This Failed Presidency

Sometimes I'm completely dumbstruck at what this President has so nonchalantly wrought, how he has destroyed American credibility, broken our military and destroyed Iraq while time and time again letting those who attacked us off Scott Free and criminally neglecting the needs of nation at home.

The full depth of Bush's bullshit is truly staggering if you even try to recount it all, or even the half of it that we know about.

It's a bit like the old adage about the frog and the boiling water. Put him directly in a hot pot and he'll simply leap out, but place him in while the water is still cold then slowly raise the temperate and he'll sit there quietly until his skin peels off and he cooks alive.

That's what has happened to America.

This week we learned that Bush's former White House Counsel, Alberto Gonzales and his Chief of Staff Andrew Card with the direct support and intervention of President Bush ambushed Attorney General John Ashcroft on his sickbed, in order to override his deputy James Comey into implementing an illegal domestic spying program that would shatter the privacy of millions of Americans and that when they refused - Bush and the White House went ahead and did it without them anyway!

What's even more staggering is that ABC and CBS haven't even bothered to report this story.

Imagine if we'd learned of such a thing in the year 2000? Think back to how the press howled at the allegations that the Clinton's had prematurely removed members of the White House Travel Office merely because - they were about to be indicted, and strove to replace them with "someone they could trust."

Y'know, like people who weren't potential felons.

All the White House Press Office does is arrange for the travel by the White House Press Corp to accompany the President and his staff - period. They - unlike the fracking Justice Department - don't have any real power to influence or implement policy.

We also had the "scandal" of some people in the Clinton White House having access to the FBI records of members of the previous administration due to an outdated access list provided by the Secret Service.

"They must have wanted those records for political dirty tricks."

Yeah, sure - the Secret Service does that all the time.

Flip that scenario on it's head in terms of relative political targets and multiply by about 1.2 Million and you have the Bush's Domestic Spying program in a nutshell, albiet a rather l.a.r.g.e nutshell.

Now we have Senate Confirmed U.S. Attorney's being fired for no reason, some reason, mutiple-reasons - all smoke screens to hide the real reason - none of which new Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was aware of or can seem to remember. At one point Gonzales wished that his deputy Paul McNaulty knew more and was more involved, and then he later claimed that McNulty knew everything all along.

Uh huh. And somehow Gonzales still retains the "full confidence" of this President.

This President, who claims to "Support the Troops", yet never fails to use them as props and shields while letting our wounded languish in rat infested squalor, has opposed legislation to have our flags lowered to half-mast in honor of fallen soldiers in the same way that we honored those slaughtered at Virginia Tech. He has oppossed and threatened to Veto raising their pay and death benefits while the price tag for his failed war sky-rockets above $500 Billion.

Despite all the blood and treasure we've spent, not to mention the millions of Iraqis impacted by our sad misguided attempt at "regime change" - Iraq is still on the verge of become a failed state.

The Iraqi's didn't want the Surge, but we surged anyway.

So far, that Surge - like so many Bush initiatives - has failed. And doesn't look like thing will get any better "when September comes", so we can certainly expect Bush's response to be to call for a Super-Surge even though recruitment has become so dismal the Army has been coaching new recruits on how to beat the drug tests.

Addicts with heavy firepower. Great.

That's likely to just hand us more and more Haditha's.

The U.S. Army private accused of raping and murdering a 14-year-old Iraq girl "was a high school dropout with three misdemeanors and was accepted into the Army just as the military, desperate for recruits, began issuing more ‘moral waivers.’"

It's gotten so bad even Republicans are starting to say "if the Iraqi government wants to leave - we should"

Here's a newsflash, 83 members of the Iraqi Parliament (about 1/3rd) asked for a timetable for our troops to withdraw - almost two years ago. And just this month, that 1/3 has grown to a Majority of the members of Iraqi Parliament who've now signed a petition ASKING US TO LEAVE.

You think we're gonna leave? Not with this President.

This President, who went golfing and campaiging while an American City Drowned in a toxic stew of piss, raw sewage, gasoline and decaying bodies.

This President and White House, who when Governor Sebelius correctly pointed out that the equipment Kansas needed after a devastating tornado attack has been sent to Iraq, much like the lack of response to Katrina, Blatantly LIED and claims she never asked for any equipment.

What? Did she forget to say "Simon Says?"

This President, who despite all his tough He-man talk about "fighting them over there" (so our soldiers can die much more conveniently) Completely. Totally. Dropped. The. Ball. On. 9-11 when it Counted.

MR. RUSSERT (Speaking to George Tenet): Then in June, a briefer of the CIA named Rich B gave a conclusion saying, based on all the reporting we've seen, that "bin Laden is going to launch a significant terrorist attack against U.S." Israeli "interest in the coming weeks." July 10 you got another briefing so alarming that you picked up the phone, said to Condoleezza Rice, "I want to come see you now," jumped in the car with some of your key advisers, went to see her. Rich B, he gave her a briefing package. Opening line, "There will be a significant terrorist attack in the coming weeks or months!" And then you--and later July, Rich B sitting at the CIA, said, "They're coming here."

This President failed to recognize that Iraq was already disarmed despite being told exactly that by Foreign Minister Sabri, the UN mandated Full Declaration by Saddam and the Weapons Inspectors on the ground.

This President, who shoved a revokation of The Great Writ through a compliant supine Republican Congress simply to cover his own ass and hide his own not entirely secret campaign of terror and torture - to the delight of his ghoulish supporters and the horror of his commanding generals.

This President, who through his VP aided and abetted Treason by allowing the identity of a Covert CIA Operative to be revealed simply to support a lie and a forgery that would have undermined his justifications for an unneccesary war.

This President, who has established a shiny new set of American Concentration Camps for muslim immigrants and their children.

This President, has a VP who busted a cap in some old dudes face and is still hanging around.

This President's "No Child Left Behind" Initiative - has failed.

This President's "Abstinence Only" Initiative - has failed.

This President's "Faith-Based Initiatives" - have failed.

At every level, and in almost every way imaginable the policies and practices of this president have failed the American People.

We - the proverbial frog - have already been well and truly deep fry fucked. It's long past time we hopped out of the pot and began far more than just talk about, and drafting of resolutions for the Impeachments of Rice, Gonzales, Cheney and yes, even Bush himself. It's time to start implementing the tools of oversight of this goverment. Frankly, just impeaching Bush or one of the others is NO LONGER ENOUGH. All of them have to go because at this point I'm afraid that the damage already done just might be nearly permanent.

Iraq and it's people will never be the same again.

How do we get back the trust of the world's nations when we say we need to defend ourselves from this threat, or that threat after we FUBAR'd Iraq this badly?

The Gulf Coast, particularly New Orleans, and the survivors of Katrina will never be the same.

How do we as American people begin to trust our own government when it alternately spies on us, then neglects us when our local resources are overtaxed by flood, fire, hurricanes and tornados? Not after New Orleans and Kansas we can't. How do we trust that they'll ever be able to handle another attempted 9-11 attack?

How do we prevent future Presidents from amasing the same near unlimited power onto themselves via the fiat of quasi-constitutional signing statements, and then completely mismanaging that power as badly as Bush has?

This Presidency has Failed.

We can not afford to let this legacy stand. We can not afford to let this President or his criminal cronies escape their crimes quietly in 2009, they must be held accountable - or else we will see another future President commit them again. If possible, it might even be worse next time.

We have to get out of the pot. It may not be right now, but it has to be soon. The timer is almost about to go off.

And still, even if we do get out, American will never be the same.

Vyan

CPAC Underground

Now up on YouTube and Thinkprogress are excerpts of a video from The Nation's Max Blumenthal "CPAC 2007: The Unauthorized Tour" and on it you get to see exactly what the Right-Wing thinks and exactly where they're taking this country.

Much worse that Ann Coulter's Faggot remark about John Edwards - which by the way she has subsequently added to by claiming...

C’mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean.

Nice, eh? Add to this some of the comments and remarks by Michelle Malkin, Dinesh D'souza, David Horowitz, Tom Tancredo and Grover Norquist captured by Blumenthal and you have a rich broth of conservative hatred and venom.

Yum...

Starting things off Blumenthal decides to ask "In Defense of Internment" author Michelle Malkin to sign a picture of Manzanar - since she apparently supports the policies employed during World War Ii and the modern internemt of Muslim Americans. (Which btw is already occuring!) <>Malkin's response?
Malkin: I'm not gonna sign that. And let me tell you something since you're filming this. I am all for honest intellectual debate. I had extensive exhanges with critics of my book. I issued an errata page.

Blumenthal: So you made a lot or errors in your book?

Malkin: I did. And I detest your attempt to try and smear my work without even reading it. Thank you very much, that's all the time I have.

At which point she stomped off and refused to sign anything else or answer any more questions. I guess it's a good thing for Mike Stark that he got to the Malkin table before Blumenthal.

