Bohemian Mama

[Kelli] ARENA: Neither John Kerry nor the president has said troops pulled out of Iraq any time soon. But there is some speculation that al Qaeda believes it has a better chance of winning in Iraq if John Kerry is in the White House.

BEN VENZKE, INTELCENTER: Al Qaeda feels that Bush is, even despite casualties, right or wrong for staying there is going to stay much longer than possibly what they might hope a Democratic administration would.

You can communicate your thoughts to Ms. Arena personally at: kelli.arena@turner.com
You can now send your emails to Eason Jordan at Eason.Jordan@turner.com. He's CNN's chief news executive.

This isn't 2000. We're not going to take this shit lying down.

Dear Kelli,
Just to let you know, there has been a lot of speculation here at Justice that the earth's core will explode if John Kerry wins. Also, intelligence indicates that an alien race of flying-super goats will take over the Earth if Kerry wins.

Please keep this off the record, but feel free to parrot it without exercising even a modicum of critical thinking.

So this is my message to the terrorists. As commander in chief, I will bring the full force of our nation's power to bear on finding and crushing your networks. We'll use every resource of our power to destroy you.

With FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III by his side, Ashcroft said at a news conference two days ago that "credible intelligence, from multiple sources, indicates that al Qaeda plans to attempt an attack on the United States in the next few months. . . . This disturbing intelligence indicates al Qaeda's specific intention is to hit the U.S. hard." He added that the information has been "corroborated on a variety of levels."

Under the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and Bush administration rules, only the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) can publicly issue threat warnings, and they must be approved in a complex interagency process involving the White House. Administration officials sympathetic to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said he was not informed Ashcroft was going to characterize the threat in that way -- an assertion that Justice officials deny.

[...]

"Dissemination by our government of sensitive terrorism warnings must be closely coordinated across our intelligence and law enforcement communities," Cox said. "In the Homeland Security Act, DHS was assigned the central coordinating role in this process. The absence of Secretary Ridge from yesterday's news conference held by the attorney general and the FBI director, and the conflicting public messages their separate public appearances delivered to the nation, suggests that the broad and close interagency consultation we expect, and which the law requires, did not take place in this case.

"The American public, state and local law enforcement, governors and mayors, and private sector officials with responsibility for critical infrastructure all deserve crystal clarity when it comes to terrorism threat advisories," Cox said.

HANNITY: Should -- why would Al Gore associate with a group that is that left wing and that radical? What if he spoke before the Klan? Would that -- would we not hold him in judgment for that?

At a well-appointed conservative think tank in downtown Washington and across the Potomac River at the Pentagon, FBI agents have begun paying quiet calls on prominent neoconservatives, who are being interviewed in an investigation of potential espionage, according to intelligence sources. Who gave Ahmed Chalabi classified information about the plans of the U.S. government and military?

The Iraqi neocon favorite, tipped to lead his liberated country post-invasion, has been identified by the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency as an Iranian double agent, passing secrets to that citadel of the "axis of evil" for decades. All the while the neocons cosseted, promoted and arranged for more than $30 million in Pentagon payments to the George Washington manqué of Iraq. In return, he fed them a steady diet of disinformation, and in the run-up to the war he sent various exiles to nine nations' intelligence agencies to spread falsehoods about weapons of mass destruction. If the administration had wanted other material to provide a rationale for invasion, no doubt that would have been fabricated. Either Chalabi perpetrated the greatest con since the Trojan horse or he was the agent of influence for the most successful intelligence operation conducted by Iran, or both.

[...]

The fallout from the Chalabi affair has also implicated the nation's newspaper of record, the New York Times, which published on Wednesday an apology for running numerous stories containing disinformation that emanated from Chalabi and those in the Bush administration funneling his fabrications. The Washington Post, which published editorials and several columnists trumpeting Chalabi's talking points, has yet to acknowledge the extent to which it was deceived.

