Note there is no news about Custer Battles’ war fraud or Defense accounting drop-outs on CNN.
Because it never happened. And if it happened,
it will be unhappened, until it never happened.
Just take a pencil, jot down everything since
President Select took office. Mind wrenching.
Now turn the pencil over, and erase everything.
Even most die-hard John Birch correspondents
are sick at heart and crying over the UAE deal,
Abramoff, and now this CB fraud, but again, it
is being erased and n-e-v-e-r h-a-p-p-e-n-e-d.
James Baker III took $5B to the Middle East,
just before the Second War in Iraq. Where to?
FEMA disappeared $38B since Katrina. Where to?
Pentagon disappears $450B each and every year.
Visualize the Titanic, the frauds, cons, debts
and deficits pouring in through 300-foot gash.
The historians will write the ‘Foundering of America’, long before 2008 sinks US from sight.

Posted by: PingPing | Mar 12 2006 9:05 utc | 4

US starts issuing RFID passports, despite security concerns

The US has begun issuing passports that contain biometric information stored on remotely readable microchips, in spite of lingering security and privacy concerns. Supporters of the new passports say they enhance border security, reduce the possibility of identity fraud and impose minimal burdens on travellers – all goals the US has been working towards since the September 11 attacks. (…)
Last month, security concerns about the new passports arose anew after a Dutch television programme detailed how, in July 2005, the Dutch security laboratory Riscure successfully penetrated the encryption scheme planned for use in forthcoming Dutch electronic passports.

Also see: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track your Every Move with Radio Frequency Identification

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 12 2006 19:31 utc | 6

it was strange to regard the cnn coverage this weekend of the assasination of milosevic at the hague – which was interrupted regularly by advertisements for tourism in the ‘new croatia’ – either they have bent programmers or they have absolutely no sense of history at all – which would be in keeping with their relation to the present & their hallucinations concerning the future

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 12 2006 23:56 utc | 8

Former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic claimed the day before he was found dead that he was being poisoned.
he was right,
‘Leprosy drug in Milosevic’s blood’
wonder why the
UN war crimes tribunal denies request for Milosevic autopsy in Moscow
maybe because
Claims Of Poisoning Raise Stakes Of Milosevic Autopsy
However, Milosevic’s lawyer, Zdenko Tomanovic, said that his client had feared that he might be poisoned, comments that will fuel speculation in Serbia and Montenegro about the death of the country’s former president. The deputy head of Milosevic’s Socialist Party of Serbia, Milorad Vucelic, has already blamed the tribunal for Milosevic’s death, saying its decision to reject his request for treatment in Russia had killed him.
The Milosevic family has said it does not trust the U.N. tribunal to conduct the autopsy impartially.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 13 2006 2:05 utc | 10

Barack Obama begins to redeem himself:

“The truth is, I’m terrified to be here,” he said. “Not because you’re such a tough audience, but because they’re serving drinks. I’m standing about 30 yards from the vice president, and I’m a lawyer. The only thing that could make this more dangerous is if he considered me a friend.
“Mr. vice president, I know you came here expecting to be a target, which, it turns out, may prove easier for you than shooting at one,” said Obama,… “But I do want to thank you. For years, we Democrats have succeeded in doing little more than shooting ourselves in the foot.
“You’ve taught us a valuable lesson,” Obama told Cheney. “Aim higher.”
[snip]
“I’ll tell you, that Grammy was a big surprise. I thought, for sure Jack Abramoff would win for his rendition of ‘It’s hard Out Here for a Pimp.’ (And with that line for the indicted lobbyist, Obama drew a good sound belly laugh from Bush, who of course maintains that he doesn’t know Abramoff.)
[snip]
“Most of all, I want to thank you for all the generous advance coverage you’ve given me in anticipation of a successful career,” he said. “When I actually do something, we’ll let you know.”

May he one day take this fight outside.

