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Art and Politics Special Edition: Garry Trudeau
Several months ago, the Washington Post Magazine published a rare profile of the famously publicity-averse cartoonist Garry Trudeau. The entire piece by Gene Weingarten makes for fascinating reading, and we highly recommend checking it out in situ on the WashPo's website. For purposes of this extended Special Edition threader, though, we're going to excerpt some key portions of the article that reveal the roots of Trudeau's brilliantly incisive Iraq war storylines featuring wounded-warrior B.D.
IN THE BANQUET ROOM WERE MEN WHO WERE BLIND, men with burns, men with gouges, men missing an arm, men missing a leg, men missing an arm and a leg, men missing an arm and both legs, men missing parts of their faces, and a cartoonist from the funny pages.
We were just a few blocks from the White House, at Fran O'Brien's Steak House. Fran's was hosting a night out for casualties of the current war, visiting from their hospital wards.
It's hard to know what to say to a grievously injured person, and it's easy to be wrong . You could do what I did, for example. Scrounging for the positive, I cheerfully informed a young man who had lost both legs and his left forearm that at least he's lucky he's a righty. Then he wordlessly showed me his right hand, which is missing fingertips and has limited motion -- an articulated claw. That shut things right up, for both of us, and it would have stayed that way, except the cartoonist showed up.
Garry Trudeau, the creator of "Doonesbury," hunkered right down in front of the soldier, eye to eye, introduced himself and proceeded to ignore every single diplomatic nicety.
"So, when were you hit?" he asked.
"October 23."
Trudeau pivoted his body. "So you took the blast on, what . . . this side?"
"Yeah."
Brian Anderson, 25, was in shorts, a look favored by most of the amputees, who tend to wear their new prostheses like combat medals. His legs are metal and plastic, blue and knobby at the knee, shin poles culminating abruptly in sneakers.
Trudeau surveyed Brian's intact arm. "You've got dots."
"Yeah." Dots are soldier-speak for little beads of shrapnel buried under the skin. Sometimes they take a lifetime to work their way back to the surface. At this, Brian became fully engaged and animated, smiling and talking about the improvised explosive device that took his vehicle out; about his rescue; his recovery; his plans for the future. Trudeau, it turned out, had given him what he needed.
("In these soldiers' minds," Trudeau will explain afterward, "their whole identity, who they are right now, is what happened to them. They want to tell the story, they want to be asked about it, and you're honoring them by listening. The more they revisit it, the less power it has over them.")
Trudeau has been talking to injured vets for a couple of years now. It's partly compassionate support for people he has a genuine regard for, and it's part journalism -- the damnedest sort of reporting, for a professional cartoonist.
This was April 25. On the comics pages that day, Dagwood fixed himself an absolutely ENORMOUS sandwich; Garfield kicked Odie off the table again; and in Beetle Bailey, the only military-themed comic strip, Lt. Fuzz accidentally dropped a glass of water and cussed in funny cartoon hieroglyphics.
In Doonesbury, this was the story: B.D., the football coach and Vietnam vet who went to Iraq with the National Guard and lost a leg in a rocket-grenade attack near Fallujah, has been shamed into entering therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder because he overheard his little girl, Sam, tell a friend that she'd become afraid of her daddy. On this day, B.D. will begin to relive the battlefield event he has repressed, the one that made him a moody, alcoholic paranoiac and that torments him with guilt and shame that he does not understand. Through the rest of the week, B.D. will retell what happened when his armored vehicle came under attack from insurgents and -- desperate to escape and save himself and his men -- he gave the order to flee through a crowded marketplace, mowing down civilians.
Not many of the injured vets in Fran O'Brien's were where B.D. was yet. Their deepest wounds, like the dots, had not yet surfaced. On that day they were jovial, mostly, and indomitable, all of them, stolid and impervious, more so than the moms, wives and girlfriends who hovered at their elbows, lovingly kneading shoulders, patting thighs, holding on, looking bravely upbeat and just a little overwhelmed.
Trudeau bellied up to another vet.
"So, when were you hit?"
[...]
ON THE MORNING OF April 19, 2004, newspaper readers were served something startling with their morning coffee. The first panel of "Doonesbury" was completely black, except for the word "Hey." Then, framed by the smoke of war, a soldier's face. It's Ray Hightower, B.D.'s buddy. He's sweating, looking scared. He calls for a medic. Then, black again, as though someone is drifting in and out of consciousness. The gut-punch line comes at the end, with a shouted name. "B.D.?"
And here is the image people saw two days later:
It was shocking for obvious reasons, but in another way, as well: B.D. had never been seen without his helmet. It was as if Trudeau was declaring that something fundamentally and forever had changed.
[...]
What happened next was unusual, to say the least. Within a day or two of B.D. lying broken on that stretcher, Garry Trudeau, bane of every presidential administration since Nixon's (particularly the current one, which he has absolutely lacerated), got a call from the Pentagon. The brass was offering to help him figure out where to go next.
[...]
"Doonesbury" has never become complacent, partly because Trudeau is no ordinary creative talent but also because the strip feeds continually off the culture it lampoons. Trudeau is very much a reporter -- what Newsweek's Jonathan Alter once called "an investigative cartoonist." When two of his principal characters were homeless, Trudeau spent time working in shelters. When "Doonesbury" accompanied President Ford to China, so did Trudeau. When B.D. served in the Persian Gulf War, Trudeau briefly went to Kuwait. So when the new invitation came from the Pentagon -- essentially, carte blanche to visit injured vets -- the investigative cartoonist leapt at it, not sure what he would find.
The very first person he spoke to was a 27-year-old MP named Danielle Green. She had been a college basketball star, a left-handed point guard at Notre Dame. Green had just lost that hand in Iraq. She'd been on the roof of a police station, behind sandbags, trying to defend it from enemy fire, when she took a direct hit from a rocket-propelled grenade.
"This was an elite athlete, and she'd lost her whole professional identity," Trudeau said, "but that's not what she wanted to talk about. What she wanted to talk about was how her buddies carried her down, put her on the hood of a Humvee, where they stopped the bleeding, then went back up to the roof, against orders, and found her hand buried under sandbags. They took off her wedding ring and gave it to her. She's telling me this with a million-dollar smile. This was not about bitterness or loss. It was about gratitude."
And so Trudeau started taking notes.
[...]
A curious thing has happened to Trudeau's image as a result of the B.D. subplot -- nothing the cartoonist could have predicted. The predictable, in fact, happened almost immediately: Calling Trudeau a "committed leftist," Fox News Channel host Bill O'Reilly wrote in an online column that "a case can be made that Trudeau is attempting to sap the morale of Americans vis-a-vis Iraq by using a long-running, somewhat beloved cartoon character to create pathos."
O'Reilly doesn't talk about Trudeau anymore. He can't, really.
We're in Tucson, at the National Leadership Conference of the Vietnam Veterans of America, where Trudeau is about to take the stage to receive the group's award for excellence in the arts. These are fifty- and sixtysomething guys, many with ponytails, tattoos, ample guts and an attitude. They weren't treated right; they want better for new vets, returning home scarred.
This is a potentially tricky audience for Trudeau's acceptance speech. As they've aged, their politics have moved rightward, and many of them have a lingering distaste for antiwar talk, particularly from people they might consider draft dodgers. (Back in 1970, Trudeau pulled a disastrously low draft-lottery number -- 27, which he later bestowed on his slacker surfer-dude character, Zonker, in the strip. Trudeau wound up getting a medical deferment because of old stomach ulcers that hadn't given him trouble for years, and haven't since. His dad the doctor suggested he try that.)
As apolitical as the B.D. story is, elsewhere in the strip Trudeau regularly unleashes his disgust for the Iraq war and the man who is waging it. Trudeau's time at Yale overlapped with George W. Bush's -- he knew him slightly and disliked him even then, largely for what he saw as a sense of smug entitlement ("all noblesse and no oblige.") In the strip, often on Sundays, with maximum readership, Trudeau just kills Bush. One Sunday this year, Michael Doonesbury and his old friend Bernie were discussing the Iraq war and wondering whether it keeps the president awake at night because of its enormous, heartbreaking human toll. In the final panel, Trudeau cuts to a signature exterior nighttime view of the White House. From inside come two dialogue balloons: "What's wrong, dear?" And: "It's the stem cells. I hear their cries."
So is Trudeau going to play it safe in this speech and stay away from politics? I'm apparently not the only one wondering. The instant the cartoonist rises to take the mike, a large American flag behind him suddenly and inexplicably crashes to the ground. From a group of organizers near me comes a whisper, "Oh [expletive], not a good sign."
