Saturday, October 23, 2021
Friday, October 22, 2021
2001-ish then. 2021 now. I'm grateful that Baby Bush and Karl Rove didn't manage to destroy my country..they didn't, right...?
FANCYRAGE
About Me
I have come to politics late in life, and by way of rage at what is happening to my country. The first of us was born on the coast of what is now Virginia in 1680-something and we’ve been here since. We’ve been a part of it all, and of varying political persuasions, and we have, no doubt over these generations become complacent about our rights and freedoms. God knows which generation first took for granted that our elected officials had the best interests of America at heart. I don’t have a clue about that, but I do know that now I am retired and able to concentrate a great deal of time and effort on reading the newspapers and the editorial comments available to me, perhaps, for the first time in my life, and I am finding that it is a grievous mistake to take for granted that the current crop of politicians gives a hoot about American freedoms as we have known them.
What I have read and read on a daily basis grows increasingly more frightening, as even a cursory glance at my pages here will verify. Bush and Cronies are hell-bent on creating a tyrannical climate in America, and whether that is based on the false god of money and world domination that neo-conservatives worship, or the false god of relieving the rest of us of our freedoms to choose our own destinies that some born-again (make that ‘born-against’) Christians worship, I find that I, in any case, am rabidly opposed, and rapidly becoming more willing to take an active stance in opposing, these people who are destroying my country.
Contact Me: fancyrage@gmail.com
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
NO, King George, We said NO then. We say NO now.
One way or another, Bush and Cronies want to get federal troops in our neighborhoods. Why? Based on past experience, if Bush cannot get his way with this, then the change in law that will allow the movement of troops into our cities and neighborhoods will be sneaked through as a tag on some other law, or we will once again concede to the “intent” of Bush and Cronies actions as we did with The Patriot Act. And then we will not be able to “gather in large groups” (the Right of Free Assembly), go to work, or leave our homes if “exposed” to individuals with Avian Flu until the “period of incubation” has passed.
One has to ask oneself if any of the people who are mildly suggesting(rather than being righteously angry) that federal troops active in state affairs is a bad idea have ever read The Bill of Rights or The Constitution, and I don’t care how much lawyers try to complicate these two documents, the facts remain as written by our founding fathers who had strong reasons for writing our historical documents as they did: our founding fathers had the experience of being ruled by a Tyrant, and that is what George W. Bush is seeking: tyranny. If you read the justifications of our founding fathers for The Declaration of Independence, you will see these words:
HE has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our Legislature.
HE has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to Civil Power.
HE has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
FOR quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us:
FOR imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
FOR depriving us in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:
FOR taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
IN every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.
Reichstag Fire Decree, Germany, enacted February 28, 1933 after the Reichstag fire
The Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State (Reichstag Fire Decree) and subsequent Enabling Act that empowered Adolf Hitler to seize control of Germany are often compared to the USA PATRIOT Act.[28] The similarities are that both were passed after an act of terrorism, both were passed quickly, both limited civil liberties with the expressed purpose of protecting the people, and both were used in excess of their expressed purpose. The English translation of Article 1 of the DRPPPS states that the decree intends "...to restrict the rights to personal freedom [habeas corpus], freedom of speech, including the freedom of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble, the privacy of letters, mail, telegraphs and telephones, order searches and confiscations and restrict property, even if this is not otherwise provided for by present law." The USA Patriot Act is not as explicit about its intentions, often wording the act in terms of what civil liberties and safeguards people have left.
The Reichstag Fire Decree differs from the USA PATRIOT Act in that the DRPPPS more explicitly seizes states rights and associates the death penalty with many offenses. Additionally, some of the USA PATRIOT Act has a sunset provision, whereas the set expiration date of the Enabling Act was dependent upon a succession of power, and the DRPPPS did not have a set expiration date. The USA PATRIOT Act and the Enabling Act were both passed by a freely elected Congress, whereas the DRPPPS was a "emergency decree" by the German president made at the behest of Chancellor Hitler.
Although the USA PATRIOT Act differs in some respects, the Reichstag Fire Decree and subsequent Enabling Act are cited as examples of how giving up civil liberties in times of crisis can be used to legally overthrow a government's constitution from within.
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Pentagon, Lawmakers Resist Greater Military Role in Disasters
Excerpt from Article
Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Former top U.S. military officials and lawmakers from both parties are resisting President George W. Bush's suggestion that active-duty troops take a lead role in responding to natural disasters.
Pentagon officials such as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also are cool to the idea, said Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. ``I've spoken to people in the White House who say that Rumsfeld is really resisting,'' King, a New York Republican, said in an interview yesterday.
One issue is what Bush's proposal might mean to armed forces already heavily engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan. ``The military right now is extremely stretched,'' said retired Admiral William Crowe, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. ``If you have to train for it and make them into policemen and firemen, that will be a major distraction.''
There's danger of a political backlash in changing the 127- year-old U.S. law that bars federal troops from law-enforcement, said retired Army General John Shalikashvili, also a former Joint Chiefs chairman. ``I don't think the American people are ready for the U.S. military to do law enforcement,'' he said.
Even Admiral Tim Keating, commander of the military arm responsible for homeland defense, said, ``I don't think you necessarily want DoD forces in law-enforcement roles.''
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October 5
Excerpt from Article
Bush may use troops, quarantine if bird flu breaks out
By Knight Ridder Newspapers and The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — President Bush said yesterday that he is considering the use of military troops to impose a quarantine in the event of a deadly flu pandemic.
Bush, in response to a question at a news conference, echoed warnings from health experts who fear a replay of the 1918 pandemic that killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide. He outlined a series of steps to deal with an illness that could overwhelm the health-care system.
The World Health Organization says an influenza pandemic is "just a matter of time." Some health officials particularly are concerned about avian flu because it seems to be extremely lethal when it jumps from birds to humans. Of 116 known cases in humans since 2003, more than half — 60 — ended in death. There are no confirmed cases of human-to-human transmission of the flu, also known as bird flu, but that could change because such viruses constantly mutate.
Bush left no doubt that he takes the threat seriously.
"I am concerned about avian flu. ... I've thought through all the scenarios of what an avian-flu outbreak could mean," Bush said. "I'm not predicting an outbreak. I'm just suggesting to you that we'd better be thinking about it."
The president gave no details on the specific role troops might play or what sort of quarantine might be invoked. The federal government's pandemic-response plan, the product of more than a year of work, is expected to be released soon.
Most public-health experts believe it is impossible to entirely isolate neighborhoods, towns, cities or regions during an outbreak of disease. Instead, "quarantines" today generally refer to a variety of strategies for identifying and limiting the movement of people who are infected with a contagious pathogen or are at high risk.
That might include screening travelers for fever and flu symptoms; prohibiting large gatherings of people, including at some workplaces; and requiring that people exposed to infected individuals stay at home until the incubation period for the illness has passed. China took these measures during the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003.
"The policy questions for a president in dealing with an avian-flu outbreak are difficult," Bush said. "One example: If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country? And how do you, then, enforce a quarantine? ... And who best to be able to effect a quarantine?"
He did not answer his questions but after the last one, he said: "One option is the use of a military that's able to plan and move. So that's why I put it on the table. I think it's an important debate for Congress to have."
Since the bungled initial federal response to Hurricane Katrina, Bush has suggested a change in law that would put the Pentagon in charge of search-and-rescue efforts in times of a major terrorist attack or similarly catastrophic natural disaster.
The president acknowledged that some governors object to the idea of federal control of National Guard units in emergencies. He added that as a former governor, "I understand that. ... But Congress needs to take a look at circumstances that may need to vest the capacity of the president to move beyond that debate. And one such catastrophe or one such challenge could be an avian-flu outbreak."
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Rise Up.
Neo-conservative “Republicans” are continuing with their private agenda even though they have been ‘outed’ by every news organization in the world and, with the implied consent of non-action on the part of the American public, these people WILL CONTINUE with their agendas while we wait in complacent unconsciousness for the past to repeat itself with investigations that bring forth facts, and for the facts to bring forth legal action, and for legal action to affect a change for the betterment of all of us. Legal action is not forthcoming and the sociopathic onward momentum of an organization that is concerned only with stealing as much money as possible continues to grind our people and our beliefs into the muddiest low ground of capitalism. All these editorialists quoted below are doing their damndest to wake us up and all we are doing is rolling over and dozing off again. We will awaken too late to change what our country is becoming. It is time to secrete true copies of The Constitution, The Bill of Rights, any and all historical documents that will prove our history and justify our future. It is time to stop trusting that good will triumph over evil in America. It is now time to act, to get off our porches and into our streets and show by a vast majority of us who are willing to confront the evil of our times that WE,THE PEOPLE are an America with heart and soul and a desire to uplift the poorest and weakest among us. It is time to show that we will no longer tolerate the evils of our times with our complacency. Rise up.
October 4, 2005
Population Loss Altering Louisiana Political Landscape
By JEREMY ALFORD
Excerpt from Editorial
Mr. Koepp said this population shift could actually be the early stages of the deterioration of New Orleans' long-term hold over the State Legislature. "If this holds true, there will be a significant political change," he said.
There are now 21 seats in the House and Senate that encompass or touch on Orleans Parish, of 144 total seats statewide.
But if the population fails to return to the parish in coming years, New Orleans may be confined to just a few seats in each chamber through redistricting, Mr. Koepp added. That could change the state's racial and partisan balance.
If evacuees from the Ninth Ward in New Orleans - a reliable bloc of 30,000 black voters that is traditionally easy to mobilize - choose suburban or rural areas over their urban roots in coming years, it could be a political blow to Democrats, said Roy Fletcher, a political consultant from Shreveport who helped elect former Gov. Mike Foster, a Republican.
"It would give a whole lot of a stronger foothold to Republicans in the Legislature and statewide," Mr. Fletcher said. "Louisiana has always been a swing state, a purple state that's both blue and red. You take the Ninth Ward out of that equation and you get a real shot of Republicans winning statewide office."
Barry Erwin, president of a Council for a Better Louisiana, a nonpartisan nonprofit group that monitors the activities of state government, said such a change could forever alter the political landscape.
"These things are symbolic of a divide that we've always had," he said. "There's an us versus them thing. In New Orleans, it's like us, and then there's the rest of the state. Around the rest of the state, it's like us, and then there's New Orleans. This could change all of that."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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October 4, 2005
Health Care for Katrina Victims
The White House has now spent nearly three weeks blocking a bipartisan effort to pay for medical care for the impoverished victims of Hurricane Katrina.
On Sept. 16, Senators Charles Grassley and Max Baucus, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Finance Committee, introduced a bill that would extend Medicaid health coverage for five months to low-income childless adults from Katrina-struck areas.
In addition, the bill would expand the pool of traditional Medicaid recipients to include pregnant women, children and the disabled by raising the income cutoff to about twice the federal poverty line, or $25,660 for a two-person family.
The bill would also commit the federal government to paying 100 percent of victims' Medicaid bills rather than requiring the states to pay a share. Full federal payment is vital. Medical aid is integral to disaster relief and recovery and reflects a national interest in public health. Equally important, without assurance of 100 percent coverage by the federal government, states that treat evacuees could be penalized by getting stuck with all or part of the bill.