Just so you don't have to give Malkin anymore hits by actually going to her site and reading her "extensive errata" - here it is for you in all it's intellectually honest glory.

page 8: Author/academic Greg Robinson points out that the Goleta shelling was not "the first foreign attack on the U.S. mainland since the War of 1812," as I asserted. (He points to Pancho Villa's incursion into New Mexico.) I should have said that it was the first attack on the U.S. mainland by a foreign country since the War of 1812.

Pacho Villa? Yeah ok.

..............................
page 85: Oahu is the third-largest Hawaiian island, not the largest.

Yeah, the largest Island would be one they call "The Big Island" aka "Hawaii". Looks like Malkin really shouldn't be going on that new Fox Show "Are you smartest than a 5th grader?" - because she's not. At least she could try watching Dog:The Bounty Hunter re-runs.

..............................
page 99: I wrote that "[h]istorians who compare the American relocation camps to Dachau and Bergen-Belsen will be hard-pressed to find a single European Jew who ... was given permission to leave ... a Nazi death camp." In fact, according to law professor Eric Muller, many Jews sent to Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen in the 1930s were released.

Ohhh, Snap!

..............................
Greg Robinson is American, not Canadian.

Still having geography problems I see - did you know that Alaska is the largest U.S. State? Betcha didn't?

..............................
page 123: I wrote that Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga "surreptitiously shared confidential documents with" attorney Peter Irons. The words "surreptitiously" and "confidential" were erroneous and will be excised in future editions.

And this makes how much of difference to the cost of tea in china?

..............................
footnote 20 to Chapter 2 says "January 1941" when it should say "January 1942."

Not only map reading problems, but also calender reading problems - anyone see a pattern? Think maybe we should get some of those fifth graders to give Malkin some tutoring?

.............................
page 311, second photo caption: Bismarck is in North Dakota, not South Dakota.

Again with the MAP STUFF - somebody get put dial-a-geek on speed dial for this woman. At any rate, I - while openly admitting that I haven't read Malkin's book - can with some confidence state that this collection of errata really doesn't disuade anyone from the book primary purpose - which in case you've forgetten was -TO DEFEND THE INTERNMENT OF U.S. CITIZENS

But then perhaps I should be intellectually honest and let Malkin describe the book herself (again from her page - say thank you for the link avoidance)

If you want to read a book decrying the loss of personal freedom in wartime America, this is the wrong book. If you want to read a book about the history of institutional discrimination against minorities in America, you’re out of luck again. Bookstores, library shelves, and classrooms are already filled with pedantic tomes, legal analyses, and educational propaganda along these conventional lines.

In Defense of Internment provides a radical departure from the predominant literature of civil liberties absolutism. It offers a defense of the most reviled wartime policies in American history: the evacuation, relocation, and internment of people of Japanese descent during World War II (three separate actions which are commonly lumped under the umbrella term "internment"). My book is also a defense of racial, ethnic, religious, and nationality profiling (widely differing measures that are commonly lumped under the umbrella term "racial profiling") now being taken or contemplated during today’s War on Terror.

Did Blumenthal really need to read this swill to get the jist of it? I think not. And how exactly does the fact that Malkin apparently can't read a map or a calender realy change the basic - and clearly stated intent - of her little justification for racial profiling and concentration/internment camps?

Moving on - Blumenthal then caught part of Tom Tancredo's stump speech.

Conservatives need a leader who believes in enforcing our immegration law, becasue the first part of illegal immigrant is Illegal.

[It creates] sort of an linguistic and cultural tower of babel. I think it is, or I guess you could just ask them if they think Miami is becoming a third-world country.

Yuk. yuk... That Tancredo is a scream isn't he?

Following the footage of Tancredo, Blumenthal interviewed a young latina member of the College Republicans.

Stephanie Ponce: Some of the stuff I heard today was.. I was shocked.. to hear Republicans talk about immigrants in such ways because, y'know, immigrants are becoming the majority in America. It's kind of hurtful...

Blumenthal: Have you ever considered that this is a "White-Man's Party"?

Ponce: Yeah.. sadly... sadly.

Yea, coming to your senses sometimes is a sad event.

But not everyone at CPAC agree with the Tancredo credo.

Grover Norquist:

The idea that being an immigrant basher was good politics should have been put to rest in '06. If the face of the Republican party is Tom Tancredo - it loses over the next 25 years.

All I can say to that is "Go Tom GO-- GO TOM GO!!"

Then again, sometimes you can cut a little too close to the nerve. Blumenthal speaking with Tancredo Supporters.

Neanderthal#1: One more passage of amnesty of a guest worker program and we are done for politically.

Blumenthal: Why?

#1: Because it'll never be possible again to control it.

Blumenthal: What about culturally?

#1: What?

Blumenthal: Culturally?

#1: Obviously it's a cultural problem.

Blumenthal: We need to preserve white culture.

#1: Oh no. Get out of here.

Neanderthal #2 with Buzz Cut: "White Culture"? - get the hell out of here with that shit.

Blumenthal: What about "Western Civilization?"

#2: No, not "White Culture". You want to say this is some racist chant for Tancredo - it's bullshit. It's not gonna happen, cuz it's not about race

Really?

Well according to the result of the human genome project from almost ten years ago, there is no such thing as "race" genetically. What we commonly refer to as racial differences are really just cultural differences between peoples from different climates. Genetically there are more difference between tall people and short people than there are between whites, blacks and browns.

"Trying to mix genetics with race is, to my mind, inappropriate; cannot be done," she says. "...,Race is something we do to each other; it has nothing to do with what our DNA does to us."

"Race" as we use it is a Culturally Convenient Construct we use to distinguish groups. So to say that it's "Cultural, but not Racial" simply doesn't make any sense.

But I have to say the real cake-taker in this entire video isn't Malkin or Coulter (whom Blumenthal asks "why she's been engaged so many times but never married?" -- in response to her Edwards comments), but ex-liberal David Horowitz.

David: What's wrong with you people are you Stupid? Is you're hatred for me such that you just regard everything I say in order to attack?

Blumenthal: What do you think it is?

David: I think the left is driven by envy, resentment and a ferocious hatred of anybody on the other side. That's because it's a religious movement [Don't tell "Godless" Author Ann Coulter that!] that believes the world can be redeemed, we can end world poverty, we can end racism , sexism and homophobia "If only those Damn Conservatives Would Die!" The Liberal in his heart is consumed with hate!

Takes you're breath away doesn't it? And you know what? That point of view seems eerily familiar. Ah yes, I remember now - I heard it from a bunch of conservatives who were claiming that America will continue to be fucked-up until all those f-ing berkenstock and tie-die wearing hippies finally die off.

America won't win another war until the 1960s flower children are pushing up petunias.

Radicalized, the flower children morphed into lefty loonies who now masquerade as social progressives. No matter what they rename themselves, however, their agenda hasn't changed.

So, Liberals are consumed with hate? Let me tell you something David, I'm not consumed with hate -- I'm consumed with pity - for you. And when that wears off I'm consumed with also tons of snark because you are one hi-lar-ious dude. Laugh a minute, I swear.

Are Conservatives the only thing standing in the way of what Dinesh D'Souzas describes as the lefts yearning for "Utopia" on earth? Hardly. We've still have our own internal issues to deal with. Forget what Conservatrives do or don't do - we're about as likely to usher in a new age of aquarius as we are to get a herd of cats to march in formation.

The difference is - at least we're trying to make things better. Conservatives are far more interested in making things better for themselves individually, while expoiting Racism, Homophobia and Sexism to get there. They believe that personal enrichment is only ultimate motivator. Coulter uses platforms like this as a chance to lob word bombs at each and every "liberal" she can find - to the hoots and approving hollers of the crowd (which is also captured on Blumenthal's video and should be much more of a concern that what she actually said). Malkin plays the victim when she's called out for supporting the institution of racism into our governmental policies, while Tancredo and his ilk recoil in mock outrage when someone points out the natural conclusion of thier own suggestions and Horowitz plays the poor put-upon conservative who is simply inundated with this "hatred" from the left because y'know - he's just knows were all stupid, right?

It's all a pose designed to increase their personal profiles and fortunes, it's all self-delusion, but in the long term benefits no one but themselves.

What do we hear from the Right Wing about the Walter Reed debacle?

Brit Hume: It's looks terrible for the Bush Administration. Which is the problem.

Yes, how things look is usually the problem for Republicans isn't it? That's because that's how they are.

And what do they have to say about the continued failure to cleanup the Gulf Coast following Hurrican Katrina? They blame the victims of course.

Newt Gingrich: How can you have the mess we have in New Orleans, and not have had deep investigations of the federal government, the state government, the city government, and the failure of citizenship in the Ninth Ward, where 22,000 people were so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane.

We don't need for all those damn conservaties to die... just for their repressive, bigoted, divisive, violent and greedy ideas to end up where they belong, tossed out of civilized society onto the scrap heap of history, just like Nazism and Socialism.

As far as I'm concerned the more these guys open their mouths and let people truly understand who they are and what they really believe - like a case of demented tourettes - the closer we come to that goal, inch by precious inch.

