It was another outstanding dry season day today, with warm, sunny, dry weather all day, and hardly a cloud in the sky. Maybe we will get some dry season this year after all. It was even a bit warm last night, never dropping below 72, and this afternoon, it made it all the way to 85 - highest I have seen so far this season.
I'm getting along fairly well with my recuperation, and managed to get some laundry done today. That was one of the bigger hurdles I had feared. I was a bit slow about it, but it worked out just fine, and I wasn't excessively tired when I was done, so I think I am going to be able to manage without having to hire a maid, which is something I am really loathe to do.
Well, I think the word that I am more or less laid up has made it around town. People are getting a bit brazen about fishing in my pond without permission, and late this afternoon, I chased a whole family out. I think they figured that I wouldn't notice, or that I am too incapacitated to go chase them out. Fortunately, when I chased them off, they had only caught one small tilapia, and I could care less about them, so I didn't say anything about it. But if they come back, I'm calling the cops. I have got to let the town know that I am not going to allow my property rights to be trampled upon, laid up or not.
A couple of weeks ago, the municipality put up some signs to indicate to the tourists the directions to Tilaran, the volcanoes, La Fortuna, and some of the various tourist traps such as the volcano observatory and the Eco-Lodge Resort. Well, I would have figured that with all the signs up - and they're big ones that are pretty hard to miss - that the tourists would not be still having trouble finding their way. But oh, no. They're still getting lost and still driving past my place looking for the road to Tilaran. I really don't understand it. They must be near friggin' blind to miss those signs - and there are three of them, so you can't miss them regardless of your approach to town. So I am still keeping my maps of the area handy for passing out to them. The "human sign" - the homeless lady that was offering information and maps in exchange for a small donation - hasn't been at the crossing for quite some time. So I think she has either found work (I hope so) or has decided that the new signs make her work obsolete. In any event, she hasn't been seen around town for awhile, so maybe she has moved on. I'll miss her smile and wave every time I go through the main intersection.
More Reasons Why I Am Glad I Am Out Of The States: The Pentagon is engaged in a psychological PR propaganda campaign to exaggerate the role of Musab Al-Zarqawi in Iraq and link the war in Iraq to 9/11. How do we know? Because their own leaked documents admit it. How else can we therefore quantify yesterday's 'surprise' release of the Al-Zarqawi video tape as anything other than a cynical ploy on the part of the Pentagon to hoodwink the American public into believing that George W. Bush is leading US troops in a brave turf war against global terrorists? An April 10th Washington Post article brazenly stated, "The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to internal military documents and officers familiar with the program. The effort has raised his profile in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have overstated his importance and helped the Bush administration tie the war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks." The Post even described how the Pentagon had concocted fake Al-Zarqawi letters boasting about suicide attacks and leaked them to Dexter Filkins of the New York Times, who splashed it on the front page the next day. Despite the fact that Filkins had severe doubts about the authenticity of the letter, the Times got down on their knees, licked boots, and published it anyway. And the military leadership has the nerve to claims its propaganda doesn't target US citizens and only appears in 'liberated' Iraqi newspapers.
The House debated an intelligence bill Wednesday that dramatically would boost the money available to the new spy chief and require the Bush administration to consider blocking the pensions of government leakers. The legislation, sponsored by House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., provides budgeting guidelines for 16 U.S. spy agencies and the office of National Intelligence Director John Negroponte. The bill's total cost is classified, but intelligence agencies' spending is believed to top $40 billion a year. Under the bill, Negroponte's office would get nearly $1 billion. Democrats expressed outrage that the Republican-led House Rules Committee would not allow any of their five proposed amendments to be considered by the full House. Those amendments included measures to expand congressional oversight of the warrantless surveillance program and the intelligence on Iran.
The GOP House leadership rejected calls Wednesday to preserve the Internet's open and democratic nature in the United States. Phone and cable industry lobbyists breathed a sigh of relief as the House Energy and Commerce Committee defeated, 34 to 22, an amendment to a broadband communications bill (known as the Barton-Rush Act) that would require "network neutrality." Under the proposal, developed by Massacusetts Democrat Ed Markey and others, phone and cable companies would have been prohibited from transforming the Internet into a private, pay-as-you-post toll road. Over the past week, there has been a remarkable outpouring of public and corporate support for network neutrality. SavetheInternet.com, organized by Free Press and representing dozens of nonprofit groups and leading Internet experts, helped generate 250,000 signatures in less than a week for an online petition calling on Congress to protect the Internet and pass the Markey bill. This new group, a collection of unusual bedfellows that runs the political gamut from Common Cause, the Gun Owners of America and the Parents TV Council to Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, also spurred many bloggers to take a strong stand (ranging from the liberal Daily Kos to the libertarian Instapundit).
Smirkey has approved Dubai's $1.24 billion takeover of Doncasters, a British engineering company with U.S. plants that supply the Pentagon, the White House said on Friday. The decision, announced by White House spokesman Scott McClellan, followed a congressional uproar over security fears that scuttled another Dubai state-owned company's plan to acquire operations at major U.S. ports. The interagency Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States sent its confidential recommendation on the Dubai takeover of Doncasters to Bush on April 13. "The president this morning accepted the committee's recommendation," McClellan said. "The committee recommended approval of the transaction after closely scrutinizing it and concluding that it would not compromise our national security."
The US state department acknowledged yesterday that there is a risk of Iraq becoming a safe haven for terrorists three years after the invasion of the country. The warning is contained in the state department's annual country reports on terrorism. The report, which suggests an increase in terrorist attacks worldwide, appears to undermine repeated claims by President George Bush that the US is winning the "war on terrorism". The report says: "Iraq is not currently a terrorist safe haven, but terrorists including Sunni groups like al-Qaida in Iraq, Ansar al-Islam and Ansar al-Sunna, as well as Shia extremists and other groups, view Iraq as a potential safe haven and are attempting to make it a reality."
Meanwhile, the US administration, beating the war drums ever louder, branded Iran public enemy number one, calling it one of the world's most active sponsors of terrorism, as the UN nuclear inspectors revealed that Tehran has successfully enriched uranium and is racing ahead with its nuclear program. The US state department's annual report on terrorism worldwide described Iran as the most active state sponsor of terrorism. It said the Revolutionary Guards and the ministry of intelligence and security were directly involved in the planning and support of terrorist acts in Iraq and elsewhere and supported militant groups in Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza. Iran threatened to end cooperation with the nuclear inspectors if the security council decided to react to the Iranian challenge. It also played for time by promising a timetable for negotiations with the IAEA within three weeks.
As the United States prepares a team of 30 to defend its record on torture before a U.N. committee, Amnesty International has made public a report blasting the United States for failing to take appropriate steps to eradicate use of torture at U.S. detention sites around the world. U.S. compliance with the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment will be the topic of May 5 and 8 U.N. hearings in Geneva. The United States last appeared before the Committee Against Torture in May, 2000. Amnesty claims that practices criticized by the Committee six years ago -- such as the use of electro-shock weapons and excessively harsh conditions in "super-maximum" security prisons -- have been used and exported by U.S. forces abroad. The Amnesty report (Beyond Abu Ghraib: detention and torture in Iraq) reviews several cases where U.S. detainees held in Afghanistan and Iraq have died as a result of torture. The group also lambasts U.S. use of electro-shock weapons, inhuman and degrading conditions of isolation in "super-max" security prisons and abuses against women in the prison system -- including sexual abuse by male guards, shackling while pregnant and even in labor.
Lawmakers are walking a tightrope. With gasoline prices soaring they want to appear tough on oil companies. But apparently not too tough. While congressional Republicans and Democrats in both the House and Senate promised to roll back billions of dollars in tax breaks for major oil companies, the House in a largely symbolic vote Thursday seemed to move in the other direction. House Republicans refused to go along with a proposal that called on House members to accept a Senate-passed repeal of $5 billion worth of oil industry tax breaks. They are the subject of intense negotiations between the House and Senate on a broad tax bill. A resolution urging House negotiators to accept the Senate tax proposals failed 232-190, with only two Republicans voting for it. Meanwhile, in the Senate, GOP leaders unveiled a 10-point plan aimed at soothing the growing election-year public anger over high gasoline prices. It included a $100 fuel-cost rebate for millions of taxpayers and proposals to rescind oil industry tax breaks enacted only eight months ago, and other measures, to be financed at taxpayer expense - into one pocket and out the other.
A full 10 seconds of silence passed after a reporter asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld what the intense secrecy and security surrounding their visit to Iraq signified about the stability of the country three years after the U.S.-led invasion. Rice turned to Rumsfeld to provide the answer. Rumsfeld glared at the reporter. "I guess I don't think it says anything about it," he snapped. He went on to say that President Bush had directed him and Rice to go to Iraq to "meet with the new leadership, and it happens that they are located here," a reference to the heavily fortified Green Zone where U.S. officials - and many Iraqi leaders - live and work. Rice broke in, calming the tension. "The security situation will continue to take our attention and the attention of the Iraqis," she said, adding, "The terrorists are ultimately going to be defeated by a political process here."
Senate Republicans tried on Thursday to get the upper hand in the escalating political battle over high gasoline prices by proposing a $100 rebate for taxpayers and by suggesting that they might increase taxes on oil-industry profits. The Republican proposal also called for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil production, a provision sure to draw opposition from many Democrats and even some Republicans. "The American consumer is the one that needs the break today, and we need to be taking steps to make sure that they aren't emptying their wallet every time they fill their tank," said Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, as the leadership unveiled its legislative response to an issue quickly taking over the Congressional agenda. The Republican plan includes a provision that could levy a significant tax on oil company profits, a provision that President Bush promised to veto when a version appeared in a Senate bill last year. The proposal came on a day when Exxon Mobil reported a 7 percent gain in its first-quarter earnings.
MSNBC reports Karl Rove believes he is in legal jeopardy. Karl Rove has described his three and a half hour meeting with a grand jury as grueling, and is more worried about being prosecuted than ever, MSNBC is reporting. An MSNBC report last night revealed that one of Rove's lawyers said the presidential adviser described his fifth grand jury appearance as "hell." MSNBC's David Shuster appeared live on Keith Olbermann's 8pm show this evening and stated that Rove was surprised by the tone of the questions as well as the length of time he was required to testify. Shuster agreed with Brian Unger, sitting in for Keith Olbermann, that it was "easy to imagine" that Rove's legal situation was the cause of his recent reduction of responsibilities. However, he added, "I don't see there's any chance that Karl Rove's going to resign, barring an indictment." Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the CIA leak case, is expected to decide in the next two to three weeks whether to bring perjury charges against Karl Rove, the powerful adviser to President Bush, lawyers involved in the case said Thursday, the NEW YORK TIMES will report Friday. With the completion of Rove's fifth appearance before the grand jury on Wednesday, Fitzgerald is now believed to have assembled all of the facts necessary to determine whether to seek an indictment of Rove or drop the case.