Posted by: citizen | Mar 13 2006 3:23 utc | 12

Success tends to go not to the person who is error-free, because he also tends to be risk-averse. Rather it goes to the person who recognizes that life is pretty much a percentage business. It isn’t making mistakes that’s critical; it’s correcting them and getting on with the principal task. – donald rumsfeld

Donald Rumsfeld Makes $5 Million Killing on Bird Flu Drug
Donald Rumsfeld has made a killing out of bird flu. The US Defence Secretary has made more than $5m (£2.9m) in capital gains from selling shares in the biotechnology firm that discovered and developed Tamiflu, the drug being bought in massive amounts by Governments to treat a possible human pandemic of the disease.
…
Mr Rumsfeld sold some of his Gilead shares in 2004 reaping – according to the financial disclosure report he is required to make each year – capital gains of more than $5m. The report showed that he still had up to $25m-worth of shares at the end of 2004, and at least one analyst believes his stake has grown well beyond that figure, as the share price has soared. Further details are not likely to become known, however, until Mr Rumsfeld makes his next disclosure in May.
The 2005 report showed that, in all, he owned shares worth up to $95.9m, from which he got an income of up to $13m, owned land worth up to $17m, and made $1m from renting it out.
He also had illiquid investments worth up to $8.1m, including in partnerships investing in biotechnology, issuing reproductions of paintings, and operating art galleries in New Mexico and Wyoming. He also has life insurance with a surrender value of up to $5m, and received up to $1m from the DHR Foundation, in which he has assets worth up to $25m, and $773,743 from the Donald H Rumsfeld Trust, in which he has assets of up to $50m.

Posted by: b real | Mar 13 2006 4:20 utc | 14

When rich white conservatives in Pasadena (Ca.) turn to Gore Vidal for answers, you know consolidation of the press has gone too far. An Interview
Has this president made this worse, by being so antagonistic to the media?
Oh, who cares? He doesn’t run the country, a handful of corporations run it. No, this is not conspiracy theory, this is conspiracy analysis. The country is very tightly led with corporate goals which push out anything of a national nature. We’re out of it. It’s like being in a bubble. I’ve spent a great deal of my life living across the water, and someone said, “How can you follow American politics when you’ve had your house in Italy for all those years?” And I said, “Well, that’s the only way I can find out what’s going on in America, because the foreign press, at least in Western Europe, is quite good.”
Corporate influence in politics seems more raw and apparent now than ever before.
Of course it is. And it was all due to the “good luck” — those two words I have just used ironically — of 9/11. “I’m a wartime president! I’m a wartime president!” Well, he fucking well isn’t. He’s an accidental president. He happens to be put in by the oil and gas people to cut their taxes and then go in for preemptive wars against countries that are weak and that have done us no harm, like Afghanistan and Iraq. This was a godsend for those who would like to get rid of Congress and the courts and the Constitution. And they’re doing very well at it — very, very well. “Mission accomplished,” I believe, is what he said on the aircraft carrier.
…
The only art form that the United States ever developed is the TV commercial. That’s our Sistine Chapel. That’s our masterpiece.

Posted by: jj | Mar 13 2006 7:32 utc | 16

US psychological warfare experts worked at CNN and NPR during Kosovo War Interesting in light of our recent posts and comments, no?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 13 2006 7:49 utc | 18

@ JJ:
Great set of links @ 209 AM.
Ironically, it would take Ken Starr, $200 million, and Ambrose Bierce,Will Rogers, and HL Mencken as co-counsel to unravel the incestuous union between the American left and the Con business interests in making illegal immigration the mess that it is today.

