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Saturday, December 11, 2004 Voting problems need to be fixed As the Electoral College prepares to certify President Bush's re-election on Monday, concerns persist about the integrity of the nation's voting system — particularly in Ohio, where details continue to emerge of technology failures, voter confusion and overcrowded polling stations in minority and poor neighborhoods. Few mainstream politicians dispute Bush's victory, and the incumbent's 3.5 million-vote margin nationwide was wider than any of the reported problems, which included insufficient or incomplete provisional ballots and, in some places, brazen partisan shenanigans. Story. posted by chris at 1:03 PM   Kirk withdraws as Homeland Security nominee Former New York City police commissioner Bernard B. Kerik withdrew as President Bush's nominee for secretary of homeland security last night, saying he had not paid taxes for a domestic worker who may have been an illegal immigrant. So maybe the official reason is nanny problems, but there were a whole lot of other reasons that he was sketchy, too. posted by chris at 9:21 AM   ------------------ Friday, December 10, 2004 Citizen XZ-52, your identity card please The intelligence agency overhaul given final approval by the Senate on Wednesday also reorganizes the way the states grant driver's licenses, a change that civil liberties advocates and some security experts say could have far-reaching consequences. Issuing driver's licenses has always been mostly a state function, but the new law requires the federal Department of Homeland Security to issue regulations on what documentation a state must require before it can grant a license. It also requires that the licenses be "machine readable," which will probably be accomplished through a magnetic strip or a bar code or both. The printed format of the piece of plastic will still be under state control. But to a person equipped with a reader, that will make little difference, because Washington will set the minimum national requirements for the machine-readable data. The federal government will gain control through airport checkpoints and other places where federal agencies demand identification. After a phase-in period, the government will refuse to accept licenses that do not comply with the standard. The same rules will apply to photo identification issued by states to nondrivers. It just amazes me how the party of small government and states' rights continues to establish these Big Brother programs. posted by chris at 4:59 PM   War profiteers Halliburton, the Texas company once run by Vice President Dick Cheney, has been given more than $10 billion worth of business in Iraq so far despite critical audits and investigations into its work. However, At the same time that the value of Halliburton's contracts is increasing, auditors are finding extensive problems with Halliburton's billings, and criminal investigations of Halliburton and its employees continue. Auditors from the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and the Coalition Provisional Authority Inspector General (CPA IG) have repeatedly and consistently criticized multiple aspects of Halliburton's activities in Iraq. In nine different reports, these government auditors have found widespread, systemic problems with almost every aspect of Halliburton's work in Iraq, from cost estimation and billing systems to cost control and subcontract management. posted by chris at 4:54 PM   Just what we need Federal regulators plan next week to begin considering rules that would end the official ban on cellphone use on commercial flights. Technical challenges and safety questions remain. But if the ban is lifted, one of the last cocoons of relative social silence would disappear, forcing strangers to work out the rough etiquette of involuntary eavesdropping in a confined space. As if people talking loudly on their cell phones in restaurants, on the street or while they're in the checkout line wasn't bad enough. Now we're going to have to listen to them blab on all the way from New York to L.A. posted by chris at 2:53 PM   Consider yourself warned Convinced his leadership style and policy vision were vindicated by the election results, Bush is aggressively targeting these domestic programs for the second term by essentially replicating the formula he used to reshape foreign policy in the first. This includes creating a small, loyal and trustworthy team to press for broad changes largely dictated by the White House. To build public support and circumvent critics in Congress and the media, the president will travel the country and warn of the disastrous consequences of inaction, as he did to sell his Iraq and terrorism policies during the first term, White House officials said. He is also enlisting well-funded conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation to help build the case for change -- or "reform," in the words of the White House -- through ads and commentary on television and in targeted publications, the aides said. The propaganda machine is already laying the groundwork for Bush's agenda - expect some variation of the phrase "Social Security is broken" to be repeated ad nasuem until Bush gets his way. God help us if he does. posted by chris at 2:25 PM   Slavery hurts me more than it hurts you Students at one of the [Cary, NC] area's largest Christian schools are reading a controversial booklet that critics say whitewashes Southern slavery with its view that slaves lived "a life of plenty, of simple pleasures." Leaders at Cary Christian School say they are not condoning slavery by using "Southern Slavery, As It Was," a booklet that attempts to provide a biblical justification for slavery and asserts that slaves weren't treated as badly as people think. A few excerpts: "Slavery as it existed in the South was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity. Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, it was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence." (page 24) "Slave life was to them a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care." (page 25) "Nearly every slave in the South enjoyed a higher standard of living than the poor whites of the South -- and had a much easier existence." (page 30) posted by chris at 1:50 PM   Bush's new Homeland Security czar The Center for American Progress takes a look at Bernard Kirk. And it ain't pretty. KERIK ABANDONS CRITICAL POST IN IRAQ TO TAKE A VACATION: The Washington Post reports that Kerik's track record on issues of national security is "spotty." Appointed by President Bush to train a new Iraqi police force in 2003, "Kerik came under criticism for inadequate screening of recruits as U.S. authorities rushed to deploy the force. It has been plagued by desertions and by allegations that insurgents have infiltrated the ranks." Worse, Kerik "quit four months into his six-month tenure in Iraq, telling New York reporters later that he needed a vacation." KERIK CRITICIZED BY CONSERVATIVES FOR POST-9/11 OPERATIONS: A prominent Republican member of the Sept. 11 commission, former Navy secretary John F. Lehman, sharply criticized Kerik "for failures of leadership during the terrorist attacks" of 9/11. Lehman said that Kerik allowed turf battles with the Fire Department to "hamper rescue efforts" and called Kerik's leadership at the time "not worthy of the Boy Scouts." KERIK SENT COPS OUT OF NYC TO RESEARCH HIS PERSONAL MEMOIRS: As police commissioner of NYC, Kerik used city police officers – who could have been protecting the people of New York – to help him write a book he would sell for personal profit. The Washington Post reports that the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board fined Kerik $2,500 for "sending two police officers to Ohio to help research his best-selling 2001 memoir, 'The Lost Son.'" KERIK'S STUNNING CONFLICT OF INTEREST: Kerik has made $6.2 million dollars in profits from his relationship "with Taser International, a Scottsdale, Ariz., manufacturer of stun guns." Kerik was appointed as a director of the company immediately after he had the NYPD purchase the guns as police chief. Since 2002, Kerik has hawked Taser's products to police departments around the country. Recently the company has made an "aggressive push to enter markets either regulated or controlled by the federal government, most notably the Department of Homeland Security." Thomas Smith, the company president, said the company would "continue to go after that business" at the Department of Homeland Security should Kerik be confirmed. posted by chris at 1:33 PM   ------------------ Thursday, December 09, 2004 Ok, that's enough - I'm running out of blindly loyal followers President Bush has asked the secretaries of the Transportation, Labor, Interior and Housing departments to remain and they have all agreed, completing decisions about which Cabinet members will stay for his second term. Story. posted by chris at 11:17 AM   What part of "separation of church and state" don't these people understand? The Bush administration, saying that religion "has played a defining role" in the nation's history, urged the U.S. Supreme Court to permit Ten Commandments displays in courthouses. The Justice Department today filed a brief supporting two Kentucky counties accused of violating the constitutional ban on government establishment of religion by posting framed copies of the Ten Commandments. You know, it's fine to recognize that religion is part of our history, but the founding fathers very wisely predicted the dangers of a theocracy and separated religion from politics. Now the Bushies want religion (THEIR religion) to permeate everything - it's like they really don't understand the foundations of this country. That, or they just don't care. posted by chris at 11:10 AM   Surpressing dissent, from other countries In an apparent reversal of decades of U.S. practice, recent federal Office of Foreign Assets Control regulations bar American companies from publishing works by dissident writers in countries under sanction unless they first obtain U.S. government approval. The restriction, condemned by critics as a violation of the First Amendment, means that books and other works banned by some totalitarian regimes cannot be published freely in the United States. Let me get this straight: writers who are likely speaking out against