NYT: Millions disappear from Iraq Rebuilding Funds

NYTimes reports that $Millions have been wasted, stolen and disappeared from the Iraq Reconstruction Funds, leaving the work incomplete and conditions unsafe.

A new audit of American financial practices in Iraq has uncovered irregularities including millions of reconstruction dollars stuffed casually into footlockers and filing cabinets, an American soldier in the Philippines who gambled away cash belonging to Iraq, and three Iraqis who plunged to their deaths in a rebuilt hospital elevator that had been improperly certified as safe.

The audit, released yesterday by the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, expands on its previous findings of fraud, incompetence and confusion as the American occupation poured money into training and rebuilding programs in 2003 and 2004. The audit uncovers problems in an area that includes half the land mass in Iraq, with new findings in the southern and central provinces of Anbar, Karbala, Najaf, Wasit, Babil, and Qadisiya. The special inspector reports to the secretary of defense and the secretary of state.

Agents from the inspector general's office found that the living and working quarters of American occupation officials were awash in shrink-wrapped stacks of $100 bills, colloquially known as bricks.

One official kept $2 million in a bathroom safe, another more than half a million dollars in an unlocked footlocker. One contractor received more than $100,000 to completely refurbish an Olympic pool but only polished the pumps; even so, local American officials certified the work as completed. More than 2,000 contracts ranging in value from a few thousand dollars to more than half a million, some $88 million in all, were examined by agents from the inspector general's office. The report says that in some cases the agents found clear indications of potential fraud and that investigations into those cases are continuing.

Some of those cases are expected to intersect with the investigations of four Americans who have been arrested on bribery, theft, weapons and conspiracy charges for what federal prosecutors say was a scheme to steer reconstruction projects to an American contractor working out of the southern city of Hilla, which served as a kind of provincial capital for a vast swath of Iraq under the Coalition Provisional Authority.

But much of the material in the latest audit is new, and the portrait it paints of abandoned rebuilding projects, nonexistent paperwork and cash routinely taken from the main vault in Hilla without even a log to keep track of the transactions is likely to raise major new questions about how the provisional authority did its business and accounted for huge expenditures of Iraqi and American money.

"What's sad about it is that, considering the destruction in the country, with looting and so on, we needed every dollar for reconstruction," said Wayne White, a former State Department official whose responsibilities included Iraq from 2003 to 2005, and who is now at the Middle East Institute, a research organization.

Instead, Mr. White said, large amounts of that money may have been wasted or stolen, with strong indications that the chaos in Hilla might have been repeated at other provisional authority outposts.

More...

Vyan

Bush Admin Fumbling the NSA Pushback

From Reuters:

A top U.S. intelligence official on Monday said President George W. Bush's warrantless spying program was necessary because the war on terrorism has rendered laws governing electronic surveillance ineffective.

As part of a high-profile White House campaign to defend the controversial program, former National Security Agency director Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden said eavesdropping was not as wide-ranging as has been described by critics who say Bush may have overstepped his authority by authorizing it.

"This isn't a drift net out there where we're soaking up everyone's communications," said Hayden, who is now principal deputy to U.S. intelligence chief John Negroponte.

"This is hot pursuit of communications entering or leaving America involving someone we believe is associated with al Qaeda," he said in remarks delivered at the National Press Club.

Now the Washington Post has the full transcript of Hayden's statement - and going through it helps establish exactly what the NSA and Administration have been thinking and doing. First he notes that the 9-11 highjackers would not normally have been targeted by NSA surveillance.

Hayden: The American SIGINT system, in the normal course of foreign intelligence activities, inevitably captures this kind of information, information to, from or about what we call a U.S. person. And by the way, "U.S. person" routinely includes anyone in the United States, citizen or not.

So, for example, because they were in the United States -- and we did not know anything more -- Mohamed Atta and his fellow 18 hijackers would have been presumed to have been protected persons, U.S. persons, by NSA prior to 9/11.

Technically most of the 19 highjackers were in the U. S. illegally using expired visas - and it's fair to note the NSA wouldn't normally know their immigration status that alone is no excuse to violate FISA. With a FISA Warrant these persons could be tapped at will, but the Catch-22 of the situation is that the FISA court will not accept evidence to begin a surveillance based on evidence that clearly comes from an unwarrant tap. Basically these persons have to be identified via non-NSA means (such as an FBI FISA application) in order for NSA to tap them.

There were in fact two NSA domestic spying programs, one which began almost immediately after Bush was elected as directed by Dick Cheney along with Hayden and one directed by the President.

<>Cheney's plan is described here:

... NSA started receiving numerous requests from Cheney and other officials in the state and defense departments to reveal the identities of the Americans blacked out or deleted from intelligence reports so administration officials could better understand the context of the intelligence.

Separately, at this time, Cheney was working with intelligence agencies, including the NSA, to develop a large-scale emergency plan to deal with any biological, chemical or nuclear attack on US soil.

Requesting that the NSA reveal the identity of Americans caught in wiretaps is legal as long as it serves the purpose of understanding the context of the intelligence information.