Vyan

Asshole Nation

Y'know I just got over the flu and haven't posted in the past week - but one thing strikes me as I look out into the passive uncaring faces of my fellow citizens. I am bewildered.

This nation is in the midst of a false war, started by lies which destroyed a CIA front operation, and where more of our citizens have died than did on 9/11, The very existences of our species is at risk as a result of climate change. We are being spied on by our own government without legal cause.

Where is the outrage? Where is the shock?

And then Anna Nicole Smith dies and people suddenly find their "Oh My God" button.

Pathetic.

This disconnect between reality and people's personal priorities is of course, exactly what the Bush Administration has been depending on all along. And even when Bush is long gone, we'll still be dealing with this problem and these people.

Reading the Libby Trial transcripts, it's unfathomable to me that there aren't riots in front of the White House. All reasonable indications are that the Vice President committed an act of treason by outing a CIA operative.

While bed-ridden I tried to watch the 24-News stations for info on the trail and it was nothing but "What did Hillary Say - What did Obama say - What did Kucinich Say..." all day long on f'Tucker, Hardball and Scumborough.

That was last week, this week it's all about Anna.

Who's her baby daddy now? Whose gonna get that $500 Billion?

On one level I do admit to understanding it. I try to talk to co-workers and customers about real issues occasionally and generally they seem just completely defeated. It's not just apathy, it's completely cynicism. They don't feel that anything they say or do will make a difference in City Hall, the State Capitol or Washington. Better to obsess about the Superbowl, World Series, All Star Game... the Bread and Circus Du Jour or Astronaut Pampers.

Meanwhile...

The Pelosi Plane Story is totally and completely bogus?

Yeah, ok. Whatever.

The Obama/Osama Madrossa smear is a bunch of hooey? Ok, sure, but it's still Hillaries fault.

Saddam had nothing to do with 9-11? Oh sure, except not to Doug Feith who still thinks he did.

How long ago was it when we were hearing this drum beat of "Up or down Vote, Up or Down Vote" followed by the Nuclear Option and then last week every moderate Republican in the Senate does a double back flip with a full-twisting gainer to support a filibuster against a non-binding anti-surge resolution. Even Senator Warner and it was HIS Bill?

Where do these ASSHOLES COME FROM?

And As bad as some of that behavior has been, what's with the rest of us who just shrug and nod and let this bullshit stand?

Obviously I'm not talking about people on this site, I'm talking about the rest of the couch potatoes out there.

It's hard to blame someone for paying more attention to their kids, to their jobs, to thier recreation, or to their laundry. LIfe is tough all over. I get that.

But I keep wondering, at what point will people finally start to realize what they're being sold?

And then I have to realize that the real problem isn't just those assholes in Washington - it's the Assholes on Main Street. The reason that Glenn Beck and Bill O'Rielly and Rush Limbaugh get people to pay attention to them is the fact that they say exactly what tons and tons of Americans want to hear.

People want to believe that America would never fuck up this badly. They want to believe each and everyone one of our soldiers is brave, strong and true and honest. And like a four year-old they'll through a Michele Malkin hissy fit at the suggestion that even one of them them might not be.

They want to believe exactly what it is the GOP is selling. It's warm. It's comforting. It's not the terribly frightening world that so many of us who are actually paying attention live in where Modern Day Concentration Camps have become a reality. Where Torture is a portion of us U.S. War policy. Where Habaus Corpus is optional. Where we stand on the brink of a possible Nuclear Showdown not just one country - but Two.

Better to go back to the Beer and Football and Cheerleaders.

It's safer (deep in self=delusion) there -- for now.

The Asshole Nation is out there, we know it - we've ridden with it in carpools. Some of them are our parents. Our Brothers. Our Sisters. Our Bosses. They are the reason George Bush is in the White House and the reason he isn't Impeached and Prosecuted right this second. The very suggestion is too dark, too real, for their "Beatiful Minds".

Exactly what's it's going to take to blast Joe and Janine-Six Pack off the couch is something I'm not sure I even want to witness. But it's coming and it won't be anwhere near as pretty as Anna was.

Count on it.

Vyan

Olbermann strikes a nerve with "24" Bash

Last Saturday I wrote a diary largely agreeing and amplifying the criticisms of Keith Olbermann against the propaganda potential of the Fox Show "24".

Is "24" propaganda? Is it fear-mongering? Or is it a program-length commercial for one political party?

Since many people even in this "liberal bastion" happen to be big fans of the show - the response here was decidedly mixed. Some, echoing Taylor Marsh, even vehemently argued that Jack Bauer is a Democrat.

Certainly quality entertainment does exist in the eye of the beholder - but while doing some followup research I found not one, not two, but three articles written in response to Olbermann's "24" comments.

Me thinks Keith may have struck a very raw and exposed nerve.

Let's take the not quite so wing-nutty of the articles first. This one was from Eugene Kane at JSOnline.

I'm not a regular watcher of "24," the TV series that purports to follow the superhuman Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) in real time as he saves the country from terrorist attacks on a constant basis. To fully invest in the mythology of "24," you have to accept that Bauer has saved the nation at least five times so far. Each time he did it, everything happened in the course of a single day.

Busy guy, that Jack.

Agreed, this show, like many requires a herculean suspension of disbelief. Not to mention common sense, but then again so does "Two and Half Men". Americans are really good at it by now.

After I watched Sunday's season premiere - it concluded Monday night - it was apparent to me the appeal of "24" is similar to that of another top-rated series that became the favorite of political types.

Essentially, "24" is to conservatives what "The West Wing" was to liberals.

"The West Wing" was often considered a fantasy version of the Clinton presidency, as faux president Jed Bartlett (Martin Sheen) represented the best of Clinton's intellectual optimism without the nagging intern problem.

Generally speaking I would agree, "The West Wing" absolutely was liberal manna from heaven. But it wasn't Clinton, instead it was White House and presidency as we might wish it to be deep in our liberal heart of hearts, however that hopeful optimism was constantly dashed by bitter realities. Such as President Bartlett's ordering the assasination of high ranking foreign official who also happened to be a terrorist, the attempted assasination of his aid Charlie Young by Skinheads, and the kidnapping of his youngest daughter. They even did manage to slide the Lewinsky-like Scandal into the story only it didn't happen to the President, it happened to Vice President who promptly resigned only write his own tell-all book and return as a Challenging Presidential Candidate himself two years later.

One Thing: Barlett's White House never went through 9-11, other than as a special out of continuity episode which sought to point out that Radical Islamic Extremist like Al-Qeada are to devout Muslims as the KKK, Nazi's and Racist Skinheads are to Christians. That's a pretty liberal view of the situation I think.

Oh, and one other thing: They gave Republicans on the show a ton of respect. They differed strongly in their views with they many obvious libs on the show, but they were principled, tenacious and - heavens to mergitroid - HONEST! (How's that for a fantasy world, eh?) From Emily Proctor's plucky Ainsley Hayse to the Government Oversight Committee chief counsel who forced a witch-hunt against Leo McGarry to be terminated - they often put the needs of the country above partisianship. One even dressed down Josh Lyman as he fretted over Republicans taking advantage of Bartlet's decision to temporarily step down (while his daughter was missing)..."Anyone who thinks we would do that, has a particularly craven view of politics".

Would that we had Republicans such as these in real life, eh?

Like I said, Wishful thinking.

Similarly "24" - is a neo-con wet dream.

"24" is an alternate version of President Bush's America, a place besieged by imminent attacks but ultimately saved by the existence of a crack homeland security operative like Bauer who is unencumbered by rules or regulations.

Basically, "24" imagines an America so anxious about the next terrorist attack that ordinary citizens don't have to be manipulated by disingenuous color alerts or presidential warnings of doom and gloom. It's in their faces, all the time.

Hey anybody remember what terror-alert level we're currently at? I forget. It's all become a technicolor blur to me.

The show's popularity with some political types was highlighted last June during a forum on terrorism in Washington, D.C., by the conservative Heritage Foundation that featured Limbaugh as moderator.

The forum, called "24 and America's Image in Fighting Terrorism: Fact, Fiction or Does It Matter?" included Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff and various think-tank experts. According to Entertainment Weekly magazine, radio host Laura Ingraham and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas also attended.

Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, Micheal Chertoff, Clarence Thomas all at the Heritage Foundation? And some of you thought Olbermann was going little overboard when he said the show had a massive appeal to the right wing-bats --- tsk.

You guys remember who Laura Ingraham - she's the one who asked her radio listeners to jam the phone lines of a Democratic get out the vote operation this past November. She likened Stem Cell research to "public executions for child molesters". And she's Dinesh (the cultural left caused 9-11) D'Souza's former college girlfriend.

Speaking of Stem-cells lets not forget how Limbaugh was pimp-slapped by Michael J. Fox.

Whether or not it's by design, although I think it is, it's hard to deny that this show gives people like Limbaugh a Full on Wingbat-Chubby.

