skippy the bush kangaroo all emus that's fit to print; or, koala-ty time
Thursday, May 20, 2004
it's official...awol broke the law
the general accounting office has concluded the administration broke two federal laws when it made those fake "news reports" about the new medi-care rules. the washpost:
the general accounting office concluded that the department of health and human services illegally spent federal money on what amounted to covert propaganda by producing videos about the medicare changes that were made to look like news reports. portions of the videos, which have been aired by 40 television stations around the country, do not make it clear that the announcers were paid by hhs and were not real reporters.
although these days, how can you tell a real reporter from a fake one, anyway?
the general accounting office said that a specific part of the videos, a made-for-television "story package," violated the prohibition on using taxpayer money for propaganda.
people seeing the videos in a newscast would "believe that the information came from a nongovernment source or neutral party," it said.
william a. pierce, a spokesman for the department of health and human services, who helped develop the videos, said: "we disagree. it's not covert. tv stations knew the videos came from us and could have identified the government as the source if they had wanted to"...
the accounting office dismissed that argument. the intended audience, it said, was not news directors, but viewers, and "the video news releases did not alert viewers that the centers for medicare and medicaid services was the source."
moreover, it said, "some news organizations indicated that they misread the label or they mistook the story package as an independent journalist news story."
two videos end with the voice of a woman who says, "in washington, i'm karen ryan reporting." a third video is narrated, in spanish, by a man who identifies himself as "alberto garcia reporting." the scripts were prepared by the bush administration at the centers for medicare and medicaid services, a unit of the department of health and human services.
the accounting office said the videos were "not strictly factual news stories" and were flawed by "notable omissions and weaknesses" in their explanation of the medicare law. but the main problem, it said, is that they were "misleading as to source."
a few posts down we talked about how a group of historians rate awol's presidency (pretty low).
agreeing with that sentiment, hal crowther writes in the independent online an essay coming to the same conclusion.
the irreducible truth is that the invasion of iraq was the worst blunder, the most staggering miscarriage of judgment, the most fateful, egregious, deceitful abuse of power in the history of american foreign policy. if you don't believe it yet, just keep watching. apologists strain to dismiss parallels with vietnam, but the similarities are stunning. in every action our soldiers kill innocent civilians, and in every other action apparent innocents kill our soldiers--and there's never any way to sort them out. and now these acts of subhuman sadism, these little my lais.
since the defining moment of the bush presidency, the preposterous flight-suit, fox news-produced photo-op on the abraham lincoln in front of the banner that read "mission accomplished," the shaming truth is that everything has gone wrong. just as it was bound to go wrong, as many of us predicted it would go wrong--if anything more hopelessly wrong than any of us would have dared to prophesy. iraq is an epic train wreck, and there's not a single american citizen who's going to walk away unscathed.
the shame of this truth, of such a failure and so much deceit exposed, would have brought on mass resignations or votes of no confidence in any free country in the world. in japan not long ago, there would have been ritual suicides, shamed officials disemboweling themselves with samurai swords. yet up to this point--at least to the point where we see grinning soldiers taking pictures of each other over piles of naked iraqis--neither the president, the vice president nor any of the individuals who urged and designed this debacle have resigned or been terminated--or even apologized. they have betrayed no familiarity with the concept of shame.
thousands of young americans are dead, maimed or mutilated, 100 billion has been wasted and all we've gained is a billion new enemies and a mouthful of dust--of sand. chaos reigns, but in the midst of it we have this presidential election. george bush has defined himself as a war president, and it's fitting that he should die by the sword--in fact fall on it, and quick.
the washpost reports that u.s. forces opened fire on a wedding party in western iraq, killing at least 40 people:
u.s. military officials in washington and iraq disputed iraqi claims that that u.s. aircraft had attacked a wedding party wednesday morning, killing dozens of people in the remote iraqi desert near the syrian border.
news services, quoting iraqi officials and witnesses, reported that more than 40 people, including women and children, were killed in an early morning attack by some kind of u.s. aircraft, either an airplane or a helicopter.
but army brig. gen. mark kimmitt, the u.s. military's deputy director of operations in baghdad, told reporters that the fighting involved foreign insurgents, not a wedding party.