Posted by: Groucho | Mar 13 2006 15:23 utc | 20

Haste, politics and squabbling generals – fatal blunders on road to Baghdad

The following is an edited excerpt from Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq, by Michael Gordon and General Bernard Trainor
Monday March 13, 2006
The Guardian
The war was barely a week old when General Tommy Franks threatened to fire the Army’s V Corps commander.
From the first day of the invasion, American forces had tangled with thousands of Fedayeen paramilitary fighters. General William “Scott” Wallace, who was leading the army troops towards Baghdad, had told two reporters that his soldiers needed to delay their advance on the Iraqi capital to suppress the Fedayeen threat in the rear.
Soon after, Gen Franks telephoned Lieutenant-General David McKiernan, the head of all allied land forces, to warn that he might relieve Gen Wallace.
The firing was averted after Gen McKiernan flew to Gen Franks’ headquarters in Qatar to support the V Corps commander. But the episode revealed the deep disagreements within the US high command about the Iraqi military threat and what would be required to defeat it.
The dispute, related by numerous military leaders and their aides in interviews, had lasting consequences. The unexpected tenacity of the Fedayeen in the battles for Nassiriya, Samawa, Najaf and other towns on the road to Baghdad was an early indication that the adversary was not merely Saddam Hussein’s vaunted Republican Guard.
The paramilitary Fedayeen were numerous, well-armed, dispersed throughout the country and seemingly determined to fight to the death. But while many officers in the field assessed the Fedayeen as a dogged foe, Gen Franks and the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, saw them as little more than a speed bump on the way to Baghdad.
Three years later, Iraq has yet to be subdued. While America’s war strategy has been well documented, the conflicts and concerns about how some of the key decisions were made has previously been unknown. As US forces prepared to invade Iraq in March 2003, American intelligence was not projecting a major fight in southern Iraq.
CIA officials told US commanders that anti-Saddam tribes might secure a vital Euphrates river bridge and provide other support. Tough battles were not expected until army and marine troops began to close in on Baghdad.
The intelligence agency believed that many of the towns in Iraq were “ours”, recalled Major General Rusty Blackman, who served as Gen McKiernan’s chief of staff. After he heard the CIA assessment, one army commander told his officers that they might encounter joyous parades in towns such as Samawa and Nassiriya.
Almost from the start, however, the troops found themselves fighting the Fedayeen, other militias and Ba’ath party paramilitary forces.
After the marines fought in Nassiriya Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Apodaca, a Marine intelligence officer, drafted a classified message concluding that the Fedayeen would continue to be a threat. Many had sought sanctuary in small towns that were bypassed in the rush to Baghdad. The colonel compared the Fedayeen to insurgencies in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Colombia and warned that unless American soldiers went after them in force, the enemy would continue their attacks after Baghdad fell, hampering efforts to stabilise Iraq.
At the land war headquarters, there was growing concern about the Fedayeen as well. Major General JD Thurman, the chief operations officer, argued for delaying the push to Baghdad so that US forces could concentrate on the threat in the south.
At a March 28 meeting at Jalaba airfield in southern Iraq, Gen McKiernan consulted his army and Marine commanders about the situation. According to notes taken by a military aide, Gen McKiernan concluded that the United States faced two “centres of gravity”: the Republican Guard, who were arrayed near Baghdad, and the paramilitary Fedayeen.
Gen McKiernan decided to suspend the attack into the Baghdad area defences for several days while continuing air strikes and engaging the Fedayeen. When he returned to his headquarters in Kuwait, though, he learned of the furore over Gen Wallace’s comments to the press.
“The enemy we’re fighting is a bit different than the one we war-gamed against, because of these paramilitary forces,” Gen Wallace had said to the New York Times and Washington Post.
To Gen Franks, the remarks were tantamount to a vote of no-confidence in his war plan. It relied on speed, and he had told Mr Rumsfeld that his forces would take Baghdad in less than two weeks.
In Washington, Gen Wallace’s comments were seized on by critics as evidence that Mr Rumsfeld had not sent enough troops. More than a year earlier, he had thrown out the initial war plan that called for at least 380,000 troops and had pushed the military’s central command to use fewer soldiers and deploy them more quickly.
At a Pentagon press conference, the defence secretary denied that he had any role in shaping the war plan.
Privately, Mr Rumsfeld hinted at his impatience with his generals. Newt Gingrich, the former Republican lawmaker and a Rumsfeld adviser, forwarded a supportive memo from Colonel Doug Macgregor, who had long assailed the army leadership as risk averse.
In a blistering attack, Col Macgregor denounced the decision to suspend the advance. Replying, the secretary wrote: “Thanks for the Macgregor piece. Nobody up here is thinking like this.”
Gen McKiernan, for his part, was stunned by the threat to fire Gen Wallace. “Talk about unhinging ourselves,” he told Lieutenant-General John Abizaid, Gen Franks’ deputy, according to officials at Gen Franks’ headquarters.
At Gen Franks’ headquarters in Qatar the next day, Gen McKiernan and others made the case against removing Gen Wallace. He survived, but the strategy debate was far from over.
Determined to spur his ground war commanders to renew the push toward Baghdad, Gen Franks flew to Gen McKiernan’s headquarters on March 31, where he delivered some harsh criticism. Only the British and the Special Operations Forces had been fighting, he complained.
The most memorable moment came when Gen Franks said that he did not want to hear about casualties, even though no one had mentioned any, recalled several participants in the meeting. He put his hand to his mouth and made a yawning motion, as if to suggest that some casualties were not of major consequence to the attack.
By April 2, US forces were closing in on the capital. Even before the war, Mr Rumsfeld saw the deployment of US forces more in terms of what was needed to win the war than to secure the peace. With the regime broken, he began to press for cancelling the deployment of the 1st Cavalry Division – some 16,000 soldiers. Gen Franks had favoured having the additional troops, but eventually relented. He later acknowledged the defence secretary was the impetus behind the decision. “Don Rumsfeld did in fact make the decision to off-ramp the 1st Cavalry Division,” Gen Franks said in a 2004 interview.
Gen McKiernan, who was the senior US general in Iraq at the time, was not consulted about the decision. Though unhappy about it, he did not protest.
Three years later, with thousands of lives lost in the tumult of Iraq, senior officers say that cancelling the division was a major mistake, one that reduced the number of American forces just as the Fedayeen, former soldiers and Arab Jihadists were beginning to organise into an insurgency.
“The Ba’athist insurgency surprised us and we had not developed a comprehensive option for dealing with this possibility, one that would have included more military police, civil affairs units, interrogators, interpreters, and Special Operations Forces,” said retired army general Jack Keane, who served as the acting chief of staff during the summer of 2003.
“If we had planned for an insurgency, we probably would have deployed the 1st Cavalry Division and it would have assisted greatly with the initial occupation. This was not just an intelligence community failure, but also our failure as senior military leaders.”

