TODAY'S TOPICS: Obama Stands, Dodd Too!, Stark, SCHIP, Mukasey, "When I Came Home", Global Warming
"The people of Iraq, the Parliament, the Council of Representative and the government of Iraq, all say no, big fat no, N, O, No military bases for Iraq because we believe that is in direct encroachment to our sovereignty, and we don’t need it…That message was delivered directly to Vice President Dick Cheney at the White House."
-- Iraqi National Security Adviser, Mowaffak Al-Rubaie
"We won this round on SCHIP.”
--White House spokeswoman Dana Perino celebrates their “victory” over children and their health
“Humanity’s most valuable assets have been the non-conformists. Were it not for the nonconformists, he who refuses to be satisfied to go along with the continuance of things as they are, and insists upon attempting to find new ways of bettering things, the world would have known little progress indeed.”
-- Josiah Gitt
FUN FACT: For the cost of just 41 days of war in Iraq, the nation could insure 10 million children for one year.
More on SCHIP
Bush's proposal is actually "a diminishment of the number of children who are covered at the present time." The Congressional Budget Office reports that more than 700,000 children will lose coverage under Bush's proposal, so there is little ground to find compromise. After the House vote, Pelosi said, "In the next two weeks, we intend to send the president another bill that provides health care for 10 million children." That goal, she said, is "not negotiable."
BUSH'S QUEST FOR RELEVANCE: A defensive Bush said in a press conference this week that he vetoes bills to "ensure that I am relevant." On the CBS Evening News, Bob Schieffer said, "I think this was the President's declaration that 'I am not a lame duck.' When he says he is going to use the veto to show he is still relevant, that shows you someone that really doesn't have a lot to brag about at this point." Bush has registered four vetoes -- on stem cells (twice), Iraq redeployment, and health insurance for kids, all of which pit Bush firmly against the will of the American public.
RIGHT-WING HYSTERIA: The few right-wing lawmakers who continue to stand with Bush have rallied around an imaginary provision in the SCHIP bill, claiming it provides health insurance for undocumented immigrants. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) said the bill provided care for "illegals and their parents." Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA) engaged in similar demagoguery, claiming the bill was a "multi-billion giveaway to illegal aliens." The SCHIP legislation does not cover undocumented immigrants. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that "undocumented immigrants have never been eligible for regular Medicaid or SCHIP," and the current bill "maintains this prohibition." As Congress revisits the legislation in the coming weeks, some "face-saving alterations" may be made to attempt to win more conservative support, even though the bill already explicitly says undocumented immigrants will not covered. "Democratic leaders suggested...they would tighten language to ensure that the children of illegal immigrants would not receive benefits." Four moderate Republicans sent Pelosi a letter "outlining what they thought could win passage," including an expressed prohibition on covering undocumented immigrants. "The modifications needed are relatively modest," said Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-NM).
GLOBAL WARMING ROUNDUP
White House science adviser John Marburger gave an "explicit endorsement of the latest major review of climate science from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)."
--BBC, 9/14/07
VERSUS
Marburger "said yesterday there is no solid scientific evidence that the widely cited goal of limiting future global temperature rises to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels is necessary to avert dangerous climate change, an assertion that runs counter to that of many scientists as well as the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."
--Washington Post, 10/19/07
And this…
In "one of the most concrete signs of the effect of a warming climate on government operations, the Coast Guard is planning its first operating base there as a way of dealing with the cruise ships and the tankers that are already beginning to ply Arctic waters."
In the Arctic, a shockingly sudden retreat of the ice is changing everything -- Seen from the air, Greenland's massive ice cap is clearly taking a beating. Lakes and ponds of open water are scattered across its cracking surface, some feeding streams that vanish into moulins - drain-like cavities about 40 feet across that pierce the bottom of mile-thick ice.
-- Colin Woodard in the San Francisco Chronicle -- 10/19/07
Some good news…I reported on this early in the week, great to see Obama stand tall again on this issue. FROM BRAD BLOG:
Obama Calls on DoJ to Fire Voting Rights Chief After Video-Taped 'Minorities Die First' Comment
Letter to Acting Attorney General Says John Tanner's Recent Remarks Are 'Patently Erroneous, Offensive, and Dangerous'
Comments, Video Taped and First Reported by BRAD BLOG, Have Been Given to Judiciary Committee, Continue to Reverberate...
After recently stepping up, along with Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), to block the nomination to the FEC of insidious GOP "voter fraud" zealot Hans Von Spakovsky, Illinois' Democratic Senator and Presidential Candidate Barack Obama is calling for the head of the Voting Rights Section chief of the DoJ's Civil Rights Division.
In a letter sent today (posted in full at the link below) to Acting Attorney General, Peter D. Keisler, Obama has requested that John Tanner be sent packing following objectionable comments he made two weeks ago in Los Angeles at the National Latino Congresso.
The remarks by Tanner, video-taped and first reported by The BRAD BLOG, were meant in support of his decision to allow a Photo ID restriction at polling places in Georgia, over the recommendation of four out of five of the career attorneys in the Civil Rights unit. The law would later be found unconstitutional by two federal judges, one of whom declared the practice to be a "Jim Crow-era poll tax"...
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5177
VIDEO SECTION
You’ve probably all heard the hysteria over Congressman Pete Stark’s (and an atheist too!) kick ass speech on the house floor. The total double standard we have when it comes to what the left says versus the right should frighten all of us. Watch it here:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/19/ring-wing-goes-bonkers-over-rep-pete-starks-comments-take-the-cl-poll/
Olbermann’s Worst Persons…
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/19/worst-person-in-the-world-sean-hannity-of-fixed-news/
Wow…now this is one sorry son of a b****. The Daily Show covers one of the all time awkward and uncomfortable interviews...welcome to Larry Craig world…and his hour long, lie fest (I mean interview) with Matt Lauer.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/18/the-daily-show-defending-larry-craig/
From Alternet:
“If No End In Sight is the best film yet to be produced on the effects of the Iraq War on the Iraqi people, then Dan Lohaus' "When I Came Home" is the best film yet to be produced on the US troops who fought that war.”
…The aforementioned Noel is the subject of the film, which follows him and his toddler through a rough (to say the least) year of homelessness in NYC after a seven-month tour of duty in Iraq ends in Post-Trauamatic Stress Syndrome. We cringe as Noel, who lives in a Jeep, is passed like a hot potato through a Kafkaesque mass of city, state and federal agencies which seemingly made no preparations to deal with the increased influx of troops.
Watch the preview…heartbreaking, but a part of this abomination we can’t forget:
http://alternet.org/blogs/video/65436/
A pretty funny Letterman clip…wait until the end and watch the clip they have of Bush speaking in Panama…
http://alternet.org/blogs/video/65537/
CHRIS DODD TO FILIBUSTER WIRETAPPING BILL IF NECESSARY!!!!
Just as Democrats in the Senate were going to capitulate to the Bush administration on the issue of giving telecommunication companies retroactive immunity, Chris Dodd has stepped in at the last minute to try and stop the spying bill in its tracks!
Its rare to see this kind of chutzpa from a Democrat these days (I’m not talking about you Feingold). So let’s enjoy this one…and just maybe if we let our approval be heard loud enough, perhaps more Democrats will grow a pair:
Read this breaking news from the Talking Points Memo:
Dodd will send a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid this afternoon informing him of his decision [to put a hold on the Senate FISA renewal bill because it reportedly grants retroactive immunity to telephone companies for any role they played in the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping program].
...By doing this, Dodd can effectively hold up the telecom immunity bill, because bills are supposed to have unanimous consent in the Senate before going forward. One Senator can make it very difficult to bring a bill to the floor by objecting to allowing it to go to a vote.
Dodd's planned action comes amid reports that the Senate Intelligence Committee has reached a deal with the White House on the legislation that would give telephone carriers legal immunity for whatever role they played in the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program, which was approved by President Bush after 9/11. The White House and the phone companies have been lobbying aggressively for immunity, and the announcement of the immunity deal today dismayed many opponents.
WATCH HIM HERE (AND SIGN THE PETITION):
More on this from C&L:
Glenn Greenwald explains in detail the bogus “good faith” argument the Telecoms are trying to weasel around with and the one that AT&T already lost in federal court with. Sen. Pat Leahy is also getting on board. Feingold is on board too.
If the bill that ultimately reaches the Senate floor includes immunity and does not adequately protect the privacy of Americans, I will fight it vigorously with every tool at my disposal.” What will Hillary, Obama, Biden and Richardson do? Issuing press releases isn’t going to cut it. The ball is in your court.
Dodd says he’ll now filibuster to stop the immunity from happening. I’d say—give this man a cigar! And what’s up with Reid? Wired takes a look at Rockefeller and the Telco cash flow
END
As I suspected...its all in the definition of torture for this guy too...if you don't call it torture, its not...scumbag...