The speech starts benignly, praising the courage of the soldiers he had met, but here's how Trudeau wraps it up:
"When I talk to wounded veterans, I usually don't ask them what they think the mission was. I don't presume, because their lives are wrenching enough without the suggestion that their sacrifices may have been without meaning. Moreover, if that is so, it will become apparent to them soon enough . . . The young men and women who we've repeatedly put in harm's way are paying the price for this misbegotten mission, and as long as it continues, I, like so many of our countrymen, must walk this strange line between hating the war but honoring the warrior. I don't know how long we can keep it up. . ."
He finishes to a standing ovation.
If there had been any lingering antipathy to Trudeau in this crowd, the story of B.D. appears to have wiped it out. It's as though he's been in the jungle with these guys.
[...]
Trudeau is considering experimenting with sophisticated animation, for "Doonesbury" online. He's just finished a screenplay, a comedy about a teenager who is elected mayor of a small town. His newest "Doonesbury" compilation -- The War Within, about B.D. dealing with his mental health issues [a sequel to The Long Road Home, about B.D.'s treatment at Walter Reed and his recuperation at Fisher House] -- has just hit the bookstores, and a second compilation, Heckuva Job, Bushie, is due out this month [now in print, see link].
And week after week in the newspapers, the quite remarkable story of B.D. continues.
For more of all things Doonesbury, visit http://doonesbury.msn.com/
Trudeau also provides active-duty personnel with a special venue in which they can share their thoughts and feelings with each other and with the rest of us as well:
Welcome to The Sandbox, our command-wide milblog, featuring comments, anecdotes, and observations from service members currently deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. This is GWOT-lit's forward position, offering those in-country a chance to share their experiences and reflections with the rest of us. The Sandbox's focus is not on policy and partisanship (go to our Blowback page for that), but on the unclassified details of deployment -- the everyday, the extraordinary, the wonderful, the messed-up, the absurd. The Sandbox is a clean, lightly-edited debriefing environment where all correspondence is read, and as much as possible is posted. And contributors may rest assured that all content, no matter how robust, is currently secured by the First Amendment.
IS THERE AN EASY WAY TO GET RID OF GONZALES???
Former Deputy AG on Wiretaps: "White House Tried to Coerce Ashcroft"
By Jason Leopold and Matt Renner
t r u t h o u t | Report
Tuesday 15 May 2007
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051507R.shtml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmm1W-H8L-4
Video
The White House operated a domestic surveillance program for several weeks three years ago, overriding objections by senior Justice Department officials who had informed top Bush administration officials that the spy program was illegal, a former deputy attorney general testified Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In March 2004, a standoff between the White House and the Justice Department ensued because James Comey, the department's No. 2 in command, would not authorize a continuation of the warrantless wiretaps, Comey told lawmakers.
"We communicated to the relevant parties at the White House and elsewhere our decision that as acting attorney general I would not certify the program as to its legality, and explained our reasoning in detail, which I will not go into here," Comey testified.
Responding to questions by Senator Chuck Schumer, (D-New York), Comey said Justice Department officials "had concerns as to our ability to certify its legality, which was our obligation for the program to be renewed."
"You thought something was wrong with how it was being operated or administered or overseen?" Schumer asked.
"We had - yes," Comey said.
The surveillance program was secretly authorized by President Bush after 9/11 to monitor communications between alleged terrorist suspects abroad and US citizens without first obtaining approval from a special court designated to authorize such activities under guidelines known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The program has come under fire by civil liberties groups and Republican and Democratic lawmakers, who said innocent American citizens have been caught up in the wiretaps.
Comey told lawmakers that his refusal to reauthorize the spy program resulted in a hastily arranged late-night meeting at a hospital, where then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales and President Bush's former Chief of Staff Andrew Card tried to coerce a barely conscious John Ashcroft to approve the controversial eavesdropping program. Comey said he also was present at the meeting.
Ashcroft was in intensive care at the time, hospitalized with pancreatitis, but, according to Comey, Ashcroft was able to rebut the arguments made by Gonzales and refused to sign the authorization. Comey testified that Ashcroft had not recertified the
Posted by Rick Albertson at May 19, 2007 09:56 AM
It occurs to me that the cartoonists like Trudeau (and whoever writes Non Sequitur and a few other cartoons I've seen over the years) and satirists like Stewart and Colbert, and anchors with commentary like Keith Olbermann, have consistently gotten everything correct about this whole mess since the SCOTUS decision of December 2000; they have captured with pulse of this nation more accurately than anyone else, and they're smart enough to do their homework and deconstruct the lies and the lies that have covered original lies, and they see the unraveling of our republic via questionable legislation and criminal actions on the part of the people in the administration, from the top on down. Our Congress Critters have certainly dropped the ball on all of this and they've let us all down and seem unwilling to backtrack and correct their mistakes (and mistakes of previous Congress Critters who were not re-elected last fall).
Lamestream Media bobbleheads have gotten it all wrong from the beginning, starting with the debates of 2000, crediting DimWit with brains he never had, does not now have, and never will have. The boy was born lacking mental ability; it's as simple as that. He's not been given the moniker 'incurious George' without good reason. Or to quote from your thread header: "Trudeau's time at Yale overlapped with George W. Bush's -- he knew him slightly and disliked him even then, largely for what he saw as a sense of smug entitlement ("all noblesse and no oblige.")" Trudeau sees exactly what anyone with average or above-average intelligence sees in Bush.
All these years later, all the war crimes and high crimes and misdemeanors and treasonous conduct later, I still don't understand why Lamestream Media bobbleheads and Congress Critters are not seeing exactly what we're seeing, what we've seen all along since the debates of 2000.... Why are the war criminals still in charge of our government...?
I don't get it.
Posted by: Ralpheh at May 19, 2007 12:21 PM
That was the height of brutish behavior on the part of Gonzales and Card - and, it seems "the White House" (whoever called Ashcroft's room).
I don't know about anyone else, but I've had more than one major surgery. The last time I was hosptialized for nine days, surgical incisions front and back, and I was on two heavy-duty pain meds (first IV, then two kinds of pills when I got home). Mentally, I was in no shape to make any major decisions for quite a long time, especially immediately after surgery (and one of the side effects of at least one or both pain meds is episodes of amnesia, which I did have).
In other words, although I have no regard for Ashcroft for other reasons, what Gonzales and Card (et al.) tried to do was a set-up to blame Ashcroft for an illegal decision made when his mental abilities were imparied by medication. Luckily, he remembered he had legally handed over his duties to someone else, and seems to have had the presence of mind to remember all that. (That can't have been easy immediately post-surgery when pain meds are more heavily given than later in the recovery process.)
I remember wondering about Ashcroft's resignation all those years ago. In hindsight, I wonder if Ashcroft didn't figure out just what level of unethical and illegal behavior that bullying lot will stoop to to get their own way, and wonder if that was the primary reason he resigned...?
I had to dig this up. It's so amazing! THK addresses 100 convening cartoonists. The Rumsfeld spoof is a must as is the advice on how to parody her husband. Above all, she understands that people must read between the lines in a society where free speech is determined by money factors.
http://www.robrogers.com/other/aaec03/hlove.html
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003587276
Latest from McClatchy's Iraqi Staffers: Please, America, Just Go
NEW YORK For several weeks, we have been featuring the postings of McClatchy's Iraqi staffers and correspondents in its Baghdad bureau, from the blog Inside Iraq. The writers' full names are not given for security reasons.
Here is the latest from one of the regular posters, "Dulaimy." It is a message to Americans titled simply "Leave." It concludes: "We had enough, let our country go free. By staying, you are forcing people to join Al Qaeda and militias."
*
We are happy that we got rid of Saddam but we will never be happy to give away our country in return.
Sorry if our flesh harmed your knives... is that what they want us to say? Is this what they came for?
The failure of this invasion is a victory for FREEDOM and a defeat for radicals in U.S. and later in Iraq.
~~~~~
We have had enough, let our country go free. By staying, you are forcing people to join Al Qaeda and militias.
{{{More on link.}}}
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/18/daily-show-reading-bushs-body-language/
Daily Show: Reading Bush’s Body Language
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070519/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/justice_white_house
Gonzales rapped as president's 'yes man'
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070519/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_blair
Blasts hit Green Zone during Blair visit
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6672035.stm
Carter attacks Blair's Iraq role
Former US President Jimmy Carter has criticised outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair for his "blind" support of the war in Iraq.
Mr Carter told the BBC Mr Blair's backing for US President George W Bush had been "apparently subservient".
He said the UK's "almost undeviating" support for "the ill-advised policies of President Bush in Iraq had been a major tragedy for the world".
