Bamboozled again!

As the administration spends much of its time focusing on the quagmire in Iraq, in Afghanistan the ranks of the Taliban have grown by an estimated 10,000 members — many from our “ally” Pakistan. There have been 90 suicide attacks in Afghanistan in 2006 and nearly 100 people have been killed there in the last two months according to the New York Times.

And still Republicans insist on referring to Iraq as “the central battlefront in the war on terror.” Senator Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, said that he adamantly opposes any withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Senator John McCain, R-Arizona, is actually calling for an increase in troops.

The much-anticipated Baker Commission — thought to be the promise of a real strategy if not an exit plan — seemed to have been dismissed by President George W. Bush. The commission’s satellite discussion today with UK Prime Minister Tony Blair seemed more like a celebration of video conferencing technology than a serious discussion of a war that is killing hundreds of people a day.

Those on the other side of the aisle aren’t much better in spite of promises from the Democrats to put principle before politics. Less than a day after Speaker of the House-elect Nancy Pelosi, D-California, announced Rep. John Murtha, D-Pennsylvania, as her choice for Majority Leader, a twenty-six-year-old videotape of Mr. Murtha refusing a bribe appeared on the evening news.

So instead of looking for solutions on Iraq and Afghanistan, the Democrats are already at each other’s throats. This infighting costs the new majority and will likely lead to a loss of direction.

Add to this mess the promise of many members of the new leadership not to conduct hearings and investigations and it looks like the electorate got bamboozled again.

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen said it best “…it would be … exhilarating if the new Democratic majorities evinced a similar moral indignation. Instead of reassuring the administration's serial fibbers that they will not be required to answer for their statements about Iraq, they should instead be vowing to take apart the ship of state plank by plank until they find the rot -- not impeachment, mind you, just accountability.

“This is not a matter of vengeance or, God forfend, politics, but of restoring the people's faith in their government. How dare these people lie to you and me and send Americans to die in Iraq for reasons that turned out to be wholly nonexistent?”

Meanwhile, the BBC reported today that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is being sued in a German court for his role in the detention of suspected terrorists.

"The complaint was filed by the US-based Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of a Saudi man held in Cuba and 11 Iraqis held in Baghdad," the BBC story said.

Of course this story didn't make the evening news. I wonder what gives.

An apt metaphor

Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-Rhode Island, writes in today's New York Times Op-Ed pages of a meeting of a handful of Republican senators after the contentious 2000 presidential election. At the time, the Senate stood at 50-50 and Vice President Dick Cheney would have the deciding vote. The senator from Rhode Island thought that the closeness of the election suggested that cooperation and compromise were in order. After all, President-elect George W. Bush had campaigned as "the uniter not divider."

Mr. Chafee writes he "was startled to hear the vice president dismiss suggestions of compromise and instead emphasize an aggressively partisan agenda that included significant tax cuts, the abandonment of international agreements and a muscular, unilateral foreign policy." Mr. Chafee said he "was incredulous."

In a letter to Mr. Cheney, Mr. Chafee writes, "I believe we must maintain discipline both in discretionary spending and in proposals for significant tax cuts. This time of continued relative prosperity and peace is an extremely important opportunity for our country to stay on a firm pathway toward elimination of the debt."

Mr. Chafee "hope(d) the new administration will be open to proposals to reduce the country’s reliance on foreign oil through energy conservation and greater investments in mass transit."

That was in the winter of 2000-01, a full nine months before 9/11, more than three years before the invasion of Iraq.

Mr. Chafee's moderate position in Congress is quite well known. According to the senator, nearly two-thirds of his constituents approved of his performance in the Senate. Appointed to serve the unexpired Senate term of his late father in 1999, Mr. Chafee was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works and the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee. He was one of only a few senators — and the only Republican — to vote against the war. And yet he lost the election to a Democrat.

Mr. Chafee advises the new majority to "find common ground for the common good." But Mr. Chafee should well understand if they don't, after all, as he told the Associated Press there are benefits to being a member of the majority party.

In the same story he decries the "pack mentality" in Congress.

"People don't like to step out," Chafee said. "They need a pack to go anywhere. That's not good for the country."

But when asked if he would change parties for the remainder of his term, he demurred. He didn't want to seem like he was "flying the coop."

In other words he wants to appear to be a chicken rather than a mustang. A more apt metaphor for the Republican rubber stamp Congress has yet to be uttered. Too bad it took six years of worldwide suffering before it became clear to the rest of the country.

Now what?

With the concession of Sen. George Webb, R-Va., yesterday, the Democrats now hold the majority in both houses of Congress.

There are calls for punishment and impeachment of George W. Bush by the party's left-wing warriors who've spent the last six years in the grass keeping the faithful alive and hopeful.

Meanwhile, the future Speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Ca., has promised to work with the Bush White House and that impeachment is "off the table."

But the administration isn't waiting to see if this make-nice attitude is real or rhetorical. They are pushing for legislation to legitimize the NSA wire-tap-without-a-warrant program and for the recess of Ambassador John Bolton to be permanent.

It seems a betrayal to those truly faithful Democrats who have kept track of every offense against the Constitution: an insult to each grass-roots organizer and volunteer who spent countless hours working to get people to see beyond fear.

And the pundits and pontificators of the "safety-first" right aren't making nice. Their rhetoric is completely apocalyptic. A Fox News anchor wondered wistfully if Donald Rumsfeld's resignation caused cheering in Afghani caves and in Iraqi insurgent cells, as though a victory for the Democrats is a victory for Osama.

The troops on the ground in Iraq don't seem to care who is leading the Pentagon, it doesn't make them any less vulnerable, any more bomb or bulletproof.

There will be no impeachment, no repealing of the Patriot Act. The Democrats will go out of the way to prove how cooperative they can be, how bipartisan. They will compromise with the GOP and give further ground. The troops will likely be in Iraq until the 2008 elections, dying for a policy that never should have been.

The election's winners don't see the vote as a mandate for restoring the Constitution or bringing home the troops. They don't see the elections as a call for diplomacy and international cooperation. They don't view them as a call for responsible environmental and energy policies. They don't hear the cry for reversing an economy that punishes the poor. Instead they see them as an opportunity to run conferences and committees; to get back to the lobbyist troughs.

The groups and individuals that have suffered so greatly under the conservative control, the ones who worked so hard to make the system better will be left bitter and asking, "Now what?"

GOP Crybaby calls for Protest

One of the wonderful things about the 24-hour news cycle is that late night election coverage will broadcast just about anything live. At 1:40 a.m. CST, Tony Paraica — the GOP candidate for Cook County Board president — went on WMAQ NBC 5 and in an angry voice complained because all of the ballots hadn't made it to the board of elections.

"We're not going to let them steal the vote," Mr. Paraica screamed to his supporters at the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Chicago. "We should all march down there (to the Cook County Board of Elections) and insist that they can't steal our votes."

After a few more minutes of screaming and hecklers decrying the "Democrats" and "the machine," Paraica concluded his remarks with supporters shouting that they would make the walk to the Board of Elections. Paraica's campaign manager said that the ballots which still weren't counted were from "white ethnic wards" — effectively playing the race card (Stroger is black, Paraica is white).

In spite of Paraica's claim that ballots were being delivered to the BOE by people "in plain clothes" rather than uniformed sheriff's deputies, NBC reported that deputies had, in fact, delivered all of the ballots. The reporter also said that the candidate's lawyer was already at the BOE.

Paraica also complained that Cook County had spent $60 million dollars for technology and that he was "outraged" by the "incompetence."

"This is outrageous," Paraica said. "We're not going to let anyone steal this election."

Paraica claimed that he would stay at the board "all night" to make sure that every vote is counted.

As WMAQ went to commercial I realized that this is just like Florida in 2000 with angry Republicans trying to intimidate election officials. Even on election night late night TV still shows reruns.

GOP cheats and Dems demure

Whatever the final tally of Tuesday's general election, the GOP is finally being called out for its dirty tricks. The so-called 72-hour strategy involved "robocalls" that were scripted to deceive voters to think that Democratic candidates were calling at odd hours repeatedly were ringing phones of voters in close races. The Washington Post and others reported the story in the last two days — possibly too late for some voters to get the word.

And much as I hate to bash my own profession, the media seems not to be concerned by what is clearly a dirty tactic. This goes beyond negative TV ads — even the racist ones in Tennessee — it suggests that winning is everything. And few journalists are giving it half as much attention as a bad joke told poorly.

Add these last minute robocalls to the laundry list of rotten tactics the Republicans have pulled in the last six years. Police intimidation in Florida, refusing to perform a full recount in that same state, alleged calls to voters saying that police would arrest voters with outstanding parking tickets at polls in Virginia, purging voter rolls, creating barriers to minority voters in Ohio in 2004 and the list goes on.