MUKASEY REFUSES TO CALL WATERBOARDING 'TORTURE': Throughout his confirmation hearings, Attorney General nominee Mike Mukasey has consistently denounced the use of torture. Torture is "antithetical to what this country stands for," he said yesterday. But under questioning from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Mukasey refused to classify the practice of waterboarding -- in which a suspect has water poured over his face to simulate drowning -- as unconstitutional, repeatedly claiming it depends on how one defines "torture." "If it amounts to torture, it is not constitutional," he claimed. As Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has pointed out, there's no question that waterboarding is torture: "[T]o make someone believe that you are killing him by drowning is no different than holding a pistol to his head and firing a blank. I believe that it is torture." Mukasey's position also puts him at odds with CIA director Michael Hayden, who has reportedly banned waterboarding from CIA terror interrogations. Human Rights First observes that Mukasey's statements imply "that forms of coercive interrogation which violate Common Article 3 may be practiced by government agencies, including the C.I.A."
Watch the pathetic exchange here...they all just play with language to justify their crimes. Or in other words, "Waterboarding is torture if it's torture":
http://alternet.org/blogs/video/65665/
Friday, October 19, 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
TODAY'S TOPICS: SCHIP, 12 Captains, Mukasey, Meeting Resistance, Olbermann, FCC
Why isn't the media all over this story??? If it was a Democrat I guarantee it would be all over the airwaves:
"[T]here's more to the story on the kid (Graeme Frost) that did the Dems' radio response on SCHIP. ... Could the Dems really have done that bad of a job vetting this family?"
-- Don Stewart, communications director for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), 10/11/07, encouraging reporters to cover the Graeme Frost smear campaign
VERSUS
"There was no involvement whatsoever. ... None."
-- McConnell, 10/12/07, on the extent of his staff's involvement in the smear campaign
A SAD UPDATE: The final vote was 273 - 156, 16 votes short of the necessary 2/3 to override Bush’s veto. Democrats Jim Marshall and Gene Taylor crossing the aisle to vote against SCHIP and 44 Republicans voting for SCHIP (which is one less than the initial vote).
I’ve included the roll call at the above link and there’s a widget on the right margin of the page to contact Congress. If you’re so inclined, you may want to ask those 156 representatives why they hate poor, sick kids. Because believe me, whether or not we have SCHIP, we ALL pay for the care of these children when they have health care needs.
Keep in mind, the cost of the expanded SCHIP program is what we pay in Iraq in THREE WEEKS.
"Every American deserves an absolute guarantee that their vote is counted as cast. That means every vote count must be verifiable by a hand count, with access for people with disabilities. And it means that unaccountable, partisan corporations must not be allowed to monopolize the voting process."
-- John Edwards...a great sign...too bad democrats are blinded by the Clinton Machine
Days after the November 2004 election, while U.S. troops again moved into Fallujah for the slaughter, a dispatch from that city reported on the front page of the New York Times: “Nothing here makes sense, but the Americans’ superior training and firepower eventually seem to prevail.”
Superior violence, according to countless scripts, was righteous and viscerally satisfying. Television and movies, ever since childhood, presented greater violence as the ultimate weapon and final fix, uniquely able to put an end to conflict. Leaving menace for dead — you couldn’t beat that. But at home in the USA and far away, the practical and moral failures of violence became irrefutable. In Iraq, sources of unauthorized violence met with escalating American violence. In the United States, war opponents met with presidential contempt.
In a short story, published one hundred years ago, William Dean Howells wrote: “What a thing it is to have a country that can’t be wrong, but if it is, is right, anyway!”
-- Norman Solomon
24 percent: President Bush's approval rating in a new Reuters/Zogby poll, which sets yet another record low for the President.
VIDEO SECTION
Olbermann's worst persons in the world...
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/17/countdowns-worst-person-in-the-world-media-bullies-edition/
The daily show on the clusterf*** to the white house:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/17/the-daily-show-clusterfk-to-the-white-house/
From C&L (Watch this one): President Bush wants the world to believe that most of the attacks on our troops are coming from members of al Qaeda, but as the film shows, that is far from the case. The insurgents featured in this film are ordinary citizens who are resisting the occupation of their country by a foreign army — which is exactly what Americans would do were we to befall the same fate. Meeting Resistance has been shown to military personnel in Iraq in hopes of giving them a better understanding of the insurgency and the people behind it. ABC documented the experience, interviewing troops after watching the film and its message seems to have gotten through.
Synopsis: What would you do if your country was invaded? MEETING RESISTANCE raises the veil of anonymity surrounding the Iraqi insurgency by meeting face to face with individuals who are passionately engaged in the struggle, and documenting for the very first time, the sentiments experienced and actions taken by a nation’s citizens when their homeland is occupied. Voices that have previously not been heard, male and female, speak candidly about their motivations, hopes and goals, revealing a kaleidoscope of human perspectives. Featuring reflective, yet fervent conversations with active insurgents, MEETING RESISTANCE is the missing puzzle piece in understanding the Iraq war.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/17/video-meeting-resistance-know-thine-enemy/
Buchanan v. Maddow…always an entertaining match up on Hardball. Rachelle may be the best new progressive pundit out there today...her mind is as sharp as a Ginsu knife...love her:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/18/hardball-buchanan-and-maddow-on-larry-craig-compassionate-conservatism-on-parade/
What can you say, another family, and child, that benefited from SCHIP, is getting attacked by the right wing…Olbermann has them on. Watch:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/18/countdown-bethany-wilkersons-parents-talk-about-schip-success-and-right-wing-smears/
ARTICLE SECTION: 12 Captains, SCHIP
Robert scheer writes on the latest military revolt…this time 12 american captains pen an op-ed about what’s really happening in Iraq. Let’s see if some of them start dying from gun shots to the head now…as has 3 of the 7 soldiers who wrote the column a few weeks back.
Here’s scheer:
How come those brave veterans know it’s time to get out, but leading Democrats, who voted for the war to be authorized, are still pussyfooting about quickly removing the troops from this ever-deepening quagmire? They’re jockeying for political advantage, knowing that drawing out the war hurts the Republicans. It is a deeply cynical ploy that works only because with our all-volunteer military, most Americans don’t have to face the choice of sacrificing themselves or their loved ones in a futile and losing war.
SNIP
Building an empire on the cheap and by proxy doesn’t work. If you want one, and of course most of us don’t, since only a few fat cats benefit from such imperial adventures, you need a vast conscript army. As the captains put it: “There is only one way we might be able to succeed in Iraq. To continue an operation of this intensity and duration, we would have to abandon our volunteer military for compulsory service. Short of that, our best option is to leave Iraq immediately.” Enough said.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/17/4640/
And the New York Times Ed Board nails the SCHIP debate on the head. In light of the new study by the California Budget Project that demonstrates that a family of four needs to make about 74,000 a year just to survive (in LA), the right wing’s arguments against the program become even more ludicrous.
The idea that a family of four making $40,000 a year can afford a private insurance plan that costs about $12,000 is insane…and add to that the fact that these insurance companies DENY coverage to families that have a child that has been sick in the past…the old “pre-existing condition” go to corporate killer "line".
A few clips:
The administration clearly wasn't putting poor children first when it strongly supported Congressional bills that would impose new charges on needy beneficiaries - a step that could jeopardize health care for millions of poor children in coming years. The administration also proposed, unsuccessfully, to change Medicaid from an unlimited entitlement into a capped block grant that could have fallen short of needs in bad economic times.
As part of the anti-immigration hysteria, it imposed onerous new paperwork requirements, leading to declines in Medicaid enrollment by citizens in some states. The move also posed potential problems for foster children, for whom it is often difficult to get documents quickly, until Congress stepped in to exempt them.
SNIP
Funding for Head Start and Early Head Start, which provide health and education services to some 900,000 preschool children, has not kept up with inflation over the past five years, forcing programs to lay off teachers, reduce salaries and curtail operating hours. The president's budget also seeks to eliminate Even Start, a program to help preschoolers and their mothers develop literacy skills.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/101807B.shtml
CONCERNS ABOUT MUKASEY
I've never been persuaded by the "well, he's better than (add in whatever GOP criminal you want here)". That's like saying well, "eating a pile of puke sure beats eating a pile of crap." While true, does that mean I'm going to go eat that puke??? "Is he better than Gonzales" line (answer is "yes") should be replaced by "Will he uphold the Constitution"? If that is the question, the answer is "no".
Here's the Center for American Progress:
While Mukasey is a qualified nominee who is certainly a better choice than other names that have been floated, there are still issues of concern for progressives. Mukasey's respect for the Constitution and the rule of law should not be overstated. While Mukasey ruled that Padilla was entitled to counsel, he "also ruled, very dubiously, that President Bush had the authority to detain American citizens, even those detained on U.S. soil, as 'enemy combatants,' and that they need not be charged with any crimes." Mukasey's opinion was set to be tested before the Supreme Court until the administration, fearing a defeat, transferred Padilla to a criminal court and tried him there. "If Mukasey is the nominee, he should certainly be questioned aggressively about whether he believes that the President does have this authority [to indefinitely detain Americans without charge] and whether he would intend as Attorney General to defend that authority if it were exercised again." Mukasey will also likely be questioned about an op-ed he penned in the Wall Street Journal last month that essentially agreed with the Bush administration argument that federal courts are not equipped to deal with national security cases. Mukasey urged Congress to consider creating national security courts beyond the military commissions in existence at Guantanamo Bay. While Muksaey's idea for national security courts would provide for some judicial review, it is not a preferable solution. The federal courts have evolved ample means for handling the special challenges posed by national security cases, and the case has not been made as to why those means are inadequate.