The Grassley-Baucus bill has the support of the National Governors Association; many relief agencies and charities, including the American Red Cross and Catholic Charities; and numerous health care providers, including groups that represent doctors, nurses, hospitals and nursing homes. But not the administration.
The White House has said it will reimburse health care providers who treat victims who are not covered by Medicaid. But it has not said how much the payments would be or how providers could access the so-called uncompensated care fund.
The administration also does not want the federal government to pick up the states' share for Medicaid costs incurred in Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama in the post-Katrina period. Those three states would also have to pick up other states' costs to treat evacuees, unless the law is changed.
The Grassley-Baucus bill set the stage for efficiently providing much-needed medical care to Katrina's victims. But a few senators, widely seen to be carrying the administration's water, have thus far blocked a vote. The Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, could clear the way for a vote by the full Senate this week. What is he waiting for?
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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washingtonpost.com
Gulf Firms Losing Cleanup Contracts Most Money Going Outside Storm's Path
Excerpt from Article
By Griff Witte, Renae Merle and Derek WillisWashington Post Staff WritersTuesday, October 4, 2005; D01
Companies outside the three states most affected by Hurricane Katrina have received more than 90 percent of the money from prime federal contracts for recovery and reconstruction of the Gulf Coast, according to an analysis of available government data.
The analysis by The Washington Post takes into account only the first wave of federal contracts, those that had been entered in detail into government databases as of yesterday. Together they are valued at more than $2 billion. Congress has allocated more than $60 billion for the recovery effort, and the ultimate total is expected to rise far higher.
But already the trend toward out-of-state firms is clear, despite pledges by administration officials that federal funds for Katrina relief will become an engine of local economic redevelopment. Among the contracts analyzed, 3.8 percent of the money went to companies that listed an Alabama address, 2.8 percent to firms in Louisiana and just 1.8 percent went for Mississippi contractors. Taken together, that amounts to less than $200 million.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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washingtonpost.com
Let FEMA Be FEMA
Tuesday, October 4, 2005; A22
Excerpt from Editorial
The correct response, in the wake of hurricanes Rita and Katrina, is not to bring in the military to do FEMA's job but to fix FEMA. Of course, the agency's civil servants are demoralized: Their role has been downgraded, their agency has been robbed of funding and they have been led by unqualified political appointees.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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October 4, 2005
Faux News Is Bad News
Federal auditors have blistered the Bush administration for secretly concocting favorable news reports about itself by hiring actors to pose as journalists and slipping $240,000 in taxpayer funds to a sell-out conservative polemicist. The government till was also tapped to have political spin doctors track whether the message of President Bush and the Republican Party was being well treated in legitimate news reporting.
In its purchase of self-aggrandizing agitprop, the administration plainly violated the law against spreading "covert propaganda" at public expense, according to the report of the Government Accountability Office. More than that, Bush officials forged a cheesy new low in Washington politicians' endless bazaar of peddling public relations initiatives at taxpayers' expense.
The White House order to close down the ersatz news coverage should have been unequivocal once the real news media uncovered the hired fakers. But administration apologists continued to insist only "legitimate dissemination" of public information was at work in the under-the-table employment of Armstrong Williams, a political talk-show host, to wax breathless over the No Child Left Behind Act.
The scheme was so seamy that auditors were unable to document whether Mr. Williams actually delivered all the articles and talk-show hype that his company claimed in quietly billing the government for $186,000 worth of yessiree-Bob "news." On Friday, a spokeswoman for the current education secretary, Margaret Spellings, reacted to the report by calling these efforts "stupid, wrong and ill advised." We hope she noticed that they were also illegal.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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POSTED BY FANCYRAGE AT 7:17 PM 0 COMMENTS
Monday, October 03, 2005
Outlaw Lobbyists?
It’s simple: make ‘lobbying’ and lobbyists illegal. Nothing is more damaging to our country, our culture, and our ideals so much as lobbying. Get rid of it. There is certainly no mandate that one makes money while doing the business of government. This is antithetical to the moral standards of this country, and as we can see, contributes to the rise of the very sort of people that we, the people, must spend money to prosecute when they run afoul of the laws of the land.
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washingtonpost.com
DeLay's Influence Transcends His Title
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Jim VandeHeiWashington Post Staff Writers Monday, October 3, 2005; A01
For the indefinite future, Washington will remain Tom DeLay's capital. Dislodged by a criminal indictment last week from his post as House majority leader, DeLay in his decade of steering the Republican caucus dramatically -- and in many cases inalterably -- changed how power is amassed and used on Capitol Hill and well beyond.
Proteges of the wounded Texan still hold virtually every position of influence in the House, including the office of speaker. DeLay's former staff members are securely in the lobbying offices for many of the largest corporations and business advocacy groups.
But even more than people, DeLay's lasting influence is an ethos. He stood for a view of Washington as a battlefield on which two sides struggle relentlessly, moderates and voices of compromise are pushed to the margins, and the winners presume they have earned the right to punish dissenters and reward their own side with financial and policy favors.
His take-no-prisoners style of fundraising -- in which the classic unstated bargain of access for contributions is made explicitly and without apology -- has been adopted by both parties in Congress, according to lawmakers, lobbyists and congressional scholars. Democrats, likewise, increasingly are trying to emulate DeLay-perfected methods for enforcing caucus discipline -- rewarding lawmakers who follow the dictums of party leaders and seeking retribution against those who do not.
Most of all, DeLay stood for a blurring of the line between lawmakers and lobbyists so that lobbyists are now considered partners of politicians and not merely pleaders -- especially if they once worked for Republicans on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers-turned-corporate lobbyists such as Bill Paxon (R-N.Y.) and aides such as Ed Buckham, DeLay's former chief of staff, remain among the most influential figures on Capitol Hill -- often more involved than lawmakers in writing policy and plotting political strategy.
For a vivid sign of how what was once considered controversial has gone mainstream, consider the K Street Project. That was the name for a DeLay-inspired campaign -- for which he was chastised by the House ethics committee -- to demand that lobbying firms seeking access hire loyal Republicans. Rather than going underground, the project has gone unabashedly public, with a Web site, http://www.kstreetproject.com/ , providing news about the latest lobbying vacancies.
"People who have worked for Mr. DeLay become, like other senior Republican staffers, members in good standing of a club and are accepted back by many members [of Congress] and staffers," said Andrew M. Shore, chief of staff of the House Republican Conference. "The idea is that we are a team. What's good for one is good for all; anything to cultivate that team mentality is seen in a positive light."
Usually, staffers-turned-lobbyists lose their cachet when their former bosses retire or lose their jobs. But the DeLay fraternity -- so large that it is called DeLay Inc. -- does not look as if it will suffer the same fate. "Has the value of these people diminished? I would say no," Shore said. "As they transition into the private sector, the benefits are shared by the [Republican] conference. There's a symbiosis between the former staffers and many members of the conference."
None of the tactics used so effectively by DeLay and his allies were invented by them. The Texan's innovation was to systematically institutionalize them within the GOP. It's possible his zeal in these methods could ultimately bring about his downfall.
Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle won a grand jury indictment of DeLay on a charge of conspiring to illegally evade fundraising restrictions. DeLay, still in Congress, has vowed to return to his leadership post after clearing his name at trial -- though his future is shadowed by a tall stack of other legal and political problems. But scholars say his methods are imprinted on Washington like a tattoo. "Even if Boss DeLay leaves, his legacy stays," said James A. Thurber, director of congressional studies at American University.
Part of the reason for this is that DeLay's temporary replacement, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), is a DeLay protege whose rapid rise was spawned by the Texas Republican. So were the careers of almost everyone else in the House Republican leadership, including Rep. Eric I. Cantor of Virginia and Thomas M. Reynolds of New York. They are all social conservatives who support such pro-business policies as deregulation and tax cuts.
The DeLay network is just as formidable in downtown Washington. Former DeLay aides Buckham, Tony Rudy and Karl Gallant form the core of one of Washington's largest and fastest-growing lobbying firms, Alexander Strategy Group. Susan Hirschmann, a former DeLay chief of staff, is a senior member of Williams & Jensen, another major lobbying firm. Congressional aides said that these and other DeLay alumni are part of their "team" and will be welcome in their offices no matter what happens to their old boss.
Speaking of Hirschmann, Mike Stokke, deputy chief of staff to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), said, "Having DeLay in her background is a strength; having worked for Tom brings credibility."
There has been no sign that DeLay personally has been active in the K Street Project since he was admonished by the House ethics committee for pressuring the Electronics Industries Alliance to hire a Republican as its president seven years ago. Nonetheless, the project is still going strong; other lawmakers and lobbyists have taken up the cause. Job listings on K Street are still distributed in regularly scheduled meetings held by other GOP lawmakers, including Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.). Lobbying executives report that former Republican aides and lawmakers have telephoned them to suggest that their top openings should be filled with loyalists. The K Street Project Web site is run by well-connected conservative Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform.
In the House, DeLay enhanced the leadership's role by ending the practice of automatically promoting the most senior lawmakers to committee chairmanships and, instead, choosing loyalists to fill the powerful slots. Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) was booted from the chairmanship of the Veterans Affairs Committee at the beginning of the current Congress because he repeatedly bucked DeLay and other GOP leaders on key votes. DeLay also arranged to have the chairmen elected by the committees themselves, whose members he also selected and was thus better able to control.
The same technique is now used in the Senate by Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who won the authority to select committee members after the 2004 elections increased his majority to 55 seats. "There is only one reason for that change, and it is to punish people," Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) told the newspaper Roll Call in November.
Even House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), an outspoken DeLay critic, has started to crack down on her own members with DeLay-like tactics. After this summer's vote on free trade with Central American nations -- a plan that several House Democrats supported despite her strong objections -- Pelosi summoned Democratic lawmakers to a private meeting and threatened to take away their committee assignments if they did not start voting with party leaders, according to participants.
DeLay's fundraising focus has also permeated Washington. Over the years, DeLay has raised tens of millions of dollars for Republicans through nearly a dozen fundraising entities. Today, no leader of either party or lawmaker with leadership ambitions would even consider not forming at least two such fundraising committees. "DeLay set a new benchmark for fundraising and that's not going to go away," said Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group.
DeLay established as common practice the requirement that House GOP incumbents with safe seats collect at least some money for the party as a whole. Chairmen of committees were particularly on the line to raise large sums, Republican aides said. Unless they paid up, their chairmanships were in danger.
In late June, Pelosi adopted a similar tack. She sent a letter warning that Democratic lawmakers who did not raise money for the House campaign committee would be deprived of everything from financial resources to telephone access. "If you are on the team, you have to" pay up, a House Democratic aide said.
Meanwhile, anyone looking for signs of the ongoing influence of DeLay Inc. will find another one today. It's the starting date for Time Warner Inc.'s new vice president for global public policy. The new executive is Tim Berry, former chief of staff to Tom DeLay.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Time Will Tell
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washingtonpost.com
A Song of Sorrow -- and Endurance
By Jim HoaglandSunday, October 2, 2005; B07
Excerpt from Editorial:
Look, the poor people of Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas already know how part of the story ends, even as Congress starts it by appropriating tens of billions of reconstruction dollars they will never see. Fast-talking city slickers of all races and the politically adept of all persuasions will find ways to corral those dollars and leave the poor once again with the crumbs. Why would this be different from everything they have known before?
