Read this article from Wired's Danger Room. Then tell me that the bastards aren't planning to attack IraN this summer and then take over the government because we're at war.
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/06/breaking-air-fo.html
Air Force Chief, Secretary Resign (Updated Yet Again)
By Noah Shachtman
The Air Force's top civilian and uniformed leaders are being booted out of the Pentagon. Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael "Buzz" Moseley has resigned. Secretary Michael W. Wynne is next.
The move, initially reported by Inside Defense and Air Force Times, isn't exactly a shocker. The Air Force has come under fire for everything from mishandling nukes to misleading ad campaigns to missing out on the importance of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Most importantly, the Air Force's leadership has been on the brink of open conflict for months with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England. That's because in the halls of the Air Force's chiefs, the talk has been largely about the threats posed by China and a resurgent Russia. Gates wanted the service to actually focus on the wars at hand, in Iraq and Afghanistan. "For much of the past year I’ve been trying to concentrate the minds and energies of the defense establishment on the current needs and current conflicts," he told the Heritage Foundation. "In short, to ensure that all parts of the Defense Department are, in fact, at war."
Last fall, the Pentagon's civilian chiefs shot down an Air Force move to take over almost all of the military's big unmanned aircraft. "There has to be a better way to do this," Moseley complained at the time. Things only got more tense when Gates said that the future of conflict is in small, "asymmetric" wars -- wars in which the Air Force takes a back seat to ground forces. Then Gates noted that the Air Force's most treasured piece of gear, the F-22 stealth fighter, basically has no role in the war on terror. And when a top Air Force general said the service was planning on buying twice as many of the jets -- despite orders from Gates and the rest of the civilian leadership -- he was rebuked for "borderline insubordination."
Relations between Gates and the Air Force chiefs soured further when the Defense Secretary called for more spy drones to be put into the skies above Iraq and Afghanistan. The Air Force complained that all those extra flight hours were turning the roboplane's remote pilots into virtual "prisoners." Gates then publicly chastised the service during the drone buildup, comparing it to "pulling teeth."
The scrapes harmed the service's image in Congress, and with the public. And so the Air Force launched an $81 million marketing effort to demonstrate its relevance in today's conflicts. Outside analysts wondered whether such a push was in violation of American anti-propaganda laws -- especially after one of the spots was found be be "misleading."
But, according to Air Force Times, "the last straw appears to be a [damning] report on nuclear weapons handling... [that] critical report convinced Gates that changes must be made." That's the reason Gates gave reporters, in a Pentagon press conference today. But it might just have been the excuse he needed to can a pair of bureaucratic adversaries -- read on.
The service inadvertently shipped "four high-tech electrical nosecone fuses for Minuteman nuclear warheads were [t]o Taiwan in place of helicopter batteries. The mistake was discovered in March — a year and a half after the erroneous shipment," The New York Times reports. "The mishandling of the nosecone fuses was viewed as another indication of lack of discipline within America’s nuclear infrastructure, and was another embarrassment for the people in charge of those weapons."
Last fall, the Air Force's 5th Bomb Wing lost track of six nuclear warheads. Then, in mid-May, the service flunked a nuclear surety inspection, when security personnel couldn't even be bothered to stop playing videogames on their cellphones. Now, it looks like Moseley and Wynne has some serious time to play with themselves.
Despite reports you may be reading elsewhere, this firing was not about nukes or missiles, well-placed sources say. "Far and away the biggest issue was the budget stuff, not the nuclear stuff. The UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] fight, the F-22 deal... Gates really didn't appreciate it," one of those sources tells Danger Room. Now, with the botched missile and nuke shipments, "the SecDef [Secretary of Defense] has good cover to do something that suits him bureaucratically."
"The problem seems to be a philosophical difference between Gates and the USAF [U.S. Air Force], not anything to do with nuclear weapons," another adds. And Moseley and Wynne may not be the last to go. Rumors are swirling of more top-level Air Force officers getting the axe. Stay tuned.
LATE UPDATE: In public, at least, Gates is blaming the purge on nukes. See the website for the video.
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Dot Calm says, “WATCH OUT: YOU MAY BE CONSIDERED AN ENEMY COMBATANT!”
Bush Prepares Martial Law
http://ww4report.com/node/3940
Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Thu, 05/24/2007 - 18:01.
Every president since FDR has drawn up such plans. The most notorious were Nixon's "Operation Garden Plot" and Reagan's "REX 84 Alpha"—a legacy we recalled when the Homeland Security Act passed in 2002. This latest incarnation has gone unnoticed by the New York Times and other major media. Leave it to the editorial page of Tennessee's Chattanoogan, May 24:
Bush Makes Power Grab
President Bush, without so much as issuing a press statement, on May 9 signed a directive that granted near dictatorial powers to the office of the president in the event of a national emergency declared by the president.
The "National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive," with the dual designation of NSPD-51, as a National Security Presidential Directive, and HSPD-20, as a Homeland Security Presidential Directive, establishes under the office of president a new National Continuity Coordinator.