~~~~~
Mr Carter said that if Mr Blair had distanced himself from the Bush administration's policy during the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq it might have made a crucial difference to American political and public opinion.
"One of the defences of the Bush administration... has been, okay, we must be more correct in our actions than the world thinks because Great Britain is backing us," he told the Today programme on Radio 4.
"So I think the combination of Bush and Blair giving their support to this tragedy in Iraq has strengthened the effort and has made the opposition less effective and prolonged the war and increased the tragedy that has resulted."
The war had "caused deep schisms on a global basis", he said, and he hoped Mr Blair's successor, Gordon Brown, would be less enthusiastic in his support for it.
The former US president has been a fierce critic of the US-led war in Iraq.
In an interview last year, he said he was "disappointed" by Tony Blair's failure to use his influence with President Bush more wisely.
{{{More on link.}}}
This is Bagdad - Bruce Cockburn
Everything's broken in the birthplace of law
As Generation Two tries on his tragic flaw
America's might under desert sun
I saw her frightened eyes behind the muzzle of her gun
Uranium dust and the smell of decay
Sewage in the street where the kids run and play
Not enough morphine and not enough gauze
Firefight in darkness like snapping of jaws
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
You couldn't see the blast-the morning was bright-
But some radiant energy flared up into the light
Like the sky throwing its hands up in a horrified dismay
Or the souls of the dead as they sped on their way
Carbombed and carjacked and kidnapped and shot
How do you like it, this freedom we brought
We packed all the ordnance but the thing we forgot
Was a plan in case it didn't turn out quite like we thought
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
This is Baghdad
It occurs to me that the cartoonists like Trudeau (and whoever writes Non Sequitur and a few other cartoons I've seen over the years) and satirists like Stewart and Colbert, and anchors with commentary like Keith Olbermann, have consistently gotten everything correct about this whole mess since the SCOTUS decision of December 2000
[ ... ]
I don't get it.
Posted by: NonnyO at May 19, 2007 01:27 PM
I don't get it either, NonnyO. I imagine that Jon Stewart is really popular to all people; that his show is really popular. Cartoons keep popping up that everyone reads. Really - do you read cartoons on the printed page? I always do. And when I don't get it, I ask other people. We've seen some brilliant cartooning here lately of our Prime Minister who is still advocating that to leave Iraq means Surrender. Everyone sees political satire - and Stewart's facial expressions - particularly his eyes - and body language clarify everything.
Rick, I'm so glad that you've brought our attention to this cartoonist. I no longer buy papers and I only subscribe to the free ones. On line I rarely get to the cartoons but there are plenty in the Opinion articles I read. I'm also glad that Weingarten's feelings and impressions on first meeting a man with missing limbs were part of his article. Our teaching has never been to confront the obvious directly.
I was given this lesson by my 8 year old grandson who, seeing a man coming up the street in the opposite direction, ran to meet him and asked, "Hi. I'm Tom. What's your name? What happened to ya legs? Or were ya born without em? Bet you can go fast in that wheelchair. Ya wanna race? To the corner?" And off they raced down the footpath to the intersection. And back.
Tom's mother was horrified by his questions and yet they were perfect. As if we don't notice when things aren't quite how they should be. And we try to pretend that everything's ok. For us to stop and ask the question, isn't so much sticky beaking as it would be compassionate. Perhaps therapeutic if the loss was through war or accident.
There are valuable lessons in Trudeau's work and actions. And no one said that comic strips have to be funny. The cartoonist has free range to include whatever story he wants to relate. I find the ability to come up with a complete incident in a few short frames accompanied by a few speech bubbles is truly brilliant. And Trudeau is certainly one of the best.
http://www.robrogers.com/other/aaec03/hlove.html
Posted by: non ma presidente at May 19, 2007 01:52 PM
nmp thanks for that - what a great piece.
Rick,
Thanks for sharing this Gary Trudeau piece and the 'comic' strip. I hadn't seen it before.
Woz, what a touching story about Tom. It's sad and interesting how we don't deal effectively with things outside the norm.
That's why the line about GWB hearing the stem cells crying really got to me.
I personally have spent the weekend 'crying' for so many of us who have been hurt by Bush and these runaway Republicans. And I've been angry at the lives they've destroyed.
It's a sad, sad world. It's not 'politics as normal' as I told my Republican brother when the majority of one party has willingly broken the law to succeed at their agenda. And we don't have to accept it no matter what party we are. I wish I could get that through to him.
Politics is about a difference of opinion and one side wanting to succeed; however, the politicians should never become so corrupt that they knowlingly participate in crimes, lies, and cheating or stealing.
BTW...he's admitted that 2000,2002-and 2004 were stolen. He never heard of PNAC. He believes there is a 'liberal bias' in the media and has been for ages...though at least he's willing to admit that Fox is propaganda. And he bemoans the 'moderate-conservative Republicans' who have disappeared.
So he's on the cusp of recognizing that the Republican party is lost but he can not vote Democratic. He recognises the theives and liars, but wishes he could have his views represented in Congress and the White House.
Good luck to him and to us. We finally have agreement on a few things.
Be amused, be very amused:
***DUzy Awards for week ending May 18, 2007***
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x918534
The rest of a life is just beginning. The Guantanamo experience is over for one more person.
David Hicks is home
Dan Silkstone
May 20, 2007 - 10:23AM
Eight years after he left his Adelaide home for the adventure of a lifetime in Pakistan, David Hicks returned to Australia this morning a 31-year-old former Muslim with a bad back and receding hairline.
The Government-chartered Gulfstream jet bringing Hicks from his prison in Guantanamo Bay touched down at Edinburgh RAAF base in Adelaide's outer suburbs at 9.50am (10.20am AEST).
Cont. ....
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/david-hicks-is-home/2007/05/20/1179601216063.html
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/05/16/rove.documents /
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Justice Department on Wednesday told an angry Senate Judiciary Committee chairman it does not have documents described in a subpoena that demands all materials relating to Karl Rove's possible involvement in the U.S. attorney firings.
Instead, it said, Rove's lawyer must have them. Rove is the chief political adviser for President Bush.
The response from a top Justice Department official came just hours after the chairman, Vermont Democrat Sen. Patrick Leahy and the panel's top Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, chastised Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in a letter for ignoring the subpoena's Tuesday deadline.
"You ignored the subpoena, did not come forward today, did not produce the documents, and did not even offer an explanation for your noncompliance," the two senators wrote in the letter, sent Tuesday night.
"The committee intends to get to the truth."
[snip]
"Hicks flew in the comfort of leather seats and wasn't restrained during the 22-hour flight. The plane stopped to refuel at Tahiti about midnight."
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/david-hicks-is-home/2007/05/20/1179601216063.html
What???? A terrorist????? On a plane????? Unrestrained????? OMG!!!
So - out of years of solitary confinement, onto this luxurious aircraft (by comparison by comparison with the ones used by his torturers) No chains locking him by the ankles to the axles - here he comes to be thrown into maximum security solitary confinement in an Adelaide maximum security prison.
Mind you, if I were David I would kind of like the nine months on my own to get used to being in the dark at night and get used to having family to visit. I'd like to be protected from the media who must have been camped at the RAAF base all weekend. He has a lot of changes to make and they must terrify him, at the same time as he welcomes them.
Thanks everyone. This doesn't mean that one of Gitmo's inmates has received justice. It just means that we - the people of Australia - DEMANDED that John Howard get him home!!
He did. But the tide turned against him a long time ago. Everyone knows that the world has nothing to fear from David Hicks. And everyone accepts that almost all of us have survived some pretty outrageous mistakes.
Some - like Howard, Bush and Blair - don't see their mistakes as being more criminal than David's. Howard should by now - I write to him often enough about the millions of dollars that he enabled into Iraq for SH to supply material millions to al Qaeda. My letters most probably meet the same fate as the letter the Attorney General sent to me. The recycle tub.
Tom Tomorrow is great - met him at YearlyKos in Vegas and got his book autographed for my husband for last Father's Day.
http://www.thismodernworld.com
I also love Lynda Barry, Roberta Gregory, Matt Groening - all of whom are from here, as was Gary Larsen. I draw cartoons myself (sort of) and there is nothing else to do here in the rain (except movies, books, meetings). We also have http://www.fantagraphics.com, big source of "underground" cartoons. They also carry alot of Robert Crumb & other classics. Comics rule!! When I was a kid I was a big fan of Caspar the Ghost, Little Lotta, Richie Rich and Millie the Model, Betty & Veronica, as well as Spiderman and Superman. Can't forget Classics Illustrated!