Some speculate one reason "24" is such a favorite of the Bush crowd is that Bauer is presented as a guy with no qualms about torturing his prisoners in order to get information as quickly as possible. In light of criticism the Bush administration gets for its torture policies, it doesn't take a think-tank expert to see why some hail the show as a breath of clean air.

Ya think?

With the loss of Congress, conservatives need something to hold onto these days. By ramping up the terrorism threat to excruciating levels, shows like "24" serve a purpose for those who never want the rest of us to forget how close we may remain to disaster.

Except, of course, instead of Jack Bauer we've got that other guy.

Ouch. Did you have to remind us? Just when I was feeling good about 'ole Jack being out there fighting the good fight to protect us from all those evil doers. Go Jack GO!

For the most part I agree with Eugene's analysis and I've quoted it at length to offer as a level setting device, because we're going to need it as I look at the second article - this one from Investors.com

The anti-war left hates the Bush administration with such a passion it refuses to recognize how dangerous our enemies in the Muslim world are. Now they hate the TV show "24" because it dares to remind us.

In fact, liberal outlets are calling it right-wing White House propaganda. "Dick Cheney is a big fan," snorts Time magazine, ignoring that the executive producer of "24" is a registered Democrat. It also breathlessly notes that Rush Limbaugh likes the show, so much so he planted "a full-on mouth kiss" on one of its star actresses at a Heritage Foundation forum on terror. That seals it for the left.

You know you're dealing with Wing-nuts here, cause they just can't help themselves from making shit up. This has nothing to do with Limbaugh kissing Chloe on the lips - (by the way ick.) it's got to do with those pesky Civil Liberties thingees you guys tossed out with the baby bath water.

It's serious. Keith Olbermann, MSNBC's liberal poster boy, actually suggested that the producers of "24" are conspiring with Cheney to keep the public alarmed so they can keep torturing and spying on Muslims.

He and a recent guest who wrote a book bashing Fox, the network that airs "24," dismissed its apocalyptic new season as far-fetched. As if Muslim terrorists would ever blow up buses or subways or attack cities with radiological weapons.

Oh man, these guys are so weak. Robert Greenwald did not "write a book" bashing Fox, he made a documentary about Rupert Murdock and the right-wing bias in Fox News Channel. Y'know the place that wants to find the Happy Insurgents now that Dems have taken over Congress. Cuz like - Dems and Terrorist are natural allies - with the "Hating America First" and all that...right?

Gee, where have I heard that one before? Oh yeah. JC Watt's

"Democrats don't care about national security".

And it's not like Fox News has colluded with Republicans on fear-mongering or anything in the past. Oops - yes, they have.

On October 19, the Republican National Committee (RNC) announced the release of a new advertisement, titled "Stakes," that features clips of Osama bin Laden and other terrorists making threats against the United States and clips of explosions, with a ticking clock and a heartbeat playing in the background.

According to the RNC press release: "The ad highlights the high stakes America faces in the global war on terror by using the words of the terrorists themselves as they describe their intention towards the United States." On October 20, the RNC announced that it "has purchased advertising time on national cable news outlets to air the ad on television on Sunday, October 22." The broadcast and cable news networks, however, have already played portions of the ad several times as part of their news programming -- essentially giving the RNC the opportunity to fearmonger on their airwaves free of charge.

And It's not like they regularly deciminate right-wing talking points to all their coorespondants at Fox news.

And it's not like Fox News still plans to air portions of ABC's libelous debacle "Path to 9-11" that were so outrageous they had to be pulled from the broadcast under legal threats from President Clinton and Richard Clarke, and that this is such an egregious act of propaganda that it has even upset Bauer's ass-kicking predecesor and Hannity Stand-in Chuck Norris

Of course not.

Move along now - nothing to see here. Move along.

What really sent them over the edge, however, was last week's episode showing Muslim terrorists incinerating Los Angeles with a suitcase nuke. No Muslims living in America would ever do that, scoff Islamic apologists. A mushroom cloud? Sounds like more Bush-Cheney fear-mongering!

So those that point out that even after thousands of innocent Americans have had their phones tapped, email scanned, cell phones bugged, financial records examined and mail opened - all without a warrant - that we don't have any active Sleeper Cells in America (according to the FBI) are "Islamic apologists"?

Right.

But if anyone's divorced from reality, it's these apologists. Even their own favorite analysts warn that al-Qaida is preparing to carry out nuclear terrorism here. One of them, Michael Scheuer, works for CBS News. The former head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit penned a book, "Imperial Hubris," that slams Bush over Iraq. He writes columns for such venues as AntiWar.com.

Yet even Scheuer is sure bin Laden is plotting a nuclear attack against us. The first step, he said, was getting a green light from Saudi clerics to kill up to 10 million Americans with such weapons. Then bin Laden offered the U.S. a truce and even recently invited President Bush to convert to Islam — all in keeping with jihadi military doctrine. And on at least two occasions he has directly warned the American people.

I happen to like Scheuer's detailed analysis on Bin Laden and have read "Imperial Hubris". What they're saying here is true - except for that fact this is what Bin Laden wants to do - not neccesarily what he Can do. And if wishes were dollars we'd all be millionaries.

Here's an idea, if we want to stop Bin Laden - why don't we friggin go get Bin Laden in Pakistan?

In my original post I compared "24" to Showtime's "Sleeper Cell" pointing out that the latter while addressing the exact same subject as "24" was much more grounded in reality. In the final episode of this season, it's FBI hero Darwin Al-Hakim (oh look, he's a Muslim! Ooohh Scary!) actually went all the way to Yemin to track down the bad guy - cuz that's where he was. Fancy that.

He didn't get him, but he made an honest try - unlike the reality of George Bush who didn't do Jack-Squat when everyone from the Clinton Admistration - including Clinton himself - was telling him that Bin Laden were a serious threat, and he didn't pay any attention.

Now of course he's like Chicken Little - the sky is constantly falling. But Bin Laden is still nowhere to be found. How convenient that his Boogey-Man is always ready to pop out of his cave in time for another round of let's strip away a little more of the Constitution.

Anyway, back to the wingermen.

Time thinks Fox should use "24" to "improve America's image in the Muslim world." Instead of, what, depicting reality? The terrorists' religious ideas already have been sheltered enough from criticism. (So much so that the new Democratic chairman of House intelligence doesn't even know whether bin Laden is a Shiite or Sunni Muslim.)

Neither does George Bush.

Or that author for that matter - I'd wager.

For the record, he's a Sunni. Hezbollah are Shiite.

If Fox is shocking or scaring the public, good. That's part of informing the public in wartime about the larger Islamic threat — not just abroad but at home, from sleeper cells hellbent on nuking us and martyring themselves so, yes, they can please Allah and redeem their heavenly virgins.

Just keep chanting along with me - "Hysterical Fear is good... Hysterical Fear is good..."

Too bad Hollywood didn't air shows before 9/11 that depicted Muslim men at flight schools interested only in learning to fly planes and not land them.

No, it's really too bad that nobody listened to the FBI Agent in Pheonix who was saying exactly that to his superiors.

Hollywood however only depicted suicide bombers and Sleeper Cells in New York blowing up buses in "The Siege" with Denzel Washington. Except that in that Movie the result was the declaration of Martial Law, the stripping away of civil liberaties, the erection of a Concentration Camp for Muslims, Torture and Murder. Those crazy Hollywood people and thier fantasies - what won't they think of next?

Maybe something like the movie "Wag the Dog" where agents of the President concocted a phony war with a fake hero to distract and manipulate the populace.

Again, it's not like the Bush Administration has done anything like that with people like Jessica Lynch or Pat Tillman. Nooo... it'll never happen.

Except that it already has.

Oh, and there actually was a TV Show that depicted a plot to fly an airplane into the World Trade Center which was shot and aired prior to 9-11. That show was the Pilot Episode of "The Lone Gunmen" - only in that "X-Files" spinoff the plane was being remote piloted by members of the government intent on starting a War in the middle east by blaming the crash on muslim terrorists. Not unlike Bush's own plot to paint a U.S. plane with UN colors and taunt Saddam with it until he took a bite and we'd have an excuse to invade.

Not that we needed a trumped up, phony, bullshit excuse or anything...

Someone has to think outside the box, unrestrained by political correctness. Kudos to Fox for doing what even the supposedly Islamophobic Bush administration doesn't have the nerve to do.

Oy vey. I simply don't have the words - and that's saying something for a motor mouth like me.

Ok, now that we've swam through that dreck, time to get some crackers and clear our palettes for this next article from Newsbusters - which champions itself as "Exposing and Combating Liberal Media Bias". Snort! That's a good one!

The night after the four-hour, two-night season premiere of Fox's 24 ended with a "suitcase nuke" being set off by Middle Eastern terrorists in a Southern California warehouse, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann saw a nefarious plot to aid President Bush: "Is 24 just entertainment or is it propaganda designed to keep people thinking about domestic terrorism to keep us scared?" He demanded Tuesday night: "Gripping drama or thinly veiled propaganda?"

Ok, enough of the sexy intro - let's get to meat of it.