That job, as the document describes, is to make plans for "National Essential Functions" of all federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal governments, as well as private sector organizations to continue functioning under the president's directives in the event of a national emergency.
The directive loosely defines "catastrophic emergency" as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions."
When the President determines a catastrophic emergency has occurred, the President can take over all government functions and direct all private sector activities to ensure we will emerge from the emergency with an "enduring constitutional government."
Translated into layman's terms, when the President determines a national emergency has occurred, the President can declare to the office of the presidency powers usually assumed by dictators to direct any and all government and business activities until the emergency is declared over.
Ironically, the directive sees no contradiction in the assumption of dictatorial powers by the President with the goal of maintaining constitutional continuity through an emergency.
The directive specifies that the assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism will be designated as the National Continuity Coordinator. Further established is a Continuity Policy Coordination Committee, chaired by a senior director from the Homeland Security Council staff, designated by the National Continuity Coordinator, to be "the main day-to-day forum for such policy coordination."
Currently, the assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism is Frances Fragos Townsend. Townsend spent 13 years at the Justice Department before moving to the U.S. Coast Guard where she served as assistant commandant for intelligence. She is a White House staff member in the executive office of the president who also chairs the Homeland Security Council, which as a counterpart to the National Security Council reports directly to the president.
The directive issued May 9 makes no attempt to reconcile the powers created there for the National Continuity Coordinator with the National Emergency Act. As specified by U.S. Code Title 50, Chapter 34, Subchapter II, Section 1621, the National Emergency Act allows that the president may declare a national emergency but requires that such proclamation "shall immediately be transmitted to the Congress and published in the Federal Register."
A Congressional Research Service study notes that under the National Emergency Act, the President "may seize property, organize and control the means of production, seize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute martial law, seize and control all transportation and communication, regulate the operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and, in a variety of ways, control the lives of United States citizens."
The CRS study notes that the National Emergency Act sets up congress as a balance empowered to "modify, rescind, or render dormant such delegated emergency authority," if Congress believes the president has acted inappropriately.
NSPD-51/ HSPD-20 appears to supersede the National Emergency Act by creating the new position of National Continuity Coordinator without any specific act of Congress authorizing the position.
NSPD-51/ HSPD-20 also makes no reference whatsoever to Congress. The language of the May 9 directive appears to negate any a requirement that the President submit to Congress a determination that a national emergency exists, suggesting instead that the powers of the executive order can be implemented without any congressional approval or oversight.
Homeland Security spokesperson Russ Knocke affirmed that the Homeland Security Department will be implementing the requirements of NSPD-51/HSPD-20 under Townsend's direction.
The White House had no comment.
While we're skeptical Bush will have the cojones to pull this off, NSPD-51 is particularly ominous in light of the draconian provisions of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act.
See our last post on the politics of the GWOT.
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But wait--there's more!
In case you're not convinced of the danger of Bush's totalitarian power grab, read this:
http://newscoma.wordpress.com/2007/07/30/national-security-
presidential-directive-51-or-enduring-constitutional-government/
The blogger writes that there is no end date on the provisions made in NSPD 51. Can't you just smell the coup?
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And now, a word from investigative journalist Greg Palast
http://www.gregpalast.com/section/articles/
Driving the surge in gas prices?
The Bush-McCain surge in Iraq
By Greg Palast for TomPaine.com/OurFuture.org
[New York, May 22, 2008]
I can’t make this up:
In a hotel room in Brussels, the chief executives of the world’s top oil companies unrolled a huge map of the Middle East, drew a fat, red line around Iraq and signed their names to it.
The map, the red line, the secret signatures. It explains this war. It explains this week’s rocketing of the price of oil to (Show me more...)
Dot Calm says, “G'head, click through to the rest of the article. You know you want to!”
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What About the Iraqis?