Advocates for low-income Americans and people with disabilities are calling on the federal government to drop a proposed change to Social Security that would force some people now qualifying for benefits to wait two more years before receiving aid. They say the change is nothing more than an attempt to "slash the disability rolls" while increasing hardship for some of America's most vulnerable. Critics also say the proposal would disproportionately affect people of color, especially blacks who experience higher rates of disability and have a harder time finding employment. The Social Security Administration (SSA) rule-change proposal, published in the Federal Register last November, would make several different categories of people qualifying for disability benefits wait two more years for payments to start. Because Medicare and Medicaid eligibility are based on Social Security qualifications, individuals would have to postpone receipt of those healthcare benefits too. Bryan Blackwell, a lawyer who represents Social Security claimants in Dothan, Alabama, said the wide variety of health problems that his clients have would make it difficult for them to continue working. "You have people who have been injured on the job and who may have received a little money from workers’ [compensation], but that’s either run out or fixing to run out," Blackwell explained to The NewStandard. "Maybe they get a small check, but it doesn’t come out to what they were earning previously. And you know people like that sometimes have to file for disability."
The Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has denied Democratic attempts to interview Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former CIA Director George Tenet and two former senior aides to erstwhile Secretary of State Colin Powell, RAW STORY has learned. Intelligence Vice Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) sought to interview Rice, Tenet and Powell's aides as part of a Senate inquiry into whether public statements by Administration officials about Iraq were corroborated by intelligence information. Recent reports - including one last Sunday from a former CIA chief in Europe - suggest that the Bush Administration was warned that Iraq did not have substantive weapons of mass destruction. Rockefeller expressed his desire to interview roughly twenty Administration officials in a private letter to Sen. Roberts in January, though the names of the officials cited in the letter were not made public until today. In addition to Rice and Tenet, Rockefeller sought access to Lawrence Wilkerson, formerly Powell's chief of staff, and Richard Armitage, formerly Deputy Secretary of State.
In interviews with Salon, several retired military commanders said that the unusual revolt against Rumsfeld is both well-founded and increasingly pervasive. From the broad strategic problems in Iraq to Rumsfeld's role in the calamity of sanctioned prisoner abuse, they say the case for his resignation is indisputable, and has the support of many other retired senior officers. One retired commander suggested that the generals' censure of Rumsfeld is especially important because the defense secretary has achieved unprecedented control over selecting the top brass who surround him at the Pentagon. "Considering the level at which these generals operated, the things they've been saying are a real indictment," said Brig. Gen. David R. Irvine, an Army Reserve strategic intelligence officer who taught prisoner interrogation and military law for 18 years at the Sixth Army Intelligence School before retiring in 2002. "It's not the responsibility of military commanders to decide when the nation goes to war. But these guys are experts -- some of them have direct experience executing the war plans that Rumsfeld developed. So when they say there are serious problems, I would think that Congress and the White House ought to pay attention. "I don't think I've seen anything like it in my 40 years of service," Irvine added. "Over the last several months I've had conversations with dozens of retired flag officers -- one, two, three stars. I have yet to talk to anyone who is a Rumsfeld fan. The level of disapproval is significant."
A week ago, it was the generals. Now it's the colonels and majors and captains. Moreover, these officers are in uniform and have none of the security from retribution of the generals who had all already retired. In a front-page story Sunday, The New York Times described an "extraordinary debate" now going on among younger American officers "in military academies, in the armed services staff colleges, and even in command posts and mess halls in Iraq." This debate is about the war in Iraq, about the tactics and prospects of the American forces there, and, most particularly, about Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, already the target of stinging criticism by a half dozen recently-retired senior generals, most of whom had served in Iraq. The names of these junior officers have all been withheld by the Times. If ever identified, they would be court-martialed. So readers have to take it on faith that the paper has described their opinions accurately. But it's hard to doubt that the report is close to the truth. To heighten its credibility, by no means all of its findings are predictable.
The only survivor of the Sago mine disaster that killed 12 men in January says vital breathing equipment did not work. Randal McCloy said four of the air packs issued to the men at the Sago mine in West Virginia failed to operate and the ones that did had to be shared. The charge was contained in a letter to the victims' families, published by the Associated Press news agency. The US mine safety agency denied the claim, claiming that all the devices recovered from the site were in working order. The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) said tests showed that "those that were activated would have functioned properly".
A US court has acquitted a group of 18 grandmothers of disorderly conduct for staging a rally against the Iraq war outside a military recruiting center. The defendants, known as the "Granny Peace Brigade", were arrested in October and charged on two counts. The courtroom burst into cheers and applause as the judge gave his verdict. The group's co-founder said it was "encouraging to know you can still protest legally" in the US and said more demonstrations were being planned. Joan Wile also said she hoped the case would motivate other senior citizens who might otherwise believe they were too old to take part in demonstrations. "I think we've shown them that it is not over and that they still have an important role to play in life," she said.
Forget bird flu, impeachment fever is spreading across the nation, state by state. On Tuesday afternoon, Rep. Dave Zuckerman (Prog.-VT) dropped the third of three nearly unreported bombshells on the Bush administration. Zuckerman, along with 12 fellow lawmakers, introduced a formal resolution for the Vermont state legislature to call on the U.S. House of Representatives to impeach President George W. Bush. With this resolution, Vermont joined the California and Illinois state legislatures, already embroiled in impeachment debates of their own. While the main impediment continues to be a sycophantic Republican majority, polls show that more Americans favor impeachment hearings than currently approve of the job Bush is doing (33 to 32 percent). In addition, as Bob Geiger notes, Bush's state-by-state popularity is lower than even his anemic nationwide figures suggest, with a paltry four states remaining red two years into his second term. In other words, the population has the stomach for it even if the representatives don't. The legal basis for these unprecedented state-level actions was discovered when, according to Steven Leser, Illinois Rep. Karen A. Yarbrough "stumbled on a little known and never utlitized rule of the U.S. House of Representatives." The rule was written in a book formerly known as Jefferson's Manual, which, according to C-SPAN, "is a book of rules of procedure and parliamentary philosophy - written by Thomas Jefferson in 1801 - [used by the House] as a supplement to its standing rules." Section LIII, sec. 603 states, "There are various methods of setting an impeachment in motion - [one of them is] by charges transmitted from the legislature of a State" Each of the three resolutions mentions Iraq lies, torture and illegal spying, with slight variations in tone and specifics. Assemblyman Paul Koretz's California resolution (which includes Dick Cheney) and the Illinois resolution both include the leak of Valerie Plame's identity, while Vermont's focuses almost exclusively on Bush's most salient transgression, his illegal spying on Americans. The spying charge leads the other two resolutions' list of charges as well.
The Central Intelligence Agency has warned former employees not to have unapproved contacts with reporters, as part of a mounting campaign by the administration to crack down on officials who leak information on national security issues. A former official said the CIA recently warned several retired employees who have consulting contracts with the agency that they could lose their pensions by talking to reporters without permission. He added that while the threats might be legally "hollow," they were having a chilling effect on former employees.
The controversy du jour aboard Air Force One today was one near and dear to the hearts of many otherwise happy couples: Command and control of the TV tuner. "It's come to my attention that there's been requests - this is a serious question - to turn these TVs on to a station other than Fox, and that those have been denied," Washington Post reporter Jim VandeHei told Press Secretary Scott McClellan. "My question would be, is there a White House policy that all government TVs have to be tuned to Fox?" "Never heard of any such thing," said McClellan, soon to be replaced by Tony Snow of Fox News, long viewed as an operation that enjoys most favored network status in the Bush White House.
Why I Am Embarrassed To Present My Passport: British music producer Adam Kidron says that when he came up with the idea of a Spanish-language version of the U.S. national anthem, he saw it as an ode to the millions of immigrants seeking a better life. But in the week since Kidron announced the song - which features artists such as Wyclef Jean, hip-hop star Pitbull and Puerto Rican singers Carlos Ponce and Olga Tanon - it has been the target of a fierce backlash. Some Internet bloggers and others are infuriated by the thought of "The Star-Spangled Banner" sung in a language other than English. "Would the French accept people singing the La Marseillaise in English as a sign of French patriotism? Of course not," said Mark Krikorian, head of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that supports tighter immigration controls. The initial version of "Nuestro Himno," or "Our Anthem," comes out Friday and uses lyrics based closely on the English-language original, said Kidron, who heads the record label Urban Box Office.
Habeas Corpus Death Watch: The Pentagon plans to release nearly a third of those held at Guantanamo Bay for terror suspects here because they pose no threat to U.S. security, an official of the war crimes tribunal said Monday. Charges are pending against two dozen of the remaining 330 prisoners, the chief prosecutor said. But he left unclear why the majority face neither imminent freedom nor a day in court after as much as four years in custody without an indictment. Only 10 of the roughly 490 alleged enemy combatants currently detained at the U.S. naval facility have been charged so far, and none with capital offenses, leaving the majority of the U.S. government's prisoners from the war on terror in limbo and the war crimes tribunal exposed to allegations by international human rights advocates that it is illegitimate and abusive. The decision to release the 141 detainees - the largest group to be reclassified and moved off the island - follows a yearlong review of their cases in which interrogators also determined that these men hold no further intelligence value.
Bill Of Rights Death Watch: The FBI secretly sought information last year on 3,501 U.S. citizens and legal residents from their banks and credit card, telephone and Internet companies without a court's approval, the Justice Department said Friday. It was the first time the Bush administration has publicly disclosed how often it uses the administrative subpoena known as a National Security Letter, which allows the executive branch of government to obtain records about people in terrorism and espionage investigations without a judge's approval or a grand jury subpoena. Friday's disclosure was mandated as part of the renewal of the Patriot Act, the administration's sweeping anti-terror law. The FBI delivered a total of 9,254 NSLs relating to 3,501 people in 2005, according to a report submitted late Friday to Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate. In some cases, the bureau demanded information about one person from several companies. The numbers from previous years remain classified, officials said.
Republicans Believe In Strong Ethics Rules: The House is scheduled to vote today on ethics legislation to increase lobbyists' disclosures and require lawmakers to own up to the earmarks, or narrow projects, that they insert into appropriations bills. But the measure would not restrict the gifts or meals provided by lobbyists as House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) had proposed in January, nor would it expand the number of enforcers of lobbying rules and laws. Lawmakers acknowledge that the bill is more limited in its scope and impact than the provisions promised by congressional leaders immediately after Abramoff's guilty plea to federal charges of bribery, conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud nearly four months ago. But they say they do not feel compelled to push more stringent measures partly because voters do not appear to be demanding them. "We're all being rushed into a bill," said Rep. David L. Hobson (R-Ohio). "We panicked, and we let the media get us panicked."