Washington, which was just weeks ago in the grip of neoconservative orthodoxy and absolute belief in Bush's inevitability and righteousness, is now in the throes of agonizing events and being ripped apart by investigations. Things fall apart; all that was hidden is revealed; all sacred exposed as profane: the military, loyal and lumbering, betrayed and embittered; the general in the field, Lt. Gen. Sanchez, disgraced and cashiered; and the most respected retired generals training their artillery on those who have ill-used the troops, still dying in the field; the intelligence agencies, a nautilus of chambers, abused and angry, its retired operatives plying their craft with the press corps, seeping dangerous truths; the press, hesitatingly and wobbly, investigating its own falsehoods; the neocons, publicly redoubling their passionate intensity, defending their hero and deceiver Chalabi, privately squabbling, anxiously awaiting the footsteps of FBI agents; Colin Powell, once the most acclaimed man in America, embarked on an endless quest to restore his reputation, damaged above all by his failure of nerve; everyone in the line of fire motioning toward the chain of command, spiraling upward and sideways, until the finger pointing in a phalanx is directed at the hollow crown. (mama's emphasis)

One might have hoped that American journalists would have been at least as skeptical as the State Department before they burned their reputations on Chalabi's pyre of lies. But even the most seasoned of correspondents and the most august of publications, including the Times and the Washington Post, appear to have been as deftly used by Chalabi as were the CIA, the Department of Defense and the Bush administration.

The 2-1 ruling by a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel found that U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft had exceeded his authority when he declared in late 2001 that assisted suicide was not a legitimate medical practice.

"The attorney general's unilateral attempt to regulate general medical practices historically entrusted to state lawmakers interferes with the democratic debate about physician-assisted suicide and far exceeds the scope of his authority under federal law," wrote Judge Richard Tallman, a former federal prosecutor.

"To be perfectly clear, we take no position on the merits or morality of physician-assisted suicide," Tallman wrote for the majority. "This case is simply about who gets to decide."

[...]

It "clearly sends the message to . . . Ashcroft: Keep your hands off Oregon and Oregonians," said George Eighmey, executive director of Compassion in Dying of Oregon. His group advised 33 of the 42 patients who died by assisted suicide last year.

Kevin Neely, a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Justice, said, "Today's decision reinforces that states do, in fact, have the exclusive authority to establish their medical practices and, absent any intervention by Congress, the federal government should not and cannot tell states how to practice medicine."

"I am an American Muslim," he said. "I have been singled out and discriminated against, I feel, as a Muslim."

"That is true but we'll never admit it not true," said U.S. Attorney Karin Immergut in a brief news conference. She said Mayfield's detention was justified by national security and the need to investigate further.

[...]

The government portrayed Mayfield as a potential terrorist because of his associations, Wax said.

"They were pointing to one or two instances where Mr. Mayfield knew somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody who was on an undisclosable terror watch list," Wax said. "Part of our concern is how guilt by association could ensnare a completely innocent person."

At times, journalism has risen to great occasions and even made other freedoms possible. From editors who went defiantly to prison after being charged under the sedition act for circulating opinions that questioned the motives of Congress, or 'criminating' (whatever that meant) the president, to the willingness of Arthur Sulzberger and Katherine Graham to risk criminal prosecution under espionage laws if they printed the Pentagon Papers; from Lincoln Steffens and Ida Tarbell and Upton Sinclair taking on the shame of the cities, the crimes of the trusts, and the treason of the senate, to Walter Cronkite devoting an entire broadcast to Watergate; from Seymour Hersh reporting on torture to 60 Minutes II broadcasting the horror of Abu Ghraib, the greatest moments in journalism have come not when journalists made common cause with power, but when they stood fearlessly independent of it.

[...]

So, why, when we pause to celebrate it, as we are tonight, why despite plenty of lip service on every ritual occasion to freedom of the press—why are we so uneasy, so uncertain, so anxious for our craft?