In fact, by 6 p.m. CST on Tuesday, Tim Russert of NBC was suggesting that Democrats not go after President Bush with investigations and hearings so they didn't appear as an opposition party. Democrats should reach across the aisle because this vote was a referendum on divisive politics.

A couple of hours later, Rep. Rahm Emmanuel, D-IL, was on NBC saying that the House under Democrats would work to unite the country and put it back on the right track. In other words, the American people who in poll after poll said that the GOP scandals and the war in Iraq caused them to doubt the President and the party. They demanded change and wanted to know who was responsible for the mess the country is in. There are at least fifteen new Democrats in the House who ran against the President. Those voters expect the Congressmen-elect to at least officially look at the run-up to the Iraq invasion and Foley scandal.

If Mr. Emmanuel is taken at his word, it appears that there will be no real change in Congress. The left-wing blogosphere will once again be Cassandras, only this time in an election that showed strong gains for the party believed to be liberal.

Democrat Tammy Duckworth, an Army reservist who lost both her legs when here Blackhawk helicopter was shot down in Iraq, lost to a Republican by the slimmest of margins. Her supporters were vocal in their desire to see someone hold the administration’s feet to the fire. Mr. Emmanuel and the DCCC literally poured millions of dollars into her election and she lost. Conversely they all but ignored Rep. Melissa Bean, D-IL, who won reelection to a seat that hadn't had a Democrat in decades when she took it in 2004. I'm not suggesting that the DCCC shouldn't be happy with their success in retaking the house for the first time in more than a decade, but clearly they didn't pitch a shutout with their message.

One hopes Mr. Emmanuel was merely emulating President Bush with a phony "uniter not divider" sound bite before doing the opposite.

Bush family history

What a week for the Bush family history. Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, separated by a decade of prosperity, each managed to lead a nation into two wars as president: H.W. into Kuwait and Somalia and W. into Afghanistan and Iraq. Each presided over a stalled economy. Each sought and took advice from Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. Each viewed Saddam Hussein as a threat to American security. Each saw a soaring national debt and was unable to do anything about it.

And now, in a strange twist of history, each will spend two years as president with Daniel Ortega leading Nicaragua. On the same day that Saddam Hussein’s death sentence was announced, 40-percent of Nicaraguans voted that Mr. Ortega, the once and future president, take the reins over what is said to be the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. When Mr. Ortega last ran Nicaragua, there was a protracted civil war between his ruling Sandinistas and the US-backed Contras.

H.W., then serving as President Ronald Reagan’s vice-president, was linked to a secret (and illegal) operation wherein the US sold missiles and technology to Iran and used the money to fund the Contras. There were congressional hearings, accusations of an executive branch over-stepping its bounds and a deceived American people.

The revelation that there had been secret meetings between Iranian leaders and H.W. wherein the missile sale was promised for an agreement not to release 52 American hostages in Tehran until after the election led many Americans to question GOP election strategies. It also introduced “October surprise” into the political lexicon. The result of this deal led to untold deaths in Central America and prolonged the Iran-Iraq War.

W., serving as a lame duck president (especially if the Democrats have a majority in both houses of Congress), will likely face congressional hearings on accusations of an executive branch overstepping its bounds and deceiving the American people.

Although Mr. Ortega’s first election as president may have been less than legitimate, his presidency from the current vote cannot be. He collected 40-percent of the vote in a national election with multiple candidates and finished more than 5-percent ahead of the runner-up. In the run-up to the election, the US threatened to discontinue aid to the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere if Ortega was elected.

This policy — if adopted — will create further suffering for people who have been through nearly 70 years of corrupt governments all of whom ignored human rights and killed those in the opposition. The US should meet with Ortega and promise continued aid for his promise of more progressive economic policies than his socialist past would indicate. They should make this offer loudly and repeatedly. If the old Ortega emerges, the US can wash its hands of the Central American country. If a new Ortega embraces progressive policies and ensures human rights then the old US policy of benevolence will bring a new generation of citizens who see the US as a beacon of freedom and a model of the power of self-governance.

It could be an historic event in the Bush family history. It could change the perception of this presidency from one of bullying failure to diplomatic victory. Two years is a long time for a president interested in his legacy. Or two years could be an eternity of suffering for the world.

Kerry should apologize

Much has been made over the last couple of days about Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., trying to be funny— and as usual missing the mark — with a comment about President George W. Bush and the administration's policies in Iraq.

Pols, pundits and "patriots" are calling for an apology from Mr. Kerry for his insensitivity to our troops by suggesting that the lack of an education lands one in Iraq. Mr. Kerry has insisted that he misspoke and what he meant to say was that "if you're intellectually lazy, you end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq — just ask President Bush." He mangled the line and it seemed to suggest that enlisted military aren't that bright.

The White House press secretary Tony Snow was incredulous and was outraged at Mr. Kerry. Mr. Snow did not have the same outrage last year when President Bush showed some slides of himself searching the Oval Office for WMD. Mr. Snow has never criticized Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for repeatedly making flippant remarks to and about soldiers and generals.

But I too join in the calls for an apology from Mr. Kerry. I too think that he owes the American people and the troops an apology.

He should apologize to the American people for putting himself in the public eye after being defeated in the 2004 presidential elections. He should go back to Massachusetts and quietly continue to serve in the senate. How many other senators have lost presidential bids and still tried to be the face of their party? Sen. John McCain, R-AZ., — poised to take over the top spot in 2008 — notwithstanding, most senators have quietly gone away. Kennedy, Dole, Hart, and others have had the good sense to stay out of the national spotlight.

Like a moth, Mr. Kerry is compelled to put himself in front of the cameras. Didn't he embarrass the Democrats enough by losing to Mr. Bush? The decorated veteran was made to look like a draft dodger by an AWOL reservist. With all of the evidence that Mr. Bush vacationed us into 9/11, lied us into Iraq, drove us into a record national debt and sat back watching as businesses defrauded the government and the people, Mr. Kerry still lost.

He should have had the good sense to take what was left of his pride — as former Vice President Al Gore did — and ducked the national spotlight. But Mr. Kerry's fatal flaw is that he has no sense of shame, no sense of honor.

Mr. Kerry owes the people — Democrats in particular — an apology for allowing the right to goad him into the spotlight. When the Republican propagandists need a quick hit Mr. Kerry lobs them a soft one every time.

But more than the Democrats, Mr. Kerry — and his party cohorts — owes the American people a heartfelt apology for allowing this administration carte blanche in Iraq and the "War on Terror." Mr. Kerry voted to give the President the power to invade Iraq. Mr. Kerry approved the post-9/11 measures that led us into becoming a country were the Constitution is now seconded to the will of the President, where international law and multi-lateralism is scoffed and mocked.

Moreover Mr. Kerry and the entire senate owe an apology to the troops who are being demoralized and decimated by endless deployments to Iraq. Someone in the senate should have pushed the administration to enact the selective service system. Besides providing much needed replacements to the fighting forces, such a move would have forced the American people to really consider our policies in Iraq, to share the burden so to speak. When teens from the suburbs are forced into the military, suburbanites don't take it lightly. But as long as it is a military made up of folks from small towns and the inner cities, the war is something distant something that other people are doing. It becomes just one other tidbit on the news.

If Sen. Kerry had pushed for a draft in 2003 when the war started, Americans would have looked at the President's rhetoric a whole lot differently in 2004. College students would have been forced from their apathy. Doubtlessly some would have joined the military, others would have fled the country, and still others would have taken to the streets in protest demanding that Congress hold the President responsible.

Mr. Kerry understands from experience the power of young people protesting presidential policies. Mr. Kerry made his political career on it.

Eco-tourism hits the mid-west

When most people think of eco-tourism they have images of wealthy couples exploring the Amazon or the rainforests of Borneo.

Eco-tourist company, Learn Great Foods, provides a different form of earth friendly exploration. With day and weekend tours, LGF takes guests to eco-friendly farms, retailers and communities like those found in Leland, Michigan.

About six hours drive from Chicago and nearly five from Detroit; Leland sits on the northern tip of the Leelanau peninsula on Lake Michigan. The small community is considered a great getaway in both summer and winter. In the summer the open waters provide boating, fishing and swimming. In the winter the 130-inch average snowfall provides cross-country skiing and snowmobiling opportunities for the enthusiast. Hunting and bird watching provide activity in the fall and spring respectively.