Republicans Support The Troops: Nearly 900 soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan have been saddled with government debts as they have recovered from war, according to a report that describes collection notices going out to veterans with brain damage, paralysis, lost limbs and shrapnel wounds. The report from the Government Accountability Office, to be released at a hearing today, details how long-recognized problems with military computer systems led to the soldiers being dunned for an array of debts related to everything from errors in paychecks to equipment left behind on the battlefield. The problem came to light last year, as soldiers' complaints began to surface and several lawmakers became involved. The GAO had been investigating other pay problems caused by the defense accounting system and was asked by Congress to investigate debts among the battle-wounded. The new report shows a problem more widespread than previously known. "We found that hundreds of separated battle-injured soldiers were pursued for collection of military debts incurred through no fault of their own," the report said. Last fall, the Army said 331 soldiers had been hit with military debt after being wounded at war. The latest figures show that a larger group of 900 battle-wounded troops has been tagged with debts. "It's unconscionable," said Ryan Kelly, 25, a retired staff sergeant who lost a leg to a roadside bomb and then spent more than a year trying to fend off a debt of $2,231. "It's sad that we'd let that happen."
Republicans Believe In Obeying The Rules: Before bolting from the Senate chamber, U.S. Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) shouted at Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR,) "I just violated the rules!" Domenici had interrupted Wyden's introduction of an amendment under the pretense that he was attempting to ask a question. Rather, he blasted the Senator's plan, after doing so announcing, "I just violated the rules! I didn't ask a question, I gave a speech. I hope you listened." Wyden had been on the Senate floor for nearly five hours. Under Senate rules, a lawmaker can push a vote on his or her amendment so long as they can stand on the floor. The Wyden amendment would eliminate royalty relief subsidies for drilling on government land if oil prices exceed $55 per barrel. He has argued that the program was implemented when oil was priced at under $10 per barrel, and have since come to exceed $75 per barrel. President Bush has gone on record stating that these particular subsidies were no longer necessary. Domenici argues that eliminating the subsidies won't save tax payers any money. Wyden claims independent audits say it could save taxpayers billions.
Republicans Believe In Maintaining A Clean Environment: Ten states plus New York City and Washington, D.C., sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday, claiming newly adopted emissions standards do not do enough to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. The states said that the EPA was refusing to regulate carbon dioxide emissions under the Clean Air Act, despite what they say is clear evidence that such emissions contribute to global warming, thereby harming "public health and welfare." The state attorneys general also allege that the EPA did not set sufficient standards for the regulation of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which power plants also emit. EPA officials defended their emissions policy and said they "will review all options and make an informed decision on how to proceed," according to a statement. "EPA's climate protection programs continue to exceed the agency's greenhouse gas emissions goals and are on target to meet the President's 18 percent goal to reduce greenhouse gas intensity by 2012," a spokeswoman said.
Republican Policies Build A Strong America: US economic growth should slow to a more sustainable pace this year, but high energy prices still threaten inflation, the US Fed chief has said. Speaking to Congress' Joint Economic Committee, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said this could make interest rate decisions less predictable. Rates have risen for 15 months in a row as the Fed has sought to tighten the credit supply and cut inflation risks. In future it could pause to examine the relevant economic data, he said.
Republicans Believe In Strict Observance Of The Constitution: Eleven House Democrats said Thursday they would sue the Bush administration, alleging the $39 billion deficit-reducing legislation signed by the president is unconstitutional because the House and Senate failed to approve identical versions. The lawsuit, led by Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, was to be filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Detroit. Similar lawsuits have been filed in other states by an Alabama attorney and a Florida-based student loan consulting firm. "Once again the administration is playing fast and loose with the Constitution," Conyers said. "Anyone who has passed the sixth grade knows that before a bill can become law, both Houses of Congress must approve it."
Republicans Believe In Open, Transparent Government: The CIA and other agencies wrongly kept secret about a third of the records they pulled from public shelves at the National Archives during reclassification efforts that were far more extensive than previously disclosed, according to an audit released yesterday. Auditors for the Archives who reviewed a representative sample of thousands of formerly public records found that 24 percent were pulled despite being "clearly inappropriate" for reclassification, and another 12 percent were "questionable" as candidates for reclassification. "In short, more than one of every three documents removed from the open shelves and barred to researchers should not have been tampered with," said Allen Weinstein, the archivist of the United States, who ordered the audit and imposed a moratorium on the reclassification efforts last month.
News From Smirkey's Wars: Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, an alarming number of the country's leading academics have been killed. A human rights organisation puts the number at about a thousand and has a documented list of 105 cases. These professors, it says, were not random casualties - they were assassinated. The first documented case is that of Muhamad al-Rawi, the president of Baghdad University, who was killed on 27 July, 2003, when two men entered his private clinic, one of them feigned severe stomach pain and was doubled over. Concealed against his stomach was a gun with which he shot al-Rawi dead. Assassination incidents continued after al-Rawi's shooting. Dr Majid Ali was assassinated in 2005, shot four times in the back. He had a PhD in physics and was one of the best nuclear energy experts in Iraq. The Paris-based Arab Committee for Human Rights (ACHR), an international NGO which has special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the UN, has issued an international appeal for help to protect Iraqi academics.
We Conservatives Are More Moral Than You: FBI agents are investigating whether a defense contractor provided prostitutes, limousines and hotel suites to former U.S. Rep. "Duke" Cunningham, who has been convicted on bribery charges, two federal officials said Friday. Investigators have contacted Washington-area escort services, two hotels and a limousine company in recent weeks, one official said. The allegations were raised by Mitchell Wade, another defense contractor who also has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the bribery conspiracy involving former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the officials said. Cunningham is serving a prison term of eight years, four months after pleading guilty in November to taking $2.4 million in homes, yachts and other bribes. Wade is cooperating with investigators as part of his plea agreement in February. He has told them that Brent Wilkes, a San Diego defense contractor who has been identified as a co-conspirator, secured prostitutes, limousines and suites at two Washington hotels for Cunningham, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI is "investigating whether two contractors implicated in the bribery of former Rep. Randall Cunningham supplied him with prostitutes and free use of a limousine and hotel suites." The Journal also said the investigators are exploring "whether any other members of Congress" are involved. Last night on MSNBC’s Scarborough Country, Dean Calbreath of the San Diego Union Tribune - which recently won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the Cunningham case - said that "as many as a half a dozen" members of Congress could ultimately be implicated in the prostitution scandal.
Scandals Du Jour: Dr. Lester M. Crawford, the former commissioner of food and drugs, is under criminal investigation by a federal grand jury over accusations of financial improprieties and false statements to Congress, his lawyer said Friday. The lawyer, Barbara Van Gelder, would not discuss the accusations further. In a court hearing held by telephone on Thursday, she told a federal magistrate that she would instruct Dr. Crawford to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination if ordered to answer questions this week about his actions as head of the Food and Drug Administration, according to a transcript of the hearing. Dr. Crawford did not reply to messages seeking comment, and Kathleen Quinn, an F.D.A. spokeswoman, declined to comment. Dr. Crawford resigned in September, fewer than three months after the Senate confirmed him. He said then that it was time for someone else to lead the agency. The next month, financial disclosure forms released by the Department of Health and Human Services showed that in 2004 either Dr. Crawford or his wife, Catherine, had sold shares in companies regulated by the agency when he was its deputy commissioner and acting commissioner. He has since joined a Washington lobbying firm, Policy Directions Inc.
The Palm Beach Post reported that Rush Limbaugh turned himself over to Florida authorities late Friday afternoon after a warrant had been issued for his arrest on drug charges. "The conservative radio commentator came into the jail at about 4 p.m. with his attorney Roy Black and bonded out an hour later on a $3,000 bail," said a spokesman for the State Attorney's office, according to the Palm Beach Post. According to attorney Roy Black, a single charge of doctor shopping will be filed in court by the state attorney, and as long as Limbaugh "completes an additional 18 months of treatment" by his physician, and pays $30,000 "to the State of Florida to defray the public cost of the investigation," the charge will then be dropped. In November of 2003, investigators raided four Florida doctor offices after Limbaugh's former maid claimed that she and her husband sold the conservative pundit drugs. Limbaugh was accused of "doctor shopping" in order to obtain an "inordinate abundance of painkillers," which included "OxyContin, Lorcet, Norco, Hydrocodone and Kadian, the anti-anxiety drug Xanax, the cholesterol-lowering drug Niacin, and Clonodine, which treats high blood pressure" according to documents obtained by The Smoking Gun.
Jack Abramoff may be facing financial ruin and a long prison sentence, but he still knows how to vacation. Guests at the oceanfront Turnberry Isle Resort and Country Club in Aventura, Fla., say they were surprised to see Mr. Abramoff, his wife and their five children at the 300-acre golf and tennis resort for more than a week this month for the Passover holiday.
The weather was back to dry-season today, after a continuation of the dark, gloomy and somewhat rainy weather of yesterday. After a high yesterday of 78, the low this morning dipped to 71 and quickly rose to 84 this afternoon - the warmest weather in some time. And the humidity is up - it has been up noticably since I returned from the hospital last week. Sure sign the rainy season is almost upon us.
Well, I defied the doctor's orders and took a brief, and very slow walk around the garden this afternoon. I could not resist - so lovely was the weather. I noticed that while I was in the hospital, my gardener had burned the last of the yard waste piles, or at least had attempted to do so. Looks like it didn't burn very much. So if the rains hold off for another day or two, maybe I'll have him try again.
Not much is really new in the garden, A few new growth flushes, related to the dry season, and some enthusiastic flowering of the bouganvillea starts that I have planted along the fence. In places, they're looking rather spectacular. But not much else that is new to report - I've been rather negligent about fertilizer this spring, so the flowering isn't as dramatic as it has been in the past. And I need to get some mistletoe cut out of some of the trees, too, as well as getting the bromeliads pulled down. Lots of work to do, but being confined to the house, no much is going to get done that the gardener doesn't do himself.
How I feel hasn't changed much, except that I am a bit more tired today than in the last couple of days. Maybe that is because of this enforced idleness, I don't know. But I have noticed a tiny bit of angina when I am sitting up for long periods, and that is new. Don't know what to make of it, or whether it is something to be concerned about. May be that I am just not eating all that well, especially this lousy 1000 calorie diet I am on.
More Reasons Why I Am Glad I Am Out Of The States: Iran vowed on Wednesday to strike at U.S. interests worldwide if it is attacked by the United States, which is keeping military options open in case diplomacy fails to curb Tehran's nuclear program. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made the threat two days before the U.N. nuclear watchdog reports on whether Iran is meeting Security Council demands to halt uranium enrichment. Iran says it will not stop enrichment, which it says is purely for civilian purposes and not part of what the United States says is a clandestine effort to make atomic bombs. "The Americans should know that if they assault Iran their interests will be harmed anywhere in the world that is possible," Khamenei was quoted as saying by state television. "The Iranian nation will respond to any blow with double the intensity," he said.