Partly it's because of the secrecy. The secrecy today is so thick as to be all but impenetrable. In earlier times there were padlocks for the presses and jail cells for outspoken editors and writers as our governing bodies tried to squelch journalistic freedom with blunt instruments of the law. Now, the classifier's 'top secret' stamp, used indiscriminately, is as potent a silencer as a writ of arrest. It's so bad the president and CEO of the Associated Press, Tom Curley, last week called publicly for a media advocacy center to lobby in Washington for an open government. "You don't need to have your notebook snatched by a policeman," he said, "to know that keeping an eye on government has lately gotten a lot harder."

[...]

It's not just government that's squeezing out this news. Some of the media giants are doing it themselves. As they consolidate ownership they are shrinking their news holes, isolating public affairs far from prime-time. A study by Mark Cooper of the Consumer Federation of America reports that nearly two-thirds of today's newspaper markets are monopolies. Take a look at a recent book called Leaving Readers Behind: The Age of Corporate Newspapering, published as part of the project on the state of the American newspaper under the auspices of the Pew Charitable Trusts and the leadership of Gene Roberts, the former managing editor of The New York Times . The report describes "a furious unprecedented blitz of buying, selling, and consolidating of newspapers from the mightiest daily to the humblest weeklies."

A world where "small hometown dailies are being bought and sold like hog futures, where chains now devour other chains whole, where they are effectively ceding whole regions of the country to one another, further minimizing competition. Where money is pouring into the business from interests with little knowledge and even less concern about the special obligations newspapers have to democracy."

[...]

Meanwhile, as secrecy grows, and media conglomerates put more and more power in fewer and fewer hands, we have witnessed the rise of a new phenomenon—a quasi-official partisan press ideologically linked to an authoritarian administration that is in turn the ally and agent of powerful financial and economic interests that consider transparencies a threat to their hegemony over public opinion. This convergence dominates the marketplace of political ideas in a phenomenon unique in our history. Stretching from the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal to Rupert Murdoch's empire to the nattering nabobs of know-nothing radio to a legion of think tanks bought and paid for by corporations circling the honey pots of government, a vast echo chamber resounds with a conformity of opinions, serving a partisan worldview cannot be proven wrong because it admits no evidence to the contrary. When you challenge them with evidence to the contrary—when you try to hold their propaganda to scrutiny—you're likely to wind up in the modern equivalent of a medieval iron maiden, between the covers, that is, of an Ann Coulter tirade, or wake up in an underground cell at FOX News, force fed leftovers from a Roger Ailes snack, and required for 24 hours a day to stare at photographs of Rupert Murdoch on the walls of the cell while listening to a piped-in Bill O'Reilly singing the Hallelujah Chorus in praise of himself.

[...]

And one last thing. The character in Tom Stoppard's play Night And Day summed it up when he said: "people do terrible things to each other, but it's worse in places where everything is kept in the dark."

“There has been poor strategic thinking in this,” says Zinni. “There has been poor operational planning and execution on the ground. And to think that we are going to ‘stay the course,’ the course is headed over Niagara Falls. I think it's time to change course a little bit, or at least hold somebody responsible for putting you on this course. Because it's been a failure.”

[...]

Zinni says he blames the Pentagon for what happened. “I blame the civilian leadership of the Pentagon directly. Because if they were given the responsibility, and if this was their war, and by everything that I understand, they promoted it and pushed it - certain elements in there certainly - even to the point of creating their own intelligence to match their needs, then they should bear the responsibility,” he says.

“But regardless of whose responsibility I think it is, somebody has screwed up. And at this level and at this stage, it should be evident to everybody that they've screwed up. And whose heads are rolling on this? That's what bothers me most.”

“Iraq is sitting atop a volcano,” says a school teacher in Haditha. “The Americans are aggravating people here, trying to get a reaction. Everyone in this province is against them now!”

