RIP Buck O'Neil

NYTimes: Buck O’Neil, Negro Leagues Pioneer, Is Dead at 94

WaPo: Negro League Great Buck O'Neil Dies

The man was a great ambassador for the game, yet inexplicably, when a special panel was convened to admit as many Negro Leagues players as possible in 2006, O'Neil was not voted in. Reportedly he lost out by one vote.

His credentials:

- First baseman and later manager of the Kansas City Monarchs from 1938 until 1955 (interrupted by service in the Navy from 1943 to 1945), leading the team as manager to five pennants and two Negro World Series titles and winning a batting title in 1946.

- Career batting average of .288, including four .300-plus seasons at the plate. In 1946 the first baseman led the league in hitting with a .353 average and followed that in 1947 with a career-best .358 mark. He also posted averages of .345 in 1940 and .330 in 1949. He played in four East-West All-Star games and two Negro League World Series.

- Became a scout for the Chicago Cubs in 1956, signed Lou Brock to his first major-league contract

- First black coach in major league history, Chicago Cubs, 1962

Good article on the stupid secret process and how he was omitted:

The Tufts Daily: Buck O'Neil, 94, is rejected by Hall of Fame Committee

[The special committee] did, however, vote in Andy Cooper, who was (see if this sounds familiar) a fine player and manager for the Kansas City Monarchs. He died in 1941. []

The committee also voted in Effa Manley, the first woman inductee into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Her credentials? She co-owned the Newark Eagles with her husband, Abe, for 14 seasons. The team won one championship. Also, she was outspoken. Also, her biographer, Jim Overmyer, was on the committee.

[]

All his life, Buck O'Neil has had doors slammed in his face. He played baseball at a time when the major leagues did not allow black players. He was a gifted manager at a time when major league owners would not even think of having an African-American lead their teams. For more than 30 years, he told stories about Negro Leagues players and nobody wanted to listen.

Now, after everything, he was being told that the life he had spent in baseball was not worthy of the Hall of Fame. It was enough to make those around him cry. But Buck laughed. "I'm still Buck," he said. "Look at me. I've lived a good life. I'm still living a good life. Nothing has changed for me."

A few minutes later, when he was told that 17 persons had made it, he shouted: "Wonderful."

That's Buck O'Neil. Who else would respond that way to such a shameful vote? No one. I don't know what the July day will be like when 17 persons long dead - 10 of the 17 have been gone for more than 50 years - get inducted into the Hall of Fame. It's hard to believe it will be much of a celebration. Who will speak for the dead?

"I don't know," Buck O'Neil said. "I wonder if they'll ask me to speak."

Would he really speak at the Hall of Fame after he wasn't voted in?

"Of course," Buck said. "If they asked me."

They asked, and he spoke, but he should have been in the hall. Shame, shame on baseball, once again.

Induction Transcript: Buck O'Neil
Negro League Legend speaks at Hall of Fame Induction

Negro Leagues Baseball Museum: Chairman's Message

Pray For Moochie

SI: Myernick has heart attack
U.S. men's national team assistant in intensive care

Foley Blots Out Darker Stories

This blots out this:

Condoleeza Rice WAS warned that Al Qaida planned to attack inside the US -- in July 2001. She says, incredibly, that she doesn't remember.

There's no way 9/11 happens two months later and you don't remember a meeting like that. So she's been lying about her complicity in the Bush Administration's chillingly gross negligence of terrorism prior to 9/11.

All those people dead, and she didn't have the guts to tell the truth. 343 firemen died because the Bushies were asleep at the wheel, dreaming of Iraq and Star Wars.

And all we're talking about is one Congressman who treated the Congressional page program like his own personal dating service. Well, whatever it takes to get the Cheney Adminstration out, I'll take it.

We Don't Distinguish Between The Predators and The Congressmen Who Harbor Them

Albany Times-Union Capitol Confidential Blog: "Flop Sweat"

Sad End

Some residents near the Catskill Game Farm are concerned that animals there will be shipped off to exotic game hunting camps when the farm closes on Monday. (G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times)

When I was a kid, a trip to the Catskill Game Farm was a thrill. Walking around the grounds surrounded by fairly tame wild animals (I saw no contradiction there) with a cup of feed in my hand, trying to get them to eat (or fighting off the hungry ones) are vivid memories of childhood.

New York Times: Farm’s Fate Is Certain, but the Future of Its Animals Is Not

CATSKILL, N.Y. Oct. 2 — For three-quarters of a century, exotic animals have sidled up to fences at the Catskill Game Farm here to nibble food from the hands of visitors.

Adults and children alike can slip crackers through a fence onto the waiting blue tongue of a 15-foot-tall giraffe or bottle-feed a baby goat at the park’s nursery. But on Monday, the game farm will shut its gates for the last time, the latest casualty of a struggling economy in upstate New York. And though the fate of the farm is all but certain, the future for many of the animals is not.

My New Mantra

From an astute commenter at dailykos:

We won't distinguish
Between the predators and the Congressmen that harbor them.

PredatorGate Logo

I saw this on Suburban Guerrilla.

Oh Fer Christsake

I'm watching the press conference by the Ethics Committee announcing the House is going to investigate itself. And the Senior DEMOCRATIC Member of the Committee, Howard Berman (D-Dummy) of California just announced that the investigation is going to be nonpartisan.

Is he an idiot? It's a partisan scandal! It's a scandal about how the partisan Republican House leadership was willing to throw a bunch of high school kids to the wolves for base partisan gains! The Democrats were cut out of the loop from the beginning! All official information about Foley's predilection for young boys was kept within the Republican leadership. It's a Republican scandal. Period.

Why is this moron providing cover for the Republicans? Is he a politician or a mouse? For Christsake, if you're worried about the House, HOLD A SEPARATE PRESS CONFERENCE and say so. But why give the Republican leadership a life buoy while they're drowning?

Don't these jamokes realize that politics v. the modern Republican party is a battle to the death? That when you roll over and say you're trying to work together, they'll cut your throat and go out for a beer without a second thought?

How will the Democrats ever win anything if they don't know how to fight?

Arggghhhhh.

Not a Question Any More

Heckuva job, boys

Talking Points Memo: Had Enough?

A Limerick

There once was a Congressman Foley;
Deaf and blind to political toll, he
Text-messaged a page,
The fallout we'll gauge,
On a level with epidemic E. coli.


From Emma's Writing Center, Ithaca.

A Post I Wish I'd Written

The News Blog: Leadership

They couldn't protect us on 9/11

They can't protect our troops in Iraq

Now they can't even protect our kids in the halls of Congress

Mark Foley: Giving Alcoholism a Bad Name

WaPo: Foley Lawyer Cites Alcohol, Childhood Abuse
Attorney Says Lawmaker Never Tried to Have Sex With a Minor

Foley Acquaintances Question Alcoholism

Steve Lopez, LATimes: Foley on the Prowl: 2 Creepy 2 B 4Gotten

After getting caught hitting on congressional pages with lurid shorthand e-mails and instant messages, the Florida congressman first blamed his keyboard adventures on alcohol, insulting alcoholics everywhere.

Again .... Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwww

ABC News: New Foley Instant Messages; Had Internet Sex While Awaiting House Vote

Former Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) interrupted a vote on the floor of the House in 2003 to engage in Internet sex with a high school student who had served as a congressional page, according to new Internet instant messages provided to ABC News by former pages.