President Bush had a blunt message Monday for fellow Republicans focusing only on get-tough immigration policies: He said sending all the nation's estimated 11 million illegal immigrants back to their home countries is not the answer. "Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic it's just not going to work," Smirkey has said. "You know, you can hear people out there hollering it's going to work. It's not going to work." With Congress coming back from a two-week spring recess to a long election-year to-do list and tensions flaring nationwide over immigration, Bush urged lawmakers to adopt a middle-ground policy. He called a Senate bill, which creates a way for illegal immigrants to work legally in the United States and for many to eventually become citizens, an "important approach." "It's just an interesting concept that people need to think through," Bush said of the bill sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., which stalled before the congressional break. As for Bush's comment on deportation, a Time magazine poll in January found 50 percent of the country favored deporting all illegal immigrants. But even Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., one of Congress' most outspoken advocates for tougher immigration laws, does not advocate mass deportation. Well aware that November elections could end GOP control of Congress, Bush is walking a fine line on the emotional immigration issue, between his party's conservative base which wants a clampdown on illegal immigration and business leaders who believe the economy needs immigrants to fill jobs.
Tony Snow, conservative pundit and incoming White House press secretary, told television viewers in 2003 that racism is no longer a "big deal." Ironically, the remarks were made in defense of Rush Limbaugh's assertion that quarterback Donovan McNabb was overrated by a media showing preferential bias to "black quarterbacks." "Here's the unmentionable secret," Snow said on an October 2003 edition of Fox News Sunday, "racism isn't that big a deal anymore." Snow argued that "no sensible person supports" racism, arguing that the problem is "quickly becoming an ugly memory." Snow's comments on race have already been challenged as out of touch by Democrats in Congress. Asked Democratic National Committee spokesperson Amaya Smith: "How can Republicans claim to be mending fences with the African-American community after hiring Tony Snow, who just doesn't get it?" The Democratic National Committee has gone so far as to post the video of Snow's comments on the DNC website.
Apparently, when Snow was being checked out for his new job as Smirkey's press secretary, there were a few of his past public comments about Smirkey that seem to have slipped past Smirkey's loyalty check: * Bush has "lost control of the federal budget and cannot resist the temptation to stop raiding the public fisc." [3/17/06] * "George W. Bush and his colleagues have become not merely the custodians of the largest government in the history of humankind, but also exponents of its vigorous expansion." [3/17/06] * "President Bush distilled the essence of his presidency in this year’s State of the Union Address: brilliant foreign policy and listless domestic policy." [2/3/06] * "George Bush has become something of an embarrassment." [11/11/05] * Bush "has a habit of singing from the Political Correctness hymnal." [10/7/05] * "No president has looked this impotent this long when it comes to defending presidential powers and prerogatives." [9/30/05] * Bush "has given the impression that [he] is more eager to please than lead, and that political opponents can get their way if they simply dig in their heels and behave like petulant trust-fund brats, demanding money and favor - now!" [9/30/05] * "When it comes to federal spending, George W. Bush is the boy who can’t say no. In each of his three years at the helm, the president has warned Congress to restrain its spending appetites, but so far nobody has pushed away from the table mainly because the president doesn’t seem to mean what he says." [The Detroit News, 12/28/03] * "The president doesn’t seem to give a rip about spending restraint." [The Detroit News, 12/28/03] * "Bush, for all his personal appeal, ultimately bolstered his detractors’ claims that he didn’t have the drive and work ethic to succeed." [11/16/00] * "Little in the character of demeanor of Al Gore or George Bush makes us say to ourselves: Now, this man is truly special! Little in our present peace and prosperity impels us to say: Give us a great man!" [8/25/00] And on and on... See link for more.
Air Force censoring liberal web sites: Sometime in the middle of the day today, the Air Force's IT people put a block on DailyKos. He was on a coffee break and wanted to show a colleague a diary about energy policy, so he told me (probably one of Jerome à Paris'). Although it was possible to do that this morning, by around two o'clock (or however they say that in the Air Force) DailyKos was blocked. So was Atrios. So was TalkingPointsMemo, for crying out loud - and they're all policy and minimal invective over there! On the other hand, Free Republic and Little Green Footballs came through just fine, thank you very much. Attempts to load any of the "forbidden" sites causes a very scary screen to pop up, warning the user that a regulation or policy or some such has been violated and the address of the computer has been logged. I can certainly understand a policy that permits airmen to use their computers at work for work reasons only, but that hardly explains why some of the more outrageous examples of high wingnuttery are given a pass.
Six New York teen-agers sued Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld on Monday, alleging the U.S. Department of Defense broke the law by keeping an extensive database on potential recruits. The suit in federal court in Manhattan follows a series of allegations last year of misconduct by recruiters, who have experienced difficulty meeting targets because of the war in Iraq. The Pentagon last year acknowledged it had created a database of 12 million Americans, full of personal data such as grades and Social Security numbers, to help find potential military recruits. The Pentagon has defended the practice as critical to the success of the all-volunteer U.S. military, and said it was sensitive to privacy concerns. But the suit alleges the Pentagon improperly collected data on people as young as 16 and kept it beyond a three-year limit, and said that the law does not allow for keeping records on race, ethnicity, gender or social security numbers.
Why I Am Embarrassed To Present My Passport: The U.S. Ambassador in Nicaragua met with the country's main right-wing parties on Monday to discuss their forming an alliance to oppose leftist Daniel Ortega in November elections. Without naming Ortega, a former president and leader of Nicaragua's Sandinista revolution, U.S. envoy Paul Trivelli said his intention was "to see if we can push the democratic unification of this country a little more." Trivelli has repeatedly criticized Ortega, who many think could return to power and end the 16 years of pro-Washington government that followed his 1990 ouster. "We held discussions, they are going to send us a more formal response and we'll see what happens," Trivelli told reporters after meeting with ruling party candidate Jose Rizo and other conservative politicians. The United States has a controversial history of involvement in Nicaragua, though Trivelli said he is merely concerned with promoting democracy in the Central American nation. Pollsters say national support for the Sandinistas, who in the 1980s led a Soviet and Cuban-backed government that battled U.S.-funded Contra rebels, is growing ahead of the November 5 election. Many voters say they are tired of U.S.-backed administrations that have failed to raise living standards. After years of setbacks, many Nicaraguans from Leon, the cradle of the 1979 Sandinista revolution, believe their aging former guerrilla leaders could soon return to power in elections that could also prove a diplomatic nightmare for Washington. "We need a change. It's been bad, bad, bad," said 60-year-old war Sandinista war veteran Daniel Sauro, referring to 16 years of pro-Washington governments that took power after Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega's electoral defeat in 1990.
Rats Deserting The U.S.S. Bush: Fox News is reporting an eighth general has called for Rumsfeld’s resignation. Ret. Marine General Paul Van Riper said he constantly talks with many active duty and retired senior officers who share his feelings that Secretary Rumsfeld has not fought the Iraq war competently. He told Fox that Rumsfeld has run the Pentagon through intimidation and that a change in leadership is needed. "If this leader is not capable of doing it, now going in excess of five years, has not demonstrated he is, then perhaps it is time to find a new one. If I was the president, I would have relieved him three years ago," General Van Riper said. Van Riper follows the calls of Generals Swannack, Newbold, Eaton, Zinni, Batiste, Riggs, and Clark.
The Army Times, in a web poll, has announced that 64% of its respondents think that Rumsfeld should resign. Only 32% felt he should not.
GOP sources said many in the congressional leadership have warned that growing opposition against Mr. Rumsfeld could result in the loss of the Republican Party's majority in the 2006 elections. They said Mr. Rumsfeld has become the lightning rod for the public discontent with the administration. "The leadership wants a sacrifice to show the American people that the president is listening to them on Iraq," a leadership source said. "The most obvious choice is Rumsfeld." The sources reported increasing estrangement between Mr. Rumsfeld and most of the GOP leadership. They said the defense secretary has been blamed for the rising casualties in Iraq, the huge budget deficit as well as deteriorating relations with Congress. A leading critic of Mr. Rumsfeld has been Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John Warner, Virginia Republican. Mr. Warner has refused to come to Mr. Rumsfeld's defense and a spokesman said it was up to Mr. Bush to decide whether the defense secretary continues in his post.
Republicans Believe In A Clean Environment: A chorus of environmental and health advocacy groups is urging Congress to reject the Bush administration's most recent nominee to an environmental post, based on his corporate agenda, industry ties and anti-environment record. Last week, thirteen organizations sent letters to senators, contesting William Wehrum's pending confirmation as head the Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will vote on Wehrum today. If confirmed, Wehrum will lead programs that address industrial and vehicle pollution, indoor and outdoor air quality, ozone depletion, radiation protection, global climate change and acid rain. Pointing to Wehrum's five-year record at the EPA, the groups say he has helped undermine air pollution regulations, jeopardized public health and advocated for the interests of polluter industries. Wehrum was counsel to his predecessor at the EPA, Jeffrey Holmstead, before becoming the acting assistant administrator of OAR in September 2005. "Virtually anything bad that the Bush Administration has done with air pollution has Bill Wehrum's fingerprints on it," said Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch, a nonprofit organization devoted to protecting clean-air laws.
News From Smirkey's Wars: Two years after the Abu Ghraib scandal, new research shows that abuse of detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq, Afghanistan, and at Guantanamo Bay has been widespread, and that the United States has taken only limited steps to investigate and punish implicated personnel. A briefing paper issued today, "By the Numbers," presents findings of the Detainee Abuse and Accountability Project, a joint project of New York University's Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, Human Rights Watch and Human Rights First. The project is the first comprehensive accounting of credible allegations of torture and abuse in U.S. custody in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. "Two years ago, U.S. officials said the abuses at Abu Ghraib were aberrations and that people who abused detainees would be brought to justice," said Professor Meg Satterthwaite, faculty director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU Law School. "Yet our research shows that detainee abuses were widespread, and few people have truly been brought to justice." The project has collected hundreds of allegations of detainee abuse and torture occurring since late 2001 - allegations implicating more than 600 U.S. military and civilian personnel and involving more than 460 detainees.
Eight Iraqi soldiers, mostly privates, have turned in their company commander, a major, and a captain who were supplying army weapons to local insurgents. U.S. and Iraqi intelligence officers had believed for some time that munitions from the Badush ordnance depot in al Kisik, near Tal Afar, were being purloined and supplied to guerrillas, who used them to manufacture improvised explosive devices. The Badush munitions depot was established during the reign of deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Stars and Stripes reported on April 24 that although Iraqi army officers repeatedly assured their U.S. counterparts that the magazine had been secured, U.S. intelligence noted that local guerrillas seemed to have a limitless supply of artillery shells and other military ordnance. The issue strained local relations between Iraqi officers and U.S. military commanders in northwestern Iraq. The soldiers turned in their commanders last month.
It doesn't cost a lot to set up your own death squad in Iraq. Military uniforms, guns and even police vehicles are easily available to all comers in the markets of Baghdad. In a city where gangs of men dressed as police have killed dozens of people and stolen tens of thousands of dollars, anyone with a modest amount of cash can set up their own fake squad. At Baghdad's Bab al-Sharjee market, a haven for criminals, anyone can walk into one of about 15 shops selling police and military supplies and buy a police commando uniform for 35,000 Dinars (about 13 pounds) or an ordinary police uniform for $15 (about 8 pounds). No questions asked, no identity checks. Badges of rank from Captain to Major-General -- enough to ensure no one asks questions on the mean streets of the capital -- go for $2. "One person came yesterday and took 12 full commando uniforms. Another took 15 army uniforms and ski masks with holes for the eyes," said Tariq, who runs one of the stores. "I don't care who comes to buy them. As long as they give me the money, I give them the products," he said, adding the most popular items were police commando uniforms.