But the sources said that on dozens of occasions Cheney would, upon learning the identity of the individual, instruct the NSA to continue monitoring specific Americans caught in the wiretaps if he thought more information would be revealed, which crossed the line into illegal territory.

Cheney advised President Bush of what had turned up in the raw NSA reports, said one former White House official who worked on counterterrorism related issues.

"What's really disturbing is that some of those people the vice president was curious about were people who worked at the White House or the State Department," one former counterterrorism official said. "There was a real feeling of paranoia that permeated from the vice president's office and I don't think it had anything to do with the threat of terrorism. I can't say what was contained in those taps that piqued his interest. I just don't know."

So we've established that sharing the names of U.S. Persons indentified by normal NSA surveillance with other U.S. Agencies was illegal. I've posted previously about this attempt to share data in the days soon after 9-11 and the resulting revolt it generated with the halls of NSA.

QUESTION: Sam Husseini from IPA Media. You just now spoke of, quote, "two paths," but of course the FISA statute itself says that it will be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance may be pursued. Are you not, therefore, violating the law?

GEN. HAYDEN: That's probably a question I should deflect to the Department of Justice, but as I said in my comments, I have an order whose lawfulness has been attested to by the attorney general, an order whose lawfulness has been attested to by NSA lawyers who do this for a living. No, we're not violating the law.

The second plan, which was authorized by the President after 9-11, allows for NSA surveillance and the sharing of targeted U.S. persons without using the FISA court. Probable Cause is required (by the 4th Amendment) to be presented to the FISA court, prior to the issuance of a warrant - and it appears that a lack of probable cause as well as the illegal sharing of "protected names" may have been the prime justification for the Presidents action based on questions put to Hayden during his statement.

QUESTION: General Hayden, the FISA law says that the NSA can do intercepts as long as you go to the court within 72 hours to get a warrant.

I understood you to say that you are aggressively using FISA but selectively doing so. Why are you not able to go to FISA as the law requires in all cases? And if the law is outdated, why haven't you asked Congress to update it?

GEN. HAYDEN: Lots of questions contained there. Let me try them one at a time.

First of all, I need to get a statement of fact out here, all right? NSA cannot -- under the FISA statute, NSA cannot put someone on coverage and go ahead and play for 72 hours while it gets a note saying it was okay. All right? The attorney general is the one who approves emergency FISA coverage, and the attorney general's standard for approving FISA coverage is a body of evidence equal to that which he would present to the court. So it's not like you can throw it on for 72 hours.

So basically, you have to have a everything sufficient to justify probable cause in order to apply an Emergency Tap, in the expectation that you will eventually have to go before the FISA with the evidence supporting your claim. The 72-hour time window doesn't work for you when you can't meet probable cause. Moving on to the last question:

QUESTION: Jonathan Landay with Knight Ridder. I'd like to stay on the same issue, and that had to do with the standard by which you use to target your wiretaps. I'm no lawyer, but my understanding is that the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution specifies that you must have probable cause to be able to do a search that does not violate an American's right against unlawful searches and seizures. Do you use --

GEN. HAYDEN: No, actually -- the Fourth Amendment actually protects all of us against unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: But the --

GEN. HAYDEN: That's what it says.

QUESTION: But the measure is probable cause, I believe.

GEN. HAYDEN: The amendment says unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: But does it not say probable --

GEN. HAYDEN: No. The amendment says --

QUESTION: The court standard, the legal standard --

GEN. HAYDEN: -- unreasonable search and seizure.

QUESTION: The legal standard is probable cause, General. You used the terms just a few minutes ago, "We reasonably believe." And a FISA court, my understanding is, would not give you a warrant if you went before them and say "we reasonably believe"; you have to go to the FISA court, or the attorney general has to go to the FISA court and say, "we have probable cause." And so what many people believe -- and I'd like you to respond to this -- is that what you've actually done is crafted a detour around the FISA court by creating a new standard of "reasonably believe" in place in probable cause because the FISA court will not give you a warrant based on reasonable belief, you have to show probable cause. Could you respond to that, please?

GEN. HAYDEN: Sure. I didn't craft the authorization. I am responding to a lawful order. All right? The attorney general has averred to the lawfulness of the order.

Just to be very clear -- and believe me, if there's any amendment to the Constitution that employees of the National Security Agency are familiar with, it's the Fourth. And it is a reasonableness standard in the Fourth Amendment. And so what you've raised to me -- and I'm not a lawyer, and don't want to become one -- what you've raised to me is, in terms of quoting the Fourth Amendment, is an issue of the Constitution. The constitutional standard is "reasonable." And we believe -- I am convinced that we are lawful because what it is we're doing is reasonable.

The problem with Hayden's statement, and apparently with version two of the NSA Surveillance programs is this:

Routh Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

More analysis on this subject from georgia10 on Dkos.

The admission that Bush's spying program uses a "reasonable suspicion" standard rather than a "probable cause" standard is explosive and damning. Why? Because the Bush administration knew--indeed, took the position--that a reasonable suspicion standard with respect to non-U.S. citizens was probably unconstitutional. Yet the administration now applies that same unconstitutional standard to United States citizens?

