Is it me or has this election cycle already taken on the aura of a cheap traveling carnival, even more than it usually does? The people seem anxious, hot to trot, and out in in bigger numbers than usual. Rushing from one ( 2hour line for a) thrill ride or rigged game of chance to the next with nervous expectation, desperately looking for either some vicarious badge of courage by association, or some newly minted identity born of context, or simply an over sized pink stuffed trophy to parade around with. This is surely the atmosphere of bright lights and sportscasting soap opera commentary the media have constructed in order to amplify the ephemeral, the emotional, and the personal into a deafening orchestral white noise drowning out any vestiges to the cold reality of political circumstance. And like the sleeze ball operators behind every ride and game they they own the field, define the rules, declare the winners, and celebrate the victors insuring that above all, the show must and will go on. At least until the go’ers are all worn out and broke. I remember back in the 60’s when the carnival t-shirt of choice were either labeled “slave” or “master”. Those were the good old days.

Posted by: anna missed | Jan 9 2008 10:29 utc | 3

A bit of disgusting trivia…
Even as the situation in Iraq continues to unravel into chaos and nightmare, the Codpiece will be spending a week in Jerusalem at the King David hotel (2600$ a night).
He will be wearing a white terry bathrobe embossed with his name in gold as he enjoys tomorrow and Friday morning the sun rising over the Old City – the lights will all be turned off in the morning (at his request!) so that he can see it as King David might have seen it.

Posted by: Chuck Cliff | Jan 9 2008 12:31 utc | 5

Fred Hiatt and the WaPo editors want you to know that there are grown ups and others. The headline says it all.
The Comeback Grownups – New Hampshire keeps the races nicely unsettled.

Posted by: b | Jan 9 2008 12:38 utc | 7

b @ 8
Known as the Bradley effect.
Also:
Iowa: open caucuses
NH: private voting booth
The BE may have played a part in the outcome, but other factors were in play as well: disgust with the media, good ground organization, union backing, a good last minute argument by Gloria Steinem in the NYT (most “popular opinion” article) and the turnout of women for HC over Obama.
The profile of NH voters is quite interesting.

Posted by: Hamburger | Jan 9 2008 13:31 utc | 9

Video of Iran ‘attack’ on three US warships released by Pentagon;”You will explode after two minutes”.
No comment.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 9 2008 13:54 utc | 11

Daily Kos, of course, is a Clinton-centric website, which, more disturbingly, purged diaries and diarists after the 2004 Ohio election, if they were judged to be questioning what went on there.
Yep, had my account at dkos locked for mentioning Diebold and Black Box Voting.
The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so that they believe they are as clever as he.<\i>
– Karl Kraus

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 9 2008 14:47 utc | 13

What a great country! What a great horse race! What a great drama! What a performance!
What a performance.
Over here at the Upper East Side Liberation Army headquarters, we’re sipping brandy and smokin’ Havana cigars over this New Hampshire performance. We left the smoking gun in plain sight, and the rubes and talking heads walk right past it, and talk right past it, and talk about hope and victories.
The internal polls of the Clinton and Obama bean counters both showed Clinton losing by ten to fourteen points. So did the public polling.
The paper ballots used in the voting booths showed that same ratio after they were run through the optical scanners, counted, and then stacked up on the table. The piles were a bit higher on the Obama stack, just like people told everyone beforehand they would be.
Ah, but a third of the votes were counted electronically, with no paper trail, no possibility of audit or recount, and no possibility of Hillary losing this little local spat.
Nine out of ten electronic votes went for Hillary. Her digital vote stack towers over Obama’s, defying any kind of logic, defying gravity, common sense, and analysis. And the public swallows this shit whole.
What a performance.
When you go to the race track, and bet on a horse you like, without considering that the same people own the race track and every horse in it, and win without a hitch whether you win or lose on one of their horses, you are a sucker, a rube. Might as well flush your money, kid.
When you take your money to a casino, and give your favorite games a whirl, without considering that the same people own the casino, every game in it, the hotel, the buffet and the parking garage, and win without fail whether you win or lose on one of their games, you are a sucker, a rube. Might as well flush your money.
What was decided in New Hampshire is that Clinton and McCain will face off next November, and one of them will win the Oval Office.
This was not decided by the voters.
They just provided the bulk of the ballots. They just provided the extras and stage hands and ushers. They got in line, and pulled levers, without considering that the process is now owned and operated by UESLA. The One Percenters.
We own the place because we run the place. We run the place because we own the place.
Because we count the votes.
Here’s to rubes, here’s to suckers, here’s to you kids.
What a performance.

Posted by: UESLA | Jan 9 2008 15:52 utc | 15

OK UESLA, There are reports that Obama won the paper vote, but lost the electronic vote. And some attempts to explain this discrepancy have referred to the “Bradley Effect”. Hence, its not quite clear yet whether all or just some of the credit for Hilary’s “surge” should go to UESLA.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Jan 9 2008 16:17 utc | 17

Bush is having a press conference with Olmert and coming down strong on Iran. Olmert is really a madman. Olmert talks of Bush’s determination to do what he knows is right to defend his principles and the security of Israel. (This in reference to Iran}. Bush is sidestepping the question of applying pressure to stop the settlements.
Don’t watch if you have High blood pressure.

Posted by: ww | Jan 9 2008 16:58 utc | 19

the world must forget once & for all the bizarre burlesque which passes for electoral politics in the united states. it has no significance in the struggle for freedom & self determination in the world. on the contrary it is an illussion that does great harm in trying to view any sort of flexibility, any sort of quantitative or qualitative change in the completely reactionary politics of those united states
the world has a great deal to fear & very little light to see. obama is not the light – nor is any of his number seeking the nomination for presidency.
& the elites of the western world in general are getting worse not better – sarkozy brown, merkel, rudd harper etc etc come from the darkest places in politics – they also share in hatred of the great mass of the people – especially their own people who they openly regard with contempt
in much the same way as their entwined bosses like rupert murdoch

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jan 9 2008 19:46 utc | 21

rgiap is right about the fake U.S primaries/elections, as are Uncle $cam and others. The historical key though to the plans of the tippy-top of the mass-hating scum elite’s is the inevitabilty of coastal wipeout, likely followed by deliberate diseases, famines for the inland many, and control eventually by food and medicine armies from out of town. I doubt many scum elite know this, possibly not even the fabled 72, just have been promised that something good (for them) will happen, and many even of them are likely betrayed and left on coasts, or rounded up after.

Posted by: plushtown | Jan 9 2008 20:13 utc | 23

I find it interesting that as soon as the New Hampshire results came in MoA users, obviously unhappy at the result, were questioning the honesty of the process, I was puzzled with my own anger at Obama’s loss. The bloke is no different in character, willingness to hawk his fork to the highest bidder, or preparedness to advance empire, than the other candidates, most of all the execrable Hilary Clinton, so why are we so pissed?
I suspect it is the Underdog Effect. Conservatives favour a winner, people who imagine they have ‘won’ themselves favour other winners, but the bulk of the population who are lucky to win two bar raffles in their lifetime feel for the underdog, the person who may against all odds, just get up. Until a few days ago Obama seemed to be that underdog and has probably returned to that status again.
Much of the underdog tag has been intentional, it has been cultivated, but some parts are genuine. Sure his roots are middle-class not descended from slaves, this is no product of a mega-ghetto but nevertheless his progress has been against the odds. Lets not forget Obama has only been on the national stage since late 2004 – he has never been a state governor or any of the other ‘heavy hitter’ type Washington outsiders, whatever we may believe his real instincts are Obama is an outsider when compared to the the other political whores who have been selling their brand for decades. That means the ‘hope’ thing he so wisely highlighted even works for the jaded old cynics who populate the MoA site. There is an infinitesimally small chance he could be on the up and up.
Even if that isn’t true, won’t it be fun to see the look on the faces of the old hacks, Clinton in particular, when some ‘upstart’ pulls the brass ring out from their grasp?
So if we do have a bit of a preference for Obama ahead of the other hacks, why did he lose? How come others didn’t feel the same? I realise that some feel this thing was stolen but I’m not so sure. Not because I don’t believe Clinton wouldn’t steal it if she could but because I don’t believe that such extremes were necessary.
Well, we know that few others do share many of the opinions of MoA-ites, so our feelings about Obama don’t automatically translate into the opinions of a larger group.
But even here there is little acknowledgment of the terrible power of a concerted mass-media campaign.
Just after Iowa, Bill Clinton who is both with the Hilary campaign and standing back, almost critiquing it like an old pro, was asked how he felt about New Hampshire in light of the Iowa caucuses. His reply went something like “I’m sure we will turn it around, but it is only five days. If it were 10 days I know we would turn it around.”
Clinton knows that if the big guns are brought to bear then barring a fuck-up like “there are no weapons of mass destruction”, or the incorrect use of cigars, the territory will always be taken.
‘Old trouper’ Hilary pulled out all stops – from ‘bravely’ crying to steal the underdog tag, to the Steinham article, every opportunity to push her barrow was taken and the New Hampshire dems wilted under the onslaught.
In the parallel universe of tweedledum exactly the same thing was happening with the rethug primary. The big guns have finally acknowledged that Southern Baptists don’t go for Mormons so they had better deal with the devil they know and don’t trust than the one they don’t know at all. McCain copped the imprimatur and was made holder of the holey banner until 2012 when things may look better. In terms of outright injustice to the front-runner by the party machine, it could be argued that Huckerbee got a much rawer deal than Obama. No one notices or cares though, the rethugs aren’t gonna win shit this year.
Back to the main game – it is likely that many of the ploys used in New Hampshire had been packed into the Clinton arsenal with the thought that they would only be dragged out in an extreme situation much further into the primary. Clinton’s armory must be looking bare after this.
If Obama can regain the initiative with sheer hard canvassing at the grassroots, Hilary’s gonna be buggered. How many times can you cry on TV before people ask is that gonna be the plan for OBL’s next big gig. Tears?
The Steinham article was also much too soon in the cycle. Middle class feminists do great things for middle class women, poor undereducated women are frequently worse off under their policies which are to create opportunity in the chattering class sector, thereby diverting resources from anti-poverty programs. Putting out the Steinham piece now, means there is enough time for advocates for poor women, african-amerikan women especially, to confront this flaw. Clinton will also struggle to raise much more money since most of it has been corporate and many of the donors are on their limit. New Hampshire must have taken a goodly chunk. Obama’s grass roots organisers come much cheaper than a TV spot in prime time.
If Obama turns this around once more, that will be the time for the Clintons to try and rig the results, a ploy that then won’t be available for the main event. We may not know how they do it but I betcha all the ‘operators’ keep up on their opponents techniques so they can counter them.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 9 2008 20:53 utc | 25

Congratulations, DeAnander! Hope you’ll keep posting great stuff online, here and elsewhere. Your words bring to back, time and again, from despair.

Posted by: catlady | Jan 9 2008 21:23 utc | 27

Yes, good luck DeAnander on the boat! Happy times!
to anna missed @ 3 — excellent! What–positive, I’m hoping–do you see happening at the sides? (Assuming the centre is president-idol)

Posted by: Argh | Jan 10 2008 1:18 utc | 29

With the incredibly sad news of four American children thrown off a bridge
by their own father, the more truly ironic, since “a bridge” is a financial
term for how wealthy people get from one Montauk to another across a chasm
of debt, without getting their Loeffler Randall’s wet, and throwing our own
children ‘off the bridge’ is how they intend to bridge US$, comes this riff:
http://libcom.org/book/export/html/3
Bedtime reading for when your own children get thrown off the bridge in turn:
—
THE CONQUEST OF BREAD
Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin
“Take, indeed, a civilized country.
The forests which once covered it have been cleared, the marshes drained, the climate improved. It has been made habitable. The soil, which bore formerly only a coarse vegetation, is covered to-day with rich harvests. The rock-walls in the valleys are laid out in terraces and covered with vines bearing golden fruit. The wild plants, which yielded nought but acrid berries, or uneatable roots, have been transformed by generations of culture into succulent vegetables, or trees covered with delicious fruits. Thousands of highways and railroads furrow the earth, and pierce the mountains. The shriek of the engine is heard in the wild gorges of the Alps, the Caucasus, and the Himalayas. The rivers have been made navigable; the coasts, carefully surveyed, are easy of access; artificial harbours, laboriously dug out and protected against the fury of the sea, afford shelter to the ships. Deep shafts have been sunk in the rocks; labyrinths of underground galleries have been dug out where coal may be raised or minerals extracted. At the crossings of the highways great cities have sprung up, and within their borders all the treasures of industry, science, and art have been accumulated.
Whole generations, that lived and died in misery, oppressed and ill-treated by their masters, and worn out by toil, have handed on this immense inheritance to our century, (on to all of us).
For thousands of years millions of men have laboured to clear the forests, to drain the marshes, and to open up highways by land and water. Every rood of soil we cultivate in Europe has been watered by the sweat of several races of men. Every acre has its story of enforced labour, of intolerable toil, of the people’s sufferings. Every mile of railway, every yard of tunnel, has received its share of human blood.
The shafts of the mine still bear on their rocky walls the marks made by the pick of the workman who toiled to excavate them. The space between each prop in the underground galleries might be marked as a miner’s grave; and who can tell what each of these graves has cost, in tears, in privations, in unspeakable wretchedness to the family who depended on the scanty wage of the worker cut off in his prime by fire-damp, rock-fall, or flood?
By what right then can any one, (or any group or political party whatever) appropriate the least morsel of this immense whole and say — This is mine, not yours?”
—
Then it was a tithe to the church, and a tithe to the crown, 35% or more.
Today it’s a tithe to the Federal, and a tithe to the Banks, 65% or more!
Yet real wages stagnated 35 years ago, and real dollars devalued by 35%!!
http://blip.tv/file/520347
Enjoy some new gulag humor, not so funny when you recall 8 short years ago.
And so, would you like some boiled turnips with your cabbage soup, comrade?
Because, really, when you stop the chatter, that’s what it’s coming down to.

Posted by: Duane Abernathy | Jan 10 2008 4:36 utc | 31

Did anyone else find rather odd, Huckabee’s primary party music the other night?
Also Sprach Zarathustra…Nietzsche…Ubermensche….2001: A Space Odyssey, tool-using apes evolving into spacemen who meet the galactic overlords….
weird sh*t, man

Posted by: catlady | Jan 10 2008 4:55 utc | 33

http://www.philipsmucker.com/Photos/Pages_Afghanistan/index.htm
Now comes 30,000+ Marines, headed south to kick a little Talib ass.
Wonder if anyone at MoA can imagine their camp, the traffic conflicts
between Strykers and AF donkey carts, the diversion of precious food,
water and fuel, starlight-goggle Blackhawk gatling guns in the night,
& aerial-spray Monsanto Roundup, reducing arid plateaus to salt flats.
None dared call it genocide. Wahhabi Taliban, Cheneyi Halliban, same.
One goal. Reduce population and oil production to keep profits high,
and with those profits, build AF oil & gas pipelines for China’s use.
One solution. Kill your TV. Kill your SUV. Heat with wood. Grow food.
http://www.unicycle4kids.org/kinesis/template.php?section=fNews
Notes from My Second Summer in Afghanistan

Posted by: Nutter Butter | Jan 10 2008 6:18 utc | 35

R’giap is absolutely correct when he says electoral politics in amerika is a bizarre burlesque. We must not let it divide us by encouraging various groups who favour one sock puppet over another to argue between each other, but we should probably still observe it to stay across the current modus operandi of tyranny.
For example Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich have been admitted far enough into the ‘club’ to be allowed to participate in some national fora where their ‘outlandish’ ideas can be shown to be that by the less recalcitrant tools of the rich and powerful, but they aren’t trusted enough to sit in on crucial national debates where their arguments could undermine the shared reality, the ‘big lies’.
Tom Engelhardt a man who doesn’t miss much has posited today, what the world, in particular these primaries, could be like if there were no “Global War on Terra”.

Consider the debate among four Democratic presidential candidates on ABC News last Saturday night. In the previous week, the price of a barrel of oil briefly touched $100, unemployment hit 5%, the stock market had the worst three-day start since the Great Depression, and the word “recession” was in the headlines and in the air. So when ABC debate moderator Charlie Gibson announced that the first fifteen-minute segment would be taken up with “what is generally agreed to be… the greatest threat to the United States today,” what did you expect?
As it happened, he was referring to “nuclear terrorism,” specifically “a nuclear attack on an American city” by al-Qaeda (as well as how the future president would “retaliate”). . .

This does not conflict with the earlier contention that the one subject that all sock-puppet wannabes, the media and the current administration, will avoid throughout ’08 is discussion of Empire, because casting the current ethically bereft amerikan foreign policy and the domestic oppression which re-inforces it as essential elements of GWOT neatly steps around issues of empire by scaring citizens enough to accept that these are all purely defensive actions.
Of course in order to achieve that while allocating so much time (25% of the dem debate) to this subject there must be no chipping away at the brittle foundations which support big lies. Both Kucinich and Paul have effectively discredited the falsehoods around GWOT in other earlier debates and in doing so won a reasonable chunk of support for themselves. But that was then when the myth of it all being up for grabs was being re-set.
We are now in the sharp end where citizens are encouraged to hang off every word of “these great men and women of modern amerika”. There is no room for doubt now. Which means no room for Kucinich or Paul.
Neither have much in the way of a warchest so no one has been concerned about them ‘stealing’ the primaries, not when as we just saw, a concerted media bombardment can push Obama onto his backfoot. Obama has much bigger warchest and far less cogent arguments than the two who have lost part of the script.
No! The efforts to keep those two out of the debate has been to ensure that the GWOT remains an ‘accepted truth’, uncontested by any ‘responsible’ ‘credible’ figure who has public support. Acceptance of GWOT renders discussion of empire irrelevant. This isn’t to establish hegemony, steal resources or control markets, “we fight for peace. To protect ourselves”, cries every sanctioned debater.
It is both silly and cowardly to expect the people of Iraq or Afghanistan to put empire back on the table by cranking up the violence and subjecting themselves to any more deaths, maimings and robbery at the hands of the imperial troops without a supporting strategy. Amerikans must find a way to do this themselves, because it is they who will lose the most if their nation does continue down the dead end freeway of empire dreaming.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jan 10 2008 7:00 utc | 37

Just heard Brad Friedman, of bradblog.com, on Mike Malloy. No question that NH was rigged. Results for all cand. except HC & Obamination conformed to pre-election polling predictions. Her internal polls showed her losing by 11%. His showed him winning by approx. same margin. Even their results conformed to pre-election polling in All precincts, Except those where DieBold machines were used. Yet again, election DieBolded…

Posted by: jj | Jan 10 2008 8:51 utc | 39

Will someone watch this for me? I can’t see it for now.
The Return of the King… for Kucinich

After complimenting Mortensen’s film performances, Hannity said, “In spite of everything, I’m going to forgive your politics…”
“You don’t have to,” said Mortensen. ” I’m not going to forgive yours.”

sorry if already posted.

Posted by: beq | Jan 10 2008 15:44 utc | 41

hkol – re the maldives & perceived/received images of it –
Hill & Knowlton’s Maldives Role Still Generating Heat

The role of the PR firm Hill & Knowlton (H&K) in polishing the image of the authoritarian government of the Maldives has become the centrepoint of a controversy between the former Foreign Minister, Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, and the current Information Minister, Mohamed Nasheed.

Posted by: b real | Jan 10 2008 16:16 utc | 43

tried to post twice no luck! I’m a spammer.

