Open thread

Just taped another DemsTV. I didn't win. :-( Read the rest of this post...

Halliburton Is A War Profiteer Says Bush's Pentagon

One of the many, many details in the Vanity Fair article about Halliburton that is linked to below deals with its overcharging for fuel. Now it turns out the Pentagon auditors finished their work in October 2004 -- one month before the election -- and Bush promptly buried it despite repeated requests from Republicans and Democrats.

Rep. Henry Waxman of California -- whose been slam-dunking all over the place lately -- got a copy and released details today. Among the highlights of Halliburton's thievery from the NYT:

1. Halliburton ripped American tax-payers off of at least $108 million in this one area of providing fuel -- that's much more than was thought and the final tally could be much higher.

2. A company Halliburton "outsourced" the real work to, Altanmia, is back in the spotlight with this. Depending on who you believe, Halliburton let them overcharge mightily because the Pentagon would pay any price and Halliburton's commission would only be higher. OR, if you prefer, sleazy people in the Administration forced them to use this company for nefarious reasons of its own.

3. "In one case, according to the report, the company claimed that it had paid more than $27 million to transport liquefied petroleum gas it had purchased in Kuwait for just $82,000 - a fee the auditors tartly dismissed as "illogical."" says the NYT.

That's not illogical. And that's not overcharging. That's WAR PROFITEERING. While young men and women are dying, Halliburton execs were staying in luxurious hotels, outsourcing the work, doing crucial work often poorly and then ripping off the American people. And these are Bush's friends. Read the rest of this post...

What in God's name does this say?

Ok, I'm turning to the power of the Internets here.

I bought a document in New Orleans a few years back. It wasn't very expensive, I had a feeling it was real, so I bought it (it was from a reputable store, so that upped my confidence).

Basically, it looks to be some kind of old text in a language I can't decipher (and I know a few). I've shown it to a number of people, and no one has been able to even figure out what language it's in, let alone what is says. I'm posting copies of the front and back of the doc below, to see if anyone out there has a clue, or knows someone who has a clue. It appears that the front and back of the document are different languages (the back seems to be English).

Anyway, have at it - I'm dying to know what this is, what is says, and if it's even real.

• Side one, small and large photos.
• Side two, small and large photos.

Read the rest of this post...

American Family Association promotes debunked quack scientist

I wrote the other day about how WorldNetDaily had written about a new "study" by an anti-gay quack scientist who was thrown out of the scientific profession twenty years ago. This quack in question is Paul Cameron, the guy who is largely responsible for the "gays molest children" myth and created the "average age of death for gay men is 41" (it's not) myth as well.

Well now the American Family Association is promoting Cameron too, in their propaganda organ AgapePress:

Dr. Paul Cameron of the Family Research Institute says the study showed that over one-third of the child sexual abuse cases in the Illinois foster care system were same-sex incidents, and he believes these figures reflect the rest of the United States.

Now let me give you a little flavor of the wonderful Mr. Cameron:

"At the 1985 Conservative Political Action Conference, Cameron announced to the attendees, 'Unless we get medically lucky, in three or four years, one of the options discussed will be the extermination of homosexuals.' According to an interview with former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, Cameron was recommending the extermination option as early as 1983." - Mark E. Pietrzyk, News-Telegraph, March 10, 1995.

"At least twice Cameron has advocated the tattooing of AIDS patients on the face, so that people would know when they were meeting with an infected person. The penalty for trying to hide the tattoo would be banishment to the Hawaiian island of Molokai, a former leper colony. In the event that a vaccine were developed to prevent AIDS, Cameron has proposed that homosexuals be castrated to prevent them from 'cheating' on nature." - Mark E. Pietrzyk, News-Telegraph, March 10, 1995.

"I think that actually AIDS is a guardian. That is I think it was sent, if you would, about forty years ago, to destroy Western civilization unless we change our sexual ways. So it's really a Godsend." - Cameron quoted by Mark E. Pietrzyk, News-Telegraph, March 10, 1995.