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White Southerners of my age will remember the segregated drinking fountains, the separate entrances for blacks and whites, the hovels in the “Hayti’s” and Walltown's of every little Southern town, where poverty beyond anything anyone who did not live in the South in those times can imagine: dirt floors, no running water, no indoor plumbing, dirt streets, no sidewalks, no paint on the barren boards of the shacks, and the dusty, dusky plain faces of the black folks living in those “neighborhoods” (read ghettos) from which there were no exits.
Even well-to-do blacks were relegated to functionally ‘richer’ ghettos: the black college professors of North Carolina College in Durham, the black funeral home owners, the administrators of black-owned businesses, lived elsewhere than Hayti but were still ghetto-ized.
Durham, North Carolina changed with the decades. I only returned twice in the thirty years after I left the South, and each time I saw the changes in the black citizens of Durham: better jobs, new cars, bright, shiny, well-groomed and well-dressed children with open eyes, friendly folks who took my ‘Yankee’ accent as proof that I was no racist. But the razor-edge of resentment still percolated just beneath the surface of these people, and I, for one, did not blame them for their resentment.
As I watched the news coverage of Hurricane Katrina, I realized that poverty among black folks in New Orleans has not much changed from the Sixties and Seventies in North Carolina. Thirty years later, not much has changed in the Deep South.
The Black Diaspora of this age has moved some of these people to places like Washington State, which currently has 3, 000 victims of Hurricane Katrina living here: primarily black folks who will realize that they can open their eyes and relax to some extent the constant vigil against racism that permeates the psyches of black Southerners. They can live in places where their children no longer must wear the definitions of black as defined by the South.
I have, on occasion, seen young Afro-American men transplanted for whatever reasons to the area of Washington State in which I live, and they came here wearing (still) the deferential masque of black male with white woman: downcast eyes, the “yes-ums” and “no’m’s” , and that peculiar and subservient look of the deep South black. I have watched their metamorphosis into bright and articulate and proud young black men over scant weeks after arriving here in Spokane.
Nobody can tell me that these transplanted people will want to return to New Orleans. Nobody can tell me that these people will want to take their children back to the oppressions of the New Orleans that they knew.
Racism still exists here in the Northwest. No doubt about it. The KKK fanatics are close by, but to now, they are diminished and whenever they decide to get out their sheets and march, all the locals come out to protest their existence. We all know they hate everybody except hillbilly whites.
Perhaps racism in the Pacific Northwest is reserved for local and indigenous Native American tribes, and blacks, for the most part, represent a somewhat exotic portion of our society which has historically not been particularly well-represented in this area of the country.
Perhaps Hurricane Katrina will be the death-knell of Deep South racism and poverty. Perhaps this diaspora will result in the general betterment of America.
Time will tell.
Saturday, October 01, 2005
"Intellectuals" and Other Oddities
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Bennett, a former U.S. education secretary and national drug policy director, is under fire from Democrats, civil rights leaders, black conservatives and, as of yesterday, the White House and the Republican Party for saying Wednesday that "you could abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down."
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Robert Woodson Sr., president of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, said "it was stupid" for Bennett to even ruminate on such an explosive topic but defended him as a good man. "Sometimes intellectuals become detached from common sense," he said.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
I would hardly call anyone capable of making a statement like this an ‘intellectual’.
September 30, 2005 5:09 PM PDT
Your DNA or else: Police to collect your genetic material
The Violence Against Women Act may be about to do violence to Americans' right to privacy.
A U.S. Senate committee has adopted an amendment to the VAWA legislation that would add the DNA of anyone detained by the cops to a federal DNA database called "CODIS."
Note that it doesn't require that you're convicted of a crime or even formally arrested on suspicion of committing one. Mere detention -- might a routine traffic stop eventually qualify? -- will be sufficient for CODISification. (Current law only authorizes blood or saliva swabs and entry into CODIS for people convicted of a crime.)
Ethan Ackerman, a Washington attorney and privacy specialist, notes: " The bill grants states carte blanche to write laws allowing (DNA) collection" even "as a condition of getting a drivers license!"
This proposal is the brainchild of two Republican senators, Jon Kyl of Arizona and John Cornyn of Texas. They say it's necessary to help catch violent criminals -- although the genetic material would remain in the database if the person is detained or arrested but not charged with a crime.
Posted by Declan McCullagh
This is a hard one, because ultimately it would protect women, or at least that appears to be the intent. As we’re all figuring out now, Bush and Cronies sell us the “intent” and then use the statutes to further their own ends to relieve Americans of more freedoms. Caveat Emptor.
washingtonpost.com
GOP Senators Look to Shift Spy Management From CIA
By Walter PincusWashington Post Staff WriterSaturday, October 1, 2005; A09
Republicans on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence want to strip from the CIA its primary role as manager of overseas collection of human intelligence, suggesting that Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte take over that responsibility.
The CIA's Directorate of Operations, the agency's clandestine arm, which now coordinates spying overseas by all U.S. intelligence agencies, in the past "did not effectively exercise the authorities of the national HUMINT [human intelligence] manager often focusing instead on its own structure and operations," the committee majority said in its report on the fiscal 2006 intelligence authorization bill released late Thursday.
Citing past failures in averting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and in overstating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the Republican majority said U.S. spying operations "have lacked strong leadership and effective mechanism to resolve conflicts."
The Patriot Act, post 911, collects information but the same kind of information was collected pre-911 and Bush and Cronies ignored it, which resulted in the events of 911. Then they used the events of 911 to create the "Patriot" Act to spy on U.S. citizens, and to take away our rights as defined by The Bill of Rights. What do these folks think we're smoking?
The Republicans, led by Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.), the panel chairman, urged Negroponte "to directly manage and oversee the conduct of HUMINT operations across the intelligence community," saying the need is "imperative" because the Pentagon and the FBI are placing "greater emphasis" on spying.
Democrats on the committee opposed the suggestion, calling it in their section of the report a "misguided solution" and noting that the CIA has recently reached agreements with the FBI and Pentagon to "avoid confusion and ensure smooth coordination" of spying operations at home and abroad. They also noted that the DNI -- a position created by Congress last year to oversee and coordinate the government's intelligence community -- "was not established as a new bureaucracy to assume the responsibility for day-to-day intelligence operations."
The Republican call for change comes as a plan by CIA Director Porter J. Goss to create a CIA coordinator for all human intelligence carried out abroad by U.S. agencies, including the Pentagon and FBI, sits in Negroponte's office awaiting his approval. Though the proposal originated with the President's Commission on Intelligence, there is no timetable for Negroponte to make that decision, an official in Negroponte's office said yesterday.
The majority report accompanies the Senate version of the intelligence authorization bill, which carries about $44 billion for the 15 agencies and Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It will now go to the Senate Armed Services Committee and later to the Senate floor for a vote. The report explains various sections of the bill and includes a broad committee review of the intelligence community, its weaknesses and strengths. The House has already passed its version of the measure. The Democrats' remarks were carried as "additional views" in the report.
The report includes two additional indications of the Pentagon's sharply increasing activities in the intelligence field at home and abroad.
While the CIA is waiting for DNI approval of its plan for coordinating intelligence activities overseas, the Pentagon has created a Defense Humint Management Office to coordinate increased spying activities by the Defense Intelligence Agency's human intelligence section, as well as clandestine operations by the separate services, area commanders and counterintelligence arms. One role for this office, which will be run under the supervision of Undersecretary for Intelligence Stephen A. Cambone, will be to "deconflict" intelligence operations, meaning to ensure that activities by various Pentagon groups do not overlap or interfere with each other, a Pentagon official said.
The committee report recommends that the new office have authority to direct and control all Defense Department collection of information from human sources -- as opposed to technical sources such as electronic intercepts -- in the United States and overseas.
Another proposal reflected increased Pentagon interest in intelligence operations in the United States involving American citizens. The proposal included in the bill would give a "limited" exemption to defense intelligence personnel, allowing them to recruit sources and collect personal information on U.S. citizens clandestinely, without disclosing they worked for the government, when "significant" foreign intelligence is being sought. They would have to coordinate such collection with the FBI.
A similar exemption was sought last year and dropped from the bill because of opposition in the Senate Armed Services Committee, said a senior congressional staff member. This year the committee said, "Current counterterrorism and other foreign intelligence operations highlight the need for greater latitude to assess potential intelligence sources, both overseas and within the United States." The panel noted the limited exemption is similar to that enjoyed by the CIA "when assessing and recruiting sources."
The committee said it "will closely monitor the DoD's [Defense Department's] use of the authorities provided."
In other areas, the panel approved establishment of a DNI inspector general with authority to investigate matters in any of the 15 agencies that make up the intelligence community. That person would be nominated by the president and subject to Senate confirmation.
Another proposal would require that the deputy director of central intelligence be a civilian and not an active-duty military officer, as is now the case. The committee said Vice Adm. Albert M. Calland III could continue to serve until President Bush nominates a successor or he retires.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
God Help Us.
This is a very dangerous man, this Negroponte. Sad to say, this is the first time I’ve taken note of the man or his potential to devastate my country and her ideals. This whole issue is bigger than one old woman spouting opinions on the internet. Won’t someone please, someone who has the balls and the authority, please take on these issues and stop these people who are destroying my country?
When I went searching Google for quotable information on Negroponte I found that his name is hot on sites like Al-Jazeerah and extreme ‘hollerin’ sites rife with ‘Zionist’ hints and I chose this article from Al-Jazeerah because it was written by a nun, a sister, and would appear to be simply straight reporting of events.
I have no desire to find myself on the hysterical side of the reporting of events, but rather to react to reported events as a reasonable American citizen. The more I learn and the more I read, the more I realize that any reaction at all is hysterical reaction because the events that are occurring are so untenable that the only possible reaction is hysteria.
All this is way beyond what the average American can change. It may be too late for my country. God help us.
John D. Negroponte, the Next US Ambassador to Iraq
By Sister Laetitia Bordes, s.h.
Al-Jazeerah, April 22, 2004
Editorial Note: Al-Jazeerah.info reprints this background article about Ambassador John D. Negroponte following his appointment by President Bush as the next US Ambassador to Iraq, starting from July 1, 2004. The article appeared first in 2001.
John D. Negroponte, President Bush's nominee as the next ambassador to the United Nations? My ears perked up. I turned up the volume on the radio. I began listening more attentively. Yes, I had heard correctly. Bush was nominating Negroponte, the man who gave the CIA backed Honduran death squads open field when he was ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985.
My mind went back to May 1982 and I saw myself facing Negroponte in his office at the US Embassy in Tegucigalpa. I had gone to Honduras on a fact-finding delegation. We were looking for answers. Thirty-two women had fled the death squads of El Salvador after the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980 to take refuge in Honduras. One of them had been Romero's secretary. Some months after their arrival, these women were forcibly taken from their living quarters in Tegucigalpa, pushed into a van and disappeared. Our delegation was in Honduras to find out what had happened to these women.
John Negroponte listened to us as we exposed the facts. There had been eyewitnesses to the capture and we were well read on the documentation that previous delegations had gathered. Negroponte denied any knowledge of the whereabouts of these women. He insisted that the US Embassy did not interfere in the affairs of the Honduran government and it would be to our advantage to discuss the matter with the latter. Facts, however, reveal quite the contrary. During Negroponte's tenure, US military aid to Honduras grew from $4 million to $77.4 million; the US launched a covert war against Nicaragua and mined its harbors, and the US trained Honduran military to support the Contras.
John Negroponte worked closely with General Alvarez, Chief of the Armed Forces in Honduras, to enable the training of Honduran soldiers in psychological warfare, sabotage, and many types of human rights violations, including torture and kidnapping. Honduran and Salvadoran military were sent to the School of the Americas to receive training in counter-insurgency directed against people of their own country. The CIA created the infamous Honduran Intelligence Battalion 3-16 that was responsible for the murder of many Sandinistas. General Luis Alonso Discua Elvir, a graduate of the School of the Americas, was a founder and commander of Battalion 3-16. In 1982, the US negotiated access to airfields in Honduras and established a regional military training center for Central American forces, principally directed at improving fighting forces of the Salvadoran military.
In 1994, the Honduran Rights Commission outlined the torture and disappearance of at least 184 political opponents.
It also specifically accused John Negroponte of a number of human rights violations. Yet, back in his office that day in 1982, John Negroponte assured us that he had no idea what had happened to the women we were looking for. I had to wait 13 years to find out. In an interview with the Baltimore Sun in1996 Jack Binns, Negroponte's predecessor as US ambassador in Honduras, told how a group of Salvadorans, among whom were the women we had been looking for, were captured on April 22, 1981 and savagely tortured by the DNI, the Honduran Secret Police, before being placed in helicopters of the Salvadoran military. After take off from the airport in Tegucigalpa, the victims were thrown out of the helicopters. Binns told the Baltimore Sun that the North American authorities were well aware of what had happened and that it was a grave violation of human rights. But it was seen as part of Ronald Reagan's counterinsurgency policy.
Now in 2001, I'm seeing new ripples in this story.
Since President Bush made it known that he intended to nominate John Negroponte, other people have suddenly been "disappearing", so to speak. In an article published in the Los Angeles Times on March 25 Maggie Farley and Norman Kempster reported on the sudden deportation of several former Honduran death squad members from the United States. These men could have provided shattering testimony against Negroponte in the forthcoming Senate hearings. One of these recent deportees just happens to be General Luis Alonso Discua, founder of Battalion 3-16. In February, Washington revoked the visa of Discua who was Deputy Ambassador to the UN. Since then, Discua has gone public with details of US support of Battalion 3-16.
Given the history of John Negroponte in Central America, it is indeed horrifying to think that he should be chosen to represent our country at the United Nations, an organization founded to ensure that the human rights of all people receive the highest respect. How many of our Senators, I wonder, let alone the US public, know who John Negroponte really is?
About Me
I have come to politics late in life, and by way of rage at what is happening to my country. The first of us was born on the coast of what is now Virginia in 1680-something and we’ve been here since. We’ve been a part of it all, and of varying political persuasions, and we have, no doubt over these generations become complacent about our rights and freedoms. God knows which generation first took for granted that our elected officials had the best interests of America at heart. I don’t have a clue about that, but I do know that now I am retired and able to concentrate a great deal of time and effort on reading the newspapers and the editorial comments available to me, perhaps, for the first time in my life, and I am finding that it is a grievous mistake to take for granted that the current crop of politicians gives a hoot about American freedoms as we have known them.
What I have read and read on a daily basis grows increasingly more frightening, as even a cursory glance at my pages here will verify. Bush and Cronies are hell-bent on creating a tyrannical climate in America, and whether that is based on the false god of money and world domination that neo-conservatives worship, or the false god of relieving the rest of us of our freedoms to choose our own destinies that some born-again (make that ‘born-against’) Christians worship, I find that I, in any case, am rabidly opposed, and rapidly becoming more willing to take an active stance in opposing, these people who are destroying my country.
Contact Me: fancyrage@gmail.com
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
NO, King George, We said NO then. We say NO now.
One way or another, Bush and Cronies want to get federal troops in our neighborhoods. Why? Based on past experience, if Bush cannot get his way with this, then the change in law that will allow the movement of troops into our cities and neighborhoods will be sneaked through as a tag on some other law, or we will once again concede to the “intent” of Bush and Cronies actions as we did with The Patriot Act. And then we will not be able to “gather in large groups” (the Right of Free Assembly), go to work, or leave our homes if “exposed” to individuals with Avian Flu until the “period of incubation” has passed.
One has to ask oneself if any of the people who are mildly suggesting(rather than being righteously angry) that federal troops active in state affairs is a bad idea have ever read The Bill of Rights or The Constitution, and I don’t care how much lawyers try to complicate these two documents, the facts remain as written by our founding fathers who had strong reasons for writing our historical documents as they did: our founding fathers had the experience of being ruled by a Tyrant, and that is what George W. Bush is seeking: tyranny. If you read the justifications of our founding fathers for The Declaration of Independence, you will see these words:
HE has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies without the consent of our Legislature.
HE has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to Civil Power.
HE has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
FOR quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us:
FOR imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
FOR depriving us in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:
FOR taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
IN every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.
Reichstag Fire Decree, Germany, enacted February 28, 1933 after the Reichstag fire
The Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State (Reichstag Fire Decree) and subsequent Enabling Act that empowered Adolf Hitler to seize control of Germany are often compared to the USA PATRIOT Act.[28] The similarities are that both were passed after an act of terrorism, both were passed quickly, both limited civil liberties with the expressed purpose of protecting the people, and both were used in excess of their expressed purpose. The English translation of Article 1 of the DRPPPS states that the decree intends "...to restrict the rights to personal freedom [habeas corpus], freedom of speech, including the freedom of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble, the privacy of letters, mail, telegraphs and telephones, order searches and confiscations and restrict property, even if this is not otherwise provided for by present law." The USA Patriot Act is not as explicit about its intentions, often wording the act in terms of what civil liberties and safeguards people have left.
The Reichstag Fire Decree differs from the USA PATRIOT Act in that the DRPPPS more explicitly seizes states rights and associates the death penalty with many offenses. Additionally, some of the USA PATRIOT Act has a sunset provision, whereas the set expiration date of the Enabling Act was dependent upon a succession of power, and the DRPPPS did not have a set expiration date. The USA PATRIOT Act and the Enabling Act were both passed by a freely elected Congress, whereas the DRPPPS was a "emergency decree" by the German president made at the behest of Chancellor Hitler.
Although the USA PATRIOT Act differs in some respects, the Reichstag Fire Decree and subsequent Enabling Act are cited as examples of how giving up civil liberties in times of crisis can be used to legally overthrow a government's constitution from within.
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Pentagon, Lawmakers Resist Greater Military Role in Disasters
Excerpt from Article
Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Former top U.S. military officials and lawmakers from both parties are resisting President George W. Bush's suggestion that active-duty troops take a lead role in responding to natural disasters.
Pentagon officials such as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also are cool to the idea, said Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee. ``I've spoken to people in the White House who say that Rumsfeld is really resisting,'' King, a New York Republican, said in an interview yesterday.
One issue is what Bush's proposal might mean to armed forces already heavily engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan. ``The military right now is extremely stretched,'' said retired Admiral William Crowe, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. ``If you have to train for it and make them into policemen and firemen, that will be a major distraction.''
There's danger of a political backlash in changing the 127- year-old U.S. law that bars federal troops from law-enforcement, said retired Army General John Shalikashvili, also a former Joint Chiefs chairman. ``I don't think the American people are ready for the U.S. military to do law enforcement,'' he said.
Even Admiral Tim Keating, commander of the military arm responsible for homeland defense, said, ``I don't think you necessarily want DoD forces in law-enforcement roles.''
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October 5
Excerpt from Article
Bush may use troops, quarantine if bird flu breaks out
By Knight Ridder Newspapers and The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — President Bush said yesterday that he is considering the use of military troops to impose a quarantine in the event of a deadly flu pandemic.
Bush, in response to a question at a news conference, echoed warnings from health experts who fear a replay of the 1918 pandemic that killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide. He outlined a series of steps to deal with an illness that could overwhelm the health-care system.
The World Health Organization says an influenza pandemic is "just a matter of time." Some health officials particularly are concerned about avian flu because it seems to be extremely lethal when it jumps from birds to humans. Of 116 known cases in humans since 2003, more than half — 60 — ended in death. There are no confirmed cases of human-to-human transmission of the flu, also known as bird flu, but that could change because such viruses constantly mutate.
Bush left no doubt that he takes the threat seriously.
"I am concerned about avian flu. ... I've thought through all the scenarios of what an avian-flu outbreak could mean," Bush said. "I'm not predicting an outbreak. I'm just suggesting to you that we'd better be thinking about it."
The president gave no details on the specific role troops might play or what sort of quarantine might be invoked. The federal government's pandemic-response plan, the product of more than a year of work, is expected to be released soon.
Most public-health experts believe it is impossible to entirely isolate neighborhoods, towns, cities or regions during an outbreak of disease. Instead, "quarantines" today generally refer to a variety of strategies for identifying and limiting the movement of people who are infected with a contagious pathogen or are at high risk.
That might include screening travelers for fever and flu symptoms; prohibiting large gatherings of people, including at some workplaces; and requiring that people exposed to infected individuals stay at home until the incubation period for the illness has passed. China took these measures during the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003.
"The policy questions for a president in dealing with an avian-flu outbreak are difficult," Bush said. "One example: If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country? And how do you, then, enforce a quarantine? ... And who best to be able to effect a quarantine?"
He did not answer his questions but after the last one, he said: "One option is the use of a military that's able to plan and move. So that's why I put it on the table. I think it's an important debate for Congress to have."
Since the bungled initial federal response to Hurricane Katrina, Bush has suggested a change in law that would put the Pentagon in charge of search-and-rescue efforts in times of a major terrorist attack or similarly catastrophic natural disaster.
The president acknowledged that some governors object to the idea of federal control of National Guard units in emergencies. He added that as a former governor, "I understand that. ... But Congress needs to take a look at circumstances that may need to vest the capacity of the president to move beyond that debate. And one such catastrophe or one such challenge could be an avian-flu outbreak."
Tuesday, October 04, 2005
Rise Up.
Neo-conservative “Republicans” are continuing with their private agenda even though they have been ‘outed’ by every news organization in the world and, with the implied consent of non-action on the part of the American public, these people WILL CONTINUE with their agendas while we wait in complacent unconsciousness for the past to repeat itself with investigations that bring forth facts, and for the facts to bring forth legal action, and for legal action to affect a change for the betterment of all of us. Legal action is not forthcoming and the sociopathic onward momentum of an organization that is concerned only with stealing as much money as possible continues to grind our people and our beliefs into the muddiest low ground of capitalism. All these editorialists quoted below are doing their damndest to wake us up and all we are doing is rolling over and dozing off again. We will awaken too late to change what our country is becoming. It is time to secrete true copies of The Constitution, The Bill of Rights, any and all historical documents that will prove our history and justify our future. It is time to stop trusting that good will triumph over evil in America. It is now time to act, to get off our porches and into our streets and show by a vast majority of us who are willing to confront the evil of our times that WE,THE PEOPLE are an America with heart and soul and a desire to uplift the poorest and weakest among us. It is time to show that we will no longer tolerate the evils of our times with our complacency. Rise up.
October 4, 2005
Population Loss Altering Louisiana Political Landscape
By JEREMY ALFORD
Excerpt from Editorial
Mr. Koepp said this population shift could actually be the early stages of the deterioration of New Orleans' long-term hold over the State Legislature. "If this holds true, there will be a significant political change," he said.
There are now 21 seats in the House and Senate that encompass or touch on Orleans Parish, of 144 total seats statewide.
But if the population fails to return to the parish in coming years, New Orleans may be confined to just a few seats in each chamber through redistricting, Mr. Koepp added. That could change the state's racial and partisan balance.
If evacuees from the Ninth Ward in New Orleans - a reliable bloc of 30,000 black voters that is traditionally easy to mobilize - choose suburban or rural areas over their urban roots in coming years, it could be a political blow to Democrats, said Roy Fletcher, a political consultant from Shreveport who helped elect former Gov. Mike Foster, a Republican.
"It would give a whole lot of a stronger foothold to Republicans in the Legislature and statewide," Mr. Fletcher said. "Louisiana has always been a swing state, a purple state that's both blue and red. You take the Ninth Ward out of that equation and you get a real shot of Republicans winning statewide office."
Barry Erwin, president of a Council for a Better Louisiana, a nonpartisan nonprofit group that monitors the activities of state government, said such a change could forever alter the political landscape.
"These things are symbolic of a divide that we've always had," he said. "There's an us versus them thing. In New Orleans, it's like us, and then there's the rest of the state. Around the rest of the state, it's like us, and then there's New Orleans. This could change all of that."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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October 4, 2005
Health Care for Katrina Victims
The White House has now spent nearly three weeks blocking a bipartisan effort to pay for medical care for the impoverished victims of Hurricane Katrina.
On Sept. 16, Senators Charles Grassley and Max Baucus, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Finance Committee, introduced a bill that would extend Medicaid health coverage for five months to low-income childless adults from Katrina-struck areas.
In addition, the bill would expand the pool of traditional Medicaid recipients to include pregnant women, children and the disabled by raising the income cutoff to about twice the federal poverty line, or $25,660 for a two-person family.
The bill would also commit the federal government to paying 100 percent of victims' Medicaid bills rather than requiring the states to pay a share. Full federal payment is vital. Medical aid is integral to disaster relief and recovery and reflects a national interest in public health. Equally important, without assurance of 100 percent coverage by the federal government, states that treat evacuees could be penalized by getting stuck with all or part of the bill.
The Grassley-Baucus bill has the support of the National Governors Association; many relief agencies and charities, including the American Red Cross and Catholic Charities; and numerous health care providers, including groups that represent doctors, nurses, hospitals and nursing homes. But not the administration.
The White House has said it will reimburse health care providers who treat victims who are not covered by Medicaid. But it has not said how much the payments would be or how providers could access the so-called uncompensated care fund.
The administration also does not want the federal government to pick up the states' share for Medicaid costs incurred in Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama in the post-Katrina period. Those three states would also have to pick up other states' costs to treat evacuees, unless the law is changed.
The Grassley-Baucus bill set the stage for efficiently providing much-needed medical care to Katrina's victims. But a few senators, widely seen to be carrying the administration's water, have thus far blocked a vote. The Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, could clear the way for a vote by the full Senate this week. What is he waiting for?
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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washingtonpost.com
Gulf Firms Losing Cleanup Contracts Most Money Going Outside Storm's Path
Excerpt from Article
By Griff Witte, Renae Merle and Derek WillisWashington Post Staff WritersTuesday, October 4, 2005; D01
Companies outside the three states most affected by Hurricane Katrina have received more than 90 percent of the money from prime federal contracts for recovery and reconstruction of the Gulf Coast, according to an analysis of available government data.
The analysis by The Washington Post takes into account only the first wave of federal contracts, those that had been entered in detail into government databases as of yesterday. Together they are valued at more than $2 billion. Congress has allocated more than $60 billion for the recovery effort, and the ultimate total is expected to rise far higher.
But already the trend toward out-of-state firms is clear, despite pledges by administration officials that federal funds for Katrina relief will become an engine of local economic redevelopment. Among the contracts analyzed, 3.8 percent of the money went to companies that listed an Alabama address, 2.8 percent to firms in Louisiana and just 1.8 percent went for Mississippi contractors. Taken together, that amounts to less than $200 million.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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washingtonpost.com
Let FEMA Be FEMA
Tuesday, October 4, 2005; A22
Excerpt from Editorial
The correct response, in the wake of hurricanes Rita and Katrina, is not to bring in the military to do FEMA's job but to fix FEMA. Of course, the agency's civil servants are demoralized: Their role has been downgraded, their agency has been robbed of funding and they have been led by unqualified political appointees.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
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October 4, 2005
Faux News Is Bad News
Federal auditors have blistered the Bush administration for secretly concocting favorable news reports about itself by hiring actors to pose as journalists and slipping $240,000 in taxpayer funds to a sell-out conservative polemicist. The government till was also tapped to have political spin doctors track whether the message of President Bush and the Republican Party was being well treated in legitimate news reporting.
In its purchase of self-aggrandizing agitprop, the administration plainly violated the law against spreading "covert propaganda" at public expense, according to the report of the Government Accountability Office. More than that, Bush officials forged a cheesy new low in Washington politicians' endless bazaar of peddling public relations initiatives at taxpayers' expense.
The White House order to close down the ersatz news coverage should have been unequivocal once the real news media uncovered the hired fakers. But administration apologists continued to insist only "legitimate dissemination" of public information was at work in the under-the-table employment of Armstrong Williams, a political talk-show host, to wax breathless over the No Child Left Behind Act.
The scheme was so seamy that auditors were unable to document whether Mr. Williams actually delivered all the articles and talk-show hype that his company claimed in quietly billing the government for $186,000 worth of yessiree-Bob "news." On Friday, a spokeswoman for the current education secretary, Margaret Spellings, reacted to the report by calling these efforts "stupid, wrong and ill advised." We hope she noticed that they were also illegal.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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POSTED BY FANCYRAGE AT 7:17 PM 0 COMMENTS
Monday, October 03, 2005
Outlaw Lobbyists?
It’s simple: make ‘lobbying’ and lobbyists illegal. Nothing is more damaging to our country, our culture, and our ideals so much as lobbying. Get rid of it. There is certainly no mandate that one makes money while doing the business of government. This is antithetical to the moral standards of this country, and as we can see, contributes to the rise of the very sort of people that we, the people, must spend money to prosecute when they run afoul of the laws of the land.
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washingtonpost.com
DeLay's Influence Transcends His Title
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Jim VandeHeiWashington Post Staff Writers Monday, October 3, 2005; A01
For the indefinite future, Washington will remain Tom DeLay's capital. Dislodged by a criminal indictment last week from his post as House majority leader, DeLay in his decade of steering the Republican caucus dramatically -- and in many cases inalterably -- changed how power is amassed and used on Capitol Hill and well beyond.
Proteges of the wounded Texan still hold virtually every position of influence in the House, including the office of speaker. DeLay's former staff members are securely in the lobbying offices for many of the largest corporations and business advocacy groups.
But even more than people, DeLay's lasting influence is an ethos. He stood for a view of Washington as a battlefield on which two sides struggle relentlessly, moderates and voices of compromise are pushed to the margins, and the winners presume they have earned the right to punish dissenters and reward their own side with financial and policy favors.
His take-no-prisoners style of fundraising -- in which the classic unstated bargain of access for contributions is made explicitly and without apology -- has been adopted by both parties in Congress, according to lawmakers, lobbyists and congressional scholars. Democrats, likewise, increasingly are trying to emulate DeLay-perfected methods for enforcing caucus discipline -- rewarding lawmakers who follow the dictums of party leaders and seeking retribution against those who do not.
Most of all, DeLay stood for a blurring of the line between lawmakers and lobbyists so that lobbyists are now considered partners of politicians and not merely pleaders -- especially if they once worked for Republicans on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers-turned-corporate lobbyists such as Bill Paxon (R-N.Y.) and aides such as Ed Buckham, DeLay's former chief of staff, remain among the most influential figures on Capitol Hill -- often more involved than lawmakers in writing policy and plotting political strategy.
For a vivid sign of how what was once considered controversial has gone mainstream, consider the K Street Project. That was the name for a DeLay-inspired campaign -- for which he was chastised by the House ethics committee -- to demand that lobbying firms seeking access hire loyal Republicans. Rather than going underground, the project has gone unabashedly public, with a Web site, http://www.kstreetproject.com/ , providing news about the latest lobbying vacancies.
"People who have worked for Mr. DeLay become, like other senior Republican staffers, members in good standing of a club and are accepted back by many members [of Congress] and staffers," said Andrew M. Shore, chief of staff of the House Republican Conference. "The idea is that we are a team. What's good for one is good for all; anything to cultivate that team mentality is seen in a positive light."
Usually, staffers-turned-lobbyists lose their cachet when their former bosses retire or lose their jobs. But the DeLay fraternity -- so large that it is called DeLay Inc. -- does not look as if it will suffer the same fate. "Has the value of these people diminished? I would say no," Shore said. "As they transition into the private sector, the benefits are shared by the [Republican] conference. There's a symbiosis between the former staffers and many members of the conference."
None of the tactics used so effectively by DeLay and his allies were invented by them. The Texan's innovation was to systematically institutionalize them within the GOP. It's possible his zeal in these methods could ultimately bring about his downfall.
Texas prosecutor Ronnie Earle won a grand jury indictment of DeLay on a charge of conspiring to illegally evade fundraising restrictions. DeLay, still in Congress, has vowed to return to his leadership post after clearing his name at trial -- though his future is shadowed by a tall stack of other legal and political problems. But scholars say his methods are imprinted on Washington like a tattoo. "Even if Boss DeLay leaves, his legacy stays," said James A. Thurber, director of congressional studies at American University.
Part of the reason for this is that DeLay's temporary replacement, Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), is a DeLay protege whose rapid rise was spawned by the Texas Republican. So were the careers of almost everyone else in the House Republican leadership, including Rep. Eric I. Cantor of Virginia and Thomas M. Reynolds of New York. They are all social conservatives who support such pro-business policies as deregulation and tax cuts.
The DeLay network is just as formidable in downtown Washington. Former DeLay aides Buckham, Tony Rudy and Karl Gallant form the core of one of Washington's largest and fastest-growing lobbying firms, Alexander Strategy Group. Susan Hirschmann, a former DeLay chief of staff, is a senior member of Williams & Jensen, another major lobbying firm. Congressional aides said that these and other DeLay alumni are part of their "team" and will be welcome in their offices no matter what happens to their old boss.
Speaking of Hirschmann, Mike Stokke, deputy chief of staff to House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), said, "Having DeLay in her background is a strength; having worked for Tom brings credibility."
There has been no sign that DeLay personally has been active in the K Street Project since he was admonished by the House ethics committee for pressuring the Electronics Industries Alliance to hire a Republican as its president seven years ago. Nonetheless, the project is still going strong; other lawmakers and lobbyists have taken up the cause. Job listings on K Street are still distributed in regularly scheduled meetings held by other GOP lawmakers, including Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.). Lobbying executives report that former Republican aides and lawmakers have telephoned them to suggest that their top openings should be filled with loyalists. The K Street Project Web site is run by well-connected conservative Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform.
