministro de Irak, Iyad Allawi, afirma que las violaciones a los derechos humanos que ocurren hoy en Irak son igual de malas que las que ocurrían bajo el régimen de Saddam Hussein. En una entrevista con el periódico "Observer" de Londres, Allawai dijo: "Nos enteramos sobre la policía secreta, sobre búnkers secretos donde se interroga a las personas. Muchos iraquíes son torturados o asesinados durante los interrogatorios".
Rumsfeld y Pace discrepan acerca de la respuesta que debe dar Estados Unidos ante abusos cometidos por fuerzas iraquíes
En el Pentágono, el Secretario de Defensa, Donald Rumsfeld, se vio envuelto en un intercambio inusual con el presidente de la Junta de los Jefes de Personal, General Peter Pace, en una conferencia de prensa el martes. Cuando se le preguntó al General Pace si los soldados estadounidenses tenían la responsabilidad de evitar violaciones a los derechos humanos por parte de las fuerzas iraquíes, él contesto: "Es totalmente la responsabilidad de todos los integrantes del servicio estadounidense, si presencian algún trato inhumano, intervenir para detenerlo". Mientras Pace respondía, Rumsfeld lo interrumpió y dijo: "Pero no creo que quiera decir que tienen la obligación de detenerlo ellos mismos; deben informarlo". Pero el General Pace replicó: "Si están presentes cuando el trato inhumano se lleva a cabo, tienen la obligación de intentar detenerlo".
Estados Unidos paga a medios iraquíes para publicar informes que ellos mismos escriben
El "Los Ángeles Times" informa que las Fuerzas Armadas estadounidenses están pagando secretamente a los periódicos iraquíes para que publiquen artículos escritos por estadounidenses y que son favorables a la presencia de Estados Unidos en Irak. El "Times" informa que los artículos escritos en el marco de "operaciones de información" de las Fuerzas Armadas estadounidenses son traducidos al árabe y luego publicados en los periódicos iraquíes con la ayuda de la firma Lincoln Group, contratista de defensa de Washington. Los artículos son presentados ante la población iraquí como informes sin prejuicios, escritos por periodistas independientes. El contrato de Lincoln Group es de más de 100 millones de dólares por más cinco años. Un alto funcionario del Pentágono dijo: "Aquí estamos, tratando de crear los principios de democracia en Irak. Cada discurso que damos en ese país es sobre democracia. Y al hacerlo, estamos violando todos los principios básicos de la democracia".
Comité del Senado mantendrá sesión a puertas cerradas sobre propaganda militar en periódicos
Mientras tanto, funcionarios de alto rango del Pentágono comparecerán hoy a una sesión a puertas cerradas del Comité de los Servicios Armados del Senado, para responder a informes de que Estados Unidos paga a periódicos iraquíes por publicar propaganda militar. Altos funcionarios del Pentágono dicen que aún no han recibido una explicación. Luego de que se conoció la historia esta semana, el General George Casey argumentó que el programa no debía ser discutido públicamente porque era reservado. Cuando se le preguntó sobre el asunto al portavoz militar General Rick Lynch, el jueves, defendió el programa sin confirmar sus detalles. El General Lynch dijo: "Nosotros no mentimos. No necesitamos mentir. Damos poder a nuestros comandantes operativos para que informen al público iraquí, pero todo lo que hacemos está basado en hechos, no en ficción".El portavoz del Departamento de Estado, Sean McCormack, dijo a reporteros: "El Departamento de Estado trabaja con periodistas en Irak para ayudarlos a desarrollar las capacidades que todos ustedes tienen en lo que refiere a la ética y prácticas periodísticas... Este es un país (Irak) donde los medios de comunicación libres no existieron por décadas, por lo tanto, están aprendiendo. Consideramos que es importante asistirlos en eso".
Pelosi: Los demócratas apoyan a Murtha
También el miércoles, la líder de la minoría demócrata, Nancy Pelosi, se convirtió en la primer líder del Congreso en apoyar la postura del congresista Murtha. Pelosi y otros demócratas de alto rango inicialmente habían tomado distancia de Murtha. Pero Pelosi dijo al Washington Post: "Claramente, la mayoría de los representantes (demócratas) apoyan a Murtha” en su pedido de retirar a los soldados estadounidenses de Irak".
Informe: Más de 300 vuelos de la CIA a aeropuertos europeos
En un nuevo episodio del creciente revuelo por las presuntas prisiones secretas de la CIA en Europa, el diario "Guardian" de Londres dice que obtuvo registros de vuelos que indican que más de 300 vuelos de la CIA aterrizaron en aeropuertos europeos. El "Washington Post" recientemente informó que la CIA opera prisiones secretas en Estados ex socialistas de Europa del Este. A pedido del Pentágono, el Post no dio a conocer el nombre de los países. La revelación provocó que el Comisario de Justicia de la Unión Europea amenazara con sancionar a cualquier Estado miembro que haya albergado una prisión secreta. Según el Guardian, los aviones de la CIA visitaron tanto Alemania como Gran Bretala más de 80 veces. El miércoles, el Departamento de Estado anunció que respondería a la brevedad al pedido europeo de una explicación acerca de las supuestas prisiones.
Las Naciones de la Unión Europea podrían perder el derecho al voto por albergar prisiones secretas de la CIA
La Comisión Europea advirtió a todos los países miembros de la Unión Europea que se les podría suspender su derecho a votar en los organismos de ese bloque si se descubre que han mantenido prisiones secretas de la CIA. Franco Frattini, Comisario de Justicia de la Unión Europea, dijo: "La protección de los derechos básicos y la libertad esta muy arraigado en nuestra cultura, es el fundamento de la Carta Europea de Derechos Básicos". Y agregó: "Por eso continuaremos buscando un balance entre incrementar la seguridad y confirmar la protección y promoción de nuestras libertades". El "Washington Post" informó recientemente que la CIA ha manejado dos prisiones secretas en países de Europa del Este que tuvieron regímenes comunistas. A pedido del Pentágono, el Post no publicó los nombres de los países, pero Human Rights Watch los identificó como Polonia y Rumania.
Candidato a la Corte Suprema Alito argumentó contra derechos de inmigrantes
Documentos del Departamento de Justicia dados a conocer recientemente indican que Samuel Alito, candidato a ocupar un cargo en la Corte Suprema, argumentó en la década del 80 que los inmigrantes que entraran ilegalmente a Estados Unidos y los extranjeros que no vivieran en sus países no tenían los mismos derechos constitucionales que los estadounidenses. Alito hizo estas afirmaciones cuando era asistente del Fiscal General durante el gobierno de Reagan. El analista constitucional conservador Bruce Fein dijo: "Parece estar diciendo que los funcionarios estadounidenses no tienen ninguna restricción sobre el trato a los extranjeros no residentes o ilegales. ¿Se les puede disparar? ¿Pueden ser torturados?"Martín Redish, un profesor de legislación constitucional en la Northwestern University Law School, dijo al "Washington Post" que la postura de Alito podría ser utilizada para justificar la actual política gubernamental en cuyo marco la CIA realiza interrogatorios en prisiones secretas en el extranjero. El "New York Times" informa que estos documentos también indican que Alito apoyó activamente los esfuerzos del gobierno para aumentar los poderes de las fuerzas de seguridad y limitar las restricciones a la acción de los fiscales.
Chávez acusa a Bush de apoyar el boicot de la oposición
En Venezuela, el Presidente Hugo Chávez acusó al gobierno de Bush de respaldar un boicot de la oposición a las elecciones legislativas de este fin de semana en dicho país.Los grupos de la oposición anunciaron que boicotearán la votación, porque alegan que el Consejo Electoral no aseguró que la votación sea secreta. En las pasadas semanas, los analistas predijeron una victoria arrolladora de los seguidores de Chávez. El "Financial Times" indica que el boicot es inusual, ya que el Consejo Electoral del país no utilizará las controvertidas máquinas de votación de las que la oposición se ha quejado.
Corte Suprema rechaza apelación de Sibel Edmonds
La Corte Suprema rechazó una apelación de la ex informante del FBI Sibel Edmonds, que ha intentado demandar al FBI y al Departamento de Justicia por su despido. Edmonds sostiene que fue despedida luego de hablar acerca de posibles fallas de seguridad, mala conducta y trabajo de traducción incompetente en la agencia. Un Juez de Distrito de Estados Unidos desestimó el caso en primera instancia, luego de que el entonces Fiscal General John Ashcroft invocara el "privilegio de secretos de Estado", rara vez utilizado. Ashcroft había advertido que la revelación de más información acerca de las tareas de Edmonds y de otros traductores podía provocar "un grave daño a los intereses de la seguridad nacional de Estados Unidos". Edmonds fue noticia por primera vez cuando sostuvo que el FBI tenía información antes del 11 de septiembre acerca de que se planificaba un ataque con aviones.
Al Jazeera exige respuestas del gobierno de Bush
El director general de la cadena televisiva árabe Al-Jazeera exigió que Washington responda a los informes que dicen que el Presidente Bush quería bombardear las oficinas de la cadena en Doha. La semana pasada, el periódico "Daily Mirror" citó un memorando británico secreto que revelaba que Bush le comunicó a Tony Blair el año pasado su deseo de bombardear la sede del canal. El gobierno de Bush dijo que el informe de "Daily Mirror" era "ridículo". Funcionarios de Al Jazeera ponen en duda ahora si Estados Unidos atacó intencionalmente la cadena cuando bombardeó sus oficinas en Afganistán en 2001 y en Bagdad en abril de 2003. El ataque en Irak mató a Tariq Ayub, corresponsal de Al Jazeera. La viuda de Ayub, Dina, dijo que considera la posibilidad de demandar al gobierno estadounidense por la muerte de su marido. Dina dijo: "Estados Unidos siempre afirmó que fue un accidente. Pero creo que las nuevas revelaciones prueban que esa afirmación era falsa o al menos no era digna de confianza." Mientras tanto, en Gran Bretaña continúa vigente la prohibición para todos los medios de comunicación de revelar los contenidos del memorando secreto. Pero un miembro del Parlamento, Boris Johnson, prometió publicar el memorando y arriesgarse a ir preso si alguien le entrega ese documento.
Informe: El Pentágono expande capacidad de espiar en Estados Unidos
El "Washington Post" informa que el Pentágono expandió su capacidad de espiar a los ciudadanos de Estados Unidos. Según el Post, el gobierno de Bush está considerando permitirle a una agencia poco conocida del Pentágono, llamada Campo de Actividad Contra la Inteligencia, investigar ciertos crímenes a nivel local. El Pentágono también presiona en Capitol Hill por una norma que exima a las actividades de inteligencia de la Ley de Privacidad, y que permitiría al FBI y a otros organismos compartir información sobre los ciudadanos estadounidenses con el Pentágono, la CIA y otras agencias de inteligencia. Kate Martín, del Centro de Estudios de Seguridad Nacional, dijo que esa legislación eliminaría una de las pocas protecciones de la privacidad existentes, contra la creación de expedientes secretos de ciudadanos estadounidenses por parte de las agencias de inteligencia del gobierno". El Senador demócrata Ron Wyden de Oregon dijo: "Estamos habilitando a los militares a espiar a estadounidenses que cumplen con la ley en Estados Unidos. Esto es un gran salto sin siquiera una audiencia (del Congreso)".
Maria: In English, here are twelve headlines fom Democracy Now! Remember that the headlines are provided daily in English and Spanish and please pass on to your friends. Peace.
Ex-Iraqi PM: Torture As Bad Now As Under Hussein
Iraq's former prime minister Iyad Allawi is claming that the human rights abuses occurring today in Iraq are as bad as they were under Saddam Hussein. In an interview with the Observer newspaper of London Allawai said "We are hearing about secret police, secret bunkers where people are being interrogated. A lot of Iraqis are being tortured or killed in the course of interrogations."
Rumsfeld, Pace Differ on US Response to Iraqi Abuse
At the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld engaged in an unusual exchange with Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Peter Pace at a press conference Tuesday. Asked whether US troops are responsible for preventing human rights abuses by Iraqi forces, General Pace answered: "It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene to stop it." As Pace elaborated, Rumsfeld interrupted him, saying: "But I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it's to report it." But General Pace replied: "If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it", he said.