Gays eat feces

"33% [of gays surveyed] ingested feces via anal/oral contact"-Paul Cameron quoted at http://www.biblebelievers.com/Cameron2.html

"gays who practice oral sex verge on consuming raw human blood"- Paul Cameron

This is extremely disturbing. Not just because Cameron's fake science was debunked 20 years ago, but because there's now a clear pattern of the religious right and far-right news outlets trying to rehabilitate this man. I cannot understate how crazy this guy is. He was SO discredited that the religious right stopped citing him altogether about 5 years ago. And now they're trying to bring him back. To compare this guy to Josef Mengele would not be a stretch. We are talking nutjob, vicious, nasty, bigoted, lying nutjob. And the American Family Association tries to rehabilitate him.

Who would Jesus slander? Read the rest of this post...

Another DeLay scandal?

UPDATE: If you're like us, you're having trouble keeping track of Tom DeLay's various ethical infractions. The Center for American Progress helps summarize them all for us.

Now, this from Newsweek:

The FBI is trying to trace what happened to $2.5 million in payments to a conservative Washington think tank that were routed to accounts controlled by two lobbyists with close ties to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, NEWSWEEK has learned. The payments to the National Center for Public Policy Research were meant for a PR campaign promoting Indian gaming, center officials said. But internal e-mails obtained by NEWSWEEK show the lobbyists, Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon, DeLay's former press secretary, never documented any work performed or explained what they did with the money despite repeated requests. "We're disappointed and frustrated," said Amy Ridenour, the center's president. The group's records have been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury. One focus of the FBI probe, legal sources say, is whether the payments, as well as tens of millions of dollars in other fees collected by the two lobbyists from Indian tribes, were used for political contributions or to pay for trips and gifts to members of Congress....

Read the rest of this post...

Blogger of the week suggestions?

We're taping DemsTV again tonight and I'm looking for recommendations for this week's "blogger of the week." I.e., something a progressive blogger did in the last week that was particularly noteworthy, cool, moving, effective, gutsy, whatever. Just something that was outstandingly good.

Suggestions? And I want links :-) Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Note, I mention the CA gay marriage news at the end of the nest post below. Read the rest of this post...

Breaking News: Judge Rules California Can't Ban Gay Marriage

Big news from California according to the Associated Press:

A judge ruled Monday that California's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional, saying the state could no longer justify limiting marriage to a man and a woman.

In the eagerly awaited opinion likely to be appealed to the state's highest court, San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer said that withholding marriage licenses from gays and lesbians is unconstitutional.

"It appears that no rational purpose exists for limiting marriage in this state to opposite-sex partners," Kramer wrote.

Read the rest of this post...

Halliburton Scandal Back In View

Vanity Fair has a terrific, lengthy expose about Halliburton and how it made billions in Iraq, mostly on no-compete contracts. This feature details their laziness and corruption and greed, and profiles the brave whistleblowers who risked their careers (and soometimes their lives) to stand up to it.

Some highlights: how standard operating procedure was ignored time and again (awarding contracts rarely followed the rules), how incompetence was the order of the day (truck drivers in Iraq begged for regular maintenance and tried to explain to idiotic superiors that they were transporting goods in a stupid dangerous fashion), how wastefulness was a way of life (trainees were put up in luxury hotels back in America when Motel 6 would have been more appropriate) and why nothing will be done about it (the Republicans control both Houses). Engrossing. Read the rest of this post...

A word about conspiracy theories

I don't publish conspiracy theories. I also don't publish stories from supposed journalism sources I've never heard of. Often the two go hand in hand.

I just felt the need to post this because there's been a marked increase, of late, of people sending me all sorts of stuff from sources I (and I suspect they) have never heard of, and about things that, while perhaps intriguing, sound kind of goofy.

To wit, Jeff GannonGuckert is really a small boy from the midwest kidnappped when he was 12 and forced into sexual slavery that led him all the way to a sex ring in the Bush 41 White House and now into Bush 43. Uh huh.

At the expense of those of you I know I'm going to tick off by saying this, bullshit. I've looked at many of those sources, and if you look at those sources' other "stories" they're about as credible of journalists as GannonGuckert himself. (Oh, and by the way, Arlen Specter is apparently dying of AIDS according to one of those sources - who knew?)