Posted by: A. Human | Mar 13 2006 20:15 utc | 22

can’t spell , b. Sorry.
@ Humanoid:
Didn’t see anything about that book in the American press today. Funny, that.

Posted by: Groucho | Mar 13 2006 21:30 utc | 24

Pity Milosevic expired before he could have been sent down for life. The charges (and there were too many of them, and that was the problem) will never be proven. Slobo was not simply another nationalist–he wasn’t even that. he was primus inter pares amongst a post-cold war clutch of power-driven and blood-soaked Balkan politicians, the venal and murderous Tujman being number two. these are prime examples (with Mladic and Karadzic being others) of how mediocrity coupled with a power-lust and brutality (here comes to mind a whole raft of senior Nazis) can propel individuals to where they can do the most damage if the ‘times’ are right for them.

Posted by: theodor | Mar 14 2006 3:53 utc | 26

‘ “May God damn you,” Sadr said of Rumsfeld. “You said in the past that civil war would break out if you were to withdraw, and now you say that in case of civil war you won’t interfere.” ‘
“Muqtada! Muqtada!” chant thousands of faithful who gather for Friday prayers in Sadr City, in frequent rowdy street rallies, during religious ceremonies where older crowds blush at the sight of Sadr’s young male followers jumping up and down and swiveling their hips. “Yes, yes, Muqtada!”
Electricity courses through the crowds of his followers in Sadr City, the milieu of energetic Iraqi youth. They play soccer in dusty fields of a district that has become a national gold mine of talented professional athletes. They volunteer for street cleanup operations and donate blood after Friday prayers. They carry grenade launchers and AK-47s as they patrol the neighborhood as part of his Al Mahdi army.
“We do all the services for the people, all the humanitarian work,” said Kareem Jorani, a member of the militia. “Whatever people need, we provide. We protect them at night. We provide security for the people.”
When it came time to dole out ministries, Sadr asked for and got the ministries of transportation, with control over ports, roadways and motor vehicle licensing; and health, with at least 150,000 employees; and began handing out jobs to followers.
“The Mahdi army of Iraq is at the service of the Iraqi people,” Sadr said in an interview last month on Al Jazeera TV. “The Mahdi army was at a time a military army, but now it has become a cultural army. In the past the fight was a military one. Now the conflict is a religious one.”
LINK
LINK<