Posted by: Tangerine | Jan 10 2008 16:40 utc | 45

ah I cut out the links.

Posted by: Tangerine | Jan 10 2008 16:44 utc | 47

Unless I misunderstood, in speaking about Paul and Kucinich, Debs is dead stated in #37:
Neither have much in the way of a warchest…
Ron Paul has more net funds in his war chest than any of the Republican frontrunners and has set an all-time US record for the most funds raised in a day: $6 mln. Best of all, it is from individuals instead of lobbies and big corporate interests.
But the media and the entrenched political powers-that-be are not going to permit an antiwar candidate to win. Period.
And I do with they would limit this political campaigning to a maxmimum of, say, six months or so. I am so wore out that I am becoming apathetic.

Posted by: Ensley | Jan 10 2008 17:29 utc | 49

a few links with interesting & plausible (IMHO) takes on the Bradley-Effect:
the reverse Bradley-Effect
You may have heard of the Bradley Effect, a phenomenon where black candidates poll much better than they do on election night. This is usually attributed to voters telling pollsters one thing, but then voting against the black candidate in the privacy of the voting booth.
I wonder if Barack Obama benefited from a Reverse Bradley Effect.
In the Iowa Democrat caucuses, you make your preference known by standing in a corner with other supporters of your candidate. To the sort of white liberal who goes to an Iowa caucus, this must have seemed like a golden opportunity to show your next-door neighbors just how enlightened and progressive you are, by supporting the liberal black candidate. Hence I suspect that Obama may have scored better than he would have in a secret-ballot election, and benefited from a Reverse Bradley Effect.
the positive Bradley-Effect
Its worrisome that the Bradley-Effect is an issue. Whats more worrying, from surfing around, is how difficult it is for some people to simply admit that it even exists. Hopefully it does not become a significant factor in the primaries. But if I was Obama, I would be extra careful about believing the polls, especially in states with private (non-caucus) voting.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Jan 10 2008 18:43 utc | 51

# 52 decoded – Either he’s saying I’m hysterical or I dare not say in public what I’m thinking.
Something truly funny & wonderful just happened – just heard on Thom Hartmann –
FBI stopped paying it’s phone bills, so the Telecomms cut off their wiretaps. (No Joke.)

Posted by: jj | Jan 10 2008 19:39 utc | 53

I suspect I am one of few to find this funny. yeah, I know, it is a filthy habit.
Boss fires staff for not smoking

Posted by: dan of steele | Jan 10 2008 21:17 utc | 55

Is Denial A Social Necessity?

“In the modern vernacular, to say someone is ‘in denial’ is to deliver a savage combination punch: one shot to the belly for the cheating or drinking or bad behavior, and another slap to the head for the cowardly self-deception of pretending it’s not a problem. Yet recent studies from fields as diverse as psychology and anthropology suggest that the ability to look the other way, while potentially destructive, is also critically important to forming and nourishing close relationships. The psychological tricks that people use to ignore a festering problem in their own households are the same ones that they need to live with everyday human dishonesty and betrayal, their own and others’. And it is these highly evolved abilities, research suggests, that provide the foundation for that most disarming of all human invitations, forgiveness.”

Posted by: Anonymous | Jan 11 2008 6:56 utc | 57

Thanks to Tangerine and and b real for the links and comments made above. b real‘s observation of Hill and Knowlton’s involvement in “polishing” the images of the Maldives should come as no surprise, but I confess to having previously viewed the Maldives merely as a vacation spot, rather than as a “strategic asset” of some sort. Certainly it’s interesting to speculate on what kind of “triangulations” there are between H & K, their clients, and the intelligence agency sponsors and facilitators who remain only barely visible in the murky background. Someone here at MOA must know good references regarding such
“manufacturers of consent” and their spooky cohorts.
I have the impression that the Clinton victory in New Hampshire is proving to be “just what the doctor ordered” for her campaign and for the self-styled “adult” community of the foreign policy establishment. Pat Lang’s SST blog today gives vent to unconcealed joy at the chastisement of Obama’s children’s crusaders and the pro-Obama media mavens, although to my mind Obama’s foreign policy positions are the worst being proposed by Democratic candidates (and therefore, one assumes, commendably “adult”).
I am very very happy to see that Dennis Kucinich is filing for a recount in New Hampshire as reported at Bradblog, not to verify his vote count, but rather to attempt to insure the integrity of the vote counting process. I assume that it will be ridiculed and very likely “truncated” before leading to conclusive results, but at least some sort of attempt to impose trasparency is being made by one of the direct participants. One would hope that other candidates (espcecially some Republicans) join in the Kucinich request.
Finally, CNN today dedicated a “Keeping them honest” slot to Ron Paul for some of his newsletters from the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. The excerpts cited were fully comparable to the kind of rhetoric that cost Trent Lott his Senate leadership position and George Allen his Senate seat. Moreover Paul’s explanation seemed (to me) to be rather weak. Paradoxically, the exhumation of precisely that kind of gun-toting red-neck rhetoric may serve Paul very well in some upcoming Republican primaries.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 11 2008 9:13 utc | 59

FBI Wiretaps Dropped Due to Unpaid Bills

Telephone companies cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau’s repeated failures to pay phone bills on time, according to a Justice Department audit released Thursday.