Mukasey has also shown some support for the Bush administration's spying policies. For example, in 2000, he said that the nation's choice "is either to have no surveillance at all or to have totally uncontrolled surveillance...the existing system is a compromise that Congress was forced to make." In 2004, he "dismissed fears of the government's ability to subpoena tangible things like business records." Mukasey wrote that "the hidden message in the structure of the Constitution is that the government it establishes is entitled...to receive from its citizens the benefit of the doubt." He also endorsed the Patriot Act, noting that its "awkward name" may "very well be the worst thing about the statute."
END
This is really, really disappointing:
SENATE GRANTS IMMUNITY TO TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMPANIES ON WIRETAPPING: Yesterday, the Senate reached an agreement with the Bush administration on a government surveillance bill that includes immunity for telecommunications companies who may have broken the law in the past by making client data available to the National Security Agency. President Bush has declared immunity to be a precondition to his signing the bill. But providing immunity "would wipe out a series of pending lawsuits alleging violations of privacy rights by telecommunications companies that provided telephone records, summaries of e-mail traffic and other information to the government after Sept. 11, 2001, without receiving court warrants." Cindy Cohn of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the lead counsel in one such lawsuit against AT&T, said that these lawsuits are not the work of "typical trial lawyers trying to find a way to get into the pockets of American companies," as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) claimed. "It's certainly the goal of the administration and the phone companies to ensure that there's never a decision about [whether] what's been going on is legal or not. The telecom cases are the last, best hope," Cohn said. The House Democratic leadership yesterday had to pull its version of the bill, which does not contain telecom immunity, after Deputy Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) introduced an amendment that would have "substantially delayed" the legislation.
Okay...some tiny coverage...
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is still under the microscope from the Kentucky press over his office's involvement in smearing Graeme Frost. In an editorial entitled "McConnell versus truth," The Courier-Journal writes, "It's clear what Mitch McConnell knew and when he knew it. It's clear he deceived the public."
Fascism alert:
The head of the Federal Communications Commission is pushing a plan to repeal a rule "that forbids a company to own both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city." The plan would "be a big victory for some executives of media conglomerates," including Rupert Murdoch.
Why isn't the media all over this story??? If it was a Democrat I guarantee it would be all over the airwaves:
"[T]here's more to the story on the kid (Graeme Frost) that did the Dems' radio response on SCHIP. ... Could the Dems really have done that bad of a job vetting this family?"
-- Don Stewart, communications director for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), 10/11/07, encouraging reporters to cover the Graeme Frost smear campaign
VERSUS
"There was no involvement whatsoever. ... None."
-- McConnell, 10/12/07, on the extent of his staff's involvement in the smear campaign
A SAD UPDATE: The final vote was 273 - 156, 16 votes short of the necessary 2/3 to override Bush’s veto. Democrats Jim Marshall and Gene Taylor crossing the aisle to vote against SCHIP and 44 Republicans voting for SCHIP (which is one less than the initial vote).
I’ve included the roll call at the above link and there’s a widget on the right margin of the page to contact Congress. If you’re so inclined, you may want to ask those 156 representatives why they hate poor, sick kids. Because believe me, whether or not we have SCHIP, we ALL pay for the care of these children when they have health care needs.
Keep in mind, the cost of the expanded SCHIP program is what we pay in Iraq in THREE WEEKS.
"Every American deserves an absolute guarantee that their vote is counted as cast. That means every vote count must be verifiable by a hand count, with access for people with disabilities. And it means that unaccountable, partisan corporations must not be allowed to monopolize the voting process."
-- John Edwards...a great sign...too bad democrats are blinded by the Clinton Machine
Days after the November 2004 election, while U.S. troops again moved into Fallujah for the slaughter, a dispatch from that city reported on the front page of the New York Times: “Nothing here makes sense, but the Americans’ superior training and firepower eventually seem to prevail.”
Superior violence, according to countless scripts, was righteous and viscerally satisfying. Television and movies, ever since childhood, presented greater violence as the ultimate weapon and final fix, uniquely able to put an end to conflict. Leaving menace for dead — you couldn’t beat that. But at home in the USA and far away, the practical and moral failures of violence became irrefutable. In Iraq, sources of unauthorized violence met with escalating American violence. In the United States, war opponents met with presidential contempt.
In a short story, published one hundred years ago, William Dean Howells wrote: “What a thing it is to have a country that can’t be wrong, but if it is, is right, anyway!”
-- Norman Solomon
24 percent: President Bush's approval rating in a new Reuters/Zogby poll, which sets yet another record low for the President.
VIDEO SECTION
Olbermann's worst persons in the world...
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/17/countdowns-worst-person-in-the-world-media-bullies-edition/
The daily show on the clusterf*** to the white house:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/17/the-daily-show-clusterfk-to-the-white-house/
From C&L (Watch this one): President Bush wants the world to believe that most of the attacks on our troops are coming from members of al Qaeda, but as the film shows, that is far from the case. The insurgents featured in this film are ordinary citizens who are resisting the occupation of their country by a foreign army — which is exactly what Americans would do were we to befall the same fate. Meeting Resistance has been shown to military personnel in Iraq in hopes of giving them a better understanding of the insurgency and the people behind it. ABC documented the experience, interviewing troops after watching the film and its message seems to have gotten through.
Synopsis: What would you do if your country was invaded? MEETING RESISTANCE raises the veil of anonymity surrounding the Iraqi insurgency by meeting face to face with individuals who are passionately engaged in the struggle, and documenting for the very first time, the sentiments experienced and actions taken by a nation’s citizens when their homeland is occupied. Voices that have previously not been heard, male and female, speak candidly about their motivations, hopes and goals, revealing a kaleidoscope of human perspectives. Featuring reflective, yet fervent conversations with active insurgents, MEETING RESISTANCE is the missing puzzle piece in understanding the Iraq war.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/17/video-meeting-resistance-know-thine-enemy/
Buchanan v. Maddow…always an entertaining match up on Hardball. Rachelle may be the best new progressive pundit out there today...her mind is as sharp as a Ginsu knife...love her:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/18/hardball-buchanan-and-maddow-on-larry-craig-compassionate-conservatism-on-parade/
What can you say, another family, and child, that benefited from SCHIP, is getting attacked by the right wing…Olbermann has them on. Watch:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/18/countdown-bethany-wilkersons-parents-talk-about-schip-success-and-right-wing-smears/
ARTICLE SECTION: 12 Captains, SCHIP
Robert scheer writes on the latest military revolt…this time 12 american captains pen an op-ed about what’s really happening in Iraq. Let’s see if some of them start dying from gun shots to the head now…as has 3 of the 7 soldiers who wrote the column a few weeks back.
Here’s scheer:
How come those brave veterans know it’s time to get out, but leading Democrats, who voted for the war to be authorized, are still pussyfooting about quickly removing the troops from this ever-deepening quagmire? They’re jockeying for political advantage, knowing that drawing out the war hurts the Republicans. It is a deeply cynical ploy that works only because with our all-volunteer military, most Americans don’t have to face the choice of sacrificing themselves or their loved ones in a futile and losing war.
SNIP
Building an empire on the cheap and by proxy doesn’t work. If you want one, and of course most of us don’t, since only a few fat cats benefit from such imperial adventures, you need a vast conscript army. As the captains put it: “There is only one way we might be able to succeed in Iraq. To continue an operation of this intensity and duration, we would have to abandon our volunteer military for compulsory service. Short of that, our best option is to leave Iraq immediately.” Enough said.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/17/4640/
And the New York Times Ed Board nails the SCHIP debate on the head. In light of the new study by the California Budget Project that demonstrates that a family of four needs to make about 74,000 a year just to survive (in LA), the right wing’s arguments against the program become even more ludicrous.
The idea that a family of four making $40,000 a year can afford a private insurance plan that costs about $12,000 is insane…and add to that the fact that these insurance companies DENY coverage to families that have a child that has been sick in the past…the old “pre-existing condition” go to corporate killer "line".
A few clips:
The administration clearly wasn't putting poor children first when it strongly supported Congressional bills that would impose new charges on needy beneficiaries - a step that could jeopardize health care for millions of poor children in coming years. The administration also proposed, unsuccessfully, to change Medicaid from an unlimited entitlement into a capped block grant that could have fallen short of needs in bad economic times.
As part of the anti-immigration hysteria, it imposed onerous new paperwork requirements, leading to declines in Medicaid enrollment by citizens in some states. The move also posed potential problems for foster children, for whom it is often difficult to get documents quickly, until Congress stepped in to exempt them.