totalitarian regimes and possibly advocating freedom or other "American" ideals are now banned from being published in the United States, the supposed land of freedom. These people are nuts. How much longer before we just start burning books? Oops, too late. (via Bob.) posted by chris at 10:37 AM   Shut up, strapped up and shipped out On June 15, 2003, Sgt. Frank "Greg" Ford, a counterintelligence agent in the California National Guard's 223rd Military Intelligence (M.I.) Battalion stationed in Samarra, Iraq, told his commanding officer, Capt. Victor Artiga, that he had witnessed five incidents of torture and abuse of Iraqi detainees at his base, and requested a formal investigation. Thirty-six hours later, Ford, a 49-year-old with over 30 years of military service in the Coast Guard, Army and Navy, was ordered by U.S. Army medical personnel to lie down on a gurney, was then strapped down, loaded onto a military plane and medevac'd to a military medical center outside the country. Although no "medevac" order appears to have been written, in violation of Army policy, Ford was clearly shipped out because of a diagnosis that he was suffering from combat stress. After Ford raised the torture allegations, Artiga immediately said Ford was "delusional" and ordered a psychiatric examination, according to Ford. But that examination, carried out by an Army psychiatrist, diagnosed him as "completely normal." A witness, Sgt. 1st Class Michael Marciello, claims that Artiga became enraged when he read the initial medical report finding nothing wrong with Ford and intimidated the psychiatrist into changing it. According to Marciello, Artiga angrily told the psychiatrist that it was a "C.I. [counterintelligence] or M.I. matter" and insisted that she had to change her report and get Ford out of Iraq. Story, via Bob.) posted by chris at 10:28 AM   ------------------ Wednesday, December 08, 2004 Bizarre Medical experts have confirmed that Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine’s opposition leader, was poisoned in an attempt on his life during election campaigning, the doctor who supervised his treatment at an Austrian clinic said yesterday. Doctors at Vienna’s exclusive Rudolfinerhaus clinic are within days of identifying the substance that left Mr Yushchenko’s face disfigured with cysts and lesions, Nikolai Korpan told The Times in a telephone interview. Story and photos here. posted by chris at 5:14 PM   Rampant abuse From a classified report five months ago, one of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's closest advisers learned of allegations that a clandestine military task force in Iraq was beating detainees, ordering Defense Intelligence Agency debriefers out of the room during questioning, confiscating evidence of the abuse and intimidating the debriefers when they complained. -clip- In the documents, government witnesses describe the regular use of violence -- much of it inflicted on prisoners by a top-secret task force devoted to capturing "high-value targets" in Iraq -- more than seven months after a fact-finding mission reported to senior defense officials that the unit was beating prisoners. There is no record, among the documents made public yesterday or previously, that makes clear whether the abuses -- separate and apart from the highly publicized incidents at Abu Ghraib -- have stopped or whether anyone has been held responsible for them. The Bush administration, which continues to portray prisoner abuses as isolated events and the Pentagon's response as swift, fought vigorously to keep the new documents from public view. The American Civil Liberties Union released 43 of them after compelling the Bush administration to provide them -- many still heavily censored -- in a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act. More. posted by chris at 4:09 PM   Donald Rumsfeld, Zen master Rumsfeld was in Iraq this week and in a rare Q&A with the troops, was asked this question: "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?" Shouts of approval and applause arose from the estimated 2,300 soldiers who had assembled to see Rumsfeld. The Secretary of Defense's answer? "You go to war with the Army you have," Rumsfeld replied, "not the Army you might want or wish to have." ...What's more, he said, armor is not the savior some think it is. "You can have all the armor in the world on a tank and a tank can (still) be blown up," he said. This from the man who wanted the smarter, smaller, faster army. Now it's, ahhh, you do what you can. He truly is a Zen master. posted by chris at 3:50 PM   ------------------ Tuesday, December 07, 2004 Oh yeah, all that stuff about privatizing social security and making it revenue neutral? Um....that was wrong. From the Center for American Progress: On Monday, the White House said for the first time that President Bush's plan to privatize social security would be "financed in part by new government borrowing that could top $1 trillion." That money will make it difficult for President Bush to honor his campaign pledge to cut the deficit in half. The White House had "once hoped that budget surpluses, projected in 2000 at $5.6 trillion over 10 years, would fund the transition period," but