Olbermann then posed a series of absurd questions to Robert Greenwald, producer of the comically anti-FNC movie, Outfoxed.

At least they were paying enough attention to note that Greenwald made a movie - instead of "writing a book" - although there isn't all that's "comical" in Outfoxed, more like tragic. I've seen it. I doubt they have.

His options for Greenwald: "Is 24 propaganda? Is it fearmongering? Or is it a program-length commercial for one political party?" Olbermann soon proposed that "if the irrational right can claim that the news is fixed to try to alter people's minds or that networks should be boycotted for nudity or for immorality," then "shouldn't those same groups be saying 24 should be taken off of TV because it's naked brainwashing?" Suggesting some sort of Fox-White House conspiracy, Olbermann tossed up: "But does this not begin to look at this point like the blurring of the lines here," between fact and fiction, "is deliberate?"

Well, at least their quotes are accurate. But if they'd actually seen and comprehended Outfoxed, they'd understand the context of the question -- that movie depicted the efforts of pro-right wingers such as Rupert Murdock to manipulate how the news was reported to give it a right ward slant. This doesn't require a conspiracy between Fox and the White House - unless of course you subscribe to the notion that any anti-left and pro-Bush viewpoint has to be part of some dasdardly WH directed plot. Viewpoints like say - "Exposing and Combating Liberal Media Bias" for instance?

Are Newsbusters themselves a part of this vicious conspiracy?

Will their nefarious plans succeed?

Stay tuned and find out. Same Wing-Bat Time. Same Wing-Bat Channel.

Of course, back in September the premiere hour of CBS's Jericho ended with a nuclear explosion caused by a terrorist attack on America. But that never bothered Olbermann. TV.com's page with a plot summary, and an image of the atomic cloud: "After a nuclear disaster caused by several terrorist attacks destroys most of America, residents of a small Kansas town must come to terms with a new and very different reality."

Yeah, well maybe that's because nobody gets regularly tortured or has their extremities bitten off on Jericho. And by the way about that show - nobody knows yet exactly who dropped the bomb.com, how many their were - although it seems that it was probably too many for twenty guys with box cutters - or how much of the American infrastructure is still in tact.

Jericho is a distopian apocolyptic mystery. "24" isn't.

In previous seasons, the hero Jack Bauer manages to prevent the ultimate goal of the terrorists, but setbacks occur along the way. And that's all that happened in Monday night's show. During a raid to capture a group of terrorists, one managed to set off the suitcase nuke taken from Russia, but while it is the biggest attack in 24 history, with 20 hours to go in the series which will air Monday's at 9pm ET/PT through May, it is surely not the much deadlier ultimate goal of the terrorists which Bauer and CTU will strive to thwart.

No, it's not - because that suitcase bomb was apparently only the first of five that were apparently smuggled into the U.S. through our shitty-ass port security.

Wouldn't it have been nice if somebody (John Kerry, 9-11 Commission, Democratic Congress) had thought to beef that up some? Oh, there I go mixing fantasy and reality again - silly me.

To finish up Newsbuster goes on the post almost the entire Olbermann Transcript through two commercial breaks in order to document his "paranoia".

The idea that people who are trying to make us more scared, are calling people who are noticing their attempts "paranoid" is just weird on too many levels.

In the end "24" is just a television show. Some people like it, some don't. I happen to feel that Eugene hit the nail on the head - the show has a certain synergy with the fear-based perpective of neo-cons - just as "West Wing" was similarly simpatico with the hope-based perspective of Liberals. This observation is not a quality judgement on either show, it's simply a matter of their appeal.

I myself have been a rabid fan of both shows, but that doesn't mean I can't take a step back and look at either one of them with a more critical eye. Olbermann had a right to his criticism - which I think was directly on the mark - and the others have right to their comments, particularly since they happen to prove him correct with the shrill desperation of their response.

Naturally, opinions vary - but facts do not. Let's just all try and remember the difference between the two.

Vyan

American Concentration Camps - Now Open for Business

Manzanar 1943

We thought we'd learned from our mistakes. We thought we knew better.

During WWII we made a grave mistake, we let our fear and paranoia after Pearl Harbor drive us to allow the internment of Japanese American Citizens in Camps such as Manzanar.

It wasn't until 40 years later in 1988 that President Ronald Reagan signed a bill that both apologized and paid restitution to the 60,000 internment survivors still within the U.S.

What is occuring today in Taylor Texas may yet require another future President to make similar gesture of sorrow and regret for actions occuring on our watch. Only this time, the targets aren't Japanese-Americans, they're innocent Muslims and their children.

As he signed the Internment Restitution Bill Reagan Stated:

Yes, the Nation was then at war, struggling for its survival and it's not for us today to pass judgment upon those who may have made mistakes while engaged in that great struggle. Yet we must recognize that the internment of Japanese-Americans was just that: a mistake. For throughout the war, Japanese-Americans in the tens of thousands remained utterly loyal to the United States. Indeed, scores of Japanese-Americans volunteered for our Armed Forces, many stepping forward in the internment camps themselves. The 442d Regimental Combat Team, made up entirely of Japanese-Americans, served with immense distinction to defend this nation, their nation. Yet back at home, the soldier's families were being denied the very freedom for which so many of the soldiers themselves were laying down their lives.

Journalist David Niewert while making a public speech in Seattle regarding these camps based on is his book Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community found himself recently peppered with antagonistic questions from one elderly caucasian in the audience who had apparently been taking tips from the likes of Michelle Malkin and failed to note the fact that many of those held in places such as Manzanar were not immigrants, they were American Citizens who simply happen to be of Japanese decent.

He finally stepped in it, however, when he attacked my consistent use of the term "concentration camps" to describe the so-called ten "relocation centers" that held some 120,000 internees. (There has been some ongoing discussion of exactly what terminology to use to describe the Japanese American "internment"; currently, most historians favor using "internment camps" to describe the military camps that held a number of "enemy aliens" swept up in Justice Department arrests shortly after the outbreak of war, while the "relocation centers" -- a bureaucratic euphemism concocted by architects of the evacuation -- are more accurately described either in terms of the incarceration they represented, either as "prison camps" or "concentration camps.")

"You shouldn't call them concentration camps," he said. "We weren't starving people to death or murdering them in gas chambers. Calling them that makes people think that's what went on there."

Well, I responded, what you're describing is properly called a death camp. "Concentration camp" was a term created, during the Boer War, to describe the mass prison camps the British erected to incarcerate Boer families. It has been used consistently afterward to describe these kinds of arrangements, including by both Franklin Roosevelt and Attorney General Biddle, in official documents, to describe the Japanese American camps.

Then as now, we were at war - then as now, American Citizens are being caught up in this net - then as now, we've chosen to close our eyes, close our ears and turned our backs on those whose freedom we have denied including over 200 children (many born in the U.S.) now being held in one Texas Relocation Internment Concentration Camp. From the American-Statesman.

Groups highlight plight of jailed immigrant families
By JUAN CASTILLO
Cox News Service
Friday, December 15, 2006

AUSTIN, Texas — The T. Don Hutto Residential Center, a private detention facility in Taylor, Texas, is emblematic of new federal policy that detains all unauthorized immigrants from countries other than Mexico while the government determines whether they should be deported or have a legal right to be here.

The Taylor center is used for that purpose, but it and a much smaller one in Pennsylvania share a distinction: They are the only two such facilities in the country that hold immigrant families and children on non-criminal charges.

Last Month the Human Rights group "Texans United for Familes" staged a 35-mile walk from the State Capitol in Austin to the Taylor Faciilities to highlight the issues.

"Housing families in for-profit prisons not only calls to question our moral values and our respect for human rights, but it is also a waste of taxpayer money," said Luissana Santibanez, a 25-year-old University of Texas student and an organizer with Grassroots Leadership, which works to stop the expansion of the private prison industry.

Yes, you did read that correctly - this is a For-Profit Privately operated prison. This means their incentive isn't to rehabiltate (since no crime has been alleged in these cases), their incentive is simply to house as many "inmates" as possible with the lowest possible overhead, like any other form of slavers human cargo private business would do.

The Taylor jail began holding immigrant families this summer under a contract with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. It is owned and operated by Corrections Corporation of America. Williamson County receives $1 per day for each inmate held there.

Upon learning about the protests, Rick Zinsmeyer, director of adult probation for Williamson County, said "I was told the purpose (of housing immigrant families) was to keep the families together, instead of separating them, so this is interesting."

Organizers of Thursday's press conference and walk said the Taylor jail houses about 400 people, including about 200 children who are held with their parents. They said children receive one hour of education — English instruction — and one hour of recreation per day, usually indoors.

There is also the issue of whether any these people are actually illegal immigrants or not as noted in this letter from Dallas Attorney John Wheat Gibson who represents several of the detainees at Hutto.

Whoever told you the people imprisoned in Taylor, Texas entered the country illegally lied to you. I have seven clients now imprisoned since November 3 at the T. Don Hutto prison, and every one of them entered the U.S. legally with a visa issued by the United States government.