"we took ground fire and we returned fire," kimmitt said, according to the reuters news service.
this just keeps getting worse:
video gathered in the western town of ramadi by associated press television news showed bloody bodies piled into a truck. the bodies included children, one of whom was decapitated, ap reported. iraqi witnesses interviewed in the video said revelers at a wedding had been celebrating by shooting guns in the air before they came under fire.
army spc. jeremy c. sivits today pleaded guilty to charges of abusing iraqi prisoners at the abu ghraib prison and was sentenced to one year in prison, stripped of his rank and he will be given a bad conduct discharge.
sivits was given the maximum sentence in the first military court martial stemming from the prisoner abuse scandal at abu ghraib, where u.s. military personnel allegedly abused and humiliated prisoners. the 24-year-old solider, who photographed the humiliation of nude iraqi prisoners, pleaded guilty to four charges, including mistreating detainees and dereliction of duty.
sivits, who is not related to det. sipowitz on nypd blue, but makes us think of that fat bald guy every time we hear his name, faced a court martial at the baghdad convention center today.
the court martial pre-empted the baghdad home and garden show that was scheduled at the convention center, but apparently the fine art found in motels sale will go on as scheduled later this week.
and, in an interesting media/cultural development, military.com, the parent of the army times, among others, is reporting the abcnews article we brought you on tuesday, which tells of the allegations by one sgt. samuel provance of a wide-spread cover-up among the military in the scandal.
if history is the judge, awol is voted off the island
thanks to a daily kos diary, we find this history news network essay that shows most historians interviewed see awol as the, wait for it...worst president in history!
a recent informal, unscientific survey of historians conducted at my suggestion by george mason university’s history news network found that eight in ten historians responding rate the current presidency an overall failure.
of 415 historians who expressed a view of president bush’s administration to this point as a success or failure, 338 classified it as a failure and 77 as a success. (moreover, it seems likely that at least eight of those who said it is a success were being sarcastic, since seven said bush’s presidency is only the best since clinton’s and one named millard fillmore.) twelve percent of all the historians who responded rate the current presidency the worst in all of american history, not too far behind the 19 percent who see it at this point as an overall success.
among the cautions that must be raised about the survey is just what “success” means. some of the historians rightly pointed out that it would be hard to argue that the bush presidency has not so far been a political success—or, for that matter that president bush has not been remarkably successful in achieving his objectives in congress. but those meanings of success are by no means incompatible with the assessment that the bush presidency is a disaster. “his presidency has been remarkably successful,” one historian declared, “in its pursuit of disastrous policies.” “i think the bush administration has been quite successful in achieving its political objectives,” another commented, “which makes it a disaster for us.”
lots of bar graphs and pie charts to prove it, go read.
even worse for rumsfeld and his coterie of neo-conservative true believers who have run the pentagon for the past 3½ years, three major institutions in the washington power structure have decided that after almost a full presidential term of being treated with contempt and abuse by them, it's payback time.
those three institutions are: the united states army, the central intelligence agency and the old, relatively moderate but highly experienced republican leadership in the united states senate.
none of those groups is chopped liver: taken together they comprise a devastating grand slam.
and jj also sends us the latest must-have item of the season!
remember, today is don't buy gas day. although we are pretty sure that even if everybody refused to buy gas today, it wouldn't have much of an effect, because we'd all have to buy gas tomorrow, or at least within a week's time.
those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. and those that don't even read history are doomed to repeat their entire school year.
such must be the case with awol. as anybody who studied nixon's years in the white house (hell, not even that, anybody who read doonesbury during that time) could tell him, it ain't the crime that gets you, it's the cover-up.
abcnews is reporting that an intel staffer is blowing the whistle on the cover up at abu ghraib prison:
dozens of soldiers — other than the seven military police reservists who have been charged — were involved in the abuse at iraq's abu ghraib prison, and there is an effort under way in the army to hide it, a key witness in the investigation told abcnews.
"there's definitely a cover-up," the witness, sgt. samuel provance, said. "people are either telling themselves or being told to be quiet"…
"what i was surprised at was the silence," said provance. "the collective silence by so many people that had to be involved, that had to have seen something or heard something."
this, of course, is in direct opposition to the party line, that it was just a "few bad apples." sounds to us like the whole damn orchard.
he said that while he did not see the actual abuse take place, the interrogators with whom he worked freely admitted they directed the mps' rough treatment of prisoners.
"anything [the mps] were to do legally or otherwise, they were to take those commands from the interrogators," he said.
top military officials have claimed the abuse seen in the photos at abu ghraib was limited to a few mps, but provance says the sexual humiliation of prisoners began as a technique ordered by the interrogators from military intelligence.