ABC News now has obtained 52 separate instant message exchanges, which former pages say were sent by Foley, using the screen name Maf54, to two different boys under the age of 18.

This message was dated April 2003, at approximately 7 p.m., according to the message time stamp.

Maf54: I miss you
Teen: ya me too
Maf54: we are still voting
Maf54: you miss me too

The exchange continues in which Foley and the teen both appear to describe having sexual orgasms.

Maf54: ok..i better go vote..did you know you would have this effect on me
Teen: lol I guessed
Teen: ya go vote…I don't want to keep you from doing our job
Maf54: can I have a good kiss goodnight
Teen: :-*
Teen:

The House voted that evening on HR 1559, Emergency War Time supplemental appropriations.

According to another message, Foley also invites the teen and a friend to come to his house near Capitol Hill so they can drink alcohol.

Teen: are you going to be in town over the veterans day weekend
Maf54: I may be now that your coming
Maf54: who you coming to visit
Teen: haha good stuff
Teen: umm no one really

Maf54: we will be adjourned ny then
Teen: oh good
Maf54: by
Maf54: then we can have a few drinks
Maf54: lol
Teen: yes yes ;-)
Maf54: your not old enough to drink
Teen: shhh…
Maf54: ok
Teen: that's not what my ID says
Teen: lol
Maf54: ok
Teen: I probably shouldn't be telling you that huh
Maf54: we may need to drink at my house so we don't get busted

Email excerpts

Rehab - The Last Refuge of the Truly Unrepentant

Disgraced Representative Mark Foley (R-NAMBLA), purportedly in 'rehab' in Florida, signed onto a chat room three hours ago using his AOL chat name Maf54.

Raw Story: Foley still logging into chat account with screen name linked to scandal

Blogactive: A word of advice... (with screen capture)

Howie My-Wife-Is-A-Republican-Operative Kurtz: Despicable Victim-Blamer

Howard Kurtz, your presstitute of the day.

Mr. Sherri Annis contributes this vile opinion to Predatorgate:

WaPo Media Notes: Cone of Silence

Among the many depressing aspects of the downfall of Mark Foley--who has now done the inevitable checking-into-rehab thing--is that a number of young people could have blown the whistle on this deceptive congressman in recent years, but didn't.

The Washington Post tracked down a couple of them. Former page Patrick McDonald said that at a 2003 reunion he learned of sexual messages that Foley sent three or four ex-classmates and thought, "if this gets out, it will destroy him."

Matthew Loraditch says he has known for years about the "creepy" messages the Florida Republican sent three of his 2002 classmates. But no one wanted to come forward. "You take down a Congress member, and you can't end up trying to do something later," Loraditch said.

Now I don't want to come down on 16-year-old kids (though some are now as old as 21) who must have been intimidated by the whole thing. Indeed, the power imbalance between a big-shot member of Congress and a lowly page is part of what makes this infuriating.

But did they really think that if they told the outside world that the co-chair of the Exploited Children's Caucus was sending them, or their friends, graphic sexual messages, that their future careers would be ruined? That they would be washed up in politics? Isn't it more likely that they would be hailed as brave for doing the right thing?

You fucking sheltered moron, they would be humiiated in the eyes of the world as the targets of a sex predator. All their friends asking, why did he target you? And some of these kids may be gay, and that may be why Foley with his practiced gaydar targeted them. Maybe they're not ready to talk about that yet. Look at Lindsey Graham. He's been in the military and the U.S. Senate, and he's still not ready to talk about being gay.

Howard Kurtz makes me sick. Who could write such drivel? Doesn't he have an editor? Oh, that's right, he works for the Post.

Frist Has Friends

Check out my post on Bill Frist (Frist!) below.

A purportedly anonymous commenter posted Frist's CYA statement from his blog in full in comments.

Sitemeter is a wonderful thing, because sometimes you're not as anonymous as you seem. The post by 'anonymous', at 10:53:56 a.m., came from

12.150.190.# (AMERICAN COUNCIL OF LIFE INSURERS)

Why is the American Council of Life Insurers trying to save Bill Frist's political bacon?

The Party of Values

From Americablog:

Hastert, Boehner and Bush to help fundraise for GOP congressman whose mistress says he strangled her

The October Surprise

Looks like Commander Codpiece is going to wag the dog to save the Republicans on election day. This is, of course, madness. The madness of King George. He's already started and lost two wars. Solution? A third war. It is so insane that I don't know what to say other than that this is certifiably nuts. Our president is insane.

Crooks & Liars: Retired Col. Sam Gardiner says we’re in Iran right now

Global Researcher: The March to War: Naval build-up in the Persian Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean.

dailykos: 20,000 Sailors Go To War - Massive US and Allied Naval Deployment

Frist!

Bill Frist could be the worst politician in the history of politicians. I'm serious. The man has the instincts of an inanimate object. He put a fork in any presidential ambitions last night:

Washington Post (AP): Frist: Taliban Should Be in Afghan Gov't

QALAT, Afghanistan -- U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Monday that the Afghan war against Taliban guerrillas can never be won militarily and urged support for efforts to bring "people who call themselves Taliban" and their allies into the government.

The Tennessee Republican said he learned from briefings that Taliban fighters were too numerous and had too much popular support to be defeated on the battlefield.

"You need to bring them into a more transparent type of government," Frist said during a brief visit to a U.S. and Romanian military base in the southern Taliban stronghold of Qalat. "And if that's accomplished, we'll be successful."

So, I guess all that rhetoric over the last five years about how 9/11 changed everything, and any group that harbors terrorists will be treated as terrorists, and all that other Bush-neo-con-Rethug bullcrap, has been exposed as utter bullcrap. As you can imagine, the wingnuts are beside themselves. Some have even pledged to vote Democratic in November! Tee hee.

Apparently someone in Frist's camp smelled the defeatism and pulled back; too little, too late:

VOLPAC: America will Never Negotiate with Terrorists or Support their Entry into Afghanistan’s Government

Dead Man Blustering

Washington Times: Resign, Mr. Speaker

House Speaker Dennis Hastert must do the only right thing, and resign his speakership at once. Either he was grossly negligent for not taking the red flags fully into account and ordering a swift investigation, for not even remembering the order of events leading up to last week's revelations -- or he deliberately looked the other way in hopes that a brewing scandal would simply blow away. He gave phony answers Friday to the old and ever-relevant questions of what did he know and when did he know it? Mr. Hastert has forfeited the confidence of the public and his party, and he cannot preside over the necessary coming investigation, an investigation that must examine his own inept performance.

Of course, being the Moonie Times, they call on the House to appoint Henry Hyde (D-Hypocritical Adulterer) to take his place.

Tony Snowjob Says They're "Simply Naughty Emails"

Apparently Tony thinks he is still at Faux News. This snow job won't work.

ThinkProgress: Snow on Foley Scandal: ‘Simply Naughty Emails’

This morning on CNN, Soledad O’Brien asked Tony Snow why “any communication between a 16-year-old and a congressman” didn’t “raise red flags — major, massive red flags” with Speaker Dennis Hastert and others who have known about the communications for months.

Snow responded, “I hate to tell you, but it’s not always pretty up there on Capitol Hill. And there have been other scandals, as you know, that have been more than simply naughty e-mails.”