Furthermore, there is no reason for the imprisonment of these children except as victims of a Michael Chertoff publicity stunt. In midnight raids on November 3 the Department of Homeland Stupidity took these children, who were enrolled in school, from their homes, with their parents and imprisoned them.

The sole purpose of the raids, political propaganda, was apparent from a DHS press release which characterized the victims as "fugitives" and "criminals." In fact, none of the families I know of were either fugitives or criminals. The two families I represent had conscientiously kept the DHS informed of their current residential addresses.

The purpose of the publicity stunt was to make the ignorant Fox-News brainwashed masses believe that 1) the Muslims among us are our enemies but 2) the DHS is protecting us, and therefore 3) we should not mind shredding the Constitution.

Shades of Prager, Goode and Glenn Beck - eh? To these rabid wing-nuts anything we do to protect ourselves from a potential threat, even if that threat is in the form of a child, is fine in their book. Nevermind using due process to first prove that there is a threat. Nevermind habeas corpus - which thanks to the Military Commissions Act no longer applies to any "foreigners" anymore. Nevermind Justice. These people won't even bat an eye, just as many people during WWII didn't.

This is Racial Profiling at it's most base level, and what's worse is that it completely fails to help identify and isolate those who actually might most wish to harm us, since the available evidence indicates that these people came here to escape oppression, not wage "Jihad". At least, not until this experience.

This story was previous diaried on Kos just before Christmas, and apparently one commenter provided information from a visitor to the center.

I have been to the Hutto Residential Center in Taylor Texas and can testify that it does not look like their publicity picture. The publicity picture looks almost nice: the lobby of an East European hotel maybe? The reality looks like an updated version of a concentration camp, replete with razor wire, double fence with gravel covered death zone between them. It looks like a place where you would stick grave criminals, not children.

And how about the quality of the conditions, I mean, a little detention really couldn't hurt anyone especially if their parents happen to be nearby right?

Frances Valdez, an attorney with the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law who has visited clients at the facility, said detainees have reported receiving substandard medical care and becoming ill from food served at the jail.

"A lot of children are losing weight. People suffer from severe headaches," Valdez said. "I think there's a lot of psychological issues going on. Most of these people are asylum seekers, so they've already suffered severe trauma in their country." She said immigrants are not given psychological treatment.

So they've fleed oppression in their homeland - only to be oppressed by our Die Fatherland Homeland Security Forces and then sold into captivity?

I think this nation is going to have a great deal make restitution and apologize for in the years and decades ahead.

When will we ever learn?

Vyan

The Missing Piece of the Immigration Puzzle

Tehis has been an interesting week in the midst of the decades long struggle over illegal immigration. The Border Angels have had over 500,000 people in the streets of downtown Los Angeles and elsewhere in response to a radical House proposal to make "aiding and abetting" illegals a felony (a proposal that is quite alarming when taken in conjuction with the $386 Million Homeland Security Contract with Halliburton/KBR to build "Emergency Detention Centers"), and create a 700 mile fence on the southern border (to the tune of yet another $2 Billion), contrasted with a much more moderate proposal from the Senate which offers a pathway to legality for some of those 11 Million undocumented people currently residing on our shores.

But all of these proposal ignore the basic question of inequity that has brought us to this point, and will no doubt bring us back - why are certain people force to seek illegal means to enter the country while others (like the 9-11 hijackers) are granted free passage?

Why do we let some people in, and other people are forced to jump a fence, crawl through tunnels and run across the desert?

Student Protests Continue in LA

It's a basic question, but I no one seems to ask it. Sure we frequently talk about the lack of economic oppurtunity in their natives lands, and we sometimes may mention the crime and curruption, the environmental devestation cause by the U.S. deforestation policy in Central America... but why is it that able-bodied, law-abiding, hard-working people are being turned away at our borders and are force to take their chances with "Coyotes" in order to find a better way of life?

Some of the latest stats indicate that in California's case, immigrant workers provide at $100 Billion boost to the economy while only using $6 in State services. So economics isn't a valid reason.

As I wrote in a post about the Minutemen months ago.

The answer may reside with the U.S. State Dept. Visas offered by the State Dept to immigrants from various nations are limited by a quota. Quotas of this type began to first be established in 1882 when Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, as the scare of the "Yellow Menace" began to rise and the need for railroad workers (who were primarily Chinese) began to wane. In the 1920's there was the "Red Scare" and in the 1940's the internment of Japanese Americans. In the 21st century we like to consider ourselves more 'enlightened' than we were in the past, yet these types of quotas remain.

Here is an excerpt from the State Department Visa Bulletin for April 2006 which outlines just some of the quotas they use to determine whether Visa will be granted or not.

FAMILY-SPONSORED PREFERENCES

First: Unmarried Sons and Daughters of Citizens: 23,400 plus any numbers not required for fourth preference.

Second: Spouses and Children, and Unmarried Sons and Daughters of Permanent Residents: 114,200, plus the number (if any) by which the worldwide family preference level exceeds 226,000, and any unused first preference numbers:

A. Spouses and Children: 77% of the overall second preference limitation, of which 75% are exempt from the per-country limit;

B. Unmarried Sons and Daughters (21 years of age or older): 23% of the overall second preference limitation.

Third: Married Sons and Daughters of Citizens: 23,400, plus any numbers not required by first and second preferences.

Fourth: Brothers and Sisters of Adult Citizens: 65,000, plus any numbers not required by first three preferences.

EMPLOYMENT-BASED PREFERENCES

First: Priority Workers: 28.6% of the worldwide employment-based preference level, plus any numbers not required for fourth and fifth preferences.

Second: Members of the Professions Holding Advanced Degrees or Persons of Exceptional Ability: 28.6% of the worldwide employment-based preference level, plus any numbers not required by first preference.

Third: Skilled Workers, Professionals, and Other Workers: 28.6% of the worldwide level, plus any numbers not required by first and second preferences, not more than 10,000 of which to "Other Workers".

Schedule A Workers: Employment First, Second, and Third preference Schedule A applicants are entitled to up to 50,000 "recaptured" numbers.

Fourth: Certain Special Immigrants: 7.1% of the worldwide level.

Fifth: Employment Creation: 7.1% of the worldwide level, not less than 3,000 of which reserved for investors in a targeted rural or high-unemployment area, and 3,000 set aside for investors in regional centers by Sec. 610 of P.L. 102-395.

Here's a monthly breakdown by Region.

For April, immigrant numbers in the DV category are available to qualified DV-2006 applicants chargeable to all regions/eligible countries as follows. When an allocation cut-off number is shown, visas are available only for applicants with DV regional lottery rank numbers BELOW the specified allocation cut-off number:

Region	All DV Chargeability Areas Except Those Listed Separately
AFRICA	AF	16,950	Nigeria 10,900
ASIA	AS	5,350
EUROPE	EU	11,225
NORTH AMERICA (BAHAMAS)	NA	8
OCEANIA	OC	610
SOUTH AMERICA, and the CARIBBEAN	SA	975

Let me just take a second to point out that this table clearly indicates that Africa and Europe are to receive over 150 and 100 times (respectively) the number of Visa that all of South America receives (and from what I can tell, Central America including Mexico isn't even listed!!) - do I have to point out that many illegal immigrants in the country are actually Africans and Europeans who've overstayed their Visas? (Just like Moussaoui did)

This quota system needs to be abolished, plain and simple.

If someone is willing to go through the documentation process prior to entering the country, is able and willing to work to provide for themselves and has no criminal background or ties to terrorists -- they shouldn't be forced to break our immigration laws simply because we're "all full at the inn" for people from that country according to our quota system.

Any such quota system is clearly Unconstitution under the 14th Amendment ("All persons within the Jurisdiction of the State are to be granted the Equal Protection of the Law") have previously been struck down by decisions such as Bakke v U.C. Regents (which addressed school admissions - but is there really a great difference between who we feel is qualified for our schools and who we feel is qualified to enter our country?), and further is a clear violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1963 which prohibits discrimination on the basis of National Origin.

This system was established for obviously racist reasons in 1882, and it's continuance today only fosters similar racist ends. It's an arbitrary number is no more likely to protect us from those who might wish to do us harm than trying to hit a bullseye while playing a game of blinded darts would.

So far with "Guest Worker" (aka "Migrant Slave") suggestions, we've only managed to skirt the edge of the issue -- our Migration Policy is deeply flawed and needs to be fixed. Once that occurs, it won't be neccesary for anyone but those who are truly dangerous to attempt to enter illegally -- and by all means we should crack-down and protect our borders from Those people. We should create a method for those who've already entered to pay their debt to society for having committed this misdemeanor. If they fail in this, they should be deport and barred from re-entry for a number of years.

But you can't do any of this until you fix the current system to give people a reasonable chance to abide by the law. Right now that doesn't exist and until it does, we're just kicking this ball several decades down the road -- again.