ByDave Lindorff
I found myself listening to a talk radio show on NPR's Philadelphia affiliate WHYY today, which focused in part on the agonies suffered by families of American troops killed or seriously maimed in Iraq. Left unsaid--and this I think is the case in nearly all the reporting that gets done on the costs of the Iraq War that are being borne in the U.S. by relatives of troops--is the terrible reality that we're talking about the relatives of just 4,500 American servicemen and women killed, and perhaps 30,000 seriously wounded (not counting the hundreds of thousands suffering mental damage). Not to diminish that suffering, it needs to be pointed out that by some accounts well over 1 million Iraqis have died in this illegal, uncalled-for and criminal war. Most of the dead, contrary to what we are told by the corporate media, are victims of the U.S. military, not Iraqi bombers. The immense firepower of American forces and the over-use of rockets, pilotless, rocket-firing drones, and aerial bombardment (designed to keep U.S. casualties as low as possible), ensure high levels of civilian casualties (called collateral damage, or on rare occasions "unfortunate mistakes"), and we are unable to obtain accurate numbers because the U.S. "doesn't do body counts." Most are also civilians, not combatants. According to one study conducted by the Christian Science Monitor, one of the nation's most respected daily newspapers, the ratio of civilians killed by U.S. troops vs. enemy fighters killed was an appalling 30:1. As I've often noted, with a ratio like that, it would be fairer to call any Iraqis who are killed "collateral damage" in what should be seen as deliberate targeting of civilians. And a disproportionate number of those civilians are children and young people. This has also been documented by researchers and has been observed anecdotally in hospitals. Children, because they are less aware of what's going on around them, are less able to defend themselves and are, in general, more vulnerable and are the main victims in this kind of brutal urban war fighting. Now recall that for every Iraqi killed, whether that person is a fighter or a civilian, there is a grieving family whose loss is every bit as terrible as is the loss suffered by an American family. What you get is perhaps 4 to 5 million Iraqis in a nation of 24 million who are suffering these inconsolable losses. It is as though 50 million Americans had lost someone in the war. But that's just the dead and the relatives of the dead. For every Iraqi who has been killed there are surely two or three or more who have been gravely wounded, crippled, or driven mad. Even if we assume that shamefully poor medical care in Iraq assures that half of Iraq's gravely wounded die instead of surviving with their wounds as our returned casualties do, that would add another two million to the casualties and another 8 million to the number of impacted family members for a total of 12 million Americans, almost half of all Iraq! It is wrong to say much of this tragedy is the fault of Iraqis. Prior to the U.S. invasion, Iraqis were not massacring Iraqis. Across most of Iraq Shia and Sunni lived side by side. They intermarried easily with no bad repercussions. Certainly they suffered under the repression of dictator Saddam Hussein, but nothing like what they suffer today. The reality is that the Bush/Cheney regime tricked this nation into becoming a terrorist aggressor, invading another nation by claiming falsely that it had or was about to acquire weapons of mass destruction. In the process our military became what it was allegedly trying to find: a weapon of mass destruction that has wreaked devastation as far-reaching and incomprehensibly destructive as any atomic bomb. I have great sympathy for those Americans who have lost loved ones or whose loved ones returned broken to them from Iraq. But I do not want us to forget the incomparably greater suffering that has been brought on Iraqis in our name and our tax dollars, political naivete and gullibility. Yes, Senator Jim Webb is right that we owe better treatment to our veterans who for the most part are victims of the same criminal machinations of our political leaders as are the Iraqis. But we owe much more to the Iraqis who are continuing to be killed, maimed, and bereft by our military and by our government's mad insistence on "staying the course." It is way past time that we started thinking about them.
Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist.
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Uncle Scotty
This very brief article--complete with school photo (be still, my heart!)--should put a smile on your face. Wonkette's title for the piece? “Scott McClellan Was Not Born A Fat, Bald Weasel.”
http://wonkette.com/400109/scott-mcclellan-was-not-born-
Frankly, he was kinda cute back in his salad daze.
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Commander Chimpy McCodpiece and his Wardrobe Malfunction
I knew it was outrageous that the moron wore his OUTSIDE his flight suit, but I didn't have a good idea of what the thing is...
http://www.thehendricks.net/codpiece_history.htm
Never let it be said that Dot Calm doesn't do her part to help educate her readers.
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The Buzz from Buzzflash: Larisa Alexandrovna Reports on the WH Politically Motivated Conviction of Gov. Don Siegelman -- And Rove's Role
A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW
Rove's dream was to recreate the landscape of the judicial system, and to install judges that were either pliable, malleable, and/or very, very pro-corporation. Essentially that is what he did in Alabama in the early Nineties. That is what this is all about. If you control the governor in the states where the justices are not elected, you control who gets on the supreme court. And that's essentially what this is all about for Rove ultimately. But to get those kinds of things done, you have to eliminate the governor you don't want and install the governor you do want. There are a lot of corporate interests funding this. So it intersects in that sense. It's buying the law and restructuring the state judiciary.
-- Larisa Alexandrovna
Larisa Alexandrovna is an investigative reporter for The Raw Story and maintains her own blog at At-largely. She is distinguished by a passion for justice that is as palpable as her exhaustive research is accurate.
Alexandrovna was born in the Soviet Union and knows a thing or two about people getting framed by the state. So, among her many investigative projects, she became drawn to the plight of one Don Siegelman, the former Democratic governor of Alabama, who became an apparent victim of the DOJ "Prosecutor-Gate." His sin was protesting an election that appears to have been stolen from him, literally, in the dead of night.
If you think that "Prosecutor-Gate" ended with the resignation of Alberto Gonzales, you are wrong. Siegelman is only out of jail after a lengthy campaign to get him released on bond while his case is on appeal. Karl Rove still is at large and free to bloviate for dollars on the corporate media, while Siegelman has to battle to prove that he is an innocent victim of a DOJ that became a tool of partisan prosecutions.
We talked with Larissa recently, since she is one of the lead investigative advocates who have helped put the Siegelman injustice on the map.