As criminal gangs run amuck in Iraq, hundreds of girls have gone missing. Are they being sold for sex? The Organization for Women's Freedom in Iraq, based in Baghdad, estimates from anecdotal evidence that more than 2,000 Iraqi women have gone missing in that period. A Western official in Baghdad who monitors the status of women in Iraq thinks that figure may be inflated but admits that sex trafficking, virtually nonexistent under Saddam, has become a serious issue. The collapse of law and order and the absence of a stable government have allowed criminal gangs, alongside terrorists, to run amuck. Meanwhile, some aid workers say, bureaucrats in the ministries have either paralyzed with red tape or frozen the assets of charities that might have provided refuge for these girls. As a result, sex trafficking has been allowed to fester unchecked. "It is a problem, definitely," says the official, who has heard specific reports from Iraqi aid workers about girls being kidnapped and sold to brothels. "Unfortunately, the security situation doesn't allow us to follow up on this." The U.S. State Department's June 2005 trafficking report says the extent of the problem in Iraq is "difficult to appropriately gauge" but cites an unknown number of Iraqi women and girls being sent to Yemen, Syria, Jordan and Persian Gulf countries for sexual exploitation.
British paratroopers secretly operating in support of the SAS in Iraq are using American uniforms, weapons and vehicles as part of their cover, The Daily Telegraph has learned. The SFSG was formed mainly because it was found that small groups of highly trained SAS troopers did not have enough firepower to take on large groups of Iraqi and Afghan terrorists. The unit has already seen a substantial amount of action in Baghdad. Whenever the SAS goes on raids to apprehend terrorists in highly dangerous areas of Baghdad, the Paras are used to provide perimeter security. Arriving in US Humvees, dressed in American army fatigues and armed with C7 Diemaco guns - a Canadian made version of the M16, the men have fought several battles with insurgents while protecting SAS colleagues. "The SAS are doing the smash and grab but all the contacts are happening on the perimeter and there are a serious amount of rounds going down the range," a Parachute Regiment source said.
If We Ignore Global Warming Long Enough, Maybe It Will Go Away: At first glance, an outbreak of diarrhea among passengers on board a cruise ship in Alaskan waters in the summer of 2004 seemed to be relatively harmless. But then the lab reports started trickling in, and it showed that indeed a more serious problem was at hand - many of the afflicted the passengers had eaten raw oysters raised in Alaska that were infected with a type of cholera-like bacteria, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, that normally grows on shellfish harvested in much warmer waters. The finding not only signaled a dangerous new risk to the Alaskan seafood industry, it also highlighted how surprisingly and directly global warming can affect human health, particularly in terms of infectious diseases, experts say. "Depending on the warming trend that unfolds in the years ahead, we have to accept that habitats will change - new bugs can be expected to settle in. Every organism will find a niche," said epidemiology professor Colin Soskolne, of the University of Alberta in Canada. "With the tampering of the environment, we really can't predict with much certainty exactly what those changes will be."
According to a 2005 study by the European Union's environment agency, the previous three years were the hottest on record in Europe, after the continent's average temperature rose by 0.95 C (1.71 F) during the 20th century. The report said Alpine glaciers lost about 10 percent of their ice during the summer of 2003, and predicted three-quarters of Switzerland's glaciers would disappear by 2050 if current trends continued unchanged. "We have to fight really to keep a landscape as it was made by nature," Messerli said. "Otherwise I think the next generation will be very angry about us." In such an environmentally sensitive area, warmer weather will have a deep impact, experts say. "It will be a big change in touristic infrastructure," Messerli said. "What do we want from the upper Alps in future?" The melting of glaciers also will have effects farther along on many of Europe's greatest rivers that start in the Alps -- the Rhine, Rhone and Danube tributaries. First there will be increased flood flows and eventually the loss of water supply. Down the valley of the Rhone, which the Aletsch feeds, the ski resort of Verbier is concerned enough about the problem to cover another glacier with a plastic blanket to prevent excessive melting during summers.
Scandals Du Jour: Top White House aide Karl Rove arrived at the federal courthouse Wednesday for his fifth grand jury appearance in the Valerie Plame affair. Escorted by his lawyer Robert D. Luskin, Rove went into the building for a closed-door session with the panel and Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who is heading up the inquiry into who leaked Plame's status as a CIA officer to the news media in 2003. Among other things the prosecutor is investigating why Rove originally failed to disclose to prosecutors that he had talked to Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper about the CIA status of Plame. The undercover CIA officer was outed days after her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, accused the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence on Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons have been found in Iraq. Earlier Wednesday, Rove consulted with his private lawyers in preparation of his afternoon grand jury appearance. People familiar with the case, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because of grand jury secrecy, said Rove was to answer questions about evidence that has emerged since his last grand jury appearance last fall. That new evidence includes information that Rove's attorney had conversations with Time magazine reporter Viveca Novak during a critical time in the case. Asked about a Truthout report which asserted that Karl Rove had received a so-called "target letter," a spokesman for Rove told Salon's Michael Scherer that the report is "utterly false."
A project called the Fatah pipeline crossing, had been a critical element of a $2.4 billion no-bid reconstruction contract that a Halliburton subsidiary had won from the Army in 2003. The spot where about 15 pipelines crossed the Tigris had been the main link between Iraq's rich northern oil fields and the export terminals and refineries that could generate much-needed gasoline, heating fuel and revenue for Iraqis. For all those reasons, the project's demise would seriously damage the American-led effort to restore Iraq's oil system and enable the country to pay for its own reconstruction. Exactly what portion of Iraq's lost oil revenue can be attributed to one failed project, no matter how critical, is impossible to calculate. But the pipeline at Al Fatah has a wider significance as a metaphor for the entire $45 billion rebuilding effort in Iraq. Although the failures of that effort are routinely attributed to insurgent attacks, an examination of this project shows that troubled decision-making and execution have played equally important roles. The Fatah project went ahead despite warnings from experts that it could not succeed because the underground terrain was shattered and unstable. It continued chewing up astonishing amounts of cash when the predicted problems bogged the work down, with a contract that allowed crews to charge as much as $100,000 a day as they waited on standby. A crew had bulldozed a 300-foot-long trench along a giant drill bit in their desperate attempt to yank it loose from the riverbed. A supervisor later told him that the project's crews knew that drilling the holes was not possible, but that they had been instructed by the company in charge of the project to continue anyway. A few weeks later, after the project had burned up all of the $75.7 million allocated to it, the work simply came to a halt. An independent United States office, The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, began an investigation of the project and issued a report earlier this year. It sharply criticized KBR for not relaying the problems, and concluded that "the geological complexities that caused the project to fail were not only foreseeable but predicted." The company received a slap on the wrist when it got only about 4 percent of its potential bonus fees on the job order that contained the contract; there was no other financial penalty.
The weather has been deteriorating the last few days. Even after a balmy overnight low of 71, the temperature this afternoon only made it to 77, and that was the result of almost constant overcast all afternoon. A check of the satellite photo reveals that the overcast is due to the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone moving over us. It is the ITCZ that brings us our rainy season, and if this means the rainy season is here, it is about three weeks early. Just when I was beginning to enjoy the dry season weather, too.
Well, I am slowly recovering from the attempt on my life (see the previous blog entry), and today I feel a tiny bit better than yesterday. I am still moving rather slowly, but getting around. The house is getting low on food, and needs a good thorough housecleaning, but I may just break down and do what I have been resisting, and that is to hire a maid for a few hours a week to take care of the place until I am up to doing it myself again. Mostly, I need someone to buy groceries, which is the one unavoidable task that is guaranteed to take the starch out of me. The housework I can do a tiny bit at a time, if necessary.
Some more fishermen came by today to fish for sardinas in the pond, the little tetra fish that look like sardines. They caught a few and put them in a plastic bag filled with pond water, so I am assuming that they are stocking their own pond. Not sure, they didn't say. I can't imagine eating the little things - they are about the size of a sardine and don't have all that much meat on them.
I am resuming the More Reasons section today. If Foggy Bottom thinks they have intimidated me into keeping my mouth shut, they don't know this ornery old cowboy very well. I'll do this blog as long as there are readers to read it, and as long as I have the energy to research it and put it together. So today, I resume, even if today's entry is going to be a bit abbreviated. The arrogance, selfishness, corruption and mendacity of the Bush administration is a story that needs to be told, and if Foggy Bottom doesn't like it, they can start behaving responsibly, run the country as it should be run, and thereby deprive me of material to include here. I am going ahead with it, and that's that. So shove it up your you-know-what, Smirkey.
More Reasons Why I Am Glad I Am Out Of The States: Staying In The Hot Zone: The US armed forces are planning to stay in Iraq for at least a decade, a Newsweek report claimed on Monday, quoting military strategists. The report said that the 38 square kilometres mini-city and airport called "Balad" was the evidence that American forces were preparing for the long haul. With 27,500 landings and takeoffs a month, Balad is second only to London's Heathrow Airport in traffic worldwide, Brig Gen Frank Gorenc, the base commander, was quoted as saying. The new $592 million U.S. Embassy being built at the heart of Baghdad's "international zone" is "massive ... the largest embassy to date," says Maj. Gen. Chuck Williams, head of the State Department's Overseas Building Operations office. In an interview with NEWSWEEK, Williams called it the "most ambitious project" his office has undertaken in its history (see photo). Officials in both the executive branch and Congress say they are unaware of any serious planning, or even talk inside the national-security bureaucracy, about a full withdrawal. The Pentagon has one intel officer assigned to produce and update analyses regarding the consequences of a U.S. pullout. But the job is only a part-time assignment, according to a Pentagon source who asked for anonymity because of the sensitive subject matter. As President George W. Bush himself said in March, the final number of U.S. troops "will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq."
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld could be criminally liable for the torture of a detainee at Guantanamo Bay in late 2002 and early 2003, Human Rights Watch said today. "The question at this point is not whether Secretary Rumsfeld should resign, it's whether he should be indicted." A December 20, 2005 Army Inspector General's report, obtained by Salon.com this week, contains a sworn statement by Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt that implicates Secretary Rumsfeld in the abuse of detainee Mohammad al-Qahtani. Based on an investigation that he carried out in early 2005, which included two interviews with Rumsfeld, Gen. Schmidt describes the defense secretary as being "personally involved" in al-Qahtani's interrogation. Human Rights Watch urges the United States to name a special prosecutor to investigate the culpability of Rumsfeld and others in the al-Qahtani case. "The question at this point is not whether Secretary Rumsfeld should resign, it’s whether he should be indicted," said Joanne Mariner, Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program director at Human Rights Watch. "General Schmidt's sworn statement suggests that Rumsfeld may have been perfectly aware of the abuses inflicted on al-Qahtani." Gen. Schmidt said that Secretary Rumsfeld was "talking weekly" with Gen. Miller about the al-Qahtani interrogation, and that the secretary of defense was "personally involved in the interrogation of [this] one person." Schmidt's statement indicates that Rumsfeld maintained a high level of knowledge of and supervision over al-Qahtani's treatment. Although Schmidt said that he believed that Rumsfeld did not specifically order the more abusive methods used in the al-Qahtani interrogation, he concluded that Rumsfeld's policies facilitated the abuse.