But LGF approaches the peninsula differently, instead focusing on Community Supported Agriculture and organic food providers. On a recent autumn Saturday, LGF tourists visited Sweeter Song Farms run by Judy Reinhardt and Jim Schwantes. The couple showed their guests the operation that provides member families from the area with fresh produce throughout the summer and fall.

"The last beets and carrots are about ready to come out of the ground," Judy told the visitors. "We have one more distribution before winter."

The guests were permitted to pick a basket of vegetables as they toured the acreage of this century old farm. The vegetables were turned over to a local chef, Perry Harmon, hired by LGF to prepare a gourmet meal from the ingredients the tourists would gather or purchase throughout the day.

The next stop of the day was to Leland's historic Fishtown. On the waters edge, this collection of shops and buildings appear more like an 18th century fishing village than the modern products sold inside. The first stop was to Carlson's Fish Market, a family operation for 150 years. The market sells line caught Great Lakes and ocean fish.

The tourists bought salmon, whitefish and lake trout before heading over to the Cheese Barn. The small cheese stand was having an end-of-the-season sale and the group found some wonderful organic goat cheeses for the price of commercial dairy cheese.

They visited a local winery and organic beef operation before heading back to Chef Perry. The chef prepared the meal in the Sweeter Song Farms kitchen as the group diligently took notes on how he paired food choices. The fish was pan fried and served with a pear relish with onions, peppers and some herbs grown in Judy's herb patch. For desert he prepared an apple crunch with fresh local apples.

The tour was $85 per person for the daylong event and included all the ingredients for the gourmet meal. President of LGF, Ann Dougherty, offers a variety of packages and trips. Itineraries, reservations and program descriptions are available at www.learngreatfoods.com

Gay marriage is bad for business

With yesterday's New Jersey Supreme Court ruling ordering the state legislature to create an institution that approximates marriage for homosexuals and requiring the extension of benefits to same-sex couples and their children, the Republicans are hoping to energize conservatives to vote for GOP congressional candidates. Desperate to distract the voters from the economy and from the quagmire in Iraq, this ruling has already been touted as an example of "activist judges" and "the imperial judiciary... "impos[ing] same sex marriage in New Jersey."

For 30 years the GOP campaigned for smaller government, for state's right and against government intrusion in people's lives. Even on the fractious issue of abortion rights, the Republicans declared the necessity of letting the individual states decide. So who are these imposters in elephant clothing who want the Feds to decide to whom states can issue a marriage license, expanding government power and spending and encouraging the US Supreme Court to overturn jury awards in state courts? (See http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/26/opinion/26thu4.html?th&emc=th)

While growing up in working class Cleveland in the 70s, political parties were defined in simple terms. The Democrats are for the little guy and the Republicans are for big business. Simple, clean and bereft of the left/right demarcations. Back then, Joe Everyman belonged to a union, worked in manufacturing or the trades, went to church or didn’t, made a decent living and thought a hot dog at the ball game was a gourmet meal. (Especially in Cleveland with Stadium Mustard.) Although he wasn’t the most tolerant of souls when it came to gays — he probably called them ‘queers’ — he frankly didn’t care enough about them to worry. He might have known a couple at work or from the neighborhood. But for the most part he never worried about their corrupting influence on society.

Joe Everyman was mistrustful of corporations — convinced after years of abuse that the company didn’t care about the workers — and would never call himself “pro-business.” At the same time, he was just as likely to subscribe to the philosophy of “Buy American.” Not because of xenophobia or racism, but rather because he understood that in a very real sense his economic interest was tied to the marketplace. He saw that an increasing number of goods were being made overseas and that companies were looking for cheaper labor. The line didn’t hold very long.
Soon the average family needed two wage earners and increasingly the good union jobs were being lost. By the mid-80s the steel mills, the shipyards, the foundries, the factories and the trades were laying off people in record numbers.

It was during this same period that the Republicans began to redefine the political parties. The Democrats became the party of tax and spend, the party of every crackpot issue, the party of liberals. The GOP became the party of rugged individualism — a party that preached, “if you’re poor it’s your fault” — the party of American strength and pride, the party of white, middle class ascendancy. It didn’t matter that these views were in opposition to reality any more than the old definitions did. Slick campaigning portrayed Democrats as weaklings, lackeys of big government waste.

People started to question why so many “minorities” received welfare — remember the welfare queens in their mink coats and Cadillacs (hey at least they bought American) — even though statistics showed that the overwhelming number of folks on the welfare rolls were white. The fundamental shift is best seen in the support for the White House’s union busting in the air-traffic controllers strike. Workers who favored unions were seen as obstructionists and crybabies. Stories were legion about the difficulty of getting union employees to follow even the simplest rules and firing someone was described as impossible.

What people failed to see was that supporting this reasoning, following this thinking enriched corporations but not the people. Supporting the GOP was patriotic even if the party routinely voted against middle and working class interests. To point this out, one risked the label of liberal and worse — some suggesting that to support such a position only empowered our enemies (the evil Soviets and their allies).

Each year, as real wages for the bottom two-thirds of Americans stagnated or fell, as corporate profits soared and the term “golden parachute” joined the common lexicon, the GOP became more powerful. The Republicans somehow created a dichotomy between conservative and liberal and assigned itself the former. The party further defined anything liberal as anti-American, anti-God and to blame for all the world’s ills.
Each election cycle the GOP found issues to divide the opposition into splinter groups. Minority v. white “Americanism”, urban “corruption” v. rural “heartland”, educated “elite” v. “real.” In essence these dualities always favored the rich and fractured the rest of us. The power in urban areas didn’t lie with the poor people who lived there, but rather with the suburban “carpet-baggers” who controlled employment. The educated elite were rarely in favor of an egalitarian state, rather they were enriching themselves from running the United States. The poor were painted as non-whites in spite of the numbers to the contrary.

Now it’s a liberal assault on religion and marriage that the GOP uses to frame the issues. Forget Iraq, forget illegal immigration, forget gay marriage: these issues are straw men. Implementing policies that would benefit the economic bottom nine-tenths of America are the real issues for the GOP.

The more one considers the issues, it appears Republicans are opposed to same sex marriage not on moral or legal grounds but rather for pro-business economic reasons. If homosexual unions are recognized on a federal level, businesses would have to extend benefits to same-sex partners that they currently extend to heterosexual married partners. (Sometime during the 80s the concept of common-law marriage became extinct and all marriages needed government sanction.)

The same economic impact holds true in undocumented workers. Any recognition of rights for these people would cost employers much more money than they pay now. Undocumented workers are not entitled to workers compensation, family and medical leave, overtime pay, OSHA regulations or sick time. And if workers agitate for these things they are fired and cannot seek government redress.

The government policy in Iraq is also based in enriching the wealthy — and here it is more insidious. While corporations like Halliburton are making untold millions without paying corporate income tax, the voters foot the bill. Meanwhile, well-meaning Americans suffer needless deaths and dismemberments.

GOP policy is not directed from any moral compass; it’s based on enriching the wealthiest and dividing the rest of us.

Watch this video

Click on the title above to watch commentary by MSNBCs Keith Olbermann. Amazingly spot on, please share with friends and family.

Sunset

Torturing the Constitution

The new law signed last weekend by President Bush denying prisoners of the War on Terror rights to Habeus Corpus has already been implemented. According to the New York Times, federal officials have served notice to the courts with pending lawsuits on behalf of terror suspects to dismiss the cases for lack of jurisdiction.

According to the Times editorial, the new law "raises insurmountable obstacles for prisoners to challenge their detentions. It does not require the government to release prisoners who are not being charged, or a prisoner who is exonerated by the tribunals.

The law does not apply to American citizens, but it does apply to other legal United States residents. And it chips away at the foundations of the judicial system in ways that all Americans should find threatening. It further damages the nation’s reputation and, by repudiating key protections of the Geneva Conventions, it needlessly increases the danger to any American soldier captured in battle."

Had enough yet? Don't forget to vote next month.

Support our troops unless they do their jobs

US Navy Lt. Commander Charles Swift — the JAG lawyer for Salim Hamdan who was told to "negotiate a guilty plea" and instead acted ethically on behalf of his client — was passed over for promotion and will soon be separated from the service.

Meanwhile the president is being permitted to continue kidnap and torture alleged enemies of the United States. In fact his powers have actually been extended to include not just those who actually take up arms or plan violence US, he can also kidnap and torture those who support terrorists in any way. (The administration announced today that they had arrested some nut job in California who called for the overthrow of the American government.)

Ethical behavior is punished while sadistic behavior appears to be protected. Bush should grow himself a little mustache.

Power and politics

If the legislation President Bush demanded passes as it is now worded, the Bill of Rights will be invalidated.

