Defense contractors bribing Republican congressmen? Who woulda thunk?

Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-CA, admitted taking $2.4 million in bribes as part of guilty pleas Monday in a case that grew from an investigation into the sale of his home to a wide-ranging conspiracy involving payments in cash, vacations and antiques.

Like ML King Jr. once said, it’s justice for just us who can afford it

LEAVE NO MILLIONAIRE BEHIND

Director for Torture

From the Washington Post
Wednesday, November 23, 2005; Page A18

CIA DIRECTOR Porter J. Goss insists that his agency is innocent of torturing the prisoners it is holding in secret detention centers around the world. “This agency does not torture,” he said in an interview this week with USA Today. “We use lawful capabilities to collect vital information, and we do it in a variety of unique and innovative ways, all of which are legal and none of which are torture.” Mr. Goss didn’t describe any of those “innovative” interrogation techniques, nor has his agency allowed its secret prisons to be visited by the International Red Cross or any other monitor. But some of the people who work for him provided a description of six “enhanced interrogation techniques” to ABC News, because they believe “the public needs to know the direction their agency has chosen,” the network reported. Thanks to that disclosure, it’s possible to compare Mr. Goss’s words with reality.

The first three techniques reported by ABC involve shaking or striking detainees in an effort to cause pain and fear. The fourth consists of forcing a prisoner to stand, handcuffed and with shackled feet, for up to 40 hours. Then comes the “cold cell”: Detainees are held naked in a cell cooled to 50 degrees, and periodically doused with cold water. Last is “waterboarding,” a technique that’s already been widely reported. According to the information supplied to ABC: “The prisoner is bound to an inclined board, feet raised and head slightly below the feet. Cellophane is wrapped over the prisoner’s face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the gag reflex kicks in and a terrifying fear of drowning leads to almost instant pleas to bring the treatment to a halt.” ABC quoted its sources as saying that CIA officers who subjected themselves to waterboarding “lasted an average of 14 seconds before caving in.”

Are these techniques “not torture,” as Mr. Goss claims? In fact, several of them have been practiced by repressive regimes around the world, and they once were routinely condemned by the State Department in its annual human rights reports. By insisting that they are not torture, Mr. Goss sets a new standard — both for the treatment of detainees by other governments and for the handling of captive Americans. If an American pilot is captured in the Middle East, then beaten, held naked in a cold cell and subjected to simulated drowning, will Mr. Goss say that he has not been tortured?

Are the techniques “legal”? In 1994 the Senate ratified the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment; in doing so, it defined “cruel, inhuman or degrading” as anything that would violate the Fifth, Eighth, or 14th amendments of the U.S. Constitution. The Bush administration has never been clear about whether it considers the CIA’s techniques legal by that standard. If it does — as Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has suggested — then it has opened the way for the FBI to use cold cells and waterboarding on Americans. But the administration also claims a technical loophole: Since the Constitution doesn’t apply to foreigners outside the United States, the administration argues that by the Senate’s standard, the CIA can use cruel and inhuman methods on foreign detainees held abroad.

Few legal experts outside the administration agree that this loophole exists. To make sure, senators led by Republican John McCain of Arizona are fighting, by means of amendments to the current defense authorization and appropriations bills, to bar the use of “cruel, inhuman and degrading” methods. But Mr. Goss’s statements suggest a deeper problem. Even if the legislation passes — and Mr. Bush has threatened a veto — the CIA will be led by an administration that has redefined standard torture techniques as “unique and innovative ways” of collecting information. No one beyond Mr. Goss and a handful of senior officials accepts that spin: not the agencies’ professionals, or 90 members of the Senate, or the rest of the democratic world. Yet now that the Bush administration has so loosened and degraded the torture standard, the abuse of detainees will become far harder to prevent — not only in the CIA’s clandestine cells but around the world.