US Paying Iraqi Media to Publish US-Authored Reports
The Los Angeles Times is reporting the US military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish American-written articles favorable to the U.S. presence in Iraq. The Times reports articles written by U.S. military "information operations" are translated into Arabic and then placed in Iraqi newspapers with the help of Washington-based defense contractor the Lincoln Group. The articles are presented to an Iraqi audience as unbiased news accounts written by independent journalists. The Lincoln Group’s contract is worth up to $100 million dollars over five years. A senior Pentagon official commented : "Here we are trying to create the principles of democracy in Iraq. Every speech we give in that country is about democracy. And we're breaking all the first principles of democracy when we're doing it."
Senate Committee to Hold Session on Newspaper Propaganda
Meanwhile, top Pentagon officials will appear before a closed-door session of the Senate Armed Services Committee today to answer reports the US is paying Iraqi newspapers to publish military propaganda. Senior Pentagon officials say they have yet to receive an explanation. After the story broke earlier this week, General George Casey argued the program should not be publicly discussed because it was classified. Asked about the issue Thursday, military spokesperson Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch appeared to defend the program without confirming its specifics. Major General Lynch said: "We don't lie. We don't need to lie. We do empower our operational commanders with the ability to inform the Iraqi public, but everything we do is based on fact, not based on fiction." State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters: "The State Department is working with journalists in Iraq to help them develop the skills that you all have in terms of reporting and journalistic ethics and practices… This is a country where free media didn't exist for decades, so they are learning. We think it's important to assist them in that."
Pelosi Backs Murtha Call for Withdrawal
Calls for a troop withdrawal have been bolstered by the stance taken by hawkish Democratic Congressman John Murtha. On Wednesday, Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi became the first congressional leader to endorse Congressman Murtha's position. Pelosi and other top Democrats had initially distanced themselves from Murtha's call to end the deployment in Iraq to and maintain rapid reaction force in the region. But Pelosi told the Washington Post: "clearly a majority of the [Democratic] caucus supports Mr. Murtha" in his call to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.
Report: Over 300 CIA Flights at European Airports
In a new development in the growing uproar over alleged CIA secret prisons in Europe, the Guardian of London says it has obtained flight logs showing more than 300 CIA flights have landed at European airports. The Washington Post recently reported the CIA has been operating secret prisons in former Soviet states in Eastern Europe. At the request of the Pentagon, the Post did not name the countries. The disclosure prompted the European Union Justice Commissioner to threaten sanctions against any member state found to have hosted a secret CIA prison. According to the Guardian, CIA planes visited both Germany and Britain over 80 times. On Wednesday, the State Department announced it will respond shortly to European requests for an explanation on the alleged prisons.
EU Nations Could Lose Voting Rights For Housing Secret CIA Prisons
The European Commission has warned all member states of the European Union that they could have their voting rights suspended if they are found to have operated secret CIA prisons. "The protection of basic rights and liberty is deeply rooted in our culture, is the basis of the European charter for fundamental rights," said Franco Frattini, European Union Justice Commissioner. "That's why we will continue following a balanced approach between increasing security and confirming protection and promotion of our liberties" The Washington Post recently reported the CIA has been operating two secret prisons in former Soviet states in Eastern Europe. At the request of the Pentagon, the "Post" did not name the countries but Human Rights Watch has idenitified them as Poland and Romania.
Supreme Court Nominee Alito Argued Against Immigrant Rights
Newly released Justice Department documents show that Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito argued in the 1980s that immigrants who enter the United States illegally and foreigners living outside their countries are not entitled to the constitutional rights afforded to Americans. Alito made the argument at a time when he was deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration. Conservative constitutional analyst Bruce Fein said QUOTE "He seems to be saying that there is no constitutional constraints placed on U.S. officials in their treatment of nonresident aliens or illegal aliens. Could you shoot them? Could you torture them?" Martin Redish, a constitutional law professor at Northwestern University Law School, told the Washington Post that Alito's view could be used to justify the current administration policy under which the CIA conducts interrogations in secret prisons overseas. The New York Times reports the newly released documents also show Alito played an active role in advancing the administration's efforts to expand law enforcement powers and limit restrictions on prosecutors.
Chavez Accuses Bush of Backing Opposition Boycott
In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez has accused the Bush administration of backing an opposition boycott of this weekend’s legislative elections in the country. Chavez said: "I denounce him before the world from here, from the Miraflores palace. The one responsible for this new conspiracy is the head of the empire: Mr. Danger. To give him his proper name, the president of the United States of America, Mr. George W. Bush. That's the new head of this conspiracy." Opposition groups have announced a boycott of the vote, alleging that the electoral council has not ensured voter secrecy. In recent weeks, analysts had been predicting a sweeping victory for Chavez supporters. The Financial Times notes the boycott is unusual since the country’s electoral council has withdrawn the use of controversial voting machines the opposition complained about.
Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From Sibel Edmonds
The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds who has been trying to sue the FBI and Justice Department over her dismissal. Edmonds says she was fired after speaking out about possible security breaches, misconduct and incompetent translation work. A U.S. District Judge originally dismissed the case after then-Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the rarely used "state secrets privilege." Ashcroft had warned that further disclosure of the duties of Edmonds and other translators could cause QUOTE "serious damage to the national security interests of the United States." Edmonds first made headlines when she claimed the FBI had information that an attack using airplanes was being planned before Sept. 11.
Al Jazeera Demands Answers from Bush Administration
The director-general of the Arabic tv network Al-Jazeera has demanded Washington respond to reports that President Bush wanted to bomb the network's headquarters in Doha. Last week the Daily Mirror cited a secret British memo revealing that Bush told Tony Blair last year of his desire to bomb the news outlet. The Bush administration has described the Daily Mirror's report as "outlandish." Officials at Al Jazeera are now questioning whether the U.S. might have been targeting the network when it bombed its bureaus in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Baghdad in April 2003. The attack in Iraq killed Al Jazeera's correspondent Tariq Ayub. Ayub's widow, Dina, said she is now considering suing the U.S. government for her husband's death. She said "America always claimed it was an accident. But I believe the new revelations prove that claim was false or at least not trustworthy." Meanwhile in Britain a ban remains in place on all media outlets from disclosing the contents of the secret memo. But a member of parliament - Boris Johnson - has vowed to publish the memo and risk jail time if anyone leaks him the document.
Report: Pentagon Expands Ability to Spy At Home
The Washington Post is reporting the Pentagon has expanded its ability to spy on citizens within the United States. According to the Post, the Bush administration is considering allowing a little known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity to investigate certain crimes domestically . The Pentagon is also pushing legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exemption to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies. Kate Martin of the Center for National Security Studies, said such an exemption would remove one of the few existing privacy protections against the creation of secret dossiers on Americans by government intelligence agencies." Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said "We are deputizing the military to spy on law-abiding Americans in America. This is a huge leap without even a [congressional] hearing."
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It was a busy week last week. I tried to get some of my Christmas shopping done but I still got stuff to do. And I may be late posting one night this week because I really need to get to one store in particular. Can't say what I'm trying to get because it's for my youngest sister who says she never reads this but anytime I mention her here, she somehow "knows."
I've got a lot of brothers and sisters so what we do is all go in together for the gifts for our folks and since my kid sister's still in high school we get her a gift gfit. But for the rest of us, we get something like a bag of M&Ms if that's your favorite candy or something like that.
I'm the second to the youngest and until I started college I always got a gift gift from my brothers and sisters. I feel bad about that because we're such a big family that for my oldest brother and sister (that brother is the oldest in the family and that sister is the second oldest of us kids), they were probably freaking out every Christmas trying to buy for all of us.
I actually liked last Christmas best gift wise. Instead of gifts gifts, I got all my favorite candies and I just sat in front of the tube watching sports and chowing down for days. :D
But another week has passed. Hope you checked out The Third Estate Sunday Review. And if you missed some of the big stories last week, we've got Maria's rundown of the headlines from Democracy Now! in Spanish and then in English. So check your knowledge and figure out what you caught and what you remembered.
"Ex primer ministro iraquí: La tortura es igual de mala ahora que bajo el régimen de Hussein"
Maria: Hola. De parte de "Democracy Now!" doce cosas que vale hacer notar este fin de semana. Paz.
Ex primer ministro iraquí: La tortura es igual de mala ahora que bajo el régimen de Hussein
El ex primer ministro de Irak, Iyad Allawi, afirma que las violaciones a los derechos humanos que ocurren hoy en Irak son igual de malas que las que ocurrían bajo el régimen de Saddam Hussein. En una entrevista con el periódico "Observer" de Londres, Allawai dijo: "Nos enteramos sobre la policía secreta, sobre búnkers secretos donde se interroga a las personas. Muchos iraquíes son torturados o asesinados durante los interrogatorios".
Rumsfeld y Pace discrepan acerca de la respuesta que debe dar Estados Unidos ante abusos cometidos por fuerzas iraquíes
En el Pentágono, el Secretario de Defensa, Donald Rumsfeld, se vio envuelto en un intercambio inusual con el presidente de la Junta de los Jefes de Personal, General Peter Pace, en una conferencia de prensa el martes. Cuando se le preguntó al General Pace si los soldados estadounidenses tenían la responsabilidad de evitar violaciones a los derechos humanos por parte de las fuerzas iraquíes, él contesto: "Es totalmente la responsabilidad de todos los integrantes del servicio estadounidense, si presencian algún trato inhumano, intervenir para detenerlo". Mientras Pace respondía, Rumsfeld lo interrumpió y dijo: "Pero no creo que quiera decir que tienen la obligación de detenerlo ellos mismos; deben informarlo". Pero el General Pace replicó: "Si están presentes cuando el trato inhumano se lleva a cabo, tienen la obligación de intentar detenerlo".
Estados Unidos paga a medios iraquíes para publicar informes que ellos mismos escriben
El "Los Ángeles Times" informa que las Fuerzas Armadas estadounidenses están pagando secretamente a los periódicos iraquíes para que publiquen artículos escritos por estadounidenses y que son favorables a la presencia de Estados Unidos en Irak. El "Times" informa que los artículos escritos en el marco de "operaciones de información" de las Fuerzas Armadas estadounidenses son traducidos al árabe y luego publicados en los periódicos iraquíes con la ayuda de la firma Lincoln Group, contratista de defensa de Washington. Los artículos son presentados ante la población iraquí como informes sin prejuicios, escritos por periodistas independientes. El contrato de Lincoln Group es de más de 100 millones de dólares por más cinco años. Un alto funcionario del Pentágono dijo: "Aquí estamos, tratando de crear los principios de democracia en Irak. Cada discurso que damos en ese país es sobre democracia. Y al hacerlo, estamos violando todos los principios básicos de la democracia".
Comité del Senado mantendrá sesión a puertas cerradas sobre propaganda militar en periódicos
Mientras tanto, funcionarios de alto rango del Pentágono comparecerán hoy a una sesión a puertas cerradas del Comité de los Servicios Armados del Senado, para responder a informes de que Estados Unidos paga a periódicos iraquíes por publicar propaganda militar. Altos funcionarios del Pentágono dicen que aún no han recibido una explicación. Luego de que se conoció la historia esta semana, el General George Casey argumentó que el programa no debía ser discutido públicamente porque era reservado. Cuando se le preguntó sobre el asunto al portavoz militar General Rick Lynch, el jueves, defendió el programa sin confirmar sus detalles. El General Lynch dijo: "Nosotros no mentimos. No necesitamos mentir. Damos poder a nuestros comandantes operativos para que informen al público iraquí, pero todo lo que hacemos está basado en hechos, no en ficción".El portavoz del Departamento de Estado, Sean McCormack, dijo a reporteros: "El Departamento de Estado trabaja con periodistas en Irak para ayudarlos a desarrollar las capacidades que todos ustedes tienen en lo que refiere a la ética y prácticas periodísticas... Este es un país (Irak) donde los medios de comunicación libres no existieron por décadas, por lo tanto, están aprendiendo. Consideramos que es importante asistirlos en eso".
Pelosi: Los demócratas apoyan a Murtha
También el miércoles, la líder de la minoría demócrata, Nancy Pelosi, se convirtió en la primer líder del Congreso en apoyar la postura del congresista Murtha. Pelosi y otros demócratas de alto rango inicialmente habían tomado distancia de Murtha. Pero Pelosi dijo al Washington Post: "Claramente, la mayoría de los representantes (demócratas) apoyan a Murtha” en su pedido de retirar a los soldados estadounidenses de Irak".