Hastert's CYA Letter

Did you hear that Denny Hastert (R-Denial) has asked the Justice Department to investigate the Foley scandal? He hasn't. He's asked the DOJ to investigate who leaked the scandal to the media.

Look over there! Don't look at me!

Unclaimed Territory: Hastert's letter to the DOJ advances the cover-up and worsens the scandal

The premise of Hastert's letter is that the only issue worth investigating is whether someone specifically knew of the more explicit IMs, and that anyone who did not know of those IMs by definition has done nothing wrong, even if -- as is true for Hastert -- there was ample other information they knew of regarding Foley's conduct. This is how Hastert defines what ought to be investigated (emphasis added):

Unlike the first communication, the second communication was a set of instant messages that contained sexually explicit statements and were reportedly generated three years ago. Last week, ABC News first reported these sexually explicit instant messages which led to Representative Foley's resignation. These sexually explicit communications warrant a criminal referral in two respects.

Hastert has defined the relevant issues in such a way as to ensure that he and his House allies would be excluded from the investigation just as long as they managed to avoid learning about the IMs specifically.

But the scandal here is that Hastert and friends deliberately avoided investigating the glaring signs that Foley was sexually pursuing pages.

Rehab

Mark Foley (R-NAMBLA) has announced he's going into rehab. He's going into rehab like Mel Gibson went into rehab. Like alcohol causes someone to be a predator. Like alcohol causes someone to hate Jews.

Not gonna fly.

AP: Ex-Rep. Foley Checks in to Alcohol Rehab

WaPo: Ex-Rep. Foley Checks Into Rehab

Clemens a 'Roider?

Roger was already in the twilight of his career when he left the Red Sox (yes, that's a Dan Duquette joke), but I always did think Clemens was suspicious because he got really big after he left the Red Sox. (Now many Red Sox fans will say he got real big during his last year with the Sox, but those were 'get out of Boston' fat pounds, not muscle.) And after he met Andy Pettite, remember all the stories about how Clemens introduced Pettite to his 'workout' routine, how Pettite all of the sudden put on 20 pounds and bulked up? And then Pettite was basically on the DL for the next two years. So I'm not surprised that their names have surfaced in a steroids probe.

LATimes: Clemens Is Named in Drug Affidavit
The star pitcher and five other players used performance-enhancers, according to a former teammate who took steroids, prosecutors say.


Roger Clemens, 1986

Roger Clemens, 2006

Lying About 9/11

WaPo: Two Months Before 9/11, an Urgent Warning to Rice

NYTimes: 9/11 Panel Members Weren’t Told of Meeting

WASHINGTON, Oct. 2 — Members of the Sept. 11 commission said today that they were alarmed that they were told nothing about a White House meeting in July 2001 at which George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, is reported to have warned Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, about an imminent Al Qaeda attack and failed to persuade her to take action.

PredatorGate Expands

Foley's conduct as revealed to date goes back to at least 2001. The Republican supervisor of the Republican pages warned them about Foley in 2001; the Democratic pages got no warning. 16-year-old boys left hanging in the wind by the Rethugs.

Hastert was caught lying about what he knew; now he admits he knew about the first set of emails.

Thomas Reynolds (R-NY), the National Republican Campaign Chair, who was the second Republican member of the House to learn about Foley's inappropriate emails, gave Foley $5,000 after he learned of them, then accepted $100,000 from Foley into the NRCC war chest.

I think Hastert will be the first casualty; even some right wing bloggers have called for him to resign.

ABC News: GOP Staff Warned Pages About Foley in 2001

A Republican staff member warned congressional pages five years ago to watch out for Congressman Mark Foley, according to a former page.

[]

Several Democratic pages tell ABC News they received no such warnings about Foley.

ABC News: FBI Opens "Preliminary Investigation" of Foley

Daily News Politics Blog: Reynolds Knew, But Gave?

Reynolds's personal PAC, TOMPAC, wrote Foley a check for $5,000 on May 10, 2006.

According to the AP, Reynolds was told of the allegations against Foley "sometime this spring."

[]

UPDATE: Also: On July 27, 2006, the NRCC, which Reynolds chairs, accepted an unusually large contribution of $100,000 from Foley. Hard to imagine something of that size just slipping past the chairman.

Laugh - A Little

Bob Geiger: The Saturday Cartoons

Grand Ol' Police Blotter: Who Else Goes Down With Foley?

Mark Foley (R-FL) was some piece of work. Check out his dirty email exchange, which was turned over to ABCNews after it published a story about these creepy emails Foley sent to a 16-year-old page. Members of Congress emerging from a closed-door meeting yesterday said there are 35 pages or 36 pages of this garbage.

It's clear that this page's complaints were made to Republican leadership several months ago. But they were brushed off, or worse, actively covered up.

Now the unraveling of the cover-up begins. The original, complaining page worked for Rodney Alexander (R-LA), who says he contacted Rep. Thomas Reynolds (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Republican campaign organization, several months ago. Alexander says he didn't do anything more because the parents of the page didn't want to pursue the matter. Reynolds says Alexander told him the same thing so he didn't do anything more.

John Shimkus [R-Ill.], head of the Page Board, says he was told about the page's complaint by the Clerk of the House and did an 'immediate investigation', which seems to have consisted of asking Foley, "Hey, Mark, what's the deal here?" and accepting his denial of perversion without doing any real investigating or even reading the emails themselves.

This tale of Republican incompetence at dealing with a known threat (sound familiar?) comes from today's Page One article in the Washington Post Rep. Foley Quits In Page Scandal; Explicit Online Notes Sent to Boy, 16.

And boy, are the heads of the party wriggling on the spit:

House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told The Washington Post last night that he had learned this spring of inappropriate "contact" between Foley and a 16-year-old page. Boehner said he then told House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). Boehner later contacted The Post and said he could not remember whether he talked to Hastert.

Man, wouldn't you have wanted to hear that conversation between Hastert and Boehner? You told the Post WHAT?

Oh, and the Democratic member of the Page Board, who has served in that position for 20 years, wasn't told about the page's complaint about Foley. Which made it easier to cover up, n'est pas?

The only thing everyone can agree on here? Foley has $2.8 million in his campaign war chest; he should donate the entire amount to charity. Foley's House website has been taken down, so you can't contact him that way, but I bet his AOL email account is still active: MAF54@aol.com

Drop him a line, why don't you? But you might want to use one of your alternative email addresses, or you never know what you might get back from him. Ewwwwww.

Foley Out

While I was writing my previous post, Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) resigned his House seat. Apparently investigation revealed more instant messages, more sexually explicit, to more young pages. And get this: he was Co-chairman of the Missing and Exploited Children Caucus in the House. Ewwww.

Yahoo: Foley submits resignation to Congress

ABC: Foley To Resign Over Sexually Explicit Messages to Minors

Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) planned to resign today, hours after ABC questioned him about sexually explicit internet messages with current and former Congressional pages under the age of 18.

GOP: Grand Ol' Police Blotter

Trout Lips Pirro, doomed candidate for New York State Attorney General, caught on tape trying to get Bernie Kerik to eavesdrop on her cheating hubby.

RNC Chair Ken Mehlman's been giving out federal money for political contributions; indictment to follow.

Ewwwwww, Congressman Mark Foley (R-FL) caught writing creepy emails to a 16-year-old boy who was formerly a Congressional page. Oh, and Foley is one of those: Republican by day, Democrat by night. Since he's been in the closet his whole life, he's probably a 16-year old inside, too.

