Friday Questions for Diane, May 28, 2008

How can Senator Clinton proclaim herself the voter's advocate in Michigan and Florida -- then sit back while her backers attack Nancy Pelosi for stating her superdelegate vote will support the voter's choice?

***

Kudos are in order again for House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers, Jr. for paying attention to evidence that former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, a Democrat, was indicted and imprisoned on trumped up bribery charges, under pressure from Karl Rove. Conyers's committee will hear testimony from Siegelman personally in May.

Meanwhile, in another Judiciary/White House conflict, it was announced that the White House was not going to bother to try to locate the missing emails, because it was too difficult.

Is there no shame in that fortress?
***

Last Friday the Miami Herald reported that Roger Stone, infamous RNC operator and friend of Karl Rove, admitted to turning over information he'd gathered on Eliot Spitzer to the FBI last November, just weeks after he'd had to step down from his consulting job for the New York State Republican Party after he'd been caught making threatening phone calls to Eliot Spitzer's elderly father.

Stone was previously involved in the phony riot in Miami in November 2000 that shut down the recount, political stunts with Rove in Texas, and is considered by many analysts to be the anonymous messenger who delivered the two Texas National Guard memos to Ret. Lt. Col. Bill Burkett that were then handed over to Dan Rather's team -- thus bringing down Dan Rather, the 60 Minutes II team that revealed Abu Gharab, and discrediting the National Guard officer who witnessed the scrubbing of Mr. Bush's military records.

It seems to me that it is Mr. Stone, not Mr. Spitzer, who is more dangerous to society.

***

Last Friday the International News Service reported that following Vice President Cheney's visit to Saudi Arabia, the Saudis have held meetings to discuss how to deal with nuclear fallout from attacks on Iran.

The national media has reported that Cheney has backed down from his aggressive plans because of U.S. public opinion, but his "SO?" shows us how little regard he has for us.

Can he be stopped?

Easter Sunday - Where Is Your Heart?

As Christians across the world take this day to claim their devotion to Christ. . .

I merely wish to point out

that the Last Three of the newly defined Seven Social Sins

reported in the Vatican news

pertain to the Human Side of Economics:

* Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
* Excessive wealth
* Creating poverty

That fits my understanding of Christ's beatitudes.

The Fourth one is:

* Polluting the environment

That fits in well with the original "Thou shalt not kill."

The first three sins -- "'unethical' violations such as birth control", "'morally dubious' experiments such as stem cell research", and "drug abuse" --

may not cause so strong a pull on any of us, whatever the direction. . .

. . .if the true responsibility of the other four was recognized and efforts were made to solve them.

And so it is.

Friday Questions for Diane, May 21, 2008

Today, Good Friday, 2008, I begin a new series I'm calling "Friday Questions for Diane".

I listen to the Diane Rehm Show. Just about every single day, fully, at work, oh headphones. That's where I started my adult education.

That is where I was introduced to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Kevin Phillips, and David Corn.

That is also where I first heard Kenneth Tomlinson and various voices of the American Enterprise Institute.

That is where one question I sent in was asked of Seymour Hersh. I asked him about the General who I'd read was fired not for the official reason given, but because he was ready to blow the cover of Cheney's plot to attack Iran -- long before the public was aware of his determination to do so. Hersh stunned me by pausing, telling Diane that this was why he loved doing this because he could sometimes learn from his audience, and then speaking to me directly -- telling me to contact him.

Diane Rehm is the Oprah Winfrey of the NPR world -- mainstream enough to have a wide audience, but unexpectedly courageous at times. I have heard her fearlessly question both Kissinger and Lynne Cheney -- who were not pleased.

That is why she was the other target of investigation (along with Bill Moyers) by th aforementioned Ken Tomlinson, who was Rove's lacky leading the Corporation for Public Broadcasting back in 2005, pushing propaganda and squashing the truth by calling it "liberal bias".