That's not to say wild theories are always untrue. Who'd have thought that Nixon would be running a break-in of the Democratic headquarters? Or Clinton doing an intern in the Oval Office? Or that GannonGuckert would actually turn out to be a hooker and we'd actually get the proof? Yes, Virginia, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you're not being followed.

But. Just because you're paranoid and may actually be being followed doesn't mean you announce it to the world before you have the facts.

And that's where I think reputable blogs differ from those that are giving me some heartburn of late. None of the top blogs running the GannonGuckert story published any of the more damning details without absolutely incontrovertible proof in hand. When the blogs had proof that Gannon's personal URL was owened by a company that owned male escort URLs, they printed it. When this blog had absolute proof that GannonGuckert was a hooker, that's when we printed it - not 4 days before when we first got the story. We did our research, our due diligence, got our facts in a row, and even reached out to GannonGuckert (who didn't reply).

My point is that having a voice, whether it's a popular blog or just an email account, brings with it some responsibility. I think all of us, left and right, should think about what information we may be helping spread before we spread it. That's all I'm saying.

And, speaking of conspiracy theories, I always used to make fun of "the black helicopter crowd." I.e., those people, usually in the northwest, who live in shacks, have every weapon on the planet, and are waiting for Mulder and Scully to bust in (in their mythical black helicopter) and take away their guns.

Well, funny thing happened a while back. I was talking on the phone to a client, and I hear a loud noise outside my window. I look out and see this across the way:



Hmmm, I think. Doesn't quite look like a news helicopter, and certainly isn't Marine One. Then it's starts heading my and flies literally over my apartment, so I snap another pic:



Like I said: Sometimes conspiracies are based on a kernel of truth. All I ask is that you check them out first before going all nuts on them. Read the rest of this post...

Earth Still Flat -- Per Religious Right

A depressing article in the Washington Post about how the religious right is totally mobilized behind attacking evolution and basic science. They are fighting on a thousand fronts and winning skirmishes every day. And, frankly, it gets exhausting explaining why you don't believe the earth is flat or that the world is some 40,000 years old rather than billions of years old.

My God, forty five years ago when we were chasing the Russians in the space race and glorifying science and math, there was no "debate" in schools about the basic tenets of science and the fight over evolution was a relic of the past, along with fights over slavery and the rights of women. Now we're falling behind in math and science across the board when compared to Europe and Japan and the far right wants to condemn Galileo all over again. See a link? Read the rest of this post...

US Aviation Industry Still Very Vulnerable to Terrorists

More than $12 billion has been spent on beefing up security in the aviation industry, but according to a new government report covered in the NYT, there are still a LOT of holes.

"Despite a huge investment in security, the American aviation system remains vulnerable to attack by Al Qaeda and other jihadist terrorist groups, with noncommercial planes and helicopters offering terrorists particularly tempting targets, a confidential government report concludes," says the NYT.

One sad, simple fact they don't mention: Almost four years after 9/11 and they STILL don't have integrated watch lists that are checked by either the airlines or government officials to make sure that the terrorists we KNOW about don't simply book flights on major airlines under their own names. Yep, the info obtained by the FBI, CIA, NSA and other government agencies is STILL not provided on a master list to someone overseeing who is let into this country or booking flights on airlines. It happened before. No reason to think it won't happen again until we get our act together. Read the rest of this post...

Women cops suck

Or so says GOP love child Michelle Malkin. Malkin, you'll recall, is the uber-popular conservative writer who thinks detentions camps for Japanese-Americans during WWII were really quite plush, and she thinks we ought to consider using them again for other nasty minorities we don't trust (can we start with conservative writers who hate themselves?)

In this case, Malkin is railing about female cops. Apparently they kill people because they're so incompetent. Well, at least that's the lesson Malkin says we should take from the recent murders in Atlanta. Malkin says the perp overpowered a female court guard and got her gun. So that means all women cops kill people through their incompetence. And she notes the AUDACITY of the authorities in Georgia to let a mere woman escort the perp now that he's in custody (see photo below).

So does Malkin think US female soldiers kill people too?