SNIP
Funding for Head Start and Early Head Start, which provide health and education services to some 900,000 preschool children, has not kept up with inflation over the past five years, forcing programs to lay off teachers, reduce salaries and curtail operating hours. The president's budget also seeks to eliminate Even Start, a program to help preschoolers and their mothers develop literacy skills.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/101807B.shtml
CONCERNS ABOUT MUKASEY
I've never been persuaded by the "well, he's better than (add in whatever GOP criminal you want here)". That's like saying well, "eating a pile of puke sure beats eating a pile of crap." While true, does that mean I'm going to go eat that puke??? "Is he better than Gonzales" line (answer is "yes") should be replaced by "Will he uphold the Constitution"? If that is the question, the answer is "no".
Here's the Center for American Progress:
While Mukasey is a qualified nominee who is certainly a better choice than other names that have been floated, there are still issues of concern for progressives. Mukasey's respect for the Constitution and the rule of law should not be overstated. While Mukasey ruled that Padilla was entitled to counsel, he "also ruled, very dubiously, that President Bush had the authority to detain American citizens, even those detained on U.S. soil, as 'enemy combatants,' and that they need not be charged with any crimes." Mukasey's opinion was set to be tested before the Supreme Court until the administration, fearing a defeat, transferred Padilla to a criminal court and tried him there. "If Mukasey is the nominee, he should certainly be questioned aggressively about whether he believes that the President does have this authority [to indefinitely detain Americans without charge] and whether he would intend as Attorney General to defend that authority if it were exercised again." Mukasey will also likely be questioned about an op-ed he penned in the Wall Street Journal last month that essentially agreed with the Bush administration argument that federal courts are not equipped to deal with national security cases. Mukasey urged Congress to consider creating national security courts beyond the military commissions in existence at Guantanamo Bay. While Muksaey's idea for national security courts would provide for some judicial review, it is not a preferable solution. The federal courts have evolved ample means for handling the special challenges posed by national security cases, and the case has not been made as to why those means are inadequate.
Mukasey has also shown some support for the Bush administration's spying policies. For example, in 2000, he said that the nation's choice "is either to have no surveillance at all or to have totally uncontrolled surveillance...the existing system is a compromise that Congress was forced to make." In 2004, he "dismissed fears of the government's ability to subpoena tangible things like business records." Mukasey wrote that "the hidden message in the structure of the Constitution is that the government it establishes is entitled...to receive from its citizens the benefit of the doubt." He also endorsed the Patriot Act, noting that its "awkward name" may "very well be the worst thing about the statute."
END
This is really, really disappointing:
SENATE GRANTS IMMUNITY TO TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMPANIES ON WIRETAPPING: Yesterday, the Senate reached an agreement with the Bush administration on a government surveillance bill that includes immunity for telecommunications companies who may have broken the law in the past by making client data available to the National Security Agency. President Bush has declared immunity to be a precondition to his signing the bill. But providing immunity "would wipe out a series of pending lawsuits alleging violations of privacy rights by telecommunications companies that provided telephone records, summaries of e-mail traffic and other information to the government after Sept. 11, 2001, without receiving court warrants." Cindy Cohn of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the lead counsel in one such lawsuit against AT&T, said that these lawsuits are not the work of "typical trial lawyers trying to find a way to get into the pockets of American companies," as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) claimed. "It's certainly the goal of the administration and the phone companies to ensure that there's never a decision about [whether] what's been going on is legal or not. The telecom cases are the last, best hope," Cohn said. The House Democratic leadership yesterday had to pull its version of the bill, which does not contain telecom immunity, after Deputy Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) introduced an amendment that would have "substantially delayed" the legislation.
Okay...some tiny coverage...
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is still under the microscope from the Kentucky press over his office's involvement in smearing Graeme Frost. In an editorial entitled "McConnell versus truth," The Courier-Journal writes, "It's clear what Mitch McConnell knew and when he knew it. It's clear he deceived the public."
Fascism alert:
The head of the Federal Communications Commission is pushing a plan to repeal a rule "that forbids a company to own both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city." The plan would "be a big victory for some executives of media conglomerates," including Rupert Murdoch.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
TODAY'S TOPICS: Voter ID's, Olbermann, Krugman, Solomon, Maddow, Wiretapping, Graeme's, Questions for Giuliani
"It's probably true that among those who don't [have Photo ID], it's primarily elderly persons. And that's a shame. Of course...our society is such that minorities don't become elderly. The way that white people do. They die first."
-- John Tanner, Chief of Civil Rights Division, Voting Unit, U.S. DoJ
That’s right…the above was said by the head of civil rights for the bush justice department in defense of voter ID’s…which is a right wing scheme to steal yet another election.
As Brad Blog points out, “other words, Tanner concludes that Photo ID laws actually negatively impact non-minorities and seemingly give minorities a greater voice. Yes, incredibly enough, that's what he was contending. Even as he failed to satisfactorily answer The BRAD BLOG's fervent contention that such laws are little more than a solution in search of a problem, given the exceedingly rare number of voter fraud cases (as distinct from election fraud) which actually occur, even by DoJ statistics, and which would be prevented by Photo ID restrictions at the polls.
Watch it here, as well as the responses he gets from various voting rights activists at the gathering…boggles the mind any human being could actually make the argument he does…saying you’re doing something for the people you are intentionally disenfranchising…sound familiar???
Alma Rosa Silva-Banuelos, Executive Director, Cultural Center for Power and Justice (Albuquerque, NM), discusses many of the voting problems, including voter intimidation and the spread of misinformation, confronting New Mexico's minority communities. Interestingly, an election in New Mexico last week where Voter ID was required saw a record low turnout of 10% of eligible voters.
Alma Rosa Silva-Banuelso: "It's time to remember our civil rights movement. It's time to remember the struggles that our elders have gone through. People who have paved the road. And it's time for young people also to rise up and remember these struggles. And also to stand up against corporate profit. The machines in New Mexico... there is a corporation profiting off of this. We cannot forget that there is a direct link between power and profit and corporations and our governments being used as puppeteers so that other people can profit at the disenfranchisement of communities of color."
Professor Steve Freeman also discusses voting machines and paper ballots used in other countries that work so well…
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5145
FUN FACT: For the cost of one week in Iraq we could insure 800,000 children.
MORE VIDEOS…
My man Paul Krugman guests on Keith Olbermann…can’t wait to get his new book “Conscience of a Liberal”:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/16/countdown-the-rights-attacks-on-children-continue-this-time-its-a-toddler/
And Rachel Maddow also guests on Olbermann to discuss the latest GOP’er to be caught on tape losing it…
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/17/countdown-rachel-maddow-and-the-state-of-un-american-politics/
As I documented on Monday, the big revelations to have come out last week, and Olbermann and Turley discuss here, is that Bush’s illegal wiretapping program began BEFORE 9/11!!
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/16/former-telcom-ceo-bushs-illegal-spying-began-months-before-911-attacks/
Worst persons in the world…always good:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/16/countdowns-worst-person-in-the-world-roger-ailes-of-fashion-business-news/
For you baby boomers, this should take you back…David Crosby and Graham Nash speaking out against a war…and on Hardball no less:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/16/hardball-graham-nash-and-david-crosby-on-musics-ability-to-amplify-public-sentiment/
Daily Show on Gore mania …
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/16/the-daily-show-gore-mania/
Olbermann interviews the Graeme family…
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/15/frost-parents-talk-about-the-rights-jihad-against-their-son-on-countdown/
GIULIANI FACTS TO REMEMBER...
This BNF investigative report calls attention to four key questions about Rudy's handling of the broken radios from firemen's families and experts:
* Why was nothing done to improve NYFD radio performance for seven years after a clear need was demonstrated in the 1993 World Trade Center attack?
* When new radios were finally ordered, why did the city block other companies besides motorola from bidding on the contract?
* Once Motorola was given the contract, why did its cost jump from $1.4 million to $14 million?
* Why were these new radios never tested?
GUN STATS...
Gun crime has risen steeply over the past three years. Despite the fact groups such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) consistently claim they are being victimised, there have probably never been so many guns or gun-owners in America -- although no one can be sure, as no one keeps a reliable account. One federal study estimated there were 215 million guns, with about half of all US households owning one. Such a staggering number makes America's gun culture thoroughly mainstream.
An average of almost eight people aged under 19 are shot dead in America every day. In 2005 there were more than 14,000 gun murders in the US -- with 400 of the victims children. There are 16,000 suicides by firearm and 650 fatal accidents in an average year. Since the killing of John F Kennedy in 1963, more Americans have died by American gunfire than perished on foreign battlefields in the whole of the 20th century.
Studies show that having a gun at home makes it six times more likely that an abused woman will be murdered. A gun in a US home is 22 times more likely to be used in an accidental shooting, a murder or a suicide than in self-defence against an attack. Yet despite those figures US gun culture is not retreating. It is growing.
By Paul Harris, The Observer UK.