A while ago, Diane found that she needed to change her Friday scheduled News Roundup to take both of her 2 hours - one for international news and one for national news.

I send in questions. They are rarely asked. She must get so very many.

Still I send them. They make me think about what do I want more interested, thinking people to know about -- this week. Right now. And I know in the long run, they have an affect.

I have decided to post them. They are what I want YOU to know about, to think about, to ask about. I may adjust them a little from what I actually send in the wee hours before I leave for work on Friday, but only to make them more clear.

If more of us demand answers, we'll get them.

So, on this day, May 21, 2008, 5 years after the 5th Anniversary of the United States invasion of Iraq, I sent two separate questions, admittedly on the same theme.

FQFD #1:

Last weekend, the Iraq Veterans Against the War hosted “Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan”, a 4 day event in Washington, D.C. at which veterans and their families testified about their experiences on the ground and since returning home.

Mainstream media coverage has been minimal; NPR gave it 3 minutes. But “Democracy Now” devoted 3 one-hour shows to the testimony.

Nothing that was said indicated that their experience was, in Mr. Bush’s word’s, “exciting” or “romantic.”

What should be done to make any of the consequences of this unnecessary invasion, on any level, real to this man?


* * * * * * *

FQRD #2:

I think your audience, more Americans, should know about this:

In response to hearing about testimony from veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan at last weekend's "Winter Solder" Conference, a Defense Department Spokesman, Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros, stated:

"When isolated allegations of misconduct have been reported, commanders have conducted comprehensive investigations to determine the facts and held individuals accountable when appropriate."

The Iraq Veterans Against the War, sponsor of the event, immediately responded:

“These service members and veterans’ testimonies are ultimately not about individual conduct, but about the nature of occupation. The military is being asked to win an occupation. The troops on the ground know this is an impossible task. Their commanders know this is an impossible task." (http://ivaw.org/files/IVAWresponse_to_DOD_0.pdf)


* * * * * * *

Let All the Whores Be Revealed

Today Rob Kall of OpEd News, responding to the reported bidding war between Penthouse and Hustler for access to the prostitute in the Spitzer sting, wrote: Spitzer's Whore Should Not Make A Nickel...

I commented:

Neither should the other Whores. . .

Like the mainstream media that looked the other way when John Conyers, Jr. was holding hearings in December 2004 in Ohio (and sooooo many other times). . .

Like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Tucker Carlson, etc. -- who knowingly distort information to gain favor with the rich and powerful. . .

Like Colin Powell, who was informed by military analysts prior to his United Nations speech that the aluminum tubes were NOT for uranium processing . . .

Like Condoleeza Rice, who -- I can't even begin to list her frightening incompetence, lies, and defensive obfuscations as both National Security Advisor and Secretary of State -- but there was an eery window into her pscyhe when in 2004 New York Magazine reported that at a Washington social event Miss Rice tripped on her words, referring to GWB as "my husb--" before finding the term "President Bush" - this from a woman who has never had an occasion to use the term "my husband". . .

Like every White House appointee who got the job because of ties to industry, Karl Rove, and/or the neoconservatives. . .

Like the Christian Right, who believe they are above Christ's message of compassion and the Golden Rule. . .

Like "Christians United for Israel" -- the lobbyist group founded by Pastor John Hagee (who recently endorsed McCain), which strongly supports Israel's attacks on Hamas, Lebanon and urges attacks on Iran -- while praying for the Rapture/Armageddon, which coincidentally brings the wiping out of the Jewish people. . .

Like the arms manufacturers, who know about the carcinogenic, chemically poisonous vaporized depleted uranium they have let loose . . .

Like all the other Deciders who choose pollution and wealth over the survival of their own progeny -- I mean, really, what can Dick and Lynne Cheney, and their daughter Elizabeth (a chip off the old Vader) and her husband Philip Perry, be telling the grandkids? Just how big are they making that underground safehouse?

Still, even more important than the whores. . .

THE PIMPS.