Why do I feel this is bullshit?

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 11 2008 13:58 utc | 61

Picked up from comments on Craig Murray’s blog with the following more prolix link to observercyprus.com

The briefing notes used by Blair on December 7 2005, titled ‘Detainees’ were signed by a private secretary at the Foreign Office and addressed to Grace Cassey, assistant private secretary at 10 Downing Street. The document is a shocking revelation not of what the government knew, but what it did not wish to know, and admits complacency and ignorance. It states clearly that Extraordinary Rendition “is almost certainly illegal,” and advises Blair that in dealing with the issue in public, “We should try to avoid getting drawn on detail, at least until we have been able to complete the substantial research required to establish what has happened even since 1997; and try to move the debate on.””
I caught something on TV that one of the documents involved suggested something rendition-related took place on UK territory, other than the CIA flights. Wondered if this document was the source of this.

(My (HKOL) emphases added toward the end, the first for the edification of the Clintonites.)

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 11 2008 14:19 utc | 63

This link to a Larry Johnson post picked up at the Friday Lunch Club is a useful supplement to the comments on Hill and Knowlton from 43 and 59 and also has one rather good “zinger”. Another variant on disinformation purveyed by “our betters” for “our own good and protection”. Fortunately “our religious fanatics” are the “good guys”.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 11 2008 14:49 utc | 65

Yeah, there’s some schadenfruede going on my part when victims of domestic negligence ask for more recompense than actually physically exists to give them: Katrina Victim Sues For $3 Quadrillion
Snip…

Hurricane Katrina’s victims have put a price tag on their suffering and it is staggering – including one plaintiff seeking the unlikely sum of $3 quadrillion.
A whopping $3,014,170,389,176,410 is the dollar figure so far sought from some of the largest claims filed against the federal government over damage from the failure of levees and flood walls following the Aug. 29, 2005, hurricane.
Of roughly 489,000 total claims, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it has received 247 for at least $1 billion apiece, including the one for $3 quadrillion.
“That’s the mother of all high numbers,” said Loren Scott, a Baton Rouge-based economist.
For the sake of perspective: A mere $1 quadrillion would dwarf the U.S. gross domestic product, which Scott said was $13.2 trillion in 2007. A stack of one quadrillion pennies would reach Saturn.
Some residents may have grossly exaggerated their claims to send a message to the corps, which has accepted blame for poorly designing the failed levees.
“I understand the anger,” Scott said. “I also understand it’s a negotiating tactic: Aim high and negotiate down.”

But I have to take exception when it comes to this particular statement…

Daniel Becnel, Jr., a lawyer who said his clients have filed more than 60,000 claims, said measuring Katrina’s devastation in dollars and cents is a nearly impossible task.
“There’s no way on earth you can figure it out,” he said. “The trauma these people have undergone is unlike anything that has occurred in the history of our country.”

Oh, really? It is qualitatively or quantitatively different than any other trauma that has occured in the history of “our country”…? Some folk would beg to differ… except those folk won’t see a single US red cent in recompense, nor the satisfaction of seeing their very human oppressors held legally accountable: Abu Ghraib Officer: Probe Was Incomplete
Snip…

The revelation that the Army threw out the conviction of the only officer court-martialed in the Abu Ghraib scandal renewed outrage from human rights advocates who complained that not enough military and civilian leaders were held accountable for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners.
Those critics found an unlikely ally in the officer himself, Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, whose conviction on a minor charge of disobeying an order was dismissed this week, leaving him with only an administrative reprimand.
Jordan told The Associated Press on Thursday he believes many officers and enlisted soldiers did not face adequate scrutiny in the investigation that led to convictions against 11 soldiers, none with a rank higher than staff sergeant.
He said the probe was “not complete” and that a link between abusive interrogations at Abu Ghraib and in military prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan was not adequately established.
If rough interrogation techniques were taught to the soldiers who abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Jordan said, “the question at that point is, who’s responsible for that? Is it Donald Rumsfeld? (Lt.) Gen. (Ricardo) Sanchez? … I don’t know.”
Barring any startling new information, the decision by Maj. Gen. Richard J. Rowe, commander of the Military District of Washington, to throw out Jordan’s conviction brings an end to the four-year Abu Ghraib investigation. And it means no officers or civilian leaders will be held criminally responsible for the prisoner abuse that embarrassed the U.S. military and inflamed the Muslim world.

So the Abu Ghraib scandal will not be an issue, nor even mentioned, as we go into the 2008 election year? This is my shocked face.

Posted by: Monolycus | Jan 11 2008 16:48 utc | 67

@ Monolycus 67
It would seem that lawyers representing the Katrina refugees have mastered “extortionate victimism”, but comments like Becnel’s could lead to charges of “implicit holocaust denial” against him.