In the summer of 2002--well after Bush's spying program was already secretly implemented- the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence held a hearing on the DeWine amendment. (Hearing Report PDF) What transpired at that hearing proves that the Bush administration (a) knew that wiretaps of United States citizens are, pursuant to the Constitution, always subject to a probable cause standard; and (b) Congress explicitly rejected a lower standard for non-U.S. citizens.

DeWine himself limited his amendment to apply only to non-U.S. citizens, recognizing that "we must be cautious not to endorse an overly permissive use of the surveillance powers of FISA." The Committee heard testimony from the administration's top lawyers, and from top legal scholars in the field of eavesdropping and criminal law.

James Baker was then counsel for intelligence policy at the Department of Justice and head of the Office of Intelligence Policy and Review, which is the office that prepares and presents to the FISA court "all the applications under the FISA Act for electronic surveillance and physical search of foreign powers and their agents." If there was any expert on FISA warrant and applications at the time, it was Baker. He began his testimony by praising the PATRIOT ACT FISA changes, testifying as follows:

In my view, the changes have allowed us to move more quickly and more effectively and to also be more focused in our approach in dealing with the kinds of threats that Mr. Bowman made reference to. So we at the Department are grateful for the changes that Congress made in the statute, because I believe they've been important and have been employed effectively.

No word of how "ineffective" FISA is there.

Indeed, the problem here isn't with FISA, including the 72 hour post-hoc feature, it's with a demonstrably lowering of the bar from probably cause to the "reasonable suspicion" standard. The most telling answer Hayden gave was to the question of whether the Administration political opponents were being targeted for NSA surveillance, presumably under the "reasonable suspicion" standard rather than the legal and constitutional "probable cause".

QUESTION: No, I asked, are you targeting us and people who politically oppose the Bush government, the Bush administration? Not a fishing net, but are you targeting specifically political opponents of the Bush administration? Because as Vice President Gore recently said, "It is much worse than people realize."

Hayden didn't answer the question, and when you note that this entire process began with the Vice President using NSA to spy on White House and State Deptartment personnel, it seems obviuos that if they can brazenly do that, what's to stop them from spying on an anti-war anti-Bush outfit like World Can't Wait?

Looks like Wayne Madsen might just not be ready for that tin-foil hat after all.

Meanwhile, Alberta Gonzales has been getting the raspberry on his barnstorming tour in support of the Presidents policies, as law students turn their back on him

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales defended the Bush administration's domestic spying program Tuesday and suggested that some critics and news reports have misled Americans about the breadth of the National Security Agency's surveillance.

		Members of the audience stand up and turn their backs on Gonzales as he speaks.
		By Charles Dharapak, AP

Gonzales said the warrantless surveillance is critical to prevent another terrorist attack within the United States and falls within President Bush's constitutional authority and the powers granted by Congress immediately following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. (Related video: More from Gonzales)

At a Georgetown Law School Forum, Gonzales said the nation needs "to remember that ... it's imperative for national security reasons that we can detect reliably, immediately and without delay" any al-Qaeda related communication entering or leaving the United States.

As he spoke, more than a dozen audience members stood silently with their backs turned to the attorney general. Outside the classroom where Gonzales was to speak, a pair of protesters held up a sheet that said, "Don't torture the Constitution."

If they keep this up, this entire NSA Pushback might do just about as well as the President's Social Security Reform program did.

Vyan

Kerry blasts Hurricane FEMA

"Nobody told me there'd be Days like these" - John Lennon.

From Intervention Magazine last October.

When President Bush appeared on “Good Morning America” on Thursday, September 1, 2005, four days after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, his main excuse for the delay in the Federal government’s response to the flooding was that nobody could have predicted that the levees around New Orleans could have broken. President Bush said, “I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees. They did anticipate a serious storm. But these levees got breached. And as a result, much of New Orleans is flooded.”

From Today's Washington Post:

In the 48 hours before Hurricane Katrina hit, the White House received detailed warnings about the storm's likely impact, including eerily prescient predictions of breached levees, massive flooding, and major losses of life and property, documents show.

A 41-page assessment by the Department of Homeland Security's National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC), was delivered by e-mail to the White House's "situation room," the nerve center where crises are handled, at 1:47 a.m. on Aug. 29, the day the storm hit, according to an e-mail cover sheet accompanying the document.

The NISAC paper warned that a storm of Katrina's size would "likely lead to severe flooding and/or levee breaching" and specifically noted the potential for levee failures along Lake Pontchartrain. It predicted economic losses in the tens of billions of dollars, including damage to public utilities and industry that would take years to fully repair. Initial response and rescue operations would be hampered by disruption of telecommunications networks and the loss of power to fire, police and emergency workers, it said.

In a second document, also obtained by The Washington Post, a computer slide presentation by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, prepared for a 9 a.m. meeting on Aug. 27, two days before Katrina made landfall, compared Katrina's likely impact to that of "Hurricane Pam," a fictional Category 3 storm used in a series of FEMA disaster-preparedness exercises simulating the effects of a major hurricane striking New Orleans. But Katrina, the report warned, could be worse.

