Category: Shadow Media Editorial

Okay. I resist making a lot of predictions, or presenting a lot of theories that I can't tie back directly to an article in a mainstream news source.

You should notice that the majority of the articles I post come from established news organizations. I believe this makes it harder to dismiss the stories, though the wing-nuttiest can always find a reason to dispute the facts. This blog is not aimed at them. It's aimed at the moderates of both parties, the libertarians, the independents.

However, I'm going to make a prediction here and now that will put me squarely in the "wild-eyed leftist" camp to some. If I'm right I'll have called it early. If I'm wrong, well you can just say that I was off on a "crazy liberal conspiracy theory" and I'll have a little egg on my face.

Here it is: Bush and Cheney will not cede the White House, regardless of the outcome of the 2008 election.

There I said it. They will take military action in Iran as the election approaches and use that, as well as "reports of credible evidence of an impending attack" by whoever they're calling "Al Qaida" that week, as the pretext to declare martial law. They will do this in the guise of wise and benevolent protectors of the nation, assuring that it is "just until the crisis is over", but they will not give up power.

They will at last have their "Unitary Executive", their Imperial Presidency.

Am I crazy? Could be. I'd love to be wrong, but if I had told you 10 years ago that we would go to Iraq with no credible evidence, that we'd be caught torturing Iraqi's at Abu Ghraib, that we'd be holding people without charge in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, suspending Habeas Corpus, the Vice President claiming he is not subject to the laws governing the Executive Branch, the failure of Hurricane Katrina, and on and on...you would have said I was crazy then too.

Consider first the story below from the Guardian Unlimited, and the several other stories I have linked to after it. At a minimum, we are going to war with Iran. What happens after that? Well, you have my "wild-eyed leftist" prediction.

Do I really believe this? I'm not sure that I do. On the other hand, I don't think you can rule it out.

The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform reports that Dick Cheney is refusing to turn over documents related to the NSA Investigation  claiming that his office is not a member of the Executive Branch:

Vice President Exempts His Office from the Requirements for Protecting Classified Information

Washington, D.C. — The Oversight Committee has learned that over the objections of the National Archives, Vice President Cheney exempted his office from the presidential order that establishes government-wide procedures for safeguarding classified national security information. The Vice President asserts that his office is not an “entity within the executive branch.”

As described in a letter from Chairman Waxman to the Vice President, the National Archives protested the Vice President’s position in letters written in June 2006 and August 2006. When these letters were ignored, the National Archives wrote to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in January 2007 to seek a resolution of the impasse. The Vice President’s staff responded by seeking to abolish the agency within the Archives that is responsible for implementing the President’s executive order.

In his letter to the Vice President, Chairman Waxman writes: “I question both the legality and wisdom of your actions. … [I]t would appear particularly irresponsible to give an office with your history of security breaches an exemption from the safeguards that apply to all other executive branch officials.”

Yet recently, in a dispute over records from the Vice Presidents' Office Cheney claimed that the entry and exit logs were subject to the Presidential Records Act and therefore not subject to release under the Freedom of Information Act.

The Sept. 13, 2006, letter from Cheney's lawyer says logs for Cheney's residence on the grounds of the Naval Observatory are subject to the Presidential Records Act. Such a designation prevents the public from learning who visited the vice president.

[...]

The newly disclosed letter about visitors to Cheney's residence is accompanied by an 18-page Secret Service document revealing the agency's long-standing practice has been to destroy printed daily access lists of visitors to the residence.

[...]

The letter regarding the vice president's residence was in addition to an agreement quietly signed between the White House and the Secret Service a year ago when questions were raised about visits to the executive compound by convicted influence peddler Jack Abramoff.

That agreement, which didn't surface publicly until late last year, said White House entry and exit logs were presidential records not subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

So while Cheney has at least twice used the Executive Office to shield his records, once at least in writing by his legal counsel, he does so citing the very act that requires him to submit to inspections by the National Archives.