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Jan 11 2008 17:23 utc | 69

Huh?..
Lebanon: As Nahr al-Bared Recovery Continues, Militant Leader Threatens New Attacks

The voice of fugitive militant leader Shakir al-Abssi arose like a specter from Lebanon’s recent past yesterday. In a voice recording posted on the Internet, the radical leader of the Fatah al-Islam terrorist group threatened further attacks against the nation’s U.S.-backed army.
(snip)

Posted by: Alamet | Jan 11 2008 18:33 utc | 71

(Sorry about the double post)
Something US people should want to be aware of:
US downgrade threat an attack on Social Security/Medicare

Posted by: Alamet | Jan 11 2008 18:40 utc | 73

More Questions About Diebold Voting Machines
Did Hillary Really Win New Hampshire?
this article is an excellent explanation of how the NH voting system works and has helped me clear up my mis-conceptions. Its also the best analysis I’ve seen that supports the suspicion that there may be a serious “problem” with the electronic voting machines used in NH.
1) Assuming that reports of the unusual & troubling discrepancy/skew between the exit polls & the announced result are true (i.e that Obama won the exit polls but lost the result), is this due to the Bradley-Effect or is it due to electronic “malfunction” ? Note that neither the Hillary surge nor other normal voting phenomenons can be a cause of exit-poll discrepancy.
2) Further assuming the report in the link above (that states that Obama won the paper vote but lost the electronic vote) is true, the explanation for this could be either electronic “malfunction” or some normal voting phenomena. Note that this is an admissible factor only because IMHO, the link does a pretty good job of debunking normal voting phenomena as a possible cause. YMMV.
Both of these two “facts” point to electronic “malfunction” as a potential suspect. But only one points to the Bradley-Effect.
Hopefully Kuchinich’s re-count request will clear this up.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Jan 11 2008 21:12 utc | 75

It seems like not a day goes by where I don’t read something about food prices increasing. Even with higher market prices, less acreage is being planted in the U.S. for corn and soybeans. Not just a U.S. problem, but food shortages and/or price increases will be felt globally.
Today’s news:
Soybeans Soar to Record, Grains Rally as Demand Erodes Supply

Posted by: Rick | Jan 12 2008 0:15 utc | 77

The headlines say Hil Clinton is proposing a stimulus package to jump start the economy. This is a pure bullshit that its her proposal. Her friend Robert Rubin of Citi was on C-Span where he presented the proposal with Alice Rivlin, Mark Zandi of Moody’s, former Reagan guy Martin Feldstein, and some young sap. The paper was wrote at the Hamilton Project, Rubins Wall Street economic think tank for DLC democrats, and presented at the Brookings Institute so progressives wouldn’t be too spooked.
As one of the topics here says, its amazing how when the money center banks get in trouble and a candidate like Edwards is talking populism the elites want to prime the fiscal pump because they fear massive revolt from the sheeple. The middle class and lower class is lossing faith in the system and the elites know it.
The Rubins want to spread some crumbs to pacify the masses.

Posted by: jdp | Jan 12 2008 4:59 utc | 79

Alamet posted about Social security above; I thought those whom were interested would really want to read this informative link: Bush’s Plan to Loot Social Security in 2008
Snip:

Bush recently lied to one of his captive, GOP-only “town-hall” audiences, in characteristically illiterate language, that there is no trust fund. “The money, payroll taxes going into the Social Security, are spent,” Bush said. “They’re spent on benefits and they’re spent on government programs. There is no trust.”
Bush was right in one regard, there is no trust in him on the part of any sane American.

Snip:

The Big Lie that Social Security System will run out of money by the year 2029 (or 2034 or 2037) is based on projections by Wall Streeters using FAKE STATISTICS projecting U.S. growth in the next 75 years at 1.4% anually. Over the past 75 years the American economy has been growing at about 2.8% annually. Even during the worst economic times in the U.S. – during the 1930s depression – the economy grew at 1.9%. The lies of Bush and his financier backers are plain for anyone to see!

Snip:

Dubya has a long history of lying about Social Security. When he ran for Congress in 1978 he lied that unless people were given personal investment accounts Social Security would go broke by 1988!
(See: “Years Invested in Social Security Plan,” Los Angeles Times, 1/30/05)

Much ,ore at the link, you may need the info soon…
Bonus: CHANGE for the better: NEW BUSH COINS. 😉