The United States of....Torture

The Republican-controlled Congress voted to enshrine torture as a legal and approved US policy yesterday.

The law passed is unconstitutional on its face, since it abrogates the constitutional habeas corpus writ, and will be challenged within days.

George Bush is an experienced torturer.

Torture doesn't work anyway.

Joe Lieberman was against it, before he voted for it yesterday.

No time to get off the Democratic bus; this is the time to stand and fight.

Jesus' General said it best.

Selling Soap On The Ashes

Yesterday I was in Worcester getting my car serviced. I didn't feel like sitting in the waiting room, so I went for a walk. Across the street from the car dealership is a new grocery story, PriceRite. They just opened in the last two weeks. Every window has huge red, white and blue signs. I noticed that one of them said "September 11th, 2001 -- We Will Never Forget" with a painting of the Twin Towers below. As I got closer I could see the writing on the bottom of the sign: "Impossibly, Inconceivably, Incredibly Low Prices - Every Day!"

This is just appalling. How can you put up a picture of the deaths of thousands of human beings and use it to sell soap? I certainly won't set foot in a store that uses 9/11 in its advertising.

Forget Jim Rome - Keith Olbermann Is On Fire

YouTube: All The President's Lies

The Bushies, asleep at the wheel before 9/11.

I saw this on dailykos

Blogger is bloggered, so posting will be spotty until google fixes us.

Crouchie!

(BBC Sport) Shortly after the break, Crouch has the Kop in raptures when his spectacular goal appears to have finished off the visitors

BBC Sport: Liverpool 3-2 Galatasaray

More fun with Crouchie: the unoffical fan site for peter crouch

Blogs Translate the News the Corporate Media Just Hears

Yesterday on CNN, Commander Codpiece was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer. Our Fearmonger Leader said Iraq will be a "comma" in history. Huh?

I just put it down to his cold callous nature until I read this in Steve Gilliard's News Blog today:

When Bush said Iraq was a comma, he was speaking in dog whistle to the fundies. It comes from a saying "Never put a period where God puts a comma".Which means things will get better. Which is, of course, insane.

Now I understand. It was a cold, callous message to fundamentalist Christians that Georgie is their guy. Ugh.

Editor & Publisher:
For Americans Killed in Iraq: A Period, Not a Comma
In an interview aired on CNN on Sunday, President Bush suggested that one day the conflict in Iraq will be looked back on as "just a comma." The dead, and their families, might propose different punctuation. Here are some alternatives.

(September 24, 2006) -- Amid the Sunday uproar over The New York Times' report on a secret intelligence report labeling the war in Iraq an answer to anti-U.S. terrorists' prayers, CNN aired a portion of an interview with President Bush conducted by Wolf Blitzer earlier in the week.

In a report here at E&P, we observed that in this exchange, Blitzer asked about the latest setbacks in Iraq and indications that civil war may be at hand. Bush, with a slight smile, replied, "Yes, you see — you see it on TV, and that’s the power of an enemy that is willing to kill innocent people. But there’s also an unbelievable will and resiliency by the Iraqi people…. I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma because there is — my point is, there’s a strong will for democracy."

A Question I Wish I'd Asked

His own NIE [National Intelligence Estimate] says Bush is the Terrorists' Best Friend. When will the Democrats? (Huffington Post)

My Hometown Hits The Front Page of the New York Times

James Estrin/The New York Times
In the Town of Colchester, in the Catskills, court is in the garage.

Broken Bench
In Tiny Courts of New York, Abuses of Law and Power

Some of the courtrooms are not even courtrooms: tiny offices or basement rooms without a judge’s bench or jury box. Sometimes the public is not admitted, witnesses are not sworn to tell the truth, and there is no word-for-word record of the proceedings.

A yearlong investigation by The New York Times of the life and history of New York State’s town and village courts found a long trail of judicial abuses and errors — and of governmental failure to curb them.

Nearly three-quarters of the judges are not lawyers, and many — truck drivers, sewer workers or laborers — have scant grasp of the most basic legal principles. Some never got through high school, and at least one went no further than grade school.

But serious things happen in these little rooms all over New York State. People have been sent to jail without a guilty plea or a trial, or tossed from their homes without a proper proceeding. In violation of the law, defendants have been refused lawyers, or sentenced to weeks in jail because they cannot pay a fine. Frightened women have been denied protection from abuse.

These are New York’s town and village courts, or justice courts, as the 1,250 of them are widely known. In the public imagination, they are quaint holdovers from a bygone era, handling nothing weightier than traffic tickets and small claims. They get a roll of the eyes from lawyers who amuse one another with tales of incompetent small-town justices.

In the 8-page article itself, there is no mention of the Town of Colchester. The audio slide show in the left column repeats this photo, but again no detail about Colchester. I wonder if we will be featured in Parts II or III of the series? Stay tuned.

UPDATE: I am informed by a reliable source (thanks Coach Mom) that the court pictured is in Cooks Falls, one of the hamlets located within the Town of Colchester. That tiny court hears traffic tickets. There is another, larger court facility where Town Justice Theodore Fonda, a former New York City police officer, hears cases.

Once A Racist, Always A Racist

I didn't believe Mel Gibson's apologies and protestations of tolerance after spewing hatred of Jews while drunk. I didn't believe Senator George Allen's claim that 'macaca' was just a made-up word he happened to apply to the only person of color in the room last month. I think if someone is being a racist when they are in their 40s or 50s, it's not the first time. It's a long-held belief that's finally made it into the searing light of day.

I was right about George Allen for sure.

Salon: Teammates: Allen used "N-word" in college
Three members of Sen. George Allen's college football team remember a man with racist attitudes at ease using racial slurs.

Sept. 24, 2006 | WASHINGTON -- Three [white] former college football teammates of Sen. George Allen say that the Virginia Republican repeatedly used an inflammatory racial epithet and demonstrated racist attitudes toward blacks during the early 1970s.

"Allen said he came to Virginia because he wanted to play football in a place where 'blacks knew their place,'" said Dr. Ken Shelton, a white radiologist in North Carolina who played tight end for the University of Virginia football team when Allen was quarterback. "He used the N-word on a regular basis back then."

A second white teammate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared retribution from the Allen campaign, separately claimed that Allen used the word "nigger" to describe blacks. "It was so common with George when he was among his white friends. This is the terminology he used," the teammate said.

A third white teammate contacted separately, who also spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of being attacked by the Virginia senator, said he too remembers Allen using the word "nigger," though he said he could not recall a specific conversation in which Allen used the term. "My impression of him was that he was a racist," the third teammate said.

Shelton also told Salon that the future senator gave him the nickname "Wizard," because he shared a last name with Robert Shelton, who served in the 1960s as the imperial wizard of the United Klans of America, a group affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan. The radiologist said he decided earlier this year that he would go public with his concerns about Allen if a reporter ever called. About four months ago, when he heard that Allen was a possible candidate for president in 2008, Shelton began to write down some of the negative memories of his former teammate. He provided Salon excerpts of those notes last week.

Maybe George can go back to playing Confederate generals in bad TV movies. He's going to need another job, because he's going to have a hard time winning back his Senate seat. It's 2006, not 1966. It's Virginia, not Mississippi. We don't like mean people, and we don't like liars.