Most Iraqis I speak with nowadays are seething with rage towards the occupiers of their country. With their mosques being raided, damaged or destroyed on what has become a nearly daily basis, they have had enough.

Then, as if the unremitting stream of horrendous photographs documenting the widespread torturing of Iraqis within Abu Ghraib prison (among other detention facilities throughout Iraq) are not enough, the recent wedding party massacre has brought the fury to an entirely new level.

The continuing cultural insensitivity and unwillingness to take responsibility for the slaughter by the U.S. military is not helping ebb the rage felt by Iraqis about the incident.

While Arabic media has shown footage of the mangled bodies of the 25 women and children killed by U.S. helicopters, Marine General James Mattis in Fallujah responded:

"Ten miles from Syrian border and 80 miles from nearest city and a wedding party? Don't be naïve. Plus they had 30 males of military age with them. How many people go to the middle of the desert to have a wedding party?"

1. AFTER the 9/11 attacks, why was the only plane to fly out of the US carrying 24 members of Osama bin Laden's family?

2. ARE the media covering up abuse of Iraqi prisoners and the disillusionment of American troops?

3. ARE you deliberately creating a culture of fear to get poor American youth to fight your war?

4. HOW deep does the connection between the Bush family and bin Laden family actually run?

5. JUST how sinister was the White House's doctoring of your military record?

6. DID you miss an opportunity to nail bin Laden during secret talks with the Taliban?

7. WHY does the Bush family have a "special relationship" with the Saudi royal family?

8. WERE you spending too much time on holiday to concentrate on terrorism?

9. DID you panic when you were told about the attack on the twin towers?

10. DID you manipulate the major US media companies to fix his 2000 election win?

"I believe we are absolutely on the brink of failure. We are looking into the abyss," General Joseph Hoar, a former commander in chief of US central command, told the Senate foreign relations committee.

[...]

Larry Diamond, an analyst at the conservative Hoover Institution, said: "I think it's clear that the United States now faces a perilous situation in Iraq.

"We have failed to come anywhere near meeting the post-war expectations of Iraqis for security and post-war reconstruction.

"There is only one word for a situation in which you cannot win and you cannot withdraw - quagmire."

[...]

"Anyway you look at this, outside the most extreme optimistic assessments, we end up weaker," a senior Republican international strategist said.

The bloody attacks began on 13th May in retaliation for the death of 7 Israeli soldiers when they were blown up in their tank near the Egypt - Rafah border by the Palestinian resistance. They were on their way to demolish civilian homes in the Yebnah refugee camp adjacent to the border, home to over 30,000 refugees. Since September 2000, the IDF has been carrying out a campaign of home demolitions against seven residential neighbourhoods, which lie along the borderline, known as the “Philadelphia Road”. This policy has been justified with claims of fighting “terrorists” who are alleged to use the neighbourhoods as hideouts. The IDF is constructing a giant metal wall along the border and aim to create a 300 metre wide “buffer zone” for the wall by clearing rows of homes. According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, the IDF has demolished 1867 Palestinian homes in Rafah making over 16,497 Palestinian homeless and has killed over 350 Palestinians – with 67 children among the dead.

An IDF Apache helicopter gunship fired 3 missiles at a peaceful Palestinian demonstration in Rafah in solidarity with the besieged civilians in Tel-Sultan neighborhood killing 15 people- with 10 children were among the dead - and injuring over 50 others. Still the death toll is increasing. The air missile attack occurred at Alawda square in the center of Rafah where thousands of Palestinians gathered peacefully to start a big demonstration around the town to condemn the IDF continuing crimes against humanity and the International community silence about what is happening in Tel-sultan area in the north of Rafah since two days. I phoned friends and my family in Rafah and they said they heard huge explosions in the city center followed by people screaming and ambulance sirens everywhere in the streets of Rafah.

[...]