* * *
BuzzFlash: We've admired your work for some time. You really broke the story on the plight of Don Siegelman, former Governor of Alabama. What happened to him is related to what has been called prosecutor-gate, under Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales, when there was an attempt to, in essence, make the Department of Justice a partisan wing of the Republican Party and use the judicial system to actually indict and convict people to achieve political ends.
Don Siegelman was one of those people, and yet the mainstream press, for the most part, hasn't really focused on the Siegelman story. You have. In fact you were able to explain the complex relationships around the Siegelman story relating to the Justice Department and to Republican politics in Alabama and to corporate ownership of newspapers in Alabama who have, for a large part, blacked out the story. What, in essence, is the Siegelman story?
Larisa Alexandrovna: Well, I don't think it's just Siegelman. There's quite a few other people who are in the same predicament. The story is basically that the Karl Rove mechanism operating out of the White House targeted what they saw as a political obstacle or a political opponent, and used the Department of Justice to eliminate that political opponent. It's really that simple.
BuzzFlash: And how did they do this?
Larisa Alexandrovna: It varied. The best way to summarize it is that they put compromised or "correct" U.S. attorneys into positions in states where they needed to eliminate particular individuals as political opponents. These U.S. attorneys then acted in ways that were irresponsible, and likely criminal. It ranged from approaching if not entirely purchasing witnesses, to barring evidence that would have exonerated Siegelman -- or others, and basically bringing charges over and over and over, and running investigations very close to elections, and then, suddenly appearing in a very public way to use even just an investigation as a way to disgrace a political opponent. It's complex, but that's the best way I can summarize it.
BuzzFlash: Okay. The key thing here is Siegelman was convicted under the Bush Department of Justice and a U.S. attorney that had relationships with the Republican campaign for governor and other offices.
Larisa Alexandrovna: Right. The U.S. attorney that targeted Siegelman was Leura Canary, who is married to Bill Canary, who worked for Siegelman's opponent in the 2002 campaign, Bob Riley. Riley is now the governor. Bill Canary was an adviser on the campaign, and he also goes way back with Karl Rove. They're good friends. They have a long working relationship in the South going back to the early Nineties. So there's that element.
But what should be mentioned is the first time Leura Canary's office tried to bring indictments against Governor Siegelman, the judge threw out the case and held the prosecution in contempt. The second time was much more complex because the judge that got the case -- how should I put it? -- is believed to be very corrupt. It's alleged that he was awarded the judgeship to "hang Siegelman." This is from a Republican whistleblower who came forward named Dana Jill Simpson.
So you had an allegedly corrupt judge the second time around. And jury-tampering, which was brought to the attention of the court by one of the jurors. You had a witness by the name of Nick Bailey, who was put on the stand with the prosecution knowing that he was lying, and having coached him. All that together enabled them to secure a conviction.
BuzzFlash: We should mention Siegelman is out on bail now, after a long period in which a Republican federal judge made it impossible for him to be released through various efforts. But he is on bail now, pending appeal.
Let's talk about when he became indicted and the sequence.
Larisa Alexandrovna: He was running for re-election as governor.
BuzzFlash: The Republican opponent was the husband of the U.S. attorney who eventually indicted him. And Siegelman won that election, but lo and beyond, in the wee hours of the morning, suddenly 5,000 votes are discovered that swing the election to the Republicans.
Larisa Alexandrovna: Right. There's a midnight counting party, or recount party, that has no representatives from the Democratic side, just a small band of Republicans, the local officials. This was in Baldwin County, Alabama. Siegelman went to bed thinking he had won. They had already given a celebratory speech and everything. And in the middle of the night, this happens. By the morning, there were enough votes to make Bob Riley the winner.
BuzzFlash: Well, enough alleged votes, because these 5,000 votes just suddenly sort of appeared. It's still not clear where they came from other than that they were from that county.
Larisa Alexandrovna: It's almost exactly what happened in Ohio in 2004. The thing is, though, that those ballots were then sealed by the state Attorney General, William Pryor, who is also a good friend of Karl Rove's. And then William Pryor is appointed on a recess appointment to the 11th Circuit as a judge. So you see that this is something that goes directly into Karl Rove's office. Once they brought in Pryor, and you look at Pryor and what he did with sealing the ballots so there couldn't be a recount after this, you start to see that this is something much more organized and possibly at the highest levels.
BuzzFlash: Siegelman says this is where his trouble began. He protested that sudden emergence of the mysterious 5,000 votes that took away his victory a la Florida in 2000 for Al Gore. He asked for a recount, and he feels that at that point, his fate was sealed -- that Rove sent word down to have him indicted. Find some federal law that they could cook up to indict him on.
Larisa Alexandrovna: They had started investigating him even before this, looking for something. But the first round of indictments basically shut him up about this recount. And as I said, the judge, dismissed the case and held the prosecutors in contempt.