The legislation defines an enemy combatant as anyone "engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States." How many times has this administration argued that dissent helps the terrorists? How often has the administration said, "you're either with us or against us?"

To suggest that this legislation is anything but a usurpation of the Constitution is absurd. How much more damage will this administration do?

Every time this administration attempts to expand its power the terrorists gain a victory. And one suspects that the real reason for pushing this through without reasoned debate is politically motivated. The Republicans risk losing control of one or both houses of Congress and need a way to attack the Democrats. Saying Democrats are weak on terrorism and using "no" votes on this legislation as proof, will be the rallying cry for Republicans in the coming weeks.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Penn., was a lone Republican voice opposing the President and is now being assailed all over talk radio. If it weren't for the Colorado hostage incident yesterday, he'd be all over the TV too.

The Republicans want us to be scared so they can keep power.

Don't insult the President.

The 7-Eleven convenient store chain announced today that it was dropping Citgo as its fuel provider because Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called President George W. Bush "the devil."

Americans, it seems, are outraged that a foreign leader would use insulting rhetoric about the president. There are calls for boycotts of all things Venezuelan. There are even some who are calling for Noam Chomsky's head because Chavez told folks to read "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance." Fox News referred to Chomsky as an "American leftist writer." The news outlet was particularly shrill in its criticism of Chavez and the United Nations.

I've never fully understood the right's desire to kill the U.N., but they point to last week's speeches by Chavez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as reasons to end the international institution.

They have the right to their opinions and their boycotts. But the irony here is that after the 2001 attacks in New York and DC, no one on the right called for a boycott of Saudi oil.

The message, I guess, is that it's OK to kill Americans just don't insult the president. That we won't stand for.

When do we get the swastikas?

Now that we have a president who openly admits to secret US prisons and torture, a president who believes in kidnapping and a blanket threat posed by an entire group of people, I wonder what possibly could be next on his agenda.

I am often tempted to write screeds here, shouting about the Nazification (hey the other side can make up words, why can't I?) of America. It's difficult to believe so passionately in the possibility of this country all the while watching as it is destroyed from within. When will sanity return?

Democrats are impotent, the news media is ignorant and the populace isn't interested. There is no public outcry about the erosion of the Constitution. There is no real public debate about the use of torture on "enemy combatants." Where is the "Greatest Generation," the ones who won World War II? Where are the ones who said "Never Again?"

The great irony of our time is that the right uses imagery and mimicry of that time to bamboozle the people. Don't like what the left is saying; accuse them of using Nazi propaganda techniques. [www.politicalgateway.com/main/columns/read.html?col=89]
Don't like the growing anti-war sentiment, accuse them of appeasing Hitler. [http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-legion30aug30,0,7356486.story?coll=la-home-headlines]
Don't like journalists poking around, accuse them of ties to terrorists and arrest them, shooting him first if need be. [http://sirhumphreys.blogspot.com/2005/10/ap-and-reuters-photographer-bilal.html and at http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/09/15/news/cbs.php]

When it becomes hard to discern the truth from the lies people stop listening. Soon we will have national identification cards. When do we get the swastikas?

Why isn't everyone bothered?

When President Bush took his case to Congress and the nation that extraordinary measures were needed in both the investigation and prosecution of terror suspects the lack of outrage was deafening.

He spoke of restricting access to evidence, holding trials without the defendant present, permitting coerced testimony and third party assertions. He asked that Congress give a free pass to interrogators so they know they won't face criminal prosecution for their work.

Is this really the kind of debate the government of the United States should be having?

When Bush ran in 2000 he said he was going to "restore dignity and honor to the White House." Now he is suggesting that honor and integrity should be removed from the Code of Military Justice.

In the closing trial scene of Rob Reiner's film "A Few Good Men," Jack Nicholson's character said, "You f***in' people. You have no idea how to defend a nation. All you did was weaken a country today. That's all you did. You put people's lives in danger. Sweet dreams." He justified the killing of a Marine in his charge by saying that although tragic, the Marine's death probably saved lives. Is that the way we want to live? Is that the course that we think is best? Killing people saves lives?

But few Americans object, few of us do anything more than complain. We hear the administration shouting "Danger, danger" like the robot in "Lost in Space" and we accept it.

I understand that some people trust the government, some people believe that the war in Iraq is a pivotal part of the war on terror. I know there are people who think that anything is OK if it keeps us safe. Torture is a terrorist tactic. The threat of pain or death is what they hope to inspire.

Are we for or against terrorism? Or does nothing bother us at all?

They don't mind being wrong....

There is a myth that all of corporate America will do anything to make a profit including resort to the tactics like those associated with the recent Hewlitt Packard mess, that corporations are greedy and evil. We know that most corporations are responsible citizens who would do nothing to hurt people.

We also know of crazy lawsuits with huge settlements that make things tough for business. That's why fast food restaurants need to warn that the coffee is hot. That's why ice skating rinks need to warn us that ice is slippery. That's why doctors can't afford malpractice insurance.

But really we don't know anything.

Click on the title of this entry to check out the Drum Major Policy Web site Tort Deform to learn more. It's a surprising read.

The fact is that insurance companies are behind the much of the call for tort reform not because they're losing so much money in lawsuits, but because they can maximize profits by limiting liabilities and increasing premiums.

Look no further than the Gulf Coast. The feds will compensate homeowners and renters who carried insurance only. If a family didn't have insurance on their house, they get nothing. Meanwhile the insurance companies are paying a pittance of what their policy holders paid for in premiums.

Corporate America doesn't mind being wrong, they just don't want to pay for it.

The terrorists have won

Remember when Republicans demanded that Democrats not use Sept. 11 politically, that the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans be respected? Remember when the world was outraged over the attacks and united in its goal to stop terrorism? Remember when President Bush declared that he wanted Osama bin Laden "dead or alive?"

Of course it's hard not to remember these things because on the fifth anniversary of that day, the GOP is beating the drum again, hoping Americans will be afraid enough to support them in November.

The fifth anniversary is being used to drum up a fervor over the president's demands for more executive power. The images of the burning towers are once again appearing on TV screens and passions are stirred to hide the fact that bin Laden was never captured, the Taliban are re-emerging and the Middle East is in complete turmoil because of this administration. But the president needs more power to arrest, detain, try and convict enemy combatants without the protections of due process.

Sunday morning NBC aired an interview with the vice-president saying that there was no connection between 9/11 and Iraq. It was a momentous admission. Sunday evening in a retrospective about the effects of 9/11 NBC showed several groups affected by that day. They interviewed a family that lost a parent in NYC. They interviewed some children who attended the school the president was visiting at the time of the attacks. They interviewed a family of an Army sergeant deployed in Iraq for the third time since 9/11. The same network conflated the response to 9/11 with the war in Iraq after airing the interview with Mr. Cheney. So much for the free press.

In the days following 9/11, I appeared on a panel show on the Cleveland NBC affiliate. I listened as a rabbi; priest and imam called for peace and prayer, asked for respect and dialogue not fear and anger. I stood up that night and quoted Benjamin Franklin about sacrificing liberty for safety. I received a round of applause. I was approached in the parking lot by some guy who felt so strongly about what I said that he drove downtown in the middle of the night to thank me. On every other program demands for safety were shouted repeatedly. The argument went if you're not a terrorist you've got nothing to worry about with surrendering some liberties.

Five years later we are no longer as free as on Sept. 10, 2001. We are routinely harassed at airports, genuinely unaware of government policy, learning of secret prisons and torture policies, embroiled in Iraq for nefarious reasons and nebulous goals. We are not safer but we are certainly less free.

We've fundamentally changed our way of life. We look at all brown skinned people with askance. We listen to politicians preaching Christianity and are told to suspect all Muslims in a country that prohibits the establishment of religion. We are told that those who object are either unpatriotic or appeasers. We are now being told that these non-state terrorists are akin to the Nazis or the fascists. We are living in a country were fear trumps reason and irrational rhetoric shouts down debate.

One thing is certain. The terrorists have won.

No confidence in Dems new strategy

U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., sent me an e-mail this morning asking me to "demand a vote of no confidence in Secretary (Donald) Rumsfeld." OK, so it was a mass e-mail from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

I'm sure Emanuel doesn't have me in his personal e-mail address list. But maybe he should because once again the Democrats are floundering in their attempts to become effective.

"It is clear now that abiding by Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary is simply untenable, and that another two years of his tenure will bring even greater regrets and disaster than the last six. That is why House Democrats are demanding a vote of No-Confidence in Rumsfeld to signify that we need a new direction in Iraq," the Congressman from Chicago writes.