Informe: Más de 300 vuelos de la CIA a aeropuertos europeos
En un nuevo episodio del creciente revuelo por las presuntas prisiones secretas de la CIA en Europa, el diario "Guardian" de Londres dice que obtuvo registros de vuelos que indican que más de 300 vuelos de la CIA aterrizaron en aeropuertos europeos. El "Washington Post" recientemente informó que la CIA opera prisiones secretas en Estados ex socialistas de Europa del Este. A pedido del Pentágono, el Post no dio a conocer el nombre de los países. La revelación provocó que el Comisario de Justicia de la Unión Europea amenazara con sancionar a cualquier Estado miembro que haya albergado una prisión secreta. Según el Guardian, los aviones de la CIA visitaron tanto Alemania como Gran Bretala más de 80 veces. El miércoles, el Departamento de Estado anunció que respondería a la brevedad al pedido europeo de una explicación acerca de las supuestas prisiones.
Las Naciones de la Unión Europea podrían perder el derecho al voto por albergar prisiones secretas de la CIA
La Comisión Europea advirtió a todos los países miembros de la Unión Europea que se les podría suspender su derecho a votar en los organismos de ese bloque si se descubre que han mantenido prisiones secretas de la CIA. Franco Frattini, Comisario de Justicia de la Unión Europea, dijo: "La protección de los derechos básicos y la libertad esta muy arraigado en nuestra cultura, es el fundamento de la Carta Europea de Derechos Básicos". Y agregó: "Por eso continuaremos buscando un balance entre incrementar la seguridad y confirmar la protección y promoción de nuestras libertades". El "Washington Post" informó recientemente que la CIA ha manejado dos prisiones secretas en países de Europa del Este que tuvieron regímenes comunistas. A pedido del Pentágono, el Post no publicó los nombres de los países, pero Human Rights Watch los identificó como Polonia y Rumania.
Candidato a la Corte Suprema Alito argumentó contra derechos de inmigrantes
Documentos del Departamento de Justicia dados a conocer recientemente indican que Samuel Alito, candidato a ocupar un cargo en la Corte Suprema, argumentó en la década del 80 que los inmigrantes que entraran ilegalmente a Estados Unidos y los extranjeros que no vivieran en sus países no tenían los mismos derechos constitucionales que los estadounidenses. Alito hizo estas afirmaciones cuando era asistente del Fiscal General durante el gobierno de Reagan. El analista constitucional conservador Bruce Fein dijo: "Parece estar diciendo que los funcionarios estadounidenses no tienen ninguna restricción sobre el trato a los extranjeros no residentes o ilegales. ¿Se les puede disparar? ¿Pueden ser torturados?"Martín Redish, un profesor de legislación constitucional en la Northwestern University Law School, dijo al "Washington Post" que la postura de Alito podría ser utilizada para justificar la actual política gubernamental en cuyo marco la CIA realiza interrogatorios en prisiones secretas en el extranjero. El "New York Times" informa que estos documentos también indican que Alito apoyó activamente los esfuerzos del gobierno para aumentar los poderes de las fuerzas de seguridad y limitar las restricciones a la acción de los fiscales.
Chávez acusa a Bush de apoyar el boicot de la oposición
En Venezuela, el Presidente Hugo Chávez acusó al gobierno de Bush de respaldar un boicot de la oposición a las elecciones legislativas de este fin de semana en dicho país.Los grupos de la oposición anunciaron que boicotearán la votación, porque alegan que el Consejo Electoral no aseguró que la votación sea secreta. En las pasadas semanas, los analistas predijeron una victoria arrolladora de los seguidores de Chávez. El "Financial Times" indica que el boicot es inusual, ya que el Consejo Electoral del país no utilizará las controvertidas máquinas de votación de las que la oposición se ha quejado.
Corte Suprema rechaza apelación de Sibel Edmonds
La Corte Suprema rechazó una apelación de la ex informante del FBI Sibel Edmonds, que ha intentado demandar al FBI y al Departamento de Justicia por su despido. Edmonds sostiene que fue despedida luego de hablar acerca de posibles fallas de seguridad, mala conducta y trabajo de traducción incompetente en la agencia. Un Juez de Distrito de Estados Unidos desestimó el caso en primera instancia, luego de que el entonces Fiscal General John Ashcroft invocara el "privilegio de secretos de Estado", rara vez utilizado. Ashcroft había advertido que la revelación de más información acerca de las tareas de Edmonds y de otros traductores podía provocar "un grave daño a los intereses de la seguridad nacional de Estados Unidos". Edmonds fue noticia por primera vez cuando sostuvo que el FBI tenía información antes del 11 de septiembre acerca de que se planificaba un ataque con aviones.
Al Jazeera exige respuestas del gobierno de Bush
El director general de la cadena televisiva árabe Al-Jazeera exigió que Washington responda a los informes que dicen que el Presidente Bush quería bombardear las oficinas de la cadena en Doha. La semana pasada, el periódico "Daily Mirror" citó un memorando británico secreto que revelaba que Bush le comunicó a Tony Blair el año pasado su deseo de bombardear la sede del canal. El gobierno de Bush dijo que el informe de "Daily Mirror" era "ridículo". Funcionarios de Al Jazeera ponen en duda ahora si Estados Unidos atacó intencionalmente la cadena cuando bombardeó sus oficinas en Afganistán en 2001 y en Bagdad en abril de 2003. El ataque en Irak mató a Tariq Ayub, corresponsal de Al Jazeera. La viuda de Ayub, Dina, dijo que considera la posibilidad de demandar al gobierno estadounidense por la muerte de su marido. Dina dijo: "Estados Unidos siempre afirmó que fue un accidente. Pero creo que las nuevas revelaciones prueban que esa afirmación era falsa o al menos no era digna de confianza." Mientras tanto, en Gran Bretaña continúa vigente la prohibición para todos los medios de comunicación de revelar los contenidos del memorando secreto. Pero un miembro del Parlamento, Boris Johnson, prometió publicar el memorando y arriesgarse a ir preso si alguien le entrega ese documento.
Informe: El Pentágono expande capacidad de espiar en Estados Unidos
El "Washington Post" informa que el Pentágono expandió su capacidad de espiar a los ciudadanos de Estados Unidos. Según el Post, el gobierno de Bush está considerando permitirle a una agencia poco conocida del Pentágono, llamada Campo de Actividad Contra la Inteligencia, investigar ciertos crímenes a nivel local. El Pentágono también presiona en Capitol Hill por una norma que exima a las actividades de inteligencia de la Ley de Privacidad, y que permitiría al FBI y a otros organismos compartir información sobre los ciudadanos estadounidenses con el Pentágono, la CIA y otras agencias de inteligencia. Kate Martín, del Centro de Estudios de Seguridad Nacional, dijo que esa legislación eliminaría una de las pocas protecciones de la privacidad existentes, contra la creación de expedientes secretos de ciudadanos estadounidenses por parte de las agencias de inteligencia del gobierno". El Senador demócrata Ron Wyden de Oregon dijo: "Estamos habilitando a los militares a espiar a estadounidenses que cumplen con la ley en Estados Unidos. Esto es un gran salto sin siquiera una audiencia (del Congreso)".
Maria: In English, here are twelve headlines fom Democracy Now! Remember that the headlines are provided daily in English and Spanish and please pass on to your friends. Peace.
Ex-Iraqi PM: Torture As Bad Now As Under Hussein
Iraq's former prime minister Iyad Allawi is claming that the human rights abuses occurring today in Iraq are as bad as they were under Saddam Hussein. In an interview with the Observer newspaper of London Allawai said "We are hearing about secret police, secret bunkers where people are being interrogated. A lot of Iraqis are being tortured or killed in the course of interrogations."
Rumsfeld, Pace Differ on US Response to Iraqi Abuse
At the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld engaged in an unusual exchange with Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman General Peter Pace at a press conference Tuesday. Asked whether US troops are responsible for preventing human rights abuses by Iraqi forces, General Pace answered: "It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene to stop it." As Pace elaborated, Rumsfeld interrupted him, saying: "But I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it's to report it." But General Pace replied: "If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it", he said.
US Paying Iraqi Media to Publish US-Authored Reports
The Los Angeles Times is reporting the US military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish American-written articles favorable to the U.S. presence in Iraq. The Times reports articles written by U.S. military "information operations" are translated into Arabic and then placed in Iraqi newspapers with the help of Washington-based defense contractor the Lincoln Group. The articles are presented to an Iraqi audience as unbiased news accounts written by independent journalists. The Lincoln Group’s contract is worth up to $100 million dollars over five years. A senior Pentagon official commented : "Here we are trying to create the principles of democracy in Iraq. Every speech we give in that country is about democracy. And we're breaking all the first principles of democracy when we're doing it."
Senate Committee to Hold Session on Newspaper Propaganda
Meanwhile, top Pentagon officials will appear before a closed-door session of the Senate Armed Services Committee today to answer reports the US is paying Iraqi newspapers to publish military propaganda. Senior Pentagon officials say they have yet to receive an explanation. After the story broke earlier this week, General George Casey argued the program should not be publicly discussed because it was classified. Asked about the issue Thursday, military spokesperson Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch appeared to defend the program without confirming its specifics. Major General Lynch said: "We don't lie. We don't need to lie. We do empower our operational commanders with the ability to inform the Iraqi public, but everything we do is based on fact, not based on fiction." State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters: "The State Department is working with journalists in Iraq to help them develop the skills that you all have in terms of reporting and journalistic ethics and practices… This is a country where free media didn't exist for decades, so they are learning. We think it's important to assist them in that."
Pelosi Backs Murtha Call for Withdrawal
Calls for a troop withdrawal have been bolstered by the stance taken by hawkish Democratic Congressman John Murtha. On Wednesday, Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi became the first congressional leader to endorse Congressman Murtha's position. Pelosi and other top Democrats had initially distanced themselves from Murtha's call to end the deployment in Iraq to and maintain rapid reaction force in the region. But Pelosi told the Washington Post: "clearly a majority of the [Democratic] caucus supports Mr. Murtha" in his call to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.
Report: Over 300 CIA Flights at European Airports
In a new development in the growing uproar over alleged CIA secret prisons in Europe, the Guardian of London says it has obtained flight logs showing more than 300 CIA flights have landed at European airports. The Washington Post recently reported the CIA has been operating secret prisons in former Soviet states in Eastern Europe. At the request of the Pentagon, the Post did not name the countries. The disclosure prompted the European Union Justice Commissioner to threaten sanctions against any member state found to have hosted a secret CIA prison. According to the Guardian, CIA planes visited both Germany and Britain over 80 times. On Wednesday, the State Department announced it will respond shortly to European requests for an explanation on the alleged prisons.
EU Nations Could Lose Voting Rights For Housing Secret CIA Prisons
The European Commission has warned all member states of the European Union that they could have their voting rights suspended if they are found to have operated secret CIA prisons. "The protection of basic rights and liberty is deeply rooted in our culture, is the basis of the European charter for fundamental rights," said Franco Frattini, European Union Justice Commissioner. "That's why we will continue following a balanced approach between increasing security and confirming protection and promotion of our liberties" The Washington Post recently reported the CIA has been operating two secret prisons in former Soviet states in Eastern Europe. At the request of the Pentagon, the "Post" did not name the countries but Human Rights Watch has idenitified them as Poland and Romania.
Supreme Court Nominee Alito Argued Against Immigrant Rights
Newly released Justice Department documents show that Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito argued in the 1980s that immigrants who enter the United States illegally and foreigners living outside their countries are not entitled to the constitutional rights afforded to Americans. Alito made the argument at a time when he was deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration. Conservative constitutional analyst Bruce Fein said QUOTE "He seems to be saying that there is no constitutional constraints placed on U.S. officials in their treatment of nonresident aliens or illegal aliens. Could you shoot them? Could you torture them?" Martin Redish, a constitutional law professor at Northwestern University Law School, told the Washington Post that Alito's view could be used to justify the current administration policy under which the CIA conducts interrogations in secret prisons overseas. The New York Times reports the newly released documents also show Alito played an active role in advancing the administration's efforts to expand law enforcement powers and limit restrictions on prosecutors.