The hurricane's Category 4 storm surge "could greatly overtop levees and protective systems" and destroy nearly 90 percent of city structures, the FEMA report said. It further predicted "incredible search and rescue needs (60,000-plus)" and the displacement of more than a million residents.

Statement from John Kerry released today.

"How is it that the White House Situation Room received detailed warnings 48 hours before Hurricane Katrina hit, that the National Hurricane Center was warning CNN and the world that Katrina could be The Big One, that FEMA reported two days before landfall that Katrina's surge `could greatly overtop levees and protective systems,' destroy nearly 90 percent of city structures, require `incredible search and rescue needs (60,000-plus),' and displace more than a million people - and the President days later still insisted on national television, `I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees' that left 1,300 dead and thousands more homeless?

"Where's the accountability? Where's the compassion?

"Hurricane Katrina stripped away any image of competence and exposed the true heart and nature of this administration. It showed Americans at their best - and our government at its worst.

"Sadly, there's an enormous gap between what Americans deserve and what the government delivers. The shocking weakness of our government to deal with urgent challenges is tragically and dramatically underscored by the information that was being fed into the White House Situation Room, and the lack of response coming from a vacationing president on his ranch in Crawford.

"Beginning with the appointment of an Arabian horse executive to lead America's emergency preparedness in the post-9/11 world, to a president who remained away from the heart of the hurricane's devastation for five days, Katrina is the story of a failure of leadership and its very real human consequences.

"We wouldn't be having this conversation if the people running our government in Washington had cared to listen. They didn't listen to the Army Corps of Engineers when they insisted the levees be reinforced. They didn't listen to the countless experts who warned this exact disaster scenario would happen. They didn't listen to years of urgent pleading by Louisianans about the consequences of wetlands erosion in the region, which exposed New Orleans and surrounding parishes to ever-greater wind damage and flooding in a hurricane. They didn't listen when a disaster simulation just last year showed that hundreds of thousands of people would be trapped and have no way to evacuate New Orleans. They didn't listen to those of us who have long argued that our insane dependence on oil as our principle energy source, and our refusal to invest in more efficient engines, left us one big supply disruption away from skyrocketing gas prices that would ravage family pocketbooks, stall our economy, bankrupt airlines, and leave us even more dependent on foreign countries with deep pockets of petroleum. And now it's a proven fact that they didn't listen when everyone was warning that Katrina was The Big One Louisianans had long dreaded. They didn't even abandon their vacations.

"The people of the Gulf Coast got more of the same hurricane force spin and deception when they needed action and compassion. To say it's an outrage is the understatement of the year - right up there with Brownie and his `heck of a job.'"

And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse. From Uncommon Sense on Dkos:

Anyone who remembers President Bush's stall tactics on the 9/11 commission will recognize them here:

The White House is crippling a Senate inquiry into the government's sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina by barring administration officials from answering questions and failing to hand over documents, senators leading the investigation said Tuesday.

In some cases, staff at the White House and other federal agencies have refused to be interviewed by congressional investigators, said the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. In addition, agency officials won't answer seemingly innocuous questions about times and dates of meetings and telephone calls with the White House, the senators said.

And, this is in response to a Republican-controlled investigation. We're not talking about a non-partisan commission here. We're not talking about fire-breathing Democrats with subpoena power. From the beginning, the worst that was likely to happen for the administration was a finding of equal culpability between the feds, the State of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans.

But, this president can't even fake openness. He won't even pretend to cooperate with an investigation into the devastation, on his watch, of yet another major American city.

Vyan

DU: Kerry to support filibuster of Alito

According to posts on Democratic Underground - staffers at John Kerry's office have responded to questions and confirmed that John Kerry will support a Filibuster of Samuel Alito.

I just called the press office and they aren't aware of this so there may be a misunderstanding. I'm waiting for an email while they try to track this down.

Update

Hey Sandy--

Yes, Kerry would vote no on cloture (i.e. support a filibuster) - so that's correct.

Not only that, but Kerry also has an Web Petition in place for supporters to sign.

From John Kerry.com

I've studied Judge Alito's legal record. I met with him one-on-one. After all this, I am left with one simple conclusion: if Judge Alito becomes Supreme Court Justice Alito, he will move the Court backwards.
I will vote against Judge Alito's confirmation, and I hope a majority of Senators choose to join us on the Senate floor, voting and speaking out against him. I know we face tough odds, but this is an important fight.

The bottom line is Judge Alito cannot be trusted on the Supreme Court. We can't trust him to stand up to government abuse of power. We can't trust him to ensure all citizens enjoy equal protection under the law. We can't trust him to protect our right to privacy. We can't trust him to defend mainstream American values.

To muster enough Senators to defeat Judge Alito, the American people have to make it clear that they are against his nomination. That's where you come in. By speaking out, you will help us convince other Senators to join our fight.

Go here (http://www.johnkerry.com/...) to sign the Petition yourself.

And don't forget pass it on.