In the House, DeLay enhanced the leadership's role by ending the practice of automatically promoting the most senior lawmakers to committee chairmanships and, instead, choosing loyalists to fill the powerful slots. Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) was booted from the chairmanship of the Veterans Affairs Committee at the beginning of the current Congress because he repeatedly bucked DeLay and other GOP leaders on key votes. DeLay also arranged to have the chairmen elected by the committees themselves, whose members he also selected and was thus better able to control.
The same technique is now used in the Senate by Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), who won the authority to select committee members after the 2004 elections increased his majority to 55 seats. "There is only one reason for that change, and it is to punish people," Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) told the newspaper Roll Call in November.
Even House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), an outspoken DeLay critic, has started to crack down on her own members with DeLay-like tactics. After this summer's vote on free trade with Central American nations -- a plan that several House Democrats supported despite her strong objections -- Pelosi summoned Democratic lawmakers to a private meeting and threatened to take away their committee assignments if they did not start voting with party leaders, according to participants.
DeLay's fundraising focus has also permeated Washington. Over the years, DeLay has raised tens of millions of dollars for Republicans through nearly a dozen fundraising entities. Today, no leader of either party or lawmaker with leadership ambitions would even consider not forming at least two such fundraising committees. "DeLay set a new benchmark for fundraising and that's not going to go away," said Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan watchdog group.
DeLay established as common practice the requirement that House GOP incumbents with safe seats collect at least some money for the party as a whole. Chairmen of committees were particularly on the line to raise large sums, Republican aides said. Unless they paid up, their chairmanships were in danger.
In late June, Pelosi adopted a similar tack. She sent a letter warning that Democratic lawmakers who did not raise money for the House campaign committee would be deprived of everything from financial resources to telephone access. "If you are on the team, you have to" pay up, a House Democratic aide said.
Meanwhile, anyone looking for signs of the ongoing influence of DeLay Inc. will find another one today. It's the starting date for Time Warner Inc.'s new vice president for global public policy. The new executive is Tim Berry, former chief of staff to Tom DeLay.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Sunday, October 02, 2005
Time Will Tell
___________________________________________________________________
washingtonpost.com
A Song of Sorrow -- and Endurance
By Jim HoaglandSunday, October 2, 2005; B07
Excerpt from Editorial:
Look, the poor people of Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas already know how part of the story ends, even as Congress starts it by appropriating tens of billions of reconstruction dollars they will never see. Fast-talking city slickers of all races and the politically adept of all persuasions will find ways to corral those dollars and leave the poor once again with the crumbs. Why would this be different from everything they have known before?
___________________________________________________________________
White Southerners of my age will remember the segregated drinking fountains, the separate entrances for blacks and whites, the hovels in the “Hayti’s” and Walltown's of every little Southern town, where poverty beyond anything anyone who did not live in the South in those times can imagine: dirt floors, no running water, no indoor plumbing, dirt streets, no sidewalks, no paint on the barren boards of the shacks, and the dusty, dusky plain faces of the black folks living in those “neighborhoods” (read ghettos) from which there were no exits.
Even well-to-do blacks were relegated to functionally ‘richer’ ghettos: the black college professors of North Carolina College in Durham, the black funeral home owners, the administrators of black-owned businesses, lived elsewhere than Hayti but were still ghetto-ized.
Durham, North Carolina changed with the decades. I only returned twice in the thirty years after I left the South, and each time I saw the changes in the black citizens of Durham: better jobs, new cars, bright, shiny, well-groomed and well-dressed children with open eyes, friendly folks who took my ‘Yankee’ accent as proof that I was no racist. But the razor-edge of resentment still percolated just beneath the surface of these people, and I, for one, did not blame them for their resentment.
As I watched the news coverage of Hurricane Katrina, I realized that poverty among black folks in New Orleans has not much changed from the Sixties and Seventies in North Carolina. Thirty years later, not much has changed in the Deep South.
The Black Diaspora of this age has moved some of these people to places like Washington State, which currently has 3, 000 victims of Hurricane Katrina living here: primarily black folks who will realize that they can open their eyes and relax to some extent the constant vigil against racism that permeates the psyches of black Southerners. They can live in places where their children no longer must wear the definitions of black as defined by the South.
I have, on occasion, seen young Afro-American men transplanted for whatever reasons to the area of Washington State in which I live, and they came here wearing (still) the deferential masque of black male with white woman: downcast eyes, the “yes-ums” and “no’m’s” , and that peculiar and subservient look of the deep South black. I have watched their metamorphosis into bright and articulate and proud young black men over scant weeks after arriving here in Spokane.
Nobody can tell me that these transplanted people will want to return to New Orleans. Nobody can tell me that these people will want to take their children back to the oppressions of the New Orleans that they knew.
Racism still exists here in the Northwest. No doubt about it. The KKK fanatics are close by, but to now, they are diminished and whenever they decide to get out their sheets and march, all the locals come out to protest their existence. We all know they hate everybody except hillbilly whites.
Perhaps racism in the Pacific Northwest is reserved for local and indigenous Native American tribes, and blacks, for the most part, represent a somewhat exotic portion of our society which has historically not been particularly well-represented in this area of the country.
Perhaps Hurricane Katrina will be the death-knell of Deep South racism and poverty. Perhaps this diaspora will result in the general betterment of America.
Time will tell.
Saturday, October 01, 2005
"Intellectuals" and Other Oddities
___________________________________________________________________
Bennett, a former U.S. education secretary and national drug policy director, is under fire from Democrats, civil rights leaders, black conservatives and, as of yesterday, the White House and the Republican Party for saying Wednesday that "you could abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down."
___________________________________________________________________
Robert Woodson Sr., president of the National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, said "it was stupid" for Bennett to even ruminate on such an explosive topic but defended him as a good man. "Sometimes intellectuals become detached from common sense," he said.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
I would hardly call anyone capable of making a statement like this an ‘intellectual’.
September 30, 2005 5:09 PM PDT
Your DNA or else: Police to collect your genetic material
The Violence Against Women Act may be about to do violence to Americans' right to privacy.
A U.S. Senate committee has adopted an amendment to the VAWA legislation that would add the DNA of anyone detained by the cops to a federal DNA database called "CODIS."
Note that it doesn't require that you're convicted of a crime or even formally arrested on suspicion of committing one. Mere detention -- might a routine traffic stop eventually qualify? -- will be sufficient for CODISification. (Current law only authorizes blood or saliva swabs and entry into CODIS for people convicted of a crime.)
Ethan Ackerman, a Washington attorney and privacy specialist, notes: " The bill grants states carte blanche to write laws allowing (DNA) collection" even "as a condition of getting a drivers license!"
This proposal is the brainchild of two Republican senators, Jon Kyl of Arizona and John Cornyn of Texas. They say it's necessary to help catch violent criminals -- although the genetic material would remain in the database if the person is detained or arrested but not charged with a crime.
Posted by Declan McCullagh
This is a hard one, because ultimately it would protect women, or at least that appears to be the intent. As we’re all figuring out now, Bush and Cronies sell us the “intent” and then use the statutes to further their own ends to relieve Americans of more freedoms. Caveat Emptor.
washingtonpost.com
GOP Senators Look to Shift Spy Management From CIA
By Walter PincusWashington Post Staff WriterSaturday, October 1, 2005; A09
Republicans on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence want to strip from the CIA its primary role as manager of overseas collection of human intelligence, suggesting that Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte take over that responsibility.
The CIA's Directorate of Operations, the agency's clandestine arm, which now coordinates spying overseas by all U.S. intelligence agencies, in the past "did not effectively exercise the authorities of the national HUMINT [human intelligence] manager often focusing instead on its own structure and operations," the committee majority said in its report on the fiscal 2006 intelligence authorization bill released late Thursday.
Citing past failures in averting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and in overstating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, the Republican majority said U.S. spying operations "have lacked strong leadership and effective mechanism to resolve conflicts."
The Patriot Act, post 911, collects information but the same kind of information was collected pre-911 and Bush and Cronies ignored it, which resulted in the events of 911. Then they used the events of 911 to create the "Patriot" Act to spy on U.S. citizens, and to take away our rights as defined by The Bill of Rights. What do these folks think we're smoking?
The Republicans, led by Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.), the panel chairman, urged Negroponte "to directly manage and oversee the conduct of HUMINT operations across the intelligence community," saying the need is "imperative" because the Pentagon and the FBI are placing "greater emphasis" on spying.
Democrats on the committee opposed the suggestion, calling it in their section of the report a "misguided solution" and noting that the CIA has recently reached agreements with the FBI and Pentagon to "avoid confusion and ensure smooth coordination" of spying operations at home and abroad. They also noted that the DNI -- a position created by Congress last year to oversee and coordinate the government's intelligence community -- "was not established as a new bureaucracy to assume the responsibility for day-to-day intelligence operations."
The Republican call for change comes as a plan by CIA Director Porter J. Goss to create a CIA coordinator for all human intelligence carried out abroad by U.S. agencies, including the Pentagon and FBI, sits in Negroponte's office awaiting his approval. Though the proposal originated with the President's Commission on Intelligence, there is no timetable for Negroponte to make that decision, an official in Negroponte's office said yesterday.
The majority report accompanies the Senate version of the intelligence authorization bill, which carries about $44 billion for the 15 agencies and Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It will now go to the Senate Armed Services Committee and later to the Senate floor for a vote. The report explains various sections of the bill and includes a broad committee review of the intelligence community, its weaknesses and strengths. The House has already passed its version of the measure. The Democrats' remarks were carried as "additional views" in the report.
The report includes two additional indications of the Pentagon's sharply increasing activities in the intelligence field at home and abroad.
While the CIA is waiting for DNI approval of its plan for coordinating intelligence activities overseas, the Pentagon has created a Defense Humint Management Office to coordinate increased spying activities by the Defense Intelligence Agency's human intelligence section, as well as clandestine operations by the separate services, area commanders and counterintelligence arms. One role for this office, which will be run under the supervision of Undersecretary for Intelligence Stephen A. Cambone, will be to "deconflict" intelligence operations, meaning to ensure that activities by various Pentagon groups do not overlap or interfere with each other, a Pentagon official said.
The committee report recommends that the new office have authority to direct and control all Defense Department collection of information from human sources -- as opposed to technical sources such as electronic intercepts -- in the United States and overseas.
Another proposal reflected increased Pentagon interest in intelligence operations in the United States involving American citizens. The proposal included in the bill would give a "limited" exemption to defense intelligence personnel, allowing them to recruit sources and collect personal information on U.S. citizens clandestinely, without disclosing they worked for the government, when "significant" foreign intelligence is being sought. They would have to coordinate such collection with the FBI.
A similar exemption was sought last year and dropped from the bill because of opposition in the Senate Armed Services Committee, said a senior congressional staff member. This year the committee said, "Current counterterrorism and other foreign intelligence operations highlight the need for greater latitude to assess potential intelligence sources, both overseas and within the United States." The panel noted the limited exemption is similar to that enjoyed by the CIA "when assessing and recruiting sources."
The committee said it "will closely monitor the DoD's [Defense Department's] use of the authorities provided."
In other areas, the panel approved establishment of a DNI inspector general with authority to investigate matters in any of the 15 agencies that make up the intelligence community. That person would be nominated by the president and subject to Senate confirmation.
Another proposal would require that the deputy director of central intelligence be a civilian and not an active-duty military officer, as is now the case. The committee said Vice Adm. Albert M. Calland III could continue to serve until President Bush nominates a successor or he retires.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
God Help Us.
This is a very dangerous man, this Negroponte. Sad to say, this is the first time I’ve taken note of the man or his potential to devastate my country and her ideals. This whole issue is bigger than one old woman spouting opinions on the internet. Won’t someone please, someone who has the balls and the authority, please take on these issues and stop these people who are destroying my country?
When I went searching Google for quotable information on Negroponte I found that his name is hot on sites like Al-Jazeerah and extreme ‘hollerin’ sites rife with ‘Zionist’ hints and I chose this article from Al-Jazeerah because it was written by a nun, a sister, and would appear to be simply straight reporting of events.
I have no desire to find myself on the hysterical side of the reporting of events, but rather to react to reported events as a reasonable American citizen. The more I learn and the more I read, the more I realize that any reaction at all is hysterical reaction because the events that are occurring are so untenable that the only possible reaction is hysteria.
All this is way beyond what the average American can change. It may be too late for my country. God help us.
John D. Negroponte, the Next US Ambassador to Iraq
By Sister Laetitia Bordes, s.h.
Al-Jazeerah, April 22, 2004
Editorial Note: Al-Jazeerah.info reprints this background article about Ambassador John D. Negroponte following his appointment by President Bush as the next US Ambassador to Iraq, starting from July 1, 2004. The article appeared first in 2001.
John D. Negroponte, President Bush's nominee as the next ambassador to the United Nations? My ears perked up. I turned up the volume on the radio. I began listening more attentively. Yes, I had heard correctly. Bush was nominating Negroponte, the man who gave the CIA backed Honduran death squads open field when he was ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985.
My mind went back to May 1982 and I saw myself facing Negroponte in his office at the US Embassy in Tegucigalpa. I had gone to Honduras on a fact-finding delegation. We were looking for answers. Thirty-two women had fled the death squads of El Salvador after the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980 to take refuge in Honduras. One of them had been Romero's secretary. Some months after their arrival, these women were forcibly taken from their living quarters in Tegucigalpa, pushed into a van and disappeared. Our delegation was in Honduras to find out what had happened to these women.
John Negroponte listened to us as we exposed the facts. There had been eyewitnesses to the capture and we were well read on the documentation that previous delegations had gathered. Negroponte denied any knowledge of the whereabouts of these women. He insisted that the US Embassy did not interfere in the affairs of the Honduran government and it would be to our advantage to discuss the matter with the latter. Facts, however, reveal quite the contrary. During Negroponte's tenure, US military aid to Honduras grew from $4 million to $77.4 million; the US launched a covert war against Nicaragua and mined its harbors, and the US trained Honduran military to support the Contras.
John Negroponte worked closely with General Alvarez, Chief of the Armed Forces in Honduras, to enable the training of Honduran soldiers in psychological warfare, sabotage, and many types of human rights violations, including torture and kidnapping. Honduran and Salvadoran military were sent to the School of the Americas to receive training in counter-insurgency directed against people of their own country. The CIA created the infamous Honduran Intelligence Battalion 3-16 that was responsible for the murder of many Sandinistas. General Luis Alonso Discua Elvir, a graduate of the School of the Americas, was a founder and commander of Battalion 3-16. In 1982, the US negotiated access to airfields in Honduras and established a regional military training center for Central American forces, principally directed at improving fighting forces of the Salvadoran military.
In 1994, the Honduran Rights Commission outlined the torture and disappearance of at least 184 political opponents.
It also specifically accused John Negroponte of a number of human rights violations. Yet, back in his office that day in 1982, John Negroponte assured us that he had no idea what had happened to the women we were looking for. I had to wait 13 years to find out. In an interview with the Baltimore Sun in1996 Jack Binns, Negroponte's predecessor as US ambassador in Honduras, told how a group of Salvadorans, among whom were the women we had been looking for, were captured on April 22, 1981 and savagely tortured by the DNI, the Honduran Secret Police, before being placed in helicopters of the Salvadoran military. After take off from the airport in Tegucigalpa, the victims were thrown out of the helicopters. Binns told the Baltimore Sun that the North American authorities were well aware of what had happened and that it was a grave violation of human rights. But it was seen as part of Ronald Reagan's counterinsurgency policy.
Now in 2001, I'm seeing new ripples in this story.
Since President Bush made it known that he intended to nominate John Negroponte, other people have suddenly been "disappearing", so to speak. In an article published in the Los Angeles Times on March 25 Maggie Farley and Norman Kempster reported on the sudden deportation of several former Honduran death squad members from the United States. These men could have provided shattering testimony against Negroponte in the forthcoming Senate hearings. One of these recent deportees just happens to be General Luis Alonso Discua, founder of Battalion 3-16. In February, Washington revoked the visa of Discua who was Deputy Ambassador to the UN. Since then, Discua has gone public with details of US support of Battalion 3-16.
Given the history of John Negroponte in Central America, it is indeed horrifying to think that he should be chosen to represent our country at the United Nations, an organization founded to ensure that the human rights of all people receive the highest respect. How many of our Senators, I wonder, let alone the US public, know who John Negroponte really is?
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Have we lost our minds?
seems that good ol'
Facebook will not allow one to post even a picture of a
rifle--even one that is a giant part of American history. Have we lost
our minds?
…and I don’t understand why ANYBODY cares what a hillbilly
with a beard thinks about gay people…just sayin’. hillbilly’s got rights, too.
fucking liberals gotta get a life.
- First Amendment Center
- http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org -
Here are
3 ‘Duck Dynasty’ free-speech lessons
Posted
By Gene Policinski On December 20, 2013 @ 5:17 pm
OK, America: Here’s a quick, basic course in the First Amendment:
- Lesson #1.”Duck
Dynasty”’s Phil Robertson has a First Amendment right to state his views on homosexuality,
minorities and pretty much anything else on this unlikely reality-TV
star’s mind, whenever he wants.
- Lesson #2. The
A&E television network, which airs “Duck Dynasty,” has a First
Amendment right to declare publicly what it stands for, and to suspend Robertson if it doesn’t like
how he handled his free speech as outlined in lesson #1.
- Lesson #3. The
First Amendment and free speech are not “endangered species” as the result
of the flap, as some say. In fact, it’s a good teaching moment on how free speech
– as long as government stays out of the fray – works: Speech in Lesson #1
produces counter-speech in Lesson #2. And as a result (still Lesson #3, by
the way) on matters of public interest, we all talk about it a bit more
and the country is better off for the discussion.
End of First Amendment class.
Students and fellow citizens, you
may now return to your regularly scheduled program (unless it’s been
suspended).
Gene Policinski is chief operating officer of the Newseum
Institute and senior vice president of its First Amendment Center. He can be
reached at gpolicinski@newseum.org.
Article printed from First Amendment Center: http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org
URL to article: http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/here-are-duck-dynasty
Copyright © 2011 First Amendment Center. All
rights reserved.
Friday, September 06, 2013
...a question or two about this Syria thing...
Please do correct me if I’m wrong:
I have a question or two about this Syria thing. "Poison gas"?--all I've seen are a bunch of dead people who may or may not have been shot. "Poison gas"--what I've seen is a bunch of folks getting their eyes washed out from TEAR GAS--a "poison gas" which we use as routinely as mouthwash in this country for any sort of insurrection or hostage situation.
Also, I have read that the so-called "rebels" are the Muslim Brotherhood up in arms because somebody somewhere is trying to keep them under control. Which we will, no doubt, be attempting to do in this country before long—if we give Islam the toe-hold that liberal whiners and vested interests are demanding.
I don’t particularly want to live under Sharia law, or under the control of a bunch of nasty old men who, for the most part, sit on their asses and a) preach Women as The Evil in their perfect garden of Patriarchy, and b) won’t be happy until they set civilization back to two sticks and a donkey—(maybe because an ignorant and “devout” population is easy to control?). And (BIG C) seem to be perfectly adept at playing on the sympathies of our heart-throbbing and misguided folks and thus succeed in swaying public sympathy without the least concern for what has happened and is happening in any country that has opened their borders to Islam.
As I hear it, Islam, at this point, is the largest and fastest growing religion in the world. Why do they need our help? Why don’t their own people help them out—I mean—there’s all that oil money in the Middle East Muslim countries—why are we spending OUR blood and badly needed treasure on folks who support--either actively or apathetically--running backwards toward ignorance and superstition while unimaginable amounts of oil money waits for these (so-called) old men when we finish killing off our YOUNG MEN (and women) in a fight that no one can win except whatever old man comes out alive when the last bomb is dropped.
Are you fucking kidding me?
There ain’t enough guilt in the world to make me cry for Syria or Syrians. It’s THEIR war. Let THEM fight it. We can pick up the pieces as well as or better than some Sharia dude with beard and an ax to grind against Western Civilization. As far as I can tell, the only way to win this on-going-for-untold-centuries-holy-war is to stay the hell out of it unless they shoot nukes at US.
And then, well—turn the desert to glass.
What’s a little more radiation after Chernobyl and Fukushima?
Of course, I could be wrong…it could be that good ol’ vast MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX pumping the lobbying cash to Congress while worrying where its next trillions are gonna come from now that we are (so-called) “getting out of" Afghanistan/Iraq/Trashcanistan.
Whatever…
And for further consideration: the fact that we've got such idiots representing us in Congress and Washington, D.C. now is because we killed off all the good guys in Viet Nam—or turned them crazy. At this point, we’re working to destroy a generation yet to be born.
And doing a pretty good job of it…
I have a question or two about this Syria thing. "Poison gas"?--all I've seen are a bunch of dead people who may or may not have been shot. "Poison gas"--what I've seen is a bunch of folks getting their eyes washed out from TEAR GAS--a "poison gas" which we use as routinely as mouthwash in this country for any sort of insurrection or hostage situation.
Also, I have read that the so-called "rebels" are the Muslim Brotherhood up in arms because somebody somewhere is trying to keep them under control. Which we will, no doubt, be attempting to do in this country before long—if we give Islam the toe-hold that liberal whiners and vested interests are demanding.
I don’t particularly want to live under Sharia law, or under the control of a bunch of nasty old men who, for the most part, sit on their asses and a) preach Women as The Evil in their perfect garden of Patriarchy, and b) won’t be happy until they set civilization back to two sticks and a donkey—(maybe because an ignorant and “devout” population is easy to control?). And (BIG C) seem to be perfectly adept at playing on the sympathies of our heart-throbbing and misguided folks and thus succeed in swaying public sympathy without the least concern for what has happened and is happening in any country that has opened their borders to Islam.
As I hear it, Islam, at this point, is the largest and fastest growing religion in the world. Why do they need our help? Why don’t their own people help them out—I mean—there’s all that oil money in the Middle East Muslim countries—why are we spending OUR blood and badly needed treasure on folks who support--either actively or apathetically--running backwards toward ignorance and superstition while unimaginable amounts of oil money waits for these (so-called) old men when we finish killing off our YOUNG MEN (and women) in a fight that no one can win except whatever old man comes out alive when the last bomb is dropped.