Chavez Accuses Bush of Backing Opposition Boycott
In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez has accused the Bush administration of backing an opposition boycott of this weekend’s legislative elections in the country. Chavez said: "I denounce him before the world from here, from the Miraflores palace. The one responsible for this new conspiracy is the head of the empire: Mr. Danger. To give him his proper name, the president of the United States of America, Mr. George W. Bush. That's the new head of this conspiracy." Opposition groups have announced a boycott of the vote, alleging that the electoral council has not ensured voter secrecy. In recent weeks, analysts had been predicting a sweeping victory for Chavez supporters. The Financial Times notes the boycott is unusual since the country’s electoral council has withdrawn the use of controversial voting machines the opposition complained about.
Supreme Court Rejects Appeal From Sibel Edmonds
The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds who has been trying to sue the FBI and Justice Department over her dismissal. Edmonds says she was fired after speaking out about possible security breaches, misconduct and incompetent translation work. A U.S. District Judge originally dismissed the case after then-Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the rarely used "state secrets privilege." Ashcroft had warned that further disclosure of the duties of Edmonds and other translators could cause QUOTE "serious damage to the national security interests of the United States." Edmonds first made headlines when she claimed the FBI had information that an attack using airplanes was being planned before Sept. 11.
Al Jazeera Demands Answers from Bush Administration
The director-general of the Arabic tv network Al-Jazeera has demanded Washington respond to reports that President Bush wanted to bomb the network's headquarters in Doha. Last week the Daily Mirror cited a secret British memo revealing that Bush told Tony Blair last year of his desire to bomb the news outlet. The Bush administration has described the Daily Mirror's report as "outlandish." Officials at Al Jazeera are now questioning whether the U.S. might have been targeting the network when it bombed its bureaus in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Baghdad in April 2003. The attack in Iraq killed Al Jazeera's correspondent Tariq Ayub. Ayub's widow, Dina, said she is now considering suing the U.S. government for her husband's death. She said "America always claimed it was an accident. But I believe the new revelations prove that claim was false or at least not trustworthy." Meanwhile in Britain a ban remains in place on all media outlets from disclosing the contents of the secret memo. But a member of parliament - Boris Johnson - has vowed to publish the memo and risk jail time if anyone leaks him the document.
Report: Pentagon Expands Ability to Spy At Home
The Washington Post is reporting the Pentagon has expanded its ability to spy on citizens within the United States. According to the Post, the Bush administration is considering allowing a little known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity to investigate certain crimes domestically . The Pentagon is also pushing legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exemption to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies. Kate Martin of the Center for National Security Studies, said such an exemption would remove one of the few existing privacy protections against the creation of secret dossiers on Americans by government intelligence agencies." Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said "We are deputizing the military to spy on law-abiding Americans in America. This is a huge leap without even a [congressional] hearing."
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Motto: The Common Ills community is important and the Common Ills community is important to me. So I'll do my part for the Common Ills community.
Friday, December 02, 2005
Redistricting, Recruiting, Danny Schechter
Good evening, I hope everyone's psyched about the weekend. We'll kick things off with Democracy Now!
Justice Dept.: Delay Redistricting Plan Violated Voting Act
A memo obtained by the Washington Post shows lawyers at the Justice Department concluded a controversial Texas redistricting plan spearheaded by indicted Congressmember Tom Delay violated the Voting Rights Act. The memo argued the redistricting plan illegally diluted the voting influence of minorities in several Texas congressional districts. The memo said: "The State of Texas has not met its burden in showing that the proposed congressional redistricting plan does not have a discriminatory effect." Texas lawmakers approved the plan anyway, the memo says, because it stood to increase the number of elected federal Texas Republicans. Following the plan's approval in 2003, Republicans gained five seats in the following year's congressional elections. The redistricting plan is currently being challenged before the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Congressmember Delay is facing state charges of money laundering and conspiracy in connection with state elections.
We picked this one because The Common Ills community has a lot of members in Texas. They just break every rule in the book, don't they. It's like "Target: the 9th Circuit (The Republican war on the judiciary continues)" where the Republicans snuck into the budget bill the provision to break up the 9th Circuit. They have no shame and they cheat.
National Guard Offering $1,000 Recruiting "Finders Fee"
Faced with dwindling recruiting numbers, the Army National Guard is offering a finder’s fee to soldiers who can enlist new recruits. This according to a report in USA Today. The Guard Recruiter Assistant Program, launched this week in five states, offers National Guard members rewards of $1,000 dollars for enlisting a recruit and an additional $1,000 dollars if the recruit shows up for basic training. The National Guard says recruiting has fallen 20% short of its goal this year.
Now this is how bad things are, they're asking the non-recruiters to recruit. They tried to act like they were doing good. They lowered the targets to keep from embarrassing themselves, but no one wants to sign up. So now they're asking people who did sign up to help them out. The National Guard is supposed to be a weekend a month but you've got Guards serving in Iraq for months and months. That's not what they signed up for and that's taxed them, their families and the Guard itself. The costs of Bully Boy's war are big and one of them is that who wants to serve with a mademan in the White House?
Now I need to put up something here. Elaine asked me if I was checking my bulk mail folder and I haven't been. She has stuff in her's that she just looked at today. Me too. Let me start with this Nemanja Divjak wrote awhile about a new blog: www.millionpostsblog.com. I'll go ahead and post a link because I feel bad that Nemanja might feel ignored since it went to the bulk folder.
I also had three e-mails noting things that I'd already seen at The Common Ills. I think this is the one of the three that's still timely, Danny Schechter's "Debating Iraq: A Murtha Moment and the Slide to An Exit:"
The much-maligned Mr. Marx said history often begins as tragedy and repeats itself as farce. That was never more true than last Friday night as we watched the great Iraq war "debate." Those of us with the stomach to do so saw the consequences of years of increasingly polarized partisanship in our Congress. It was as manipulated and managed an episode of theater that I have ever seen. It was more like a fraternity food fight than an honest discourse on all sides.
Even the Washington Post, the local organ of media power, was disgusted, noting: "Aggressive challenges to the Bush administration's military and political strategy -- even calls for an immediate withdrawal of troops, such as that made by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) on Thursday -- must be part of that democratic discussion. Yet what we've mainly seen during the past two weeks is a shameful exercise in demagoguery and name-calling."
That's because no one is really saying what they believe. The Democrats want out but are afraid to say so and the self-styled patriots see the end coming but need someone to blame beside themselves. The drama on the hill represented a triumph of message point politics with thoroughly robotic and irrelevant cliché-ridden speeches on the Republican side with Congress member after Congress member playing at patriotism by finger pointing.
It was matched I am afraid, by equally vitriolic opportunism by leading Democrats who had blindly supported the war and now avoided talking about the truth of what their hawkish colleague Mr. Murtha was talking about. Instead they defended his character and military record, but rarely backed his courageous call for withdrawal.
Elaine had the same three items e-mailed to her and she may note a different one (or none at all). But she will be noting the same two items from Democracy Now! and providing her commentary so be sure to check out her site Like Maria Said Paz.
Now I want to say thank you to everyone who dropped an e-mail about yesterday's race comments that Betty and me did together. I'm going to share the positive feedback with her tomorrow when we're all working on the latest The Third Estate Sunday Review edition. If you read Elaine's post last Saturday, you know Betty's been getting some really mean e-mails full of threats and racist remarks. Jim said it's like with Ava & C.I.'s TV reviews. That started out with all of them plus C.I. doing the TV reviews. But it quickly became just Ava & C.I. and when they started getting credit for them, all the sudden the e-mails on them changed. Instead of agreeing or disagreeing strongly (including "You're so stupid!"), they suddenly started containing threats as well. I don't get that kind of e-mail but Rebecca's noted the kind of e-mails she and other women get and I guess when some "tough guy" knows it's a woman writing, he feels like he can make threats. Makes him feel like a "tough guy" or something.
Cedric gets that nonsense sometimes too, racist e-mails. I read his "Race" today and was really impressed with the way he approaced the topic so check that out. It's a serious, hard hitting look.
After that, since it's the weekend, you may need a good laugh so check out Betty's "Hell is your house-bound husband on house arrest with you serving the sentence:"
"You can't bench me!" Thomas Friedman bellowed. But obviously Gail Collins can.What lit the fire under Ms. Nonsense & No Sensibility?
Davy Brooks came into her office ("In his shiny ass pants, Betinna! In his shiny ass pants!") and had a vacation request of his own that he repeatedly dropped on the floor necessitating that he repeatedly bend over in front of her. ("It was as though I had died and gone to Mansfield Park, Betinna! Mansfield Park!") With no lines cupping his butt and no lines near his upper thigh, Gail was convinced he must be wearing his sock. ("In another life, Betinna, I'd like to come back as that sock!")
Gail says she played it cool so I'll assume that besides sweat dripping from her forehead and her hands shaking, she managed to pull it together. She signed the request, granting his time off. Davy stood by her desk grinning. Then he asked her if she'd ever seen Disclosure.
Poor Gail, I had to explain that film to her. If it's not a book at least a hundred years old or something airing on Pax, she's lost.
Her idea of a pop culture ref is, "Betinna, what's wrong! You look like Beth on her death bed!"I keep trying to explain to her that Jo and Marmie hardly trip off the tongues of kids today but she swears Kayne West's "Gold Digger" says not "When I'm in need" but "When I'm a reading Little Women." I've tried playing the song for her repeatedly but some people hear only what they want to. (Which does explain her editorials.)
And it's Friday so we need a lot of good laughs to get this weekend started. When you need to laugh, read Ava & C.I.'s TV reviews. Here's something from their latest one and it's on supposed country music star Kenny Chesney:
Somewhere in the Sun no doubt pleased arm pit fetishists throughout the land. If Chesney flashing his pits does it for you, ABC provided you with enough mulitple orgasms to last a lifetime.
Other than on the arm of Renee Zellweger, this was our first time seeing Chesney. And we quickly realized that something more was going on than Chesney's desire to demonstrate, repeatedly, that, yes, he had hit puberty and sprouted body hair.
What if, we wondered, Liza Minelli woke up one morning with two left feet? She would still have the song in her. She would still need to express herself through movement.
If that day should ever come, Minelli will owe a huge debt to Kenny Chesney who is bravely pioneering The Dance of the Arms while others without dancing feet simply accept their lot in life. "Jazz hands"? That's so last millenium. This is arm choreography at it's most energetic. Chezney with a Z!
Little Miss Show Biz strode around the stage. Sometimes he did the wave all by himself. Sometimes he pointed at the audience in a sudden burst of arm movement! Sometimes he did an extended pointing session, sweeping the arm back and forth. Sometimes he threw both arms suddenly into the air in an All . . . That . . . Jazz kind of manuever. The arms need to be bare. They are his legs.
Kenny sleeveless is like a dancer in short-shorts.
Watching him blowing kisses and move around gesturing wildly, our question wasn't, "Why did Renee leave him?"; our question was, "Did she ever see him onstage before she married him?"
She must have felt like Marjorie Main standing next to Judy about to wow 'em with "Get Happy." Chezney's very dramatic. Some might say overly dramatic. We'll just say we've never seen anything in country music quite like it. (Rip Taylor's never done a country album, right?)When we got over our shock that so much could be done with arms, all of it embarrassing, and over our giggles at his pop eyes, dramatic head turns and those facial expressions made for Match Game PM, we were left with . . . the music.
Kenny smiles a lot in the sad songs. He winks a lot while singing the lines, he blows kisses. We're not really sure if it's that he doesn't understand the lyrics he's singing or if he's just so bound and determined to sparkle.
Motto: The Common Ills community is important and the Common Ills community is important to me. So I'll do my part for the Common Ills community.
democracy now
the common ills
the third estate sunday review
like maria said paz
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
thomas friedman is a great man
cedrics big mix
danny schechter
kenny chesney
thomas friedman
the new york times
david brooks
gail collins
national guard
recruiting
Justice Dept.: Delay Redistricting Plan Violated Voting Act
A memo obtained by the Washington Post shows lawyers at the Justice Department concluded a controversial Texas redistricting plan spearheaded by indicted Congressmember Tom Delay violated the Voting Rights Act. The memo argued the redistricting plan illegally diluted the voting influence of minorities in several Texas congressional districts. The memo said: "The State of Texas has not met its burden in showing that the proposed congressional redistricting plan does not have a discriminatory effect." Texas lawmakers approved the plan anyway, the memo says, because it stood to increase the number of elected federal Texas Republicans. Following the plan's approval in 2003, Republicans gained five seats in the following year's congressional elections. The redistricting plan is currently being challenged before the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Congressmember Delay is facing state charges of money laundering and conspiracy in connection with state elections.