Diagram of Elizabeth Detention Center

If we fail in this, we're more than likely to see the realization of those KBR Detention Centers - a virtual return to the bad-ole days of Japanese Internment during WWII, with the already horrific quality of current immigrant detention facilities, our current governments policy on torture and mistreatment, not to mention Halliburtons habit of poisoning our troops with contaminated water, these places aren't likely to much better than Modern Day Concentration Camps.

This is certainly not the direction we want to go is it?

Vyan

Why Battlestar Galactica is the new CNN

I've been a fan of this show since 1978. I even collected the Marvel Comics adaptation of the original series through the early 80's. When the new series was annouced I was excited out of my skin, but then the series debuted and all hell broke lose.

The new show has ignited a fued between fans of the "wholesomeness" of the old show (who were invariably highly conservative "Red State-ers") and the gritty reality of the new show (whose fans tend to be more Liberal/Blue state people) that has been nearly as hard fought and vicious as the actions on the screen.

This show is practially the CNN we wish we had when it comes to 9-11, abu Ghraib, the election scandals of Florida, Ohio and even the issue of abortion.

With the New Series, Producer Ron Moore "reimagined" everything. Starbuck the brash macho womanizing fighter pilot - was now a woman. The warm loving father-son relationship between Capt Apollo (Lee Adama, played by Jaime Bamber) and his father Commander Adama (Edward James Olmos) was a broken mishapen thing of angst, recrimination and regret. The enemy, the vicious robotic Cylons, formerly Alien and impossible to understand or sympathise, had suddenly grown human skin, flesh, blood and bone. They were now an invisible unseeable enemy with overtly religious motivations for horrific acts of mass murder and cruelty to women with thier horrorific experiments to mate and breed with "natural" humans.

In response to surviving the nuclear holocast that devastated their worlds in the initial Cylon attack, the remaining humans have fought as bitterly amongst themselves as they have with the Cylons - resorting to assasination, torture, rape, terrorism and election fraud.

Last night was the Season Two Finale and I have to say it was the balls-iest moves I've seen a TV show make since TNT's Witchblade completely rewound their entire first season back to ground zero. But I must point out that prior to viewing the episode, I received a heads-up that the last 20 minutes would 'blow us away' from one of the series associate producers Paul Leonard, and editor Andy Seklir (who were both attending a student film festival for Leonard's alma mater - USC).

According to Leonard they almost didn't air that last 20 minutes fearing that it was taking a bridge too far... but air it they did and I for one am very glad.

After President Laura Roslyn (Mary McDonnell) rigs the election, but is caught (oh, if only!) - the traitorous Dr. Baltar rises to the Presidency. His moment of glory is short-lived however as nearly simultaneous to his taking the oath of office - a terrorist (Tricia Helfer) sets off a nuclear bomb in the center of the fleet. A terrorist who happens to be a Cylon copy of a woman Baltar loved before the attack, a love that prompted him to free this verseion from imprisoment after seeing the horrendous torture she had suffered. A action which allowed her to assasinate her tormentor, Admiral Kane (Michelle Forbes). The irony of a woman killing another woman because one had been repeatedly and forcibly raped by men under the others orders, was quite thick - not to mention the point that unrestrained torture of a enemy directly led to a Nuclear Suicide Bombing!

Then with Baltar as President and the loss of several ships still hanging in the air the entire series takes off the gloves and skips ahead an entire year after the Colonials have settled on a new habital world deep in a sensor scrambling nebula. Many of the key members of the military have become civilians including the saucy Colonel Ty. Old friends Starbuck and Apollo have become estranged over Starbuck's husband Anders whose now suffering from pneumonia during a meds shortage. Others have grown together and begun families such as former Chief Tyrol and his very pregnant wife Callie. Baltar has become a letchorous, drunken tyrant on the verge of rounding up and detaining outspoken labor union leaders, including Tyrol, who themselves are on the verge of ordering a strike over poor conditions. Things are falling apart.

And that's when the Cylon's come back, catching everyone with their pants down around their ankles. (Balter's almost literally so...)

But in yet another twist, the Cylons aren't here to destroy the remaining 40,000 odd humans. Not yet. They're being led by Baltar's former lover - the original number six, "Caprica 6" - and the original Sharon Valerii (Number Eight) a former Galactica Pilot who didn't know she was a Cylon until activated and forced to shoot Commander Adama - MK Ultra anyone? - who herself was later shot during prisoner transport in a scene taken directly from the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby. Exactly what the motivations and goals of this New Cylon Empire, with Original Six and Sharon at the helm remains to be seen -- but the initial forcast seems to indicate that their brave new home has just become a concentration camp, while the fleet escapes with just bare skeleton crews on board.

Througout this series the question of humanity - what is it and why does it deserve to continue - has been asked repeatedly.

If you fight your enemy because of their supposed "evil" by performing actions of clear and obvious evil yourself -- do you deserve to win?

Apparently Ron Moore feels that you don't. In all honestly I happen to concur. Just because you think you're the "Good Guys" and call youself the "Good Guys" doesn't mean that you are - your actions count more than the rhetoric. Clearly this show is parrelleling both the modern day struggle following 9-11 with al Qaeda, but also the historic aftermath of the Kennedy assasination, President Johnson's misguided invasion of Vietnam and the rise of the incredibly corrupt Nixon adminstration after Johnson's disgrace and fall.

Laura Roslin is Johnson, Baltar is Nixon.

But it's not exactly that simple. Leonard shared with me a little secret, that Ron Moore has been pulling quotes directly out of Bush speeches and inserting them into President Roslin's dialogue, and that if Mary McDonnell - who is a died-in-the-wool liberal who hates Bush with a seething passion - ever realized it she would probably hit the roof. However, I think the fact that her character summarily banned abortion two episodes ago (just prior to the passage of South Dakota's actual abortion ban) might have been a hint. Plus since her character isn't President anymore, so it's a moot point. Or is it?

This show matters, because it's able to cloak it's political commentary behind "Sci Fi" - it's not likely to get destroyed and cancelled as the excellent FX Show "Over There" was - it can address issues that seem to scare the begeezus out of ABC, CNN, NBC and MSNBC. CBS still shows occasional signs of journalistic courage - but they've been largely neutered by the National Guard Papers.

All I need is Battlestar Galactica and Keith Olbermann with a dash of truthiness from the Daily Show and Colbert and I'm good. Watching these shows tells me - Somebody is paying attention, and makes me feel we just might save this country (and world) yet. Maybe.

Oh, and the show drives freepers over the edge - and that's always a plus.

Vyan

Katrina Survivors Cry Racism, Ethnic Cleansing and Sabotage

This week, hearings on the catastrophy that was Katrina began on Capital Hill - to rather explosive results.

WASHINGTON - Black survivors of Hurricane Katrina said Tuesday that racism contributed to the slow disaster response, at times likening themselves in emotional congressional testimony to victims of genocide and the Holocaust.

The comparison is inappropriate, according to Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla. “Not a single person was marched into a gas chamber and killed,” Miller told the survivors.

“They died from abject neglect,” retorted community activist Leah Hodges. “We left body bags behind... The people of New Orleans were stranded in a flood and were allowed to die.”

Angry evacuees described being trapped in temporary shelters where one New Orleans resident said she was “one sunrise from being consumed by maggots and flies.” Another woman said military troops focused machine gun laser targets on her granddaughter’s forehead. Others said their families were called racial epithets by police.

“No one is going to tell me it wasn’t a race issue,” said New Orleans evacuee Patricia Thompson, 53, who is now living in College Station, Texas. “Yes, it was an issue of race. Because of one thing: when the city had pretty much been evacuated, the people that were left there mostly was black.”

According to a recent Gallup poll, NBC News’ Kerry Sanders reported on Tuesday, six out of every 10 black New Orleans residents said if most of Katrina’s victims were white, relief would have arrived sooner.

Discussions about race began almost immediately after Katrina hit on Aug. 29. On Sept. 9, according to NBC News, President George W. Bush told the public, “The storm didn’t discriminate and neither will we in the recovery effort.”

Mama D - "Ba-boooom"!

One of the more telling and distressing exchanges occured between Rep Chris Shays (R) and Mama D a local activist who has turned her home into a shelter in the area when it come to discussion of whether the levee's had been bombed, and mentioned that this has occured before, in 1927 by one Louisiana town in order to protect itself from flooding.

After being reminded that they were "under oath", Mama D responded that "she does not stand to get rich by lying before Congress. Unlike the oil execs. [who were not sworn in during their hearing just a few weeks ago]".

As noted on Dailykos:

...it was a gross display of cultural insensitivity. At one point, Shays said to Mama D, [paraphrase] "Let's not start speaking in tongues..."

A couple of faces in the background registered surprise and shock at that comment.