Don't tell my husband but this year for Father's Day I got him an original cell from Sally Cruickshank, who did "Quazi at the Quackadero."
http://www.funonmars.com
http://www.funonmars.blogspot.com
http://www.fantagraphics.com
http://www.crumbproducts.com
There is also going to be an ArtKos segment at YearlyKos and submission deadline for cartoons, poetry, photography etc. is June 18. They will have a special evening of frivolities. So far there is not a website, just a Yahoo group.
I also met a group of atheists who would answer any questions for 25 cents (it's at our blog)
Hopefully Britain will bring about the end.
Bush prepared for Iraq U-turn
May 20, 2007 - 12:40PM
US President George Bush has been told to prepare for a British U-turn on Iraq once Gordon Brown becomes prime minister, a Sunday newspaper reports.
Bush has been briefed by White House officials to expect an announcement on British troop withdrawals during Brown's first 100 days in office, The Sunday Telegraph said.
Cont. ....
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/bush-prepared-for-iraq-uturn/2007/05/20/1179601220710.html
May 20, 2007
Illegal Migrants Dissect Details of Senate Deal
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD and JULIA PRESTON
TUCSON, May 19 — Under the shade of a mesquite tree here one morning this week, waiting for work that did not come, Elías Ramírez weighed the hurdles of what could be the biggest overhaul in immigration law in two decades.
To become full legal residents, under a compromise Senate leaders announced Thursday, Mr. Ramírez and other illegal immigrants would have to pay a total of $5,000 in fines, more than 14 times the typical weekly earnings on the streets here, return to their home countries at least once, and wait as long as eight years. During the wait, they would have limited possibilities to bring other family members.
“Well, it sounds difficult, but not impossible,” said Mr. Ramírez, 24, a native of Chiapas, Mexico, who has been here a year. “I would like to be here legally in the future, so these things are what I might have to do.”
Another man among the group gathered outside a church here that serves as a hiring site for day laborers overheard Mr. Ramírez and approached with disdain.
“It’s almost impossible to bring your family,” he said, rattling off information he had gleaned from a Spanish-language newspaper. “You have to go back first, and what are you going to do in Mexico while you are there and there is no work? I’ve been here 20 years and I still work and support my family, so why would I do any of these things?”
The compromise bill has offered a glimmer of hope to illegal immigrants here, 60 miles from the border, and elsewhere. But they and others, through news reports, advocates and lawyers, are just now learning the fine print.
- more -
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/us/20immig.html
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/19/bush-meets-the-british-media/
Bush meets the British Media
{{{Cringe factor.}}}
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/19/cnn-airs-portion-of-stoning-death/
CNN Airs Portion Of Stoning Death
{{{Another cringe factor.... I guess CNN gets the prize for the worst of the latest tasteless reporting.}}}
http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2007/05/14/tomo/index1.html
{{{Uff da! The punch line to this cartoon.... Groan... However will we get through the next year and a half before the next election (assuming the worst doesn't happen, that is)?}}}
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/19/the-saturday-cartoons-5/
The Saturday Cartoons
http://bobgeiger.blogspot.com/2007/05/saturday-cartoons_19.html
Monkey - especially for you (if you haven't seen this already):
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/05/18/cls-late-night-music-club-with-bo-diddley/
C&L’s Late Night Music Club With Bo Diddley
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070519/ap_on_re_us/iraq_border_training
Border agents recruited for Iraq duty
A military contractor is recruiting current and former agents with the U.S. Border Patrol to teach Iraqis how to secure their national borders.
The U.S. State Department has asked Virginia-based DynCorp International to find 120 people with Customs and Border Enforcement experience to go to Iraq for the training.
The company already has 700 police trainers in Iraq. The department made the request for border security trainers in late March.
~~~~~
DynCorp is offering recruits $134,100 for a one-year stay, plus a $25,000 signing bonus. The first $90,000 in income is tax free, and housing and food are free, company spokesman Gregory Lagana said.
Border Patrol agents with at least two years' experience make roughly $55,000.
{{{More on link. To repeat myself: DynCorp is/was a Halliburton subsidiary - don't know if it still is since Halliburton's HQ move to Dubai; I know Halliburton has let KBR loose, but I'm not sure what financial advantage that is. Two of three "private security officers" from MN who have been killed in Iraq worked for DynCorp, according to in-state TeeVee news (I don't know which mercenary corporation the third one was working for). There's a fourth MN mercenary who has been missing for several months and there's still no word about his fate. See, the thing that concerns me currently is this: the current three missing "military people" just might be mercenaries, not regular military personnel, and there are something like three or four thousand US military personnel looking for them. The standard modus operandi of the Pentagon/White House propaganda machine is to release names after family is notified... and then the Lamestream Media circus ballyhoo starts with everyone who ever knew these people being interviewed (like what they did with Jessica Lynch when she went missing and some of her cohorts were killed and their families were being interviewed). Remarkable for its absence is any Lamestream Media attention, names of people with the usual patriotic bandwagon slogans... and that's what leads me to believe the missing people are mercenaries, not regular military. Or, at least if the names of the "missing" have been mentioned, I've not seen/heard any snooze teasers about it. The regular military personnel killed in action about the same time, yes, I've read a story about them, but not the names of the missing people who are "allegedly" US military personnel. My suspicious mind has been working overtime regarding the incident. Something is definitely "off" about the whole thing.}}}
CONDI RICE--COOKED IN OIL?
By Barry Lando
Is anyone going to follow up the possible role of Condoleezza Rice in the Oil-for-Food Scandal--not only when she was with Chevron--but when she also headed Bush's National Security Council? Or will Teflon Condi get off once again?
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/52051/
GONZALES: THE GLORIFIED HIT MAN
By Jayne Lyn Stahl
The Justice Department has rapidly morphed into a haven for "Jihad Joes".
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/52048/
Posted by: woz at May 20, 2007 03:43 AM
That article quotes my lame representative who sounds like he's just itching for a fight with Brown.
"And Mark Kirk, a congressman in Bush's Republican party who discussed Iraq policy at the White House last week, said: "The American view is that's he's a much weaker political leader than Blair. There's the fear in Washington that he won't be as strong an ally.""
What an idiot. (Kirk, that is.)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6673039.stm
Press views: Michael Moore's Sicko
Documentary-maker Michael Moore's new film Sicko has become one of the most talked-about productions at the Cannes Film Festival.
Here is a round-up of what the early reviews say.
{Four reviews follow that headline caption.}
May 14, 2007
Who Killed Kennedy? One Man’s Answer
By EDWARD WYATT
LOS ANGELES, May 13 — The prosecutor who put Charles Manson behind bars now wants to solve another crime — a really simple one, he insists. So simple that it takes only 1,612 pages to prove his case.
Vincent Bugliosi, whose prosecution of Charles Manson in 1970 led him to write one of the best-selling true-crime books of all time, “Helter Skelter,” has now turned his attention to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
And that is his full attention: 20 years of research, more than one million words, hundreds of interviews, thousands of documents and more than 10,000 citations. The result, “Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy” (W. W. Norton), is due out tomorrow. His conclusion: Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy, and acted alone.
Why would such a simple conclusion require so much argument?
“Because of the unceasing and fanatical obsession of thousands of researchers over the last 43 years, from around the world but mostly in the United States,” Mr. Bugliosi said in an interview at the cafe of the Sportsmen’s Lodge Hotel in Studio City, Calif. “Examining under a high-powered microscope every comma, every period, every detail on every conceivable issue, and making hundreds and hundreds of allegations, they have transformed this simple case into its present form.”
Mr. Bugliosi likes to tell a story illustrating why he believes this book is necessary. In 1992, less than a year after the debut of Oliver Stone’s conspiracy-minded film “J.F.K.,” Mr. Bugliosi was addressing a group of trial lawyers when a member of the audience asked him about the assassination.
Mr. Bugliosi asked for a show of hands of how many people did not accept the findings of the Warren Commission, which had investigated the assassination and concluded that Oswald was the killer. Close to 90 percent of the 600 lawyers raised their hands, he recalled. Then he asked how many had seen “J.F.K.” or read an account that argued in favor of a conspiracy; a similar number raised their hands. Finally, he asked how many had read the Warren Commission report. Only a smattering of hands went up.
- more -
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/14/books/14jfk.html
*****
May 20, 2007
Or No Conspiracy?
By BRYAN BURROUGH
RECLAIMING HISTORY
The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
By Vincent Bugliosi.
Illustrated. 1,612 pp. W. W. Norton & Company. $49.95.