Blowing a Gasket on the Sanctity of Life

From AP Yesterday:

SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- President Bush told abortion opponents Monday that they are pursuing "a noble cause" and making a real difference in the campaign to recruit more Americans to stand on their side.
...
"This is a cause that appeals to the conscience of our citizens and is rooted in America's deepest principle," the president said. "And history tells us that with such a cause we will prevail."
...
"You believe, as I do, that every human life has value, that the strong have a duty to protect the weak, and that the self-evident truths of the Declaration of Independence apply to everyone, not just to those considered healthy or wanted or convenient," Bush told the abortion foes.

"These principles call us to defend the sick and the dying, persons with disabilities and birth defects, all who are weak and vulnerable, especially unborn children," the president said.

SusanG on Dkos responds...

I'm just trying to tune in to the logic here of this fetishization of the fetus, this cult of the blastula. As far as I can tell, the "reasoning" must go something like this: Embryos are innocent and sinless, unlike the rest of humankind, therefore God commands that they are somehow deserving of treatment as a special class (although it's hard to justify the God-induced early miscarriage rate under this argument ... but never mind). But watch out, kiddo. Once you draw that first lungful of breath, sin must get sucked into your lungs like a couple gallons of evil in sick building syndrome, because ... Baby, you are on your own. Yeah, you and your mama too, if she's not of the right economic class. No child care, crappy and undersubsidized health care, no Head Start, no school lunches, no student aid to dig your sorry ass out of the mess you were born into, no federal job training if the conservatives continue their slash and burn budget cuts (but you can join the military, babe). Once you draw that first fateful breath, you're just as worthless as the rest of us ... and part of the growing legion of the discarded, shamed, blamed and forgotten, tossed into the dark corners of our "free" society. Crawl your own way out of the ditch the compassionate conservatives dug for you. Little infants who respirate, be on notice: You are the embarrassing debris left over from the American dream. Get used to it.

In reponse to the likely confirmation of Samuel Alito at least four state legislatures have announced plans to put forward anti-Abortion legislation.

SOUTH DAKOTA, United States, January 23, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) –South Dakota is introducing a bill that will ban abortion in the state. The bill, called the Woman’s Health and Life Protection Act, will make abortion a crime, but will not allow prosecution for a doctor who performs an abortion when a woman’s life is in danger.

The bill is a direct attempt to over-turn Roe vs Wade. Changes in the US Supreme Court are encouraging the fight to regain legal protection for unborn children. A growing number of states are introducing anti-abortion legislation, attempting to force the Supreme Court to revisit the 1973 decision of Roe vs. Wade that made abortion a constitutional right.

Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee and Georgia are all in the process of introducing legislation that would place broad limits on abortion.

In the state of Indiana, Bill 1096, under consideration, would ban abortion except when the woman’s life or physical health would be in danger of “substantial permanent impairment.”

That wording is in direct conflict with the wording of Roe vs Wade, which gave doctors the freedom to consider “all factors…relevant to the well-being of the patient,” which included emotional and psychological health, in effect granting a free slate for abortion access.

Yet another Dkossack (quitter) puts it all in perspective.... Love the Fetus (Or Blastocyst-American), Hate the Child is the policy.

I made this map of infant mortality in this country. It's pretty consistent with that argument.

Infant mortality rate (deaths per 1000 live births) by state 2000-2002. To put the numbers in perspective, Mississippi, with its stunning rate of 10.5 deaths per 1000 live births (or 1 in 100), has more than double the infant mortality rate of Massachusetts at 4.8, and places it somewhere between Macedonia and Uruguay on an international scale. It is also interesting to note that of the 26 states that have rates greater than the national average, 75% are so-called "Red" states, and of the 10 states with the lowest infant mortality 8 are "Blue". When you compare states with the highest infant mortality rates (Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee all have rates of 8 deaths per 1000 live births or greater), and the states with the lowest infant mortality rates (California, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oregon, Washington, and Utah all have rates of infant mortality in the range of 4.8- 5.5 deaths per 1000 births) you see that a certain portion of America actually enjoys comparable or lower infant mortality than the combined average for the EU or countries like Great Britain and the Netherlands.

Our infant mortality rate year to year is between 6.5-7 per 1000 per year according to the CIA factbook. However, the rate is being dragged up by the red states, particularly in the South.

Source: National Center for Health Statistics. Health, United States, 2004 With Chartbook on Trends in the Health of Americans. Hyattsville, Maryland: 2004.

Two of the states, Tennesee and Georgia, whose legislatures have already began to the process of banning abortion are Dark Red (in the "High Infant Mortality range") , while of the other two Ohio and Indiana are "hard pink" on infant mortality.

There are a great many positive options that could, and should be focused on to help protect the quality of life for those among us who are genuinely most vulnerable. First among that being accurate and comprehensive sex education to help prevent unwanted teen pregnancy including proper use of contraceptives as well as "abstinance". Women should have full and complete access to "morning-after" medication to help prevent accidental pregnancy, and when such a pregnancy occurs a entire host of alternative care options, from extended family to a revamped foster care system and open adoptions should be available. All of these options would help to lower the rate of abortions by making them unneccesary.

But when those on the fundie right try to claim they are taking the "high road" while at the same time attempting to keep children in the dark, supporting cruel measures such as the Texas Futile Care Law.

"Simply put we want to bring out the wackos to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them..."

Michael Scanlon - Republican Operative, Lobbyist, Convict!