Sliming Clinton -- Corporate Media Spins Out Fox Lies

In this handout photo provided by Fox News Sunday, former President Bill Clinton responds to host Chris Wallace during a taping of an interview for 'Fox News Sunday', on Friday, Sept. 22, 2006, in New York. (AP Photo/Fox News Sunday, Michael Simon)
Chris Wallace, the weaselly son of real newsman Mike Wallace, ambushed Bill Clinton on FoxNewsSunday today. [From here on in, he will be referred to as 'Wallace the Weasel'] Surprised? Of course not. Clinton was invited on the show to talk about the Clinton Global Initiative and all the money he raised to fix the world's problems last week. So of course the first question out of Wallace the Weasel's mouth was, essentially, don't you feel responsible for 9/11 'cause you didn't get Bin Laden. Good for Clinton, he defended himself with his best weapon -- the truth, and his enormous capacity to marshall the facts to support his case.

And the truth is, as he said, Clinton tried to stop Bin Laden, and Bush sat on his hands then went on vacation. And Clinton also pointed out the hypocrisy of FoxNewsSunday in pushing him on these issues when they have never asked the Bush Administration officials who appear regularly on their in-house propaganda channel the same questions. As ThinkProgress points out, Wallace the Weasel himself interviewed Condoleeza Rice days after she testified in front of the 9/11 Commission, and unbelievably didn't ask her about the August 6, 2001 PDB, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside US". While Wallace the Weasel hammered Clinton about the USS Cole bombing, Fox had never before asked a Bush Administration official about their failure to act after the FBI and the CIA certified that Bin Laden was responsible for the Cole bombing early in 2001, despite FoxNewsSunday having interviewed Cheney 6 times, Rumsfield 9 times, Rice 23 times, and Hadley 4 times since then.

And Wallace the Weasel has interviewed those same 4 officials forty-two (42) times and never once asked the sensible question, Why did you demote Richard Clarke, the most experienced anti-terrorism official in government.

So all that is bad enough. And Clinton was mad, and he was wagging his finger as he responded point by point with the truth. Today as I drove home from the Craft Center after a nice Sunday afternoon of making pots, I had WBZ Radio on to see what the weather report is (the clouds were black). And the perky little Clear Channel announcer said, I kid you not, "Bill Clinton was angry and defensive while being interviewed about Bin Laden. Story in a few minutes." Can you say 'slant'? Clinton was being interviewed about the Clinton Global Initiative. He was being interviewed by Fox News. And the question was unfair and had never before been asked of any Bush Administration official on the same network. But all those facts are dropped so the corporate media can spin out the lies that Commander Codpiece needs to keep his sorry ass in office. It just makes me sick.

Crooks & Liars has the video.

The Real Bush Doctrine

Torture R'US

HuffPo: Maverick Senators Cave in to The Torture President

Unclaimed Territory: America to legalize torture (this leads to a salon.com article, you have to watch an ad to get through, but it's worth it(

WaPo: THE TORTURE DEBATE

Dempsey Wants Premier League

Clint Dempsey wants desperately to go play in England. Why not? He's not going anywhere playing in a low-level league like MLS, and Bob Kraft is paying him $75,000 a year. Go Clint and good luck to ya.

Daily Mirror (uk): EXCLUSIVE: CLINT EYES PREM DEAL

AMERICA'S most controversial footballer Clint Dempsey is destined for the Premiership after rejecting a new contract in the MLS.

The New England Revolution midfielder, a former target for West Ham and Charlton, plans to quit the States in January before his deal expires next summer.

And the Premiership is bracing itself for plenty of outrageous behaviour from the colourful star, who grew up in a Texas trailer park and was suspended in March for attacking Revolution captain Joe Franchino in training.

"England is a great country to play in and I want to leave MLS," said Dempsey, 23.

"Teams abroad are willing to pay me 10 times more money and I don't want to be here.

There is no way I am staying in the MLS."

Getting Away With It

Reuters: French paper says bin Laden died in Pakistan

Eat Locally

Looks like a factory to me. Without a union. {Original caption: Fields of greens in California near Natural Selection Foods, which has been implicated in the outbreak.} (Peter DaSilva for The New York Times)
E coli in spinach? Weird, huh? It's all about the corporate farming. It's cheaper to feed cows grain than let them graze on open fields. On their crappy diet, lowering acidity in their stomachs, E coli flourishes. Instead of taking up space on land that can be turned into McMansions, cows are penned cheek to jowl in feedlots, which generate huge amounts of manure: poop. Poop is left in great open ponds that flood when it rains, sending E coli out into the world. So now even your spinach is suspect.

DailyKos: The Poop on Spinach

Starting a few decades ago, Americans outsmarted Mother Nature. We switched our cows' diets from grass and hay to grain. Eating grain isn't particularly good for the cows, but together with antibiotics and hormones, we can house them in feedlots, fatten them up, and slaughter them quicker than if we had let them graze at their own speed in a pasture. Mother Nature, it would seem, is anti-business.

The new diet changed the acidity in cows' digestive tracts and the close living quarters led to a lot of cows and a lot of poop living side by side. That's when the new strain of E. coli, O157:H7, came on the scene. When cows eat grass, the acidity in their digestive tracts usually kills the bacteria, but grain fed cows' tummies do not.

So the mere fact that E. coli O157:H7 got into the water at all is a result of our need for cheap feedlot beef - and one could take it a step further in exploring the interconnectedness of the food system, because cheap feedlot beef is possible due to cheap corn, soy, oilseed, and other commodities, subsidized by government policies that encourage high production and rock bottom prices. Those policies hurt the farmers who produce the commodities (corn, soy, wheat, etc), but they provide an incentive to anyone who wants to use the commodities as cheap inputs for their products - such as feedlot beef.

So many cows in such a small space contaminated the water that presumably flooded the spinach fields. This was the 20th such epidemic linked to lettuce and spinach from Monterey County in the past decade. The outbreaks have caused over 400 sicknesses and 2 deaths. The current epidemic was also felt economically by everyone from growers to farm workers, truckers, packagers, restaurants, grocers, and more.

The LA Times gives us the scope of the problem, without ever mentioning the important connection between corporate farming methods (grain vs. grazing) and its contribution to the E coli outbreaks:

LATimes: E. Coli Pervades Harvest Area
Salinas Valley waterways are known to carry the bacteria that poisoned at least 145 people and killed one who ate tainted spinach.

There IS Such a Thing As Bad Publicity

And Senator George Felix Allen has ably proved that in the last week.

After he freaked out about being asked by his Jewish heritage in a debate, he's lurched from awkward moment to awkward moment. Or did every recent person who discovered Jewish ancestry start talking about pork?

Today's news is that the Allen family now claim that Allen only learned of his Jewish heritage last month, although he has known for decades that his grandfather had been imprisoned by the Nazis during WWII. And that his mother swore him to secrecy, which I guess would explain why he said this week: "My mother's French-Italian with a little Spanish blood in her. And I was raised as she was, as far as I know, raised as a Christian."

Convenient, his mother swearing him to secrecy. I'm just saying.


ThinkProgress: Allen continues effort to downplay his Jewish heritage.

“I still had a ham sandwich for lunch. And my mother made great pork chops,” Sen. George Allen (R-VA) said yesterday, explaining how news that his grandfather was Jewish is “just an interesting nuance to my background.”