But Siegelman made another mistake. He tried to run again. That's when they just went after him and they assigned the case to Judge Mark Fuller, who we know from a Republican whistleblower was essentially put in the place to hang Siegelman. Then the first judge -- the real judge -- throws it away, and then they create a judge and have the case fall into his lap, and that's it. Siegelman's out of circulation.
BuzzFlash: What did they charge him with?
Larisa Alexandrovna: They charged him with bribery, which is insanity. But in order to bring that charge, they basically used the mail fraud and wire fraud laws -- sort of garbage-pail laws that somehow compound a crime if there's a crime. But the strange thing is he was charged with a co-defendant by the name of Richard Scrushy, who's a Republican donor.
BuzzFlash: He was the infamous former HealthSouth CEO.
Larisa Alexandrovna: Yes. In 1999 he was accused of donating to a political fund that was lobbying for Siegelman's lottery plan in exchange for being appointed to a key medical licensing board. And he was very much hated. From my own investigation, it seemed that Richard Scrushy was giving the Republicans a bad rap in certain states, and they really wanted him out of circulation. So it looks like they were paired. It's was like killing two birds with one stone.
Essentially the charges were that this Richard Scrushy had bribed Siegelman to get onto a medical overseeing board. But the problem with that is there was no quid pro quo. Siegelman didn't get any money himself, or even for his election. And Scrushy had been on the board under three previous governors. So there was no quid pro quo. This is what I'm saying. When you bring in a judge who allows certain evidence, and then they bring in witnesses who are compromised and coached, and there's jury-tampering -- it was kind of a ridiculous case to seek a conviction.
BuzzFlash: We encourage people to read your wonderful investigative pieces on this, which really broke the story open. The increased media scrutiny finally forced his release on bond, even though now his travel is restricted.
Larisa Alexandrovna: The 11th Circuit let him out.
BuzzFlash: What does the case signify? From what you just said, there's the intersection of what was known as prosecutor-gate, of the US attorneys scandal, plus the loading up of the federal bench with GOP lackeys. They intersect here, and you needed both of them for the case to work.
Larisa Alexandrovna: Rove's dream was to recreate the landscape of the judicial system, and to install judges that were either pliable, malleable, and/or very, very pro-corporation. Essentially that is what he did in Alabama in the early Nineties. That is what this is all about. If you control the governor in the states where the justices are not elected, you control who gets on the supreme court. And that's essentially what this is all about for Rove ultimately. But to get those kinds of things done, you have to eliminate the governor you don't want and install the governor you do want. There are a lot of corporate interests funding this. So it intersects in that sense. It's buying the law and restructuring the state judiciary.
BuzzFlash: If you put into place a Republican governor, and you have a Republican federal judiciary, you have the Chamber of Commerces buying the state supreme court, and you have U.S. prosecutors installed who will do what the party asks them to do, or the White House, when they need to achieve political objectives, you've controlled the entire process. It's a rigged judicial system.
Larisa Alexandrovna: Right. And you no longer need to worry about elections, honestly, because everything else is fixed. It doesn't matter who tries to do what when you know the outcome is fixed. So it basically takes away the rights of the people in any particular state. A party is under the control of a small group of people. It's a very dangerous, dangerous situation. And that was ultimately Rove's intention, to basically create the dream utopia of an extreme right-wing judiciary.
BuzzFlash: There also was pressure brought to bear on David Iglesas, the former U.S. attorney of New Mexico.
Larisa Alexandrovna: Right.
BuzzFlash: Siegelman was the highest-level official to whom this occurred, but he was not the only person.
Larisa Alexandrovna: In Mississippi, you had state supreme court justices this happened to. In Mississippi, you have a supreme court justice, Justice Oliver Diaz, Jr., who this was done to twice.
He was acquitted twice.
BuzzFlash: And the reason they went after him?
Larisa Alexandrovna: He was a political obstacle. You had a U.S. attorney tied to the White House umbilical cord, and they wanted to bring political prosecutions. There are so many conflicts of interest in that case.
But the most tragic part of that Mississippi Supreme Court case is that there were four co-defendants. One of those co-defendants is the really well-known attorney by the name of Paul Minor, the guy who took on big tobacco. He's a plaintiffs' attorney, and he was the largest Democratic campaign contributor in the South. So he was a target, and these judges were a target. They paired them into one conspiracy kind of thing to eliminate them all. And I know it sounds incredibly sort of paranoid or a most sort of extreme conspiracy theory, but these are facts. This happened. It is what it is.
But the tragic thing is that Paul Minor is in jail, and like Don Siegelman, he was shackled and manacled. He was not allowed out on appeal like Don Siegelman. But in the meantime, his wife is dying of brain cancer and she's gravely, gravely ill. He's not allowed out on appeal, so she won't see her husband before she dies. That's, to me, unacceptable. And I can't get anyone to pay attention.
BuzzFlash: Chairman John Conyers of the House Judiciary Committee has subpoenaed Karl Rove to discuss the Siegelman issue. Rove's attorney has said that he will not appear. He will only respond in writing.