While it is extraordinarily pitiful to watch yet another man lose everything over the need to get unauthorized, immature, cheating, naughty sex (rather than evolve into an honest meaningful responsible compassionate sexual relationship with his spouse)...

It is also obvious that powerful wealthy interests found Spitzer to be a very testy problem. In addition to Bush and the mortgage bankers, there's also Shell Oil/Giuliani/Broadwater, Roger Stone, and probably many more.

As the truth creeps out, we may end up thanking Spitzer for his weakness, because the light will shine on so many more Pimps and Whores who have been parading as legitimate entities and people, and give us the chance to clean up our system of democracy.

Whatever Spitzer's testosterone was doing, it wasn't for prostitution he was targeted. . .

After spending a couple of early morning hours Googling the likes of John Fund, Michael Garcia, and Roger Smith, I went to my email and there was an email from Greg Palast, entitled "Eliot's Mess and the $200 Million Bailout" -- now available on his website here -- with that cutting edge of brightly lit clarity. Others got close but he nailed it. Uh-gain.

Greg found Spitzer's greatest crime: daring to point the finger at the greatest culprit of our times, Mr. Bush, and his own part in protecting the predatory bank thieves while ignoring the ambushed victims.

If you read nothing else, read Palast's story.

Meanwhile, back in the shooting gallery, I also found an angle that probably carries some weight as well -- though I'm sure Greg's revelation is at the very core.

In fact, the mystery of who would have targetted Spitzer reminds me of Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Orient Express" -- where it turns out that all the suspects murdered the victim that night. They each had strong reasons, and each did the deed.

By Tuesday morning I'd submitted the following to OpEdNews, where it was posted on Wednesday:

*****

Spitzer and the Giuliani Shell Game

March 12, 2008

Is there a connection?

Shell Energy Company, in partnership with TransCanada Corporation, has a proposal awaiting approval by Elliot Spitzer that would allow the companies, working as Broadwater Energy, to build and operate a floating liquified natural gas terminal in Long Island Sound.

The terminal, a 1215 foot barge, could provide Connecticut and New York with a billion cubic feet of the liquified natural gas per day, but, as the Government Accountability Office reported in February of 2007, could also become a firebomb of huge proportions.

This year, Broadwater Energy launched an intense media campaign designed to sway public opinion about both the project and the company, with large publicized donations to Long Island United Way, and a blitz of commercials citing questionable studies and claiming customers will see huge economic savings.

However, the ads have also drawn a backlash, with both local activists and public officials calling for the New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to investigate the dangerous “false advertising”.

Worth noting is that the campaign was created by none other than Rudy Giuliani’s own Giuliani Partners LLC – hired on to provide security and strategic planning services less than a week after the 2004 presidential election. According to Eric Hatzimemos, a managing director of the firm, “Security, safety, & reliability have been top priorities for Broadwater from the outset.”

This comes from the same law firm that lobbies for the Indian Point Nuclear facility (“as safe as a facility can be”) to be relicensed despite multiple security and safety problems, and for respiratory gas mask manufacturers to be immune from lawsuits for failure to provide protection.

After years of battles between environmentalists and industry, in February all eyes were on New York Governor Elliot Spitzer.

He, in turn, claimed to be waiting for the New York State Department to provide its review of the vast information presented from both sides, due on February 12th. But on February 7th, the State Department announced it had made an agreement with Broadwater which granted a 60 day extension of the deadline to allow for “further discussion of what is a very complex proposal”.

The next day, the New York Department of Environmental Conservation issued its second Notice of Incomplete Application letter to Broadwater Energy, noting that Broadwater’s response to the first Notice was entirely inadequate. Documentation on emissions calculation was lacking, and even with design changes, the barge was projected to destroy 274 million aquatic organisms annually.

Less than a week later, Spitzer was customer number 9.

On March 5, though they did not yet have the required approval of Spitzer and New York State, Shell announced it was ready to begin setting up contracts for purchasing the liquid natural gas that would be brought to New York and Connecticut.