How about you make up your mind there, Dick?. Either way, you are breaking the law.

I'm with Kucinich: Impeach Dick Cheney. No man is above the law.

Ok, so in addition to this site I have several other sites and pet projects, not least of which is an OCD driven hobby of creating endless music playlists about this or that topic, songs with women's names, etc. As a result, I've been wanting to put some of these on the web, not just on this site, but on several sites where appropriate. As part of this, I wanted to provide an Artist-Title track listing with links to iTunes to download the songs, or Amazon to buy the albums. You get the idea. A little bit of income to help support this site and the effort in general.

The following is my rejection letter from iTunes through the LinkShare.com affiliate program, and my subsequent response submitted here for your reading pleasure. I think you will be able to see from my response, I am what's called a "people-person".

First their letter:

Dear Sir:

We regret to inform you that iTunes has chosen not to accept your application for the iTunes Affiliate Program at this time. This may be because:

-- The content is unrelated to iTunes

-- Your site is temporarily down or under construction ¿-please make sure to apply again after 2 weeks.

-- A wrong or misspelled URL given in the application. Please correct the problem and apply again.

-- Your site is aesthetically unpleasing

-- Your site promotes tobacco, alcoholic beverages or excessive drinking/drug use

-- Your site contains extreme religious content

-- Your site is international (with a majority of visitors based OUTSIDE the US. or written in a foreign language)

If any of the above problematic criteria can be resolved, we look forward to your reapplication.

If you plan to reapply in the next two weeks, you must do so at the following link because of restrictions by the LinkShare network. Please reapply and we will gladly reconsider.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email us at itunesaffiliates@apple.com or contact@linkshare.com.

Thank you for your interest in the iTunes Affiliate Program.

Best Regards,

iTunes Affiliate Team

(My response below the fold)

I, for one, will not vote for anyone who supported this bill.

From The New York Times: On War Funds, Democrats Saw No Option but to Cede Ground to Bush

Democrats said they did not relish the prospect of leaving Washington for a Memorial Day break — the second recess since the financing fight began — and leaving themselves vulnerable to White House attacks that they were again on vacation while the troops were wanting. That criticism seemed more politically threatening to them than the anger Democrats knew they would draw from the left by bowing to Mr. Bush.

Some lawmakers favored sending Mr. Bush another bill with a timetable for withdrawal and risking a second veto, the senior Democrats said. But they said they had questioned whether such a measure could pass the Senate a second time, raising the possibility that Congress would be left sitting on the bill and carrying the blame.

Perhaps then, Democrats should not have gone on vacation but kept congress open in special session ready to work on a new bill after the President vetoed the bill you sent, with binding timetables and benchmarks. Anouncing to the American people that you 'stand at the ready waiting for a President who is ready to deal in good faith' for our safety and for the troops. Leaving the President to go on vacation to clear brush on his ranch while you held Congress open through the 3-day weekend.

God forbid you risk your necks, your vacations, and your political futures to prevent the deaths that will come as a result of your shameless capitulation.

The 'nay' votes cast against this bill by Democrats were ridiculous and empty gestures, but none more so than the votes of Clinton and Obama which were not cast until the bill was already guaranteed passage. A nice safe way to be “for it before they were against it”. It's disgusting and lacks moral character or leadership.

Depending on your poll of choice, you have 65% or more of the people behind you, and you still can't find the strength to take a principled stand? You have justified every stereotype of the weak and feckless Democrat/Liberal. I'm finding it hard to not start calling you Defeat-O-Crats myself. Your lack of courage is unconscionable.

Of course Keith says it better...

There's a lot to say about the recent dropping of time-lines from the funding bill by the Democrats. I will keep my comments brief.

For several months we've been hearing that “the war is lost”, the Presidents policies have failed, etc. If the Democratic leadership believes this is true, and has then removed the time lines from the bill because they aren't willing to pay the (potential) political price for those convictions, then they have given the President funding to continue to put our soldiers in harms way for nothing more than crass political gain. More American bodies so the Dems can make a run at President in 2008, right?