We picked this one because The Common Ills community has a lot of members in Texas. They just break every rule in the book, don't they. It's like "Target: the 9th Circuit (The Republican war on the judiciary continues)" where the Republicans snuck into the budget bill the provision to break up the 9th Circuit. They have no shame and they cheat.
National Guard Offering $1,000 Recruiting "Finders Fee"
Faced with dwindling recruiting numbers, the Army National Guard is offering a finder’s fee to soldiers who can enlist new recruits. This according to a report in USA Today. The Guard Recruiter Assistant Program, launched this week in five states, offers National Guard members rewards of $1,000 dollars for enlisting a recruit and an additional $1,000 dollars if the recruit shows up for basic training. The National Guard says recruiting has fallen 20% short of its goal this year.
Now this is how bad things are, they're asking the non-recruiters to recruit. They tried to act like they were doing good. They lowered the targets to keep from embarrassing themselves, but no one wants to sign up. So now they're asking people who did sign up to help them out. The National Guard is supposed to be a weekend a month but you've got Guards serving in Iraq for months and months. That's not what they signed up for and that's taxed them, their families and the Guard itself. The costs of Bully Boy's war are big and one of them is that who wants to serve with a mademan in the White House?
Now I need to put up something here. Elaine asked me if I was checking my bulk mail folder and I haven't been. She has stuff in her's that she just looked at today. Me too. Let me start with this Nemanja Divjak wrote awhile about a new blog: www.millionpostsblog.com. I'll go ahead and post a link because I feel bad that Nemanja might feel ignored since it went to the bulk folder.
I also had three e-mails noting things that I'd already seen at The Common Ills. I think this is the one of the three that's still timely, Danny Schechter's "Debating Iraq: A Murtha Moment and the Slide to An Exit:"
The much-maligned Mr. Marx said history often begins as tragedy and repeats itself as farce. That was never more true than last Friday night as we watched the great Iraq war "debate." Those of us with the stomach to do so saw the consequences of years of increasingly polarized partisanship in our Congress. It was as manipulated and managed an episode of theater that I have ever seen. It was more like a fraternity food fight than an honest discourse on all sides.
Even the Washington Post, the local organ of media power, was disgusted, noting: "Aggressive challenges to the Bush administration's military and political strategy -- even calls for an immediate withdrawal of troops, such as that made by Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) on Thursday -- must be part of that democratic discussion. Yet what we've mainly seen during the past two weeks is a shameful exercise in demagoguery and name-calling."
That's because no one is really saying what they believe. The Democrats want out but are afraid to say so and the self-styled patriots see the end coming but need someone to blame beside themselves. The drama on the hill represented a triumph of message point politics with thoroughly robotic and irrelevant cliché-ridden speeches on the Republican side with Congress member after Congress member playing at patriotism by finger pointing.
It was matched I am afraid, by equally vitriolic opportunism by leading Democrats who had blindly supported the war and now avoided talking about the truth of what their hawkish colleague Mr. Murtha was talking about. Instead they defended his character and military record, but rarely backed his courageous call for withdrawal.
Elaine had the same three items e-mailed to her and she may note a different one (or none at all). But she will be noting the same two items from Democracy Now! and providing her commentary so be sure to check out her site Like Maria Said Paz.
Now I want to say thank you to everyone who dropped an e-mail about yesterday's race comments that Betty and me did together. I'm going to share the positive feedback with her tomorrow when we're all working on the latest The Third Estate Sunday Review edition. If you read Elaine's post last Saturday, you know Betty's been getting some really mean e-mails full of threats and racist remarks. Jim said it's like with Ava & C.I.'s TV reviews. That started out with all of them plus C.I. doing the TV reviews. But it quickly became just Ava & C.I. and when they started getting credit for them, all the sudden the e-mails on them changed. Instead of agreeing or disagreeing strongly (including "You're so stupid!"), they suddenly started containing threats as well. I don't get that kind of e-mail but Rebecca's noted the kind of e-mails she and other women get and I guess when some "tough guy" knows it's a woman writing, he feels like he can make threats. Makes him feel like a "tough guy" or something.
Cedric gets that nonsense sometimes too, racist e-mails. I read his "Race" today and was really impressed with the way he approaced the topic so check that out. It's a serious, hard hitting look.
After that, since it's the weekend, you may need a good laugh so check out Betty's "Hell is your house-bound husband on house arrest with you serving the sentence:"
"You can't bench me!" Thomas Friedman bellowed. But obviously Gail Collins can.What lit the fire under Ms. Nonsense & No Sensibility?
Davy Brooks came into her office ("In his shiny ass pants, Betinna! In his shiny ass pants!") and had a vacation request of his own that he repeatedly dropped on the floor necessitating that he repeatedly bend over in front of her. ("It was as though I had died and gone to Mansfield Park, Betinna! Mansfield Park!") With no lines cupping his butt and no lines near his upper thigh, Gail was convinced he must be wearing his sock. ("In another life, Betinna, I'd like to come back as that sock!")
Gail says she played it cool so I'll assume that besides sweat dripping from her forehead and her hands shaking, she managed to pull it together. She signed the request, granting his time off. Davy stood by her desk grinning. Then he asked her if she'd ever seen Disclosure.
Poor Gail, I had to explain that film to her. If it's not a book at least a hundred years old or something airing on Pax, she's lost.
Her idea of a pop culture ref is, "Betinna, what's wrong! You look like Beth on her death bed!"I keep trying to explain to her that Jo and Marmie hardly trip off the tongues of kids today but she swears Kayne West's "Gold Digger" says not "When I'm in need" but "When I'm a reading Little Women." I've tried playing the song for her repeatedly but some people hear only what they want to. (Which does explain her editorials.)
And it's Friday so we need a lot of good laughs to get this weekend started. When you need to laugh, read Ava & C.I.'s TV reviews. Here's something from their latest one and it's on supposed country music star Kenny Chesney:
Somewhere in the Sun no doubt pleased arm pit fetishists throughout the land. If Chesney flashing his pits does it for you, ABC provided you with enough mulitple orgasms to last a lifetime.
Other than on the arm of Renee Zellweger, this was our first time seeing Chesney. And we quickly realized that something more was going on than Chesney's desire to demonstrate, repeatedly, that, yes, he had hit puberty and sprouted body hair.
What if, we wondered, Liza Minelli woke up one morning with two left feet? She would still have the song in her. She would still need to express herself through movement.
If that day should ever come, Minelli will owe a huge debt to Kenny Chesney who is bravely pioneering The Dance of the Arms while others without dancing feet simply accept their lot in life. "Jazz hands"? That's so last millenium. This is arm choreography at it's most energetic. Chezney with a Z!
Little Miss Show Biz strode around the stage. Sometimes he did the wave all by himself. Sometimes he pointed at the audience in a sudden burst of arm movement! Sometimes he did an extended pointing session, sweeping the arm back and forth. Sometimes he threw both arms suddenly into the air in an All . . . That . . . Jazz kind of manuever. The arms need to be bare. They are his legs.
Kenny sleeveless is like a dancer in short-shorts.
Watching him blowing kisses and move around gesturing wildly, our question wasn't, "Why did Renee leave him?"; our question was, "Did she ever see him onstage before she married him?"
She must have felt like Marjorie Main standing next to Judy about to wow 'em with "Get Happy." Chezney's very dramatic. Some might say overly dramatic. We'll just say we've never seen anything in country music quite like it. (Rip Taylor's never done a country album, right?)When we got over our shock that so much could be done with arms, all of it embarrassing, and over our giggles at his pop eyes, dramatic head turns and those facial expressions made for Match Game PM, we were left with . . . the music.
Kenny smiles a lot in the sad songs. He winks a lot while singing the lines, he blows kisses. We're not really sure if it's that he doesn't understand the lyrics he's singing or if he's just so bound and determined to sparkle.
Motto: The Common Ills community is important and the Common Ills community is important to me. So I'll do my part for the Common Ills community.
democracy now
the common ills
the third estate sunday review
like maria said paz
sex and politics and screeds and attitude
thomas friedman is a great man
cedrics big mix
danny schechter
kenny chesney
thomas friedman
the new york times
david brooks
gail collins
national guard
recruiting
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Betty and me on race
Good evening, we'll start off with Democracy Now!
Pelosi Backs Murtha Call for Withdrawal
Calls for a troop withdrawal have been bolstered by the stance taken by hawkish Democratic Congressman John Murtha. On Wednesday, Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi became the first congressional leader to endorse Congressman Murtha’s position. Pelosi and other top Democrats had initially distanced themselves from Murtha’s call to end the deployment in Iraq to and maintain rapid reaction force in the region. But Pelosi told the Washington Post: "clearly a majority of the [Democratic] caucus supports Mr. Murtha" in his call to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.
She took her time but she found her voice which is more than anyone can say about General Hillary who's got the war lust so bad you worry about her being caught in the oval office not with an intern but a missile.
Do you think Hillary watched the last Democratic primaries and told herself, "I know what I'm going to do, I'm going to be the next Joe Lieberman!" That's what it seems like.
Dec. 1st Marks 25th Anniversary of World AIDS Day
And today marks the 25th anniversary of World AIDS day. Since 1981, AIDS has claimed the lives of more than an estimated 20 million people. In the United States alone, an estimated 1 million Americans are now living with HIV, with at least 35,000 new infections occurring a year. In the southern African country of Malawi, UNICEF estimates over half a million children have lost at least one parent to AIDS. In India, at least 4.5 million people live with HIV, the most in any country outside of South Africa.
25 years is more years than I am old. It's weird to realize that there was a time without AIDS because in my life, it's always been around.
I know it's somewhere at The Common Ills lots of times and probably at The Third Estate Sunday Review too. I'd provide a link if I could find it, but I agree with C.I. that Bully Boy has really damaged the fight against AIDS. He's injected his personal beliefs into a scientific discussion. Doing that confuses the message.
So if you're stressing a condom one year and the next year you're saying "Just say no to sex" you're confusing the message. Science money should go for science. It should teach how to prevent the transmission of AIDS. Instead it's been diverting into teaching someone's religion. It's not reasonable to expect people to just wait until marriage to avoid AIDS. What happens is you may say, "Okay, I'll wait a bit." Then you tell yourself, "Okay, this is one time and we will get married." Then you break up and pretty soon it's back to saying "This one time . . ."
Can people wait until marriage to have sex? Some can. (But some people will never get married.) (And some people might like to be married but can't because only 5 countries have gay marriage if I'm remembering Democracy Now! right.) Better to teach people what to do if they do have sex and leave the religious teachings to a church.
Instead Bully Boy's putting money into stuff that's not going to work and has no science backing up that "I will wait" pledges work.
C.I. noted this today:
At Corrente Wire, Leah's asking everyone to "Help Make Thursday, December 1st 'Blog Against Racism Day.'"
We're supposed to write about race or racism. Wally already did his part on this today. He focused on Florida's 2000 election and the media not caring about the disenfranchisment of African-American voters. Today's also the 50th anniversary of Rosa Park's brave stand as Betty just pointed out. These are our thoughts on race because at her site, she has to stay in character but she wanted to weigh in.
Race is an issue that's come up a lot in the community. Like when John H. Johnson died and all anyone (media or bloggers) wanted to talk about was Peter Jennings.
Was that racism? Was it just people focusing on the obvious?
Democracy Now! covered John H. Johnson's death. Some people think that Oprah had to be strong armed into covering it and, when she did cover it, my sister says it was like a three minute tribute that mainly showed celebrities on the cover of Ebony. Oprah goes for the obvious. Democracy Now! tries to shine a light where no one else does.
That matters. Grace Lee Boggs is a voice we never knew about until Liang noted her for women's history month. A lot of voices are left out of the mainstream media period but it's even more obvious when it comes to people of color. How often does Tim Russert have a person of color on? If you leave out Condi the number's even lower. There's a tendency to just go for the obvious voices and if we do that we just end up with white voices because that's what we get on the airwaves and in print.
Oprah was supposed to be a big breakthrough and for awhile there were a lot of copycat shows but in the end there's really just Oprah. And the shows she does on whatever Hollywood couple is in love or whatever big budget movie has come out don't really challenge much. Betty's old enough that she can remember Phil Donahue's daytime show and she talks about how she wishes Oprah would try to be a little less inspirational and a little more practical by informing people. But Betty and I both wonder how fair it is to just pin that on Oprah?