Did they already know they’d won?

*****

Then, at work yesterday, I listened to NPR's The Diane Rehm Show, and her hour on Spitzer. One of her guests was John Fund, from The Wall Street Journal, who uses as a noteworthy credential his authoring the book, of "Stealing Elections: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy." So already I know this is one of THOSE guys, the guys pushing the phony crime that is supposed to distract from the real method of election theft and provide fodder for Bush's "good" U.S. Attorneys.

Coming back from a break, Diane turned to Fund with a question. This is how it went:

DR: John Fund, is there any indication whatsoever that because of Eliot Spitzer’s behavior and his pursuit of Wall Street ne’er-do-wells that somehow he was targeted?

JF: I think the real targeting came from his personality and his style. THERE IS NOT A SINGLE PERSON IN NEW YORK STATE GOVERNMENT OR IN MANY BUSINESS CIRCLES WHO DIDN'T THINK ELLIOT SPITZER WAS A JERK -- and I’m being very specific here. He would yell and intimidate, threaten people. I mean he told one person I’m going to drive a stake through your heart. He basically said get out of my way to ano– to an assemblyman, saying I’m an f’ing steamroller. He managed to alienate people in his own party, people who would normally have ideological affinity for him. He had anger management issues. So I think that If you end up with 3 enemies in your life you’ve got, you know, an irritant; if you have 30 enemies you have a problem; and if you have 300 enemies eventually people are just going to try to remove you from the stage. I don’t think he was targeted; I think he took himself out because his behavior was so extreme and so far out of the bounds. And I think– I hope we get to some discussion of his civil liberties record here because he did go after some bad guys on Wall Street, he did do some good, but he went to more and more marginal targets, less and less substantial targets, and I think really rode roughshod over due process laws.

****

Okay, I know I just pointed out how many enemies he had, but Fund was so absolute and clearly wanted the public to understand that Spitzer deserved to be hated by reasonable people.

Once a pathetic propagandist. . .

****

So I wrote to Diane's show, in time, I hoped, to have the email read during today's Friday 2-hour review of the week's news:

Let's see, who would want Spitzer gone? Maybe Shell Oil and Giuliani, who are together fighting to get New York to approve an incredibly dangerous liquified natural gas barge in Long Island Sound.

Or maybe even Mr. Bush, who -- as the BBC investigative journalist Greg Palast pointed out -- Spitzer called the "Predator Lenders Partner in Crime" just THIS WEEK in The Washington Post, just before Bernanke provided $200 billion to rescue bankers.

Whatever Spitzer's testosterone was doing, it wasn't for prostitution he was targeted.

****

Meanwhile, on another of the many fronts, on Monday night we heard about Spitzer and prostitution, instead of hearing Congressman John Conyers, Jr. demanding that former White House aides Harriet Myers and Joshua Bolten obey the law and respond to Congress -- announcing the law suit against the two:

"We will not allow the administration to steamroll Congress. Under our system of checks and balances, Congress provides oversight of the executive branch to make sure that government power is not abused. The administration’s extreme claims to be immune from the oversight process are at odds with our constitutional principles on which this country was founded, and I am confident the federal courts will agree."

Phew. There's still hope.

Justice Demanding Justice

March 10, 2008 Press Release:

(Washington, DC) - Today, the U.S. House of Representatives General Counsel filed a civil lawsuit on behalf of the House Judiciary Committee to enforce subpoenas issued by the committee seeking information on the U.S. Attorney firings. The defendants in the case are former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten who were cited by the House for contempt of Congress last month. Last week, the Justice Department refused to present the House-passed contempt citations to a grand jury, contrary to federal law. Based on the House resolution that also found Bolten and Miers in comtempt, the committee is now filing the civil lawsuit to enforce the subpoenas.