ARTICLE SECTION...SOLOMON AND MCGOVERN
Norm Solomon writes on Blackwater...and how the story is being framed in a way that it actually supports and encourages the continued occupation of Iraq. Think about it...by putting all the blame on Blackwater we make it sound as if the US military doesn't commit its own atrocities. That somehow we could be doing the job better if only we could reign in companies like Blackwater. When the fact is the real crime is that we're in Iraq at all...not that we should be doing it better. You can't illegally occupy another nation in "the right way."
A few clips:
But the problem with Blackwater’s activities is not that they “undermine” the U.S. military’s “efforts” and “mission” in Iraq. The efforts and the mission shouldn’t exist. A real hazard of preoccupations with Blackwater is that it will become a scapegoat for what is profoundly and fundamentally wrong with the U.S. effort and mission. Condemnation of Blackwater, however justified, can easily be syphoned into a political whirlpool that demands a cleanup of the U.S. war effort — as though a relentless war of occupation based on lies could be redeemed by better management — as if the occupying troops in Army and Marine uniforms are incarnations of restraint and accountability.
SNIP
Unless the deadly arrogance of Blackwater and its financiers in the U.S. government is placed in a broader perspective on the U.S. war effort as a whole, the vilification of the firm could distract from challenging the overall presence of American forces in Iraq and the air war that continues to escalate outside the American media’s viewfinder. The current Blackwater scandal should help us to understand the dynamics that routinely set in when occupiers — whether privatized mercenaries or uniformed soldiers — rely on massive violence against the population they claim to be helping.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/16/4572/
Former CIA agent Ray McGovern further exposes the illegal wiretapping program...that began BEFORE 9/11. Including the question, "When did Pelosi know about it" and "What did she know"? And of course, the undeniable fact that this crime DEMANDS impeachment...at least, if the Constitution has any meaning whatsoever anymore.
A few clips:
These illegal operations, including those prior to 9/11, were enabled by Michael Hayden, then head of NSA and now director of CIA. Hayden has been out in front “justifying” illegal eavesdropping by what happened on 9/11. Did he know the illegal activities started before then? Of course; he was ordered to orchestrate them. Did he know they were illegal? Another no-brainer. While director of NSA, Hayden had emphasized what had long been known as NSA’s First Commandment: “Thou Shalt Not Eavesdrop on Americans.”
SNIP
Were you (Pelosi) one of those with whom Gonzales had discussions? Whether you were or you weren’t. In either case it appears you were derelict in your duty. It is time to fish or cut bait. If the Bush administration did not inform you regarding eavesdropping on Americans before 9/11, you need to reflect now on what such disregard for the laws and Constitution on matters of this importance means for future of our Republic, and cease covering up for the White House. Familiarize yourself with the orderly process the Founders wrote into the Constitution to address this kind of abuse of power. It is called impeachment; there is no reason to be afraid…:
“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
… The Constitution does not say the president “may be” impeached, unless the speaker of the House decides for some reason to keep impeachment off the table. Given the long train of abuses and usurpations of this administration, you have no choice but to begin impeachment proceedings, Madame Speaker, if protecting our rights under constitutional government means anything to you.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/16/4561/
'TOP METEOROLOGIST' HAILED BY TRADITIONAL MEDIA ONCE COMPARED GORE TO HITLER: On Friday, Dr. William Gray, a professor at Colorado State University, joined a long list of right-wing skeptics who have hurled baseless personal remarks at Gore and the Nobel prize committee, claiming that Gore is "brainwashing our children." (Watch yesterday's MSNBC report of his comments here). MSNBC called Gray a "top meteorologist." The Washington Times coined him one of the "world's foremost meteorologists." But both failed to note that Gray has a long history of climate change skepticism and attacks on Gore. In May 2006, a Washington Post magazine article quoted Gray directly comparing Gore to Hitler: "Gore believed in global warming almost as much as Hitler believed there was something wrong with the Jews." In April, Gray told the Associated Press that Gore is "doing a great disservice and he doesn't know what he's talking about." He added that skeptics have had to endure "mild McCarthyism." In July, Gray indicated that he holds a grudge against the IPCC as well, because the members have never "come to me." Gray also claimed that the reason other scientists haven't publicly questioned manmade global warming is because "they'd never get any grants if they spoke out." But even skeptics are skeptical of claims made by people like Gray. The journal Energy & Environment, "known for publishing work that denies a link between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change," recently rejected a paper "claiming to show that the scientific consensus on climate change is not in fact a consensus."
"For the first time in more than 100 years, much of the Southeast has reached the most severe category of drought, climatologists said Monday, creating an emergency so serious that some cities are just months away from running out of water."
Verizon Communications told congressional investigators that, from Jan. 2005 to Sept. 2007, the company provided customers' telephone records to federal authorities on an emergency basis 720 times. "Verizon also disclosed that the FBI, using administrative subpoenas, sought information identifying not just a person making a call, but all the people that customer called, as well as the people those people called."
$15 billion: Amount seniors and other taxpayers could have saved this year if the government had "slashed administrative costs in the Medicare drug program and negotiated the same kind of discounts it does for poor people under Medicaid."
"It's probably true that among those who don't [have Photo ID], it's primarily elderly persons. And that's a shame. Of course...our society is such that minorities don't become elderly. The way that white people do. They die first."
-- John Tanner, Chief of Civil Rights Division, Voting Unit, U.S. DoJ
That’s right…the above was said by the head of civil rights for the bush justice department in defense of voter ID’s…which is a right wing scheme to steal yet another election.
As Brad Blog points out, “other words, Tanner concludes that Photo ID laws actually negatively impact non-minorities and seemingly give minorities a greater voice. Yes, incredibly enough, that's what he was contending. Even as he failed to satisfactorily answer The BRAD BLOG's fervent contention that such laws are little more than a solution in search of a problem, given the exceedingly rare number of voter fraud cases (as distinct from election fraud) which actually occur, even by DoJ statistics, and which would be prevented by Photo ID restrictions at the polls.
Watch it here, as well as the responses he gets from various voting rights activists at the gathering…boggles the mind any human being could actually make the argument he does…saying you’re doing something for the people you are intentionally disenfranchising…sound familiar???
Alma Rosa Silva-Banuelos, Executive Director, Cultural Center for Power and Justice (Albuquerque, NM), discusses many of the voting problems, including voter intimidation and the spread of misinformation, confronting New Mexico's minority communities. Interestingly, an election in New Mexico last week where Voter ID was required saw a record low turnout of 10% of eligible voters.
Alma Rosa Silva-Banuelso: "It's time to remember our civil rights movement. It's time to remember the struggles that our elders have gone through. People who have paved the road. And it's time for young people also to rise up and remember these struggles. And also to stand up against corporate profit. The machines in New Mexico... there is a corporation profiting off of this. We cannot forget that there is a direct link between power and profit and corporations and our governments being used as puppeteers so that other people can profit at the disenfranchisement of communities of color."
Professor Steve Freeman also discusses voting machines and paper ballots used in other countries that work so well…
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=5145
FUN FACT: For the cost of one week in Iraq we could insure 800,000 children.
MORE VIDEOS…
My man Paul Krugman guests on Keith Olbermann…can’t wait to get his new book “Conscience of a Liberal”:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/16/countdown-the-rights-attacks-on-children-continue-this-time-its-a-toddler/
And Rachel Maddow also guests on Olbermann to discuss the latest GOP’er to be caught on tape losing it…
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/17/countdown-rachel-maddow-and-the-state-of-un-american-politics/
As I documented on Monday, the big revelations to have come out last week, and Olbermann and Turley discuss here, is that Bush’s illegal wiretapping program began BEFORE 9/11!!
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/16/former-telcom-ceo-bushs-illegal-spying-began-months-before-911-attacks/
Worst persons in the world…always good:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/16/countdowns-worst-person-in-the-world-roger-ailes-of-fashion-business-news/
For you baby boomers, this should take you back…David Crosby and Graham Nash speaking out against a war…and on Hardball no less:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/16/hardball-graham-nash-and-david-crosby-on-musics-ability-to-amplify-public-sentiment/
Daily Show on Gore mania …
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/16/the-daily-show-gore-mania/
Olbermann interviews the Graeme family…
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/15/frost-parents-talk-about-the-rights-jihad-against-their-son-on-countdown/
GIULIANI FACTS TO REMEMBER...
This BNF investigative report calls attention to four key questions about Rudy's handling of the broken radios from firemen's families and experts:
* Why was nothing done to improve NYFD radio performance for seven years after a clear need was demonstrated in the 1993 World Trade Center attack?
* When new radios were finally ordered, why did the city block other companies besides motorola from bidding on the contract?
* Once Motorola was given the contract, why did its cost jump from $1.4 million to $14 million?
* Why were these new radios never tested?
GUN STATS...
Gun crime has risen steeply over the past three years. Despite the fact groups such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) consistently claim they are being victimised, there have probably never been so many guns or gun-owners in America -- although no one can be sure, as no one keeps a reliable account. One federal study estimated there were 215 million guns, with about half of all US households owning one. Such a staggering number makes America's gun culture thoroughly mainstream.
An average of almost eight people aged under 19 are shot dead in America every day. In 2005 there were more than 14,000 gun murders in the US -- with 400 of the victims children. There are 16,000 suicides by firearm and 650 fatal accidents in an average year. Since the killing of John F Kennedy in 1963, more Americans have died by American gunfire than perished on foreign battlefields in the whole of the 20th century.
Studies show that having a gun at home makes it six times more likely that an abused woman will be murdered. A gun in a US home is 22 times more likely to be used in an accidental shooting, a murder or a suicide than in self-defence against an attack. Yet despite those figures US gun culture is not retreating. It is growing.
By Paul Harris, The Observer UK.
ARTICLE SECTION...SOLOMON AND MCGOVERN
Norm Solomon writes on Blackwater...and how the story is being framed in a way that it actually supports and encourages the continued occupation of Iraq. Think about it...by putting all the blame on Blackwater we make it sound as if the US military doesn't commit its own atrocities. That somehow we could be doing the job better if only we could reign in companies like Blackwater. When the fact is the real crime is that we're in Iraq at all...not that we should be doing it better. You can't illegally occupy another nation in "the right way."
A few clips:
But the problem with Blackwater’s activities is not that they “undermine” the U.S. military’s “efforts” and “mission” in Iraq. The efforts and the mission shouldn’t exist. A real hazard of preoccupations with Blackwater is that it will become a scapegoat for what is profoundly and fundamentally wrong with the U.S. effort and mission. Condemnation of Blackwater, however justified, can easily be syphoned into a political whirlpool that demands a cleanup of the U.S. war effort — as though a relentless war of occupation based on lies could be redeemed by better management — as if the occupying troops in Army and Marine uniforms are incarnations of restraint and accountability.
SNIP
Unless the deadly arrogance of Blackwater and its financiers in the U.S. government is placed in a broader perspective on the U.S. war effort as a whole, the vilification of the firm could distract from challenging the overall presence of American forces in Iraq and the air war that continues to escalate outside the American media’s viewfinder. The current Blackwater scandal should help us to understand the dynamics that routinely set in when occupiers — whether privatized mercenaries or uniformed soldiers — rely on massive violence against the population they claim to be helping.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/16/4572/
Former CIA agent Ray McGovern further exposes the illegal wiretapping program...that began BEFORE 9/11. Including the question, "When did Pelosi know about it" and "What did she know"? And of course, the undeniable fact that this crime DEMANDS impeachment...at least, if the Constitution has any meaning whatsoever anymore.
A few clips:
These illegal operations, including those prior to 9/11, were enabled by Michael Hayden, then head of NSA and now director of CIA. Hayden has been out in front “justifying” illegal eavesdropping by what happened on 9/11. Did he know the illegal activities started before then? Of course; he was ordered to orchestrate them. Did he know they were illegal? Another no-brainer. While director of NSA, Hayden had emphasized what had long been known as NSA’s First Commandment: “Thou Shalt Not Eavesdrop on Americans.”
SNIP
Were you (Pelosi) one of those with whom Gonzales had discussions? Whether you were or you weren’t. In either case it appears you were derelict in your duty. It is time to fish or cut bait. If the Bush administration did not inform you regarding eavesdropping on Americans before 9/11, you need to reflect now on what such disregard for the laws and Constitution on matters of this importance means for future of our Republic, and cease covering up for the White House. Familiarize yourself with the orderly process the Founders wrote into the Constitution to address this kind of abuse of power. It is called impeachment; there is no reason to be afraid…:
“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
… The Constitution does not say the president “may be” impeached, unless the speaker of the House decides for some reason to keep impeachment off the table. Given the long train of abuses and usurpations of this administration, you have no choice but to begin impeachment proceedings, Madame Speaker, if protecting our rights under constitutional government means anything to you.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/16/4561/
'TOP METEOROLOGIST' HAILED BY TRADITIONAL MEDIA ONCE COMPARED GORE TO HITLER: On Friday, Dr. William Gray, a professor at Colorado State University, joined a long list of right-wing skeptics who have hurled baseless personal remarks at Gore and the Nobel prize committee, claiming that Gore is "brainwashing our children." (Watch yesterday's MSNBC report of his comments here). MSNBC called Gray a "top meteorologist." The Washington Times coined him one of the "world's foremost meteorologists." But both failed to note that Gray has a long history of climate change skepticism and attacks on Gore. In May 2006, a Washington Post magazine article quoted Gray directly comparing Gore to Hitler: "Gore believed in global warming almost as much as Hitler believed there was something wrong with the Jews." In April, Gray told the Associated Press that Gore is "doing a great disservice and he doesn't know what he's talking about." He added that skeptics have had to endure "mild McCarthyism." In July, Gray indicated that he holds a grudge against the IPCC as well, because the members have never "come to me." Gray also claimed that the reason other scientists haven't publicly questioned manmade global warming is because "they'd never get any grants if they spoke out." But even skeptics are skeptical of claims made by people like Gray. The journal Energy & Environment, "known for publishing work that denies a link between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change," recently rejected a paper "claiming to show that the scientific consensus on climate change is not in fact a consensus."
"For the first time in more than 100 years, much of the Southeast has reached the most severe category of drought, climatologists said Monday, creating an emergency so serious that some cities are just months away from running out of water."
Verizon Communications told congressional investigators that, from Jan. 2005 to Sept. 2007, the company provided customers' telephone records to federal authorities on an emergency basis 720 times. "Verizon also disclosed that the FBI, using administrative subpoenas, sought information identifying not just a person making a call, but all the people that customer called, as well as the people those people called."
$15 billion: Amount seniors and other taxpayers could have saved this year if the government had "slashed administrative costs in the Medicare drug program and negotiated the same kind of discounts it does for poor people under Medicaid."
Monday, October 15, 2007
TODAY'S TOPICS: Gore Assault, Krugman, Rich, Attacks Backfire, The Torture State, Giuliani Crimes, Global Warming
Yet another impeachable offense...
"After September the 11th...I authorized the National Security Agency to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations."
--President Bush, 5/11/06
VERSUS
"Former chief executive Joseph P. Nacchio...said the NSA approached Qwest more than six months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks [about surveillance contracts]."
--Washington Post, 10/13/07
THE AMERICAN TORTURE STATE (AND PARTNERS)
Al-Libi and Habib are but two cases. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands more. These accounts of American-sponsored torture in Egyptian prisons are not new. They hardly make news. But the close cooperation between Egyptian and American security officials represents a frightening melding of despotisms, an international cabal of state-sponsored brutality and abuse. It does away with the concept of law and human rights. It mocks international protocols and treaties. It permits the despotic states we support, such as Egypt, to veer away from democratic structures and propagate, with our assistance, a more ruthless tyranny and brutality. It enrages and finally empowers those who oppose us to engage in the same behavior. It is dividing the world into competing spheres of intolerance. In this new world order there is nothing left to appeal to other than the mercy of someone standing over you with an electric prod.
SNIP
We are losing the war in Iraq. We are an isolated and reviled nation. We are pitiless to others weaker than ourselves. We have lost sight of our democratic ideals. Thucydides wrote of Athens’ expanding empire and how this empire led it to become a tyrant abroad and then a tyrant at home. The tyranny Athens imposed on others, it finally imposed on itself. If we do not confront our hubris and the lies we tell to justify the killing and mask the destruction carried out in our name in Iraq, if we do not grasp the moral corrosiveness of empire and occupation, if we continue to allow force and violence to be our primary form of communication, if we do not remove from power our flag-waving, cross-bearing versions of the Taliban, the despotism we empower abroad will become the despotism we soon experience at home.
--Chris Hedges, who graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times
VIDEO SECTION
Another expose on the crimes and gross negligence of tragedy whore and fear peddler, Rudolph Giuliani:
http://alternet.org/blogs/video/65224/
And Naomi Klein puts her Shock Doctrine thesis to the test…from Giuliani as father figure after 9/11, to Katrina to Iraq…and she’s on Bill Maher’s show no less! Watch:
http://alternet.org/blogs/video/65293/
More on Giuliani:
For all of Rudy Giuliani’s many controversial associates, I suspect he’d be most pleased if the name “Bernie Kerik” is never uttered in public again. Kerik, of course, was Giuliani’s police commissioner and the man Giuliani recommended to head Bush’s Department of Homeland Security.
And while Kerik’s name quickly became an embarrassment for the former mayor, it keeps getting worse. Bernard Kerik’s legal nightmare is about to get worse, with federal prosecutors expected to file charges against the former police commissioner that will likely include allegations of bribery, tax fraud and obstruction of justice, the Daily News has learned.
The indictment, expected next month, could prove to be an embarrassing obstacle for Kerik’s former mentor Rudy Giuliani, who is cruising at the top of the polls heading into the presidential primary gauntlet. The bribery allegations against Kerik stem from a secret meeting at a bar in Tribeca, according to two sources familiar with the federal probe.
END
And more from Bill Maher…this on the unadulterated idiocy of corporate journalists and today’s “news”. First up, the Obama lapel story!
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/13/new-rules-the-nonsense-of-lapelgate/
Louise Black of the Daily Show on the ”non-issues” covered by the corporate media...another good critique of the Obama “story”:
http://alternet.org/blogs/video/65124/
I have posted a number of Robert Kuttner economic articles in the past….and he was featured on Bill Moyers show last week. Watch as they discuss whether we’re headed towards another 1929 crash:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/15/are-we-heading-towards-a-1929-like-economic-crash/
ARTICLE SECTION: KRUGMAN AND RICH
Krugman deftly exposes the right wings insane attacks on Gore…and why he drives them so crazy. A spot on breakdown.
A few clips:
What is it about Mr. Gore that drives right-wingers insane? Partly it’s a reaction to what happened in 2000, when the American people chose Mr. Gore but his opponent somehow ended up in the White House. Both the personality cult the right tried to build around President Bush and the often hysterical denigration of Mr. Gore were, I believe, largely motivated by the desire to expunge the stain of illegitimacy from the Bush administration.
SNIP
Which brings us to the biggest reason the right hates Mr. Gore: in his case the smear campaign has failed. He’s taken everything they could throw at him, and emerged more respected, and more credible, than ever. And it drives them crazy.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/15/4545/
And Frank Rich of the New York Times writes another classic. Are Americans becoming a modernized version of the “Good German”? The answer of course is yes…the question is just how far will we allow our Government and their corporate bedfellows to go in our name? How much torture and murder is too much? How much wealth in the hands of the few at the expense of everyone else is enough? How many people in our own country do we allow to slip into poverty? How many people do we allow to continue to die because they can't afford health coverage (18,000 a year right now)? When do we demand action on climate change (now, or not until the world is on the brink of collapse?)? Questions to ponder...
A few clips:
"Bush lies" doesn't cut it anymore. It's time to confront the darker reality that we are lying to ourselves. Ten days ago The Times unearthed yet another round of secret Department of Justice memos countenancing torture. President Bush gave his standard response: "This government does not torture people." Of course, it all depends on what the meaning of "torture" is. The whole point of these memos is to repeatedly recalibrate the definition so Mr. Bush can keep pleading innocent.
SNIP
We ignored the contractor scandal to our own peril. Ever since Falluja this auxiliary army has been a leading indicator of every element of the war's failure: not only our inadequate troop strength but also our alienation of Iraqi hearts and minds and our rampant outsourcing to contractors rife with Bush-Cheney cronies and campaign contributors. Contractors remain a bellwether of the war's progress today. When Blackwater was briefly suspended after the Nisour Square catastrophe, American diplomats were flatly forbidden from leaving the fortified Green Zone. So much for the surge's great "success" in bringing security to Baghdad.
SNIP
Our humanity has been compromised by those who use Gestapo tactics in our war. The longer we stand idly by while they do so, the more we resemble those "good Germans" who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo. It's up to us to wake up our somnambulant Congress to challenge administration policy every day. Let the war's last supporters filibuster all night if they want to. There is nothing left to lose except whatever remains of our country's good name.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/101407D.shtml
GOP ATTACKS ON SICK CHILD AND HIS FAMILY BACKFIRE (SCHIP)
And all conservatives have accomplished by attacking the Frost's and their sick son who was saved by the S-CHIP progam is to shine a brighter light on the struggles of working class Americans:
From USA Today:
[Conservative b]loggers said the house was worth more than $400,000. It turns out it was bought for $55,000 in 1991 in a Baltimore neighborhood where "there were drug dealers and prostitutes on our street," Bonnie Frost said. Halsey Frost, a woodworker, did most of the renovations, which are "still not done," Bonnie said.
Bloggers said Graeme and Gemma go to private Park School, where tuition costs about $20,000. Graeme gets a scholarship, while Gemma's brain injuries were so severe that the city pays to educate her at a school for children with disabilities, the couple say.
The commercial property, which bloggers noted was bought for $160,000 in 1999, was intended to house Frostworks, Halsey's business. It folded soon after, he said -- partly because of the cost of health insurance.
He has worked for small companies and is trying to restart his own business. She works part time for a consulting firm. The couple -- who have four children in all --earned about $45,000 last year, well below the $55,220 limit for a family of six set under the original SCHIP program. Maryland's program goes higher, to nearly $83,000 for a family of six. "We are struggling," Bonnie Frost said. "We live paycheck to paycheck. "
And the New York Times:
Certainly the Frosts are not destitute. They also own a commercial property, valued at about $160,000, that provides rental income. Mr. Frost works intermittently in woodworking and as a welder, while Mrs. Frost has a part-time job at a firm that provides services to publishers of medical journals. Her job does not provide health coverage.
...
In a telephone interview, the Frosts said they had recently been rejected by three private insurance companies because of pre-existing medical conditions. "We stood up in the first place because S-chip really helped our family and we wanted to help other families," Mrs. Frost said.
"We work hard, we're honest, we pay our taxes," Mr. Frost said, adding, "There are hard-working families that really need affordable health insurance."
END
RADICAL RIGHT -- FOX ALL STARS: 'ANTI-AMERICAN' AL GORE SHOULDN'T HAVE WON NOBEL FOR 'BLOVIATING' ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING: On Fox News Sunday, Weekly Standard editor William Kristol and conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer attacked former Vice President Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize win, calling him "anti-American" and derisively claiming that he got the award for "nothing" but "bloviating about global warming." Sarcastically calling Gore's win "deeply moving," Kristol disparaged Gore and the Nobel prize itself, saying "it's a prize given by bloviators to a bloviator." Claiming that the Nobel Peace Prize is "the Kentucky Derby of the world left," Krauthammer was even more shrill than Kristol, saying, "Al Gore now joins the ranks of Yasser Arafat, the father of modern terrorism." He then claimed the award "has nothing to do with peace" and that the judges give "it to people whose politics are either anti-American or anti-Bush, and that's why [Gore] won it." Kristol and Krauthammer's attacks continue the efforts of Fox and the right to undermine the importance of Gore and the IPCC's efforts to make climate change a central issue on the world stage. But, as NPR's Juan Williams noted when responding to Kristol and Krauthammer, Gore has taken the global lead on an issue that the Bush administration didn't "even acknowledge for a long time." Kristol and Krauthammer's attacks are just "sour grapes," Williams said, over Gore's success in exposing and undermining the far right's vast disinformation campaign against global warming science.
GLOBAL WARMING -- BRITISH CLIMATE CHANGE SKEPTIC BACKED BY CORPORATE ENERGY LOBBY: Yesterday, news reports revealed that Stewart Dimmock, who filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent British schools from screening An Inconvenient Truth, was financially backed by energy lobbies seeking to discredit Al Gore's film. Dimmock reportedly received funds from "a network of business interests, including ones with links to the fuel and mining industries," as well as Scientific Alliance, a British group with links to Exxon Mobil. Dimmock's case was seized upon by right-wing ideologues as a barometer for the scientific accuracy of An Inconvenient Truth. When London's High Court finally issued its ruling last week, many media reports wrote that the judge found "nine scientific errors" in the film. Fox News seized upon the case and reported that the ruling had confirmed that "Al Gore exaggerated climate change." In fact, the court found that the film was "broadly accurate," allowing it to be shown in British schools accompanied by "guidance notes." As Tim Lambert points out, in his ruling the judge did not actually say there were "errors" in the film, but merely "referred to the things that [Dimmock's lawyer] alleged were errors." News coverage also largely ignored the fact that the judge stated he was not attempting to perform "an analysis of the scientific questions" in his ruling.
Yet another impeachable offense...
"After September the 11th...I authorized the National Security Agency to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations."
--President Bush, 5/11/06
VERSUS
"Former chief executive Joseph P. Nacchio...said the NSA approached Qwest more than six months before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks [about surveillance contracts]."
--Washington Post, 10/13/07
THE AMERICAN TORTURE STATE (AND PARTNERS)
Al-Libi and Habib are but two cases. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands more. These accounts of American-sponsored torture in Egyptian prisons are not new. They hardly make news. But the close cooperation between Egyptian and American security officials represents a frightening melding of despotisms, an international cabal of state-sponsored brutality and abuse. It does away with the concept of law and human rights. It mocks international protocols and treaties. It permits the despotic states we support, such as Egypt, to veer away from democratic structures and propagate, with our assistance, a more ruthless tyranny and brutality. It enrages and finally empowers those who oppose us to engage in the same behavior. It is dividing the world into competing spheres of intolerance. In this new world order there is nothing left to appeal to other than the mercy of someone standing over you with an electric prod.
SNIP
We are losing the war in Iraq. We are an isolated and reviled nation. We are pitiless to others weaker than ourselves. We have lost sight of our democratic ideals. Thucydides wrote of Athens’ expanding empire and how this empire led it to become a tyrant abroad and then a tyrant at home. The tyranny Athens imposed on others, it finally imposed on itself. If we do not confront our hubris and the lies we tell to justify the killing and mask the destruction carried out in our name in Iraq, if we do not grasp the moral corrosiveness of empire and occupation, if we continue to allow force and violence to be our primary form of communication, if we do not remove from power our flag-waving, cross-bearing versions of the Taliban, the despotism we empower abroad will become the despotism we soon experience at home.
--Chris Hedges, who graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times
VIDEO SECTION
Another expose on the crimes and gross negligence of tragedy whore and fear peddler, Rudolph Giuliani:
http://alternet.org/blogs/video/65224/
And Naomi Klein puts her Shock Doctrine thesis to the test…from Giuliani as father figure after 9/11, to Katrina to Iraq…and she’s on Bill Maher’s show no less! Watch:
http://alternet.org/blogs/video/65293/
More on Giuliani:
For all of Rudy Giuliani’s many controversial associates, I suspect he’d be most pleased if the name “Bernie Kerik” is never uttered in public again. Kerik, of course, was Giuliani’s police commissioner and the man Giuliani recommended to head Bush’s Department of Homeland Security.
And while Kerik’s name quickly became an embarrassment for the former mayor, it keeps getting worse. Bernard Kerik’s legal nightmare is about to get worse, with federal prosecutors expected to file charges against the former police commissioner that will likely include allegations of bribery, tax fraud and obstruction of justice, the Daily News has learned.
The indictment, expected next month, could prove to be an embarrassing obstacle for Kerik’s former mentor Rudy Giuliani, who is cruising at the top of the polls heading into the presidential primary gauntlet. The bribery allegations against Kerik stem from a secret meeting at a bar in Tribeca, according to two sources familiar with the federal probe.
END
And more from Bill Maher…this on the unadulterated idiocy of corporate journalists and today’s “news”. First up, the Obama lapel story!
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/13/new-rules-the-nonsense-of-lapelgate/
Louise Black of the Daily Show on the ”non-issues” covered by the corporate media...another good critique of the Obama “story”:
http://alternet.org/blogs/video/65124/
I have posted a number of Robert Kuttner economic articles in the past….and he was featured on Bill Moyers show last week. Watch as they discuss whether we’re headed towards another 1929 crash:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/10/15/are-we-heading-towards-a-1929-like-economic-crash/
ARTICLE SECTION: KRUGMAN AND RICH
Krugman deftly exposes the right wings insane attacks on Gore…and why he drives them so crazy. A spot on breakdown.
A few clips:
What is it about Mr. Gore that drives right-wingers insane? Partly it’s a reaction to what happened in 2000, when the American people chose Mr. Gore but his opponent somehow ended up in the White House. Both the personality cult the right tried to build around President Bush and the often hysterical denigration of Mr. Gore were, I believe, largely motivated by the desire to expunge the stain of illegitimacy from the Bush administration.
SNIP
Which brings us to the biggest reason the right hates Mr. Gore: in his case the smear campaign has failed. He’s taken everything they could throw at him, and emerged more respected, and more credible, than ever. And it drives them crazy.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/15/4545/
And Frank Rich of the New York Times writes another classic. Are Americans becoming a modernized version of the “Good German”? The answer of course is yes…the question is just how far will we allow our Government and their corporate bedfellows to go in our name? How much torture and murder is too much? How much wealth in the hands of the few at the expense of everyone else is enough? How many people in our own country do we allow to slip into poverty? How many people do we allow to continue to die because they can't afford health coverage (18,000 a year right now)? When do we demand action on climate change (now, or not until the world is on the brink of collapse?)? Questions to ponder...
A few clips:
"Bush lies" doesn't cut it anymore. It's time to confront the darker reality that we are lying to ourselves. Ten days ago The Times unearthed yet another round of secret Department of Justice memos countenancing torture. President Bush gave his standard response: "This government does not torture people." Of course, it all depends on what the meaning of "torture" is. The whole point of these memos is to repeatedly recalibrate the definition so Mr. Bush can keep pleading innocent.
SNIP
We ignored the contractor scandal to our own peril. Ever since Falluja this auxiliary army has been a leading indicator of every element of the war's failure: not only our inadequate troop strength but also our alienation of Iraqi hearts and minds and our rampant outsourcing to contractors rife with Bush-Cheney cronies and campaign contributors. Contractors remain a bellwether of the war's progress today. When Blackwater was briefly suspended after the Nisour Square catastrophe, American diplomats were flatly forbidden from leaving the fortified Green Zone. So much for the surge's great "success" in bringing security to Baghdad.
SNIP
Our humanity has been compromised by those who use Gestapo tactics in our war. The longer we stand idly by while they do so, the more we resemble those "good Germans" who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo. It's up to us to wake up our somnambulant Congress to challenge administration policy every day. Let the war's last supporters filibuster all night if they want to. There is nothing left to lose except whatever remains of our country's good name.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/101407D.shtml
GOP ATTACKS ON SICK CHILD AND HIS FAMILY BACKFIRE (SCHIP)
And all conservatives have accomplished by attacking the Frost's and their sick son who was saved by the S-CHIP progam is to shine a brighter light on the struggles of working class Americans:
From USA Today:
[Conservative b]loggers said the house was worth more than $400,000. It turns out it was bought for $55,000 in 1991 in a Baltimore neighborhood where "there were drug dealers and prostitutes on our street," Bonnie Frost said. Halsey Frost, a woodworker, did most of the renovations, which are "still not done," Bonnie said.
Bloggers said Graeme and Gemma go to private Park School, where tuition costs about $20,000. Graeme gets a scholarship, while Gemma's brain injuries were so severe that the city pays to educate her at a school for children with disabilities, the couple say.
The commercial property, which bloggers noted was bought for $160,000 in 1999, was intended to house Frostworks, Halsey's business. It folded soon after, he said -- partly because of the cost of health insurance.
He has worked for small companies and is trying to restart his own business. She works part time for a consulting firm. The couple -- who have four children in all --earned about $45,000 last year, well below the $55,220 limit for a family of six set under the original SCHIP program. Maryland's program goes higher, to nearly $83,000 for a family of six. "We are struggling," Bonnie Frost said. "We live paycheck to paycheck. "
And the New York Times:
Certainly the Frosts are not destitute. They also own a commercial property, valued at about $160,000, that provides rental income. Mr. Frost works intermittently in woodworking and as a welder, while Mrs. Frost has a part-time job at a firm that provides services to publishers of medical journals. Her job does not provide health coverage.
...
In a telephone interview, the Frosts said they had recently been rejected by three private insurance companies because of pre-existing medical conditions. "We stood up in the first place because S-chip really helped our family and we wanted to help other families," Mrs. Frost said.
"We work hard, we're honest, we pay our taxes," Mr. Frost said, adding, "There are hard-working families that really need affordable health insurance."
END
RADICAL RIGHT -- FOX ALL STARS: 'ANTI-AMERICAN' AL GORE SHOULDN'T HAVE WON NOBEL FOR 'BLOVIATING' ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING: On Fox News Sunday, Weekly Standard editor William Kristol and conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer attacked former Vice President Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize win, calling him "anti-American" and derisively claiming that he got the award for "nothing" but "bloviating about global warming." Sarcastically calling Gore's win "deeply moving," Kristol disparaged Gore and the Nobel prize itself, saying "it's a prize given by bloviators to a bloviator." Claiming that the Nobel Peace Prize is "the Kentucky Derby of the world left," Krauthammer was even more shrill than Kristol, saying, "Al Gore now joins the ranks of Yasser Arafat, the father of modern terrorism." He then claimed the award "has nothing to do with peace" and that the judges give "it to people whose politics are either anti-American or anti-Bush, and that's why [Gore] won it." Kristol and Krauthammer's attacks continue the efforts of Fox and the right to undermine the importance of Gore and the IPCC's efforts to make climate change a central issue on the world stage. But, as NPR's Juan Williams noted when responding to Kristol and Krauthammer, Gore has taken the global lead on an issue that the Bush administration didn't "even acknowledge for a long time." Kristol and Krauthammer's attacks are just "sour grapes," Williams said, over Gore's success in exposing and undermining the far right's vast disinformation campaign against global warming science.
GLOBAL WARMING -- BRITISH CLIMATE CHANGE SKEPTIC BACKED BY CORPORATE ENERGY LOBBY: Yesterday, news reports revealed that Stewart Dimmock, who filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent British schools from screening An Inconvenient Truth, was financially backed by energy lobbies seeking to discredit Al Gore's film. Dimmock reportedly received funds from "a network of business interests, including ones with links to the fuel and mining industries," as well as Scientific Alliance, a British group with links to Exxon Mobil. Dimmock's case was seized upon by right-wing ideologues as a barometer for the scientific accuracy of An Inconvenient Truth. When London's High Court finally issued its ruling last week, many media reports wrote that the judge found "nine scientific errors" in the film. Fox News seized upon the case and reported that the ruling had confirmed that "Al Gore exaggerated climate change." In fact, the court found that the film was "broadly accurate," allowing it to be shown in British schools accompanied by "guidance notes." As Tim Lambert points out, in his ruling the judge did not actually say there were "errors" in the film, but merely "referred to the things that [Dimmock's lawyer] alleged were errors." News coverage also largely ignored the fact that the judge stated he was not attempting to perform "an analysis of the scientific questions" in his ruling.
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