While I like the renewed focus at the FBI on terrorism, I find their newest investigative power a bit alarming. Under new guidelines, agents don't have to be investigating an actual crime to perform surveillance operations. This means they can now monitor religious groups, Internet chat areas and websites. Previously these areas could only be monitored if agents were following a lead, developing a specific case, or had received a "tip".
When combined with the powers granted under the USA Patriot ACT, the FBI can now function as true secret police in way that hasn't been possible since the bad old days of J. Edgar Hoover. We are open to investigations like the one carried out by the FBI on Martin Luther King, Jr. during the civil rights era. Joy. It's is now legal for the Feds to monitor all of the dissident sites on the 'Net, which opens a lot of people up for harassment, especially those who have dedicated sites to calling for the impeachment of the President, questioning his legitamcy in office, or organizing peace protests.
I guess the doors have opened for the American version of the Gestapo, the Stasi, or the KGB.
So much for the land of the "free".
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30427-2002May29.html
I keep hoping that columnist Ann Coulture is just trying to raise a ruckus with her columns, but somehow, I don't think that's the case.
Most recently she's complaining that the FAA and the DOT won't authorize airlines pilot to carry guns in the cockpit, with the rationale that pilots need to spend their time flying the plane, not fighting off terrorists. This makes a lot of sense to me for a couple of reasons. First, if the pilots get themselves hurt or killed fighting bad guys, who's left to fly the airplane? Yes, modern autopilots are great, and can land the plane on their own, but they have to be told to do so, and they're far from perfect. Second, pilots aren't trained for law enforcement or combat (with the exception of former Marines), so what makes us think that they won't pull their weapon on some drunk, or that they'll hit their target?
It used to be that there was a strict marksmanship requirement for Air Marshals. If you didn't pass the test, you didn't get the job. The reason for this is pretty simple. If you miss your target while firing a gun on an airplane, there is a tremendous chance that you'll either hit an innocent passenger, or worse, hit a window or bulkhead causing explosive decompression, resulting in fatalities. It was recently announced that new Air Marshals won't be held to the old standard, which makes me think that pilots wouldn't be either. Needless to say, I wouldn't fly on an aircraft that had a poorly trained, but armed pilot. The Air Marshals will be bad enough.
Coulture seems to think the refusal to arm pilots is akin to the refusal to allow "trusted" passengers to be armed, which is even stupider. Would armed passengers reduce hijackings? Yes. Would they decrease air travel related fatalities? Not likely. Consider the case (pre-September 11) of the passenger killed by other passengers while be restrained on a plane. With all the stress and alcohol associated with flying, air travel with armed passengers could easily become gunfight at the OK Corral. Remember all of the freeway shootings in Los Angeles in the early 1990's?
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=108&e=1&cid=108&u=/020530/51/1m9op.html
By now we are all familiar with the professed devoutness of President Bush, Attorney General Ashcroft and their associates. This became something of an issue during the 2000 Republican primary campaign when the President used his supposed "rebirth" to combat the popularity of Arizona Senator John McCain, particlularly in South Carolina.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about the Christianity of the "Religious Right", because it seems to fly in the face of everything I learned in Church growing up. Granted, I was raised Catholic, meaning I wasn't expected to memorize any particular scriptures, but taught the meaning behind the scriptures. What I mostly pucked up can be summarized thusly (without the specifics of things like Crucifiction, Resurrection, Immaculate Conception, or plagues):
1. Treat other people the way you want to be treated.
2. Try to avoid strife.
3. Don't judge people because you aren't people either.
4. Share what you have with people who have less.
5. People usually deserve a second chance.
6. With any luck, the next life is better than this one.
I can't say I'm always successful at living by these guidelines, but I can say this: At the very least the politicians who play most on their religion, don't even seem to try. Politicians like the President and Attorney General appear, at least in public, to operate on a more Old Testament level. You know, eye for an eye, only the few may be saved, vengeful God portion of the Bible. It certainly doesn't seem that they live up to the claim that they are devout Christians to me.
At best they seem to be striggling with their faith, at worst it seems that they are using the belief of others to score political points. In the meantime, they push a political agenda that would seem to fly in the face of Christian Faith. The Rev. Jean Colman, a Methodist minister, illustrates this pretty well...
Memo to Congress
Make welfare reform reduce poverty, not just caseloads
By Jean Colman
In 1996, President Bill Clinton fulfilled his campaign promise of ending wel-fare as we knew it. By signing the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportu-nity Reconciliation Act of 1996, he ended over 70 years of federal support and commitment to poor families. With a swipe of the pen, Clinton told states that they could do what they wanted to, within some limited guidelines, with families on welfare. Most states have pushed them into jobs that do not provide a livable wage.
This year, Congress must reauthorize the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Republican proposals are looking bad, and we are working to ensure that Washington’s Democratic delegates join their party colleagues nationwide in voting them down. In the Senate, there’s hope for a better bill. But Washington Senator Patty Murray, a champion of women, children, and families, needs to speak up.
The Campaign for Washington’s Working Families 2002 is a coalition of over 100 organizations and individuals statewide, building congressional support for a plan that reduces child and family poverty. We want a welfare program that:
* ensures access to education and training as a way out of poverty,
* helps parents balance the needs of family and employment,
* restores benefits to legal immigrants,
* supports families regardless of composition, and
* works to strengthen families through work supports and a safety net.
Coordinating with national coalitions, the Campaign is seeing its work pay off. In the last eight months, we have held community meetings with Rep. Jim McDermott (D- 7th District) and Rep. Jennifer Dunn (R- 8th District) so they could hear from parents affected by the program. We are talking with the staffs of Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell.
Meanwhile, the action is heating up. On April 9th, House Ways and Means Human Resources Subcommittee Chair Wally Herger (R-CA) introduced H.R. 4090, the Personal Responsibility, Work, and Family Promotion Act of 2002. The bill largely mirrors the Bush Administration’s proposal.
Both the Bush and Herger proposals would limit what the state can count as a work activity, increase the number of hours a parent must spend in these limited activities, and not increase funding for child care or other support services. This would hurt all of the programs that actually help parents support their children. In this state, parents would no longer have work-based learning to gain skills that increase their earning capabilities. They would no longer have a Community Jobs program that places them in non-profits. They could no longer count the time that parents spend in counseling for domestic violence, in substance abuse or mental health treatment, or even in English as a Second Language classes, as eligible welfare-to-work training.
Combined with the scarcity of jobs, we could be forced to create workfare programs that provide dead-end, busywork jobs instead of much-needed education and training.
A vote on Herger’s bill is expected before Congress adjourns for its Memorial Day recess. Rep. Dunn has signed on.
That’s too bad, because there are better alternatives, even coming from Republicans. Representative Marge Roukema (R-NJ) introduced legislation called the From Poverty to Promise Act. It would make poverty reduction an explicit goal of TANF, increase funding to account for inflation, expand access to education and training, and soften the time limits.
We hope parts of this proposal will be added on to the Herger bill. That would be a victory — but still wouldn’t make Herger’s bill worthy of a Democratic vote.
There are bipartisan conversations among various Senators to identify principles to follow in the welfare reauthorization debate. These include increasing access to education and training, restoring benefits to immigrants, and increasing funding for TANF and child care. While they don’t go as far as we would like, they are a better starting place than what we have seen in the House.