She's not the only person in the mainstream with a TV show. And she did get taken to court when she did her mad cow show. Ma says if Oprah's a breakthrough that it's the people of all color who need to build the roads now that Oprah's opened the door. That's probably a better take than Betty or I have on it. (Betty also said it was a kinder take than our take.)
But where is the mainstream's interest with non-whites? In entertainment or in news, they really don't seem that concerned that they basically present all whites.
We've seen three African-Americans win best acting Oscars (Denzel Washington, Halle Berry and Jamie Foxx) but what's shocking is that the Oscars are older are than me and those were the first three African-Americans to win.
And when it's time to replace white male anchors, we get white males.
Is there a reason that the networks refuse to go beyond that?
I think it's because racism is institutional and self-perpuates.
The mainstream says "These are the important voices" and we all nod along.
It can be hard to go beyond the mainstream but if the world's going to change, we're going to have to. Think about The Daily Jerk Off and how it's all white all the time.
On the left the problem is that we're already shut out of the mainstream. That's all of us. But think about how much more difficult it must be to be left and a person of a color.
Margaret Kimberley has a funny essay today called "Republican Sex Freaks." And I know her voice because of The Common Ills. Salim Muwakkil is another voice I've learned of due to The Common Ills. He is a senior editor and columnist for In These Times. When C.I. gripes about the fact that Patricia J. Williams' columns at The Nation are hardly ever made available to anyone other than subscribers, that's because she's missing an audience that others get. Eric Alterman has his own weblog. If they don't want to make the whole issue available to nonsubscribers, they should do some sort of rotation because Williams is a law professor and a really strong voice.
When we review books at The Third Estate Sunday Review, we've got a lot of people with a lot of ideas (and readers suggest things too). I think that's why we've had a pretty good mix. Like Cedric said in the last book discussion, we try to go for something besides the obvious. If every big paper in the world's talking a book, we probably aren't interested. That's how we ended up with a book of Bayard Rustin's writings last time.
I think that's the only real answer, going for the less obvious. It's probably easier to give shout outs to an all white cast all the time because that's what the mainstream media does but if the net's going to be any different than the mainstream media, fundamentally different, we need to work to make the range of voices wider.
Everyone's got time constraints and is rushing to do what they can. But if there's not a real effort made to enlarge the landscape now, the internet's going to end up exactly like the mainstream.
I'd already decided to highlight something and then decided against it but Betty said to go with it because the topic's important and she likes sports as much as me. So here's Dave Zirin's "The Fight to Save Stan Tookie Williams" (The Nation):
"Years ago, I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth.... While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." --Eugene V. Debs
These words of the fabled social activist also define the life of NFL hall of famer and actor Jim Brown. He has mediated truces between the toughest gangs in Los Angeles and fought racism from South Central to Soweto. But today he is involved in a different kind of fight: the race to save Stan Tookie Williams, who now awaits execution on California's death row. Williams is due to be executed December 13, and Brown has linked arms with a motley crew of activists from Archbishop Desmond Tutu to hip-hop artist Snoop Dogg demanding that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger spare his life. Schwarzenegger, who has set a clemency hearing for December 8, recently told reporters he is "dreading" the decision he is about to make.
The clemency hearing comes at a critical time. On December 2, North Carolina death row inmate Kenneth Lee Boyd is expected to be the 1,000th person to be executed since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Boyd' scheduled execution comes days after Virginia Gov. Mike Warner granted clemency to Robin Lovitts, who was originally slated for that spot. After the California Supreme Court decided this week to refuse to re-open the Williams case, the race is on to persuade Schwarzenegger to follow Warner's lead.
Now I'm adding for everyone to be sure and check out Betty's "Hell is your house-bound husband on house arrest with you serving the sentence."
Remember the motto: The Common Ills community is important and the Common Ills community is important to me. So I'll do my part for the Common Ills community.
democracy now
thomas friedman is a great man
the daily jot
the common ills
mikey likes it
the third estate sunday review
Pelosi Backs Murtha Call for Withdrawal
Calls for a troop withdrawal have been bolstered by the stance taken by hawkish Democratic Congressman John Murtha. On Wednesday, Democratic minority leader Nancy Pelosi became the first congressional leader to endorse Congressman Murtha’s position. Pelosi and other top Democrats had initially distanced themselves from Murtha’s call to end the deployment in Iraq to and maintain rapid reaction force in the region. But Pelosi told the Washington Post: "clearly a majority of the [Democratic] caucus supports Mr. Murtha" in his call to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.
She took her time but she found her voice which is more than anyone can say about General Hillary who's got the war lust so bad you worry about her being caught in the oval office not with an intern but a missile.
Do you think Hillary watched the last Democratic primaries and told herself, "I know what I'm going to do, I'm going to be the next Joe Lieberman!" That's what it seems like.
Dec. 1st Marks 25th Anniversary of World AIDS Day
And today marks the 25th anniversary of World AIDS day. Since 1981, AIDS has claimed the lives of more than an estimated 20 million people. In the United States alone, an estimated 1 million Americans are now living with HIV, with at least 35,000 new infections occurring a year. In the southern African country of Malawi, UNICEF estimates over half a million children have lost at least one parent to AIDS. In India, at least 4.5 million people live with HIV, the most in any country outside of South Africa.
25 years is more years than I am old. It's weird to realize that there was a time without AIDS because in my life, it's always been around.
I know it's somewhere at The Common Ills lots of times and probably at The Third Estate Sunday Review too. I'd provide a link if I could find it, but I agree with C.I. that Bully Boy has really damaged the fight against AIDS. He's injected his personal beliefs into a scientific discussion. Doing that confuses the message.
So if you're stressing a condom one year and the next year you're saying "Just say no to sex" you're confusing the message. Science money should go for science. It should teach how to prevent the transmission of AIDS. Instead it's been diverting into teaching someone's religion. It's not reasonable to expect people to just wait until marriage to avoid AIDS. What happens is you may say, "Okay, I'll wait a bit." Then you tell yourself, "Okay, this is one time and we will get married." Then you break up and pretty soon it's back to saying "This one time . . ."
Can people wait until marriage to have sex? Some can. (But some people will never get married.) (And some people might like to be married but can't because only 5 countries have gay marriage if I'm remembering Democracy Now! right.) Better to teach people what to do if they do have sex and leave the religious teachings to a church.
Instead Bully Boy's putting money into stuff that's not going to work and has no science backing up that "I will wait" pledges work.
C.I. noted this today:
At Corrente Wire, Leah's asking everyone to "Help Make Thursday, December 1st 'Blog Against Racism Day.'"
We're supposed to write about race or racism. Wally already did his part on this today. He focused on Florida's 2000 election and the media not caring about the disenfranchisment of African-American voters. Today's also the 50th anniversary of Rosa Park's brave stand as Betty just pointed out. These are our thoughts on race because at her site, she has to stay in character but she wanted to weigh in.
Race is an issue that's come up a lot in the community. Like when John H. Johnson died and all anyone (media or bloggers) wanted to talk about was Peter Jennings.
Was that racism? Was it just people focusing on the obvious?
Democracy Now! covered John H. Johnson's death. Some people think that Oprah had to be strong armed into covering it and, when she did cover it, my sister says it was like a three minute tribute that mainly showed celebrities on the cover of Ebony. Oprah goes for the obvious. Democracy Now! tries to shine a light where no one else does.
That matters. Grace Lee Boggs is a voice we never knew about until Liang noted her for women's history month. A lot of voices are left out of the mainstream media period but it's even more obvious when it comes to people of color. How often does Tim Russert have a person of color on? If you leave out Condi the number's even lower. There's a tendency to just go for the obvious voices and if we do that we just end up with white voices because that's what we get on the airwaves and in print.
Oprah was supposed to be a big breakthrough and for awhile there were a lot of copycat shows but in the end there's really just Oprah. And the shows she does on whatever Hollywood couple is in love or whatever big budget movie has come out don't really challenge much. Betty's old enough that she can remember Phil Donahue's daytime show and she talks about how she wishes Oprah would try to be a little less inspirational and a little more practical by informing people. But Betty and I both wonder how fair it is to just pin that on Oprah?
She's not the only person in the mainstream with a TV show. And she did get taken to court when she did her mad cow show. Ma says if Oprah's a breakthrough that it's the people of all color who need to build the roads now that Oprah's opened the door. That's probably a better take than Betty or I have on it. (Betty also said it was a kinder take than our take.)
But where is the mainstream's interest with non-whites? In entertainment or in news, they really don't seem that concerned that they basically present all whites.
We've seen three African-Americans win best acting Oscars (Denzel Washington, Halle Berry and Jamie Foxx) but what's shocking is that the Oscars are older are than me and those were the first three African-Americans to win.
And when it's time to replace white male anchors, we get white males.
Is there a reason that the networks refuse to go beyond that?
I think it's because racism is institutional and self-perpuates.
The mainstream says "These are the important voices" and we all nod along.
It can be hard to go beyond the mainstream but if the world's going to change, we're going to have to. Think about The Daily Jerk Off and how it's all white all the time.
On the left the problem is that we're already shut out of the mainstream. That's all of us. But think about how much more difficult it must be to be left and a person of a color.
Margaret Kimberley has a funny essay today called "Republican Sex Freaks." And I know her voice because of The Common Ills. Salim Muwakkil is another voice I've learned of due to The Common Ills. He is a senior editor and columnist for In These Times. When C.I. gripes about the fact that Patricia J. Williams' columns at The Nation are hardly ever made available to anyone other than subscribers, that's because she's missing an audience that others get. Eric Alterman has his own weblog. If they don't want to make the whole issue available to nonsubscribers, they should do some sort of rotation because Williams is a law professor and a really strong voice.
When we review books at The Third Estate Sunday Review, we've got a lot of people with a lot of ideas (and readers suggest things too). I think that's why we've had a pretty good mix. Like Cedric said in the last book discussion, we try to go for something besides the obvious. If every big paper in the world's talking a book, we probably aren't interested. That's how we ended up with a book of Bayard Rustin's writings last time.
I think that's the only real answer, going for the less obvious. It's probably easier to give shout outs to an all white cast all the time because that's what the mainstream media does but if the net's going to be any different than the mainstream media, fundamentally different, we need to work to make the range of voices wider.
Everyone's got time constraints and is rushing to do what they can. But if there's not a real effort made to enlarge the landscape now, the internet's going to end up exactly like the mainstream.
I'd already decided to highlight something and then decided against it but Betty said to go with it because the topic's important and she likes sports as much as me. So here's Dave Zirin's "The Fight to Save Stan Tookie Williams" (The Nation):
"Years ago, I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth.... While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." --Eugene V. Debs
These words of the fabled social activist also define the life of NFL hall of famer and actor Jim Brown. He has mediated truces between the toughest gangs in Los Angeles and fought racism from South Central to Soweto. But today he is involved in a different kind of fight: the race to save Stan Tookie Williams, who now awaits execution on California's death row. Williams is due to be executed December 13, and Brown has linked arms with a motley crew of activists from Archbishop Desmond Tutu to hip-hop artist Snoop Dogg demanding that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger spare his life. Schwarzenegger, who has set a clemency hearing for December 8, recently told reporters he is "dreading" the decision he is about to make.
The clemency hearing comes at a critical time. On December 2, North Carolina death row inmate Kenneth Lee Boyd is expected to be the 1,000th person to be executed since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Boyd' scheduled execution comes days after Virginia Gov. Mike Warner granted clemency to Robin Lovitts, who was originally slated for that spot. After the California Supreme Court decided this week to refuse to re-open the Williams case, the race is on to persuade Schwarzenegger to follow Warner's lead.
Now I'm adding for everyone to be sure and check out Betty's "Hell is your house-bound husband on house arrest with you serving the sentence."
Remember the motto: The Common Ills community is important and the Common Ills community is important to me. So I'll do my part for the Common Ills community.
democracy now
thomas friedman is a great man
the daily jot
the common ills
mikey likes it
the third estate sunday review
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
9th Circuit being split?
Good evening. Elaine called me and said "Stop the presses!" Why?
There's a story that no one's paying much attention to. C.I. mentioned it to Elaine on the phone and Elaine asked, "What are you talking about?" C.I. just assumed it was all over the news and all over online. So if you've missed it, you need to go read C.I.'s "Target: the 9th Circuit (The Republican war on the judiciary continues)" about how Republicans in the House snuck into the budget legislation a provision to break up the Ninth Circuit Court into two courts.