Larisa Alexandrovna: Unfortunately he doesn't have that choice.
BuzzFlash: How will the House Judiciary Committee compel him to appear? Is he going to say that Bush will not allow him to appear?
Larisa Alexandrovna: No, because executive privilege doesn't apply. Karl Rove and the White House have said, we were not involved in these situations. So if they're not involved, then executive privilege does not apply.
BuzzFlash: Second, Don Siegelman, who has spoken very openly and frankly about his plight, his travel is restricted -- is that right?
Larisa Alexandrovna: It was. It's been lifted.
BuzzFlash: It's been lifted.
Larisa Alexandrovna: And there's an outcry. His case is under appeal, and it'll likely be overturned completely. I don't think he's going back to jail. But Paul Minor's still in jail and his wife's dying of cancer. I'm hoping people will help.
BuzzFlash: Another factor is the failure of the corporate media to cover this, particularly a chain of newspapers in Alabama which simply ignored it, which really bespeaks to corporate interests and their interest in maintaining the status quo.
Larisa Alexandrova: Right.
BuzzFlash: What amazed us is again how the story of prosecutor-gate was a big deal last year. And then it just sort of got forgotten because the Congress couldn't carry out its subpoenas. Then Alberto Gonzales left, so it sort of died down. But then you see a governor who is running for re-election, and he's denied re-election. Then he runs again. And the Department of Justice that is politically trying to bring him down through the judicial system, eventually succeeds in jailing him. This is the essence of prosecutorgate.
Larisa Alexandrova: That's right.
BuzzFlash: This came to our attention in large part because of your work and some others like Scott Horton of Harper's, who continue to cover it. We've, of course, emphasized it on BuzzFlash through your work and Horton's and others. It became, you know, on the Internet, at least, as a big issue.
BuzzFlash: The Washington Post didn't dig this up. You dug this up. And yet it was right there for anyone to dig up if they put their hands in the dirt and their nose to the grindstone and did their investigative reporting right.
Larisa Alexandrova: And Rawstory was reporting on the story. There was nobody else. Everyone focused on the U.S. attorneys who were fired. And I kept saying: what of the ones who stayed? Why did they get to stay? Were they the "loyal" Bushies? And if so, how?
Siegelman, as you pointed out, is high profile. But, you do not only have a governor [being prosecuted]. You have a supreme court justice in Mississippi. You have judges in Mississippi. You have a famed lawyer in Florida. You have the coroner in Pennsylvania.
At every level, you've got people who are high profile, and who do not have access to media shining a light on them, who cannot get their attention. Now what about people who are not high profile, who are not governors or judges, for example, somebody who, let's say, did not play ball on a local level, somebody who maybe wouldn't go along with something? We will likely never hear about them, whomever they are."
BuzzFlash: A woman in Wisconsin was prosecuted by the Milwaukee attorney there, and served time for something that really wasn't a crime. That was only because they wanted to try to dirty up the Democratic governor.
Larisa Alexandrova: Now in Alabama they're doing the same thing with state legislators who are Democrats.
This is what frightens me - how prevalent is this? How far spread is this? Is this localized to a couple of states? Or just a couple of high-profile cases? Or is this much deeper and more insidious?
We know that the Pentagon is spying on anti-war protesters. We know that the FBI and the New York Police Department were surveilling American citizens before the National Republican Convention in 2004. So, just how deep does this go when your political affiliation makes you public enemy number one? That is really frightening to me. That reminds me of the Soviet Union.
BuzzFlash: Which you've had some experience with.
Larisa Alexandrova: That's right.
BuzzFlash: Bringing it back to the Justice Department, the mainstream press finally did pick it up after Josh Marshal had hammered away on this for awhile, saying there's a strange coincidence here of U.S. attorneys who have been dismissed even though they've had very favorable job ratings.
Larisa Alexandrovna: Right.
BuzzFlash: And it was pretty clear that e-mails that have been destroyed at the White House related to prosecutorgate. This was at the height of Gonzales' rather infamous high profile. But then again, as we said earlier in this interview, it was kind of forgotten by the mainstream press. The mainstream press hasn't gone after the fact that we still have sitting there the people that the Bush department signed off on as okay for partisan prosecution.
Larisa Alexandrovna: The Josh Marshall reports were really, really responsible for just getting the U.S. attorney firings the attention that they required in Congress and in general. Then you had Harper's story, working on the ones that stayed behind. I thought that "60 Minutes" came in late in the game. The only person on TV who's even following this thinks that he did all the investigative work, you know? Which is fine. Just get the story out.
But ultimately, you know there's something very wrong here because Congress has not done anything to remove these people. Leura Canary, Alice Martin and Dunnica Lampton -- these are three names right off the bat I'll give you that must be removed from their posts as U.S. attorneys. They have blatantly violated their oath, their duties. They have abused their power. And there's enough evidence that at the very least they should be suspended until Congress can do whatever Congress needs to do. But let's remove these people so no more damage happens. Still, they remain in office.