Smirkey's public approval rating has fallen to 32 percent, a new low for his presidency, a CNN poll showed on Monday. The survey also showed that 60 percent of Americans disapprove of the way Bush is handling his job. Bush's poll numbers have languished below 40 percent in the last couple of months, hit by growing public opposition to the Iraq war, his support for a now-abandoned plan for a Dubai firm to take over major U.S. port operations and American anger over gas prices now topping $3 a gallon at the pump. Continuing fallout from the Bush administration's mishandling of the initial response to Hurricane Katrina has also hurt his popularity. Bush's approval rating as measured by CNN's poll dropped from 36 percent in March. His lowest job performance measure has been 32 percent, in a Fox News poll this month. Bush has launched a shake-up of his White House staff in an effort to revive his popularity and stave off concerns of fellow Republicans that they could lose control of both houses of Congress in a November midterm election. Bush's response to the gas crisis has been to warn Americans to expect a tough summer, vow that price gouging will not be tolerated and try to promote energy alternatives that will take years to get to consumers.
President Bush on Tuesday ordered a temporary suspension of environmental rules for gasoline, making it easier for refiners to meet demand and possibly dampen prices at the pump. He also halted for the summer the purchase of crude oil for the government's emergency reserve. The moves came as political pressure intensified on Bush to do something about gasoline prices that are expected to stay high throughout the summer. Bush said the nation's strategic petroleum reserve had enough fuel to guard against any major supply disruption over the next few months. "So, by deferring deposits until the fall, we'll leave a little more oil on the market. Every little bit helps," he said. Wholesale gasoline futures prices for June delivery dropped 8 cents a gallon to $2.10 on the New York Mercantile Exchange immediately upon Bush's remarks.
The crackdown on leaks that led to the dismissal of a veteran intelligence officer last week at the CIA included a highly unusual polygraph examination of the agency's independent monitor, Inspector General John Helgerson, according to intelligence officials with knowledge of the investigation. The special polygraphs, which have been given to dozens of employees since January, are part of a broader effort by Porter Goss, the CIA director, to re-emphasize a culture of secrecy. The campaign has included a marked tightening of the review process for books and articles by former agency employees. L. Britt Snider, who served as inspector general from 1998 to 2001, said in an interview that he had never been given a polygraph in that position, though he said he was given an initial polygraph test when he arrived at the agency in 1997 as special counsel to the director. "I've never heard of it, and it's certainly unusual," Snider said. He called it "awkward" for the inspector general to be, in effect, investigated by the agency he ordinarily investigates.
EchoStar's Dish Network is the only cable or satellite operator in the U.S. publicly willing to consider carrying controversial Arab news channel Al Jazeera's planned English-language spinoff. Even on Dish, Al Jazeera's attempt to provide an alternative to Western news outlets like BBC World and CNN International isn't likely to appear on any of the satellite-TV operator's popular programming tiers. "We have several offers and options under consideration, including with EchoStar, but have not yet signed anything," said Rana Jazayerli, a Washington-based spokeswoman for the news channel. "We will make our plans public after we have finalized."
Last week the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ran a story that high school graduation rates in Milwaukee, particularly among minorities, were among the worst in the nation. Was this a DPI or Department of Education study? No, it was a news release from the Manhattan Institute. One might assume the Manhattan Institute would be more interested in New York, but they have reason to focus their gaze on Milwaukee. The reason is the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation funds them. And Bradley loves vouchers. The Manhattan Institute says it will "study" the Milwaukee school system and, being the kind folks that they are, they will keep us informed about failing public schools while also making sure we get the truth about voucher school performance. (Placing the Manhattan Institute in charge of an analysis of public schools, when they are on record supporting vouchers, would be like asking Wisconsin Right to Life to run Planned Parenthood.) The "scientific study" will conclude in a year surprise, surprise that public schools are inferior to private voucher schools. Evidence will be scarce but they assume you will only read the headline. Their prescription will, predictably, be more vouchers.
Why I Am Embarrassed To Present My Passport: Greek police on Tuesday fired tear gas at protestors who caused havoc in Athens in the wake of a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Roughly 3,000 people protested for peace and against globalization in downtown Athens while Rice met with Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakojannis. Some tried to break a police ring surrounding the building where the two leaders met; police met the attempt by firing tear gas into the crowd, the BBC reported. Protesters hurled petrol bombs and stones in return. Rice will also meet with Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis and later travel to Bulgaria and Turkey. In a briefing to reporters en route to Greece, Rice said she would discuss peacekeeping efforts in the Balkans, the future of the divided island of Cyprus and common anti-terrorism policies. Anti-war protests have marred Rice's recent trip to the north-western United Kingdom.
Rats Deserting The U.S.S. Bush: Donald Rumsfeld is a forthright, even abrasive man whose popularity has fallen sharply as the war in Iraq has failed to turn out as the Bush administration predicted. But even so, the recent wave of criticism of the US defence secretary by former top-ranking generals is all but unprecedented in the past generation. At least seven retired generals have questioned his abilities in the past month, sparking a firestorm of debate and forcing the president to interrupt a holiday weekend to issue a statement of support. "It is unusual for retired military officers to speak out in public and through the media against a current defence secretary - there is little doubt about that," says Harry Disch, the president of the Center for Media and Security.
Republican Policies Build A Strong America: Democrats outdid Republicans last year in attracting political donations from investment banks, brokerages and fund managers for the first time since 1994, helped by support from hedge funds and companies such as Merrill Lynch & Co. Democrats got $13.6 million, or 52 percent of the financial industry's $26.3 million in political donations in 2005, said the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan Washington group that researches the influence of money on elections and public policy. In the two years leading up to the 2004 presidential election, Republicans received 52 percent of the $91.6 million given by the industry. "Wall Street wants change" on issues such as the Iraq war and the budget deficit, said James Torrey, chairman of the Torrey Funds, which manages about $1 billion. "I'm finding people who are registered Republicans who are saying to me, "what can I do to help?" "When the party with no power can raise more money than the party with all the power, it means people are pretty disturbed about the country's condition," said Orin Kramer, general partner of Boston Provident Partners LP in New York and a longtime Democratic fund-raiser.
A coalition of groups supporting a plan for the nation’s largest alternative energy project are lashing out against federal lawmakers for "back-door deal-making" that could kill a proposed wind-farm project in the waters off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Fifty-five organizations - representing conservation, labor, industry and investment groups - sent letters Thursday to federal lawmakers urging them to vote against an amendment to the Coast Guard reauthorization bill that would effectively give Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney veto power over the offshore wind farm, which would operate in federal waters in Nantucket Sound. "At a time when energy costs are rising, our government should be working to remove impediments to developing new supply," Michael Kearns,National Ocean Industries Association spokesperson, said in a statement. "This provision would do exactly the opposite." The amendment, inserted by Alaska Senator Ted Stevens (R) as the innocuously titled "Opinions Regarding Whether Certain Facilities Create Obstructions to Navigation," would prohibit the Coast Guard from approving the wind-farm project if a "governor of an adjacent coastal State makes a written determination" opposing the proposed site.
Modest improvements reported in the government's latest analysis of chemical pollutants in American communities may have less to do with real reductions in pollution than with the gutting of the public's "right to know,"environmentalists say. Watchdogs further warn of efforts underway in the federal government to expand corporations' power to conceal information about toxic threats. According to the Environmental Protection Agency's report on 2004 Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data, the 23,675 participating facilities, which include manufacturing plants and mining sites, churned out a total of over 4.24 billion pounds of toxic chemicals. Between 2003 and 2004, the EPA reported an overall decrease of 171 million pounds of chemicals released into the environment or otherwise disposed of. But TRI releases increased in some industries. For the most-current core chemicals tracked by the TRI, pollution grew by about 10 percent in the food industry, 7 percent in the paper industry and 15 percent in the petroleum industry. Several states also reported increases in toxic releases and disposals, with Washington State's jump of 45 percent since 2003 leading the country.
Maybe If We Ignore Global Warming Long Enough, It Will Go Away: Climate change is reshaping the landscape of Britain as rising temperatures allow orchids and ferns to flourish in the north, while other species retreat to cooler conditions on high land and mountainsides. The conclusion, published today in a comprehensive survey of the nation's flora, suggests that the changing climate has already brought about a rapid and dramatic shift in the country's plant life, a trend researchers say will be exacerbated by future warming. Volunteers working for the Botanical Society of the British Isles and the charity Plantlife recorded more than 200,000 plants in patches four kilometres square around the country and found the number and distribution of one third of all species had changed substantially since an earlier survey in 1987. Many plants have spread north and west to capitalize on the milder conditions warming has brought, with several species of orchid and fern, such as the bee orchid and hart's tongue fern, recorded twice as frequently as in the previous survey.
A leading U.S. government storm researcher said Monday that the record hurricane season last year can be attributed to global warming. "The hurricanes we are seeing are indeed a direct result of climate change and it's no longer something we'll see in the future, it's happening now," said Greg Holland, a division director at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. Holland told a packed hall at the American Meteorological Society's 27th Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology in Monterey, California that the wind and warmer water conditions that fuel storms that form in the Caribbean are "increasingly due to greenhouse gases. There seems to be no other conclusion you can logically draw." His conclusion will be debated throughout the week-long conference, as other researchers present opposing papers that say changing wind and temperature conditions in the tropics are due to natural events, not the accumulation of carbon dioxide emissions clouding the Earth. Many of the experts gathered in the coastal city of Monterey are federal employees working under a Bush administration that contends global warming is an unproven theory. Holland, director of the Mesoscale and Microscale Meteorology Division of the federal research center, said tropical storm anomalies in the 1940s and 1950s can be explained by natural variability. But he said carbon dioxide started changing traceable patterns in the 1970s and by the early 1990s, the atmospheric results were affecting the storm numbers and intensities. "What we're seeing right now in global climate temperature is a signature of climate change," said Holland, a native of Australia. "The large bulk of the scientific community say what we are seeing now is linked directly to greenhouse gases."
I am back in town, and a bit worse for the wear, I am afraid. And it appears that the week-long stay in the hospital which I endured was the aftermath of a possible (in fact, likely) assassination attempt. I don't normally go public in this space with the cloak and dagger stuff I have to endure while living here, but this was so blatant and so serious, that I believe that the world needs to know. No, I don't have a smoking gun - these boys are good enough that they rarely leave any laying around - but the circumstantial evidence is damning as you will see.