ABC News: Allen Campaign Hits Another Awkward Moment
This Time It's a Question About His Jewish Ancestry That Roils His Virginia Senate Race

WaPo today: Allen's Mother Revealed Jewish Heritage to Him Last Month

My favorite blog headline on the matter is from Majikthise: George Allen, self-hating Jew

Iraq is FUBAR

A must-read article from yesterday's LATimes, the personal story of a reporter who lives in Baghdad and has for over 20 years. He is so frightened he writes this story for his own newspaper under a pseudonym. This is what the Bush Doctrine has wrought.

No One Dares to Help
The wounded die alone on Baghdad's streets. An offer of aid could be your own death sentence, an Iraqi reporter writes.

Fear dictates everything we do.

I see my neighbors less and less. When I go out, I say hello and that's it. I fear someone will ask questions about my job working for Americans, which could put me in danger. Even if he had no ill will toward me, he might talk and reveal an identifying detail. We're afraid of an enemy among us. Someone we don't know. It's a cancer.

In March, assassinations started in our neighborhood. Early one evening, I was sitting in my garden with my wife when we heard several gunshots. I rushed to the gate to see what was going on, despite my wife's pleas to stay inside. My neighbors told me that gunmen had dropped three men from a car and shot them in the street before driving off. No one dared approach the victims to find out who they were.

The bodies remained there until the next morning. The police or the American military probably picked them up, but I don't know. They simply disappeared.

The sounds of shootings and explosions are now commonplace. We don't know who is shooting whom, or who has been targeted. We don't know why, and we're afraid to ask or help. We too could get shot. Bringing someone to the hospital or to the police is out of the question. Nobody trusts the police, and nobody wants to answer questions.

I feel sad, bitter and frustrated — sad because a human life is now worth nothing in this country; bitter because people no longer help each other; and frustrated because I can't help either. If I'm targeted one day, I'm sure no one will help me.

Katrina Update

Mud and debris covers the perimeter of St. Rita's nursing home in Chalmette, La., in this 2005 file photo. (AP Photo/Steve Senne, FILE)
The owners of the St. Rita's nursing home, where 35 patients died during Hurricane Katrina, have been indicted on charges of negligent homicide and cruelty to the infirm.

This is just sad. Government failed everyone, yet the private citizens who made poor decisions are prosecuted. Why not charge George W. Bush with murder for the failure of the levees? Mayor Nagin with murder for failing to order mandatory evacuation, or for ignoring New Orleans' disaster plan? Only the little people pay.

AP: New Orleans nursing home owners indicted

First Draft: St. Rita's Nursing Home Owners Indicted

Sweeney Dirty: Is It a Twofer?

Yesterday Congressman Blutarsky, a/k/a John Sweeney, Republican who currently represents the NY-20 district, was named one of the most corrupt membrs of Congress by CREW, the Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington.

On the same day, the Albany Times-Union, the largest newspaper in the district, announced that it had discovered and banned a "sock puppet" from its politics blog, Capitol Confidential. A sock puppet in modern usage is one internet user who posts under separate identities as though more than one person is speaking. This sock puppet went so far as to compliment a posting by its alter ego. Wanna bet it was someone supporting John Sweeney? I'll make that bet. Links below.

CREW: The 20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress

Rep. John Sweeney (R-NY)

John Sweeney is a fourth-term Congressman representing the 20th district of New York. His ethics issues stem from a ski trip to New York, the exchange of legislative assistance for campaign contributions and the hiring of his wife as a campaign fundraiser.

Misuse of public funds to pay for a trip to New York

Rep. Sweeney invited 53 people to join him from January 6-9, 2006, for a “Congressional Winter Challenge” at the Lake Placid Olympic facilities. There, Rep. Sweeney and his guests enjoyed pretending to be Olympic athletes by participating in events including skiing, bobsledding and hockey, all paid for with New York taxpayer dollars. The trip appears to violate several provisions of the House gift and travel rules, including the prohibition on recreational travel.

Relationship with National Marine Manufacturers Association

In May 2006, Rep. Sweeney introduced the Boating Safety Tax Incentive Act, legislation that the National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA) strongly supported and even helped draft, allowing boat manufacturers to supply new boats with free safety equipment, including up-to-date lifejackets, in exchange for a tax deduction. In apparent exchange, NMMA’s PAC has supported Rep. Sweeney and contributed to his campaign committee for the past three years. In the 2006 election cycle alone, NMMA donated $4,500 to Rep. Sweeney, making him the third highest recipient of contributions from NMMA’s PAC. Additionally, NMMA has hosted fundraisers for Rep. Sweeney on its luxurious yacht, raising a total of $12,150. If Rep. Sweeney received campaign donations in return for campaign contributions he may have violated federal bribery and honest services fraud as well as violated House rules.

Employment of Spouse Gayle Ford

Rep. Sweeney has hired his wife’s firm to fundraise for his campaign, despite the fact that she has no fundraising experience and appears to have no other clients. She receives a 10% commission on the money she brings in, the campaign paid her $42,570 during the 2004-2005 election cycle, and as of April 2006, she received $30,879 for the current election cycle. Notably, records show that Rep. Sweeney has had a fundraising consultant on monthly retainer since June of 2004, who is paid $8,583 a month. The facts suggest that Rep. Sweeney is converting campaign funds to personal use in violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act and House rules.

Son Avoids Jail

Rep. Sweeney’s son, John, brutally beat another teenager, but avoided jail for his offense. The ethics committee should investigate whether the young man received special treatment because of his father’s position in violation of House rules.

The Nation: Congress's Most Corrupt

Highlights include .... New York Rep. John Sweeney (news, bio, voting record), who a few months back showed up drunk to a local frat party, threw a taxpayer funded Winter sporting weekend and hired his wife as a fundraiser even though she had no previous fundraising experience;

Times Union 'Capitol Confidential' Blog: Sock Puppets and Ethics

If you haven’t read our “rules of engagement” in a while, we’ve added a new policy:

The use of multiple identities (aka “sock puppets”) on this blog is not permitted.

We’ve also included a link to a Wikipedia item that offers a fuller explanation of these aliases.

This policy was sparked by the admitted use of multiple identities by a visitor to this blog. We discovered this rather by accident, and at a time when he happened to post a comment referring to his other identity - somewhat glowingly, no less - as if it was a different person.

That’s clearly deceptive and unethical.

[]

Editor’s Note: The individual has been blocked from the site (to the best of our ability).

First Round: Anucha Browne Sanders 1, Knicks/Isiah Thomas 0

The EEOC, the federal administrative agency that enforces employment law, has found "probable cause" to believe Anucha Browne Sanders was sexually harassed by Isiah Thomas, and that the New York Knicks retaliated against her by firing her when she complained.

Under Title VII, the federal employment law, and under New York State law, a plaintiff is required to present her claims at the agency level first prior to going to court. Because of the very short time limits to file employment cases, her case is also filed in federal court, and according to these articles settlement discussions have been initiated there.

The probable cause finding by the EEOC is admissible in court, but that doesn't mean that the case is over, or that Sanders will necessarily win at trial. At trial it is just another piece of evidence in her favor.

This is the result I expected, as Browne Sanders is a respected professional with years of accomplishments on her resume, and she has one of the best plaintiff's employment law firms in New York City representing her. They wouldn't have taken her claim if it wasn't a winner. However, the EEOC doesn't always get it right; the agency has been under attack from within for years, as the Bush Administration has choked off funds and prefers the agency to bring cases for whites claiming reverse discrimination. So it is a victory for her to get this ruling.