I have no idea what book wears the crown of longest nonfiction title ever published. Whoever holds the record, it is about to be challenged by Vincent Bugliosi, whose new work, “Reclaiming History,” a cellular-level re-examination of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, clocks in at 1,612 pages. That’s not a typo. One thousand six hundred and twelve pages. Plus notes. On a CD-ROM. Bugliosi, best known as the prosecutor of Charles Manson and a co-author of the best seller “Helter Skelter” three decades ago, writes that his new offering, if chopped into books of 120,000 words each, would fill 13 full volumes. Note to editor: You owe me big time.
This is an awfully easy book to mock. When a 13-volume-length study of the Kennedy assassination is published, one expects it to be the life’s work of an Arthur Schlesinger or a Robert Caro. Bugliosi’s career suggests a poor man’s Alan Dershowitz, a peripatetic lawyer who cranks out a book every few years on the tabloid topic of the moment; his interests have run to tomes on O. J. Simpson and Paula Jones. None have exactly roiled the national conversation. Worse, his research originated with an imaginary trial of Lee Harvey Oswald on British television in the halcyon days of the 1980s. Bugliosi prosecuted. Judge Wapner should’ve presided. Gerry Spence mounted the defense, lost, then vented to Arsenio Hall. Or maybe it was Pat Sajak.
Not Bugliosi. He decided to start a book. Now, 21 years in the making, it has finally arrived. How on earth does one justify such an endeavor? Surely, you must be thinking, Bugliosi cracks the case. Here, finally, is concrete proof that Kennedy was killed by the C.I.A. or the Mafia or aliens from Planet Z. But no. It turns out Bugliosi spent 21 years coming to the same conclusion Gerald Posner reached in his 1993 book “Case Closed,” the same conclusion reached by the much-maligned Warren Commission: Oswald acted alone. Let me repeat: Twenty-one years. 1,612 pages. Oswald. Alone.
So this is where one expects the reviewer to savage Bugliosi for all those wasted years and pages. Well, I can’t do it. The fact is, the darned book is pretty good. Putting aside its ridiculous length, I have to say “Reclaiming History” is in spots a delight to read. Bugliosi is refreshing because he doesn’t just pick apart the conspiracy theorists. He ridicules them, and by name, writing that “most of them are as kooky as a $3 bill.” Bugliosi calls the dean of conspiracy buffs, Mark Lane, “unprincipled” and “a fraud.” He quotes Harold Weisberg, the author of eight conspiracy-themed books, admitting that after 35 years of research, “much as it looks like Oswald was some kind of agent for somebody, I have not found a shred of evidence to support it.”
What Bugliosi has done is a public service; these people should be ridiculed, even shunned. It’s time we marginalized Kennedy conspiracy theorists the way we’ve marginalized smokers; next time one of your co-workers starts in about Oswald and the C.I.A., make him stand in the rain with the other outcasts. “Reclaiming History,” though, is more than a critical analysis. Bugliosi knows how to construct a narrative, and his 316-page retelling of those “four days in November,” a book in itself, is as good a second-by-second reconstruction of the assassination and its aftermath as I’ve read.
- more-
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/books/review/Burrough-t.html
GONZALES: THE GLORIFIED HIT MAN
By Jayne Lyn Stahl
The Justice Department has rapidly morphed into a haven for "Jihad Joes".
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/52048/
Posted by: NonnyO at May 20, 2007 08:51 AM
@@@@@@@@@
It is looking like Gonzales will be very hard to get rid of. All the baloney about "Gonzales has to answer questions before Congress.... has to explain the firing of the U.S. attorneys" turns out to be empty rhetoric.
The Senate will have a vote of "no confidence" in the Attorney General either next week or the week after, but even if it passes - with strong Republican support - it is non-binding.
I had also heard that the fired attorneys are banding together and going to sue the Justice Department...
BTW: the firing list was longer than the 8 attorneys - Schumer said that there was as many as
26 names...
May 20, 2007
Conspiracy?
By ALAN BRINKLEY
BROTHERS
The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years.
By David Talbot.
Illustrated. 478 pp. Free Press. $28.
Within minutes of learning of President John F. Kennedy’s murder on Nov. 22, 1963, Robert F. Kennedy was working the phones, looking for answers to how his brother had died. “There’s so much bitterness,” he told a colleague that day. “I thought they would get one of us.” But who were “they”? Robert Kennedy gravitated immediately to a shadowy nexus of forces he believed were at odds with the policies of his brother’s administration. Was it the C.I.A.? he asked John McCone, the director of central intelligence. Was the assassination the work of anti-Castro Cubans? Was it the American Mafia? Or was it — since there were hidden but important connections among these groups — a combined effort by them all? Before he had ever heard the name Lee Harvey Oswald, Robert Kennedy was considering scenarios that would eventually become the foundation of the myriad conspiracy theories that have haunted the American imagination for more than 40 years; according to David Talbot, he continued to explore those scenarios until his own death in 1968, even while publicly denying his belief in a conspiracy.
Talbot, the founder and former editor of Salon, the online magazine, is the latest of many intelligent critics who have set out to demolish the tottering credibility of the Warren Commission and draw attention to evidence of a broad and terrible conspiracy that lay behind the assassination of John Kennedy — and perhaps the murder of Robert Kennedy as well. “Brothers” is a fearless, passionate, often angry book that both summarizes much of the vast conspiracy literature and attempts to add new evidence that Talbot himself amassed through dogged interviews with many people connected — directly or indirectly — with the Kennedy years.
But this is not just a book about assassination. It is also a story of how the Kennedy brothers tried to change the world. “There was a heroic grandeur to John F. Kennedy’s administration that had nothing to do with the mists of Camelot,” Talbot argues. “It was a presidency that clashed with its own times, and in the end found some measure of greatness.” Indeed, it was the courage and vision of Kennedy’s presidency — and the dangers it posed to many entrenched interests in and out of government — that Talbot believes was the reason for his death. Kennedy had angered the C.I.A. by refusing adequately to support the Bay of Pigs invasion and by considering a rapprochement with Communist Cuba. He had infuriated some of the hard-core anti-Castro émigrés for the same reason. He and his brother had antagonized the Mafia through the Justice Department’s relentless efforts to break its power. At the same time, the president had made bitter enemies of conservative Southerners because of his embrace of the civil rights movement; he had invited the contempt of the military by his cautious response to the Cuban missile crisis; and he had alarmed much of the intelligence, military and foreign policy establishments with his plan to end the Vietnam War. John Kennedy, in Talbot’s view, had challenged virtually all the premises that were at the heart of the cold war — that an unremitting conflict with Communism was inevitable as long as the Soviet Union survived; that compromise was tantamount to surrender; that domestic upheaval was a threat to the nation’s international interests; and that almost any means could be justified in the struggle with the nation’s many enemies. Kennedy had offered an alternative path, one that rejected reckless military action and sought to find common ground for peace, justice and conciliation. Little wonder, Talbot suggests, that so many potent forces were eager to see him dead.
- more -
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/books/review/Brinkley-t.html
This is why we need to take out 'profit' from the health insurance industry. And it's why any candidate who wants my vote will make sure this happens.
Read one of the best comments on DK that I've seen yet today.
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2007/5/20/9510/24104/59#c59
Jonathan Alter is holding a one-hour Live Talk, May 23, at noon, on the prospect of a second Clinton presidency. (""all the issues swirling around her campaign may be obscuring the real dynamic of her chances in the ensuing Democratic primary: Restoration vs. Inspiration. . .while many wonder if America is ready for its first female president, it might be better to ask if America is ready for its second Clinton.")
You can submit questions ahead of time at
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18759732/site/newsweek/
See his op-ed on this subject in May 28 issue of Newsweek or at
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18754301/site/newsweek/
I was sent this diary from http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/20/31456/0376 wherein Bush has signed into law something which contains the following passages, and the diarist is interpreting it to mean that possibly Bush could control all 3 branches of government were there to be a hurricane or terror attack or big economic crisis. He is wondering if there are any Constitutional law experts out there who can shed light. I took out the personal comments and left the excerpts - see the original diary or ask a lawyer? This abolishes Clinton's plan.
NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/NSPD 51
HOMELAND SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/HSPD-20
Subject: National Continuity Policy
Purpose
(1) This directive establishes a comprehensive national policy on the continuity of Federal Government structures and operations and a single National Continuity Coordinator responsible for coordinating the development and implementation of Federal continuity policies. This policy establishes "National Essential Functions," prescribes continuity requirements for all executive departments and agencies, and provides guidance for State, local, territorial, and tribal governments, and private sector organizations in order to ensure a comprehensive and integrated national continuity program that will enhance the credibility of our national security posture and enable a more rapid and effective response to and recovery from a national emergency.