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jan 12 2008 6:08 utc | 81

New ID Rules May Complicate Air Travel
Snip…

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who was unveiling final details of the REAL ID Act’s rules on Friday, said that if states want their licenses to remain valid for air travel after May 2008, those states must seek a waiver indicating they want more time to comply with the legislation.
The deadline is an effort to get states to begin phasing in the REAL ID program. Citizens born after Dec. 1, 1964, would have six years to get a new license; older Americans would have until 2017.
Chertoff said that for any state which doesn’t seek such a waiver by May, residents of that state will have to use a passport or certain types of federal border-crossing cards if they want to avoid a vigorous secondary screening at airport security.
“The last thing I want to do is punish citizens of a state who would love to have a REAL ID license but can’t get one,” Chertoff said. “But in the end, the rule is the rule as passed by Congress.”
The plan’s chief critic, the American Civil Liberties Union, called Chertoff’s deadline a bluff _ and urged state governments to call him on it.
“Are they really prepared to shut those airports down? Which is what effectively would happen if the residents of those states are going to have to go through secondary scrutiny,” said Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU’s technology and liberty program. “This is a scare tactic.”
So far, 17 states have passed legislation or resolutions objecting to the REAL ID Act’s provisions, many due to concerns it will cost them too much to comply. The 17, according to the ACLU, are Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Maine, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington.
Maine officials said Friday they were unsure if their own state law even allows them to ask for a waiver.
“It certainly seems to be an effort by the federal government to create compliance with REAL ID whether states have an interest in doing so or not,” said Don Cookson, spokesman for the Maine secretary of state’s office.

To begin with, I am unsure what a license to operate a motor vehicle(and that is what is being altered) has to do with one’s ability to travel, and secondly, I would like very much to see the actual bill the US Congress allegedly passed according the the fourth paragraph of this article. I would also like to understand why the proposals for this that I have seen include an RFID chip inside each card which can be read by a scanner from 25 meters away and even while the bearer of the card is travelling at speeds up to 85 km/hr. Whatever this is, it is most certainly not about making air travel any safer.
I tried to post this story* last night, but it got stuck in TypePad’s excellent spam filter. Now, Bernhard could fish it out if he had the time to do so, but then it would appear back in the list where it had originally been posted. In order for it to then be read, I have to presume that the MoA readers must, like I am presuming Bernhard must, have an infinite amount of free time on their hands in which they re-read every thread multiple times and memorize what had appeared before and what hadn’t.
Re-posting a link which had already been snagged is a vile circumvention on my part of TypePad’s excellent attempts to pressure Bernhard into developing greater time-management skills and encouraging the readership here to develop more acute faculties of memory. I can’t help myself. I’m a natural subversive. My only hope is that agencies of the state will eventually detain and re-educate me so that future efforts to improve the populace will not be hindered by provocative individuals such as myself. This new REAL ID proposal (do we still even call it a “proposal” at this point?) will certainly facilitate that.
*Note: The headline and body of this story have been changed radically since my first posting approximately eight or ten hours ago. When I had posted it the first time, the headline was something along the lines of “Feds Unveil New ID Regulations” and the air travel angle was mentioned as something of an aside. I linked to it with the words “Papieren, Bitte.” While I think it’s of interest to the community at large, I was primarily hoping for a response from our dear Uncle.

Posted by: Monolycus | Jan 12 2008 7:20 utc | 83

In voiding suit, appellate court says torture is to be expected

A federal appeals court Friday threw out a suit by four British Muslims who allege that they were tortured and subjected to religious abuse in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a ruling that exonerated 11 present and former senior Pentagon officials.
…
The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the detainees captured in Afghanistan aren’t recognized as “persons” under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act because they were aliens held outside the United States. The Religious Freedom Act prohibits the government from “substantially burdening a person’s religion.”
The court rejected other claims on the grounds that then-Attorney General John Ashcroft had certified that the military officials were acting within the scope of their jobs when they authorized the tactics, and that such tactics were “foreseeable.”

Posted by: b | Jan 12 2008 10:38 utc | 85

jj,
I went to bed after posting. One mistake, the Hamilton Project is under the Brookings Institute, you can look at http://www.brookings.edu. The other person on the panel was Jason Furman.
For the Hamilton Project you can go to: http://www.brookings.edu/projects/hamiltonproject.aspx.
You will find the same old Dem DLCers such as Roger Altman, John Podesta, Rubin, and all the other DLC hacks.
On the site to the right you can read the paper “If, when, How: A Primer on Fiscal Stimulus.”

Posted by: jdp | Jan 12 2008 15:46 utc | 87

Where else but America can a black female Olympic star be stripped of her medals and her wealth and imprisoned for six months, while
a white male American baseball player can thumb his nose at his doping charges, and an old white male American senior bureaucrat can
commit war crimes, treason, and egregious war profiteering, amassing a private fortune of some $500M, and nobody even calls him on it?
Is this a great country, or what?!

Posted by: Chilly Willy | Jan 12 2008 15:59 utc | 89

McClatchy, again, does some decent reporting:
Economic inequality, not just tribalism, spurs clashes in Kenya

Posted by: biklett | Jan 12 2008 19:52 utc | 91

Right, they certainly could use RFID, although I don’t know of any states that are planning to do so yet. Other possibilities are barcodes or magnetic stripes like credit cards.
Like you, I didn’t hear anything about this back when it was passed. I can’t help but wonder what other legislation that was passed years ago and everyone has forgotten about will start taking effect in the near future.

Posted by: Chemmett | Jan 15 2008 1:56 utc | 93