Now it could, and has been argued that the sound of levee collapsing on it's own would have sounded almost identical to an explosion:

Quick little summary of the failure of the levees:

• The underlying soil sloughed away, therefore the structural levee wall became freestanding
• This wall was not designed to exist free standing, therefore, the weight of the wall collapsed itself
• When concrete and steel structures collapse, especially a massive 200 to 300 feet section, there is a lot of potential energy released
• Energy releases such as this always have a sonic component

I am not discounting anything else, but this is a common misconception. Most people have never experienced a major structural failure, like the levee or the Twin Towers, and the noise associated with the failure can be misconstrued as an explosion, because the sounds are comparable in amplitude and wavelength. Feel free to ignore my points, but as a civil engineer who has witnessed a dam failure one sixth or so the size of the levee breach in New Orleans and multiple explosive demolitions, the sound is freakishly similar.

So it's not entirely fair to discount the sworn testimony of eye witnesses as Shay's did -- and even though it may be tempting to dismiss the comments about the levee being bombed - the collapse may have sounded exactly like a bomb (there are also some indications that the levee had been leaking for weeks) - or that relocation process being similar to "Concentration Camps" -- the simple facts seem to belee such skeptism.

It's quite common these days for people to be highly skeptical of racial claims -- "they're just playing the race card"... but in a situation that has an extremely disproportional impact on individuals of one particular race as a result of - at least - gross and abject neglect- the racial element is hard to ignore.

This country still maintain a great racial divide, one that status and economics have yet to completely fill. But what's sad is that even in an situation as nakedly biased as this one -- we still continue to get bogged down in the semantics of intent (was it deliberate or accidental?) rather than looking toward solutions on how to prevent anything like this from ever happening again.

Video of these hearings are available on the C-Span Website

Vyan

Life vs Freedom

Yesterday, Terri Schiavo passed away. Part of me rejoices that her spirit has finally been released from the shell it was encased within and has rejoined the peace and serenity of eternity and God. Another part of me knows full well that the world she left behind is far different than what it was just two weeks before her final day. We have a battle ahead of us people. A battle between those who would give their all (and sometimes your all even without asking you) to preserve Life and those who would instead seek to preserve Freedom.

I personally stand with the latter group, those who feel as did Patrick (Give me Liberty or give me Death) Henry, failure to live free is not truly living at all. A lot has been said about the Schiavo case, perhaps too much - much more will continue to be said. Many future debates involving the fate of the innocent and their protection - "our [Goverments] major responsibility" according to Congressman Tom DeLay - are sure to continue.

I'm pretty sure I know how the Pro-Lifers will try to frame the debate. How they'll rail at Judicial "activism", and continue to misread the lessons of Marbury v Madison which instructed us that our Constitution establish three co-equal branches of government, rather than a Master-Congress/Executive and Slave-Judiciary. Those who stand as Pro-Freedom, have no small amount of work to do to avoid being painted as "immoral pornography spreading death-worshippers".

Many have faulted Congressional Liberals and Democrats for not "stepping up" to the plate - for not taking a stand. But I think their relative silence so far is a blessing. Even without any real persistent effort by the Dems, the Presidents effort to reform (or rather deform) Social Security is falling flat on it's face. Dead on arrival. Not even a single bill has reached or been crafted by Congress, as the President ignores the business of the people to endlessly schlep his non-starter of a plan around the country from one staged and loyalty-oathed protected "town hall" photo-op to another.

According to former Congresional Staffer and West Wing script writer Lawence O'Donnell there is "No Way" that a Social Security Partial Privitization Bill is going to get through the Senate Finance Committee without the support of Senator Olympia Snowe (R). The Finance Committee would have to approve any substantial changes to Social Security, and is current split 7 to 5 (Repubs to Dems). Without Snowe, who has already stated her abject opposition to the Presidents proposals, the vote count goes to 6 to 6 and the bill can not pass, and with all poll numbers on the subject heading toward the subtropics, that opposition isn't likely to wilt any time soon. Like I said, DOA. And the Dems have yet to fire a shot.

Similarly, the entire Schiavo fiasco has damaged the standing of the President and Congress as gross over-reachers, upsurping the seperation of powers to stick their collective busy-body noses into this sad and very personal family tragedy. Bush's approval rating numbers are now looking practically antarctic, even after the big bounce he recieved from the master stroke of delaying the Iraqi election - the Iraqi people had been begging for it for many months - until after the attack on Fallujah and just before the State of the Union. I have to commend his tremendous political savvy at turning his own flip-flop on the issue of Iraqi elections into a temporary political coup and fantastic set-piece of live theater (I know my middle-finger is still slighly purple around the edges, how 'bout yours?)

From all this - I see hope. The President and this Congress are IMO quite power-mad, and growing increasingly so each and every day. They have no sense of restraint, no sense of impropriety - only and overriding hubris which drives their moral entitlement into a murky realm where the ends justifies the means no matter how clearly immoral and intellectually dishonest that means may be. Just look at the record: They staged a phony excuse to get us into a war on Iraq, using Intelligence that was "Dead Wrong", and got away with it. They've run a mini-concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay - resulting in the in-custody deaths of nearly 150 "enemy combatants" and clearly inhumane treatment of hundreds of others, and got away with it. They Secretly planned an Energy policy that resulted in rolling black-outs all over California, a massive stock-market crash and rise of The Governator - and got away with it. Massive unneccesary tax cuts, primarily for those who already have plenty of liquid funds and are increasing exporting American jobs overseas, driving the dollar to an all-time low and national debt, trade and budget defecits through the ionesphere - and got away with it. From the debacle of the 2000 election until now they've gotten away with everything. Everything they've wanted, they have. Everything except this - both Social Security Reform and Terri Schiavo are dead. Indeed, the tide may have turned, if so, each of their next set of proposals may - hopefully - meet the same fate. DOA.

The next target in their sights is clear, radicalizing the Judiciary by excersizing the Senate's "Nuclear" option to jettison the 200 year-old tradition of the Filibuster, the last ditch protection by a minority against the tyranny of the majority. I have little doubt that the Republican Majority will not hesitate try to yet again to ramrod through the most extremist judges possible to the federal bench, while proclaiming that the Dems are simply annoying, whining obstructionists, conveniently ignoring their own illustrious history of obstruction during the Clinton years where nearly 60 of his judicial nominees were blocked from even coming to a vote, compared to the current Dems who have only objected to a dozen or so Bush nominees. (Can you believe the nerve of those Dem Bastards?)

The Repubs, as galvanized by their Radical Right puppet-masters and corporate financiers, clearly don't know when to quit while they're ahead, and will continue to push, and push, until they finally - hopefully - push themselves right out of the Congresional majority in 2006. Why should they stop? Their moral entitlement tells them to press on for the "moral good of the nation", and they will. So far the Dems haven't really needed to get vocal and active as the Repubs own hyper-zealousness has finally begun to become clear. But on the judicial issue, Dems will have to stand up, and stand firm. They may lose, they may win - but they need to get into this fight and do so swinging. From what I can tell from various statements by Congressional Minority Leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, they are girding themselves to do exactly that. The stage is set. Soon we'll see.

As the oncoming battle begins, I pray that we recall what is truly at stake, and see clearly the competiting visions for America's future - as well as the world's - that they represent. On the one hand I see those who are driven by deeply held Judeo-Christian moral values which cause them to seek to protect all innocent life (or at least those lives they selectively choose to consider innocent and worthy of protection while forsaking others such as Baby Sun Hudson and the Iraqi people). Even with the obvious and frequent hypocrisy of their position, I think we have to assume that most people with this belief are sincere, if sometimes misguided and myopic. Life is indeed, very precious - on this we can all agree. But those who would oppose the Pro-Lifers also do so from a strong and deeply held moral conviction - that the natural state of each and every individual in this world is freedom. Although life is precious, even more precious than life itself - is the value of living free.

The law of the land in America is based on the U.S. Constitution, not the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, or Watchtower. Although we should rightly value our various religious traditions deeply, they are not the law - and should never be so. Under the Constitution the government has limited powers, all those not granted to the Government belong to the states and most importantly the people. The Judiciary are the final arbiters of Constitutional understanding, the last bastion of protection for individual freedoms. Under the Constitution we are free, but clearly freedom is not an absolute. Freedom comes with responsibility, chief among those responsibilities is the civic duty to respect and preserve the freedom of each other, particularly when we don't necessarily agree with how those others may choose to exercise their freedoms - we must all individually and through government - still seek to protect them. As individuals and a nation, we must be willing to sacrifice all to preserve this - sometimes including life itself - or else our freedom is no more than an illusion, an allegory, a mirage.

In my view, no one person or government is free to restrict the freedom or control the actions of other people, even if they deem those actions to be "immoral" or even "against God" unless the actions of that person are themselves a greater danger to the liberty of all. Governments primary role within all this, is not just to "protect life" but to balance and protect all of these competiting freedoms, including both the freedom to live or to die. The struggle to maintain this balance I submit, will become the center of future battles for the shape of America, in the courts, within Congress and at the ballot box over abortion, contraception and reproductive health, the right of public religious expression, the right to a dignified peacful death, marriage equity, electronic privacy, national security, global terror and many other issues.

Life or Freedom?

On this question I stand with the late Mr. Henry and the apparent choice made by Mrs. Theresa Marie Schiavo. Which do you choose?

Vyan