"one interrogator told me about how commonly the detainees were stripped naked, and in some occasions, wearing women's underwear," provance said. "if it's your job to strip people naked, yell at them, scream at them, humiliate them, it's not going to be too hard to move from that to another level."
jobs are going overseas at a rate 40% higher than previously thought, according to this piece from the sfchron:
u.s. corporations are sending work overseas faster than previously thought, according to forrester research inc., whose controversial report 18 months ago helped stoke the national controversy over offshoring american jobs.
in its latest study, forrester predicts that by the end of next year, u.s. firms will offshore more than 800,000 service jobs, 40 percent more than the firm estimated previously. forrester's overall estimate remains the same: the firm predicts that about 3.3 million jobs will go overseas by 2015.
the cambridge, mass., researcher said the largest u.s. employers are expanding the types of work they send overseas. where telemarketers and software developers used to bear the brunt of the job loss, bank loan processors, insurance claims adjusters and even legal assistants now share the pain.
critics of offshoring seized on the original forrester report as evidence that shipping jobs overseas would devastate service-sector employment and the middle-class workers who fill those occupations. yet the report itself was criticized by economists, company executives and others who have defended offshoring as a painful but necessary result of a global economy.
why is it that the "global economy" usually means "rich guy's paychecks," and has very little to do with the people who actually inhabit most of the globe?
good luck to atrios, and the corner at national review online, who are holding pledge drives to garner enough money so they can blog full-time without worrying about a job.
that being said, don't get us started about bloggers asking readers for money.
we've gone over this before, and pissed off all of our blogger friends in the process.
what we do in blogtopia (aside from yes! coining descriptive phrases of where we do it) is to cull information from cyberspace and organize it in creative and easy-to-digest ways. it's an important task.
but it's not so important that people owe us money for it. really.
if you want to be a writer paid for writing, do it the regular way.
write a whole lot. submit a whole lot. get rejected a whole lot. sell a little. write a whole lot more. submit a whole lot more. get rejected a whole lot more. sell a little bit more.
then, rinse, and repeat.
come on, kevin drum is doing it. we assume glenn reynolds and eric alterman are getting something from msnbc for their time. (we could be wrong. it's been known to happen).
the truth is, it's tough to make a living doing anything creative (and blogging is not anything, if not creative). ask us how hard it is. we at skippy international have not had a day job in over a decade.
it's no bed of roses. it's difficult more often than not. there are ups and downs and many, many arguments with mrs. skippy about getting off our butts and getting a real job.
but, it can be done.
and it has not been done by asking for contributions. loans, maybe, but not contributions.
but who knows, maybe the world is on the verge of a new information-distribution revolution, and somehow the readers of blogs will create a market-sustaining income for their favorite bloggers.
but, having seen the results of epublishing over the past five years, we would not hold our breaths.
folks, blogging is more like a really good pick up game than a professional basketball event. and asking the kids watching your shirts vs. skins practice to pay your bills is a bit of hubris, if we say so ourselves.
if you can't support yourself and engage in a hobby, even a hobby as exciting and important-feeling as blogging (which, after all, is just getting your opinion out there), then, give up your hobby.
now, don't get us wrong. we'd love it if atrios (and even the kids at the corner) can create a lifestyle so that they can blog all day long. and for anyone that wants to donate to that end, more power to you, and god bless us everyone.
and for all the bloggers with a paypal button or amazon wish list, if that's what gets you through the night, fine.
but we think it's a bit much to ask people to pay us directly to hear our opinion.
we'll give it you for free.
and if the time comes that we have to get a day job, then we would hope to use our spare time at night to bring you our view of the world. and if we're too tired or time-consumed to type our version of the news on a keyboard, well, then, maybe our version wasn't all that important in the first place.
we have lost one of the best, if not the classiest, of character actors to have graced american comedies. tony randall, emmy award winning star of stage, screen and television, died in his sleep at the age of 84.
tony will be remembered by the old farts in the audience as the second banana in a slew of the doris day-rock hudson sex innuendo comedies of the 50's, and really old farts will think fondly of his portrayl of mr. peepers' best friend.
but it was his rendition of felix unger in the television version of "the odd couple" that everyone knows him for.
playing opposite jack klugman as oscar, tony managed to make everyone forget jack lemmon in the movie, and art carney in the broadway play, not a mean feat. in fact, it is our opinion that the randall-klugman version was one example of a tv show being far superior to the source material.