Either that, or they never believed what they were saying in the first place, which makes them liars. Cowards, or liars, which is it?

The lives of American Soldiers will be lost while we wait for September, and the next cycle of spin, delay, obfuscation and 'six more months' begins.

Send your congress persons a message, no blank check for Iraq.

The latest buzz and rumor is that Congressional Republicans will finally start showing some concern on the situation in Iraq and imply that they will take some action to thwart the President's stay-the-course strategy if things aren't better by September/Fall.

Right.

I'll believe it when I see it.

Today was the 4^th anniversary of the made-for-tv appearance of Mr. Bush declaring “Mission Accomplished” aboard an aircraft carrier.

The President would mark the anniversary by vetoing a bill that would begin bringing our troops home, saying “I believe setting a deadline for withdrawal would demoralize the Iraqi people, would encourage killers across the broader Middle East and send a signal that America does not keep its commitment.”

Ironically, Mr. Bush did not have a problem with timelines when he was a sitting Governer, and a Democrat was in the White House.

By proclaiming that Iraq is the “Central front in the war on terror”, it seems sadly that he and his administration have created a self-fulfilling prophecy.

President Bush continues to assert that there is “progress” in Iraq, this even as the violence reached near-record levels as the bloodiest since our initial invasion of Baghdad.

Here at home we lamented the shooting at Virginia Tech, which by all measures is certainly a tragedy, and yet as others have noted, Iraq has at least a Virginia Tech a day.

Wouldn't it be something if we expressed half the outrage, the shock, the horror when Iraqi civilians are killed as we do when we lose our own? For us, it is a tragic but rare occurrence, for them it is a daily nightmare.

I will not be discussing the recent “debate” over immigrants, illegal-immigrants, and the proposed “guest-worker” provision. Why won't I be discussing this?

Because the immigration issue is this years “Gay Marriage,” and if you are too fucking stupid to recognize that, then once again you will not get the government you desire, but you will get the government that you deserve....

"An Army dog handler was sentenced Wednesday to six months behind bars for using his snarling canine to torment prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

The military jury handed down the sentence a day after convicting Sgt. Michael J. Smith, 24, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He could have gotten 8 1/2 years in prison."

David Dishneau, "Army dog handler gets six months in prison for tormenting prisoners at Abu Ghraib", Associated Press/Kansas City Star, March 22, 2005

Smith had been found guilty the day before on five charges.

"A panel of four officers and three enlisted soldiers found Smith guilty Tuesday of mistreating a prisoner with his unmuzzled, barking and growling dog; guilty of mistreating two juvenile detainees at Abu Ghraib by harassing and threatening them with the dog; guilty of using his dog to make detainees soil themselves out of fear; and guilty of failing to use his dog solely for authorized purposes.

Smith was also found guilty of an indecent act involving his dog.

Soldier Jennifer Scala testified on the first day of the court-martial that she allowed Smith's dog to lick peanut butter she had placed on her bare chest as part of a dare by another soldier, who videotaped the stunt.

During the same incident, a second soldier allowed Smith's dog to lick peanut butter from his genitals on videotape. "

Paul Courson, "Dog handler's kin ask court for mercy", CNN News, March 222, 2006

Smith was busted back down to private, forfeited $2,250 in pay, and will receive a bad-conduct discharge after serving his sentence. He could have received a maximum of 8 1/2 years.

"Smith appeared unrepentant when he addressed the jury Tuesday, shortly after he was convicted. 'Soldiers are not supposed to be soft and cuddly,' he said. Smith also said he wished he had gotten his orders in writing.

[. . .]

In closing arguments, prosecutors urged the jury to send Smith to prison for at least three years, suggesting that his actions could undermine U.S. standing in the world.