Bringing Torture Home to American Citizens

From Slate Magazine’s daily roundup of news stories, this digest

The Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal world-wide newsbox, and New York Times all lead with once-suspected “dirty bomber” Jose Padilla, who has been held without being charged as an enemy combatant for three years, being indicted on charges of conspiracy to support terrorism overseas.

The feds brought charges against (Jose) Padilla just a week before government lawyers would have had to submit briefs to the Supreme Court responding to an appeal from Padilla’s lawyers asserting that the government does not have the right to hold U.S. citizens as enemy combatants without charges. Announcing the charges, Attorney General Gonzales said, given that Padilla is now headed to court, the appeal “is moot.”

“The indictment is doubtless a strategy by the Bush administration to avoid a Supreme Court ruling that would likely hold that U.S. citizens cannot be detained incommunicado as enemy combatants if they are detained on U.S. soil,” said one law prof in the Post. “There is also some respectable chance that the Supreme Court will not bite on this strategy.” ( brief redact here by jrl … )

As for the charges themselves against Padilla, Gonzales said, “The indictment alleges that Padilla traveled overseas to train as a terrorist with the intention of fighting in violent jihad. Those trained as terrorists engage in acts of physical violence such as murder, maiming, kidnapping and hostage-taking against innocent civilians.” And that’s about as much detail as the government gave. There were no specific plots mentioned.

As a NYT editorial emphasizes, the indictment also doesn’t mention the original dirty bomb allegations. (That shouldn’t be surprising. Though the nickname has stuck, government officials actually distanced themselves from the allegations minutes after then-AG Ashcroft made them.) Not that Gonzales was open to discussing that. Asked whether the original accusations were now “off the table,” Gonzales stayed mum.

As the WP off-leads, a jury convicted a Virginia-area man and al-Qaida sympathizer of plotting to kill President Bush. The plot never got far, but the jury convicted Abu Ali on all nine counts against him. The case relied heavily on statements Ali made while imprisoned in Saudi Arabia, where he says he was tortured. (Emphasis added by JRL)

In Other Torture News

By JAN SLIVA
Associated Press Writer

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) — Europe’s top human rights watchdog stepped up its probe into alleged secret CIA detention centers Wednesday, while more EU governments were investigating possible CIA flights across their countries.

Council of Europe Chairman Terry Davis urged European countries to provide full information on the issue, joining a formal probe the body launched two weeks ago. Austria’s air force was investigating allegations that a CIA transport plane containing suspected terrorist captives flew through the neutral country’s airspace in 2003, and Denmark said it would ask U.S. authorities for details about the alleged transport of detainees on planes said to be used by the CIA over Danish territory.

Bulgaria was the latest country to deny reports of involvement, saying the CIA’s planes never landed at the Sarafovo airport near the Black Sea port of Burgas as alleged by the media.

The flights have become an issue in many European countries amid reports that U.S. intelligence may have transported suspected al-Qaida members and others through Europe en route to secret prisons in eastern Europe and other countries for interrogation.

Allegations the CIA hid and interrogated key al-Qaida suspects at Soviet-era compounds in Eastern Europe were first reported in The Washington Post on Nov. 2. The paper did not name the countries involved.

A day later, Human Rights Watch said it had evidence indicating the CIA transported suspected terrorists captured in Afghanistan to Poland and Romania. The New York-based group identified the Kogalniceanu military airfield in Romania and Poland’s Szczytno-Szymany airport as possible sites for secret detention centers, saying it based its conclusions on flight logs of CIA aircraft from 2001 to 2004.

Speaking in Strasbourg, France, Davis said that due to the serious nature of the allegations, he had sent a letter to the governments of the Council of Europe’s 45 member states demanding information on how their law ensures that acts by foreign agencies within their jurisdiction are subject to adequate controls.

Austria’s air force chief Erich Wolf told Austrian state broadcaster ORF that a CIA transport plane that took off from Frankfurt, Germany, and headed to Azerbaijan crossed Austrian airspace on Jan. 21, 2003.