under the Bush administration, "those surpluses have vanished." Last week, White House economic adviser N. Gregory Mankiw admitted President Bush's plan would also "include major cuts in guaranteed benefits for future retirees." Mankiw "flatly rejected raising taxes" as a way to improve benefits for the elderly. UPDATE: A quick run-down on Social Security. posted by chris at 2:06 PM   ------------------ Monday, December 06, 2004 The words of Rumsfeld Secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfield, 2/7/03: "It is not knowable how long that conflict would last. It could last, you know, six days, six weeks, I doubt six months." Secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfield,12/6/04: Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld expressed hope Monday, but did not explicitly predict, that American troops would be out of Iraq by the end of President Bush's second term. posted by chris at 9:36 PM   Snopes Monkey Trial (revisited) About 40 states are dealing with some sort of challenge this year to the teaching of evolution at the state level, local level or both, said Glenn Branch, deputy director of the California-based National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit group that defends the teaching of evolution in public schools. For example, a federal judge in Atlanta is expected to rule soon on a suit filed on behalf of six parents in Cobb County -- Jackson's part of the country -- who objected to a disclaimer the school board affixed to ninth-grade biology textbooks. It says, in part: "Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered." I've been seeing a lot of stories about this lately; major battle lines are being drawn. I learned about evolution in school and creationism in church. It was up to me to reconcile the two and figure out what I believed. Today's creationists don't seem content with that scenario. Instead of kids figuring the world out for themselves, the creationists seem to prefer indocrination of their beliefs. It's almost like the creationists don't trust their ideology enough when it's put up against opposing viewpoints. They don't have faith that kids, making up their own minds, will decide that creationism makes the most sense. Instead, it's the lessons of advertising: repetition, repetition, repetition, in every sphere of life. If you won't believe it, we'll hammer it into your skull until you do. posted by chris at 9:17 PM   Dumbing down your listeners Clear Channel Communications Inc., the nation's largest radio station operator, has picked Fox News Radio to be the primary source of national news for most of its news and talk stations, officials announced Monday. The five-year agreement initially covers more than 100 radio stations. I'm sorry, what were you saying about the "liberal media?" (via Tbogg.) posted by chris at 8:54 PM   And the revolving door spins even faster On Nov. 23 -- exactly three weeks after the election and as a flurry of top Bush administration officials announced their departures -- the Office of Government Ethics declared that it was relaxing prohibitions on lobbying by former Cabinet secretaries and other top officials. Until now, senior officials at Cabinet departments and agencies had not been allowed to lobby former colleagues for a full year after leaving office -- a rule designed to prevent an obvious conflict of interest. But, in a notice in the Federal Register, the ethics office issued a new rule invoking its power to declare that "a former senior employee who served in a 'parent' department or agency is not barred . . . from making communications to or appearances before any employee of any designated component of that parent." ...These changes were so urgent that the ethics office found that "good cause exists for waiving the general requirements for notice of proposed rulemaking, opportunity for public comment and . . . a 30-day delayed effective date." Who needs ethics or checks and balances when you have a "mandate"? posted by chris at 1:10 PM   ------------------ Sunday, December 05, 2004 NBC screwed up - surprise! In a stunning admission, an elections manager for NBC News said national news organizations overestimated President George W. Bush's support among Latino voters, downwardly revising its estimated support for President Bush to 40 percent from 44 percent among Hispanics, and increasing challenger John Kerry's support among Hispanics to 58 percent from 53 percent. The revision doubles Kerry's margin of victory among Hispanic voters from 9 to 18 percent. Ana Maria Arumi, the NBC elections manager also revised NBC's estimate for Hispanic support for Bush in Texas, revising a reported 18-point lead for Bush to a 2-point win for Kerry among Hispanics, a remarkable 20-point turnaround from figures reported on election night. Doubled Kerry's margin of victory?? What's wrong with these news organizations? They're too concerned with being the first to break with the news that they don't take the time to get all the facts before they report something. That's not news reporting, that's just a hype machine. posted by chris at 10:13 AM   ------------------

    

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