"We will not allow the administration to steamroll Congress," Conyers said. "Under our system of checks and balances, Congress provides oversight of the executive branch to make sure that government power is not abused. The administration’s extreme claims to be immune from the oversight process are at odds with our constitutional principles on which this country was founded, and I am confident the federal courts will agree."

Miers and Bolten violated their obligations under committee subpoenas by refusing to appear before the committee or to provide subpoenaed documents. The lawsuit was filed this morning in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and will be served on Ms. Miers and Mr. Bolton. The Judiciary Committee, as plaintiff, is asking the court to find the following:

(1) Ms. Miers is not “immune” from the obligation to appear before the committee in response to a duly authorized, issued and served committee subpoena;

(2) Ms. Miers and Mr. Bolten must produce privilege logs identifying all documents withheld on grounds of executive privilege;

(3) Executive privilege does not cover documents not involving the president or undertaken directly in preparation for advising the president or whose contents are widely-known, previously released or previously the subject of extensive, authorized testimony, and that Ms. Miers’s and Mr. Bolten’s claims of executive privilege are, in any event, overcome by the committee’s compelling need for the subpoenaed testimony and documents.

(4) that Ms. Miers is required to appear before the committee to respond to questions put to her pertinent to the investigation and to invoke executive privilege only if and when appropriate;

(5) that Ms. Miers and Mr. Bolten are required to provide, as required by the subpoenas, a detailed privilege log, identifying by author, recipient, date and subject matter those documents responsive to the subpoena that have been withheld on executive privilege grounds;

(6) that Ms. Miers and Mr. Bolten are required to produce all non-privileged documents responsive to the subpoenas.

"I do not take this step lightly," Conyers said. "It is extremely rare that Congress must litigate in order to enforce subpoenas and no compromise can be reached. Unfortunately, this administration simply will not negotiate towards a compromise resolution so we must proceed. I look forward to a quick and favorable ruling by the court, so that we can complete our investigation."

The civil lawsuit is the latest step in the year-long investigation into the firings of nine U.S. Attorneys and related matters. Nearly one dozen Justice Department officials have resigned since evidence in the investigation became public, including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Documents turned over by the department indicate that the White House played a substantial role in the development and execution of the plan to force U.S. attorneys to resign.

Contempt Complaint

They Don't Want to Tell You

Neither the Washington Post nor the New York Times has reported on the Government Accountability Office's report, released last week, on the decision in 2003 by the Department of Defense to stop efforts to notify the tens of thousands of military and civilian personnel who were subjected unknowingly to chemical and biological testing in the 1960's and 70's.

Essentially, the GAO found that the Bush/Rumsfeld Defense Department wasn't interested in following up on this task, which would have eventually included providing medical benefits, etc.

So much for "supporting the troops."

It is no wonder, then, that the issue of the medical effects of the vaporized depleted uranium that we are exploding throughout the Middle East is avoided at all costs.

But why is the media so compliant with this obfuscation?

Three Trillion Dollars Not Spent on Education, Healthcare, Etc.

According to Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz book, The Three Trillion Dollar War, the only ones who benefit from this war are the oil companies and the defense contractors.

This is what we've gotten from having an oil man and a defense contractor in office.

Shouldn't we then be informed about the income earned by the close family members of Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney through their investments in these industries?

Given the completely irreponsible economics of this unnecessary war, it becomes even more rude when those who are losing their homes are chastized for their difficulties.

Who is paying for the war? Certainly not those who are so wealthy that they are further blessed with tax cuts.

Alabama Rewarded

On February 29, late Friday afternoon, it was announced that Northrop Grumman/EADS won a U.S. Defense contract for $40 billion to provide air-refueling tankers in a not-yet-built plant in Mobile, Alabama. Its stock value went from $3.74 to $82.37.

The other main competitor for the contract was Boeing. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that "Boeing was considered the heavy favorite" but that "Northrop and its supporters, especially politicians in Alabama" claimed Northrop's tanker was superior.