(b) "Catastrophic Emergency" means any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions;
d) "Continuity of Operations," or "COOP," means an effort within individual executive departments and agencies to ensure that Primary Mission-Essential Functions continue to be performed during a wide range of emergencies, including localized acts of nature, accidents, and technological or attack-related emergencies; So, another Class-5 hurricane comes to town, and this time it's looking at Miami, and snarling. This directive will go into effect.
(e) "Enduring Constitutional Government," or "ECG," means a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government, coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches and with proper respect for the constitutional separation of powers among the branches, to preserve the constitutional framework under which the Nation is governed and the capability of all three branches of government to execute constitutional responsibilities and provide for orderly succession, appropriate transition of leadership, and interoperability and support of the National Essential Functions during a catastrophic emergency;
(g) Protecting and stabilizing the Nation's economy and ensuring public confidence in its financial systems;
(6) The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government. In order to advise and assist the President in that function, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism (APHS/CT) is hereby designated as the National Continuity Coordinator. The National Continuity Coordinator, in coordination with the Assistant to the President for National
(9) Recognizing that each branch of the Federal Government is responsible for its own continuity programs, an official designated by the Chief of Staff to the President shall ensure that the executive branch's COOP and COG policies in support of ECG efforts are appropriately coordinated with those of the legislative and judicial branches in order to ensure interoperability and allocate national assets efficiently to maintain a functioning Federal Government.
(22) Revocation. Presidential Decision Directive 67 of October 21, 1998 ("Enduring Constitutional Government and Continuity of Government Operations"), including all Annexes thereto, is hereby revoked.
(24) Security. This directive and the information contained herein shall be protected from unauthorized disclosure, provided that, except for Annex A, the Annexes attached to this directive are classified and shall be accorded appropriate handling, consistent with applicable Executive Orders.
Posted by: Ralpheh at May 20, 2007 10:02 AM
One of the people on that list (but not fired; he quit) was from MN. Both our senators are up in arms about it. However..., the slimy weasel neoCon Norm Coleman was on Almanac (in-state PBS show, has to do with MN stuff, MN politics, airs live every Fri.) and repeated the drivel that Clinton fired attorneys, etc. (I just rolled my eyes about the 'Clinton did it' mantra!), so he wasn't all that convincing. [Coleman's aged father was caught having sex with a woman in broad daylight in front of a family pizza parlor last year. The case was settled out of court with plea agreements and quietly swept under the rug of obscurity. I almost missed that last announcement. Never did find out who the woman was, if she was an acquaintance or a hooker. Coleman's mantra was 'family values' last time around.] In any case, like a story alluded to that I read a couple of days ago, the whole attorney thing was an attempt to get neoCons in power in districts so they could throw out any cases charging rigged election results. It could have paved the way for a "legal" majority of neoCons all the time to support the current or future dictatorshps. Stacking the courts would keep them in power.
They're all a bunch of crooks....
Garrison Keillor nails it in one paragraph...
The French have a new president, the British will soon have a new PM, and we envy them as we endure the endless wait for this small, dim man to go back to Texas and resume his life. His party is coming to see that it must figure out how to tell the truth about him if it is to compete in 2008, but so far nobody has stepped forward and wound up to throw the pie. Their clock is stuck in the fall of 2001. They are sleepwalking toward the precipice.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/17/1254
This is an excellent article about what really happened after WWII.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070520/ap_on_re_eu/the_holocaust_papers_after_the_war
Posted by: sparrow at May 20, 2007 11:30 AM
Our healthcare system is FUBAR.
I gave up buying group health insurance for my employer, because the available plans covered too little and cost too much.
It actually makes more sense to tell my employees to get themselves a savings account in case of a medical emergency, than to enroll them in a plan.
I really hate to see this, but unless the politicians wake up, my only solution for getting real healthcare will be to move overseas.
I do know that many immigrants choose to return to their home countries for medical treatments, because their home countries (even the Third World ones) offer better healthcare, for less, than the US.
Another reason why it's good to be in the majority...
Reid’s plan to block Bush’s recess appointments.
“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has a little trick up his sleeve that could spell an end to President Bush’s devilish recess appointments of controversial figures like former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton.” U.S. News reports:
We hear that over the long August vacation, when those types of summer hires are made, Reid will call the Senate into session just long enough to force the prez to send his nominees who need confirmation to the chamber. The talk is he will hold a quickie “pro forma” session every 10 days, tapping a local senator to run the hall. Senate workers and Republicans are miffed, but Reid is proving that he’s the new sheriff in town.
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/05/20/reids-plan-to-block-bushs-recess-appointments
Some GOP Notables to Miss Falwell Rites
U.S. Sen. John McCain isn't planning to attend the Rev. Jerry Falwell's funeral Tuesday. Rival Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani can't make it, either.
While some Republican figures will attend next week's funeral in Lynchburg for the founder of the Moral Majority, many will not. Experts say that even with a presidential election looming, it's not a must-attend event _ and there likely won't be political consequences for skipping it.
(snip)
Veteran GOP strategist Christopher J. LaCivita, architect of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth initiative against Democrat John Kerry in 2004, found the suggestion that religious conservatives would punish no-shows offensive.
"To assume that Christian conservative voters would hold it against any candidate for public office because they did not attend a respected leader like Jerry Falwell's funeral, that's just another attempt to portray Christian values voters as shallow," LaCivita said.
(snip)
President Bush does not plan to attend, but the White House is sending Tim Goeglein, a mid-level aide.
Even among Republicans without White House aims, there are commitments that can't be broken. U.S. Sen. John W. Warner has critical votes in Washington on Tuesday. Virginia House of Delegates Speaker Bill Howell can't attend.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/18/AR2007051801502.html
Speaking of the now departed Reverand Falwell, anybody catch Bill Maher's final new rule this week?
*****
And Finally....Death isn't always sad. (smirking) This week the reverend Jerry Falwell died and millions of Americans asked why? why God? Why didn't you take Pat Robertson with him? (laughing, clapping). I don't want to say that Jerry was disliked by the Gay community, but tonight in NYC at exactly 8 O'clock, Broadway theatres along the great white way for 2 minutes turned their lights up.
Now, I know that you're not supposed to speak ill of the dead but I think we can make an exception because speaking ill of the dead was kind of Jerry Falwell's hobby. He was the guy who said that AIDS was God's punishment for homosexuality and that 9/11 was brought on by pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays and the ACLU, or as I like to call them – my studio audience (wild clapping and screaming).
But I found it surreal this week watching people on the news praise Falwell, followed by a clip package of what he actually said. Things like homosexuals are part of a vile and satanic system that will be utterly anahiliated. If you're NOT a born again Christian you're a failure as a human being. Feminists just need a man around the house. There is no separation of church and state. And of course, everyone's favorite - the purple Teletubby is gay.
Jerry Falwell found out that you could launder your hate through the cover of God's will. He didn't hate gays. God does. All Jerry Falwell's power came from name dropping God. And gay people should steal that trick. You know what? Don't say you want something because it's your right as a human being. Say you want it because it's your religion. Gay men have been going at things backwards! (laughing)
Forget civil rights and just make gayness a religion - I mean - you're kneeling anyway! (laughter & clapping) And it's easy to start a religion - watch - I'll do it for you...I had a vision last night! A vision! The blessed Virgin Mary came to me... I don't how she got past the guards and she told me it's high time to take the high ground from the Seventh Day Adventists and give it to the 24 hour party people. And that what happens in the confessional, stays in the confessional.
Gay men, don't say that you're life partners! Say you're a nunnery of two. "We weren't having sex officer, I was performing a very private mass, here in my car, I was letting my rod and my staff comfort him." (wild laughing & clapping) Take this and eat of it, for this is my roommate Barry. And for all those who truly believe, there's a special place for you in Kevin.
And speaking of heaven, one can only hope that as Jerry Falwell now approaches the pearly gates, he's met there by God himself - wearing a fire island muscle shirt and nut hugger shorts and saying to Jerry in a mighty lisp "I'm not talking to you" (wild laughing & clapping).
It actually makes more sense to tell my employees to get themselves a savings account in case of a medical emergency, than to enroll them in a plan.
Posted by: Ally McRepuke at May 20, 2007 03:55 PM
Not true Ally.
One md appointment with very little done is going to be 100-200 dollars per visit. Then if you need tests, add that money on. Then if you have to have emergency care or you come up with a terrible disease, you're running into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Even with some healthcare and only paying half the costs can bankrupt a family.
If it were me, I'd get the group insurance and I'd be grateful to have it!
