Friday Afternoon News Dump

Boston.com: Boston City Hall tops the list of the "World's Top 10 Ugliest Buildings and Monuments" compiled by VirtualTourist.com.

I love this headline: Summers may be off of Treasury short list. A guy who thinks I am biologically unqualified to understand math and science has no business in high government office. Neanderthals need not apply. We've all got the necessaries, Larry.

Vermont Senator Pat Leahy sez Traitor Joe Lieberman should lose his chairmanship. So does his colleague Bernie Sanders. They're right. Lieberman is frantically trying to save his plum, but when he tried to call Obama to talk about it, he got pawned off on Biden. Reap what you sowed, you sanctimonious gasbag. Connecticut voters overwhelmingly disapprove of the job their senior Senator is doing. 2012 can't come fast enough for the Nutmeg State.

The assistant US Attorneys trying Alabama governor Don Siegelman passed notes to the deliberating jury through the U.S. Marshals. All of those people should be fired, and the lawyers should all be disbarred. It's a shocking breach of ethics. Par for the course for the Bush Crime Family. Those AUSAs were only taking their cue from the U.S. Attorney Leura Canary, who was writing emails to them long after she had supposedly recused herself from the case because of a conflict of interest.

Ann Dunwoody is now the nation's first ever female four-star general.

Disgraceful

Alternet: Raped in the Military? You May Have to Pay for Your Own Forensic Exam Kit
This outrage gives "supporting the troops" a whole new meaning.

TRICARE, the United States Department of Defense Military Health System that covers active duty members, will only pay for rape kits if the victim is seen in a military or a VA facility.

But the Pentagon acknowledges that 80 percent of military rapes are never reported. And that 80 percent who go off-base to protect their anonymity (and/or their careers) are on their own. If a soldier is on leave, or is five-hours from the nearest VA, or if a soldier is simply delivered to the nearest hospital by the local ambulance driver, their rape kits are not covered under TRICARE. Neither are other forensic exams that might be used in domestic violence situations.

Front-line treatment shouldn't be conditional on where a rape occurs or where the nearest treatment is available. This is not only a parity issue, but a further obstacle to treatment and justice.

Women in the military are twice as likely to be raped as their civilian counterparts. In fact, "women serving in the U.S. military today are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq," Congresswoman Jane Harman, D-Calif., told the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs in May.

Monday Morning Quarterback

Flickr: Brooklyn Museum
Egypt. Abu Simbel. Colossus No. 4. 19 Dyn?, n.d., B.J. Brooklyn Museum Archives (S10|08 Abu Simbel, image 9488).

The U.S. government is buying Big Shitpile! The feds are going to give Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the huge finance companies, billions of dollars of federal money -- your taxes -- to avoid bankruptcy. Atrios asks, why don't we just take them over rather than giving away our money for free?

The military is throwing firecrackers into the fire: 1 in 10 military recruits require a moral waiver, for "serious criminal conduct", or alcohol or drug abuse. Just the sorts of people you want to drop into a powder keg. Way to go, Bushie. Oil, meet match.

Nine American soldiers died in Afghanistan yesterday when more than 100 "militants" (who are those, anyway? Taliban? Afghans? Pakistanis? We are never told. George W. Bush says we fight "The Enemy", and the specifics are rarely mentioned.) attacked a remote base in northern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border.

Obama has an Op-Ed in the NYTimes today outlining his plan for Iraq.

McCain = Bush. So much so that South Carolina governor Mark Sanford (rumored to be on McCain's VP short list) couldn't come up with one major economic policy difference between McCain and Bush. Watch the video here. (Because there are no major economic differences between McCain and Bush. McCain = Bush, like the librarian said.) So long, short list.

When I heard on the radio this morning that the International Criminal Court had for the first time brought charges against a sitting head of state, I cried "George W. Bush is called to the Hague!" Wrong, moose breath; it was Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, charged with masterminding the genocide in Darfur.

BAGNewsNotes eviscerates that execrable New Yorker cover.

Veepstakes: Wes Clark

Here's Clark on Morning McCain yesterday, doing a creditable job of attacking McCain's supposed national security credentials:



Wes Clark was the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO in Kosovo. He's smart (finished first in his class at West Point, a decided contrast to McCain, 5th from the bottom at the Naval Academy), articulate, and was an early supporter of Hillary Clinton. What's not to like?