BuzzFlash: Why was the Alabama press not covering this for the most part?
Larisa Alexandrovna: Because they're owned by the same family -- the major newspapers. Essentially it's a private operation that is party-aligned and party-subsidized. That's basically it. For the same reason, a right-wing TV outlet seems to have lost the signal of the "60 Minutes" coverage of the Siegelman case and blacked out the screens in Alabama. When you privatize the truth, that is the media; when you privatize justice, I mean, this is what you get.
BuzzFlash: In general they have allegiances to the status quo. People in power favor the corporate bottom line.
Larisa Alexandrovna: That's basically it. If you control the media, you control the truth.
BuzzFlash: We shouldn't forget that Mark Crispin Miller, on the Internet, through his e-mail and his blog, certainly was behind the cause of getting Siegelman freed. The mainstream media in Alabama took no notice of this injustice.
Larisa Alexandrovna: No. They actually reported nonsense and garbage and put out press releases from the U.S. attorney's office, which they used as facts. There were few reporters when I was down there. The few reporters - I was going through the archives and I was looking at the bylines. There were a few reporters' articles that were very good, very factual and they look like they had done their work and investigative reporting. When I tried to look them up, they no longer worked at these various publications. I don't know if this is a coincidence, but they no longer have jobs at those papers.
BuzzFlash: You've got the skills of an investigative journalist. Why does this particular case make you so impassioned?
Larisa Alexandrovna: Probably because it reminds me of the Soviet Union and a country that my family and I escaped from. It's no longer a country now, but technically I'm from the Ukraine, but at the time, the Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. And it was single-party rule. And you have allegiance to the party. And the party controlled everything. And this is what I see happening here.
This disturbs me on a very personal level. And the fact that the public does not see this, or at least is starting to see this, is really frightening me. Because at some point, this will become irreversible. It will become so institutionalized that no amount of protesting or putting pressure on your member of Congress will change the structure that has been set up. And so, you know, that's basically why this makes me so, you know, crazy, so impassioned, is because it frightens me. It reminds me of a country I escaped from, so -
BuzzFlash: Larisa, thank you so much.
Larisa Alexandrovna: Thank you.
BuzzFlash Interview conducted by Mark Karlin.
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REMEMBER KATRINA
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From al Jazeera English: the impact of Iraq's war on the US
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B59E65CA-6F82-
The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 has changed the dynamics and balance of power in the Middle East.
How will history judge the American venture in Iraq?
Some political observers argue that a major casualty of the war has been the idea of the United States as a shining example of democracy and freedom.
They say that the invasion and occupation of Iraq shows the US as a new colonial power and that this perception will take years to erase.
Has the political landscape of the Middle East been permanently redefined by the US actions in Iraq? And what role will the US continue to play?
Some analysts believe the costs of war in Iraq will saddle the US with political and economic crises for many years to come, and put the country in a considerably weaker position.
Others feel the US influence over global politics and security has been bolstered and that the occupation will ensure this influence continues to dominate. Who are the real winners?
This week, Inside Iraq looks at the future and asks if there are parallel lessons from history that could be drawn from the US invasion of Iraq.
Our guests this week:
Richard Bulliet from Columbia University, Martin Van Creveld from Hebrew University and Alastair Campbell, director of Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (Qatar).
A note from Dot Calm: go to the website for links to Youtube videos of these discussions.
*****
Scott McClellan: Buzzflash's Hypocrite of the Week
Welcome back to the BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Week.
No, Scott McClellan is no hero for fessing up to the fact that George Bush misled the nation into war -- or for revealing, among other things we already knew, that Scooter Libby and Karl Rove coordinated their accounts of the treasonous Valerie Plame outing.
According to advance accounts of McClellan's tell all book, he blames "the liberal press" for not being hard enough on the Bush Administration's dishonesty. But, of course, the deliverer of the misleading Bush narrative and responses to administration scandals during the first years of the Iraq War was, well, Scott McClellan.
It's a tragic irony fitting for the times that McClellan is spilling the beans in return for a fat book contract. He even has the hopeless audacity and PR spin to claim that "I still like and admire President Bush." Maybe he does. Republicans have the ability to hold two contradictory notions in their minds at one time and firmly believe that both are correct -- or so they would have us believe.
As David Corn of Mother Jones, who first broke the significance of the Plame outing asks of McClellan, "Where's the apology?" Former national security advisor Richard A. Clarke, who told us about the failings of the Bush Administration to prevent 9/11, personally apologized to Americans for not doing more to prevent that tragedy. He is to be commended for accepting something that McClellan and the Bush loyalists never do: accept responsibility.
So BuzzFlash won't be joining in any chorus praising McClellan for telling us what he should have told us when he was White House press secretary.
Anybody with a conscience wouldn't have stepped up to the podium and deceived the American public about a war launched to enhance a president's image, among other reasons.
McClellan is no profile in courage. He let his nation down when his candor was most needed. Now, he tells us the truth, far too late, while fattening his wallet.