and he also was a force in theater in his later years, as he founded the national actors theater in new york, filling a void for a national theater for this country which he perceived. the nat production of m. butterfly, which included his favorite role, received, ironically, a tony award, and he was appearing onstage there as recently as last december.
based on a play by george axelrod, a satirist of impecable insight that would make today's comedy writers pale in comparison, rock hunter is less a story than an excellently-executed mad tv skit skewering the popular culture of the 50's, which, with it's forays into the pitfalls of instant-and-undeserved celebrityhood, is more relevant to today than one would expect. by all means, rent the video!
also, speaking of celebrities who have passed on: andy kaufman is apparently still dead, much to the chagrin of elaborate practical joke fans everywhere.
and judd legum at the progress report analyzes the timken company, which was one of awol's supposed economic success stories. (apparently timken not only outsources to china and busts the american unions, it has announced 1300 lay-offs. but don't worry, it can still afford to contribute to awol's campaign!)
our good friend jj at the daily cookie sends us this latimes article reporting that the guys at enron knew all along they were scamming us. (stop the presses!):
enron corp. employees spoke of "stealing" up to $2 million a day from california during the 2000-01 energy crisis and suggested that their market-gaming ploys would be presented to top management, possibly including jeffrey k. skilling and kenneth l. lay, according to documents released monday.
the evidence of apparent scheming — in one recorded conversation, traders brag about taking money from "grandma millie" in california — is in a filing by a utility in snohomish county, wash. the municipal power unit north of seattle wants refunds for alleged overcharges made by enron during the electricity market meltdown...
while it has long been established that enron engaged in market-gaming tactics — two top traders have pleaded guilty to fraud-related charges for manipulating california's energy market and a third awaits trial — the 450 pages of recorded conversations provide another vivid look into the organization's exploitive subculture.
they also suggest that knowledge of alleged wrongdoing may have reached the level of skilling, enron's former chief executive, and lay, the former chairman.
gee, d'ya think?
addendum: jj also sends us an illustration of what enron was doing to us.
and jj links us to this latimes article detailing the bill introduced by repubbb dana rohrabacher which would force federally funded hospitals to collect fingerprints and pictures of illegal immigrants they treat.
hospital workers could start taking patients' fingerprints under a bill proposed by rep. dana rohrabacher set for a house vote today.
...it would require hospitals that want federal reimbursement for treating illegal immigrants to ask them about their immigration status and then get a photo or fingerprint of those who aren't in the u.s. legally.
hospitals wouldn't be expected to report illegal immigrants, but the data they collect would have to be available to immigration authorities and the department of homeland security, which could use it for security checks and to begin the deportation process...
while some have praised the bill, rohrabacher said, business groups oppose it because it would constrict the flow of cheap immigrant labor.
"it doesn't fit in with what the political and business establishment want, but it is a dream come true for desperate middle-class americans that are frightened to death of losing their country," he said.
while we agree with the word 'desparate,' we'd suggest that instead of "middle-class americans," it should read "middle-class klan members."
jj also sends us the seattle times report about some dems who filed suit against sec. of health and human services tommy thompson:
nineteen house democratic lawmakers filed a federal lawsuit in los angeles yesterday to force u.s. health and human services secretary tommy thompson to release disputed cost estimates on the medicare prescription-drug bill.
the suit, filed in the u.s. district court for the central district of california, claims thompson — through former medicare administrator thomas scully — violated federal law by ordering the medicare actuary not to provide the estimates to congress.
the suit also alleges that thompson violated congressional rules by refusing requests to provide the information to seven democratic members of the house committee on government reform. those seven democratic committee members and 12 others, led by ranking committee member rep. henry waxman, d-calif., filed the suit.
also in the piece is a blurb about how the investigation of the valerie plame affair has now turned to journalists (look out, novak! they're comin' for ya!)
of all the great blogs out there in blogtopia, we are flattered that carl and john know yes! who coined that phrase!
and just to show how much we appreciate their kind thoughts, we are happy to announce the addition of the washington state political report and the gropinator to our blog roll!
blogs that don't link to us because her co-blogger won't do it, but she says she "loves the bush kangaroo," though we are beginning to suspect otherwise
skippy is not responsible for the views and opinions of any website linked to from this page. take it up with them. leave us alone. we're tired, and we need a snack.