Austria’s air force scrambled fighter jets to make contact with the plane’s pilot, but did not suspect anything wrong at the time and lodged no diplomatic protests, Wolf said. “There was no sign of an airspace abuse,” he said.

Since then, however, Austrian authorities have found reason to believe the flight was transporting suspected terrorists, Wolf added. He did not elaborate.

On Tuesday, Swiss senator Dick Marty, who leads the Council of Europe probe, said he was investigating 31 suspect planes that landed in Europe in recent years, and was trying to acquire past satellite images of sites in Romania and Poland. He said that despite lack of proof, there were “many hints, such as suspicious moving patterns of aircraft, that have to be investigated.”

Other airports that might have been used by CIA aircraft in some capacity include Palma de Mallorca in Spain, Larnaca in Cyprus and Shannon in Ireland, as well as the U.S. air base at Ramstein, Germany, Marty said in a report.

Swedish authorities, meanwhile, have confirmed at least one plane with alleged CIA links landed in Sweden three times since 2002. Denmark says 14 flights with suspected CIA ties entered its airspace since 2001; Norway has confirmed three such flights; and Icelandic media have reported 67 landings.

There have been other unconfirmed reports in Macedonia and Malta.

Jeb Bush ’08; The Empire, The Dynasty, Our Destiny?

So, just a quick review of a couple of news items…

Let’s put this one to bed

In upstate New York, a woman teacher at a Catholic school pleaded guilty to statutory rape of a 16 year old student. She was caught with a 17 year old boy and that led to the “rape” investigation of the younger boy. She got 6 months, but the judge outraged everyone by calling her the “victim” of her own alcoholism, her excuse for doing the dirty with her boy students. I got a good laugh when the spokeswoman for the school said she just hoped “to put this all to bed.” LOL. Seems like a little bit of an inappropriate metaphor, but maybe that’s just me.

Wonder what they’re talking about in Houston?

Tom “The Hammer” DeLay maybe just got an anvil dropped on him. His former press aide, a guy named Scanlan, pleaded guilty yesterday to bribing public officials, including DeLay’s former “enforcer”, Rep. Ney of Ohio, who headed up the subcommittee that assigns House member offices and parking places, etc. DeLay, already facing money laundering charges in Houston over a campaign finance scam involving corporate cash ($190,000), must be wondering when former uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff and Scanlan will turn on him to save their own hides. The bribery charges are that Abramoff’s Indian tribe clients paid campaign contributions and gave away trips to golf in Scotland and bask in the sun of the Mariana Islands in exchange for official acts. Just so happens the Indian tribes involved are all in Texas and they wanted casino rights. Hmmmm. Millions are involved, including the $18 million in kickbacks from Scanlan to Abramoff. Now, according to insiders, the investigation is going to expand to other Congressmen and their top aides. It’s now revealed that Scanlan has been singing to prosecutors for the past 5 months. Abramoff was the top lobbyist on DeLay’s list of the “7th Street” project to use Congress and the lobbyists of D.C. to cement Republican rule of government.

Tortured Logic

The Vice President, redoubtable proponent of torture and purveyor of scandalous lies in support of a failed Iraq policy, decided yesterday that Rep. Jack Murtha, a veteran of 2 wars and recipient of a Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts, is a patriot after all, even after Murtha proposed a 6 month withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. Cheney then went on to describe any critic of the Iraq war as giving aid and comfort to the enemy and undermining America’s military. Huh? He says Democrats are engaging in “revisionist history” when they say that the administration hyped the case for war and twisted the intelligence. Huh? Isn’t this the same Dick Cheney who was still insisting that Saddam had nuclear capacity long after it was clear the Defense Intelligence Agency had warned the dreaded aluminum tubes he alleged were for centrifuge purposes were really just missle housings? Isn’t this the Vice President who was pushing the “yellowcake” purchases allegations long after the documents were exposed as forgeries and Joe Wilson had reported that it was a fake? I know I can recall blogging (on Slate) about the so-called Mohammad Atta connection between Saddam and Al-Qaeda after it was exposed as a hoax long before Cheney gave up the canard. Remember that cunt Condi Rice’s comment about mushroom clouds over American cities? Straight from the Scooter Libby playbook. Better to revise history to find the truth than to persist in a failed policy based on lies, in my book. Hope that bastard goes to Gitmo and gets assfucked by Muslims and “waterboarded” by CIA spooks.