The Ninth Circuit is seen by conservatives as "the most liberal" of the circuit courts. They've had the Ninth Circuit in their sights for some time. So make sure you know about this.
Now we'll turn to Democracy Now!
US Paying Iraqi Media to Publish US-Authored Reports
The Los Angeles Times is reporting the US military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish American-written articles favorable to the U.S. presence in Iraq. The Times reports articles written by U.S. military "information operations" are translated into Arabic and then placed in Iraqi newspapers with the help of Washington-based defense contractor the Lincoln Group. The articles are presented to an Iraqi audience as unbiased news accounts written by independent journalists. The Lincoln Group’s contract is worth up to $100 million dollars over five years. A senior Pentagon official commented : "Here we are trying to create the principles of democracy in Iraq. Every speech we give in that country is about democracy. And we’re breaking all the first principles of democracy when we’re doing it."
We just make up "news." It's like Ava & C.I. said in their "TV Review: Barbara and Colin remake The Way We Were" - if the war was "just" like Colin Powell believes, why did he have to lie about it to the UN? If we're making headway in Iraq, I know we ain't, then why do they have to spend all that money (that's 20 million dollars a year) pushing & planting false stories?
Tells you everything you need to know.
Supreme Court to Hear New Hampshire Abortion Case
And the Supreme Court will hear arguments today that observers expect to shed new light on Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts' views on abortion. The case deals with a New Hampshire parental notification law that an Appeals court ruled was unconstitutional. The case will be heard as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to consider the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito. Twenty years ago, Alito said there was no constitutional right to abortion.
This is one of two cases on reproductive rights. I keep thinking about all the gas bags talking during the Roberts hearing about how abortion's not really an issue that matters. I agree with Ruth that it's interesting how those gas bags were all men. It's really easy for me to see it as not as important because I'm not going to get pregnant. But you can't just be in it for yourself. Being in it just for yourself is what being a Republican is about.
Also people, male and female, should realize that it's not just Roe v. Wade that's under attack, it's the right to privacy. The conservatives want to take away that right. When you hear them talk about that or anything to do with birth control or same sex relationships, they'll usually get around to attacking the right to privacy if they're not just some dope repeating what Rush said. Conservatives do not like the right to privacy and argue that it does not exist.
So I agree with Ruth, the gas bags shouldn't have been given all their air time to go on and on about how unimportant abortion supposedly was.
Now check out Elaine's site Like Maria Said Paz for her take on this.
physician-assisted suicide
ninth circuit
judiciary
democracy now
the common ills
iraq
roe v. wade
reproductive rights
like maria said paz
There's a story that no one's paying much attention to. C.I. mentioned it to Elaine on the phone and Elaine asked, "What are you talking about?" C.I. just assumed it was all over the news and all over online. So if you've missed it, you need to go read C.I.'s "Target: the 9th Circuit (The Republican war on the judiciary continues)" about how Republicans in the House snuck into the budget legislation a provision to break up the Ninth Circuit Court into two courts.
The Ninth Circuit is seen by conservatives as "the most liberal" of the circuit courts. They've had the Ninth Circuit in their sights for some time. So make sure you know about this.
Now we'll turn to Democracy Now!
US Paying Iraqi Media to Publish US-Authored Reports
The Los Angeles Times is reporting the US military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish American-written articles favorable to the U.S. presence in Iraq. The Times reports articles written by U.S. military "information operations" are translated into Arabic and then placed in Iraqi newspapers with the help of Washington-based defense contractor the Lincoln Group. The articles are presented to an Iraqi audience as unbiased news accounts written by independent journalists. The Lincoln Group’s contract is worth up to $100 million dollars over five years. A senior Pentagon official commented : "Here we are trying to create the principles of democracy in Iraq. Every speech we give in that country is about democracy. And we’re breaking all the first principles of democracy when we’re doing it."
We just make up "news." It's like Ava & C.I. said in their "TV Review: Barbara and Colin remake The Way We Were" - if the war was "just" like Colin Powell believes, why did he have to lie about it to the UN? If we're making headway in Iraq, I know we ain't, then why do they have to spend all that money (that's 20 million dollars a year) pushing & planting false stories?
Tells you everything you need to know.
Supreme Court to Hear New Hampshire Abortion Case
And the Supreme Court will hear arguments today that observers expect to shed new light on Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts' views on abortion. The case deals with a New Hampshire parental notification law that an Appeals court ruled was unconstitutional. The case will be heard as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to consider the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito. Twenty years ago, Alito said there was no constitutional right to abortion.
This is one of two cases on reproductive rights. I keep thinking about all the gas bags talking during the Roberts hearing about how abortion's not really an issue that matters. I agree with Ruth that it's interesting how those gas bags were all men. It's really easy for me to see it as not as important because I'm not going to get pregnant. But you can't just be in it for yourself. Being in it just for yourself is what being a Republican is about.
Also people, male and female, should realize that it's not just Roe v. Wade that's under attack, it's the right to privacy. The conservatives want to take away that right. When you hear them talk about that or anything to do with birth control or same sex relationships, they'll usually get around to attacking the right to privacy if they're not just some dope repeating what Rush said. Conservatives do not like the right to privacy and argue that it does not exist.
So I agree with Ruth, the gas bags shouldn't have been given all their air time to go on and on about how unimportant abortion supposedly was.
Now check out Elaine's site Like Maria Said Paz for her take on this.
physician-assisted suicide
ninth circuit
judiciary
democracy now
the common ills
iraq
roe v. wade
reproductive rights
like maria said paz
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Bully Boy goes to Denver and the people turn out to make their voices heard
Good evening. We'll kick things off with Democracy Now!
Time Magazine Reporter Testifies in CIA Leak Case
This update on the CIA leak case - the Washington Post is reporting Karl Rove's defense team is hoping the testimony of a reporter from Time Magazine might help Rove escape indictment. On Sunday Time revealed that its reporter Viveca Novak had agreed to testify about a conversation she had last year with Rove's attorney Robert Luskin. A person familiar with the investigation told the Washington Post that Luskin cited his conversations with Novak in persuading Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald not to indict Rove in late October. So far Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff Lewis Scooter Libby is the only administration to be indicted over the outing of Valerie Plame's identity as an undercover CIA operative.
Round and round it goes, where it ends, only Karl Rove knows. For now. Patrick Fitzgerald seems to be on to something with Karl. When Scooter got indicted there was some disappointment but it's really starting to look like it's not over by a long shot.
Maybe that's why Bully Boy looks so creepy these days? He's so worried it's eating away at him? My aunt swears he looks like he's drinking again. She says his skin looks like it. I don't know about that. Anybody else seeing it?
Greenpeace Disrupts Blair Speech About Nuclear Energy
In Britain, members of Greenpeace disrupted a speech of Prime Minister Tony Blair's in which he launched an energy review which could lead to new nuclear power stations. The Greenpeace activists climbed into the roof above the podium and unfurled a banner saying: "Nuclear: Wrong Answer." They also dropped stickers onto the delegates below them.
In England, Tony Blair can't hide the way Bully Boy tries to in this country. But in Denver, they turned out to protest the Bully Boy today. From Mark Couch and Tim Hughes' "Bush praises Musgrave in Denver" in the Denver Post:
Outside the Brown Palace Hotel, about 300 protesters expressed their opposition to the war in Iraq by banging on pots, pans and drums, blowing on horns, flutes, kazoos and recorders
and breaking into "peace now" chants.
"Tell George Bush what Democracy looks like!" an organizer yelled through a bullhorn, kicking off one round of call-and-response.
"This is what Democracy looks like!" the crowd yelled back.
South High School students Ashley Adams and Jenny Fleming-Owen wrote "No More War" and "Make Love Not War" on their faces in black ink
The only two pro-Bush sign holders on the scene found themselves in heated arguments.
Speaking of blazing, what was in C.I.'s cereal this morning? Did you catch The Common Ills this morning? C.I. was on fire. Read "NYT: 'Justices Reject F.B.I. Translator's Appeal on Termination' (Linda Greenhouse)" and "Other Items." C.I. really took on the New York Timid today.
Sunday, C.I. noted that Pop Politics had some stuff on sports and Wally told me the same thing. This is from Richard C. Crepeau's "Giving Thanks for Football: An American Tradition:"
The history of Thanksgiving and of football both go back to the Middle Ages, so it may not be so strange that the two would become intertwined in modern America.
The first American Thanksgiving is generally believed to have been in Plymouth Colony in mid-October of 1621, when William Bradford and the Pilgrims gathered with local Indians to give thanks for survival and the first harvest. The first Thanksgiving proclaimed by a president was Nov. 26, 1789, when George Washington called for a national day of Thanksgiving for the new form of government.
By the end of that century the practice had faded, but through the first half of the 19th century, Sarah Hale, editor of Godey's Lady's Book kept the idea alive by writing editorials and letters to presidents and governors urging their adoption of such a day. Finally, during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln took her advice and proclaimed the last Thursday of November 1863, as Thanksgiving Day. The practice stuck.
Eleven years later, in 1874, the first intercollegiate football game was played. In 1876, the Intercollegiate Football Association was formed and instituted a championship game for Thanksgiving Day. Within a decade it was the premier athletic event in the nation.
Princeton and Yale were the participants all but twice in the first two decades of the league. By the 1890s, when the game was played in the Polo Grounds, it was drawing 40,000 fans. Players, students and fans wore their school colors while banners flew from carriages, hotels and the business establishments of the city. It was by then one of the most important social events of the season for New York's social elite.
If you're not checking out Pop Politics, you should. It's got lots of great stuff. And don't forget to check out Elaine's commentary at Like Maria Said Paz.
democracy now
the common ills
mikey likes it
like maria said paz
protests
tony blair
the daily jot
pop politics
greenpeace
plamegate
Time Magazine Reporter Testifies in CIA Leak Case
This update on the CIA leak case - the Washington Post is reporting Karl Rove's defense team is hoping the testimony of a reporter from Time Magazine might help Rove escape indictment. On Sunday Time revealed that its reporter Viveca Novak had agreed to testify about a conversation she had last year with Rove's attorney Robert Luskin. A person familiar with the investigation told the Washington Post that Luskin cited his conversations with Novak in persuading Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald not to indict Rove in late October. So far Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff Lewis Scooter Libby is the only administration to be indicted over the outing of Valerie Plame's identity as an undercover CIA operative.
Round and round it goes, where it ends, only Karl Rove knows. For now. Patrick Fitzgerald seems to be on to something with Karl. When Scooter got indicted there was some disappointment but it's really starting to look like it's not over by a long shot.
Maybe that's why Bully Boy looks so creepy these days? He's so worried it's eating away at him? My aunt swears he looks like he's drinking again. She says his skin looks like it. I don't know about that. Anybody else seeing it?
Greenpeace Disrupts Blair Speech About Nuclear Energy
In Britain, members of Greenpeace disrupted a speech of Prime Minister Tony Blair's in which he launched an energy review which could lead to new nuclear power stations. The Greenpeace activists climbed into the roof above the podium and unfurled a banner saying: "Nuclear: Wrong Answer." They also dropped stickers onto the delegates below them.
In England, Tony Blair can't hide the way Bully Boy tries to in this country. But in Denver, they turned out to protest the Bully Boy today. From Mark Couch and Tim Hughes' "Bush praises Musgrave in Denver" in the Denver Post:
Outside the Brown Palace Hotel, about 300 protesters expressed their opposition to the war in Iraq by banging on pots, pans and drums, blowing on horns, flutes, kazoos and recorders
and breaking into "peace now" chants.
"Tell George Bush what Democracy looks like!" an organizer yelled through a bullhorn, kicking off one round of call-and-response.
"This is what Democracy looks like!" the crowd yelled back.
South High School students Ashley Adams and Jenny Fleming-Owen wrote "No More War" and "Make Love Not War" on their faces in black ink
The only two pro-Bush sign holders on the scene found themselves in heated arguments.
Ah, that's so cute. Two little Bush-ites. Standing by their Bully Boy. Back to the article:
All day, chants called for an end to the war and for Bush's impeachment. A few signs equated him to Hitler. Several accused him of invading Iraq in pursuit of oil profits and an expanded American empire.