Emanuel points out his disgust with Rumsfeld "thinking about the midterm elections" and declaring "that any who supported a new direction in Iraq -- including a large majority of the American people apparently -- were suffering from "moral or intellectual confusion" equivalent to Nazi appeasers."

Ignoring the irony of this administration's similarity to the Nazi regime and its use of Goebbels-like propaganda techniques, attacking Rumsfeld has already been proven to be a losing strategy and really doesn't get to the heart of the concerns of most Americans.

Running on the "we're-an-alternative-because-we're-not-them" plank isn't going to electrify your base or attract swing voters no matter what party uses it. The Republicans tried it for years before coming up with the "Contract with America" a hollow platform that at least offered something Americans could see as an alternative.

The Democrats continue to flounder because they can't find a unifying position over the mess in Iraq. Hawkish and pragmatic Dems want to stay the course at least for a little while. The more lefty Dems want immediate or time certain withdrawal. Neither position offers much of a rallying cry. "Hey we know they screwed the pooch with Iraq, so we're going to have to stay there" vs. "They screwed the pooch with Iraq, so we gotta get out of there" isn't much as a position.

What the Democrats need to do is return to their own base, to remind Americans of a time when working for a living meant security, when being an American meant religion was a private matter and sexuality wasn't a political football. To remind Americans when there was dignity in being concerned for your neighbor’s well being, when self-sacrifice was the way of the nation. To remind Americans that peace and justice do not involve secret prisons and airport searches, when safety wasn't an excuse for negating the Constitution.

When was the last time any Democrat spoke like that? When was the last time Democratic vision was based on heartfelt beliefs not opinion polls? There are far more things that make all of us alike than there are that make us different, yet the Democrats continue to divide us into categories and classes.

That's the e-mail I'd welcome from Emanuel, that's the position that will ensure the Democratic return to majority.

Ritter, Ritter, Ritter!

David Corn, Washington editor of "The Nation," and Michael Isikoff, investigative correspondent for "Newsweek," were guests on the Diane Rehm show discussing their book "Hubris." They spoke of the faulty intelligence that the White House used to justify its invasion of Iraq. Both are good journalists and write well. Rehm was quite good at interviewing them, challenging their assertions.

I remembered the details as they reviewed them, the Niger yellow cake, the stories from Iraqi "dissidents" predicting a popular uprising, the predictions of a quick war, the smoking gun in the form of a mushroom cloud, Colin Powell presenting the case to the UN.

I also remember Scott Ritter a former Marine intelligence officer turned UN weapons inspector. Isikoff and Corn didn't mention Ritter this morning. I hope they included him in their book.

I saw Ritter on the O'Reilly Factor wherein the bellicose host derided Ritter and questioned his patriotism. Ritter persevered through the interview insisting that there were no WMD and certainly no nuclear program.

Later that night I saw him on Nightline where a less confrontational host asked Ritter why, if what he said was true, didn't Saddam Hussein just tell the UN there weren't any weapons instead of playing the game. Ritter said that Hussein needed to maintain the threat of the existence of WMD to keep his enemies away and his people in line.

Here we are years later, thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed, the region is destabilized and Iran has emerged as the major power in the region. It seems that Ritter was right all along and yet no one wants to remember his Cassandra warnings.

Ritter was instead dismissed as a crackpot and called a traitor by CNN. An MSNBC newscaster suggested Ritter turn in his passport and move to Iraq. The vitriol was impressive, a foretaste of this administration's tactics in the 2004 election. Heck, the president all but called the Supreme Court traitors for ruling against his kangaroo tribunals during a speech announcing that 14 real terror suspects were being shipped to Gitmo.

Ritter, a Republican who said that he voted for Bush in 2000, has been vocal in his criticism of the Bush policies in the Middle East since the war in Iraq began. He has allegedly said that a war with Iran is inevitable, that UN Ambassador John Bolton's speech announcing a unilateral move against Iran has already been written.

Let's hope this time he's a crackpot.

Ethical issues and employment

There are stereotypes and then there are stereotypes. It's a well-established perception that journalists are cutthroat, backstabbing and amoral. They will do anything to get a story, exploit, deceive, lie, steal and threaten.

Even the film "All the President's Men" — considered the best representation of journalists — portrayed Woodward and Bernstein as willing to do whatever it takes to get the story, including bullying sources.

Recently I wrote a story about a man who is the appointed president of the local conservation district. An attorney, he also represents a developer who wants to build 20 single-family homes on a 9 acre parcel that abuts the conservation district property. Moreover, the proposed development is uphill and upstream from two rare fens on conservation district property. An official from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources told me that the project will likely have a negative impact on the conservation district property and will likely drive off two endangered bird species. A DePaul University ethicist told me that the attorney was acting unethically and had a clear conflict of interest. And if that's just not enough, the attorney is also the local head of the majority political party in the county. He was appointed by county board members of his own party to head the conservation district.

The story ran last week. A couple of days later, the general manager and the publisher approached me and said that they didn't think the story mattered and that it shouldn't have been printed in "our newspaper."

This isn't the first time I was either told to back off a story or give a public official a pass.

The $107 million contract for new schools paid for by bond revenues was awarded to a construction firm without bid because "they were already repairing the schools" and this new construction will just be added onto the original contract. Three days before the story was to run the general manager had lunch with the superintendent. The GM came back from that meeting and told me to let the story go and there wasn't a reason "to upset anyone" with publicizing the contract extension.

In June, while reporting on the city manager's annual performance evaluation, I was told that I was being too aggressive, we didn't need to FOIA anything at this paper.

I'm in a pinch though, I'm getting married in the spring and I need to work. I've tried to get other jobs, but no one will even interview me let alone give me a shot.

If I want to stay in my chosen field, I have to compromise what I see as basic ethical standards. Of course compromising those ethics means I shouldn't be in this profession.

Should a journalist quit journalism to support the ethics of journalism? Or should a journalist dismiss ethics in order to continue practicing the profession? What would Redford or Hoffman do?

Spike Lee, a gay German Artist and the failure of a president

One autumn afternoon in the mid 90s, I ran into Spike Lee on the Lower East Side of New York. He's not very tall, not very intimidating. He looks exactly like what he is; a contemplative artist who cares deeply about issues affecting his world.

I was with a friend of a friend's boyfriend at the time — the German artist, HN Semjon — hanging out while my friend was buying make-up or shoes or something that didn't interest me. At least not interested enough to stop my conversation with Semjon. We were discussing the different meanings of the word "art" in reference to his work and mine. As a writer I've always felt like my work was art of a lesser sort than that of visual artists. Semjon, a sculptor at the time, was very attentive and very kind in encouraging me. He insisted the debate between art genres was meaningless.

It was just about then that I literally bumped into Lee. If it weren't for the fact that the night before I'd seen "Do the Right Thing" (for the second time), I probably wouldn't have recognized him. He was wearing his signature black framed glasses, fuzzy beard and a giant coat to protect him from the wind that was already beginning to bight.

So shocked to see him, all I did was say 'excuse me' and move around him. Semjon didn't recognize him until the filmmaker had moved down the street. It was as if Semjon had conjured up the diminutive filmmaker to illustrate his point that art can't be defined by genres let alone ordered by rank.

Years later, I'm not so sure that Semjon was right. I just don't see myself as an artist. Lee certainly is.

Given my relief at the arrival of the Katrina anniversary, I tuned into Lee's documentary about New Orleans on HBO last night. I was hoping the story would exorcise my dreams or at least ease the pain of them — as if viewing the film were a passage to healing.

But the dreams were worse than ever last night, filled with water, helplessness and drowning. At one point I dreamt that I was trapped in a flooded house trying to hack my way through the ceiling to the floor above me even as the rising water filled the room. Fighting to hold my breath, I swam through the front window of the house and was picked up by a boat seconds later. As I was lifted over the gunwale, I saw Spike Lee — dressed just as he had been that day in New York — at the tiller. There was another refugee in the boat, bundled in a wool blanket. I remember thinking how hot it was and wondered at the figure in the blanket. Somehow, in that infinitesimal time between the dream bubble popping and me waking, I realized George W. Bush was the man in the blanket.

I sat up on the edge of the bed for quite a while wondering if my dream was a result of too much curry or too much curiosity.

I finally settled on the idea that GWB is a refugee from the truth of his failure to assist victims of the storm. Spike Lee was steering him into understanding the truth. And I was a witness to the capricious whims of weather and survival.

It was only a dream for me, but for millions of Americans — mostly poor, generally unemployed — it is an ongoing nightmare. No movie, no artist, no debate, no denial can change that truth.