Posted by: anna missed | Mar 14 2006 8:53 utc | 28

This is the kind of news I like to hear.
Mutual aid societies for health insurance acquiring a toehold in the states, and in the news (of course in the face of corporate opposition via state regulators).

Posted by: citizen | Mar 14 2006 18:43 utc | 30

And to respond to the rational part of jj’s post: of course the people who sponsor limited immigrants rights (i.e., the right to work here but not to stand as an equal to your employer before the law and its enforcers). This is not a secret, not even from progressives.
And of course the left is weakened by people who appear progressive but are instead intent on selling out the people to increase corporate profits. But if you consider that the United States is now, for purposes of commerce, one nation with Canada, Mexico, and most of Central America, then citizens who see themselves as working class (especially progressives) are going to have to figure out a way to make some fellowship with all those un-citizens. Because the corporate center has already slapped us into a single pool, by law.
This law you seem rather comfortable with, it requires all law-abiding citizens to turn in illegals to the state. What else do you think it does aside from moving illegals one step closer to losing all avenues to claim human rights? Clearly you already know that exploitative employers would much rather hire a legal sub-human.
This argument I am making to you is not the same as arguing that the nation should let in non-citizens and ALSO ensure that they remain illegal. That is a corporatist strategy. It relies on riven, ruined communities. I am arguing for a way to constitute a national community (no, we don’t have much of one anymore), and that will remain impossible so long as we give corporations the power to hire sub-humans, and we give them that power when we consent to the corporate center creating such legal categories.
But if it’s much simpler than that, if you just think immigrants deserve lesser fates than we citizens, then I have something else to say. I am not asking you to tell me if you’re protectionist or not – that’s a separate discussion. I’m asking you to explain why someone who hires foreigners seems to you to be a bad citizen of the U.S.
So, where do you stand?

Posted by: citizen | Mar 14 2006 19:13 utc | 32

And to respond to the rational part of jj’s post: of course the people who sponsor limited immigrants rights (i.e., the right to work here but not to stand as an equal to your employer before the law and its enforcers). This is not a secret, not even from progressives.
Correction:
And to respond to the rational part of jj’s post: of course the people who sponsor limited immigrants rights (i.e., the right to work here but not to stand as an equal to your employer before the law and its enforcers), these people are working for corporate profits and against human community. This is not a secret, not even from progressives.

Posted by: citizen | Mar 14 2006 19:18 utc | 34

Why don´t they mix up the installations in my apartment? 🙂
Woman Gets Beer From Her Kitchen Faucet.

Posted by: b | Mar 14 2006 20:00 utc | 36

U.S. Current Account Deficit Hits Record

America’s deficit in the broadest measure of international trade surged to an all-time high of $804.9 billion last year as the country went deeper into debt to foreigners.
The Commerce Department said the deficit in the current account was up 20.4 percent from the previous record of $668.1 billion set in 2004.

This will end in tears.

Posted by: b | Mar 14 2006 20:27 utc | 38

some amazing stuff here. Interesting how no one really comes forward to claim responsibility…

Buried in the huge budget-reconciliation bill, on which House and Senate conferees are putting the final touches right now, are a few paragraphs that accomplish an extraordinary feat. They roll back the price of a barrel of crude oil to what it sold for two years ago. They create this pretend price for the benefit of a small group of the politically well connected. You still won’t be able to buy gasoline for $1.73 per gal. as you did then, instead of today’s $2.28. You still won’t be able to buy home heating oil for $1.60 per gal., in place of today’s $2.39. But a select group of investors and companies will walk away with billions of dollars in tax subsidies, not from oil but from the marketing of a dubious concoction of synthetic fuel produced from coal and dependent on government tax credits tied to the price of oil.

– – – – – – – – –

From 2003 through 2005, TIME estimates, the synfuel industry raked in $9 billion in tax credits. That means the lucky few collectively cut their tax bills by that amount, which would be enough to cover a year’s worth of federal taxes for 20 million Americans who make less than $20,000 a year and pay income taxes. How important is the tax credit to synfuel producers? In its latest annual report, Headwaters Inc., a Utah-based purveyor of synfuel processes and substances, says flatly, “Headwaters does not believe that production of synthetic fuel will be profitable absent the tax credits.”

– – – – – – –

Since 2002, the Council for Energy Independence has spent $2 million lobbying Congress to preserve the tax credit, according to reports filed with the Senate Office of Public Records. Overall, TIME estimates, the synfuel lobby has spent more than $5 million during that same period. The effort has got results. In recent years, the lobby has successfully turned aside efforts to revoke the IRS rulings on which the tax credits are calculated. It beat back an effort in the House Ways and Means Committee last year to send a bill to the House floor that would have virtually eliminated the tax credit. The bill’s sponsor, Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat, called the tax credit “one of the worst tax loopholes on the books” and described the synfuel industry as “basically a sham.” Nevertheless, because of industry lobbying, Doggett’s bill has never made it out of committee

Posted by: dan of steele | Mar 14 2006 21:28 utc | 40

jj,
I haven’t disagreed that jobs are being destroyed in the U.S., but rather I disagree that further debasing illegal aliens’ legal standing will lessen the number of such workers. What it will do is make them even cheaper to hire, because they will be social lepers if it is illegal to associate with them. And that will worsen the problem.
And btw, don’t you think the propaganda that goes along with bills such as this are part of why you mistakenly read “illegal” for “Mexican”?

Posted by: citizen | Mar 15 2006 4:15 utc | 42

Sorry, I can’t seem to let this go…
Was Milosevic Poisoned?
Would you believe that looking into Milosevic’s death led me to a strong link between the US government and al Qaeda, sharing common goals in Kosovo? That’s why history is always relevant, and the truth always matters.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 15 2006 7:20 utc | 44

The militarization of New Orleans
Storm-battered parish considers hired guns

Maj. Pete Tufaro scanned the fenced lot packed with hundreds of stark white trailers soon to be inhabited by Hurricane Katrina evacuees. Shaking his head, he predicted the cramped quarters would ignite fights, hide criminals and become an incubator for crime, posing another test for his cash-strapped sheriff’s department, which furloughed 206 of its 390 officers after the storm.
Tufaro thinks the parish has the solution: DynCorp International LLC, the Texas company that provided personal security to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and is one of the largest security contractors in Iraq. If the Federal Emergency Management Agency approves the sheriff’s department’s proposal, which would cost $70 million over three years, up to 100 DynCorp employees would be deputized to be make arrests, carry weapons, and dress in the St. Bernard Parish Sheriff’s Department khaki and black uniforms.

DynCorp are about the worst guys you can get.

Also $70 million for 100 men for 3 years? That’s $233,000 per man per year. Why not hire two real cops for the same money and have some change?

Posted by: b | Mar 15 2006 12:01 utc | 46

@ralphieboy – if this is so, why can DynaCorp make a profit on the deal.
Opposite to the always pondered myth, private companies are NOT cheaper than states doing the same job.

Posted by: b | Mar 15 2006 17:06 utc | 48

@anna missed
didn’t you get the memo? those statements have all “become inoperative.”

Posted by: DeAnander | Mar 16 2006 7:10 utc | 50

“Congress returns to Washington this week to a world very different from the one members left two weeks ago. The war in Iraq is essentially over and domestic issues are regaining attention.”
(NPR’s Bob Edwards, 4/28/03)
Alas, Bob Edwards lost his job.

Posted by: beq | Mar 16 2006 13:58 utc | 52