'Every soldier must understand that individual acts of misconduct have strategic implications,' said Maj. Matthew Miller, a prosecutor. 'This is a global war on terror. It is a global battle for the hearts and minds of people all over the world.'"

AP/Kansas City Star article cited above

It is understandable that Smith remains unapologetic; he is obviously a scapegoat for detainee abuses, and proper accountability does not run far up the chain of command.

"Sergeant Smith, who was convicted Tuesday for abusing detainees in Iraq with his black Belgian shepherd, had said he was merely following interrogation procedures approved by the chief intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib, Col. Thomas M. Pappas. In turn, Colonel Pappas had said he had been following guidance from Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, commander of the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who in September 2003 visited Iraq to discuss ways to 'set the conditions' for enhancing prison interrogations, as well as from superiors in Baghdad.

General Miller had been dispatched to Guantánamo Bay by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to improve the interrogation procedures and the quality of intelligence at the compound in Cuba.

But in Sergeant Smith's trial, General Miller was never called to testify. Colonel Pappas acknowledged that he had mistakenly authorized a one-time use of muzzled dogs to keep prisoners in order outside their cells, but he said that he had no idea that dog handlers were using unmuzzled dogs to terrorize detainees as part of the interrogation process. Colonel Pappas had previously been reprimanded and relieved of his command, but was permitted to testify under a grant of immunity.

Previous defendants who have tried and failed to win approval from military judges to summon high-ranking officers to explain their own role in abuse cases include Charles A. Graner Jr. and Lynndie R. England, two of the Army reservists who were convicted in 2005 for their misconduct at Abu Ghraib. In denying defense requests for testimony from witnesses including Mr. Rumsfeld and Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, formerly the top American commander in Iraq, an Army judge, Col. James Pohl, ruled that their actions did not have any direct bearing on the reservists' conduct."

Eric Schmitt, "Iraq Abuse Trial Is Again Limited to Lower Ranks", New York times, March 23, 2006

The final blame for the mistreatment of detainees should be properly placed where it belongs, at the doorstep of the White House. The military's rank and file cannot be expected to treat prisoners humanely, when the Commander in Chief has weaseled on the rights of humans, and issued a revisionary definition of torture. Certainly, nobody at the white House told soldiers to sodomize prisoners with chemical light sticks as a method of interrogation, but they performed pirouettes of moral relativism, when they should have instead been unwavering leaders along the moral high ground's path.

The Bybee Memo: Enabling Torture

<P class=two>"The Bybee memo was a formal legal opinion of the Office of Legal Counsel interpreting the Convention Against Torture and the accompanying criminal provisions enacted by Congress in 1996 to prohibit torture.

<P class=two>The co-author of the memo was Bybee's deputy, John Yoo, now a law professor at Berkeley's Boalt Hall Law School. But who wrote what is unclear. In the end, Bybee was the senior official who signed off on the legal opinion, so the responsibility for its content is his.

<P class=two>Bybee's interpretations guided the Bush Administration for twenty-two months. And a powerful case has been made that Bybee's extraordinary reading of the law led to Americans engaging in torture at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.

<P class=two>The memo defines torture so narrowly that only activities resulting in "death, organ failure or the permanent impairment of a significant body function" qualify. It also claims, absurdly, that Americans can defend themselves if criminally prosecuted for torture by relying on the criminal law defenses of necessity and/or self-defense, based on the horror of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

<P class=two>Finally, the memo asserts that the criminal law prohibiting torture "may be unconstitutional if applied to interrogations undertaken of enemy combatants pursuant to the President's Commander-in-Chief powers."

<P class=two>In short, the memo advises that when acting as commander-in-chief, the president can go beyond the law."

<P class=two align=left>John W. Dean, "The Torture Memo By Judge Jay S. Bybee", Find Law, January 14, 2005

The issue of detainee mistreatment now troubles some in the military enough that there is consideration of codifying a ban on the use of evidence obtained via torture in the military tribunals of criminal combatants, an act which should be inconceivable in an American trial process, of any kind.