As I began to look into who the lobbyists were who influenced this change in favored a manufacturer, which would devastate a portion of the Seattle area economy while rewarding strongly (and drastically changing) the community of Mobile, Alabama, I suddenly gasped as I saw another email about Don Siegelman provided by the diligent Mark Crispin Miller "Alabama press goes rabid for Karl Rove".

ALABAMA?! Oh, my God. Alabama. Is it possible?

So, I'm putting the idea out:

Is there any connection between Alabama's prosecution of Siegelman and its black out of the 60 Minutes segment... and the switch from Boeing in Seattle to Northrop Grumman/EADS in Mobile?

My own time to research this is limited, so I'm encouraging others to see what they might find, and please respond back.

This could be verrrrrry interesting.


by Barbara Bellows-TerraNova

Questions for The Diane Rehm Show Friday News Roundup

Today, Good Friday, 2008, I begin a new series I'm calling "Friday Questions for Diane".

I listen to the Diane Rehm Show. Just about every single day, fully, at work, oh headphones. That's where I started my adult education.

That is where I was introduced to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Kevin Phillips, and David Corn.

That is also where I first heard Kenneth Tomlinson and various voices of the American Enterprise Institute.

That is where one question I sent in was asked of Seymour Hersh. I asked him about the General who I'd read was fired not for the official reason given, but because he was ready to blow the cover of Cheney's plot to attack Iran -- long before the public was aware of his determination to do so. Hersh stunned me by pausing, telling Diane that this was why he loved doing this because he could sometimes learn from his audience, and then speaking to me directly -- telling me to contact him.

Diane Rehm is the Oprah Winfrey of the NPR world -- mainstream enough to have a wide audience, but unexpectedly courageous at times. I have heard her fearlessly question both Kissinger and Lynne Cheney -- who were not pleased.

That is why she was the other target of investigation (along with Bill Moyers) by th aforementioned Ken Tomlinson, who was Rove's lacky leading the Corporation for Public Broadcasting back in 2005, pushing propaganda and squashing the truth by calling it "liberal bias".

A while ago, Diane found that she needed to change her Friday scheduled News Roundup to take both of her 2 hours - one for international news and one for national news.

I send in questions. They are rarely asked. She must get so very many.

Still I send them. They make me think about what do I want more interested, thinking people to know about -- this week. Right now. And I know in the long run, they have an affect.

I have decided to post them. They are what I want YOU to know about, to think about, to ask about. I may adjust them a little from what I actually send in the wee hours before I leave for work on Friday, but only to make them more clear.

If more of us demand answers, we'll get them.

So, on this day, May 21, 2008, 5 years after the 5th Anniversary of the United States invasion of Iraq, I sent two separate questions, admittedly on the same theme.

#1: Last weekend, the Iraq Veterans Against the War hosted “Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan”, a 4 day event in Washington, D.C. at which veterans and their families testified about their experiences on the ground and since returning home.

Mainstream media coverage has been minimal; NPR gave it 3 minutes. But “Democracy Now” devoted 3 one-hour shows to the testimony.

Nothing that was said indicated that their experience was, in Mr. Bush’s word’s, “exciting” or “romantic.”

What should be done to make any of the consequences of this unnecessary invasion, on any level, real to this man?



#2: I think your audience, more Americans, should know about this:

In response to hearing about testimony from veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan at last weekend's "Winter Solder" Conference, a Defense Department Spokesman, Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros, stated:

"When isolated allegations of misconduct have been reported, commanders have conducted comprehensive investigations to determine the facts and held individuals accountable when appropriate."

The Iraq Veterans Against the War, sponsor of the event, immediately responded:

“These service members and veterans’ testimonies are ultimately not about individual conduct, but about the nature of occupation. The military is being asked to win an occupation. The troops on the ground know this is an impossible task. Their commanders know this is an impossible task." (http://ivaw.org/files/IVAWresponse_to_DOD_0.pdf)

* * * * * * *