Are you fucking kidding me?
There ain’t enough guilt in the world to make me cry for Syria or Syrians. It’s THEIR war. Let THEM fight it. We can pick up the pieces as well as or better than some Sharia dude with beard and an ax to grind against Western Civilization. As far as I can tell, the only way to win this on-going-for-untold-centuries-holy-war is to stay the hell out of it unless they shoot nukes at US.
And then, well—turn the desert to glass.
What’s a little more radiation after Chernobyl and Fukushima?
Of course, I could be wrong…it could be that good ol’ vast MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX pumping the lobbying cash to Congress while worrying where its next trillions are gonna come from now that we are (so-called) “getting out of" Afghanistan/Iraq/Trashcanistan.
Whatever…
And for further consideration: the fact that we've got such idiots representing us in Congress and Washington, D.C. now is because we killed off all the good guys in Viet Nam—or turned them crazy. At this point, we’re working to destroy a generation yet to be born.
And doing a pretty good job of it…
Friday, July 26, 2013
Damned people...
For these folks to oppose the free choice of the majority of voters in Washington State--our will to legalize marijuana by a vote of the people being fait accompli-- to end the constant drain of state funds spent furthering the so-called ‘war on drugs’, to use marijuana taxes to benefit our state, among other profits and considerations inherent in the legalization of marijuana, to have the feds swooping in like vultures at the behest of an ambitious federal attorney or some other forever nameless but equally ambitious personage will only rob the state and fatten the federal government, deprive the state of Washington of taxes and fees income which are desperately needed to:
We the People
of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
If some US Attorney wants to discuss Constitutional Law, above’s the only debate I’m able to offer: We the People.
For the record: I’m not much of a user of marijuana--haven’t been for more years than I remember, but, I do care about the freedoms we’re losing every day. I do wish our elected representatives would defend the will of the people and the autonomy of the state of Washington.
I do wish that the folks with the brains and education to take on the feds would do so.
We the People
of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
If some US Attorney wants to discuss Constitutional Law, above’s the only debate I’m able to offer: We the People.
For the record: I’m not much of a user of marijuana--haven’t been for more years than I remember, but, I do care about the freedoms we’re losing every day. I do wish our elected representatives would defend the will of the people and the autonomy of the state of Washington.
I do wish that the folks with the brains and education to take on the feds would do so.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
NECESSARY TO THE SECURITY OF A FREE STATE
Propaganda is being
pushed at all of us—to do something about those damned guns. On
PBS, for instance, the true sponsors are people like the KOCH brothers and their
ilk belonging to the top richest 1% population. They’ve already damned near destroyed this
country by manipulating stock market regulations, first, and then with whatever
they did in crashing the stock markets once their lobbyists paid off Little
Bush. This isn’t paranoia—it’s right
there in the history of the media. I’ve
got that saved if anyone needs to see the realities of what has—and is—
happening to us.
The people who
are listening to (heeding) that propaganda are those--in my uneducated
ignorance—I call “Liberals”. What I mean
when I label people “Liberals” are those who make a judgment call by weighing the
veracity of whatever propaganda is
being pushed at them; who have no capacity to differentiate propagandized fantasy from the bleeding
reality of the “common man”—that’s you and me, by the way.
Simply put, “you
and me” have the most to lose if these rich assholes succeed in shoving their
own best interests down the majorities’ throats and calling it “reality”. Any
shooting—either ghetto gangster or the
children of the educated middle class (mostly white) parents—is, of course,
undesirable.
In the case of
the Connecticut shooting, it becomes impossible to fight against the current propaganda
being used to sway the majority towards emasculating The Second Amendment by
saying anything that goes contrary to that rich-1%-financed-reporting and
opinionating, else one appears ignorant, unfeeling—and in actuality—one is
standing with nothing to offer that doesn’t appear ignorant, unfeeling, blood-thirsty, or gun-nutish.
Etcetera.
A real and true
Fucked-If-You-Do-Fucked-If-You-Don’t situation.
Being an old white
cynic raised in Jim Crow south, I have to think that if the Connecticut school
shooting had happened in Detroit, for instance, in a predominately black
elementary school, would we be enduring so much reporting on the aftermath? Would that event have precipitated,
potentially, an unalterable change in the fabric of our country?
The
Constitution of the United States of America and 10 original amendments to The
Constitution of the United States of America—The Bill of Rights—states in The
Second Amendment:
Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a
free State, the right
of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Our folks who
wrote our first documents must have known that the most important words were NECESSARY TO THE
SECURITY OF A FREE STATE
And FREEDOM at ANY cost is the most important concept any of us can dredge up to
fight the well-thought-out and deliberate attempts by the richest 1% to
gradually and inexorably bring us to our knees, to enslave us, to continue
their march toward Social Darwinism as if they have the right to
do so. (Not the first time in our history this was
tried—look it up.)
They do not
have that right. Their wealth does not
give them the right to enslave Americans.
Their wealth does not give them the right to use any means necessary to
march the rest of us towards poverty and eventually enslavement, destitution, hunger, and
the decline of a population worked to death with no hope of ever getting enough
sustenance to support a better life.
So, because the
rich own the media, they've made the issue about guns rather than about freedom.
But this is about nothing more and nothing
less than freedom from tyranny—the very issue that caused the writers of The
Constitution and The Bill of Rights to chose the words they wrote down for us.
Of course we
won’t give up our guns—but they will
take them from our “cold, dead hands” and continue to enslave us if they are
allowed to continue their ownership of all media, which is being used to force
feed us their propaganda. (another
so-called ‘benefit’ of de-regulation)
What I say to
that is an old graffiti from the Sixties:
EAT THE RICH.
I understand those
words now.
You understand this one:
Prepare.
Friday, October 12, 2012
about mormonism and islamism
when
it comes to moving, there are two groups i count on for help: gay boys and mormons.
ok, so i have a perverse nature.
but they do work well together in spite of
their individual propaganda and politics.
well, neither group turns to stone from close association, they get
along just fine.
so,
how did that get to be the dialogue of enemies?
maybe because it suits somebody’s private agenda to have gay boys and
mormon brothers hating each other?
which
reminds me:
i
heard Paul Ryan say how these republican assholes think:
-----------------------------------------------------------
from MOTHER JONES
VIDEO: Paul Ryan's Version of "47
Percent"—the "Takers" vs. the "Makers"
In rarely seen footage, Romney's running mate
warns about "dependent" Americans who are "takers," not
"makers."
By Brett Brownell and Nick
Baumann | Fri Oct. 5, 2012 8:00 AM PDT
Mitt Romney's "47 percent [1],"
meet Paul Ryan's "takers."
Romney is finally backing off his controversial
comments [2], but the theme that the nation is divided into
makers and government-dependent takers is one of long standing for both Romney
and his running mate, Paul Ryan. The GOP vice presidential candidate has
repeatedly made statements that suggest he sees America in Ayn Randian [3] terms—that
many citizens are just takers, parasites who leech off productive citizens, the
makers. As this collection of rarely seen videos shows, this has been a
recurrent talking point for Ryan in small gatherings for years.
What Ryan also said about America: "Let's make this country a tax
shelter." [4]
"Right now about 60 percent of the American people get more
benefits in dollar value from the federal government than they pay back in
taxes," he said on the June 2010 edition of Washington Watch [5].
"So we're going to a majority of takers versus makers." By November
2011, in an address he gave at an American Spectator event [6],
Ryan put the number of takers at 30 percent. (That remark was first reported by Ryan Grim of the Huffington
Post [7].)
Ryan has also warned about President Barack Obama creating
"more of a permanent class of government dependents"—language that echoes Romney's take [8] on
the "47 percent who are with [Obama], who are dependent upon government,
who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a
responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health
care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it."
As you can see in this series of charts [9],
"government dependents" aren't who you necessarily think they are.
Many people who don't pay federal income taxes are superrich or well off.
Another 60 percent of Americans who don't pay income tax are working; they just
don't make enough money to owe taxes. Most of the rest are retired folks,
students, and members of the military serving in combat zones.
Full original videos posted by YouTube users (in order of clip
appearance):
- RepPaulRyan (Washington Watch with
Rep. Walter Jones—June 2010) [5]
- HouseBudgetCommittee (Economic
Club of Chicago—May 16, 2011) [10]
- prosperityaction (In car,
following Heritage Foundation event—October 26, 2011) [11]
- AmerSpectator (The American
Spectator's 2011 Robert L. Bartley Gala Dinner—November 1, 2011) [6]
- Todd Osborn (Wisconsin State Rep.
Evan Wynn fundraiser—June 15, 2012) [12]
- RepPaulRyan (Washington, DC—November
7, 2009) [13]
- MacIver Institute (August 2,
2012) [14]
Source URL: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/10/paul-ryans-47-percent-takers-vs-makers-video
Links:
[1] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/watch-full-secret-video-private-romney-fundraiser
[1] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/watch-full-secret-video-private-romney-fundraiser
© 2011 The Foundation for National
Progress
about mormonism and islamism, cont.
i
heard about the mormon Meadow Mountain Massacre years ago and don’t find it
hard to believe--any group of fanatics hides a philosophy of death and
destruction, as long as it's us and
not them that's gettin' dead and
destructed.
and
honest to god--if we give radical islam a toehold, it will eat this country
alive with all the so-called 'liberals' (idiots)
and greeds (insane) with secret
agendas who make money off death and destruction by selling rocket launchers
and cheap automatic weapons made in china from american waste products serve
the rest of us up on a platter of political correctness, while the so-called
'moderate' muslims pick up rocket launchers and cheap automatic weapons (made
in china from american waste products) and slaughter us in the streets while we
shop for cheap crap we don't need but the rich convinced us we gotta have.
well. maybe we deserve that fate, but still--i
don't want to live in a broken society with bullet holes in the buildings while
life goes on as we duck and cover from bullet to bullet--stuff we now call The
News, but is somebody/somewhere's Daily Life.
get
it? the poorer we become, the closer
that ol’ Third World status gets to us,
and Third World status becomes anarchy, chaos and the thing ‘patriots’ call
revolution—just a police state with the police untroubled by laws.
all
that crap about obama being a muslim is just so much crap from the poisioned
heart of karl-fucking-rove. and people will believe anything the koch
bros. and their grievously rich ilk candy coat and feed them.
progress
now means that the rich no longer have the expense of candy coating their crap: a
candidate for president of the united states of America calls 47% of our
population “takers” because they don’t pay taxes—folks on social security,
soldiers in our military, disabled—and hardly an eyebrow is raised.
as
if Money gives a shit whether we live or die. and by the way, CORPORATIONS don’t pay taxes,
either, and not many damned politicians, but corporations and politicians
aren’t calling each other parasites
honestly--i
am so sick and tired of 'politics' which has nothing to do with politics and
everything to do with some kind of rotten, misbegotten personality contest in
which the dumbest asshole wins the so-called prize which just happens to be
another 4 years of everything the same and no one the wiser.
it's
all crap and bullshit and if they can manage to squeeze that ol' spoon between
your teeth they will feed you yet another dose of disbelief and make you think
it's puddin'.
ok. that's my soapbox and i'm stickin' to it.
vote
republican--pardon me while i puke.