I never made it to my destination. I got as far as Liberia, in Guanacaste Province, about 70 km. from the Nicaragua border. My intended destination was Granada, Nicaragua, to conduct some business there and visit with friends. But it was not to be.
I arrived in Liberia on the afternoon of Thursday, the 13th, and took a room at my usual hotel. Being a holiday weekend, the hotel could not give me the room I asked for, but put me in room 11 instead. When I checked the air conditioner, I discovered it was inoperative, so asked for a change of room and was given room 14, the second door down (no room 13).
The next morning, I was eating breakfast in the hotel restaurant when I noticed that once again, I was being watched. I am used to that - the CIA likes to let me know from time to time that I am an object of surveillance, usually by either watching me or often even interviewing me with The Questions list. It happens about every second or third trip. They make no real effort to hide it, and I think they do it to intimidate me, presumably to let me know they can take me out anytime they like.
But this time was different. The surveillance team was trying to be a lot more discreet. And after I had eaten about two thirds of my meal, the main person watching me got up and left.
Later in the day, I was reading a book on the patio in front of the row of rooms, and noticed that the man who had been watching me at breakfast was packing his things out of his room - room 12, the room between the one I was originally in and the room I had been placed in after refusing room 11. What really had me suspicious was what he was packing out of the room. Besides lots of suitcases, there were handfuls of red "Biohazard" garbage bags, each with something rather heavy, irregular shapes and heavy and lumpy in it, each bag with contents a rather different shape. He made three trips out to the car carrying handfuls of these bags each time. What was in them? I don't know. I suspect that maybe I don't want to know. And as soon as this fellow was out of the room someone else, equally gringo, equally non-touristy, moved into it, sans maid cleaning. It was beginning to look to me like I was camped next door to CIA Central.
The morning's surveillance and the same rather odd person checking out of the room next door, combined with someone else moving in without the room being cleaned in between, had me suspicious that perhaps I ought to check and see if the common wall between my room and CIA Central had been compromised. So I began a very careful and thorough check of the wall, looking for any tiny holes that might indicate a surveillance operation directed against my room. And sure enough, I found one.
It was quickly plugged with some toothpaste mixed with some crumbled tile grout that I ground up with my foot. And within about ten minutes, I noticed some faint pounding on the wall. They were putting another hole through the wall! This had me really baffled. Why were they so intent on watching me watch television and reading a book? Why did they not want me to notice them at breakfast? Made no sense. It wasn't like I was entertaining Osama in my room. What was the big deal? Hey, if they really wanted to know what I was watching, they'd have been welcome to drop by and watch TV with me - I don't have anything to hide. I have had lots of conversations with spooks since I have been living here, and sometimes they can be quite entertaining. Well, later on in that evening, I found out why they were so intent on watching me watch TV.
That evening, around seven, I began to notice chest pains. No sharp, biting pains, just an increasingly intense dull ache all over my chest, front and rear, centered in the middle of my chest. It did not let up, but slowly, over the course of a half-hour, got worse and worse, until I was breaking out in a cold sweat. I could feel myself getting weaker, and so I decided to use the last of my strength to make it to the front desk for some help.
I told the front desk clerk to call an ambulance, which she did immediately. When the paramedics arrived, in about five minutes, they looked me over rather quickly and determined that I was likely having a heart attack, and they bundled me into the back of their ambulance, and it was off to the Social Security hospital for tests to see what was going on.
When I arrived, I found a hospital in bedlam - being Easter weekend, literally half of the country's population was in Guanacaste province at Costa Rica's famous beaches, in this hospital's territory. That meant that facilities were hugely stretched, patients were being treated on guernies in the hall, and the staff was struggling to cope (even after being augmented by drafting the private clinic staffs). But they were coping remarkably well - patient needs were being attended to promptly, and the quality of care seemed to be quite adequate and unaffected by the situation. The operations at the emergency room were in a quiet moment when I arrived, so I was immediately wheeled into an exam room. I was strapped up to an EKG machine to measure my heart's electrical activity, and it appeared to be relatively normal. A blood sample was taken and sent to the lab to see if any coronary cell death was occurring (turned out it was). My blood pressure was a bit lower than normal, and the pulse rate a bit slow, too. But otherwise things appeared to be not terribly out of whack. So the decision was made to put me into the observation ward and keep an eye on me overnight. I was given some pain medications and put to bed, hooked up to a coronary observation monitor, pleth monitor and automatic blood pressure measuring device. Before long, I was asleep, although my sleep was interrupted rather frequently by a loud air compressor located just outside the open jalousie window. When it ran, the noise was so great I could not hear the nurses talking to each other. I am astounded that such a piece of equipment was installed so close to patient sleeping facilities, with no sound deadening at all that I could perceive.
In the morning, the doctor came by and indicated that there was some cell death occuring, but it did not appear to be serious, so they were going to take another test and see if the cell death had ceased. If so, they would release me, even though I was still having minor chest pains, but nothing all that serious. At 11 AM, they came and took the blood sample. I had noticed a slight increase in the level of pain. About 1 PM, they informed me that the rate of cell death had increased, not decreased, so they were going to keep me in the hospital for a few more days and keep a close eye on me.
By nightfall, the pain had increased to the point where I was finding it difficult to sleep. I asked for some pain medication, and the nurse on duty gave me a nitroglycerine tablet. It took the edge off the pain, but wasn't adequate for sleep, and as soon as it was dissolved, the pain was back. I kept asking for more, and the nurse got suspicious that something was going on, so he summoned the cardiologist who hooked me up to an EKG strip recorder. Sure enough, my EKG had changed. So the decision was made to administer some strong anti-coagulants to halt the process. At this point, as the doctor was running the strip, my pleth began to drop alarmingly fast, and I was fading in and out of consciousness. It was explained to me later that my blood was beginning to congeal right there in my veins. Rather than wait for me to sign the consent forms for this very dangerous drug, it was administered immediately as I began to lose consciousness for the final time. The doctor and I both knew that it was the anti-coagulant or I was toast for sure. Had the cardiologist not been there at that moment, I would have been 86.
After about an hour, I woke up, feeling remarkably better. The pain in my chest was almost entirely gone, and I felt remarkably awake and clear-headed. The doctor was still there, and explained what had transpired. I had never lost pulse, but it had gotten very weak - dropped into the 30's briefly. If I had not been on oxygen at the time, I would have bought the farm.
By morning, all my vitals were normal, though my EKG was noticeably altered (and still is). But I felt in rare form - bright, alert, and ready to go, though I knew that I had just been through a life-threatening experience. My asthma was noticeably worse, but otherwise I felt fine. Of course, I had given up all hope of getting out of the hospital anytime soon.
By the time I was processed out five days after the second attack, the staff was quite well aware of my situation as a political dissident, and made sure that I had the documents I needed to deal with immigration, as my visa will have long since expired before I am fit to travel out of the country. They were solicitous to the point of falling all over themselves to help me out in that regard, making sure the right documents were generated and got to me. I thank them all - they're heroes to me.
I got a good grilling by the cardiologist, who was trying to pin down what would have precipitated the heart attack. Had I eaten any strange foods? No. Do I have any allergies? Other than a handful of nasal allergies and penicillin, no. And later cardiologists who looked at my records kept coming back to the same thing. Allergies. Do I have any allergies? They were downright persistent in grilling me about that, every single cardiologist that came on the floor asked that same question when they asked no other.
Some time back, I remember coming across an item during my research for this blog, that the CIA has developed a new assassination tool for inducing heart attacks. The new compound, which they bragged had already been used successfully several times in Latin America, was a compound that very closely mimics an allergic reaction, causing a clotting cascade and therefore a heart attack, and is very difficult to detect, even in sophisticated forensic testing. I didn't use the item in my blog because I didn't consider it sufficiently important at that time. Now I sure do, and I regret having not blogged it, as considerable efforts at Google have not turned it up again.
To The CIA Goons Who Read This: Well, I sure hope you enjoyed your fun with your license to kill. And I am sure that is why you are in this business in the first place. You sure don't have any job security anymore, do you? Pay and benefits? About as secure as a Delta Airlines pilot, huh? What with all the cloak and dagger stuff being outsourced to Bush's crony-capitalist buddies, and now even your black ops stuff beginning to be outsourced to Blackwater and all the rest, what kind of job security do you have anymore, whoring for the rich?
And once you're out of the Company, and are an old man looking back on how you lived your life, just how proud are you going to be of the fact that you spent so much of your life whoring for a bunch of meanspirited, arrogant ultra-rich elitists, intent on turning the entire population of the planet into their personal servants, and you did it only because they rewarded you with a license to kill? How proud are you going to be of that? You joined up because you thought it was a noble cause, but look at what you have become - just yet another merc, in it for the fun and hey, it's a job. And look at how you are making a living. Shipping guns south and sending drugs north. What a noble profession - way to build strong societies, and you're there helping. Somehow, I can't seem to see a whole lot of difference between what you are now doing and ordinary thuggery. Sure hope you can live with yourself.
If you somehow are among the few left in the agency who still think that there is still some honor among the right-wing fascists you have been working for, you should have been thoroughly disabused of that notion with the Valerie Plame affair. If you had any sense about you, you'd realize that Dubya, Cheney, Rove and all the rest, are going to offer you just about as much respect, loyalty, and support once you're in trouble, as a street dog offers its bitch. So if you ever get caught adding entries to your Greatest Hits album, you're on your own, buddy. And in two weeks, there will be an administration in power here in Costa Rica that has about as much love and respect for you as you have for Karl Marx - the last time Arias was president, he unhesitatingly threw out both the ambassador and the station chief for "activities incompatible" and won't bat an eyelash at doing it again. So finish working on your "retirement fund" and get the hell out while you still can, before you get caught with your fingers wrapped around those little bricks of white powder. Because there are a whole lot of folks down here that don't think very highly of what you have been up to. And now they'll be looking for you, more than ever. Since your little attempt didn't seem to score, you have only ended up looking the fool. Worse luck next time, pal.
On Hiatus This will be the last blog entry for at least a week or two, as I will be traveling. Unfortunately, this interruption is quite unavoidable, and I deeply regret the inconvenience to the thousands of you for whom this blog has become a significant source of news.
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Weather has been rainy much of yesterday and on and off today Not enough; maybe a half inch total. The passage of a tropical wave has brought some much needed rain and slightly cooler temperatures, 78 in the day and 70 overnight.
Yesterday was Juan Santamaria day. It is the anniversary of the day in 1856 when the drummer boy for the Costa Rican army sacrificed his life to bring about a successful conclusion to the Battle of Rivas, fought in that city in Nicaragua, in which William Walker and his filibusterers were driven from Costa Rica and effectively defeated in the rest of Central America, preserving Central American independence. There were no celebrations, because when the anniversary falls during Semana Santa (holy week) as it did this year, they move the celebration of the day to another day before or after Semana Santa. This year, it will be celebrated on Monday, the 17th. Juan Santamaria, a ten-year old boy when he was killed, is one of the few genuine war heros that Costa Rica celebrates.