The Republican appointee to the Women’s Health division of the FDA resigned, in large part, over the agency’s (mis)handling of the Plan B birth control/contraception pill, saying religion should not trump science within the FDA. Plan B is the marketed name for a so-called “morning after” pill that is approved for over the counter sale in Canada and across Europe. In America, a cabal of ultraconservatives who believe the pill is “murder” took the FDA political appointees by the ears and squelched the approval of the pill that had been recommended by all the scientists and outside review committees. In this case, the politicians didn’t even wait for the science reviews to be completed. Four months before the reports were issued by the scientists, the head of FDA let it be known that the pill would not receive approval. The pill is effective only within 72 hours of unprotected sex. Most women, I’m told, feel like hell for a day or so after taking the pill, but there are few dire side effects. Just as in the “intelligent design” imbroligo, this is another case of western rationalism vs. the occult thinking of a relatively small number of evangelical fundamentalists who are intent on impressing their religious beliefs on the rest of the world. Jihadists in our midst, to my mind.

As the original conservative, Edmund Burke wrote: Evil triumphs when good men do nothing. The same goes for women, sisters. You will take action or pay the consequences by default.

WASHINGTON – Federal drug regulators compromised their usual science-based decision-making process when they ruled in 2004 against letting the morning-after birth control pill be sold without a prescription, congressional investigators said Monday.

A report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office bolstered critics’ charges that the Food and Drug Administration had yielded to political pressure from social conservatives, who feared that easier access to the drug would encourage promiscuity.

In an examination of the agency’s May 2004 decision, the GAO found that “four aspects of (the) review process were unusual” and that the entire decision-making process was “not typical” when compared to how similar cases have been handled.

The contraceptive, manufactured by Barr Laboratories and marketed as Plan B, contains a higher dose of a hormone in regular birth-control pills. It should be taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex. Plan B has been available by prescription since 1999, but a decision on over-the-counter sales remains in regulatory limbo after another round of delays this year by the FDA.

“GAO’s final report describes an appalling level of manipulation and suppression of the science,” said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who requested the inquiry. “It appears that the decision was preordained from the outset.”

There won’t be a federal court ruling until January, but the voters know Jesus and they know science and they don’t want God in biology class in Dover, PA., despite the radical, evangelical, fundamentalist right wing protests to the contrary. God Save the Republic!

By Jill Lawrence, USA TODAY
The court verdict in a landmark lawsuit on “intelligent design” is weeks away, but voters in Dover, Pa., delivered their judgment this week by sweeping out eight of nine school board members who decided that ninth-grade science students must be told the concept is an alternative to evolution.

The board stirred controversy by requiring a one-minute classroom statement about the idea that parts of life and the universe are so complex that an intelligent designer best explains them. That put Dover at the center of a national argument over whether intelligent design is science or religion. (Related item: Kansas schools can teach ‘intelligent design’)

All nine board members backed the classroom statement, but only eight were up for re-election. They all lost to challengers who argued that the discussion doesn’t belong in science class.

“Black” Spending on Pork

Turns out we’re spending $44 Billion a year on “intelligence” except that lots of that money isn’t spent in a very smart way and more of it goes down ratholes to enrich the contributors to certain Congressmen. It’s an outrage. Company gets contract, Congressman gets contribution; Congressman gets contribution and company gets contract. You wash my hands. Now, I’ll wash yours. Fuckers

November 9, 2005 latimes.com

Voters Reject Schwarzenegger’s Bid to Remake State Government

The governor’s four ballot proposals, the foundation of his sweeping plans for change in Sacramento, are halted at the polls.