It will be interesting to see if the Knicks continue to take this hard stand, or if they face reality and put some real money on the table. They can take this to trial, but they'll lose. Isiah Thomas hasn't had a winner since he left the court for the Detroit Pistons. He destroyed the CBA, tried to destroy the Indiana Pacers (he was interrupted from the mission when GM Larry Bird fired his ass), and is in the process of destroying the New York Knicks. You've got to have a big ego to fire Larry Brown.

NYTimes: [EEOC] Report Supports Claims in Suit Against Thomas

The commission’s investigation supported Browne Sanders’s contention that she had been a victim of more than one incident of harassment and that “she was subjected to a hostile work environment including, but not limited to, severe and pervasive verbal sexual harassment.”

The determination, by Spencer H. Lewis Jr., the district director of the [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission]’s New York office, said the Garden had failed to take “reasonable care to prevent or correct discrimination and harassment in the workplace.”

Lewis made his determination last Friday, and it was released yesterday. His two-page letter did not describe the scope of the commission’s investigation or name witnesses.

Lewis found that the commission’s inquiry supported Browne Sanders’s contention that the Garden had fired her in retaliation for reporting her claims to her supervisors. Lewis also wrote that there was probable cause to believe the Garden violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Garden, but not Thomas, was the subject named in the commission’s investigation.

NYDaily News: Ruling supports accuser's suit

Newsday: Point for MSG accuser
Agency affirms executive's claim she was harassed, fired for complaining and clears way for settlement talks

SI: Mess at MSG
EEOC: Evidence supports Knicks exec's claims

In The News Today, Oh Boy

Sen. George Allen's, R-Va., black cowboy boots, left, are a contrast to Democrat Jim Webb's combat boots as the two appear for their first debate Sunday, Sept. 17, 2006, on NBC's 'Meet the Press' in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)[Actually, Webb's boots are the combat boots of his son Jimmy, 24, a lance corporal in the Marines, who shipped out to Iraq this month.]

Maybe I should be looking at real estate further north, like at the North Pole. Billmon discusses British scientist's James Lovelocks predictions that within 10 to 20 years, irreversable climate change will raise global temperatures by 10 degrees: And People Call Me a Pessimist

You know that Canadian citizen, completely innocent, that we tortured? He confessed to attending training camps in Afghanistan, even though he'd never been there. Yeah we need more bogus intelligence like that. Glenn Greenwald, The fruits of the President's interrogation policies

Senator Macaca, George Allen, freaked out when a reporter asked him about reports that his mother is Jewish (which would make him Jewish). I guess he was hoping it didn't come out: Allen's efforts to hide his Jewish roots

Gee, I can't imagine why women don't report sexual harassment in the workplace, when employers are so committed to stopping it. Like our government. In today's Washington Post, we read the story of a 22 year old woman who's been arrested for failing to report for a second tour in Iraq after she reported sexual harassment by her superiors. And in contrast, the story of how the U.S. Postal Service's public affairs chief, accused of sexual harassment by several subordinates, went on a 4-month paid vacation. And now says he is due another 2 months of paid vacation.

More not-news-to-those-of-us-of-the-female-persuasion: Report finds bias keeping women out of science jobs; Academia urged to tackle gap in faculty numbers

And the creepiest news story of the day: that the US intends to nuke Iran's nuclear facilities, then lie about it and say we didn't use nukes. Any radiation is from the facilities we bombed. Scariest of all: I believe George W. Bush and Dick Cheney capable of this.

The Incompetence, The Corruption, The Cronyism in Iraq: A Story That Comes Three Years To Late From the InBed Media

U.S. troops relax in Baghdad's Green Zone, where many Coalition Provisional Authority staffers spent their days.
Photo Credit: 2003 Photo By Marco Di Lauro -- Getty Images Photo

The foxes fouled the henhouse! Who'da thunk it?

WaPo: THE EMERALD CITY
Early U.S. Missteps in the Green Zone
Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq

After the fall of Saddam Hussein's government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans -- restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O'Beirne's office in the Pentagon.

To pass muster with O'Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn't need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.

O'Beirne's staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade .

Many of those chosen by O'Beirne's office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq's government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance -- but had applied for a White House job -- was sent to reopen Baghdad's stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq's $13 billion budget, even though they didn't have a background in accounting.

The decision to send the loyal and the willing instead of the best and the brightest is now regarded by many people involved in the 3 1/2 -year effort to stabilize and rebuild Iraq as one of the Bush administration's gravest errors. Many of those selected because of their political fidelity spent their time trying to impose a conservative agenda on the postwar occupation, which sidetracked more important reconstruction efforts and squandered goodwill among the Iraqi people, according to many people who participated in the reconstruction effort.

The CPA had the power to enact laws, print currency, collect taxes, deploy police and spend Iraq's oil revenue. It had more than 1,500 employees in Baghdad at its height, working under America's viceroy in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, but never released a public roster of its entire staff.

Interviews with scores of former CPA personnel over the past two years depict an organization that was dominated -- and ultimately hobbled -- by administration ideologues.

It took the Washington Post and the rest of the corporate media three years to report on what was happening in the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq? It's not like it was boots-on-the-ground in-the-trenches work. These guys were sitting at desks squandering taxpayer funds, while the corporate media was covering bullshit terror alerts as though they were real. Which they still do.

I'll be impressed when the Post or some other organ of the Mighty Wurlitzer reports truthfully about how the Bushies are getting ready to do it again in Iran. Second verse, same as the first.

Clueless Dems

Why would anyone ever vote for these pusillanimous posers?

Submitted for your consideration, statements by two of the Democrats vying for the 2008 Presidential nod:

1. Evan Bayh (rhymes with 'sigh')

Quote of the Day
"I'm concerned that we not come across as whiners and that kind of thing, like a bunch of wimps who say mean old Karl Rove is on us again."

-- Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), quoted by the AP, about the Democratic party.

(Political Wire, via Suburban Guerrilla)

Ahhh....fighting for self-control, failing miserably.....note to Evan, you're supposed to trash THE OPPOSING PARTY, not YOUR OWN. Moron.

2. John Kerry

And today's "Shut the Fuck Up and Go Away" award goes to

...Senator John Forbes Kerry of Massachusetts, who, having allowed an unpopular president and a bunch of psychotic liars to kick the shit out of him in 2004 and then running home with his tail between his legs before the votes were even counted in Ohio (but not before stuffing his pockets with $14 million in leftover campaign cash), is now talking tough -- when it doesn't matter:

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) doesn't believe that Hillary Clinton has the inside track on the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination and says he would vigorously defend himself against new attacks by the Swift Boat team, according to an interview with The Examiner.

"I’m prepared to kick their ass from one end of America to the other," said Kerry, in a strong hint that he intends to run for president once again.

Typical of Kerry, too little, too late. If you want to vote for a Democrat who'll fight for your votes in Massachusetts, vote for John Bonifaz for Secretary of State on Tuesday. While John Kerry was running home with his campaign war chest, John Bonifaz bought a plane ticket to Ohio and fought there for a year to have all Kerry's votes counted.