Today's News

Flickr: Brooklyn Museum
Greek Religion--sculptor, Daniel Chester French

McCain's national security adviser, John Lehman, told the New York Times that he offered to make John McCain a one-star admiral in 1980, but McCain declined. The New York Times put the claim on the front page. Problem? It's probably not true, as McCain never mentioned it before, and the story of his leaving the Navy has been told many times. Hard to check up on McCain's military service, tho, as he has never released his full military records. Read this extensive article by Jeffrey Klein for the details.

The torture regime came from the top of the Bush Administration. We already knew that, but there is proof now.

The senior civilian managing the contract of Halliburton subsidiary KBR in 2004 was fired when he refused to pay bogus billing records for Dick Cheney's favorite special interest. The amount in question that taxpayers ponied up for despite shoddy record-keeping and questionable bills? $1,000,000,000. That's one billion dollars to CheneyFraud. Heckuva job, Dickhead.

Gay marriage is now legal in California as of yesterday. The march of progress continues. It hasn't changed life here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts one iota, except for allowing some of our fellow citizens legal rights, joy and peace of mind. All good things.

Gas prices have sent Prius sales soaring. Even in Billings, Montana, home of the pickup truck. Honda is now making a hydrogen-fuel-cell car. I want one:

The FCX Clarity, which runs on hydrogen and electricity, emits only water and none of the noxious fumes believed to induce global warming. It is also two times more energy efficient than a gas-electric hybrid and three times that of a standard gasoline-powered car, the company says.

Honda expects to lease a few dozen cars this year and 200 within three years. In California, a three-year lease will run $600 a month, which includes maintenance and collision coverage.

The Mets fire Willie Randolph in the middle of the night. Disgraceful end to a class act. The Mets are finding that stocking a team with mid-30s free agents may have worked in the steroid era, but now they're just injury prone. Jill at Brilliant at Breakfast sez, hire Ron Darling.

Shameful

And because of the policies of rich Republicans like UBS Swiss Banker Phil Gramm and Private Plane McCain, things like this are happening in the richest nation in the world:

Bloomberg.com: Foreclosures in Military Towns Surge at Four Times U.S. Rate

Military families were targeted as customers during the boom in subprime lending because their frequent moves, overseas stints, and low pay meant they were more likely to have weak credit ratings, said Rudi Williams of the National Veterans Foundation in Los Angeles. In 2006, at the peak of U.S. subprime lending, the number of VA loans fell to barely a third the level of two years earlier, according to VA data.

VA loans totaled 135,000 last year, its fourth consecutive annual decline.

An Army or Marine Corps sergeant with four years of experience makes $27,000 a year, plus combat pay of $225 a month, according to the 2008 Military Authorization Act, which increased basic pay rates 3.5 percent from a year ago.

Soldiers authorized to live off-base also receive a housing allowance that this year starts at about $500 a month, 7.3 percent higher than in 2007, paid even when they are deployed. Counting the stipends, they still fall short of the 2007 median U.S. household income of $59,224 as measured by the National Association of Realtors in Chicago.

Memorial Day: To Be Remembered

courant.com: Hushing Up Crisis Of Suicide, Mental Scars

CBS News did its own extensive research, finding that more than 6,250 American veterans took their own lives in 2005 alone. That comes to slightly more than 17 suicides every day.

Anchorage Daily News: Female soldiers know: Sexual assault can lead to PTSD

Last month I attended a presentation on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, at the Anchorage Veterans Administration Clinic. PowerPoint slides provided a definition of PTSD and common causes of this disorder: IEDs, seeing the bodies of dead children, experiencing serious bodily injuries, and others.

I asked the briefer, a VA psychiatrist, whether the VA also considered Military Sexual Trauma an experience that can lead to PTSD. He replied "no."

I looked at the physician with amazement. Many peer-reviewed journal articles assert that Military Sexual Trauma, or MST, is especially associated with PTSD. That the Veterans Administration continues to disassociate MST with PTSD is remarkable.

Bob Geiger, HuffPo: Dead Troops Remembered By President Who Had Them Killed

Yes, that's a harsh headline for this piece.

But I'll ask you to forgive me because, as a Veteran, there isn't a day on the calendar that causes my hatred -- and I do indeed mean hatred -- of George W. Bush to bubble over the top more than Memorial Day.