By Michael Finnegan and Robert Salladay, Times Staff Writers

In a sharp repudiation of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Californians rejected all four of his ballot proposals Tuesday in an election that shattered his image as an agent of the popular will.

Voters turned down his plans to curb state spending, redraw California’s political map, restrain union politics and lengthen the time it takes teachers to get tenure.

The Republican governor had cast the four initiatives as central to his larger vision for restoring fiscal discipline to California and reforming its notoriously dysfunctional politics.

The failure of Proposition 76, his spending restraints, and Proposition 77, his election district overhaul, represented a particularly sharp snub of the governor by California voters. It also threw into question his strategy of threatening lawmakers with statewide votes to get around them when they block his favored proposals.

Also, Schwarzenegger’s defeat on Proposition 75 was a major victory for his rivals in organized labor. It would have required unions for public workers to get written consent from members before spending their dues money on politics.

On a Beverly Hills stage Tuesday night next to his wife, Maria Shriver, Schwarzenegger pledged “to find common ground” with his Democratic adversaries in Sacramento.

“The people of California are sick and tired of all the fighting, and they are sick and tired of all the negative TV ads,” he told supporters at the Beverly Hilton. He did not concede, saying instead that “in a couple of days the victories or the losses will be behind us.”

Dogging the governor, as it has for months, was the California Nurses Assn., which organized a luau at the Trader Vic’s in the same hotel. As Schwarzenegger’s defeats mounted, giddy nurses formed a conga line and danced around the room, singing, “We’re the mighty, mighty nurses.”

At labor’s election night party in Sacramento, union leaders were not in a forgiving mood, vowing revenge against the governor next year when he seeks reelection. They were particularly incensed that he had not given union members their due for what they believed to be a clean sweep of his agenda.

“He never apologized once for trashing every one of us,” said Mike Jimenez, president of the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. “And I can tell you, tomorrow we’re not going to apologize for the way this election turned out. Tomorrow starts Round 2.”

California Teachers Assn. President Barbara Kerr told several hundred activists in the ballroom: “This governor wasted $50 million, and he does not have the courage to apologize to all of you for the trash he talked about you. He doesn’t have the courage to say he was wrong, that we’re the real heroes of California.”

For months, labor and its Democratic allies called Schwarzenegger’s agenda an assault on nurses, firefighters, teachers and other public employees. Labor’s $100-million campaign against the governor this year has battered his public image as he prepares to seek reelection in 2006.

Also on the ballot were four other initiatives. Voters were narrowly defeating Proposition 73, which would bar abortions for minors without parental notification. The state Republican Party promoted Schwarzenegger’s endorsement of the measure among evangelicals and other religious conservatives in a bid to boost turnout of voters who would back the rest of his agenda.

By a wide margin, voters also rejected rival measures on prescription-drug discounts. The pharmaceutical industry spent $80 million on a campaign to defeat Proposition 79, a labor and consumer-group proposal, and pass its own alternative, Proposition 78.

Voters also turned down Proposition 80, a complex measure to revamp rules governing the electricity industry. The initiative, sponsored by consumer advocates, tried to draw on public anger from the state’s 2000 energy crisis, but polls suggested that it confused voters.

Overall, the special election called by Schwarzenegger to win public validation of his agenda sparked a campaign that became the costliest in California’s history. All told, the yes and no campaigns on the eight initiatives spent more than $250 million.

Schwarzenegger put in $7.2 million of his own money. That brings his total personal spending on political endeavors to $25 million since he ran for governor in the 2003 recall race.