Vyan

Dems Learning to Punch Back

For far too long, Democrat has been synonymous with Doormat. Too civil and gentlemanly to call a liar - a liar. Too polite, too nice, too gentile, too fucking wimpy. And most of the time their number one enemy isn't the political opposition - it's been the media itself. Asking leading questions that might as well be - "So just when did you stop dating your sister?" In response, the Dems sputter and stammer in shock and appalled surprise, unable to even form a coherent sentence, let alone a cogent argument.

Well, it seems that during the last week things have changed.

We've had Howard Dean's brilliant smackdown of Wolf Blitzer.

Wolf: "But didn't Democrats also ...?"
Dean: "No."
Wolf: "But isn't this ...?"
Dean: "No. There is absolutely no evidence that any Democrats took money from Jack Abramoff."

And while people were halfway through they're normal head-nodding chants of "That Crazy Dean is at it agai...." Bloomberg pops up with a report the proves he was absolutely correct.

You had Al Gore's tour-de-force performance on Martin Luther King's birthday. Connecting the dots nicely between the COINTELPRO program that spied on King illegally in the 60's to today's current warrantless taping by the NSA.

Chris Matthew compares Osama bin Laden's new tape to Michael Moore and John Kerry steps up in his first post on Dkos to put him right in his place.

There's something that doesn't sit right with me when, on the day Osama Bin Laden resurfaced in a disturbing audio tape, cable television ends up in a game of name calling as a war protester is compared to Osama Bin Laden.

That's reason to be outraged - but even more outrageous is the fact that in a flurry of sound bites what was lost was a real discussion of the fact that more than four years after the devastating attacks of 9/11, more than four years after George Bush boasted we wanted Osama "dead or alive," more than a year after Osama Bin Laden showed his hateful face in yet another video, this barbarian is still very much alive and boasting of additional attacks against the United States.

Media Matters does it usual excellent job of showing WaPo Ombudsperson Deborah Howell a thing or two about real journalism, and she throws a hissy fit.

She then went on to claim in a post on the WaPo message board that Jack Ambramoff "made substantial campaign contributions to both major parties" - despite clear evidence that this isn't true. The result led to a vertible flood a posts on the WaPo site pointing out the error (er, falsehood, lie or just plain bullshit- take your pick) and a few attacking Howell personally. WaPo of course considered the reasonable and rationale thing - then did the opposite and shut the entire board down.

Meanwhile Rachel Maddow hits one out of the Park on The Situation:

Maddow: This is a global war on terror. This is a war for you or for us to win. You need patience...He sounds like Ken Mehlman when he's saying that only less gay. I mean this is ridiculous.

Tucker Carlson: (obviously taken aback and shocked)ooph... well, I'm gonna blow by that comment. uh... but I will say... whoo... you just blew my mind for a second...

Being the fine stalwart standard-bearers for truthinesss that they are MSNBC then proceeded to censor the exchange out of their transcript. That's journalism for ya - facist style.

Then John Kerry comes back on "This Week" and practically channels Dkos with a solid five minute speach that runs the gamut from Abramoff ("This is a Republican Scandal"), to Tora Bora (yes again), to Katrina (cronyism, lack of proper oversight), his oppostion to Alito ("Unitary Executive"), to NSA Wiretaps (Totally Illegal) and completely around the barn - barely stopping for breath in the process. Whew.

Oh, and even Senator Hillary (I'm so moderate I drink negative-fat milk) Clinton is breathing fire with her "They run the Congress like a Plantation/This is the worse Administration in History" remarks.

Looks to me like the Dems are finally on a Warpath!

And with so many scandals - and not those phony Filegate/Whitewater/Vincegate kind of shit-burgers but the real deal - with real indictments of real Members of Congress (Tom Delay), real high ranking members of the Administration ("Scooter" Libby) , SEC investigations (Bill Frist), guilty pleas for accepting bribes ("Duke" Cunningham), as well as giving out bribes (Abramoff/Scanlon), Abu Ghraib/Gitmo, Secret Military Prisons (Hey, just like in 24 Season 1!), the 2nd Katrina Disaster- Hurricane Fema, the impending Medicaid Part-D Prescription Drug Meltdown, Rollercoaster Gas Prices, Warrantless NSA Wiretaps, FBI Busywork at Pizza Hut, the DIA Spying on little old Quaker ladies - how could they not being on the verge of being batshit crazed?

It's about damned time.

And think the Saipan Sex/Sweat Shops (which I wrote about last April) receiving support from Tom DeLay and Insider Day Trading from Bill Frist's Office haven't really even broken yet (Yes, I know Webb Hubbell, Susan and Jim McDougal were all convicted - but not for anything they did as agents or members of the U.S. government, they were prosecuted for being FOB's -Friend's Of Bill - in order to get them to "Flip" on Whitewater. Jim eventually caved before he died in prison, but he obviously had nothing to give.).