Good News For Kirsten Gillibrand

The first ad should morph Abramoff's face into Sweeney's
NYTimes: Democrats Open Purse Strings for a 2nd Upstate House Race

WASHINGTON, Sept. 14 — The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee plans to pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into an advertising campaign trying to unseat John Sweeney, a Republican congressman from upstate New York, Democratic officials said on Thursday.

Now if we can just get Gillibrand or the party's ads to hit Sweeney hard. Enough with the namby-pamby getting to know you ads. Time to fight. Because if you don't fight, you don't win.

I like the tactics of Charlie Brown, who's running against John Doolittle, another Abramoff bagman, in California.

From TurnTahoeBlue: "It's Time For Doolittle To Give Back The Wages Of Sin"

Charlie Brown just started a new radio ad, accompanied by a new website, attacking Doolittle on his connections to indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his client the government of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory.

This is a transcript of the ad:

Most Americans have never heard of a place called the Northern Marianas Islands .

Most of us don’t know that in this far away American territory, forced abortions, sex slavery and sweatshops are all too common.

Most Americans don’t know about these terrible abuses. But Congressman John Doolittle does – and he has for almost ten years.

How did Congressman Doolittle respond after he learned about forced abortions, sex slavery and sweatshops?

Doolittle actually helped fund the local government that tolerated forced abortions. And he refuses to return campaign contributions tied to this corrupt government.

It’s time for Doolittle to give back the wages of sin. Time for John Doolittle to stop tolerating forced abortions and sex slavery.

Time for a change...

Please, find out more at Doolittlefacts.org.

I’m Charlie Brown and I approve this message. Join the fight at CharlieBrownforCongress.org. Paid for and authorized by Charlie Brown for Congress.

Gillibrand should be running similar ads. Why was the Congressman from the 20th New York Congressional District giving a speech in the Marianas Islands to the Saipan Chamber of Commerce in January of 2001? Why did he say he'd seen worse sweatshops in New York? Why did he have so many meetings with Tom Delay's chief aide in 2001, now-convicted felon Tony Rudy?

For an excellent review of Sweeney's role as Abramoff's bagman, see Lisa M.'s post at 20TrueBlue: Sweeney Defended Sweatshops and Lobbied for Abramoff (July 28, 2006)

See Also dailykos: CA-04: Brown Hits Doolittle Hard on Abramoff, Forced Abortion and Sex Trafficking

....Republicans tied to Jack Abramoff are vulnerable to attacks for their work to protect a system of sweatshops, human trafficking, forced prostitution and forced abortion on the Commonwealth of North Mariana Islands (CNMI)--a US Territory in the Western Pacific.

Entitlement

From Lamontblog:

A Thousand Words

Sen. Lieberman's car parked at Fairfield University this morning:

We're Melting

San Francisco Chronicle, via commondreams:
Even in Winter, Arctic Ice Melting
Alarmed Scientists Warn that Polar Thawing Threatens Wildlife and is 'Strongest Evidence Yet of Global Warming' in Region

The vast expanses of ice floating in the Arctic Sea are melting in winter as well as in the summer, likely because of global warming, NASA scientists said Wednesday.

[]

The size of this summer's Arctic ice won't be known for a few weeks because it usually reaches its smallest size the third week of September. Last year, scientists found that polar ice twice the size of Texas had melted since NASA started compiling satellite data 27 years ago. Scientists said there could be no ice left in the Arctic in the summer by the end of the century.

Until 2005, the wintertime sea ice -- which is thick and multilayered -- had been relatively stable. In the summer, the ice is thinner, more mobile and melts at the edges every spring before freezing up again in the autumn.

In the last two winters -- 2005 and 2006 -- the size of the sea ice was 6 percent smaller than average, the data show. The sea ice in the Northern Hemisphere covers nearly 10 million square miles in the winter. The melting -- most of it occurring in the eastern Arctic near the North Pole -- correlates with a rise in the ocean's surface water temperature.

If you saw An Inconvenient Truth (if you haven't, rent or buy it when it comes out Sept. 26th) this will send chills down your spine:

Serreze [senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo.] said he was surprised to see a new lake, or polynya, the size of Maryland, opening up in the sea ice north of the Beaufort Sea.

Another Reason To Support Eric Massa (NY-29) For Congress

Cheney is campaigning for his opponent, the Shotgun Senator, Randy Kuhl:

Raw Story: Cheney to stump for GOPer who bullied wife with guns

Roll Call excerpt:

If readers recall, widely reported divorce records showed that Kuhl, currently running for his second term, pulled not one but two shotguns on his wife during a 1994 dinner party at their home. Kuhl's ex-wife also described him as an abusive drunk who "hustled women."

Cheney, the man who may always be remembered for accidentally shooting his good friend on a hunting trip, has agreed to do a private photo-op at a Sept. 22 fundraiser for Kuhl in Rochester, N.Y. And, yes, you guessed it, Kuhl is considered vulnerable this year.

As one Democratic operative told HOH, "I can't tell what Cheney likes best about him—Kuhl's penchant for rubber-stamping the president or for combining beer with firearm use."

Eric Massa for Congress 2006

MainStUSA ActBlue Page

We Love Lists

Project Censored has issued its list of the Top 25 Censored Stories of 2007 (the stories you should be reading about, but won't).

#1 Future of Internet Debate Ignored by Media

#2 Halliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran

#3 Oceans of the World in Extreme Danger

#4 Hunger and Homelessness Increasing in the US

#5 High-Tech Genocide in Congo

#6 Federal Whistleblower Protection in Jeopardy

# 7 US Operatives Torture Detainees to Death in Afghanistan and Iraq

#8 Pentagon Exempt from Freedom of Information Act

#9 The World Bank Funds Israel-Palestine Wall

#10 Expanded Air War in Iraq Kills More Civilians

#11 Dangers of Genetically Modified Food Confirmed

#12 Pentagon Plans to Build New Landmines

#13 New Evidence Establishes Dangers of Roundup

#14 Homeland Security Contracts KBR to Build Detention Centers in the US

#15 Chemical Industry is EPA’s Primary Research Partner

#16 Ecuador and Mexico Defy US on International Criminal Court

#17 Iraq Invasion Promotes OPEC Agenda

#18 Physicist Challenges Official 9-11 Story

#19 Destruction of Rainforests Worst Ever

#20 Bottled Water: A Global Environmental Problem

#21 Gold Mining Threatens Ancient Andean Glaciers

#22 $Billions in Homeland Security Spending Undisclosed

#23 US Oil Targets Kyoto in Europe

#24 Cheney’s Halliburton Stock Rose Over 3000 Percent Last Year

#25 US Military in Paraguay Threatens Region

Via BoingBoing

Operation Photo Op, September 11th Edition, Day 1825

Surrounded by all the New Yorkers who love them, President My Pet Goat and the Laurabot snuck into Ground Zero for a photo op yesterday.


U.S. President George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush pay their respects at a pool of water after laying a wreath at the site of the World Trade Center in New York September 10, 2006. (Gary Hershorn/Reuters)

So they could take closeups like this, like it's a real ceremony:


U.S. President George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush lay a wreath into a reflecting pool at the site of the World Trade Center in New York September 10, 2006, during a ceremony to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks. (Keith Bedford/Reuters)

Hat tip to STOPGeorge on dailykos.

The Bush Economy

From the Detroit Free Press, a graphic showing how median incomes have dropped under C+ Augustus:



Via Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly.