Three Yemeni nationals who were arrested in late 2003 say they were transferred to U.S. custody and kept isolated in at least four secret detention facilities that Amnesty International officials believe could be part of a covert CIA prison system...
During their separate incarcerations, the detainees were never visited by the International Committee of the Red Cross, never had access to lawyers, were unable to correspond with their families and had no contact with the outside world, the report said. Their families believed they were dead or were told that they had gone to Iraq to fight the United States.
The accounts, taken in independent interviews by Amnesty International researchers over the past few months, appear to be consistent with reports of a network of secret CIA detention facilities, according to the report. The detainees could not determine where they were because they were hooded during the flights, but because of the travel time they assumed they were in Europe or the Middle East, according to Amnesty International...
Salah Ali and Muhammad Bashmilah, who were living in Indonesia, were arrested in August and October 2003, respectively; Ali in Jakarta and Bashmilah in Amman, Jordan. They were taken to a Jordanian prison and tortured -- badly beaten and chained in uncomfortable positions -- by Jordanian authorities before being transferred to U.S. custody, according to Amnesty International. Both men had traveled to Afghanistan in 2000 to learn about jihad, but neither man fought against the United States, according to FitzGerald.
Ali said he was stripped and beaten with sticks by a ring of masked soldiers. "They tried to force me to walk like an animal, on my hands and feet, and I refused," Ali told Amnesty, "so they stretched me out on the floor and walked on me and put their shoes in my mouth."...
Such "incommunicado" detentions are against international standards but are consistent with recent reports of how the CIA operated its detention network.
Manfred Nowak, the U.N. rapporteur on torture, said in an interview last week that secret facilities are a particularly important issue because there is no outside oversight and no ability to know which detainees are in custody or where they are held. He condemned the practice.
"Incommunicado detention forms inhumane treatment in and of itself," Nowak said.
Monday, November 07, 2005
Secret detention facilities= the horror of the gulag
Good News
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 6 - A startling change has come over California's larger-than-life governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, as voters prepare to head to the polls on Tuesday for an unpopular statewide election. His television advertisements have taken on an uncharacteristic tone of humility. And ordinary people, no longer awed by his Olympian1 persona, are openly challenging him in public.
The four ballot measures Mr. Schwarzenegger supports are trailing in the polls, and his re-election prospects next year appear, for now, to be dimming. His approval ratings are in a tailspin, and his stage presence has been drained of much of its bombast and bluster.
At a televised forum here last week, with audience members picked to represent a cross-section of voters, several questioners interrupted Mr. Schwarzenegger and accused him of distorting facts to sell the four ballot measures, which are among eight up for a vote in an election ordered specially by the governor.
Mr. Schwarzenegger, a Republican, was explaining Proposition 75, a measure he favors that would require public-employee unions to receive the written permission of members before their dues could be used for political campaigns.
Democrats and union leaders who oppose the proposition have called it a naked attempt to silence the unions' political voice. The governor says the proposition is about protecting workers' paychecks.
An audience member who gave his name as Chris Robeson and said he was a health care worker from Camarillo angrily cut the governor off. "That's just Rovian spin," Mr. Robeson said, referring to Karl Rove, the White House political guru. "That's fraudulent."
Which is why George W. Bush does the handpicked thingies; he can't stand the truth.
1. A subtle reference to "Hercules in New York," perhaps? A conservative would call this "liberal bias," but I'd call it wallowing in understatement.
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Yeah, keep right on going, there's no subtext here...
BRASILIA, Nov. 6 - President Bush, in tough remarks aimed at Venezuela's leftist president, Hugo Chavez, called on Latin America today to choose between two competing futures - an American-supported "vision of hope" and another that "seeks to roll back the democratic progress of the past two decades."
Such a democratic retrenchment, the president said, would be "playing to fear, pitting neighbor against neighbor, and blaming others for their own failures to provide for their people."
Mr. Bush spoke before Brazilian business leaders, diplomats and students at the luxury Blue Tree Park Hotel, in an isolated section of the capital, and did not mention Mr. Chavez by name.
But his barbs at the populist president were clear, and were in effect Mr. Bush's response to the fiery populist who led an anti-American rally of more than 25,000 people on Friday in Mar Del Plata, Argentina, while Mr. Bush was attending a summit meeting there.
Mr. Bush's remarks were also directed in general at Latin America, where recent financial shocks have led to a disenchantment in young democracies like Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Argentina, in particular, that have not delivered the social and economic justice expected at their birth two decades ago. The administration worries that the region may slip into the authoritarianism of the past, and that other leaders like Mr. Chavez may emerge.
"Only a generation ago, this was a continent plagued by military dictatorship and civil war," Mr. Bush said. "Yet the people of this continent defied the dictators, and they claimed their liberty."...
Yeah, the CIA at the instigation of Republicans had no role in any of this. Riiiighhht...But there's a nuggest of truth buried in this Times bit:
Mr. Bush, who was in the Brazilian capital on the third day of a four-day trip to Latin America, tried earlier today to minimize the differences with Brazil and three of its neighbors that led to the collapse of trade talks late Saturday in Mar Del Plata.
Standing at the side of the Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Mr. Bush acknowledged that to satisfy Brazil, which has the largest economy in South America and is co-chairman with the United States in the trade talks, he would have to reduce United States tariffs on Brazilian products and also cut back on billions of dollars in subsidies paid to American farmers and agri-businesses.
Mr. da Silva had opposed the American timetable for the talks in Mar Del Plata, preferring to await the outcome of global negotiations sponsored by the World Trade Organization. Brazil has long complained that trade barriers have limited its ability to sell products like oranges, sugar and cotton in the United States, and has in fact obtained rulings in its favor from the World Trade Organization.
"I heard that loud and clear," Mr. Bush said under a tent at Granja do Torto, Mr. da Silva's weekend farm just outside the capital. "And so recently I made a statement, or a series of statements, that said the United States will reduce subsidies and tariffs, so long as we get the same treatment from trading partners."
"The same treatment?" Even Steven? Well, you can imagine what that might involve...
Bad brains...
I sit in wonder when I contemplate how otherwise intelligent people can be hoodwinked by the proto-fascists of the Bush regime. It's not like they're good liars, or even good proto-fascists or propagandists. In fact, Fox News is pretty bad propaganda compared to what I used to hear from Radio Havanna. Fox is more like the way Radio Tirana used to be when Enver Hohxa ran Albania. So ridiculously false yet compelling.
So being a bit bored this morning, I happened over to Glenn Reynolds. Besides, the shit's hitting the fan, so to speak, re: Republicans, Bush, Rove, criminality, Alito being unfriendly to pretty much anybody who's not an "artificial person," and basically the withdrawl of even the pretense of the mandate of heaven.
So Glenn points me to the illustrious Victoria Toensing.
Apparently Ms. Toensing doesn't realize:
1. The issue of whether or not Plame was a covert operative is pretty much already decided, and if Ms. Toensing wasn't motivated by her 15 minutes of fame on the right-wing talking heads shows, she'd be honest enough to understand that an indictment is issued by a grand jury when they've determined there's a preponderance of evidence in the indictment. Among the facts therein was that indeed, Plame was covert. That wasn't ever an issue.
2. There's other laws besides the Intelligence Identities Protection Act in play here, among them, the Espionage Act. And Toensing wasn't exactly, shall we say a lawmaker at the time, only the person who drafted it.
3. Minerals ("yellowcake") are not in and of themselves weapons of mass destruction.
4. What does the signing of a confidentiality agreement have to do with anything? Oh, yeah, they're pissed because Wlson called the Bush regime on its lies. Remember, a covert operative was outed. I would suspect also that there is a good reason why such an agreement wasn't signed.
5. Ms. Toensing's obviously got no idea of what covert operatives do. Bush pere was head of the CIA. Can we assume that Barbara Bush is a spook because Bush was also chief diplomat to China at one time?
6. The CIA is not an agency in the Justice Department. It's in the Defense Department.
This is the kind of garbage that passes for right-wing discourse these days, and if anyone gives credence to this kind of thinking, they're basically believing in fantasies.
Holy cow, Bush really can be impeached for lying about Iraq
I had thought this was just something that people talked about because they were angry that Bush lied over Iraq. But the Left Coaster's analysis of why Reid did what he did in "going into conference," points out that evidently Bush violated real laws in doing this Iraq adventure.
It really is time for Bush to resign.
Saturday, November 05, 2005
Supboena time for Andrew P. Napolitano
According to Media Matters (which doesn't provide a timeline, and neither does Napolitano):
On the October 31 broadcast of the nationally syndicated radio show The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, guest host Andrew P. Napolitano -- who serves as Fox News' senior judicial analyst -- cited "at least one" of his Fox News colleagues who Napolitano said claimed to have been present at a party where former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV introduced Valerie Plame as "my CIA operative wife." Napolitano used this anonymous claim to question whether Plame "was, in fact, undercover" when her identity as a CIA employee was allegedly leaked to syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak, who published it in a July 14, 2003 column. I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, was indicted on October 28 for obstruction of justice, perjury, and false statements in connection with the leak investigation.
Napolitano did not explain why his mystery Fox News source has not publicly reported the story. Nor did he explain the apparent discrepancy between this claim and the Libby indictment, which states: "At all relevant times from January 1, 2002 through July 2003, Valerie [Plame] Wilson was employed by the CIA, and her employment status was classified. Prior to July 14, 2003, Valerie Wilson's affiliation with the CIA was not common knowledge outside the intelligence community."
So I guess Mr. Napolitano will be expecting to hear from Patrick Fitzgerald.
technorati tags: Treasongate, Faux News, Valerie Plame, Bush, Republican Agenda,
More Bush Regime Corruption
Let's see if the people decrying the oil for food scandal also speak up about this:
An auditing board sponsored by the United Nations recommended yesterday that the United States repay as much as $208 million to the Iraqi government for contracting work in 2003 and 2004 assigned to Kellogg, Brown & Root, the Halliburton subsidiary.
The work was paid for with Iraqi oil proceeds, but the board said it was either carried out at inflated prices or done poorly. The board did not, however, give examples of poor work.
Some of the work involved postwar fuel imports carried out by K.B.R. that previous audits had criticized as grossly overpriced. But this is the first time that an international auditing group has suggested that the United States repay some of that money to Iraq. The group, known as the International Advisory and Monitoring Board of the Development Fund for Iraq, compiled reports from an array of Pentagon, United States government and private auditors to carry out its analysis...
The K.B.R. contracts that have drawn fresh scrutiny also cover services other than fuel deliveries, like building and repairing oil pipelines and installing emergency power generators in Iraq. The documents released yesterday by the monitoring board did not detail problems with specific tasks in those broad categories, but instead summarized a series of newly disclosed audits that called into question $208,491,382 of K.B.R.'s work in Iraq.
A member of the monitoring board said questions about the contracts "had been lingering for a long time." Once the audits are completed, said the board member, who asked not to be identified because he did not want to be seen as speaking for the United Nations, the results will give the Iraqi government "the right to go back to K.B.R. and say, 'Look, you've overbilled me on this, this is what you could repay me.' "
The monitoring board authority extends only to making recommendations on any reimbursement. It would be up to the United States government to decide whether to make the payments, and who should make them. But Louay Bahry, a former Iraqi academic who is now at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said the board's findings would stoke suspicions on the street in Iraq, where there had always been fears that the United States invaded the country to control its oil resources.
"Something like this will be caught in the Iraqi press and be discussed by the Iraqi general public and will leave a very bad taste in the mouth of the Iraqis," Mr. Bahry said. "It will increase the hostility towards the United States."
The audits may also come at a bad time for the Bush administration, since Vice President Dick Cheney's former role as chief executive of Halliburton has led to charges, uniformly dismissed by Mr. Cheney and the company, that it received preferential treatment in receiving the contracts. The early Kellogg, Brown & Root contracts in Iraq were "sole sourced," or bid noncompetitively.
So the "judge"is not unbiased
Not that it comes as any surprise, but "Judge" Alito doesn't like the common man, be it the laborer, the consumer, or the shareholder:
WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 - Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. has reliably favored big-business litigants as he has pushed the federal appeals court in Philadelphia in a conservative direction.
His extensive paper trail of 15 years of opinions reveals a jurist deeply skeptical of claims against large corporations. A review of dozens of business cases in which Judge Alito has written majority or dissenting opinions or cast the decisive vote shows that, with few exceptions, he has sided with employers over employees in discrimination lawsuits and in favor of corporations over investors in securities fraud cases.
Judge Alito, President Bush's choice to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, cast the decisive vote in a case involving a major steel company, and in another involving a large chemical maker, over environmentalists in pollution cases.
He has set aside punitive damages in some cases and reduced them in others; has handed down dissents that, if they became law, would impose higher burdens for workers to successfully sue their employers for discrimination; and has routinely upheld restrictive arbitration clauses that have limited the remedies available to plaintiffs. (In a rare instance of setting aside an arbitration decision, he reversed an arbitration panel that had ordered the reinstatement of an intoxicated seaman on a moored oil tanker against the wishes of his employer, Exxon.)
In several cases, Judge Alito has found for the defendants facing accusations of antitrust violations, including one case in which he twice found in favor of a monopolist, 3M. (In that case, LePage's v. 3M, his view was rejected by a vote of 7-to-3 by the full circuit.) And by articulating a narrow view of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, he is viewed as a judge who would be skeptical of the involvement of federal regulators in matters he views to be strictly within the province of state officials.
It is such business cases, which arise far more often than privacy and abortion cases, that are the bread and butter of the appeals courts and the Supreme Court. And, according to his supporters and detractors, it is where Judge Alito has left his mark in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Judge Alito's record in business cases presents some political strengths and weaknesses as he heads into his confirmation hearing, scheduled to begin Jan. 9. Major business groups are preparing to spend millions of dollars to lobby on his behalf, and may help him with pivotal Democrats. Liberal groups, meanwhile, have begun to cite his record to make the case that he is insensitive to the plight of minorities and the environment.
And that, folks is where the rubber hits the road.
What we have to do is to remove the legal abomination that equates corporations to people.
Friday, November 04, 2005
Companies I'm glad I don't work for: Procter and Gamble
I had the distinct pleasure - or is it schadenfreude?- of hearing a talk by Gilbert Cloyd, CTO of Procter & Gamble (be sure to click that hyperlink and surf around there)who discussed P&G's "Connect + Develop" "strategy."
They basically outsourced 50% of their R&D budget,... to what effect?
Well, they got cool packaging for Hugo Boss cologne.
But Charmin toilet paper still is a problem if you've got a 1 gallon per flush toilet last time I checked.
Something is going on in South America and you don't know what it is. Neither do I. The NY Times probably doesn't either.
This article is a jarring bit of contradiction, illogic, misinformation, and just plain ol' Alice-in-Wonderland weirdness.
It is particularly cruel and unusual punishment for the NY Times to foist this on us first thing in the morning, before coffee is made.
MAR DEL PLATA, Argentina, Nov. 3 - President Bush arrived in this beach resort city on Thursday night for a gathering of Western Hemisphere leaders after one of the worst weeks of his presidency, only to be greeted by strong anti-American sentiment and taunts from Venezuela's populist president, Hugo Chávez.
Mr. Chávez, who has repeatedly accused the Bush administration of trying to assassinate him and invade his oil-producing country,...
Let's stop right there. Didn't
- The US previously help out an attempt to oust Chávez?
- Didn't the US pick fights with Iraq, China, Syria, Canada, ...under Bush's watch?
So it's not like it's just something Chávez is saying, is it? Even if he's paranoid, he probably has real enemies?
Mr. Bush and Mr. Chávez are expected to see each other Friday in a group session at the opening of the Summit of the Americas, a two-day, 34-nation gathering. The meeting is officially to focus on creating jobs and promoting democracy. But Mr. Chávez said this week that his main goal at the meeting was the "final burial" of the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas accord, which is already stalled....
Chávez's main goal is not a contraction on "creating jobs and promoting democracy" as I see it. After the experience of countries in that area under "globalization" - say Argentina- it's clear that sometimes jobs and democracy depend on some limits to globalization.
Mr. Bush did not denounce a longstanding request from Mr. Chávez that the Argentine government build a nuclear reactor in Venezuela for energy production.
"I guess if I were a taxpayer in Venezuela, I would wonder about the energy supply that Venezuela has," Mr. Bush said in an interview at the White House on Tuesday with a group of reporters from Latin American publications. "But maybe it makes sense." Mr. Bush added that "it's the first I've heard of it."
As everyone knows, Mr. Bush is the big Daddy who lets his teenager client states drive the nuclear car if they're good teenagers.
A little more than 24 hours later, Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, appeared to backtrack when he noted that Mr. Chávez had asked a number of countries to build a nuclear reactor in Venezuela, and that he was far from a deal.
"I think that's because people recognize that it would be problematic for Chávez to be in the nuclear business, if you will," Mr. Hadley said, adding that "this trip, this summit, is not about Hugo Chávez."
Mr. Hadley? Did he have a role in Treasongate?
And in true, he-said, she-said Times fashion:
At a parallel "People's Summit" in Mar del Plata on Thursday, organized by a coalition of left-wing, indigenous and antiglobalization groups, American proposals on free trade also came in for criticism, as did Mr. Bush himself.
"We Said No and No Means No: No to Bush, No to F.T.A.A. and No to Repaying the Debt," read one large banner at the conference, held in a group of tents and classrooms on the campus of a local university. Several thousand people attended.
I don't suppose folks in the White House want to paint "the mean bullies are ganging up on Dear Leader" picture. Might get him a bump in the polls.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
It's the torture, stupid
"Fair and balanced" Fake ONews has on Cavuto a balance of Kristol and Krauthammer, worrying their little heads over the very real likelihood of a Bush impeachment, conviction, and criminal prosecution if the Democrats win Congress in 2006, especially over the false reasons sold to the America to get involved in Iraq. The "Democrats voted for Iraq too" canard is trotted out on cue, as expected.
The only problem is they have the crimes wrong.
It's not the prosecution of the Iraq war that's the issue- although if they were able to show the outing of a CIA agent took place with Bush's connivance that would naturally be fair game.
No, the real issue is the tortue.
As William Pfaff, no Michael Moore, in November's Harper's Magazine points out (no link):
On January 9, 2002, a memorandum co-written by John Yoo of the University of California Law School, who was serving temporarily in the Justice Department, provided arguments to support a claim that with respect to prisoners taken in Afghanistan, the United States was not bound by the Geneva Conventions. The prisoners were to be declared "enemy combatants," not prisoners of war, a legal distinction previously unrecognizedbut considred necessary to prevent American officials from being exposed to the U.S. federal War Crimes Act of 1996, which carries the death penalty
(Emphasis mine.)
Think about that. A legal fiction is created to justify torture. If torture were found to be condoned and fostered -think Abu Ghraib- violating the Geneva convention- the relevant folks in the Bush regime could be eligible for a federally supplied hypodermic needle and gurney.
Is it any wonder why the right is so supportive of Bush? It's not just hate; it's fear.
But - regardless of the fact that we most assuredly should not stoop to the level of Bush and his regime- it does underscore the gravity of the potential offenses against which Bush and his cronies may be charged.
It ain't hysteria. It's the law.
Not that I realistically think the folks involved will be brought to justice.
But they should be.
Ponies everywhere!
Laura Bush, when you're the last one left supporting your husband, can you let us know when you change your mind?
35% approval is pretty low- beats Clinton at his lowest, and comes close to Carter's lowest lows.
Renaissance place...
I'm blogging from a famous east coast technical university. I had forgotton many things about my own college days, and this place brings back much of it, not just the youthfulness of the place, but also the "scienceyness" of the place. Darwin and Galileo's names are carved in stone here. This place is ground zero for much of the religious right (and some of the extremists on the left).
They make their own viruses here; they giddily engage evolution in theory and practice, they help God play dice in His mad gambling binge, shattering notions of limits. And there is money to be made, and lots of fresh-faced kids are learning things and doing things and upending paradigms all over the place.
The ROTC walks kinhin "in honor" (by which I think they mean "in high respect") of POWs and MIAs. The odd thing about that is not the ROTC kids themselves (What do they think about Iraq? Would it really matter? Where they are likely to wind up is in the more coveted spots away from the actual fighting - I'm not in Flint Michigan). No, the odd thing is the people watching the ROTC students' kinhin. Most don't seem to know how to react, some look and turn away. One cadet salutes. One can imagine- it's an out front kind of kinhin, in full view- what might go through the minds of ths students as they watch the people watching them, which would mean that this very monkey mind path would itself be a distraction from the focus on the POWs and MIAs.
None of which is related to anything politicky or Buddhisty or economically, but it definitely stirs up something energetic in me that I'd forgotten a while back; the enthusiasm of being able to do something that makes history. I've made a bit of my own, a small bit, here and there in my career, but there's a heck of a lot more history to be made evidently.
Intel's going to have some rough times ahead in the next few years, I suspect.
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Folly and News in cyberspace....
It must be the new changes at work, which among other things, have thrust a lot of good new work on me (albeit with a short amount of time).
But at any rate, today's stuff from the blogosphere looks like pretty thin swill at this early hour.
Sombebody at Kos is berating Wolf Blitzer, who for once in his life is merely playing devil's advocate.
Joe Carter completely doesn't get the phrase "religious beliefs are inadmissible in academic explanations.” And I simply have no interest today in explaining why, and his refusal to understand why - from a religious point of view- would vindicate the use of the phrase. (The writing by Scalia linked by Carter is also an interesting read for its unintentional self-referentiality.)
Wal-Mart is still evil. And with an outdated business model, too.
Wal-Mart is taking a page from the modern political playbook. Under fire from well-organized opponents who have hammered the retailer with criticisms of its wages, health insurance and treatment of workers, Wal-Mart has quietly recruited former presidential advisers, including Michael K. Deaver, who was Ronald Reagan's image-meister, and Leslie Dach, one of Bill Clinton's media consultants, to set up a rapid-response public relations team in Arkansas.
When small-business owners or union officials - also employing political operatives from past campaigns - criticize the company, the war room swings into action with press releases, phone calls to reporters and instant Web postings.
One target of the effort are "swing voters," or consumers who have not soured on Wal-Mart. The new approach appears to reflect a fear that Wal-Mart's critics are alienating the very consumers it needs to keep growing, especially middle-income Americans motivated not just by price, but by image.
The first big challenge of the strategy will come Nov. 1 with the premiere of an unflattering documentary. "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price" was made on a shoestring budget of $1.8 million and will be released in about two dozen theaters. But its director, Robert Greenwald, hopes to show the movie in thousands of homes and churches in the next month. The possibility that it might become a cult hit like Michael Moore's 1989 unsympathetic portrait of General Motors, "Roger & Me," has Wal-Mart worried.
Another Republican behaved badly towards women while Republicans are pushing Samuel Alito. Which is just fine with the Bush regime, which sees no need for a shake-up of their operation. But evidently, for once, Kristof gets it.
Argentina is not happy with George W. Bush.
Chinese stocks are tanking.
I'm off on travel today. All in all, it should be a productive day as there isn't really any news of substance. Having said that the market will probably tank, North Korea will probably launch missiles, and a high-ranking Bush administration official will be either caught in a compromising position with a barnyard animal, or said official will resign and be replaced by a barnyard animal.
But I could be wrong.
Monday, October 31, 2005
Halloween World o' Crap
Here.
And now for something
In a case of life imitating my quips, Focus on the Family produces an "apologetics" article, that, yep, footnotes noneother than the lair of batboy, Weekly World News, I guess for "balance," especially since "Intelligent" "Design" is shilled in the article as well. I guess...
What about Buddhism lately?
The overwhelming majority of the posts on this blog have not been explictly about Buddhism of late, or so might seem.
There's several reasons for this:
- First of all, much of the practice of Buddhism simply can't be described, but practiced. While I generally see eye-to-eye with the political stance of the folks at Street Prophets, to me, the much of a discussion about Buddhism would distract from its practice. Of course there is an underlying moral attitude, informed by Buddhism that animates posts here, but when it comes to talking about Buddhist practice, this blog is only the tiniest of windows into it. It's a reflection of what's in my mind when I write and post, and hopefully at times conveys the vows I have made to help all beings. It definitely falls short of those vows from time to time, but the attempt is important; occaisonally the target is hit, and with practice the target is hit more.
- There's much, much more going on in my life outside of this blog- which I simply cannot talk about, for reasons that have to do with committments outside of this blog. My work, for example has entered an interesting and somewhat demanding phase, which requires its own practice.
- In truth, though, this blog is an attempt at applying Buddhism to the realms of the immediate concerns of life, in a very dangerous age, when greed, hatred, and ignorance are expressed as benevolence and righteousness.
Care must be taken.
Sunday, October 30, 2005
There needs to be a Congressional and Senate investigation into Treasongate
Although Harry Reid's right, Rove should be fired, the real thing that should happen is an investigation by Congress into what happened here, why it happened, and whether or not any impeachable offenses have been committed by either Bush or Cheney.
It won't happen, of course, which underscores the need for the Congress to change hands.
What DarkSyde said:
Fitzgerald, other than the fact that he's neither a Republican or Democrat, I don't know squat about his politics (and that's the way it should be), but he's one straight shooter, that's for sure.
Why a broker's "Diversify Your Investments" is stupid sometimes
You've seen the information handed out from brokers: at age X you should have Y% of your investment money in stocks, Z% in bonds, and so forth.
This is generally, stupid, though, especially in times like this, for reasons I've noted before.
So, it seems like a new entry in the "no shit, Sherlock" department is this article from the NY Times:
IF you want to know what's up in the bond market, talk to Robert L. Rodriguez. As manager of the FPA New Income fund since 1984, he has never lost money in any calendar year.
Today, Mr. Rodriguez says he is shying away from making major bets on bonds because of all the question marks that abound. Among them is the uncertainty over whether interest rates will continue to rise, eroding the value of older, lower-yielding bonds. There is also uncertainty over inflation, which eats into bond returns. And now there are the unknowns surrounding the first transition at the helm of the Federal Reserve Board in nearly two decades...
Because Mr. Rodriguez thinks that bonds aren't compensating investors for all the current risks, he is content to have as much as 45 percent of his fixed-income portfolio in cash or cash-equivalent investments. The question for individual investors is, should they follow his lead?
It's certainly tempting. While the yield on 10-year Treasury notes has risen recently, it's still less than 4.6 percent. Yet inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, shot up 4.7 percent over the 12 months through September. In other words, you're not earning anything on long-term government debt, adjusted for inflation.
You should diversify investments, but into those that, you know, actually make money.
That about wraps it up for Michelle Maglalang
Wow. I know conservative media's essentially got to be factually challenged, but this is ridiculous. If anyone I know was as incompetent or malicious in their jobs, they'd be out of 'em in a heartbeat.
This is the type of person that many newspapers see fit to publish as an op-ed columnist and "Fox" media person.
Bring it on!
Link
In his two choices for the Supreme Court so far, President Bush has tapped what some conservatives called "stealth" nominees: jurists without a clear record of legal opinions on abortion rights or other contentious social issues.
But with the announcement of a third nominee to succeed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor expected as early as Monday, prominent conservatives said they were confident that this time would be different. They argued that the reaction against the nomination of Harriet E. Miers had proven the perils of such an approach, even though some also acknowledged that the failure of the Miers nomination may have weakened the president if the next nominee sets off a battle.
"To the degree that Bush was enamored of a stealth strategy, I have got to believe he has learned there is a real downside," said William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and one of the first conservative thinkers to call for withdrawal of the Miers nomination.
But if the next nominee provokes a fight with the left instead, Mr. Kristol added, "it is tougher having made a mistake with Miers."...
Democrats argue that Mr. Bush may have made promises to his conservative supporters that may be politically difficult to fulfill. "They have riled up their base, but to feed their base the red meat it demands will hurt the president with the general public," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.
Bush is deeply in trouble for playing footsie with theocrats; he's not really one of them, after all, but more of a well, Eastern elite educated Repub pretending to be a failed oil man.
I had commented on another blog, that, based on Treasongate, folks like Hugh Hewitt and Joe Carter are rapidly becoming irrelevant.
Watch now for the next thing; this is going to be Terri Schiavo all over again.
What those folks just don't get is that they aren't America. They aren't even a majority of Americans. They aren't even a significant plurality of Americans.
Here we go; what Dems warned against for years, these folks want to overtly take: our rights.
Watch Underneath Their Robes for more.
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Useless factoid of the day...
Pope Leo XIII was fond of Vin Mariani, famous, as everyone who read Lester Grinspoon's tomes in high school knows, for containing cocaine.
One can only speculate, right now, what David Price thinks of that.
Yeah, Buish~ Hitler, sort of...
I saw over at Atrios that Jonah Goldberg, child of Lucianne, got around to writing - a book! Complaining about "liberal fascism!"
Now Hitler died some 60 years ago. Having recently re-seen Triumph of the Will, and having recently discoverred Mein Kampf on line, it's pretty easy to show that:
a) Hitler actually hated liberals; he thought liberal=Marxist=Jew.
Bushist conservatives think: liberal=Marxist=atheist="Arabist"="life not worthy of life." Do a search through Mein Kampf for "liberal." Hitler's rantings against the Frankfurter Zeitung come quite close to the rantings by conservatives against the NY Times. (Not that the Times doesn't deserve its share of criticism, but that comes about due to its sucking up to power, not questioning it.)
b) One can find echoes of Hitler's racism in Pat Robertson's rantings, Bob Jone's rantings (Bush had no problem going there), Reagan's visit to Bitburg, and of course, Pat Buchanan.
c) The left often compares Bush to Hitler, of course based on the similar the idol worship, the staged scenes, the cribbing of Triumph's flashy settings with the appropriate Orwellian backdrops. We recall "Mission Accomplished" with the codpiece airman suit, the handpicked audiences of sycophants, the abuse of dissenters, etc. "Politically correct" speech codes on campus - to the extent that these are not urban legends - simply can't compare to what we've seen from the Bush regime in the time it's been around. It outdoes Reagan.
d) Finally, there's the tiny matter of civil liberties. Bush and the right hate 'em, Hitler hated them. Sorry if we see a similarity.
Friday, October 28, 2005
Let's see if Fitzgerald can nail Bolton Marc Grossman.
This is getting quite good.
Update: TNR reports it's Marc Grossman.
Still, somebody should investigate Bolton for something.
Whoops...there it is...
Link
A federal grand jury indicted Libby on one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury and two counts of making false statements.
The indictment alleges Libby learned of the identify of CIA operative Valerie Plame from Vice President Dick Cheney and then talked about her to reporters. The indictment also says Libby endangered national security by doing so. However, Libby is not charged specifically with disclosing her identity.
Karl Rove, the president's deputy chief of staff, will not be indicted today in the investigation, two sources have said. They say investigators have told Rove's office they haven't resolved all their questions about his conduct, however, and that they'll keep investigating.
Documents were released at about 9:40 a.m. Pacific time, and Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald will update the case today in Washington, D.C. at 11 a.m. Pacific time. News10.net plans to stream his statement live.
And here's the indictment press release:
Beginning in late May 2003, Libby allegedly began acquiring information about a 2002 trip to
the African country of Niger by Joseph Wilson, a former United States Ambassador and career State
Department official, to investigate allegations concerning efforts by the former government of Iraq to
acquire uranium yellowcake, a processed form of uranium ore. The CIA decided on its own initiative
to send Wilson to Niger after an inquiry to the CIA by the Vice President concerning certain intelligence
reporting. Wilson orally reported his findings to the CIA upon his return. Subsequently, Libby allegedly
lied about information he discussed about the CIA employment of Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson,
in conversations Libby had in June and July 2003 with three news reporters – Tim Russert of NBC News,
Matt Cooper of Time magazine, and Judith Miller of The New York Times.
Prior to July 14, 2003, Valerie Wilson’s employment status was classified. Prior to that date, her
affiliation with the CIA was not common knowledge outside the intelligence community. Disclosure
of classified information about an individual’s employment by the CIA has the potential to damage the
national security in ways that range from preventing that individual’s future use in a covert capacity, to
compromising intelligence-gathering methods and operations, and endangering the safety of CIA
employees and those who deal with them, the indictment states.
“When citizens testify before grand juries they are required to tell the truth,” Mr. Fitzgerald said.
“Without the truth, our criminal justice system cannot serve our nation or its citizens. The requirement
to tell the truth applies equally to all citizens, including persons who hold high positions in government.
In an investigation concerning the compromise of a CIA officer’s identity, it is especially important that
grand jurors learn what really happened. The indictment returned today alleges that the efforts of the
grand jury to investigate such a leak were obstructed when Mr. Libby lied about how and when he
learned and subsequently disclosed classified information about Valerie Wilson,” he added.
Mr. Fitzgerald announced the charges with John C. Eckenrode, Special Agent-in-Charge of the
Philadelphia Field Office of the FBI and the lead agent in the investigation. The Washington Field
Office and the Inspection Division of the FBI assisted in the investigation.
The indictment alleges that Libby had frequent access to classified information and frequently
spoke with officials of the U.S. intelligence community and other government officials regarding
sensitive national security matters. With his responsibilities for national security matters, Libby held
security clearances giving him access to classified information. Libby was obligated by federal criminal
statute, regulations, executive orders, and a written non-disclosure agreement not to disclose classified
information to unauthorized persons, and to properly safeguard classified information against
unauthorized disclosure.
According to the indictment, on September 26, 2003, the Department of Justice and the FBI
began a criminal investigation into the possible unauthorized disclosure of classified information
regarding Valerie Wilson’s CIA affiliation to various reporters in the spring of 2003. In January 2004,
the grand jury investigation began examining possible violations of criminal laws prohibiting disclosing
the identity of covert intelligence personnel (The Intelligence Identities Protection Act), improperly
disclosing national defense information, making false statements to government agents, and perjury. A
major focus of the grand jury investigation was to determine which government officials had disclosed
to the media prior to July 14, 2003, information concerning Valerie Wilson’s CIA affiliation, and the
nature, timing, extent, and purpose of such disclosures, as well as whether any official made such a
disclosure knowing that Valerie Wilson’s employment by the CIA was classified information.
So the Kossacks were right, and the 101st Keyboarders were wrong.
Banks are where the money is.
This op-ed ad appeared in yesterday's NY Times.
It's not clear if it's a real apples-to-apples comparison (is this after tax or pre-tax revenue? before or after deductions?), but one thing is apparent: banks are profitable.
Merry Fitzmas, everyone!
It's today, it seems, at least for Libby; we may have to wait for Rove.
I wish all of you a safe and merry Fitzmas. May we remember it's true meaning.
Give me Stephen Roach any day over Austin Pryor
I'd lambasted Joe Carter, because especially lately, his blog has seemed increasing irrelevant, because, maybe it's a mixed-metaphor, but "morally tone-deaf" seems to be the words going through my mind.
While it's one thing to claim a moral high ground shilling pseudo-science, and mistaking a brain dead woman for a live, concious woman and zygotes for born people, it's quite another to turn a blind eye towards what is now manifestly the most corrupt Republican regime in memory, with all kinds of sins like theft and murder, and lying, rolled into one, creating a bad national karma for the US...
So it is with some interest I read today's entry on Carter's blog from one Austin Pryor on investing. Good, I can work with that, although I don't want to come across as a Borscht Belt comic or dour fanatic as I do it.
So without further ado, I'll resond to Pryor, who, if memory serves me right, is some kind of a "Chrstian investment" guy...ah yes, at "Sound Mind Investing."
Some things can be predicted; most things can't. Since nobody really knows what is going to happen, your plan must allow for the fact that the investment markets will experience some unexpected downturns every now and then. That's where diversification comes in...
Actually there is one thing we can say with absolute certainty: the past will not be repeated. And in fact we can say that about the United States.
Anybody who's read Stephen Roach and related folks (see, e.g., here) or worked at a job in the US that was involved in anything that involved making anything knows that the US economy is a radically different beast than it was in the 1960s or 1970s, or 1980s, or even 1990s. Jobs and many services can be easily outsourced today.
This trend may or may not continue, but it seems that the future does hold that there will be a continuing deterioration in the US economy unless some form of protectionism kicks in, but of course that could start a trade war and a real war. (We already see signs of that in the lumber dispute with Canada, which could get ugly. They export oil to us you know.)
Alternatively, really high energy prices will force a restructuring of the US economy, perhaps not as bad as the clusterfuck nation guy says, and in fact somewhat better.
Anyway, short rebut to this point: there are indeed long term trends macro-economically, and these can be profitablly followed if thought about them far enough in advance. But- and here's the point- there will be uncertainty and volatility. No pain no gain.
Both of SMI's core strategies offer you portfolios that combine stocks and bonds in various combinations in order to reduce volatility and risk while still achieving attractive long-term returns.
While I'm a big fan of diversification, I also think this position - "stocks and bonds provide diversification" is simplistic enough to be potentially disastrous to even the capital preservation of a portfolio.
Think Argentina. Think Turkey (the Turkish lira was once something like $4; today it's thousands to the dollar).
Economies, to use the technical term, shit the bed every now and then. It's good to be diversified in other ways; such as real estate, commodities, and especially foreign assets, especially in a situation where the mid-term trend is a deterioration in dollar denominated assets.
But in the short to mid term, it is likely that some sectors of the US economy may flourish and others not. It's important to know which.
Principle #2: Your investing plan must have easy-to-understand, clear-cut rules. There must be no room for differing interpretations. You must be able to make your investing decisions quickly and with confidence.
I have a better principle, although who can disagree with the statement above translated to "Know what you're doing and why!"
My better principle is: Sell it even when you think it's going to go higher. Buy it if you think it's going higher in the mid-term, even if you think it can go lower in the mid term. Cut your losses. Lock in gains. Practice detachment about it.
Your plan should prevent you from taking risks you can't financially afford. Every day, people who mistakenly thought "it will never happen to me" find just how wrong they were....
Know what you're doing and why.
We receive letters asking us to recommend safe investments that will guarantee returns of 12%, 14%, and more. If by "safe" they mean there's no chance of the value of the investment falling, then we don't know of any investments like that. Investments that are "safe" in that sense usually pay much less than 12%...Consider the story of Jack and Jill: Jack saved $600 in an IRA each year between ages 8-18, then never added to it again; a total of $6,600. Jill waited to start saving until she was out of college at age 26. She put $2,000 per year into an IRA for 40 years; a total of $80,000. Both earned the same 10% rate of return.
Res ipsa loquitur.
There's a great deal of information on the 'net about this. And much of this information is completely free of charge. You can do better than Austin Pryor, but you've got to know more than he tells you.
And you don't have to pay him a red cent to do better than he does.
Thursday, October 27, 2005
File this under "640K should be enough for most people"
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Broadband wireless technology is likely to remain too cost prohibitive to ever achieve user numbers close to the 2 billion people who currently use mobile phones, according to Andrew Viterbi, co-founder of Qualcomm and currently president of the Viterbi Group LLC, a technology advisory and investment company.
Delivering a keynote address here Wednesday (Oct. 26) at the GSPx signal processing conference, Viterbi said broadband wireless could provide a "nomadic desktop experience" for business and professional users, but that high-speed wireless connectivity is not necessary for the majority of applications that consumers are interested in. Ultimately, he said, the user base for broadband wireless would peak at "hundreds of millions," rather than billions, of users.
"A lot of the dumb things that people do don't take that much bandwidth," Viterbi said, referring to applications such as gaming...
One application that people have been counting on to support the need for broadband wireless is high-quality audio and video broadcast. But Viterbi expressed doubt that people would be interested enough in this capability to justify paying the additional cost.
"We are going to get broadcast, and that is going to need high speed," he said. "But we've had audio broadcast for 100 years and video broadcast for 50 years, so what's new?"
Andy Viterbi doesn't get out much, I think.
Treasongate: Karma for Katrina?
It's the incompetence and corruption which causes the incontinence, and hence the investigations and the resulting suffering, according to Paul Bergala. But karma has a way of working through the nooks and crannies of existence, penetrating its very interstices:
The grand jury, a group of onetime strangers from across the District, has spent two days a week for nearly 24 months in the cloistered, guarded room on the third floor of the U.S. District Courthouse. They have sifted through the day planners of White House aides and listened intently as the prosecutor grilled West Wing officials and reporters who relied on them as confidential sources. They are paid $40 a day, plus $4 for transportation.
Now they might be called upon to make decisions that could deal a crippling blow to the Bush White House and put top administration officials on trial.
There were 23 members at the start, committed for 18 months. Their term was extended in May for six months. At least six original jurors have been excused because of hardships their service created. Some were replaced with alternates.
Like the jury's forewoman, the majority are African American women who appear to be middle-age or older. The jury includes at least two black men, two older white women and three white men. One trim, agile retiree with white hair often entered the grand jury room with his bicycle helmet in hand.
As everyone knows, Bush's standing amongst African Americans went down the tubes after Katrina. And now they sit in judgment of him and his accomplices and toadies.
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
The most significant news of the day: indictments
Maybe, of course, the pro-war Washington Post has been beguiled by Michael Moore, Moveon.org, and Cindy Sheehan.
Then again, maybe they've admitted what 90% of Americans polled say: we're dealing with criminality here. Although, at this point if there aren't indictments, we can can the anonymous sources forever, OK?
The prosecutor in the CIA leak case was preparing to outline possible charges before the federal grand jury as early as today, even as the FBI conducted last-minute interviews in the high-profile investigation, according to people familiar with the case.
With Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald in Washington yesterday, lawyers in the case and some White House officials braced for at least one indictment when the grand jury meets today. I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, is said by several people in the case to be a main focus, but not the only one. n a possible sign that Fitzgerald may seek to charge one or more officials with illegally disclosing Valerie Plame's CIA affiliation, FBI agents as recently as Monday night interviewed at least two people in her D.C. neighborhood. The agents were attempting to determine whether the neighbors knew that Plame worked for the CIA before she was unmasked with the help of senior Bush administration officials. Two neighbors said they told the FBI they had been surprised to learn she was a CIA operative.
The FBI interviews suggested the prosecutor wanted to show that Plame's status was covert, and that there was damage from the revelation that she worked at the CIA.
Underscoring the uncertainty surrounding the probe, two Republican officials said Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove, the president's top strategist, is not sure whether he will face indictment as the case winds down. Rove was said to be awaiting word from Fitzgerald, even as prosecutors questioned at least one former Rove associate about Rove's contacts with reporters before Plame's name was disclosed. The White House expects indictments to come today, according to a senior administration official.
And the tentative approval of an Islamic Republic in Iraq has done squat to quell the violence there or nock Treasongate off the front pages.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Let me be on record as saying
If George Galloway lied to Congress, he, too should be prosecuted.
BRITISH MP George Galloway faces possible The subcommittee will also forward the information to British "We have what we would call the smoking gun," Norm Coleman, the subcommittee's Republican chairman said. The subcommittee's report, released yesterday, was provoked by He reiterated his denials yesterday, saying he had "already comprehensively dealt with these allegations under oath"...
criminal charges after a US Senate investigation tracked $US150,000
($197,000) in Iraqi oil money to his wife's bank account in Jordan.
The Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations will refer the
Respect Party MP for possible prosecution after concluding he gave
"false and misleading" testimony at his appearance before the panel in
May.
authorities, saying it raised questions about Mr Galloway's financial
disclosure and the payment of illegal kickbacks to Iraq.
Mr Galloway's clash with the senators in May - which he turned into a
book titled Mr Galloway goes to Washington..
But the Senate report provides bank account "Galloway was anything but straight with the Congress. He was
details tracking payments from an oil company through a Jordanian
middleman to Mr Galloway's now-estranged wife, Amina Naji Abu Zayyad,
and his Mariam Appeal fund.
anything but straight with the American people. There was a lot of
bombast. There was a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing," Senator
Coleman said.
On the other hand, I think, especially after all we've been through, that a degree of skepticism is in order; at the very least, did Gallowayknow his "now-estranged wife" and Mariam Appeal fund (sounds like a charity, doesn't it? does to me) misused the oil for food money? What evidence is there of kickbacks? It might just be that it went to a charity, but if the law was broken, then there should be prosecution, just as it should be for Libby, Cheney, and Bush.
Reality check for Matthew Yglesias
Back in the real world, of course Fitzgerald shouldn't offer up
a charge of "ambiguous perjury" or whatever it is these two are worried
about. We use a "reasonable doubt" standard of proof in the American
criminal justice system, so people charged in cases where the evidence
is equivocal will be acquitted. Maybe Fitzgerald's an idiot who for
some reason doesn't realize this and plans on bringing all sorts of
weak charges to the table so he can suffer an embarrassing court
defeat. But by all accounts he isn't and idiot and nobody likes
an embarrassing court defeat. He won't bring charges unless he thinks
he'll win -- that seems simple enough.
Umm... prosecuting attorneys bring charges that won't win in court all the time for various kinds of reasons, chief among them, to use as leverage against defendants prior to discovery to entice a plea bargain. I don't think that would be the case for all players in Treasongate, but it simply can't be ruled out.
Having said that, though, outing a covert operative even to advance a policy direction is, and should still be treated as a crime if there was fallout from it, such as compromising our intelligence on the ground on weapons of mass destruction. Going back to Aaron Burr again, if there had been two witnesses against him, I think the case could be made that Burr was indeed convictable of treason, because of the damage done to the United States.
So I'd predict that history will view Cheney as John Quincy Adams did Aaron Burr: [his] " life, take it all together, was such as in any country of sound morals
his friends would be desirous of burying in quiet oblivion.""
Technorati Tags: Patrick Fitzgerald, Criminal Justice, Perjury, Prosecutors
The Nature of Treason
So I ask my self, "What is treason?" Aaron Burr comes to mind. If this definition from Wikipedia bears any truth, the colloquial way it's been used to describe Treasongate may be quite fitting:
In law, treason is the crime of disloyalty to one's nation. A person who betrays the nation of their citizenship and/or reneges on an oath of loyalty and in some way willfully cooperates with an enemy, is considered to be a traitor. Oran's Dictionary of the Law (1983) defines treason as: "...[a]...citizen's actions to help a foreign government overthrow, make war against, or seriously injure the [parent nation]." It is also generally considered treason to attempt or conspire to overthrow the government...
United States
To avoid the abuses of the English law (including executions by Henry VIII of those who criticized his repeated marriages), treason was specifically defined in the United States Constitution, the only crime so defined. Article Three defines treason as only levying war against the United States or "in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort," and requires the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act or a confession in open court for conviction. This safeguard may not be foolproof since Congress could pass a statute creating treason-like offences with different names (such as sedition, bearing arms against the state, etc.) which do not require the testimony of two witnesses, and have a much wider definition than Article Three treason. For example, some well-known spies have generally been convicted of espionage rather than treason. In the United States Code the penalty ranges from "shall suffer death" to "shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States."
In the history of the United States there have been fewer than forty federal prosecutions for treason and even fewer convictions. Several men were convicted of treason in connection with the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion but were pardoned by President George Washington. The most famous treason trial, that of Aaron Burr in 1807, resulted in acquittal. Politically motivated attempts to convict opponents of the Jeffersonian Embargo Acts and the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 all failed. Significantly, after the American Civil War, no person involved with the Confederate States of America was charged with treason, and only one major Confederate official, the commandant of the Andersonville prison, who was charged with war crimes, was charged with anything at all. The failure to prosecute Confederates was mostly due to the words and actions of President Abraham Lincoln, who considered peace and unity more important than vengeance. During the war, Lincoln issued a proclamation of amnesty for Confederates, and in his second inaugural address (1865) pleaded for a reconciliation "with malice toward none, with charity for all."
Several people generally thought of as traitors in the United States, such as the Walker Family, or Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, were not prosecuted for treason per se, but rather for espionage. John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban" fighter in Afghanistan, was also thought of as a traitor by many. However, instead of being tried for treason, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder US nationals, aiding the Taliban and terrorist offences relating to Al Qaeda, even though he joined the Taliban before September 11, 2001, in the period when the Bush administration was aiding the Taliban to help their destruction of the opium crop.
The argument could well be made the Richard Cheney might have committed treason: it is an act during war time, his acts gave aid and comfort to the enemy if there were assets compromised, and indeed it looks like two witnesses might be able to be found for it.
Of course, whether or not Patrick Fitzgerald really goes for the Powerball charge is not known, and in my estimation, highly, highly unlikely. It only happened once before -with Burr.
But I'm sure then, as now, there was massive denial that Burr was a traitor.
Monday, October 24, 2005
Insert an Ed McMahon chortle here
I hadn't known that Bernanke wanted to make Social Security solvent or that he recruited Paul Krugman to Princeton from MIT.
This is a positive sign.
So is the fact that National Review doesn't like him very much.
Indictments might just be a buy signal...
Technorati Tags: Bernanke, Federal Reserve, Conservative
Reality Check for the Righties
I noticed that Michelle Malkin has propagated the comparison (from the WSJ) of Clinton's lying about sex to the likely indictments to be handed down regarding obstruction of justice and lying to a grand jury in Treasongate.
Like everyone else, I don't know what's going to come down the pike as I write this, but I do know that Clinton's behavior didn't rise to the level of perjury or lying to a grand jury. How do I know? Here's the relevant Federal law:
TITLE 18--CRIMES AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
PART I--CRIMES
CHAPTER 79--PERJURY
Sec. 1623. False declarations before grand jury or court
(a) Whoever under oath (or in any declaration, certificate,
verification, or statement under penalty of perjury as permitted under
section 1746 of title 28, United States Code) in any proceeding before
or ancillary to any court or grand jury of the United States knowingly
makes any false material declaration or makes or uses any other
information, including any book, paper, document, record, recording, or
other material, knowing the same to contain any false material
declaration, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than
five years, or both.
(b) This section is applicable whether the conduct occurred within
or without the United States.
(c) An indictment or information for violation of this section
alleging that, in any proceedings before or ancillary to any court or
grand jury of the United States, the defendant under oath has knowingly
made two or more declarations, which are inconsistent to the degree that
one of them is necessarily false, need not specify which declaration is
false if--
(1) each declaration was material to the point in question, and
(2) each declaration was made within the period of the statute
of limitations for the offense charged under this section.
In any prosecution under this section, the falsity of a declaration set
forth in the indictment or information shall be established sufficient
for conviction by proof that the defendant while under oath made
irreconcilably contradictory declarations material to the point in
question in any proceeding before or ancillary to any court or grand
jury. It shall be a defense to an indictment or information made
pursuant to the first sentence of this subsection that the defendant at
the time he made each declaration believed the declaration was true.
(d) Where, in the same continuous court or grand jury proceeding in
which a declaration is made, the person making the declaration admits
such declaration to be false, such admission shall bar prosecution under
this section if, at the time the admission is made, the declaration has
not substantially affected the proceeding, or it has not become manifest
that such falsity has been or will be exposed.
(e) Proof beyond a reasonable doubt under this section is sufficient
for conviction. It shall not be necessary that such proof be made by any
particular number of witnesses or by documentary or other type of
evidence.
Here's the original complaint of Jones v. Clinton.
What the consensual relationship between Clinton and Lewinsky would have had on whether or not sexual harassment happened doesn't seem to me to be in the least material to whether Jones was sexually harassed; OTOH, leaking the identity of an operative and lying about it does seem relevant to whether an espionage law was broken or justice was obstructed.
Words from Stephen Breyer wort reading...
Link
In September, Breyer published “Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution,” a manifesto for a progressive revival in American jurisprudence. The book, which is a hundred and sixty-one pages long, was inspired in part by Breyer’s disdain for the method of constitutional interpretation championed by his principal ideological rivals on the Court, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Their approach, known as originalism or textualism, holds that the words of the Constitution mean only what the framers understood by them; the document’s sense does not evolve over time. Constitutional scholars on both the left and the right have criticized originalism for being overly literal and doctrinaire, but Breyer is the first Justice to attempt to elaborate simultaneously a rebuttal and an alternative.
In “Active Liberty,” Breyer argues that the framers never intended for future generations of jurists to resolve contemporary controversies by guessing how the framers themselves would have resolved them. Instead, their goal was to promote what Breyer, quoting the nineteenth-century French political writer Benjamin Constant, calls “active and constant participation in collective power”—in other words, “active liberty.” The Constitution not only sets limits on official power, Breyer asserts; it insures the right of ordinary citizens to shape the workings of government. “There is this coherent view of the Constitution that has taken hold, called originalism, textualism, a kind of literalism, which is a well worked-out theory,” Breyer told me. “And I think people are tempted to say that there is a coherent theory, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, there are simply judges who go around deciding each case as they think appropriate. And that isn’t so. I think there is a more traditional approach, and it’s coherent, consistent, and specific.”
Indeed, if you are shackled in interpretation by what someone else may have said or thought or done ( in most cases we can't really tell)then are you really at liberty?
Sunday, October 23, 2005
The Oregonian takes on the bloggers
Of course, no one expects blogs to be "fair and balanced." Though research on this is still scant, I suspect that many people who turn to blogs for their news like the frankly unobjective style of information they find there. But it does raise a serious question: For the millions of Americans who regularly go to blogs for political news, what picture of reality are they getting?..
But a campaign is an unusual moment when virtually all news organizations and news blogs are focused on the same set of topics. In more routine times, such as last week's mishmash of news about Harriet Miers, Iraq's vote on its constitution, Hurricane Wilma's gathering force, and the arrest and booking of Sen. Tom DeLay, it's likely that people who turn to blogs -- unless they make the effort to diversify their sources -- will come away with a fragmented picture.
And that's the final similarity between blogs and the MSM: No matter which you use, it's best to read more than one.
Well, as they say in the young teen world, Duh. Many, many blogs are quoted by me and most other bloggers I know (of course the right-wing blogosphere tends to be far more stratified, yada yada yada), as well as sources as diverse as the London Times, Der Spiegel (OK, I doubt I quoted them specifically...yet), China Daily, the Financial Times, MSNBC/Washington Post/Newsweek, KCNA, the Bush press gaggles, the Financial Markets Center, Tricycle, Accesstoinsight.org, and a host of other places. This is an eclectic blog, opinionated, to be sure, but heck, this blog sure doesn't have the historical baggage that the Oregonian's been reported to have.
One nice feature of Flock
I can blog while my son watches Duck and Cover. He really likes the atom bomb stuff. Turns out though that he does this stuff in school now again - at the age of four- becaue of Columbine, evidently.
Technorati Tags: terrorism, atom bomb, Duck and Cover, Bush
Useless Factoid of the Day...
"Pee" is the name of the state record company in North Korea.
How appropriate. I wonder if they have any leaks going on...
Technorati Tags: North Korea, Leaks, Bush, Kim Jong Il
I hope James Wolcott is right
And Libby sings, because, after all, he feels left out because Dick Cheney's his own evil genius.
Technorati Tags: Treasongate, Cheney, Scooter, Mushrooms, Bush
Perjury: 5 Years
So the latest meme is perjury is a "technicality." So is apparently a host of other crimes.
Including money laundering, espionage, obstruction of justice and who knows what else.
Reasonable people can only hope that conservatism is shown the door, relegated to the ash heap of history, and given a happy death. Pronto.
Technorati Tags: Republican crimes, Republican untruths, Crime, Conservative criminality, Bush, Iraq
Just get the truth...
Yeah, yeah, we all know that Mao was not so much a savior to the Chinese as a butcher. But the NY Times' Kristof doesn't help much when he writes about Jung Chang's biography of Mao that:
Yet this is a magisterial work. True, much of Mao's brutality has
already emerged over the years, but this biography supplies substantial
new information and presents it all in a stylish way that will put it
on bedside tables around the world. No wonder the Chinese government
has banned not only this book but issues of magazines with reviews of
it, for Mao emerges from these pages as another Hitler or Stalin.
In
that regard, I have reservations about the book's judgments, for my own
sense is that Mao, however monstrous, also brought useful changes to
China. And at times the authors seem so eager to destroy him that I
wonder if they exclude exculpatory evidence. But more on those cavils
later.
But then goes on to say:
This is an extraordinary portrait of a monster, who the authors say was
responsible for more than 70 million deaths. But how accurate is it? A
bibliography and endnotes give a sense of sourcing, and they are
impressive: the authors claim to have talked to everyone from Mao's
daughter, Li Na, to his mistress, Zhang Yufeng, to Presidents George H.
W. Bush and Gerald Ford. But it's not clear how much these people said.
One of those listed as a source is Zhang Hanzhi, Mao's English teacher
and close associate; she's also one of my oldest Chinese friends, so I
checked with her. Zhang Hanzhi said that she had indeed met informally
with Chang two or three times but had declined to be interviewed and
never said anything substantial. I hope that Chang and Halliday will
share some of their source materials, either on the Web or with other
scholars, so that it will be possible to judge how fairly and
accurately they have reached their conclusions...
Take the great famine from 1958 to 1961. The authors declare that
"close to 38 million people died," and in a footnote they cite a
Chinese population analysis of mortality figures in those years. Well,
maybe. But there have been many expert estimates in scholarly books and
journals of the death toll, ranging widely, and in reality no one
really knows for sure - and certainly the mortality data are too crude
to inspire confidence. The most meticulous estimates by demographers
who have researched the famine toll are mostly lower than this book's:
Judith Banister estimated 30 million; Basil Ashton also came up with 30
million; and Xizhe Peng suggested about 23 million. Simply plucking a
high-end estimate out of an article and embracing it as the one true
estimate worries me; if that is stretched, then what else is?
After all this stuff with Judy Miller, you'd think he'd be skeptical. I am, even though I concede that Mao was a murderer.
You know, if it weren't for outraged media figures...
Like this lady at the Washington Post, I'd probably not have heard of "Happy Tree Friends" until my son found it.
But it's just not that good. Red vs. Blue it's not.
Harriet Miers = Bush Crony
Prediction: this nails her nomination coffin shut tight.
Now it gets interesting. Bush is between a rock and a hard place: he's either got to sate the extremists in his party - and thereby alienate the majority of Americans- or he's got to do a Sister Souljah/Ernst Roehm moment with the extremists in his party.
Knowing Bush, I'm betting against an Ernst Roehm moment.
Technorati Tags: Bush, cronyism, corruption
Well, yeah, of course we knew we were right...
Now that the Times has let Judy Miller be semipurged, a more honest narrative has emerged.
It features Brent Scrowcroft, ponders whether Libby will be offed, and finally says the intel was wrong.
Miller confined to a billabong?
"The real anomaly in the administration is Cheney," Mr. Scowcroft
told Jeffrey Goldberg of The New Yorker. "I consider Cheney a good
friend - I've known him for 30 years. But Dick Cheney I don't know
anymore."
Mr. Cheney's focus on the threat from Iraq has put
some of his aides, especially I. Lewis Libby Jr., his chief of staff,
in the middle of an investigation by a special prosecutor into the leak
of the C.I.A. operative's name. According to lawyers in the case, Mr.
Libby remains under scrutiny this week in the investigation stemming
from his effort to rebut criticism by Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former
diplomat, that the administration had twisted intelligence about Iraq's
nuclear program.
Mr. Libby has become emblematic of the broader
Iraq debate, cast by supporters as a loyal aide working diligently to
set the record straight, and by critics as someone working to smear or
undermine the credibility of a politically potent opponent.
"The
way in which the leak investigation is being pursued is becoming a
symbol of who was right and who was wrong about the war," said Ivo H.
Daalder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who worked at the
National Security Council during the Clinton administration. "The
possibility of Libby being indicted, and the whole Cheney angle, is all
about proving in some sense that they were wrong and therefore that
those who opposed the war and never thought the intelligence was right
have been proven correct."
Except for this bit:
The passions surrounding the investigation and the question of why the
administration got it wrong about Iraq, other analysts agree, reflect
the troubled course of the war and the divisions over whether it was
necessary or a diversion from the effort to fight Islamic extremism.
This (the bold my emphasis) assumes that there were people - "analysts" - who actually believed that deposing a secular strong-man (a nasty nasty murderer of a man of course) and balkanizing Iraq would somehow, uh, stave off Islamic extremism. If there are such analysts, I suggest they check their mercury levels.
Finally this bit by a former (first?) Bush employee deserves comment: "If the war had gone extremely well, you wouldn't have this controversy." If the "war had gone extremely well," there wouldn't have been a war in the first place.