The Reich-wing has been calling Dem and Liberals "moonbats" and "loony-left" for decades, while as far as most of the actual members of the Democratic Party are concerned most their representatives since Jimmy Carter have little more than roadkill for the Repubs latest set of attacks on their way into Office and back to cushy positions with lobbying firms. And the media has been the willing accomplice of the Right as they protrate and pretzel themselves into creating a false "balance". (Any and all half-brain assertions have to be proffered as an "equal" argument to actual facts)

They just might have learned that if they're going to call you "Angry Liberals" no matter what - you might as well sharpen your elbows and knock down some bodies in the process.

Vyan

Ameri-Qaeda!

Read a couple of great posts today on the subject of Osama bin-Merica. How the Fundie-wing points the finger at Democrats as being terrorist sympathisers when they - correctly - point out that the Bush Administration War Of Terror policies are a completely failure... yet when you actually look at the backbone of Bush's support, they seem eerily similar to someone else we all know and loath.

From Media Matters.

Several media figures have seized on Osama bin Laden's newly released audiotape to denounce critics of the Bush administration's conduct of the war in Iraq. Explicitly asserting comparisons between bin Laden and prominent war critics, including filmmaker Michael Moore and Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairman Howard Dean, MSNBC's Hardball host Chris Matthews and others are condemning legitimate dissent over the merits of the Iraq war and President Bush's actions in its prosecution. That dissent is now shared not just by such favorite conservative targets as Moore and Dean, but, now, by a plurality -- or even a majority -- of the American people. As Daou Report founder and editor Peter Daou wrote, in a January 19 entry at The Huffington Post weblog, in response to Matthews's comments linking bin Laden's statements to Moore:"[T]his is not just about Chris Matthews or Michael Moore or Osama Bin Laden, it's about the willingness of a prominent media figure to slander an opponent of the war."

From the January 19 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes:

GINGRICH: I think it's quite clear as you point out, Sean, that from this tape, that bin Laden and his lieutenants are monitoring the American news media, they're monitoring public opinion polling, and I suspect they take a great deal of comfort when they see people attacking United States policies. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be a free society and have open debate, but we should recognize, when some of our politicians use very extreme language or some of our celebrities -- like Michael Moore -- use very extreme language, that the enemy does, in fact, take great comfort from that.

HANNITY: It's more than that. I think it's also the leaders in the Democratic Party that, from the very beginning, have undermined this war. If I were to give you a quiz, Mr. Speaker, and if I would say to you, "You know, was it [Sen.] Ted Kennedy [D-MA], [House Democratic Leader] Nancy Pelosi [D-CA], [Rep.] John Murtha [D-PA] who said, 'George Bush gives continuous, deliberate misinformation. Polls reveal that we want to withdraw from Iraq.' " You would have guessed either of -- any of those. Well, it was bin Laden who said that.

So you wanna play Hardball, eh? by DarkSyde

They are vehemently against abortion, they resist progressive woman's rights. They view homosexuality as a crime against nature and God, some advocate the death penalty as an option for it. Separation of Church and State is despised by these folks; they insist the nation is founded on the principles of their religion, and they work hard to bring that de facto theocracy about. They deplore strong language, gay characters, and sexual content on TV and in the media. And they ignore the Geneva Convention when it suits their ideological purposes, including provisions against torture or due process. They're anti-stem cell research, pro-creationism, and generally distrustful of science. These folks are easily whipped into a state of frenzy with ideological manipulation to the point where they will commit violence, or at least tacitly endorse that violence is acceptable, if it advances their Divine agenda. They then take great pains to justify that violence, including unprovoked attack of civilian areas, under certain conditions, with convoluted theological gymnastics. They are almost to the man pro-death penalty ... Am I railing against the religious right again?

Could be, but my target here is actually Al Qaeda and related fundamentalist Wahhabism; the source of terrorism, the scourge of our planet, the Axis of Evil.

Continued...

The modern GOP is a precarious alliance between moderate, sane, conservatives, corporate interests understandably focused on short term profits, and a fundamentalist mob whose social policies poll anywhere between unpopular to repugnant among the majority of Americans.

The moderates are the official face set forth in PR efforts, the corporate interests drive the money, and like in any feudal system, the cultish masses provide the votes and do the grassroots work. But there's a glaring weakness: Expose that extremist base for what it is, flip that rock over to illuminate the ugly squatting trolls hiding underneath, and it's game over folks. Here's one way to go about doing that, and in all fairness we should thank the GOP shills on Cable News and all across the blogosphere for bringing it our attention and warming up the soundbite for us so nicely.

Osama bin Laden:

The religion of the Unification of God; of freedom from associating partners with Him, and rejection of this; of complete love of Him, the Exalted; of complete submission to His Laws

Osama bin Laden calling for 'morality':

We call you to be a people of manners, principles, honour, and purity; to reject the immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling's, and trading with interest.

Osama bin Laden on Bill Clinton:

Who can forget your President Clinton's immoral acts committed in the official Oval office?

Osama bin Laden on women in the workplace:

You are a nation that exploits women like consumer products or advertising tools calling upon customers to purchase them. You use women to serve passengers, visitors, and strangers to increase your profit margins.

Osama bin Laden on AIDS:

[Y]ou have been described in history as a nation that spreads diseases that were unknown to man in the past. Go ahead and boast to the nations of man, that you brought them AIDS as a Satanic American Invention

Osama bin Laden on gambling:

You are a nation that permits gambling in its all forms. The companies practice this as well, resulting in the investments becoming active and the criminals becoming rich.