Sen. Murray is in a good position to take a leadership role in this debate. She has standing as a senior member, a friend and colleague of Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, and a supporter of children and families. She should rise to the occasion. The state’s poor families are hanging in the balance.
Jean Colman is the director of the Welfare Rights Organizing Coalition, which helps welfare recipients advocate on their own behalf. She serves on the Steering Committee of the Seattle Human Services Coalition. To get involved in the Campaign, contact Julilly Kohler-Hausmann, (206)694-6796 or email:julillyk@fremontpublic.org.
This is the text of a letter I sent to my Representative on Monday:
I am writing you today in the hopes that I can convince you to join other members of Congress to demand an full, unfettered investigation to the events leading up to the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center.
Although the White House has admitted to having some limited warnings about possile hijackings of US Airliners by al-Qaeda, reports in the foreign press would seem to indicate that the intelligence agencies of our allies provided fairly specific warnings about impending terrorist activity.
Contrary to the White House's claims that there was no indication that an airplane might be used as a weapon, almost all of the warnings included information that terrorists would hijack an airliner and use it against a US or Israeli target on national significance. One warning mentioned that the target would indeed be the world trade center, another claimed that 25 terrorists were training for the attack.
Some of the intelligence forwarded to American agencies were allegedly gathered using Echelon by the BND (German Intelligence). In effect, we were warned about the attacks by allies that were using our own resources, and the only information we didn't receive were the date and time of the attacks.
Even if these press claims can be ignored or proven false, we still have a situaion where the Bush Administration had information about possible hijackings and failed to warn the airlines or airport security departments. The reason for this failure must come to light. We owe that to the 3,000 Americans who died at the World Trade Center during the attacks. We owe that to all of those who have had their civil rights illegally abridged during the past eight months.
It is time to bring this issue into the light.
Respectfully,
Chris Levesque
The question of the week, and likely for weeks into the future, is what did the President know? And when did he know it. The Administration is trying to side-step this, and is having a prety godd time of it. People simply don't want to believe that the President of the United States knew an attack was coming and did nothing.
I've seen four main tactics:
1. We thought the warnings were about "traditional" hijackings -- as if those are ok, and we should allow them to happen. Nevere mind that people get killed during them. I guess that Navy Seal that was beaten to death and tossed onto the tarmac was an "acceptable" loss.
2. Criticism of the President is entirely political. You people are forgetting who is in charge here. We're fighting a war. How dare you questions us. No we won't tell you anything about anything.
3. The terrorists are coming, the terrorists are coming! Rumsfeld, by way of Robin Williams, "We don't know where, we don't know when, but something bad...is going to happen".
4. It's all Clinton's fault. Yeah, the Clintonites chased Ossama all over the globe, and Sandy Berger gave Condi Rice a long briefing about the dangers of al-Qaeda, and there was the Rudman-Hollings report (which we scrapped), and we took $58 million away from the FBI's counter-terror guys, but it's all Bill's fault.
Let's take a look at these thoughtfully:
We thought the warnings were for traditional hijackings.
And we still did nothing. Sure the FAA may have gottena warning, and they claim to have passed that on to the airlines, but no one told the airports. Having worked at an airport with some dedicated people, I can say that at least in some places, changes would have been made. It would've been hit or miss, but some extra actions could have been taken.
If you accept that we first started getting warnings in April 2001, we still had six months to implement security changes at the nation's airports. And we didn't. You can claim that six months wasn't enough time for sweeping changes (and you might be right), but we did nothing.
It turns out that we had warnings that al-Qaeda hijackings would be different a lot earlier earlier than April of 2001.
Consider:
* Yossef Bodansky, director of the Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare in the US House of Representatives, said in 1993, "The training of suicide pilots started in the Busher air base in Iran in the early 1980s with some 90 Pilatus PC-7 aircraft purchased from Switzerland."
* According to a former trainee in Wakilibad, one of the exercises included having an Islamic Jihad detachment seize a transport aircraft. Trained air crews from among the terrorists would then crash the airliner into a selected objective -- Bodansky
*In December 1994, terrorists with ties to Osama bin Laden hijacked Air France Flight 8969. They loaded the plane with explosives and extra fuel, with the intent of ramming it into the Eiffel Tower. Commandos stormed the plane and killed the hijackers. -- NBC News
* Ramsey Youssef, who masterminded the bombing of the WTC, had detailed plans to hijack and crash commercial airliners into buildings in the US, and destroy 12 airliners during international flights over a two-day period. This plot was discovered by Philippine intelligence agents in 1995, and to the FBI. The plot was disclosed during the 1997 trial of Youssef. -- Boston Globe
* A 1999 US intelligence report said that, Osama bin Laden would hijack an airliner and fly it into government buildings like the Pentagon, CIA Headquarters, and the White House. -- AP
* During the investigation into the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, intelligence officials and FBI were alerted that two bin Laden associates had been trained as pilots. The FBI was warned in August 2001 that Zacarias Moussauoi was only interested in steering a plane-and specifically asked about New York City air space.
* David Shippers, who led the impeachment case against Bill Clinton, warned Attorney General John Ashcroft and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert that he had proof regarding a plot to use hijacked commercial airliners to ram the White House and Capitol. -- Info Wars radio program
All criticism is political
Well, yeah, some of it. This is where the Democrats get to remind people that the supposedly national defense oriented people in power were more or less responsible for the failures to stop the attacks, with the hopes of getting their guys back in office. This is how power politics is played. Hopefully, they'll be able hold themselves to scoring their points in a civilized manner, while at the same time holding those responsible for dropping the ball on this responsible.
This means that the Attorney General must be held accountable for telling DOJ employees to avoid public transportation starting in July, but not warning anybody else that there may be a problem. If I'd had the warnings Ashcroft's boys got, and for some reason decided not to warn the public, I'd have wanted more FBI and ATF agents on planes, not less. Then they get the opportunity to show that they're on top of things by breaking up hijackings. I can hear it now, "We're so good, we didn't need to warn anyone".
It also means that the middle managers at FBI that decided not to pursue the flight school angle should lose their jobs. With the years of notice they had, and specific pilots in training to keep an eye on, there is no excuse for not doing so.
Condoleeza Rice should also be on the block. I usually like her, and in her area of expertise she's really talented and knowledgeable, but she totally discounted all existing information and analysis on al-Qaeda and the Taliban. If nothing else, the nonsense about "traditional" hijackings should see her on the way out.
The leadership at both CIA and FBI should be removed. In fact, we need to clean house at both institutions. They all dropped the ball. If this means bringing people out of retirement, new recruiting, and getting help from the UK and others to create organizations where the warnings we had aren't discounted again, so be it.
The President. Sure he's popular. Sure Cheney is worse. But he was up to this to his eybrows. Even if he didn't know, the people he put in place did. This is one of those "the buck stops here" situations. He provided the direction for a lot of the folks who dropped the ball. The successes are his, and so are their failures.
Dick Cheney. Do I really have to explain this one? Oil ties. Power behind the throne. Refusal to release information. Court Orders to release energy documents. Despite what Howard Fineman said on MSNBC.com, Cheney is more like Darth Vader than Yoda. Or should that be Emporer Palpatine? That's Lord Sidious for people who've been to Attack of ther Clones.
Terror Warnings
How better to keep people from howling for your head over the above issues than to scare them to death?
At lunch today, I found a note tacked to the door with the new warning about bombs in apartment buildings, along with FEMA's sample Family Disaster plan. While it's nice to know that the management cares enough about their insurance liability to warn me, I live more than twenty miles from anywhere. Why would anyone blow up a small apartment complex in Longmont?
Add to that Dick Cheney's and Donald Rumsfield's vague "it's not if, it's when" warnings, and the sudden Statue of LIberty, Brooklin Bridge, Northeastern banks, and 4th of July warnings, and we're wagging the dog so hard that its tail may come clean off.
Give me some real warnings not these piddly, unsubstantiated attempts to cause me to live in fear. Seriously, does anyone really pay attention to these things? Do they work to scare people enough that they forget about all other issues? I sincerely hope not.
It's Clinton's Fault
Although the Bush Administration and the Republicans in Congress would like this to be true, it just isn't. The last (legitimate) Administration to hold office lived in deadly fear of Ossama's crowd. They used satellites and submarines and cruise missiles, and covert ops teams to try to get Ossama bin Laden (or his head). They even wanted to freeze assets of groups supporting him --- back in 1997. Yeah, they didn't do enough.
This coming from the people who cut the counter-terror budget at FBI by $58 million dollars, and scrapped every piece of Clinton information o planning related to terrorism or al-Qaeda. I hope everyone else is as impressed by the work the Bush Administration accomplished to combat terroris before September of 2001.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/Chin051902/chin051902.html http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/Ruppert051902/ruppert051902.html http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/02/05/22_ashcroft.html
Did President Bush really say that Cuba needs to have free and fair elections and market reforms while standing on stage with the "President" of Malaysia, one of the most totalitairn regimes on the planet? The quote I heard was ,"certifiably free and fair elections". This from the man who was "elected" based on votes in a state where election monitoring groups have they would not monitor elections there under the current election laws?
I get it. We can have ties with China, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and others because they don't "embarass" us by pointing out our flaws. Or is it because Ameican companies can make so mcuh money in those places? Hmmm....
Not that I support Castro. I just think that we're in bed with some people that are just as unsavory as he is. The whole thing is hypocritical.
After yesterday's revelations by the White House in a pathetic excuse for a press release, I am reminded of a quote used by two of my favorite authors, "never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence". I sincerely hope that this is the case now. I, along with most of the country, would like to believe that the President and his advisors simply missed the warnings from Echelon, from the FBI, from the CIA, and from five different foreign intelligence agencies.
It is easy to believe that the Bush team felt that the idea that 25 Arab men who were learning to fly airliners at U.S. flight schools on student visas were going to hijack airliners and crash them into the World Trade Center. If I wasn't a fan of Tom Clancy novels, I wouldn't believe such a thing either. But then I don't claim to be a foreign relations expert/defense expert like Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, or Donald Rumsfeld, either. These would be the people responsible for evaluating the information that Ari Fleischer tossed aside as nonspecific last night, and they are supposed to be experts. Of course, their expertise tends to be of the outdated, fight the Soviet Union in Central Europe variety, or the South American coup starting variety, or the rigging American election variety (oh, wait, that would Katherine Harris).
Unfortunately, a look at the evidence begins to lead me to a conclusion that is much worse than simple incompetence, and makes me feel like a conspiracy theorist. The two options I am left with after incompetence are that:
1. The Bush Administration knew, and decided that the attacks would not cause the damage they did to the WTC, but thought it could use the attacks to push through all sorts of things on its wish list, including more money for the military, revenge on the Taliban for not selecting UNOCAL for the Caspian pipeline, and the items in the USA PATRIOT Act.
2. The Bush Administration helped in some way with the execution of the attacks for the above reasons.
The attacks also let the President appear, well, Presidential for a change instead of a bumbling idiot.
The Evidence
Let's start with the newest piece of evidence that the Administration (and the FBI) took the possibility that the hijacking threat was real: this July 2001 article says that Attorney General John Ashcroft began flying military aircraft when he traveled for "security reasons". Previously, the only cabinet officers to so so were from the State and Defense Departments. I guess the FBI was taking it more seriously than Ari Fleischer would have us believe.
I mentioned yesterday that FEMA was deployed to New York City in the days leading up to September 11th. I haven't been able to find the article that information appeared in, but I found it on Buzzflash.com, which has headlines that are a bit over the top, but most of the links point to articles in the mainstream press. FEMA being there implies a level of foreknowledge that really frightens me. If we knew enough to deploy FEMA, why didn't we warn the citizens? Why didn't we evacuate the buildings?
In the past two weeks there have been accusations from FBI agents that their superiors ignored warnings about Arab men that were learning to fly airliners, but didn't really seem interested in landing. The men under suspicion included the September 11 hijacker, and Moussaoui, who is now on trial for his alleged role. Why weren't these men questioned, watched, or detained? Why were they allowed to board the planes?
Here are some more tasty tidbits:
* According to the September 14, 2001 edition of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the German intelligence service warned US and Israeli intelligence that Middle East terrorists were, "planning to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture," in June. The only way to get more specific is to announce the date and the target. This warning was evidently ignored. I hope.
* According to Le Figaro, on June 13th Egypt warned that an airplane loaded with explosives would be used in a terrorist attack. This warning was taken seriously enough that Italy deployed antiaircraft batteries around Genoa during the G-8 conference because an Ossama bin Laden video tape spoke of using this method to assassinate world leaders, including President George W. Bush.
Russian intelligence notified the CIA during the summer that 25 terrorist pilots had been specifically training for suicide missions. In an interview September 15 with MSNBC, Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed that he had ordered
* Russian intelligence in August to warn the US government "in the strongest possible terms" of imminent attacks on airports and government buildings.
* During the summer of 2001, Russian intelligence notified the US that 25 terrorist pilots were training for suicide missions. Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed that he had ordered Russian intelligence in August to warn the US government "in the strongest possible terms" of imminent attacks on airports and government buildings in an interview with MSNBC.
* According to London's Sunday Telegraph, the Israeli intelligence service delivered a warning to American intelligence services in August 2001 that followers of Osama bin Laden were entering the country to prepare "a major assault on the United States." The advisory spoke of a "large-scale target" in which Americans would be "very vulnerable." The Los Angeles Times confirmed that US officials had received the warning.
* No US intelligence agency issued warnings related to possible attacks, although it would appear that senior Administration officials were briefed and some department heads were issued warnings.
* $2.5 million in stock profits made when American Airlines and United Airlines stock prices fell have been left unclaimed.
* The CIA has high-level links to the officers of Deutsche Bank Alex Brown, the brokerage which many unusual trades were made leading up to September 11th, including trades related to Munich Re and the AXA Group, who insured the WTC. Do we really believe that Ossama bin Laden made these mysterious transactions?
Rumors
There are lots of rumors flying around that I haven't beena able to confirm. If even a few of them are true, we have a serious problem, and there are a slew of Administration officials that need to do some time in prison. Not being at war, I don't think a treason conviction would stick, which is just as well for our fearless leaders.
Here are a few of the rumors:
* The CIA met with Ossama bin Laden in Dubai while he was undergoing dialysis treatments.
* The Bush family has close business ties to the bin Laden family.
* The United States threatened the Taliban with open warfare after the Taliban refused to give UNOCAL a contract for the Caspian Sea oil pipeline.
* Executives from the top floors of the World Trade Center were evacuated shortly before the attack. (A note on this: the WTC's directory of security was killed during the attack, so I don't know that I buy this one.)
* Some of the hijackers rented a house two doors down from some of Ossama bin Laden's family in Falls Church, Va, which happens to be near the CIA's Langley headquarters.
* The flight school in Venice, Fla. that trained some of the hijackers was run by, or associated with, the CIA.
* The Pentagon began work on war plans for Afghanistan several months before the attacks.
What to Do?
Even if all of this is purely circumstantial evidence, it definitely shows that there were multiple warnings of impending attacks from multiple sources. At the very least officials at the CIA, FBI, and in the White House were negligent in their duty to warn the American people of impending attacks, and to do something to prevent them. No steps were taken to warn the airlines. No steps were taken to increase airport security. No Combat Air Patrols were placed over American cities until after the attacks.
So what do we do about it? Congress must insist on a full investigation of the events leading up to September 11th, including Bush Administration ties to Ossama bin Laden, warnings by intelligence agencies, stock purchases, the FEMA deployment, etc.. and the resignations of those involved. If the individuals won't resign they should be impeached. Followed by criminal charges. Three thousand Americans are dead, along with between three thousand and twenty thousand Afghani civilians.
With this hanging over their heads it is no wonder the Bush Administration refuses to recognize the International Criminal Court. They're afraid they'll end up in front of it as war criminals. Finally, Congress should demand the immediate repeal of the USA Patriot Act. We need our civil rights back. Without them the Republic is no more.
It's 20:09 MDT and the White House just admitted that they had "warnings" that al-Qaeda would hijack a U.S. airliner starting in thspring of 2001. This is obviously in response to multiple admissions from the FBI that they had warning not just of an impending attack, but of specific students training at flight schools in the United States for such an attack. This would appeard to be only part of the truth.
It turns out that we had lots of warning of the attacks on the World Trade Center, starting in April of 2001, that included the method and the target of the attacks. We received multiple warnings from the intelligence services of Russia, Germany, Israel, and Egypt that included a variety of information, including that the hijacked airplanes would be used to attack the Twin Towers. All of the warnings were ignored by the CIA, the FBI, the DOD, and ultimately by the President of the United States.
The warning from German intelligence , the BND, is perhaps the most troubling because it was based on information gathered using Echelon, a system that monitors telecommunications around the world. Echelon is, of course, run by the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and Australia. So Germany warned us of an attack on U.S. soil based on information gathered using our own intellignce network, and we ignored it. A description of the foreign intelligence warnings regarding the attack can be found here.
There are other items that would imply that the Bush Administration knew well in advance that the attacks would happen, where they would happen, and when they would happen. One report indicates that elements of FEMA were deployed to New York City a few days before the attacks. Other reports indicate that there was a significant amount of unusual stock activity surrounding American Airlines, United, and the companies that insured the World Trade Center, and that $2.5 million in unclaimed profits were made as the stocks lost value. There are claims that executives working on the upper floors of the towers were evacuated shortly before the attacks (I don't buy this one), and that the CIA met with Ossama bin Laden in Dubia in July 2001, and that warnings that the Taliban should take the "carpet of gold" offered in exchange for a Caspian Sea Oil pipeline, or face a "carpet of bombs".
It is now becoming obvious that despite the mealy mouthings of the Bush Administration, there was incontrovertible evidence that they knew about the impending attacks, and then used those attacks to shore up their domestic political standing. Since Sept. 11, law enforcement agencies have gottena wish list of powers they've tried to get for years, the President is suddenly seen as noble and honorable, no one asks questions about the conduct of the "War of Terrorism", or our support for Israel.
We now know why the Presidnet is against any Congressional investigation. He's afraid that Congress, the American people, and the world thyat he allowed the attacks on September 11th to occur, despite having plenty of notice. The Bush Administration may not have known the exact date of the attacks, but they had plenty of time to increase security at airports, or arrest the attackers before the attacks took place.
The President is definitely guilty of negligence, the Vice President is no better. It is time to impeach them both. Better yet, they should both resign.
Recently, I've been reading alot about the aftermath of the Nov. 2000 Presidential election, or more accurately its aftermath. I have to admit that at the time I was appalled that Republican officials were stonewalling hand-recounts, as if flawed machine recounts meant anything, when the problem was the way the machines were reading (or not reading) the ballots. I was disgusted when the Felonious Five stepped in to overturn the rule of law and picked their man. Think about it. A Supreme Court that keeps insisting that state law should be supreme, overturns a state process to get its own guy in office. No bias there at all.
Since that time in December, 2000, things have trickled out about the role of Florida in the election, and more recently about voting problems across the country.The big number that should make some things perfectly clear: in Florida there were 120,000 over-votes out of about 6 million votes cast. That's right 120,000 people ended up voting for President twice on the same ballot. That means that, for whatever reason, 120,000 people picked two separate people for the same office. Somehow, I don't buy that.
I also recently saw an analysis of case law regarding elections and recounts -- I'll dig up the link later. The gist is that all U.S. case law makes it clear that without a defined recount methodology, you cannot have a legitimate election in the United States of America. This case law goes back well over 200 years and would have been well known by every member of the Supreme Court. If they don't, or they're going to ignore it completely (they didn't even address the concept), the should be impeached. Immediately, if not sooner. At best this is unforgivable ignorance of the law, at worst...judicial misconduct.
The following are some fun items from a book called We Will not Get Over It:
* Former President Jimmy Carter said that his election monitoring group would refuse to monitor an election in a country if the process were like that in Florida.
* Al Gore won the popular vote by 540,000 votes. That's more than Kennedy or Nixon.
* This is the second time a stacked panel chose a Republican as President under dubious circumstances (Tilden beat Rutherford B. Hayes, but Hayes became President after a scandal involving votes in Florida).
* GWB had approximately $447 million dollars in campaign funds -- mostly from wealthy and corporate donors, including a Canadian Mining Company (wasn't there a ruckus about Chinese campaign contributions a few years back? I thought foreigners weren't allowed to contribute to US campaign finds?)
* The company hired by the State of Florida to purge voters did not verify by phone voters identified as ex-felons, even though required by state law and their contract. The company's director gave $503,000 to Republican commitees.
3,000 ex-felons whose voting rights ahd been restored were removed from the voter rolls, in violation of Florida state law. I don't know how I feel about felons voting, but the law is the law.
* In Seminole County, Republican Supervisor of Elections Sandra Goard, illegally allowed Republican volunteers to alter thousands of Republican pre-printed absentee ballots (with incorrect birthdates or no voter id number), and threw out Democratic absentee ballots with missing information. (Which gave GWB 2,000 votes)
* In Hillsborough County, Isis Segarra filled out abesntee ballots for non-disabled voters, in violation of Florida law.
* Okaloosa County sent out unsolicited absentee ballots in response to change of address notifications, in violation of the law, netting Bush 8,600 more absentee ballots than Gore.
* In Bay county, where more Democrats are registerd than Republicans, a suitcase full of absentee ballots was illegally submitted. The absentee margin for Bush was 6,000 greater than for Gore.
* Bay, Escambia, and Pinellas cCounties may have illegally sent absentee ballots overseas to troops after Nov. 7, 2000.
* Some military families voted in the state they lived in, and on absentee ballots in Florida. Being from a military family this one really bothers me I can't imagine anyone in the family, or even that I know in the Armed Forces now doing this. Having sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution those involved definitely know that this isn't allowed.
* Chris Carman, a member of the Manatee County Republican executive commitee voted both at the polls, and via absentee ballot.
* In Miami 144 invalid votes turned up, including one by a dead Haitian immigrant.
* In two precincts malfunctioning voting machines (13 of 20) were used anyway, in violation of state law.
* 19,120 votes in Palm Beach County were disqualified for having more than one vote on the infamous butterfly ballot.
* In Duval County there were 27,000 overvotes, more than 19,000 over what occured in the 1996 election.
* In Gadsen County 12.5% of votes were thrown out.
* 5% of voters were turned away because the state didn't file their applications to vote.
* 1,2786,916 Americans had their Presidential votes thrown out in 31 states.
* In four states uncounted the number of uncounted votes exceeded the margin of victory.
* In Chicago, up to 36% in 125 precincts either didn't vote for President or voted for more than one candidate.
* In Tennesee, black voters were intimidated by police and election workers, told to remove bumper stickers from vehicles, or denied access to polling places.
* One analysis by Sharman Braff concluded that many of Florida's 120,000 overvotes were deliberately spoiled by Republicans who massed punched holes in Democractic precincts (and there were no overvotes in areas using optiscan machines).
*20,000 Florida voters were purged from the rolls, and 50,000 to 1000,000 more were prevented from registering.
Obviously there is alot more to this than we've been led to believe about this. I'd like to know why the major media outlets haven't bothered to make an in-depth analysis of the November 2000 election. What possible journalistic reason would there be not to? Because the White House might get mad? Because people might get upset? Because the corporate owners of media outlets have something to lose?
Finally, we all know that Fox News (called Faux News be many) is biased in its commentary and it's relationships with politicians, and is basically unprofessional in most things. The folowing is on glaring example of how their real news is poor to horrendous.
Fox News Follies,
Continued Unfair And Unbalanced Reporting?
Phil Boyer is president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.
Editor's Note: The following is the complete text of an April 22, 2002 letter from Phil Boyer, president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, to Roger Ailes, CEO of Fox News Channel.
Dear Mr. Ailes:
Little did I realize our paths would cross, even though I went off into a totally different field than television, where you and I met and worked for so long. Actually, I do recall you had substantial experience working with candidates as a political advisor, so we have almost swapped places. Sadly, however, this letter is to complain about a story that I and many of our 380,000 AOPA members think crossed the line beyond the fair and accurate reporting that I know you personally promote. The report surrounded the so-called "threat" of small general aviation aircraft to nuclear power plants.
Reporter Douglas Kennedy misrepresented the facts and misled the audience. He claimed he rented a small airplane and made multiple passes over the Indian Point nuclear power plant, lingering in the area for twenty minutes. "No one warned the pilot of anything," Kennedy said. "No one at the plant, in fact, did or said a single thing in regards to the plane."
That was false and Kennedy knew it.
Your staff misrepresented the nature of the story to the flight school. They said they wanted to rent an airplane to photograph escape routes near the plant. Based on that representation, the pilot of the aircraft telephoned the manager on duty at the New York Terminal Area Radar Control facility and obtained permission for the flight.
The aircraft departed Teterboro with an assigned, discrete transponder code, and under direction of air traffic control. It flew northbound past the plant at above 2,000 feet, continued north for about three miles, then flew west for several miles, then south until about four miles south of the plant, then turned back upriver and flew past the plant again. Once well past the plant, the pilot turned around and flew southbound past the plant for a third time. The video crew requested another pass, but the pilot declined because he had already told air traffic control that he had completed the photo run.
The federal government knew who was onboard the aircraft and knew what the purpose of the flight was. The federal government maintained constant radar vigilance on the aircraft and remained in communication with the pilot.
The flight school verified the identities of your crewmembers before the flight, including making copies of their photo IDs.
Should anyone have been concerned about this aircraft passing the Indian Point power plant? Of course not. The flight had been cleared and was being tracked, the crew and passengers were known, the purpose of the flight approved.
Kennedy's story also did not fairly represent the threat of a general aviation aircraft crashing into a nuclear facility. He cited a nuclear activist, with no identified engineering expertise, claiming that a small aircraft could damage a nuclear facility, and "damage to the spent fuel pool could lead to a massive release of radioactivity, which would then threaten the entire New York metropolitan area..."
Yet independent nuclear engineers have confirmed for us that even an airliner could not penetrate the containment vessel house the nuclear reactor. Spent fuel rods are kept in steel-lined concrete "swimming pool" designed to withstand an earthquake measuring 6.6 on the Richter scale. Some thirty feet of water covers the fuel rods. Even if an aircraft were able to penetrate the building covering the storage pool, it couldn't get to the fuel rods. When impacted at aircraft speeds, water is harder than concrete. Pieces of the aircraft might sink down to the fuel rods, but it's extraordinarily unlikely that the fuel would be disturbed.
And Kennedy claimed that most nuclear plants "are near a major airport." He neglected to mention that all nuclear plants have been designed taking into account the plant's proximity to an airport; it's proximity to federal airways, and proximity to military aircraft training routes.
In sum, your staff misrepresented themselves and the facts to obtain a sensationalistic story that unfairly alarmed a trusting public. Our members had expected better from Fox News, and, frankly, you and I know well these facts spell poor journalism.
Sincerely,
Phil Boyer
Published: Apr 30 2002
I found this nifty little article about why Al Gore would've been a better President than our fearless leader. Regardless of what you may have thought about Gore during the election, and the nonsense the media allowed the Republicans to forcefeed people (the Internet thing springs to mind), he still is the better man for the job.
The Attorney General of Texas has ruled that despite the move of President Bush's gubernatorial records to his father's Presidential Library, the documents still belong to the state and must be made avaialbel to citizens of the state of Texas, just as if they were residing in Texas.
I guess the President won't be able to hide the records of his term as Governor, even though he seems to be trying really hard to make sure Presidential records stay hidden away. I'm glad someone finally told him "No" on this.
This is just one item that tells me that George W. Bush would be happier with the title "King" than "President". The whole "first Among Equals" concept seems to elude him.
How is that a politician can go around saying that he wants education reform and that he wants "No Child Left Behind" turn around and try to change the long-term interest rate structure on student loans, and have the media still act like he's great for the country?
The new plan changes the interest rates on consolidation loans, which allow students to take all of the loans they've accumulated during college and replace them with one new, larger loan at a fixed interest rate. The President wants to change that to make the interest rate variable. Even with set limits, this could cost students vastly more than the same loans do today (30% is the current estimate). The reason for this new idea is to "make up" a shortfall in funding for Pell Grants. Of course, the Pell Grant problem is due to a gigantic, poorly targeted tax-cut and massive over-spending in other areas, but let's not quibble. The President thinks it's a better idea to massively increase the debt burden for most students, in order to look good by saving grants for a few of them. Never mind that most students receiving Pell Grants also receive student loans. According to one source:
"On Pell grants, the problem is not congressionally caused shortfalls, it is cutbacks supported by President Bush. In his budget that abandoned any pretense of an education presidency, Bush's student aid plans would reach nearly 400,000 fewer low-income kids and cut the maximum individual grant to $3,900, which doesn't even keep up with increases in tuition and other costs. A generation ago, pre-Reagan, Pell grants covered more than three-quarters of the cost of a four-year public university; today the maximum doesn't even cover 40 percent." - Oliphant.
It also lets him attempt to blame Congress for the issue. Of course, the Republicans control the House, and the House controls spending.
The long-term effect will be simple. Combined with double-digit tuition increases, it will push the children of those middle class families that can't afford to put $100,000 in the bank tfor a public school education to either accept staggering debt loads or forgo college. It would be even worse for the children of the poor. The Bush Administration is pushing policies that will make vast amounts of money for their friends running financial institutions, and create a new underclass that is poorly educated, and with the flight of high-wage manufacturing jobs to cheaper locations (fueled by free trade and IRS loopholes), unable to get a decent job.
I'm not sure how this is supposed to "promote the common welfare", and I'm not sure how this plan is supposed to enhance access to education. I'm sure it must, oherwise the man who keeps saying that he wants education reform wouldn't be doing it. Right?
Instead of a rant today, I just have a few things for people to read and think about. Food for thought.
Why no investigation of Sept. 11th?
I guess it isn't just Arabs and Muslims who are terrorists.
In The Northwest: Ashcroft's power grab brings Joe McCarthy to mind
Wednesday, May 1, 2002
By JOEL CONNELLY
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER COLUMNIST
During times when Marxist rulers marked May Day by parading followers and showing state power, the United States countered with an observance called Law Day.
Celebration of our open society this year is, however, muted by Attorney General John Ashcroft's multipronged effort to restrict individual rights and seal off information.
Sixty years after Japanese Americans were marched down Eagledale Dock on Bainbridge Island en route to internment camps, America is again seeing detention without trial and secret deportation proceedings.
So what, you say.
Why should the rest of us worry if people with expired visas get shipped back to Somalia? Or if President Bush shuts down release of presidential records? Or if the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is, for the first time, given the power to classify documents as "secret?"
Why? Because history shows unchecked government power is used to victimize Americans of unquestioned loyalty. One of the Japanese American detainees shipped off as a boy today is U.S. secretary of transportation, a key post in the war on terrorism. Another, a World War II hero, is a senior U.S. senator.
Administrations of both parties lower the curtain of "national security" to conceal excesses and missteps. The head of Richard Nixon's "White House Plumbers," Egil Krogh, today practices law in Seattle and delivers periodic lectures on the abuse of executive power.
Having jailed 1,500 Muslims and Arabs after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Ashcroft Justice Department has launched a drive to deport large numbers of those with questionable immigration status.
In a country built on the Bill of Rights, an unholy trinity of rules has been decreed: "no visitors, no family, no press."
A man in Michigan named Rabih Haddad, who ran a charity alleged to have terrorist links, was detained for overstaying his visa. Barred from his deportation hearing, Detroit media outlets sued to gain access.
U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds last month ruled such cases are "historically open." She argued that Americans' feelings of security are enhanced by an accountable, responsible government.
"It is important," Edmunds wrote, "for the public -- particularly individuals who feel that they are being targeted by the government as a result of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 -- to know that even during these sensitive times the government is adhering to immigration procedures and respecting individuals' rights.
"Openness is necessary for the public to maintain confidence in the value and soundness of the government's actions, as secrecy only breeds suspicion as to why the government is proceeding against Haddad and aliens like him."
Beyond his detentions, Ashcroft is grabbing powers closer to where we live and work. Examples:
1. States rights are getting usurped. Ashcroft announced the Justice Department would prosecute Oregon doctors who prescribed drugs for patients wishing to end their lives under the state's "death with dignity law." The law was twice approved by Oregon voters.
U.S. District Judge Robert Jones blocked him, finding that the AG had "evidently sought to stifle an ongoing 'earnest and profound debate' in the various states."
2. Power has been centralized. Ashcroft has delivered the Justice Department into the hands of a cadre of top political appointees, repeatedly rejecting advice from local U.S. attorneys and his own professional staff.
"It's hard to get the balanced judgment needed when you sweep the career guys off to one side," noted Seattle lawyer Richard Ford.
With the specter of domestic terrorism and President Bush's sky-high poll numbers, few in Congress have dared criticize Ashcroft's assumption of powers to snoop and detain.
Even polite questions produced an outburst out of Ashcroft that could have come out of Joe McCarthy in witch hunts of the 1950s. "Your tactics only aid terrorists -- for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve," he told a hearing.
Ugly stuff. One of the few standing up to it was Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. "Who should be watching the watchers?" she asked Ashcroft.
He sneered at her, saying: "You remind me of a spate of cartoons that has appeared in the last week, and it's generally a kid sitting on Santa's knee and Santa saying, 'I know when you've been sleeping, I know when you've been awake, I know when you've been bad or good -- and the kid looks up and says, 'Who are you, John Ashcroft'?"
The AG's handlers thought it hilarious, but Cantwell quietly observed: "I'm not sure everybody in America is laughing at that."
One person not laughing is U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin, who ruled yesterday that the Justice Department illegally held a Jordanian college student to get evidence.
"If the government has a probable cause to believe a person has committed a crime, it may arrest that person," Scheindlin wrote. "But since 1789, no Congress has granted the government the authority to imprison an innocent person in order to guarantee that he will testify before a grand jury conducting a criminal investigation."
Ashcroft dismissed Scheindlin's opinion as "an anomaly." He should read it as a message on the rule of law.
P-I columnist Joel Connelly can be reached at 206-448-8160 or joelconnelly@seattlepi.com
The Ethanol Enigma
David Morris,
AlterNet April 25, 2002
Ethanol is the homegrown, renewable fuel both conservatives and liberals love to hate. They might change their minds if they better understood its remarkable history.
Before the Civil War ethanol, derived from corn or molasses, was one of the nation's best-selling chemicals. It was used primarily as an industrial solvent and illuminant.
To finance the war, President Lincoln imposed a Spirits Tax of $2.08 a gallon. Ethanol had to pay the tax because it is liquor, although at 200 proof it makes for a very potent drink. Other poisonous illuminants, like the newly introduced kerosene, were taxed 10 cents a gallon.
The Spirits Tax wasn't lifted until 1906, after the oil trust was formed and the automobile industry was born. Nevertheless, ethanol made a modest comeback. By the end of World War I ethanol production had returned to pre-Civil War levels.
Then, in 1919 disaster struck again, this time in the form of the 18th Amendment. Prohibition didn't actually prohibit the manufacture of fuel ethanol, but the Treasury Department issued very few production permits for fear that the ethanol would be diverted into the illegal alcohol market. To this day, the ethanol we put in our gas tanks bears a legacy from that era. Just before it leaves the refinery, ethanol must be poisoned to make it undrinkable.