More Reasons Why I Am Glad I Am Out Of The States: Critics of the Bush administration have expressed alarm over reports that the president is considering a military strike to knock out Iran's nuclear program. Anthony Zinni, a retired general and former head of US Central Command, told CNN on Sunday that a pre-emptive strike on Iran would be extremely risky. "Any military plan involving Iran is going to be very difficult. We should not fool ourselves to think it will just be a strike and then it will be over," said Zinni. "The Iranians will retaliate, and they have many possibilities in an area where there are many vulnerabilities, from our troop positions to the oil and gas in the region that can be interrupted, to attacks on Israel, to the conduct of terrorism." But he said he had no detailed knowledge of the alleged military plans. Smirkey on Monday ruled out any bilateral negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program but dismissed as "wild speculation" reports that the US was preparing for military action, including a nuclear strike, if diplomatic efforts failed. The president also insisted he had been right in his controversial State of the Union speech four years ago when he dubbed Iran part of an "axis of evil." The remarks in a question-and-answer session with students in Washington underscored the administration’s attempts to pursue a two-track policy of diplomatic pressure on Iran coupled with threats of force if those efforts failed.
"President George W. Bush acknowledged on Monday he ordered the declassification of parts of a prewar intelligence report on Iraq to respond to critics," Reuters reported Monday, after a question from a graduate student solicited the President's first response to the charge that his Vice President's top aide leaked the information to reporters that led to the exposure of Valerie Plame's CIA identity. But Bush said he could not comment on an assertion that he authorized Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to release the information to reporters. Libby is accused of obstruction of justice and perjury in an investigation designed to discover who leaked the name of a CIA operative.
While the immigration debate simmering on Capitol Hill is reported to only concern the rights of immigrants, a little-publicized provision would place the burden of proving work eligibility on citizens and non-citizens alike. The immigration-reform bill currently under consideration in the US Senate and the House of Representatives' version passed last year both include provisions establishing an Electronic Employment Verification System (EVS). The system, presently in pilot testing, is purportedly designed to help employers verify whether the workers they hire are authorized to work in the United States. But civil libertarians say that flaws in the system would leave authorized workers - both US- and foreign-born - vulnerable to identify theft. They are also concerned about the system's cost, and warn that inaccuracies in government databases could lead to the wrongful firing or rejection of workers. "This kind of system would, for the first time in American history, give the government the power to deny any willing worker, - citizen or not - the ability to obtain a job," said Tim Sparapani, legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, in a statement about the proposed bills last year. "No willing worker should be forced to obtain the Department of Homeland Security's permission to work," he continued, "especially when that system will cause millions of work-eligible American citizens and lawful residents to be wrongly delayed or prevented from working and earning a living." Currently, employers must only show the government that they viewed employees' identification documents and that they looked authentic.
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network has released documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act from the Department of Defense, which confirm the military's surveillance of organizations working to repeal the Military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell Policy, PageOneQ has learned. "The very idea that the federal government believes freedom of speech is a threat to national security is unconscionable," Steve Ralls, Servicemembers Legal Defense Network’s Director of Communications told PageOneQ today. "The Department of Defense has now confirmed the existence of a surveillance program monitoring LGBT groups," said C. Dixon Osburn, SLDN's executive director. "Pentagon leaders have also acknowledged inappropriately collecting some of the information in the TALON database. That information should be destroyed and no similar surveillance should be authorized in the future. Free expression is not a threat to our national security."
Beacon of Freedom and Liberty: New evidence demonstrated in 2005 that torture and mistreatment have been a deliberate part of the Bush administration’s counterterrorism strategy, undermining the global defense of human rights, Human Rights Watch said today in releasing its World Report 2006. The evidence showed that abusive interrogation cannot be reduced to the misdeeds of a few low-ranking soldiers, but was a conscious policy choice by senior U.S. government officials. The policy has hampered Washington’s ability to cajole or pressure other states into respecting international law, said the 532-page volume’s introductory essay. "Fighting terrorism is central to the human rights cause," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "But using illegal tactics against alleged terrorists is both wrong and counterproductive." Roth said the illegal tactics were fueling terrorist recruitment, discouraging public assistance of counterterrorism efforts and creating a pool of unprosecutable detainees.
Arizona's attorney general and a U.S. federal attorney filed a complaint with the Federal Communication Commission yesterday against a Phoenix radio station and a fill-in talk show host over comments made last month suggesting the solution to the illegal immigration problem was to "randomly pick one night every week where we will kill whoever crosses the border." In their letter to the FCC, Attorney General Terry Goddard and U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton criticized the March 8 broadcast by host Brian James on KFYI as "dangerous." "This type of threatening and inciting speech is dangerous and totally irresponsible for anyone, particularly a licensed body using the public airways," Goddard and Charlton wrote. "We are deeply concerned that, given the intensifying conflict over immigration in Arizona, this speech may lead to violence. Tempers are short on both sides and the situation is highly volatile." "At no time during this hour did Mr. James disavow violence or indicate he was joking," the letter claimed. The pair also urged the FCC to consider sanctions against the station.
California's new voter registration database - whose creation the federal government once called a model for other states - may prevent thousands of eligible voters from casting ballots in a June 6 statewide election, officials fear. Since the database was implemented last December, the voter registration process has been invalidating numerous registrations, mostly as a result of minor data-entry problems. For example, 14,629 out of 34,064 voter registration forms - or 43% - were "kicked out," or rejected, in Los Angeles County between Jan. 1 and March 15. Such results have election officials statewide fearing that the new registration system will bump eligible voters from the voter rolls. The problems could first affect a small number of local elections starting this month, including a special congressional election on Tuesday in San Diego County. The registration database, run by Secretary of State Bruce McPherson, was mandated by the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA). The law requires that each state establish a centralized voter registration database. In an e-mail response to questions, a spokeswoman for McPherson wouldn’t provide technical details of the system, nor would she talk about the nature of the problems. She did note that 74% of voter registrations are cleared on the first try. The rest, she said, require manual validation by county elections workers.
Why I Am Embarrassed To Present My Passport: In a statement of unintended irony, the Bush administration says it may severely restrict the movements of Venezuela's ambassador if pro-government activists in Venezuela engage in any more "thuggish" activities against U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield, a spokesman said Monday. There have been four incidents of harassment directed at Brownfield in recent weeks, including one last Friday when his convoy was pelted with eggs, tomatoes and other food. The convoy was also pummeled by motorcyclists during a miles-long chase through Caracas. "If we see an incident like this again, I think that there are going to be serious diplomatic consequences between our two countries. And I think that the Venezuelan ambassador might find his ability to move around the United States severely restricted," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. Another official said the administration may take steps to prevent Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez from leaving the grounds of his residence here. The official asked not to be identified because the issue is still under study. In Caracas, Venezuela's top diplomat for North America, Mari Pili Hernandez, said it would be a violation of international law if the U.S. put restrictions on Alvarez's travels. She said Venezuela is willing to provide protection for Brownfield but sometimes is unaware of his activities. "What I cannot do is guess what Brownfield is doing," she said.
Venezuelan Information Minister Willian Lara has accused ambassador Brownfield of acting like a "bully" and trying to influence public opinion. "William Brownfield is more active than any Venezuelan opposition leader," Lara said. "You don't see the ambassadors of Norway, China, or any other country ... in an activity that has such a clear proselytizing nature." The Venezuelan government cited the U.S. ambassador's charity visits to poor neighborhoods as a sign that he is meddling in the country's internal affairs, and said Monday he could face expulsion for aligning himself with the opposition.
Wheels Coming Off The Republican Machine: A new Gallup poll released today finds that most Americans are critical of President Bush's actions in the Plame/CIA leak scandal, but only one in four is following the matter closely. Overall, 63% of Americans believe Bush did something either illegal (21%) or unethical (42%), while 28% say he did nothing wrong. While many more Democrats are critical, 3 in 10 Republicans also find that Bush did something illegal or unethical. The more closely people are following the issue, the more likely they are to say he did something illegal rather than merely unethical. The poll, conducted April 7-9, 2006, shows that just 25% of Americans are following the matter "very" closely, while another 39% are following the issue "somewhat" closely. Another 36% are not following the issue closely at all.
As Ted Kennedy ripped the GOP before a roaring, mostly Hispanic crowd, the Bushies saw votes vanishing. Pumping his fists in the springtime sun, Senator Ted Kennedy looked like he was having fun. Before him tens of thousands of mostly Hispanic protesters cheered and waved American flags as they listened to his condemnation of draconian House Republican legislation that would forcibly expel millions of illegal immigrants from America. "More than four decades ago, near this place, Martin Luther King called on the nation to let freedom ring," the 74-year-old Kennedy cried out, his voice cracking from the strain. "It is time for American to lift their voices now, in pride for our immigrant past and in pride for our immigrant future." It was a Democratic media consultant's dream.
A loud mixture of cheers and boos greeted Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday as he threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the Washington Nationals baseball game. Cheney, wearing a red Nationals warmup jacket, tossed a pitch that reached Nationals catcher Brian Schneider on one bounce. The vice president, whose popularity is slumping along with that of President Bush, walked out on the field to cheering and booing from the near-sellout crowd. The boos appeared to be little louder than the cheers at RFK Memorial Stadium. On the field with him were three U.S. servicemen, two of whom had been wounded in Iraq and a third who was injured in Afghanistan.
Why The Democrats Are Not The Answer: Here's a big shocker - the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party today announced it would be beginning its new war in earnest on the grassroots elements of the party that are demanding serious public policy changes. As the Financial Times reports, Citigroup Chairman Bob Rubin held a press conference at the Brookings Institution to announce the formation of the so-called "Hamilton Project." After paying lip service to various economic problems afflicting the country, Rubin and his former Treasury colleague Roger Altman quickly let it be known exactly what they are up to. Here's the key excerpt: "At a time when Democrats have become more aggressive in voicing concerns about the foreign ownership of US assets, Roger Altman, former deputy Treasury secretary under Mr Clinton, added that more inclusive economic growth could also 'blunt the political demands for protectionism'...[The group] said it was willing to take on entrenched Democratic interests, such as teaching unions. Policy papers unveiled on Wednesday proposed vouchers for summer schools..." There it all is. First there's the dishonest name-calling aimed at those courageous Democrats who are challenging the free trade orthodoxy that is destroying the lives of millions of American and foreign workers. Then there is the promise of an ensuing attack on the labor movement - a reflexive move, of course, for a bunch of corporate executives. And finally, the nod to efforts to defund public education through "vouchers."
Republican Policies Are Good For America: The price drivers will pay for gasoline this summer will average a record $2.62 a gallon, up 25 cents from last summer, and motor fuel demand will be 1.5 percent higher, the government's top energy forecasting agency said on Tuesday. "Gasoline prices are expected to increase because of the higher cost of crude oil compared with last year and the increase in production and distribution costs associated with (low sulfur fuel requireme