The number of dead in Rafah has increased now to 53 Palestinians since the begining of the IDF operation Rainbow in Rafah.

AUSTIN - Unitarian Universalists have for decades presided over births, marriages and memorials. The church operates in every state, with more than 5,000 members in Texas alone.

But according to the office of Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, a Denison Unitarian church isn't really a religious organization -- at least for tax purposes. Its reasoning: the organization "does not have one system of belief."

Never before -- not in this state or any other -- has a government agency denied Unitarians tax-exempt status because of the group's religious philosophy, church officials say. Strayhorn's ruling clearly infringes upon religious liberties, said Dan Althoff, board president for the Denison congregation that was rejected for tax exemption by the comptroller's office.

"I was surprised -- surprised and shocked -- because the Unitarian church in the United States has a very long history," said Althoff, who notes that father-and-son presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams were both Unitarians.

creating a welcoming community of diverse individuals; to promote love, reason, and freedom in religion; to foster lifelong spiritual growth; and to act for social justice

If the government is going to decide that religous organizations are tax-exempt then they shouldn't exclude religions that are clearly "real religions" just because they don't fit into a theistic paradigm.

But the issue isn't just about a tax-exemption. The reason, I believe, that its a liberty issue is because once the government has the power to define whether your belief is "religion" then it has the power to exclude that belief from certain constitutional protections.

Thousands of recent U.S. Army veterans nationwide were told to choose by Monday a new assignment in the Army Reserve or National Guard -- meaning a potential return to active duty -- or the military would decide for them. The Army now says the order was a mistake.

[...]

The consequence of the error appears to be a sharp increase in enlistments in Oregon and elsewhere by reservists who feared being assigned a unit without their consent. They face possible deployment to the Middle East.

Army Reserve officials said the order issued in early May prompted a flood of calls from confused veterans, who are among the estimated 118,000 reservists on inactive status. The Pentagon is not yet forcing re-enlistments but is "screening" inactive reservists for possible call-up, a spokeswoman said.

[...]

Lt. Gen. James R. Helmly, commander of the Army Reserve, declined comment on how the mistake was made, a spokesman said. How the mistaken order was issued is a mystery, said Steve Stromvall, the civilian public affairs director for the U.S. Army Reserve Command in Atlanta.

"God only knows at this point where the miscommunication started," he said.

What is happening, said Collins, is that the Army Reserve has been screening soldiers to determine how many can be assigned to active units.

Potter, who limited his donations to $25 apiece and collected about $63,000, upset conventional political wisdom that equates success with fund raising by getting roughly 41 percent of the vote. Francesconi, who raised more than Potter and the other 21 candidates combined, came in second with about 37 percent.

"Kerry Takes Communion on Mother's Day" was the headline on a recent AP story about John Kerry's Sunday doings, followed by the lede: "Democrat John Kerry attended Mother's Day Mass on Sunday and took communion although some Roman Catholic leaders say he should not receive it because his abortion-rights stance violates church teachings."

Missing once again was the accompanying story that begins, "Republicans George Pataki and Tom Ridge attended Mother's Day Mass on Sunday and took communion although some Roman Catholic leaders say pro-choice politicians should not receive it because their stance violates church teachings."

Also no word on whether George W. Bush attended church over the weekend.

The bishop of Colorado's second-largest Roman Catholic diocese has issued a pastoral letter saying Catholics cannot receive Communion if they vote for politicians who support abortion rights, stem-cell research, euthanasia or gay marriage.

Powell's statement suggests Bush may have known earlier than the White House has acknowledged about complaints raised by the International Committee of the Red Cross and human rights groups regarding abuse of detainees in Iraq.

"We kept the president informed of the concerns that were raised by the ICRC and other international organizations as part of my regular briefings of the president, and advised him that we had to follow these issues, and when we got notes sent to us or reports sent to us ... we had to respond to them, and the president certainly made it clear that that's what he expected us to do," Powell said.