"This whole war never should have happened," Bonnie McCormick, 87, of Boulder said as the throng marched from the Capitol to the Brown Palace. A 30-year military wife and long-time anti-war activist, McCormick said she was arrested during a recent protest outside a military recruitment center in Lakewood. "Bush should be spending money on education and health care, not war."
The demonstration included several veterans from the Iraq war and previous conflicts.
Speaking of blazing, what was in C.I.'s cereal this morning? Did you catch The Common Ills this morning? C.I. was on fire. Read "NYT: 'Justices Reject F.B.I. Translator's Appeal on Termination' (Linda Greenhouse)" and "Other Items." C.I. really took on the New York Timid today.
Sunday, C.I. noted that Pop Politics had some stuff on sports and Wally told me the same thing. This is from Richard C. Crepeau's "Giving Thanks for Football: An American Tradition:"
The history of Thanksgiving and of football both go back to the Middle Ages, so it may not be so strange that the two would become intertwined in modern America.
The first American Thanksgiving is generally believed to have been in Plymouth Colony in mid-October of 1621, when William Bradford and the Pilgrims gathered with local Indians to give thanks for survival and the first harvest. The first Thanksgiving proclaimed by a president was Nov. 26, 1789, when George Washington called for a national day of Thanksgiving for the new form of government.
By the end of that century the practice had faded, but through the first half of the 19th century, Sarah Hale, editor of Godey's Lady's Book kept the idea alive by writing editorials and letters to presidents and governors urging their adoption of such a day. Finally, during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln took her advice and proclaimed the last Thursday of November 1863, as Thanksgiving Day. The practice stuck.
Eleven years later, in 1874, the first intercollegiate football game was played. In 1876, the Intercollegiate Football Association was formed and instituted a championship game for Thanksgiving Day. Within a decade it was the premier athletic event in the nation.
Princeton and Yale were the participants all but twice in the first two decades of the league. By the 1890s, when the game was played in the Polo Grounds, it was drawing 40,000 fans. Players, students and fans wore their school colors while banners flew from carriages, hotels and the business establishments of the city. It was by then one of the most important social events of the season for New York's social elite.
If you're not checking out Pop Politics, you should. It's got lots of great stuff. And don't forget to check out Elaine's commentary at Like Maria Said Paz.
democracy now
the common ills
mikey likes it
like maria said paz
protests
tony blair
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Monday, November 28, 2005
Al-Jazzera, Iraq contractors, recruiters
Good evening. Hope everyone had a great holiday break. We'll get things started with Democracy Now!
Al Jazeera Demands Answers from Bush Administration
The director-general of the Arabic tv network Al-Jazeera has demanded Washington respond to reports that President Bush wanted to bomb the network's headquarters in Doha. Last week the Daily Mirror cited a secret British memo revealing that Bush told Tony Blair last year of his desire to bomb the news outlet. The Bush administration has described the Daily Mirror's report as "outlandish." Officials at Al Jazeera are now questioning whether the U.S. might have been targeting the network when it bombed its bureaus in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Baghdad in April 2003. The attack in Iraq killed Al Jazeera's correspondent Tariq Ayub. Ayub's widow, Dina, said she is now considering suing the U.S. government for her husband's death. She said "America always claimed it was an accident. But I believe the new revelations prove that claim was false or at least not trustworthy." Meanwhile in Britain a ban remains in place on all media outlets from disclosing the contents of the secret memo. But a member of parliament - Boris Johnson - has vowed to publish the memo and risk jail time if anyone leaks him the document.
This is a big thing even if big media doesn't think so. Bully Boy wants to attack a network and you see how big media acts. Big cowards is more like it.
Where is the freedom of the press in this country? That's what you hear people complain but here's a perfect example of how big media doesn't support the press. If they were for a free press instead of saying silent or offering excuses of how Bully Boy was joking and nonsense like that, they'd be all over this story and trying to get as much information as possible.
By the way, C.I.'s given a head's up to Danny Schechter's "WAR ON THE MEDIA: 'Don't Bomb Us'" so I'll do the same.
UK investigates Shootings by Private Contractors in Iraq
The British Foreign Office is investigating allegations that private contractors with the defense company Aegis have randomly shot at Iraqi cars. According to the Telegraph newspaper, a video recently appeared on a site affiliated with Aegis that contained four clips of an unidentified gunman shooting at cars in Iraq. In one clip a Mercedes is fired on at a distance of several hundred yards before it crashes in to a civilian taxi. One Iraqi Interior Ministry officials confirmed such shootings occur. He said: "When the security companies kill people they just drive away and nothing is done... I would say we have had about 50-60 incidents of this kind."
Here's another story big media's not interested in. How come? Maybe cause they never made a big deal when Paul Bremer was signing all those orders keeping contractors from being prosecuted.
Remember to check out Elaine's comments at Like Maria Said Paz.
And you've probably already seen it, but I want to make sure everyone knows about C.I.'s
"NYT: 'Even Supporters Doubt President As Issues Pile Up" (Kate Zernike)" which was done Saturday morning and takes the paper to task for never finding room in the paper for the voices who spoke out against the war. This is an essay and Ma says it's her favorite since C.I.'s "Reading Press Releases Live From The Green Zone (C.I.)." She said to put in that it's essays like this that really explain why The Common Ills is such a great site.
Dad wanted me to note something too, Elaine's "Too long on a variety of topics." Dad was wondering the same thing Beau wondered in his e-mail, if I'm feeling burned out? No. But I'm not even at six months for this site yet so check with me at the year mark. :D
Seriously though there are times when I wish I could do it later. Like so Nina and me or Tone and my other buds could hang out a bit. So if you check during the week and don't see something here at the usual time, check back later. Leigh Ann wondered if my oldest brother had set a date for his wedding. I don't think so. If he has, he's keeping all of us out of the loop. They're thinking of late spring or early summer but don't have a date planned. Or aren't telling if they do.
Be sure to check out "Recap of November 16th Counter Recuitment in Brooklyn" by in our hearts:
On Wednesday, November 16th, around 40 people flyered the armed forces recruitment station on 41 Flatbush Avenue near Downtown Brooklyn. We arrived to a recruitment center shut down completely by the police and almost all of the shutters pulled down on the large plate glass windows. There were cop cars, unmarked police vehicles, and a host of 'community affairs' cops lining the sidewalk at noon. Our goal was simple: to flyer potential recruits that might consider going in to the center, to be a public presence at a very busy intersection in downtown Brooklyn, and to make the recruiter's day uncomfortable.
During the day, we gave out over 500 flyers-- some presenting our position on fighting the government's bullshit wars, while others presented concrete reasons to not join the military (a flyer written by a black anarchist Vietnam war veteran, as well a newspaper directed toward people who have already enlisted with resources on what they can do now that they have signed up.) The response from passersby was very positive-- many people stopped to talk and thanked us for being there, and some recounted stories of people in their lives who are currently in the military. Lots of anti- Bush/war sentiment was displayed by people walking by and we had some great interactions with some high schoolers who were on break from school. Some kids expressed annoyance that the military is in their high schools and talked about the 'opt out' forms they had their parents sign to stop military recruiters from harassing them. Almost everyone who passed us took flyers and understood exactly why we were there-- The connection between the war and the presence of military recruitment stations in their neighborhood was simple for them, as many knew someone who was in the military or have had some kind of interaction with a recruiter.
And I saw that at CounterRecruiter so you should be checking that site out.
democracy now
the new york times
the common ills
like maria said paz
iraq
aljazeera
anti-war
counterrecruiting
mikey likes it
Al Jazeera Demands Answers from Bush Administration
The director-general of the Arabic tv network Al-Jazeera has demanded Washington respond to reports that President Bush wanted to bomb the network's headquarters in Doha. Last week the Daily Mirror cited a secret British memo revealing that Bush told Tony Blair last year of his desire to bomb the news outlet. The Bush administration has described the Daily Mirror's report as "outlandish." Officials at Al Jazeera are now questioning whether the U.S. might have been targeting the network when it bombed its bureaus in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Baghdad in April 2003. The attack in Iraq killed Al Jazeera's correspondent Tariq Ayub. Ayub's widow, Dina, said she is now considering suing the U.S. government for her husband's death. She said "America always claimed it was an accident. But I believe the new revelations prove that claim was false or at least not trustworthy." Meanwhile in Britain a ban remains in place on all media outlets from disclosing the contents of the secret memo. But a member of parliament - Boris Johnson - has vowed to publish the memo and risk jail time if anyone leaks him the document.
This is a big thing even if big media doesn't think so. Bully Boy wants to attack a network and you see how big media acts. Big cowards is more like it.
Where is the freedom of the press in this country? That's what you hear people complain but here's a perfect example of how big media doesn't support the press. If they were for a free press instead of saying silent or offering excuses of how Bully Boy was joking and nonsense like that, they'd be all over this story and trying to get as much information as possible.
By the way, C.I.'s given a head's up to Danny Schechter's "WAR ON THE MEDIA: 'Don't Bomb Us'" so I'll do the same.
UK investigates Shootings by Private Contractors in Iraq
The British Foreign Office is investigating allegations that private contractors with the defense company Aegis have randomly shot at Iraqi cars. According to the Telegraph newspaper, a video recently appeared on a site affiliated with Aegis that contained four clips of an unidentified gunman shooting at cars in Iraq. In one clip a Mercedes is fired on at a distance of several hundred yards before it crashes in to a civilian taxi. One Iraqi Interior Ministry officials confirmed such shootings occur. He said: "When the security companies kill people they just drive away and nothing is done... I would say we have had about 50-60 incidents of this kind."
Here's another story big media's not interested in. How come? Maybe cause they never made a big deal when Paul Bremer was signing all those orders keeping contractors from being prosecuted.
Remember to check out Elaine's comments at Like Maria Said Paz.
And you've probably already seen it, but I want to make sure everyone knows about C.I.'s
"NYT: 'Even Supporters Doubt President As Issues Pile Up" (Kate Zernike)" which was done Saturday morning and takes the paper to task for never finding room in the paper for the voices who spoke out against the war. This is an essay and Ma says it's her favorite since C.I.'s "Reading Press Releases Live From The Green Zone (C.I.)." She said to put in that it's essays like this that really explain why The Common Ills is such a great site.
Dad wanted me to note something too, Elaine's "Too long on a variety of topics." Dad was wondering the same thing Beau wondered in his e-mail, if I'm feeling burned out? No. But I'm not even at six months for this site yet so check with me at the year mark. :D
Seriously though there are times when I wish I could do it later. Like so Nina and me or Tone and my other buds could hang out a bit. So if you check during the week and don't see something here at the usual time, check back later. Leigh Ann wondered if my oldest brother had set a date for his wedding. I don't think so. If he has, he's keeping all of us out of the loop. They're thinking of late spring or early summer but don't have a date planned. Or aren't telling if they do.
Be sure to check out "Recap of November 16th Counter Recuitment in Brooklyn" by in our hearts:
On Wednesday, November 16th, around 40 people flyered the armed forces recruitment station on 41 Flatbush Avenue near Downtown Brooklyn. We arrived to a recruitment center shut down completely by the police and almost all of the shutters pulled down on the large plate glass windows. There were cop cars, unmarked police vehicles, and a host of 'community affairs' cops lining the sidewalk at noon. Our goal was simple: to flyer potential recruits that might consider going in to the center, to be a public presence at a very busy intersection in downtown Brooklyn, and to make the recruiter's day uncomfortable.
During the day, we gave out over 500 flyers-- some presenting our position on fighting the government's bullshit wars, while others presented concrete reasons to not join the military (a flyer written by a black anarchist Vietnam war veteran, as well a newspaper directed toward people who have already enlisted with resources on what they can do now that they have signed up.) The response from passersby was very positive-- many people stopped to talk and thanked us for being there, and some recounted stories of people in their lives who are currently in the military. Lots of anti- Bush/war sentiment was displayed by people walking by and we had some great interactions with some high schoolers who were on break from school. Some kids expressed annoyance that the military is in their high schools and talked about the 'opt out' forms they had their parents sign to stop military recruiters from harassing them. Almost everyone who passed us took flyers and understood exactly why we were there-- The connection between the war and the presence of military recruitment stations in their neighborhood was simple for them, as many knew someone who was in the military or have had some kind of interaction with a recruiter.
And I saw that at CounterRecruiter so you should be checking that site out.
democracy now
the new york times
the common ills
like maria said paz
iraq
aljazeera
anti-war
counterrecruiting
mikey likes it
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