Guilty Pleasures

In the late 80s I developed a habit of listening to talk radio in the morning. A girl I was seeing was a fan of Howard Stern and I started listening to his programs. Many times I was shocked and upset by his vitriol, but most often it was juvenile or bathroom humor that made me simultaneously squirm and snicker.

In the mid 90s I graduated to NPR's morning radio. Although they didn't interview women the morning after first lesbian experiences, NPR titillated, angered and outraged me as much as the hairy fella in New York.

I still listen to NPR, rotating in the morning between Chicago and DeKalb stations. Generally they run the same programming before 9 a.m. but their signal strength in the suburbs varies for a random number of reasons.

The past two weeks it has been tough to listen to NPR. Every other story is about New Orleans or Hurricane Katrina. Memories of the people and places that I saw during my time in the Gulf have been overwhelming. I've found myself feeling guilty at only doing a little, at abandoning the people down there. I've found myself crying at stories of people who barely made it and having nightmares about the people who didn't. For the first time since Christmas the awful smell of river bottom mixed with sewage and dead things has returned to me when they report on the thick mud found in most homes weeks after the storm. When they talk about the president flying over the damaged area a year later, I recall the anger and frustration of people whenever a helicopter flew past us.

So it's been an amazingly difficult two weeks. I confess that I'm glad that today is the last day of anniversary stories. There may be a few others in the next few days but we've got a midterm election coming. Republicans aren't going to let the media dwell on tragedy much longer, especially when the president's approval rating for handling the hurricanes is actually lower now than in those pathetic days after the storm. Heck, in a couple of weeks, we've got a five-year anniversary of another tragic government failure. The news reports of what happened can't last much longer.

I feel both pleasure and guilt that the anniversary has arrived. I hope the dreams at night recede soon too.

The real me.

This is a hard one to write. I'm not all that good at being real about anything least of all about myself. Friends and family expect a quip for every query, an irreverent aside for every serious conversation.

But the past few weeks have found me short-tempered and angry. I've snapped at supervisors and subordinates. I've been surly at home and sour with friends. Some might say I haven't been myself lately. But it's just not true.

This is me, the real me.

I'm angry beyond words and on the verge of tears almost constantly. I can hardly wait for Sept. 11 to roll around so the media will go back to pretending Hurricane Katrina is old news.

I don't know if I ever posted on this before taking the stuff down in February. I don't think I did. It's just too personal.

I spent several weeks in Southern Mississippi last fall. I was supposed to be there as a reporter, but spent most of my days doing relief work and wrote about it at night. My editors were upset with me and I almost lost my job because of it. (Truth be told, my attitude then left an impression on my bosses that I was insubordinate and didn't respect their authority. They mentioned this during the unemployment hearings that followed my dismissal in February.) It was one of the saddest experiences of my life, watching the poorest people in the country thank people for the smallest of kindness.

Fortunately, I was too busy to dwell on it, too overworked to cry about it, too drained to think about it. The act of filing a story each morning at 6 a.m. somehow put a period on the previous day, closed my memory from remembering.

One night while sitting around drinking lukewarm beer with some relief workers, I heard a scream from nearby. I dropped the beer and ran toward the sound. Another relief worker, a Mexican guy, had been adjusting the hitch for his equipment trailer when the cement block it was resting on gave way. The heavy trailer, complete with a portable cutting torch and several dozen gas tanks, had tipped onto the man's right foot.

We managed to raise the trailer using a two-ton hydraulic jack that we had brought along from Illinois. I asked — OK, I told — one of the people standing around watching to go get someone from the medical clinic set up in the compound. There was considerable blood, but no bones seemed to be broken.

One of the doctors and a med student came and examined the Mexican's foot. The doctor closed the wound with some butterfly bandages and told me to take the guy to the hospital in Waveland — a town 18 miles east of us.

The Mexican, Juan Something, didn't want to go but I made him get into the truck. Thinking his reluctance came from a lack of medical insurance, I explained that the hospital was providing emergency care for free. (A lie that turned out to be true.)

What really troubled Juan were the National Guard checkpoints along U.S. 90 between Pearlington and Gulfport. Every ten miles or so, a roadblock was set-up every night from 8 p.m. until 5 a.m. From midnight until 4 a.m., non-government vehicles were prohibited from travel along the highway. Juan was worried that some soldier might ask for documentation from him. They might have otherwise, but by then the Guardsmen were used to seeing my truck. My press pass gave me extraordinary access.

(With the exception of NASA Stennis Space Center, I was never denied entrance anywhere. For several months after the hurricane, the NASA base was closed to non-governmental employees-- FEMA was staging out of there, as were several security and firefighting units. But a doctor at one of the volunteer clinics told me that if I flipped a stethoscope behind my neck like an ER doc, they'd let me through. A trick that worked, it was as close to playing doctor as I ever got down there.)

Juan was lucky. The hospital -- a circus like tent set-up in a parking lot of a destroyed K-Mart -- found no broken bones. They cleaned the wound, put a couple of stitches in to close it, and told the guy that God had been looking out for him because the cheap boots he wore had miraculously saved his foot.

I haven't thought of Juan since then, but he and other people I met down there are now like a cast of characters in a play that only I can see.

I'm angry because I feel like I've abandoned these people.

I went along with the rest of my profession. My next big story was on Dennis Hastert's ties to Abramoff. Then I co-wrote a series about an Illinois judge allegedly trading sexual favors from jail inmates for reduced sentences in court.

(I wrote a scathing criticism here about the newspaper's support of all things Reagan and Republican. ((If you check out the Web site for my old papers you can buy a limited edition bronze of Reagan riding a horse.)) This of course was the catalyst to my being fired.)

I moved on. I let my words from then speak for me and I let it all go. And now all I see and hear is New Orleans, New Orleans, New Orleans. The media and administration have either colluded to ignore or just plain forgotten the poor people outside of New Orleans affected by the hurricane. It makes for a much neater story when the only poor people are black folks from the Big Easy. Given all that we've heard about the murder rates in black neighborhoods there before, during and after the storm, it's not hard for Americans to harden their hearts and ignore them. They're the Willie Horton's of modern politics. They represent all that racism and conservatism rely on to reinforce the notion that success for Black people is available for those who aren't too lazy or too dangerous to take it.

"It's not my fault those Blacks can't get ahead. Even Juan Williams from Fox News knows they're killing each other."

I met plenty of minorities in Mississippi. There were the volunteers from Philadelphia (Penn.) who ran the shelter in Pearlington until white people from the Red Cross showed up in late October. (The Red Cross took over the shelter, put up a sign claiming ownership of the services that had been provided by volunteers not in any way affiliated with the group, and then proceeded to kick everyone out of the shelter. The folks of Pearlington were moved from the only building left standing in the tiny village and plopped down in a FEMA park 20 miles away where many still live.) (The Red Cross "volunteer" who ran the shelter for less than a week before it closed later got in trouble for using relief funds for his own benefit.)

[I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW MUCH I'M REMEMBERING AND RAMBLING. I THINK MAYBE I NEED TO STOP NOW AND FIGURE OUT HOW TO TELL THIS STORY IN A LINEAR WAY. IT HASN'T HELPED WITH MY EMOTIONS, ONLY GIVEN ME MORE MEMORIES TO MAKE ME ANGRY.]

How do you spell hypocrite? C—O—N—S—E—R—V—A—T—I—V—E

Conservative groups are calling for the head of a federal judge in Michigan who ruled against the NSA's warrantless wire-tap program because she serves as a trustee of a group that has given grants to the American Civil Liberties Union.

The conservative group, Judicial Watch, said that Judge Anna Diggs Taylor had a possible conflict of interest in the case ACLU v. National Security Agency because she is a member of the Community Foundation for Southeastern Michigan in Detroit's board of trustees, the New York Times reported. According to Judicial Watch, the organization gave grants totaling $125,000 since 1999.

Federal law requires judges to disqualify themselves from hearing a case if their impartiality "might reasonably be questioned" based on factors like a financial or personal relationship with a party in the case. Conservatives point out that by this standard Taylor should have recused herself from the case.

Conservatives don't hold all judges to the same standard. Justice Antonin Scalia went duck hunting with Vice President Dick Cheney after the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case where Cheney was a named defendant. Scalia heard the case that gave President George W. Bush the White House just weeks after his son, John, was offered a partnership in a law firm representing Bush in the case. In the same case, Justice Clarence Thomas remained on the bench even while his wife, Virginia, was soliciting resumes for the Bush transition team.

Conservatives accepted that Thomas and Scalia would be fair and impartial not given to political prejudice. It's only "liberal activist" judges who won't be.

The fact that fourth amendment to the Constitution specifically requires warrants "upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation" is lost in the din. Spun no matter what way, the judge's ruling is based on the Constitution and the law, not on her political beliefs or personal passions.

The conservative blogs and talking heads will, of course, carry the day and the rest of America will once again be reminded of the dangers of "liberal" judges. The mainstream media will give credence to the right by asking those on the left to defend the judges hearing the case in spite of a conflict of interest.

Once again the left is left with answering the proverbial when-did-you-stop-beating- your-wife question. The stranglehold of Republican hypocrisy continues.

Defining victory

Yesterday, President Bush criticized Democrats who are calling for either a date to bring the troops home from Iraq or for the immediate withdrawal of all forces. He said the Democrats want to leave "before the job is done."

"I can't tell you exactly when it's going to be done," Bush said according to the AP. "If we ever give up the desire to help people who live in freedom, we will have lost our soul as a nation, as far as I'm concerned."

Apparently now the mission in Iraq is to help people who live in freedom and to save the soul of the nation.

"War is not a time of joy," he said. "These are challenging times, and they're difficult times, and they're straining the psyche of our country. I understand that. You know, nobody likes to see innocent people die. Nobody wants to turn on their TV on a daily basis and see havoc wrought by terrorists."

The terrorists of whom Bush speaks weren’t killing Iraqis when the war on terror began in 2001. Although none would argue that the Iraqis were living in freedom, they had less to fear under the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.

The problem isn’t that Democrats are calling for a "date-certain withdrawal" or even an immediate withdrawal. The problem is the Democrats who are calling for these things.

The Sunday morning news programs featured Sens. John Kerry and Joe Lieberman. Sen. Hilary Clinton was used in a sound bite on one of the networks as well.

This is why the Republicans have so much hope for November. As long as Democrats keep parading failed national candidates or candidates who are as vilified as Clinton, the ruling party can distract voters from the issues. There is just no way to rehabilitate these characters. Even Democrats can’t stand them.

There need to be alternative voices with alternative messages in the debate. Democrats need to address Iraq without accepting the dualism of cut-and-run versus stay-the-course. Democrats need to offer real diplomacy in the region and look beyond the notion of Israel to create a lasting peace.

For years, the United States and much of the West have been adamant in their support of Israel’s right to exist without ever once recognizing that the government of that country has created an apartheid system at least as bad as South Africa. It’s not anti-Semitic to say that the Israeli government is wrong. It’s not anti-Semitic to recognize the plight of the Palestinians, the wrongs done to the Lebanese.

What should be recognized isn’t the threats of extremists, but the fears of the common folk both here and abroad.

When the Democrats start addressing the 300 percent rise in income for the top one-percent of the Americans, when Democrats begin speaking about the inequities of wage earners in developing countries that draw jobs from the US, they’ll begin to ease the grip of fear that this administration has created in the world.

Or they can continue on their present course and drive Republicans to victory in the fall.

A lesson in baseball and integrity

The late Roger Tremaine was indisputably a baseball lover. One of the founders of the Continental Amateur Baseball Association and its first national executive director, Tremaine worked year round to make the amateur baseball experience something that participants woud remember forever. He wanted to celebrate the purity of the sport, played for the joy of the game without the interference of winning at any cost. Tremaine embodied the joke about baseball lovers; when he wasn't watching or talking about baseball, he was in bed dreaming about it.

Treamine passed away in October nine months before a nearly legendary on-the-field performance by a group of 9-year-olds from Woodstock, Ill. There can be little doubt that this team embodied all that he imagined when CABA was just a fledgling organization in the Cincinnati suburbs of the late 80s.

This year's CABA tournament in Crystal Lake, Ill. featured teams from the US, Japan and Peurto Rico. It was truly a world series.

The tournament represented the pinnacle of summer baseball for 15, 11 and 9-year-old players from all over the globe. The Woodstock team of 9-year-olds — the city's first ever entry into the tournament — drank in all of the splendor of the event.

For some, it will be as close to sports fame as they ever come; for others it will be the first in a long string of life's successes. But for those who saw the team play, for those who agonized over each loss, reveled in each win, the team will forever be lionized for what they did on the field. They may not have been major leaguers, but for a brief week in Woodstock they were just as admired, just as important.

They were four outs away from advancing to the championship round after playing as a team for only two weeks. An amazing accomplishment.

But one thing that most people don't know, something most never heard is that had the team's manager been a less honorable man, the team might have won what turned out to be their last game.

One of the rules of CABA is that pitchers may pitch for only so many innings during the tournament. The rule protects young arms from permanent injury. After each game, tournament directors generate a list of all the players and how many innings each has left to pitch. On that Friday afternoon, Steve Otten, the Woodstock manager, was given a list that said two of his best pitchers were eligible to pitch. Otten knew these boys had pitched their maximum innings.

Instead of taking advantage of the mistake, Otten reported the error to the tournament director.

The director checked the database and said as far as the tournament was concerned both boys were eligible to pitch. But Otten refused to use them, playing fair were less honest managers would have pitched the two boys and ignored the rules.

Arguably, Otten's honesty cost the team a victory and a spot in the championship. But he taught a lesson to each of those young men about honor and integrity. It was the best part of the tournament and the least known.

Perhaps somewhere Tremaine is telling this story to another baseball lover. If not, let's hope that he dreams of it in his long sleep.

Sacrificing liberty, wanting safety, getting neither

Most Americans apparently care little or nothing for the Constitution. After all, the United States has been run without it since 9/11 and — with the exception of a few civil libertarians and progressive writers — no one seems to miss it.

Within months of the 9/11 attacks people were already being held without charges or hearings.

On the morning of the attack, Abdallah Higazy, the son of a former Egyptian diplomat, was in his room on the 51st floor of the Millennium Hilton Hotel, across the street from the twin towers. Along with everyone else Higazy fled the hotel after the attack. He would never have come to the attention of authorities except for a lie — either malicious or misinformed — told to authorities.

A hotel security guard told police that he found a radio that could be used to communicate with airborne pilots in the safe in Higazy’s room. They investigated, but they could find nothing to link Higazy to the attack.

Higazy returned to the hotel three months later to pick up his belongings and he was arrested by the FBI as a material witness and placed into solitary confinement. Federal investigators were understandably suspicious, but had nothing that could be called evidence that Higazy was involved in the attack.

In the United States, law enforcement officials are not supposed to lock people up without at least some evidence of wrongdoing.

Higazy could not be linked to the attack, but he was in a jail cell, with no chance of proving that he was innocent.

This was an abuse of the material witness statute by any standard. People arrested as material witnesses are supposed to be witnesses, not suspects. The statute was created for cases where there is a significant belief that the witness will flee the jurisdiction before testifying. There is no crime and the witness is supposed to be treated differently from an accused criminal.

In a criminal arrest, the government has an obligation to provide an arraignment where they must show probable cause that the suspect had committed the offense. The FBI didn't have evidence to prove his involvement, so Higazy was held as a material witness while investigators searched for something to pin on him.

News reports say that an FBI agent eventually coerced Higazy into saying that the radio was his. The agent knew that if there wasn't some kind of admission of involvement the law required Higazy be set free.

That Higazy’s admission was not the truth didn’t matter. The authorities were happy to finally be able to accuse him of a crime. Ironically, they charged him with lying to federal agents when he said the radio wasn’t his.

Then a pilot, an American citizen, walked into the same hotel, looking for the aviation radio he had left behind on Sept. 11. Higazy’s original story — which he had clung to as long as he felt he could — had been the truth. Higazy was set free.

What might have happened if the pilot hadn’t shown up to claim his radio? It's a frightening thought, once again proving nonsense the notion that if you've done nothing wrong, you've got nothing to worry about.

This case isn't the most egregious either. People have been sent offshore to be tortured, been condemned to secret prisons run by the CIA, been put away at Guantanamo Bay and other American military prisons. That's not to mention the people who have died at the hands of American military and civilian interrogators.

Since 9/11, people have been forced to surrender previously guaranteed rights and most time without so much as a nod at the balance of powers. We're herded like sheep through metal detectors, patted down to watch football, under scrutiny by cameras as we shop, drive, eat and live. The left is called unpatriotic for objecting to anything and those who protest are marked for further study by the government.

Meanwhile there is little evidence that all of these measures are doing anything. We're not any safer nor will we ever be. The Republicans who called themselves the party of small government sponsored the creation of Big Brother.

"Those who are willing to sacrifice liberty for safety deserve neither," Benjamin Franklin said. Maybe he really knew that those who sacrifice liberty for safety receive neither.

They ARE happy to see us

When the Bush administration acted surprised by the widespread insurgency and the spreading sectarian violence in Iraq, I wondered if any of them ever took a history course.