"On Memorial Day, we honor the heroes who have laid down their lives in the cause of freedom, resolve that they will forever be remembered by a grateful Nation, and pray that our country may always prove worthy of the sacrifices they have made," reads Bush's official Memorial Day proclamation, issued by the White House on Thursday.

The Chickenhawk-in Chief says a lot of things that make this Vet's blood boil but stuff like saying that he prays "...that our country may always prove worthy of the sacrifices they have made" is almost vomit inducing.

This statement comes from the same man who himself began dishonoring the sacrifices of all Veterans in such huge ways in March of 2003, when he invaded Iraq behind a veil of lies and deceit and started spilling barrels of military and civilian blood to start a war with a country that posed no threat whatsoever to our national security.

Meteor Blades, dailykos: Forgotten on Memorial Day

My great-great-great-great-great uncle was killed by U.S. soldiers during the Second Seminole War. Other distant relatives were killed during the Third Seminole War. Killed for trying to hold onto freedom, land, the right to self-determination.

Whether they killed warriors and women on the banks of the Pease River in Texas, the Washita River in Kansas, Sand Creek in Colorado, or Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota; whether they fought Shawnee in Indiana, Asakiwaki in Wisconsin, Lakota and Cheyenne in Montana, Chiricahua in Arizona, Nez Perce in Idaho or Modocs in California, the men in blue who were killed in the Indian Wars are among those who will be honored Monday.

But the thousands of warriors they killed – the ancestors of us original Americans – aren’t counted for the ultimately futile but unhesitating sacrifice they made for the freedom of their people. On Memorial Day, they are invisible. Monuments to the Rebel dead can be found in practically every town of the Confederacy. Memorials to Indian resistance are next to non-existent.

Brandon Friedman, dailykos: Senator[Ted Stevens], VA Secretary [James Peake] Disrespect Troops on Memorial Day

On Memorial Day weekend, Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) and VA Secretary James Peake stood side-by-side in Fairbanks, Alaska to showcase their opposition to--and lack of respect for--today’s newest veterans.

Speaking at the Disabled American Veterans’ 19th Annual Department Convention, Senator Stevens told the majority of America’s most recent war veterans that they had not yet sacrificed enough to have earned a GI Bill that would cover the full cost of their educations.

Sen. Ted Stevens warned of a "mass exodus" from the military Saturday if the so-called 21st Century GI Bill goes into law without major changes.
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"There are worries that people who are already in for two years will serve one more and leave, and there’s really no incentive to stay," Stevens said.

What Stevens is really saying is that today's troops are unpatriotic--that they're only in it for the money and the college. And while Stevens’ "mass exodus" theory has been thoroughly discredited by the Congressional Budget Office, the true irony of the situation lies in the fact that Stevens earned his own college degree after World War Two by using the same GI Bill he’s aiming to prevent today’s veterans from receiving.

At the same convention, VA Secretary James Peake--who is already under fire for the cover-up of an extraordinary number of veteran suicides and for overseeing an organization that may not be taking PTSD seriously--showed a stunning lack of situational awareness by discounting recent media reports and think tank studies by suggesting that fewer returning vets actually had PTSD than is commonly thought.

Who Will John McCain Fight For?

He'll fight for rich people:

WaPo: McCain Pushed Land Swap That Benefits Backer

PRESCOTT, Ariz. -- Sen. John McCain championed legislation that will let an Arizona rancher trade remote grassland and ponderosa pine forest here for acres of valuable federally owned property that is ready for development, a land swap that now stands to directly benefit one of his top presidential campaign fundraisers.

But not for veterans.

A couple of weeks ago, John McCain talked about the importance of increasing the size of the U.S. military. To entice more volunteers, he said, the government should focus on incentives: “[O]ne of the things we ought to do is provide [the troops with] significant educational benefits in return for serving.”

A few days later, McCain announced that he’ll oppose a bipartisan measure to renew and expand the GI Bill for a new generation of veterans.

Got that? Give away valuable public land to some rich guy who gave McCain some campaign cash. Give nothing to patriotic citizens who volunteered for our nation's military.

The Real Enemy of Women Soldiers

Women serving in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq.

Congresswoman Jane Harman, Op-Ed, LATimes:
Rapists in the ranks
Sexual assaults are frequent, and frequently ignored, in the armed services.

hat tip to Suburban Guerrilla