Remember our motto: So many Republican hypocrites, so little time.
Catch up with you soon.
*****
Not crazy yet?
Then have a look at the Center for Public Integrity's website:
http://www.publicintegrity.org/default.aspx
There's almost too much to digest here.
*****
A letter from Dot Calm to her elected officials
June 3, 2008
Senator Richard Burr
225 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.
Washington DC 20510
Dear Senator:
As a proud American it is with dismay that I’ve watched my country’s behavior under this administration. Although I’ve learned right from wrong and practiced those principles my whole life, I now learn America tortures, outs a CIA agent, disrespects religions and worst of all, sits idly by as 3000 fellow Americans drown. New Orleans is one of America’s beloved cities. It is unique. Because this administration doesn’t understand the people who live there, it chose to ignore their desperate cries for help. Worse, it would not accept assistance from other countries, like Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Will we ever forget the image of bodies floating down the streets of the city like just so many logs?
Let’s talk 9/11 for a moment. There was no smoking gun! There was no mushroom cloud! Yet we used our military might to tear Iraq apart like a ripened cocoanut while at the same time depleting our treasury and plunging ourselves into debt for as far into the future as one can see. We murdered innocent Iraqi women and children by the thousands. We needlessly put our soldiers in harm’s way. We sent them to war without body armor. Jessica Yellen was pressured not to report the goings on of this administration. Phil Donahue, who spoke the truth to this out-of-control power, disappeared from the airways. Remember Judith Miller? Gone.
I wrote to every newspaper in this country imploring them to report the news. No takers. The silence was deafening. Americans remain in the dark. A new administration is our country’s only hope; it must shine strobe lights over the past eight years. The mounting distrust doesn’t feel good.
Will we ever forget Bush strutting on the carrier off San Diego? For God’s sake he was wearing a cod piece! Or Bush sitting in the classroom not responding for several minutes to the most serious attack on this country since Pearl Harbor? Why did he look like a deer in headlights? What did he know that the rest of us didn’t?
But wait! There’s more! In an unusually blunt criticism, Egypt's state-owned press attacked Bush for his speech Thursday before the Israeli Knesset. The media accused him of being overly supportive of the Israelis and never mentioning the Palestinians' plight.
Bush, in his address showered Israel with praise, strongly reiterated its right to defend itself and only gently urged leaders to "make the hard choices necessary," without mention of concrete steps. He did not visit the Palestinian territories nor mention their desperate situation. He spoke of them only in one sentence saying that Israel's 120th anniversary in 2068 would see it neighboring an independent Palestinian state. So much for diplomacy.
Newly diagnosed cases of post-traumatic stress disorder among U.S. troops sent to Iraq and Afghanistan surged 46.4 percent in 2007, bringing the five-year total to nearly 40,000, according to U.S. military data released on Tuesday by the Army. And we hear that mental-health specialists and social workers are being pressured to diagnose fewer patients with PTSD. At the Department of Veterans Affairs in Temple, Texas the health providers are being asked to refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out since they are seeing more and more compensation- seeking veterans. It is recommended that these mental-health specialists and social workers consider a diagnosis of Adjustment Disorder. Cop out? Sounds like it.
This is a sampling of the many situations where I feel America has taken the wrong tack. It is frightening to a once proud American. Michele Obama attempted to articulate similar concerns but her thoughts were attacked and smothered in this “free speech” country. Have you noticed?
Respectfully,
Dot Calm
copies to:
Senator Elizabeth Dole
Senator Barbara Boxer
Congressman Walter B. Jones
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You can fight the gods and still have fun.
--Jim Hightower
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Another letter from Dot Calm to her elected officials
May 2, 2008
Senator Richard Burr
225 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senator:
If you read "Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army" by Jeremy Scahill, you are aware that it is a private military company. The North Carolina-based firm operates under a multi-million dollar contract to protect U.S. officials and facilities. It’s been allowed close to free reign under a murky legal environment that offers little or no oversight of its operations.
Thus far I have not been aware of such a need. What have I missed as our country operated for hundreds of years without the services of a Blackwater? What enemies has it amassed?
The latest controversy over Blackwater has put Iraq sovereignty in the spotlight. The private security firm is back on the streets of Baghdad despite being banned by the Iraqi government following an incident in which Blackwater guards killed seventeen Iraqis in an unprovoked mass shooting.
How did Blackwater return to the streets of Baghdad if they indeed were banned by the Iraqi government? Is Blackwater more powerful than the Iraqi Government? Whom do they report to? Are they capable of overrunning this country if they choose? What would stop them? Is Blackwater more powerful than our armed services? Who reports to whom?
On April 07, 2008, the State Dept. renewed Blackwater’s contract in Iraq despite the Pentagon’s labeling the Sept. Baghdad killing of 17 civilians A Criminal Event. I find this troubling. Don’t you?
Sincerely,
Dot Calm
posted by Dot Calm @ 6:27 PM