Although many insurgencies have failed over the years and resistance movements been crushed, the list of invaded countries that mounted no resistance after its army fell isn't all that big. Union soldiers invaded their own country during the US Civil War and found recalcitrant citizens of the South shooting and attacking them from behind. Stories of the resistance during World War II are legendary.

At first the administration said the Iraqi resistance were "Saddam loyalists" or "Ba'ath party extremists." After the Shi'ites started resisting in Fallujah they became "elements of extreme Islam." Soon after that members of the resistance styled themselves members of Al Qaeda. This worked well for the Bush administration that had for months before, during and after the invasion tried to link Bin Laden to Saddam.

Of course they ignored the obvious; that Zaraqawi and Bin Laden didn't even know each other, that Bin Laden and his operatives were busy fighting their own insurgency in Afghanistan and really didn't have the manpower to start a second front.

But because most Americans have little understanding of Al Qaeda, they think that all people claiming to be members must be in touch with the leadership. It's the same as saying everyone who owns a Chicago Cubs shirt must be a member of the Major League Baseball franchise. If a man wearing a Cavaliers jersey robs a bank, the FBI doesn't go knocking on LeBron James' front door.

To show just how impotent the occupation forces have become (in part as an effort to reduce their own casualties), the different sects in Iraq are killing each other with impunity. The numbers of executed are staggering. If Saddam is a war criminal for killing Kurds and other dissident factions — and he undoubtedly is — then the leaders of these groups are making him look like an amateur. They come dressed in uniforms, identifying themselves as Iraqi government troops as they arrest husbands and sons. Often as early as the next morning the arrested are found murdered, their bodies dumped unceremoniously throughout Baghdad.

It has gotten so bad that some news agencies are reporting that Iraqis are actually relieved when American troops arrest one of their family members.

Maybe the administration was right in its predictions because the Iraqis are finally happy to see US troops.

Earning It

I'm at a new paper now in the suburbs. It's smaller than my last one, has almost no staff, makes me work a thousand hours a week and pays me next to nothing. It's not great, but as managing editor I get to set the tone for the paper. Unlike my right wing colleagues at the old paper, I'm not going to preach any party line.

I wrote the editorial for the Memorial Day issue and decided since no one is reading this anyway, I might as well include it here.

A solemn day of remembrance

For many Americans, next Monday’s holiday serves as the unofficial kick-off to summer. The weather has turned warmer, summer baseball leagues have begun, and students can almost sense the weeks of freedom that await them. But Memorial Day should be more than that, something solemn.

The holiday, started in 1868, was originally called Decoration Day. General John Logan issued General Order No. 11 that said in part that May 30 be "designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country." In 1971, Congress designated the last Monday in May for the observation.

Unlike Veterans Day, Memorial Day does not celebrate the service of citizen soldiers but rather mourns their loss.

In Steven Spielberg’s epic film "Saving Private Ryan," a dying Capt. John Miller (Tom Hanks) whispers one last order to the title character.

"Earn this, James," he says as he lays bloody amid the detritus of war, smoke and death hanging in the air. "Earn it," he says again before his life breath escapes him.

Too often Hollywood gets it wrong; in this case it’s right.

The character’s final words, while directed to one man, are a challenge to us all to earn the right to the freedoms that so many Americans have died protecting. Memorial Day is a national recognition of those men and women who left this life amidst the savagery that is man at his most inhuman. Their shortened lives, with all the hope and promise that resides in the souls of each life, are the price paid for our freedom.

Even now, men and women pay the last full measure in service to the novel idea that the rule of law is more powerful than any king, more inspiring than any philosophy. We must forever earn their sacrifice. Not through empty sentiment or patriotic platitude, not through commercial anthems on radio or magnetized ribbons on bumpers.

Instead we must ensure that we never turn a blind eye to injustice, never allow the usurpation of the Constitution those dead swore to defend. Earning it requires eternal vigilance against those who would blind us with lies or cripple us with fear. Earning it requires each of us to stand on guard here in this blessed country against those who wish to deny others their inalienable rights in the pursuit of personal power or enrichment. Earning it requires that the strong protect the weak, that the empowered include the powerless.

The blood and tears of these men and women, not yet dried in the streets of Fallujah, not yet washed from the clothes of their comrades, demands more of us and our leaders.

We can not — we must not — ever forget that our freedom was paid for with their ultimate sacrifice.

As we fire the grill, as we toss the ball, as we enjoy the sun or rest in the shade this solemn holiday, there is a question that should linger in the air, swirl around us like the smoke of barbecues, prick deep inside the heart of every free American. The question each must ask himself is have I earned it?

It's crazy, right?

It doesn't take a genius to understand that members of this Administration aren't strict constitutionalists. Their overwhelming dismissal of the Bill of Rights is understandable; they're Republicans.

Since the 60s, the GOP has railed against "substantive due process" and "activist courts" whenever a court issues a ruling that expands the rights of a few over the rights of many. When courts struck down miscegenation laws in the 60s, conservatives decried it as federalism run amok as they did with desegregation and gender bias. They hated affirmative action, civil rights, women's rights, voter's rights, rights of the accused, a woman's abortion rights and the rights of the minority to be free from the religious expressions of the majority.

They attacked each expansion of individual rights as favoring federal power over state power.

But when they gained all three branches of the government in 2001, Republicans changed their minds about federalism. The president has pushed for federal legislation to overturn state laws that allow gays to marry, cancer patients to use marijuana and set pollution standards.

But those things are really just politics as usual. The states they were opposing in these cases are either overwhelmingly blue states, or they have a history of being moderate.

But Thursday's revelation in the USA Today that the NSA is tracking "thousands, maybe millions" of domestic phone calls is the proves that this administration ignores the Constitution.

According to Voice of America, "The technique the NSA is reportedly using is known as "data mining" and has long been utilized by commercial businesses. Companies gather data on consumers' buying habits to track product popularity. For example, using a discount card at a store tracks purchasing patterns, which helps companies create and market products."

Examine this argument for a second. The administration is trying to compare what the grocery store does when the consumer uses an opt-in service and compare it to examining the records of private citizens using a public utility. I know when I get groceries that the company keeps track of this data. I get coupons in my mail and email. I don't know if the NSA has any records on me -- they probably do; I'm a liberal loudmouth and I have an Arab-sounding last name -- but I never gave them permission unless they're somehow part of the Men's Wearhouse club or the Frequent Readers card.

But what got lost in the mix last week with these latest revelations was the White House's use of Presidential signing statements wherein he obviated the purpose of 750 laws by declaring the executive branch above the law. The most dramatic case comes in the McCain torture ban. According to the Boston Globe, the White House "can ignore ... military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, "whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research."

For example, when Congress created the Institute of Education Sciences in the Department of Education in 2002 whose director was by law permitted to conduct and publish research "without the approval of the secretary [of education] or any other office of the department," Bush declared that all employees in the department come under his authority. Of course last week investigators from the Justice Department revealed that the NSA had ignored requests for information. Effectively the White House is saying that it runs everything in the executive branch, even those agencies that are empowered to be independent of interference. W. is using virtually the same arguments that Nixon used during the FBI investigation of the Watergate break-in.

Last year while covering hurricane relief efforts in Mississippi I met a guy who I considered more than a little paranoid. He told me that the White House was listening to his phone calls. He said that they tracked who he called and how long he talked to folks. As crazy as he sounded, it appears now that he could have been right.

I just hope he's delusional about his other prediction. I mean it's a crazy thought right out of survivalist pulp fiction. He predicted that W. would find a way to stay president beyond the 2008 elections by creating a constitutional crisis effectively ending democracy in the US.

Crazy. Right? RIGHT???

Okay, so it's been a couple of months since I've posted anything. And yes I took down all of my earlier postings. I got fired from my job at the newspaper for having this blog. Sure that sucks, but readers will remember that I was tired of the place and actively seeking other employment, so maybe getting canned wasn't that bad.

But what sucks about it big time is that the Illinois Department of Employment Services said that my keeping the blog and criticizing my bosses at the paper was misconduct. They denied my unemployment insurance and agreed with everything that my former employers said. It was really a humbling experience. So much for free speech and all that.

I haven't really written a word since I was fired. I've sent out dozens of letters looking for work and even had a couple of nibbles, but it's been 75 days since the firing and I'm still out of work and I fear that my writing skills are atrophied. The cover letter really isn't the best place to practice my writing.

I'm overwhelmed with self-doubt (and self-pity, I'm sure) at times.

I've decided that I'm going to start writing here again and see if I can't get back into my stride so that if I ever get a new position I won't be out of the loop as far as my writing is concerned.