O/t FYI:
Jury Duty
Please pass this on to everyone in your email address book. It is spreading fast so be prepared should you get this call.
Most of us take the summons for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out on their civic duty, that a new and ominous kind of scam has surfaced. Fall for it and your identity could be stolen, reports CBS. In this con, someone calls pretending to be a court official who threateningly says a warrant has been issued for your arrest because you didn't show up for jury duty. The caller claims to be a jury coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Sometimes they even ask for credit card numbers. Give out any of this information and .... Bingo! Your identity has just been stolen. The scam has been reported so far in 11 states. This scam is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try to bully people into giving information by pr etending they're with the court system. The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their web sites, warning consumers about the fraud.
Pass this on.
I checked Snopes and this is for real. Here is the link if you want to check it out.
http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/juryduty.asp
ut who the woman was, if she was an acquaintance or a hooker. Coleman's mantra was 'family values' last time around.] In any case, like a story alluded to that I read a couple of days ago, the whole attorney thing was an attempt to get neoCons in power in districts so they could throw out any cases charging rigged election results. It could have paved the way for a "legal" majority of neoCons all the time to support the current or future dictatorshps. Stacking the courts would keep them in power.
They're all a bunch of crooks....
Posted by: NonnyO at May 20, 2007 02:21 PM
@@@@@@@@@
Well Gonzo ended up firing the US Attorney for Western Michigan - Chiara. Now I can only guess that perhaps the Bushies thought that if they had free range in the western side of Michigan - since this side of the state is Republican - that they could cause problems for the Dems. Or perhaps there was some corruption case that she was looking into etc.... Both of my Dem Senators Levin and Stabenow have been strangely quiet on the Chiara firing. I asked Levin's office last week if they would call for Gonzales's resignation and they said "no"...
What are they waiting for???
Posted by: Ralpheh at May 20, 2007 08:48 PM
Levin is fairly content not rocking the boat. Stabenow runs by tiptoeing around the left/right/ middle. I am not sure either has any true code. I think they are the ones who are considered corporatists. Though I have not really figured them out.
Michael Moore's new movie - it also got a nice review in Time magazine. This is going to be great! http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/20/news/cannes.php
Ralpheh
It said in some of the newspapers that Gonzalez might resign even before there is a vote of no confidence in the Senate. Hmmm.
Posted by: Cyrano at May 20, 2007 06:32 PM
Good one!
Posted by: sparrow at May 20, 2007 07:14 PM
You have a point there.
I pay Davis-Bacon prevailing wages for my employees. The wages include a stated cash value for fringe benefits, to be provided either in the form of benefits or as cash value payments.
My men (it's construction, so the workers are men) prefer cash payouts. I even pay them cash bonuses on top, but these people want hard, cold money all the way through. They will not be happy if I start paying less and providing benefits instead. (They've made it clear to me.)
At least the workers compensation will cover injuries caused on the job, so they are kind of covered, but it's definitely NOT the same thing as a medical insurance.
Posted by: non ma presidente at May 20, 2007 12:42 PM
I didn't see anything in what you posted that was particularly scary??
It's good, IMHO, to have COOP type plans whether you are government, private business, etc. - it basically ensures that even if your business is significantly disrupted - key personnel missing or killed, infrastructure damaged, etc., you will still be able to keep operating in the same manner. (Think Marsh & McLennan during/after 9-11.) That's where I didn't see what the issue was in what you posted - it seemed like the plan was to ensure that constitutional checks and balances of power would continue even in the face of a mass catastrophe that could potentially significantly disrupt or destroy parts of our government.
Maybe I didn't read enough of it?
V
Could be - that's why I didn't post all the comments of the Kos diarist but just the link. It seems to be that how a law is used and by whom is what it comes down to. There are things that under one leader might make us feel more secure and under another, more threatened.
This is off-topic but also wondering if anyone has seen the movie Babel, which takes place in Morocco, Mexico and Japan and certainly does not glorify violence, though it has some heaviness. Just saw it & complex, interesting, good cinematography & soundtrack. Brad Pitt didn't look too pretty either, but the Japanese guys did!
May 21, 2007
Gay Britons Serve in Military With Little Fuss, as Predicted Discord Does Not Occur
By SARAH LYALL
LONDON, May 20 — The officer, a squadron leader in the Royal Air Force, felt he had no choice. So he stood up in front of his squad of 30 to 40 people.
“I said, ‘Right, I’ve got something to tell you,’ ” he said. “ ‘I believe that for us to be able to work closely together and have faith in each other, we have to be honest and open and frank. And it has to be a two-way process, and it starts with me baring my soul. You may have heard some rumors, and yes, I have a long-term partner who is a he, not a she.’ ”
Far from causing problems, he said, he found that coming out to his troops actually increased the unit’s strength and cohesion. He had felt uneasy keeping the secret “that their boss was a poof,” as he put it, from people he worked with so closely.
Since the British military began allowing homosexuals to serve in the armed forces in 2000, none of its fears — about harassment, discord, blackmail, bullying or an erosion of unit cohesion or military effectiveness — have come to pass, according to the Ministry of Defense, current and former members of the services and academics specializing in the military. The biggest news about the policy, they say, is that there is no news. It has for the most part become a nonissue.
- more -
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/21/world/europe/21britain.html
Matthew, here in Australia, homosexuality in defence services has been a non issue since 1992. Homosexuality within the military didn't start then; it has always been there. Just as there has been a greater acknowledgement of this minority within our own social groupings, it probably took the military a little longer to *come-out*.
The laws that ensure *equality* for partners wasn't written as early as the law changed to allow gay and lesbian people into the military. A couple of years ago there was a major injustice being carried out by the government and exposed on our ABC tv. The law allows for the widow/widower to receive a pension when a returned service person dies. However, this law didn't did not include the same gender partner.
There is a transcript of the piece at this address. ....
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2005/s1497391.htm
Broadcast: 03/11/2005
Gay man fights for Defence pension
Reporter: Rebecca Baillie
KERRY O'BRIEN: Gay men and lesbians have served legally in the Australian Defence Force since 1992. But they are yet to enjoy the same entitlements as their heterosexual comrades. 13 years later, it seems change is on the horizon. A leaked Defence Department document states that from 1 December, all gay personnel currently serving in the forces will finally receive equal benefits including housing, travel and education assistance. However, it's a different story for these men and women once they retire. Rebecca Baillie reports on one gay man's battle for equality.
JIRO TAKAMISAWA: We fall in love at first sight. We had a very happy relationship. Spending time together was just wonderful.
REBECCA BAILLIE: For Jiro Takamisawa, those happy days are a distant memory. He's mourning the death of his partner of more than 20 years, John George.
May 20, 2007
Hard Knocks
The Right: Down, but Maybe Not Out
By SAM TANENHAUS
WITH the death on Tuesday of the Rev. Jerry Falwell, the Baptist minister and founder of the Moral Majority, and the announcement on Thursday that Paul D. Wolfowitz would resign from the presidency of the World Bank, two major figures in the modern conservative movement exited the political stage. To many, this is the latest evidence that the conservative movement, which has dominated politics during the last quarter century, is finished.
But conservatives have heard this before, and have yet to give in. Weeks after Barry Goldwater suffered a humiliating defeat in 1964 to Lyndon B. Johnson, his supporters organized the American Conservative Union to take on the Republican Party establishment. After failing to unseat Gerald Ford for the Republican nomination in 1976, Ronald Reagan positioned himself for the 1980 election. The conservatives dismayed by the election of Bill Clinton spent the next eight years attacking him at every opportunity. And after failing to win a conviction of Mr. Clinton following his impeachment, Republicans, far from retreating into caution or self-doubt, kept up the pressure and turned the 2000 election into a referendum on Mr. Clinton’s character.
What accounts for this resilience — or stubbornness?
- more -
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/weekinreview/20tanenhaus.html
7 U.S. soldiers killed in separate Iraq attacks
Monthly death toll hits 71 for American troops; Sunni VP opposes oil plan
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP)- Bombings killed seven U.S. soldiers in Baghdad and a southern city, the U.S. military said Sunday, and the country’s Sunni vice president spoke out against a proposed oil law, clouding the future of a key benchmark for assuring continued U.S. support for the government.
Six of the soldiers were killed Saturday in a bombing in western Baghdad, the military said in a statement. Their interpreter was also killed.