And that's just from one of Osama's barking at the moon bat shit crazy religious screeds. I don't know about you folks, but that doesn't sound very liberal to me. But it sure sounds like something I might hear on the GOP/fundie talk radio ...

So, when the extremist nutcases in our country start comparing patriotic Democrats and Progressives with Osama bin Laden, welcome the opportunity to point out that the present incarnation of the GOP is controlled by the religious right, the Theocons, who bear disturbing parallels to the most wanted man in the world. And you don't have to be able to whip out a bunch of quotes, all you need to remember is a simple soundbite and they will open the door for you.

The religious right is Osama bin Laden light.

Amen to that, brother - Amen.

Vyan

Wilkerson: Breaking Ranks

Democrats and Liberals are constantly complaining about the Bush Administration - what they've done, what they haven't done - and I'm certain it's gone well past the point where his supporters have turned a completely deaf-ear. But they really should listen-up when one of their own - Former State Department Chief of Staff Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powells right hand man - begins to speak out, and use terms as strong as he has. He was there, he ought to know.

Breaking Ranks

Since 1998, Wilkerson has devoted himself to helping at-risk children at Macfarland in the name of Colin Powell, whom he refers to as "my boss" and "the general." Wilkerson works tirelessly to keep them in the club and to secure scholarships for them at private high schools.

Yet these days he and Powell are estranged: This program represents the last remnant of a long, deep friendship between them. Like ex-spouses in an uneasy detente, "we decided we'd just communicate over the kids," says Wilkerson, sounding pained by the situation.

The split came as both men left the administration -- Powell as secretary of state, Wilkerson as his chief of staff -- after working side by side for 16 years. Wilkerson, a once-loyal Republican with 31 years of Army service, has emerged in recent months as a merciless critic of President Bush and his top people, accusing them of carrying out a reckless foreign policy and imperiling the future of the U.S. military.

"My wife would probably shoot me if I headed to the ballot box with a Republican vote again," he says. "This is not a Republican administration, not in my view. This is a radical administration."

Wilkerson calls Bush an unsophisticated leader who has been easily swayed by "messianic" neoconservatives and power-hungry, secretive schemers in the administration. In a landmark speech in October, Wilkerson said: "What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made."

He is particularly appalled by U.S. treatment of enemy detainees, counting at least 100 deaths in custody during the course of the war on terrorism -- 27 of them ruled homicides. "Murder is torture," he says. "It's not torture lite."

As for the invasion of Iraq? A blunder of historic proportions, he believes.

"This is really a very inept administration," says Wilkerson, who has credentials not only as an insider in the Bush I, Clinton and Bush II presidencies but also as a former professor at two of the nation's war colleges. "As a teacher who's studied every administration since 1945, I think this is probably the worst ineptitude in governance, decision-making and leadership I've seen in 50-plus years. You've got to go back and think about that. That includes the Bay of Pigs, that includes -- oh my God, Vietnam. That includes Iran-contra, Watergate."

Such a critique, coming from a man who was long thought to speak for Powell, is seismic in Washington power circles. Some observers used to regard Powell and Wilkerson as so close that they enjoyed a "mind meld," but now Powell distances himself from the pronouncements of his former aide.



Wilkerson, as it turned out, became the point man for making the case for preemptive war against Hussein. He put together the task force that, during a week at CIA headquarters, vetted all the intelligence reports used for Powell's famous pro-war presentation in February 2003 to the Security Council, where he brandished a vial of fake anthrax, played excerpts of intercepted Iraqi military chatter, and warned of mobile bioweapon "factories" and other doomsday machines, none of which actually existed.

How did it happen?

"Larry thought they had cleaned out the obvious garbage, but it turned out there was more," says James A. Kelly, a former assistant secretary of state who's known Wilkerson for 20 years. "Larry felt that he let down the secretary, but the job was so big in cleaning out the misinformation."

Wilkerson won't say outright that he and Powell were deliberately snowed by intelligence reports tailored to fit a political push for war, but he has edged closer to that view, noting, "I've begun to wonder." It turns out that the administration relied on fabricators' claims about Hussein's illusory WMD programs and, in one case, an al Qaeda suspect whom the CIA turned over to alleged torturers in Egypt.

"I kick myself in the ass," Wilkerson says. "How did we ever get to that place?"

The speech tarnished Powell's gold-plated reputation, but he has never publicly pointed a finger at then-CIA Director George Tenet or the White House.

"Nothing was spun to me," Powell told David Frost in a BBC television interview last month. "What really upset me more than anything else was that there were people in the intelligence community that had doubts about some of this sourcing, but those doubts never surfaced up to us."

Why didn't the doubts reach Powell? Perhaps because then he wouldn't have given the speech at all?

"That's right," Wilkerson says, shooting a hard, solemn stare across the restaurant table. "That's right."

He also says, "I am prepared to entertain the idea that they used him."

They used more than just Powell, they used the fear of the American people, the good-will of the world community and flushed them down the toilet.

Vyan