And a special note to all your female police officers, FBI agents and soldiers out there. Malkin is a darling of the GOP. This is what you voted for last fall if you voted GOP.

PS My favorite part of Malkin's entire post is the headline, check it out:



What's wrong with this picture? Oh, I don't know. Maybe that an Asian-American WOMAN could be so bigoted against Asians and women?

(Kudos to Atrios for spotting this story.) Read the rest of this post...

Doonsbury picks up GannonGuckert story

Too funny.

E&P; on Doonsbury and GannonGuckert. Read the rest of this post...

Tom DeLay In Trouble? Republicans Decide The One Hundredth Ethical Lapse May Be One Too Many

The Washington Post is reporting that Democrats smell blood in the water and Republicans are finally getting worried that Tom DeLay's endless ethical violations and refusal to clean up his act despite years of political embarassment may finally be making him vulnerable to serious problems.

"With some members increasingly concerned that DeLay had left himself vulnerable to attack, several Republican aides and lobbyists said for the first time that they are worried about whether he will survive and what the consequences could be for the party's image," says the Washington Post.

Could the deLay in kicking his butt out finally be over? Read the rest of this post...

Demand The MSM Do Its Job

I know we've talked about USA Next and even this particular piece a lot, but here's a link to the Sunday NYT Magazine interview with chief executive of USA Next Charlie Jarvis.

This is what constitutes the "hard-hitting" section:

Critics say your organization is not a legitimate lobbying group but a front for those who want to privatize Social Security, including Karl Rove, the president's chief strategist.

I have never had a one-to-one meeting with him.

What about a two-to-one meeting?

I've met him. I think he is a political and tactical genius. I've been in presentations by him at the White House briefings.

Does he know your name?

Now he does. He would say, of course: ''Charlie Jarvis was the one who was in that interview in The New York Times Magazine. And how did he blow that interview so badly?''

-- all per NYT

So USA Next gets a full-page profile in the NYT, talking to its main man about their "lobbying strategy" and otherwise completely legitimizing them as for real. And yet there have been numerous different news stories detailing the following:

1. USA Next is the latest in a string of "lobbying" groups run by the same people whose sole purpose seems to be raising money with fear-mongering letters to old people so it can pay its top leaders big salaries and keep raising more money.

2. USA Next repeatedly claims a membership of 1.5 million but is mostly funded by the pharmaceutical industry. Does it claim 1.5 million members because that's how many old people it sends misleading junk mail to in an attempt to raise money?

3. USA Next is credited with engineering "the recent controversial ad that branded AARP pro-gay marriage.... What else are you planning?" said the NYT. No, a correct description is that they launched an outrageous and absurd smear against the AARP that gained lots of attention but backfired in their faces by making charges so ludicrous (that the AARP is somehow anti-military) that they were roundly criticized. They also did it by apparently breaking the law and are facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit. (This may not have been known by deadline.)

4. And before you call this liberal bashing, the Bush Administration itself (through the Social Security Administration) has fined USA Next more than $500,000 for fradulent mailings to old people that scared and defrauded them in an attempt to raise money for itself.

So why is this group being treated like a legitimate lobbying organization? There should be NO articles about their work as a lobbying group. There should be LOTS of articles about its record of fraud and deceit, of being fined by Bush for scaring and intimidating old people, of how it is ANTI-elderly (Bush says so). Nothing they do should be given legitimacy. Their entire past -- which apparently includes numerous similar self-perpetuating fund-raising businesses geared towards the elderly -- should be detailed at length.

Instead, the NYT blesses them with a profile that paints it as a player, a mover and shaker on the national scene. It doesn't delve into the group's shady past. It gives it cover for the future -- your elderly grandparents could read this and think that when they get a letter from USA Next in the mail, it's a real group, rather than scam artists who have been fined by the Bush Administration itself.

The only way to stop this is by asking the NYT and any media outlet that covers them as a real lobbying group rather than shysters about the numerous charges against it and why THOSE weren't the focus of their articles.

We let the MSM get away with legitimizing the Swift Boat Veterans. And now some of those same people are working for USA Next. Keep the media honest and let us know any response you get. Read the rest of this post...