In the early 1920s, ethanol suffered still another setback. Oil and car companies desperately sought an additive that would permit gasoline to burn uniformly in powerful engines. Ethanol was an attractive candidate. But to do its job well it needed 5 to 10 percent of the gas tank.
Oil companies were not about to relinquish that share of the transportation market to farmers, even though American agriculture had just plunged into a severe economic depression that would last two decades. Instead, the companies chose lead.
In 1924, despite the protests of many in the public health community, Ethyl Corporation, a partnership of Standard Oil and General Motors, offered leaded gasoline. By 1940, 70 percent of all gasoline contained lead.
With the end of Prohibition in 1933 ethanol production slowly revived. Then Japan cut off America's supplies of natural rubber. The nation's breweries were drafted into service to manufacture ethanol to make synthetic rubber. By 1944 ethanol production had reached 600 million gallons.
After World War II the market and political constituency for ethanol disappeared. The price of oil plummeted. The Marshall Plan generated an export market for American crops. Once again bioethanol vanished from the market.
Thirty years later twin oil shocks and the realization that leaded gasoline was a public health hazard combined to give ethanol another lease on life. Congress gave ethanol a handsome tax incentive, although not nearly as handsome as the incentives given for the gasification of coal or the production of nuclear power.
The incentive made the price of ethanol competitive with unleaded gasoline but the major oil companies still refused to give up a share of the gas tank.
The ethanol industry reemerged primarily by selling its product through independently owned and cooperatively owned gas stations, almost all of them in the Midwest.
The phase-out of leaded gasoline furnished ethanol another opportunity to become the octane-enhancing additive of choice. Instead, oil companies chose to raise octane ratings by increasing the portion of light aromatics like benzene, toluene and xylene in their gasoline. By 1990 as much as 40 percent of gasoline was composed of these highly toxic chemicals.
When it was discovered that benzene causes cancer, the 1990 Clean Air Act required oil refineries to minimize its use. The same act also required them to add oxygen to gasoline sold in highly polluted areas of the country.
Ethanol, an oxygen-containing octane enhancer, was ready. Instead, the oil companies embraced another 100 percent fossil fuel-derived product: MTBE. In l996, the country began using massive amounts of MTBE. Within months communities discovered MTBE in their ground water. By 2000 14 states, led by California, had passed legislation to phase out MTBE.
With the phaseout of MTBE, the ethanol industry geared up for a major expansion. Much of that expansion has occurred in farmer-owned facilities. In Minnesota, for example, 10 of the 14 biorefineries are farmer-owned.
By the end of this year, nine of the 11 ethanol facilities in Iowa will be farmer-owned. Farmer ownership gives taxpayers the biggest bang for their buck. Ethanol incentives overall increase corn prices about 10 cents a bushel, but when the farmer owns the biorefinery he may receive an additional $1 a bushel.
In 2000, California asked permission to allow oil companies to abandon oxygenates and reformulate gasoline once more, this time to increase the proportion of chemicals called alkylates. Last year President Bush denied its request.
Which brings us to this week's vote in Congress.
Over the past few months a compromise has been fashioned between the oil and ethanol industries. A provision of the energy bill would allow California and other states to rely on 100 percent gasoline. In return the nation as a whole would have to meet a modest renewable fuel standard.
Is it a perfect solution? No. Nothing coming out of Washington ever is. Will it be a boon to midwestern corn farmers? Yes, in the short term. But in the long term ethanol will be made from rice and wheat straw, municipal garbage, grasses and many other raw materials.
We should strive to have a biorefinery in every rural county, not only in Minnesota and Iowa, but in Massachusetts and California and New York. Will a renewable fuel standard benefit Archer Daniels Midland? Yes. But if the nation designs incentives that encourage modestly-sized, farmer-owned facilities, competition will flourish and local economies will prosper.
And after 150 years of struggle, a renewable fuels standard would mark a true coming-of-age of biofuels in America.
David Morris is Vice President of the Minneapolis and Washington, D.C. based Institute for Local Self-Reliance. He has written one book and many reports on ethanol and currently serves on a federal advisory council to the United States Departments of Energy and Agriculture.
Our President and his advisors keep finding new ways to limit our freedoms, and turn a nation that stands for freedom into something resembling a police state everyday.
It appears that the White House is providing funding, asistance, and training to Neighborhood Watch programs so that they can help ferret out "terrorists" across America. The idea being that people will spy on their neighbors and call the police whenever they see something they don't think is normal, or someone they think is "out of place". I guess that means that if you're new to a neighborhood and look Middle Eastern, you should start expecting a knock on the door from the local constabulary to "welcome" you to the community. Doesn't that sound grand.
The expanded Neighborhood Watch, which now has terrorism "prevention" as one of its main goals, is joined by Operation TIPS, "a nationwide program giving millions of American truckers, letter carriers, train conductors, ship captains, utility employees, and others a formal way to report suspicious terrorist activity." Just think. If you get anything in the mail that your letter carrier deems "subversive", he'll be encouraged to call the Feds.
Operation TIPS will be piloted in 10 cities, and involve nearly 1 million "operatives", that are supposed to report any "suspicious" activity they come across. I wonder if hiking through the woods with a foam sword in an IFGS game will be considered "suspicious"? Will going to an anti-WTO protest be "suspicious"? What about a ltter to the editor criticizing the President?
This is just the beginning of the type of spying on neighbors for the government that Hitler and Stalin used. The invasion of privacy that is just beginning with these programs is the antithesis of what our system of government is supposed to be about.
I'm beginning to wonder if Orwell wasn't just off by 20 years...
In any discussion about Thomas Jefferson (or his descendants), I have to start by saying that he is one of my few actual heroes. Yes he had faults, just like the rest of us, but I accept him for what he was: an innovative thinker, patriot, and a defender of freedom. Unformtunately he was also a slave owner, but then, many of the Founders were (and the sooner we deal with reality, as a nation, the better).
Slavery and descendents, of course, are the reasons that I bring Jefferson up. The Monticello Society, a group of Jefferson's (white) descendants have decided to exclude the descendents of Sally Hemmings from the family association. This is significant for a few reasons.
Sally Hemmings was one of Jefferson's slaves, whom, it was rumored had an affair with him. A few years ago, it was proved through DNA evidence, that her descendants were, in fact Jeffersons, over the protests of the Monticello Society. It would appear that Jefferson's white descendants were not satisfied with the court and scientific evidence, and commissioned a study that shows that it was more likely Thomas Jefferson's brother who had the affair with Sally Hemmings.
I have to admit, that I haven't read the new report, but I think it's kind of convenient. "Yes, you people are part of the family, but you're from the other part,and, therefore, not important". Sounds like the decsendants of one of America's greatest leaders, the man who penned the Declaration of Independence, had a major hand in the U.S. Constitution, was our 3rd President, and helped fight the Alien And Sedition acts of 1798, are not living up to his heritage.
It is obvious, at least to me, that the Monticello Society is going to extreme measures to keep out a group of "undesirables", and sullying the name the seek to protect in the process.
Because it is now fashionable to call anyone who takes up arms against an oppressor a "terrorist"(in places like China, where Tibetans have been resisting since the 1950's), I thought it would be education to post this Common Dreams article on the topic. This is important to me, because in the 1970's and 1980's we were frequently called on to support those who fought the forces of communism and other dictators, and many people had the opinion that oppressed people everywhere should rise up to defend their inalienable rights. I guess the "War on Terrorism" has changed that.
My thought is that our present leaders would consider George Washington, Thomas, Jefferson, Paul Revere, Tom Paine, Nathan Hale, et al to be terrorists if they really believed the nonsense they spew forth on a daily basis.
The following article makes me particularly proud to be an American.
Published on Wednesday, May 1, 2002 by CommonDreams.org
What Is A Terrorist?
by Jeff Cohen
ter·ror·ist (ter'er-ist) n. 1. One who engages in acts or an act of terrorism.
2. One who leads an armed group that kills civilians as a means of political intimidation -- unless he terrorizes Haitians while on the CIA-payroll, as did 1990s death squad leader Emmanuel Constant, in which case the U.S. refuses to extradite him to Haiti, even after Sept. 11, 2001.
3. One who targets civilian airliners and ships -- unless he blows up a Cuban civilian airliner, killing 73 people, and fires at a Polish freighter, like Orlando Bosch, in which case he is coddled and paroled by the Bush Justice Department in 1990, and his extradition is blocked.
4. One who leads a group that engages in kidnapping and murder -- unless the victims are Hondurans attacked by CIA-backed death squad Battalion 316, in which case Battalion architect Gustavo Alvarez becomes a Pentagon consultant, while the then-ambassador to Honduras who downplayed the terror, John Negroponte, is appointed US ambassador to the United Nations days after Sept. 11.
5. One who uses rape and murder for political purposes -- unless the victims are four US church women sexually assaulted and killed in 1980 by members of El Salvador's U.S.-backed military, in which case excuses and distortions pour forth from then-U.N. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick ("these nuns were not just nuns; they were also political activists") and Secretary of State Al Haig (the nuns "may have tried to run a roadblock").
6. One who designates civilians as "soft targets" to be attacked in the cause of political transformation -- unless the targets are Nicaraguans killed by Contra guerrillas armed and directed by the US who, according to Human Rights Watch, "systematically engage in violent abuses…so prevalent that these may be said to be their principal means of waging war."
7. One who facilitates a massacre of civilians -- unless the victims are 900 Palestinians shot and hacked to death in the Sabra and Shatila camps by Lebanese Christian militia as Israeli soldiers stood guard, in which case Israel's then-Defense Minster (now Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon remains a US "War on Terrorism" ally after being censured as indirectly responsible for the massacre by an Israeli commission of inquiry.
It appears that the FBI and a murky new part of the Dept. of Transportation have gotten together to create "no-fly" lists to keep "suspicious" people from getting on flights. It would appear that the lists include such dangerous individuals as antiwar nuns and priests an other peace activists. If you are unlucky enough to be on the "no-fly" list, be prepared to be pulled aside when you attempt check your baggage, and then detained long enough that you miss whatever flight you were supposed to be on. And no one will be able to tell you why you were on the list, who put you there, or how to get off the list.
Of course no one seems to know how the list is generated or by whom, and no one will say how large the list is, or who is likely to be on it. From the experience of one group that tried to fly to Washington, D.C. from Milwaukee, it may simply be that you're on the list because you want to use your First Amendment rights to free speech and assembly. If, that is, your opinions differ from those of the government.
If such lists are used, and you get detained for no reason that the government will give, it is almost certainly a civil rights issue. The 4th Amendment is supposed to protect us from unreasonable search and seizure of ourselves and our property, and it would certainly seem that if you don't have a criminal record, don't belong to a terrorist or other criminal organization, that there must be some reason beyond being on a list compiled by a faceless bureaucrat to detain you.
I used to believe that this sort of thing was in the past for the United States, sadly, the scales have been lifted from my eyes. I guess it's fitting that I chose "Paul" as my Confirmation name....
http://www.progressive.org/webex/wxmc042702.html
I just don't know what to make of this story from San Diego. Evidently school administrators there think that not only is it their busniess what kind of undergarments female highschool students are wearing, they think that they should be allowed to visibly verify the type of underwear in front of other (male) students, staff, and police officers. The school district is "investigating" the problem. I would've already filed a lawsuit, and in the case of some of the students, filed assault charges, and possibly sexual harassment charges.
There is absolutely no excuse for school administrators to lift the skirts or look down the blouses of any student, for any reason. Period.
I could've sworn there was something in the Bill of Rights about unreasonable searches...
A Federal Judge has ruled that video games are not protected speech, saying that the have, "no conveyance of ideas, expression, or anything else that could possibly amount to speech. The court finds that video games have more in common with board games and sports than they do with motion pictures."
If this is the case, why the uproar over Doom contributing to school shootings? Why protest the release of the bigot's favorite game, Ethnic Cleansing (where you are encouraged to kill blacks and Jews).
Of course, it appears that the Judge only examined first-person shooters (and only four of them) without much plot. He missed all of the Star Wars, Star Trek, fantasy role-playing games, etc... is saying that in a society that makes movies based on video games (Mortal Kombat, Super Mario Brothers, Final Fantasy, Double Dragon, Wing Commander, etc...) that the movies are protected speech, but not the game that inspired the movie. What about Deer Avenger which has an anti-hunting message (a deer hunts the hunters)?
What does this mean for online environments like EverQuest which is claimed by some economists to have a larger economy (in US Dollars) than all but 17 of the world's 162 or so nations?
Basically, this guy is saying, I don't see the value so it isn't protected speech. Of course, he left pornography, Harlequin Romances, and supermarket tabloids in the category of protected, so we know what level he's operating at.
Does it really surprise anyone that some Senators have finally dug up some evidence that makes it look like the Oil companies are up to something with gasoline refining and gas prices? Did anyone really think they weren't? Think about it, we all buy gas regardless of the price, which means that if they can conceivably find an excuse to raise prices, they will, and they'll try to keep them just below the point that the outcry cause the government to step in. Note what happened with fuel prices the past few years. It's awfully convenient that before and during the 2000 election, gas prices were at record highs, but as soon as George W. Bush enters office the prices drop precipitously.
Sen. Carl Levin has even dug up a 1999 BP Amoco memo that, "outlined a series of actions that could help maintain high prices in the Midwest, including shipping gasoline to Canada or getting other refiners not to ship fuel into the region." The memo also appears to address, "significant opportunities to influence" the balance of supply and demand in the tight Midwest gasoline market to assure higher prices."
The Senator's report doesn't find any evidence of actual collusion between oil companies, but says that it appears that there might easily be something of the nature going on. Predictably, the oil industry is denying everything, and at the same time trying to keep us from having more fuel efficient vehicles, or using anything but oil fired electric generation plants.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/04/29/national/main507550.shtml
http://www.senate.gov/~levin/floor/043002cs1.htm
Today is the day that labor unions and socialists everywhere celebrate. Except in the US. We, of course, not wanting to be associated with all of those Communists and Socialists, and being conflicted about how we view organized labor, celebrate on Labor Day in September. Check out the festivities at http://www.mayweek.ab.ca For those of you that are interested, today is also my Third Wedding Anniversary, not that that has anything to do with the rest of the celebrations around the globe. It's important to me, though.