The other soldier died in a blast Saturday in Diwaniyah, a mostly Shiite city 80 miles south of the capital where radical Shiite militias operate. Two soldiers were wounded in that attack, the military said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18766832/
White House fires back at Jimmy Carter
39th president said Bush has done severe damage to U.S. reputation abroad
CRAWFORD, Texas - The White House on Sunday fired back at former President Jimmy Carter, calling him ”increasingly irrelevant” a day after Carter described President Bush’s presidency as the worst in history in international relations.
Carter, a Democrat, said on Saturday in an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that “as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history.”
White House spokesman Tony Fratto had declined to react on Saturday but on Sunday fired back.
“I think it’s sad that President Carter’s reckless personal criticism is out there,” Fratto told reporters. “I think it’s unfortunate. And I think he is proving to be increasingly irrelevant with these kinds of comments.”
Carter has been an outspoken critic of Bush, but the White House has largely refrained from attacking him in return. Sunday’s sharp response marks a departure from the deference that sitting presidents traditionally have shown their predecessors.
In the newspaper interview, Carter said Bush had taken a ”radical departure from all previous administration policies” with the Iraq war.
“We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened, if we want to change the regime there or if we fear that some time in the future our security might be endangered,” Carter said.
more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18759682/
Scuse me, but how do these comments make Carter "irrelevant"???
Scuse me, but how do these comments make Carter "irrelevant"???
Posted by: monkey at May 21, 2007 07:04 AM
Carter may not have been appreciated while he was President, but that has long since changed. He is greatly appreciated for his international work and his peace work and his humanitarian outreach.
Though I know hardcore Republicans will still call him the "Peanut President" most mainstream people just say "He was a lousy President but he's done great work..."
Sadly for Bush, he has overtaken Carter on the "Worst President Ever" title, so Carter's presidency doesn't look quite so lame.
Irrelevance is clearly in the eyes of the beholder. And to Bush and his supporters, it's not only Carter who is irrelevant. It's the Constitution, Congress, "We the People", and the environment.
Ralpheh
It said in some of the newspapers that Gonzalez might resign even before there is a vote of no confidence in the Senate. Hmmm.
Posted by: non ma presidente at May 20, 2007 09:56 PM
@@@@@@@@
I don't know about this. Gonzales did as bad or worse in his second appearance before Senate - and that was supposed to be make or break for Gonzo. And he did not better in the House. Bush is still backing him, apparently.
Monica Goodling is set to testify with a grant of immunity. I assume that yet more damaging information will come out then. Gonzo is Bush's trusted, loyal, personal Attorney. BTW, that reminds me that Harriet Miers will be called to testify too....
This kind of stupid, reckless and illegal behavior from the Bushies pushes me into the impeachment camp...
Carter said something that is impossible to dispute, at least among those living outside of the bubble of intellectual dishonesty that constitutes the neo-conservative and conservative Christian movements.
Mr. President, just resign. Just go. Do it now.
Who's Afraid of Jimmy Carter? George Bush
John Nichols @ The Nation
How touchy is the Bush administration about criticism?
Very touchy, indeed, especially if the source of that criticism is a certain former president.
When Jimmy Carter, whose approval ratings dwarf those of George Bush these days, gets to talking about what's wrong with the current president the White House spin machine goes into overdrive.
--snip--
What is fascinating is that the White House is claiming that Carter is "increasingly irrelevant" by going out of its way to attack him on one of the current president's many days of rest.
It seems that, if Carter really was as "irrelevant" as the Bush White House would have us believe, the president's aides would not be attacking the former president in such immediate and aggressive terms.
The truth is that Carter is relevant, perhaps more so now than ever. Even as Bush's fortunes decline, the need of dissenting voices is great. And Carter's dissents go to the very heart of the darkness that this administration has brought down upon the United States. For a body politic sorely in need of the tonic of truth, Jimmy Carter's comments are not just relevant, they are an essential to the renewal of a country and a planet badly battered by the madness of a 21st-century King George.
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=197253
May 21, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
Death by Veganism
By NINA PLANCK
WHEN Crown Shakur died of starvation, he was 6 weeks old and weighed 3.5 pounds. His vegan parents, who fed him mainly soy milk and apple juice, were convicted in Atlanta recently of murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty.
This particular calamity — at least the third such conviction of vegan parents in four years — may be largely due to ignorance. But it should prompt frank discussion about nutrition.
I was once a vegan. But well before I became pregnant, I concluded that a vegan pregnancy was irresponsible. You cannot create and nourish a robust baby merely on foods from plants.
Indigenous cuisines offer clues about what humans, naturally omnivorous, need to survive, reproduce and grow: traditional vegetarian diets, as in India, invariably include dairy and eggs for complete protein, essential fats and vitamins. There are no vegan societies for a simple reason: a vegan diet is not adequate in the long run.
Protein deficiency is one danger of a vegan diet for babies. Nutritionists used to speak of proteins as “first class” (from meat, fish, eggs and milk) and “second class” (from plants), but today this is considered denigrating to vegetarians.
The fact remains, though, that humans prefer animal proteins and fats to cereals and tubers, because they contain all the essential amino acids needed for life in the right ratio. This is not true of plant proteins, which are inferior in quantity and quality — even soy.
- more -
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/21/opinion/21planck.html
Brown to pull troops out of Iraq
GORDON Brown will remove all British forces from Iraq before the next election under a plan to rebuild support among disillusioned Labour voters.
Scotland on Sunday can reveal the Prime Minister elect is working on a withdrawal plan that could see troop numbers slashed from 7,000 to as few as 2,000 within 12 months.
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=782222007
PALM BEACH GARDENS, Florida (AP) -- The fairways here are flecked, the greens mottled brown. The PGA National Resort & Spa doesn't look like a marquee golf course.
"We'll talk to people about it in the pro shop when they check in and say, 'You might notice things are a little bit browner today,"' said Joel Paige, managing director at the course.
Florida's bottom half is in an 18-month drought, and signs of the problem are everywhere -- from the links to the nursery and sugar cane industries.
Lake Okeechobee, the region's primary reservoir, is down to 9.3 feet above sea level -- less than half a foot above its record low. Farmers and the area's 600 golf courses must use 45 percent less water in the hardest-hit areas, and home sprinklers are restricted to once a week.
Officials are comparing the drought to another in 2001 that caused an estimated $400 million in agricultural losses.
"We can honestly say this is one of the most severe droughts that we have dating back to when records started in the early 1900s," said Randy Smith, spokesman for the South Florida Water Management District.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WEATHER/05/21/fla.drought.ap/index.html
Hey Pat Robertson, any speculation on what South Florida did to piss God off?
Chad has a theory...
Carter says comments were ‘careless’
39th president had blasted Bush administration as ‘worst in history’
Former President Jimmy Carter on Monday said his comments over the weekend about the Bush administration were “careless.”
Carter was quoted Saturday as saying “I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history.”
The Georgia Democrat said Bush had overseen an “overt reversal of America’s basic values” as expressed by previous administrations, including that of his own father, former President George H.W. Bush.
Interviewed on the TODAY Show about the comments, Carter said, "They were maybe careless or misinterpreted." He said he “certainly was not talking personally about any president.”
When pressed by NBC’s Meredith Vieira as to whether he was saying his remarks were careless or reckless, the former president said, “I think they were, yes, because they were interpreted as comparing this whole administration to all other administrations."
Carter said he was answering a question about the foreign policy of former President Richard Nixon, as compared with that of the current administration. He said he wasn't comparing the Bush administration with all those through American history. But in comparison to Nixon's, the Bush administration's foreign policy "was much worse," Carter said.
more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18759682/
Now he's irrelevant.
Now he's irrelevant.
Posted by: monkey at May 21, 2007 10:18 AM
You bet. Regardless of whether Carter consciously intended to condemn the Bush Administration, by backing away from his statement, he makes himself look foolish. Our Emperor is standing as naked as a jay-bird, and is stark raving mad to boot. It’s not a sin to point that out, even if you once sat behind the big desk in the oval office.
I love Carter.
True dat, Matt.
Carter already let the cat out of the bag. US press may be forced to repeat that he is "irrelevant" and backed out some but check out some of the foreign headlines. The rebuttal is for domestic consumption. The original comments resonate on. No former US president is "irrelevant," especially for history and for the world outside the arrogant US of A.
http://news.google.com/nwshp?tab=wn&ncl=1116513838&hl=en
Look! US is blaming Taleban for Afghan civilian casualties and the head of NATO is having an overnight at the Crawford Ranch. This is same Prez that tried to send his homey with no relevant experience (the Swift Boat donor) to be a Belgian Ambassador and the NATO head is Belgian! Oh to be a mouse in the corner.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/20/AR2007052000853.html
sleepover diplomacy link
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-bush21may21,1,710887.story?coll=la-headlines-nation