"The Pentagon is considering issuing a written rule barring the use of any evidence obtained through torture in the military trials of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, a spokesman said Wednesday.

Bryan Whitman, a senior Pentagon spokesman, said that up to now it had been the Pentagon's view that a written rule was unnecessary because the military prosecutors had already declared that such evidence would not be permitted. He reiterated that Pentagon policy bans the use of torture, although critics and some Guantanamo Bay prisoners have asserted that some interrogation methods amount to torture.

[. . .]

Lawyers for some Guantanamo Bay detainees have claimed that the military tribunals are illegal because they could consider evidence gained through torture or other forms of inhumane treatment of suspects."

Robert Burns, "Pentagon weighs military tribunal rule", Associated Press/Sacramento bee, March 22, 2006

Instead of acknowledging their error, and beating a hasty retreat back behind the barrier of constitutional limitations, the Bush Administration continues its illegitimate assault upon liberty, including habeas corpus, a right that predates the American Revolution, which the government was never given the power to possess and control. This obscene usurptation of a right which resides in all humans has been aided and abetted by a complicit legislature, and acquiesced to by a castrated judiciary.

"Bush administration lawyers argued yesterday that a new law forces the dismissal of more than 200 lawsuits filed in federal courts on behalf of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, urging a federal appellate court to instead adopt a far more limited process that still would give the prisoners access to judicial review.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will decide whether the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 retroactively stripped the court of jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus cases challenging detentions at the military prison in Cuba. Lawyers representing the detainees argued that the new law does not apply to pending cases, while the government has maintained that all cases essentially should be wiped away.

The Detainee Treatment Act was designed to pull what some senators believe are frivolous cases out of U.S. courts and instead grant detainees two other options: access to the federal appeals court to challenge the military determination that they are "enemy combatants" and the right to appeal verdicts reached in future military trials."

Josh White, Impact of Detainee Act Debated in Court, Washington Post, March 23, 2006

This is the swamp the country is mired in. The Bush Administration's thievery of liberties are acts of equivocational cowardice in response to adversity, and shows them to be apostate unbelievers in the Dreamtime America. Their relativistic rhetoric and revisionary actions have leveled the hill and dimmed the beacon from which America's bright shinning light used to illuminate the fundamental value of liberty and justice for all.

There's increasing activity from the Bush administration, talking about strategy, what to do about falling poll numbers, whether or not to adopt the FDR fireside chat (?). I've got a suggestion for the president, and this is something that they have not employed over the past 5, nearly 6 years of their administration.

Why not try telling the fucking truth? I admit that at this stage of the game, its a bold strategy, crazy even, but its crazy enough that it just might work...

In a previous post I stated that the beating of a man in New Orleans was further proof of the existence of racism in the southern US, and specifically Louisiana. I specifically said that you would have a hard time convincing the man who was beaten that racism wasn't involved.

From USA Today: Man beaten in New Orleans arrest says racism not issue

[...]

Robert Davis, a retired black schoolteacher whose violent arrest by white New Orleans police officers was videotaped by news crews, believes the incident says more about post-Katrina chaos than it does about racism.

"Some people want to make it a race thing," Davis said in an interview Tuesday. "I don't. That's demeaning to me."

[...]

This goes a long way to proving Mr Olbermann's caution about the logical fallacy, just because a, then b, doesn't mean that they are related.

Clearly, I stand corrected. I doubt very little that Mr. Davis has found his way to this website, but for what it's worth, I offer my apologies. It was not my intention in anyway to “demean” him.

On average, I spend about an hour and a half to 2 hours a day, sometimes more, sometimes less, to bring this site. I frequently have to remind myself that this is not a "breaking news" site, except in extraordinary circumstances, like Hurricane Katrina, and resist the urge to post every little misstep, misspeak, or misquote, but only those that matter in the overall context of identifying and casting light on loss of liberties, violations of the constitution, cronyism, and government bloat and waste.