I’m still waiting for results from California on Ah-nold’s referendums

By ROBERT TANNER AP National Writer
The Associated Press

Nov 8, 2005 — Democrats swept both governors’ races Tuesday, with Sen. Jon Corzine easily winning New Jersey and Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine taking Virginia despite a last-minute campaign push for his opponent from President Bush.

In Texas, voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional ban on gay marriage, while Republican Mayor Mike Bloomberg surged ahead in his bid for a second term in heavily Democratic New York. Voters also picked mayors in Detroit, Houston, San Diego and Boston.

Kaine had 860,719 votes, or 51 percent, to Kilgore’s 789,273 votes, or 46.8 percent, with 88 percent of precincts reporting.

Bush put his shit on the line for the GOP candidates in NJ and Va. and the Dems still kept the seats with new faces. The chattering class will chew that to death by the end of the Sunday gabfests. Two steps forward and then Texas takes us a step back; no same sex marriage under TX constitution after today’s purge … er … polls. Then ya got Kansas with their idiotic curriculum decision. Erg! Of course, Hillary and Bill put their shit on the line for Ferrar against Bloomberg in NYC and the Dem was drowned in $75 million of the billionaire’s chump change. Quel Suprise! In Jersey, they play hardball; the Repug drug out Corzine’s Xwife to trash him in a TV ad right at the wire. Richard Nixon’s legacy lives on. The big deal about Jersey is that Corzine will resign his U.S. Senate seat and then pick who will fill out his term from some Congressmen and/or state legislators. He gets to be a kingmaker for someone who will have a year’s seniority when he/she runs for a full term next year, and the Senate Dems keep their raw numbers in the meantime.

Associated Press
Updated: 5:35 p.m. ET Nov. 8, 2005

TOPEKA, Kan. – Revisiting a topic that exposed Kansas to nationwide ridicule six years ago, the state Board of Education approved science standards for public schools Tuesday that cast doubt on the theory of evolution.

The board’s 6-4 vote, expected for months, was a victory for intelligent-design advocates who helped draft the standards. Intelligent design holds that some aspects of the universe are so complex that their development must have been directed by an superintelligent agent.

Here’s the take on this by The Onion (link is on right for full text and other fun)

Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New ‘Intelligent Falling’ Theory
August 17, 2005 | Issue 41*33

KANSAS CITY, KS-As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held “theory of gravity” is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling.
Full Article Link: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/39512

What do you think about this if you’re the head of the biology department at KU or KSU? How do you recruit professors to come to a school in the heart of American, no topology, great basketball, but with a student population dominated by local kids who think the world may really only be 6,000 years old and that the human eye must have been designed by God? Man, if I’m a parent in Kansas, I just became a big supporter of school vouchers. Vouchers are a shitty idea, but my damn kid is going to private schools that teach science in science class. And, if I do that, a thousand other parents are going to feel the same way and very soon there’s not just a digital divide, but there’s also western rationalists divided from occultists. Can anyone fucking say “Enlightenment”? Sure you can, boys and girls. Issac Newton, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin, Boyle, you remember some of these names, don’t you? At this rate, we’ll be burning witches and a new Torquemada will be grilling “terrorists” in CIA prisons. What’s that? They already torture people in secret CIA prisons? Damn. Nevermind.

Associated Press

Updated: 4:09 p.m. ET Nov. 7, 2005
PANAMA CITY, Panama – President Bush on Monday defended U.S. interrogation practices and called the treatment of terrorism suspects lawful. “We do not torture,” Bush declared in response to reports of secret CIA prisons overseas.

Bush supported an effort spearheaded by Vice President Dick Cheney to block or modify a proposed Senate-passed ban on torture.

Guess the fucker missed class the day they were showing the pictures from Abu Ghraib. Hey! Dummy! Ever hear of Gitmo? Guantanamo Bay, Cuba? Ring a bell? Secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe and Yemen? Buy a clue? Como se dici en Espanol “Short bus”?