Lake George Accident

Lake George Accident

The boat that capsized on Lake George (in the Adirondack region of NY State) today, drowning 21 elderly passengers, is here.

Playboy Features Political Bloggers

Playboy Features Political Bloggers

No sexy pictures - sorry! ;)

Judith Miller Updates

Judith Miller Updates

Jay Rosen on Judith Miller:
At the Huffington Post, Press Think's Jay Rosen says that "civil disobedience succeeds when there is clarity in purpose, cogency in argument, and transparency in action. None of which has been apparent in [NYT reporter Judith Miller's] decisons..."

_____________

WHIG may see a RICO charge per Skippy the Bush Kangaroo (and WaPo).

At Talk Left:

[Newsweek's] Michael Isikoff reports that Joseph Tate, Libby's lawyer, says Libby did not speak to Novak. Also, the call between Libby and Miller in jail was a four-way conference call with both their lawyers on the call.

Kos talks about some questions asked and comments made by George Stephanopoulos on today's ABC This Week. A source close to this told Stephanopoulos this week that President Bush and Vice President Cheney were actually involved in some of these White House discussions related to the Plame case. Did Bush and/or Cheney play a direct role?

Arianna Huffington recommends the exchange of letters between Scooter Libby, Judith Miller, their lawyers and Patrick Fitzgerald, available on this New York Times site.

Can Democracy Stop Terrorism?

Can Democracy Stop Terrorism?

[Yale Global] Associate professor F. Gregory Gause III of the University of Vermont explores the question of "Can Democracy Stop Terrorism?"

Gause analyses available data on terror incidence and regime types and concludes that "the data available do not show a strong relationship between democracy and an absence of or a reduction in terrorism ... there is no relationship between the incidence of terrorism in a given country and the degree of freedom enjoyed by its citizens."

He also quotes numerous surveys and other evidence showing that Arabs favor democracy, but are cynical of American attempts to promote democracy in the Arab world (such as through the Iraq war). He concludes that American policy to push democratic reforms in the Arab world will probably result in Islamist-led governments that are critical of the United States, and "is unlikely to have much effect on anti-American terrorism emanating from there."

A better approach, he suggests, would be for Washington to "focus on pushing Arab governments to make political space for liberal, secular, leftist, nationalist and other non-Islamist parties to set down roots and mobilize voters." He also sees the US focus on elections as the centerpiece of its democracy promotion strategy as "troubling," along with the "unjustified" confidence that Washington has in its ability to predict, and even direct, the course of politics in other countries, noting that its "hubris should have been crushed in Iraq."

Full text available at Yale Global online.

Karen Armstrong on Myth

Karen Armstrong on Myth

There is an excerpt from Karen Armstrong's A Short History of Myth avialable at The Australian.

Poverty In the News

Poverty In the News

Clarence Page is glad to hear people jawboning about poverty again. He says,

"We who have succeeded in life need to be divinely dissatisfied with tax breaks and other government policies that widen our rich-poor divide to a canyon resembling that of a Third World country."

The Center For American Progress has a brief compilation of excerpts from the Opinion pages of American newspapers about the issue of Poverty.


Bill Stamps of the Long Beach Press-Telegram is convinced that of the hundreds of bodies found in the aftermath of the Katrina flood, not one was a rich person - white or black.


Star Tribune Washington Bureau Chief David Westphal has a feature about Poverty today which begins by reminding us that the "searing images of New Orleans residents who were stranded by floodwaters because they had no means to flee Hurricane Katrina exposed an abiding truth about poverty in America." Although the recent rise in poverty occurred on Bush's watch, it's unclear to Westphal how much responsibility Bush will bear.

Economists say poverty's resurgence was almost certain to follow the economic recession that began two months after Bush took office, just as poverty rates rose after the recessions of the early 1980s and early 1990s...Further, the U.S. poverty picture remains well below historic averages because of dramatic gains during the 1990s.

Newsday's Martin C. Evans continues the discussion about the hurricanes which have pushed the plight of the poor into the nation's consciousness.

The poor are far less likely to own their own home, have access to credit or have property insurance, [said Carla Prater, associate director of the Hazard Reduction and Recovery Center.] Tens of thousands of people in Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Alabama have lost furniture, clothes, cars and other belongings, and will have to start over from nothing, she said...."They don't have savings in the bank to fall back on. They don't have money to stay in a motel or rent an apartment until they get a job, so they end up in a shelter," Prater said. "They don't have health care so their teeth don't look so good when they go to get a job. It goes on and on and on."..Many of the victims of Katrina and Rita had virtually nothing even before the storms.

An excerpt from a letter to the editor of the Binghamton, NY Press & Sun Bulletin by Endicott, NY citizen Anton Wolfe:

The poor are becoming stronger in number, but weaker in power. The rich are becoming smaller in number, but greater in power. The poor are taught division, racial tension, rivalry among themselves. The rich know only of unity in their struggle to maintain their wealth....Destitution and despair do not discriminate based on religion or color. The rich discriminate only by the monetary line. War always divides the common people, always benefits the rich, always takes its greatest toll on the poor......Fight not the war of the rich; rather, fight the war of the poor. Overcome all differences to find the common ground of having nothing...

Tom Ashcraft of the Charlotte Observer wonders why the poor are still with us and is suggesting that we abandon some of our old thinking and consider new solutions. He recommends socially engineering Welfare to reward those who respond to government's encouragement of work and marriage. He leans toward increased dependence upon churches, synagogues, charitable and nonprofit organizations, individuals and corporations as a "voluntary charity" alternative to welfare. [My comment: Slippery slope/slippery slope/slippery slope.]

In Pensacola, Florida, citizens will soon conduct workshops, discussion panels and brainstorming sessions focusing on three areas -- faith, family and finances -- to try to come up with their own solutions to massive racial disparities in poverty, education, health care and quality of life.

In an appeal for support for the United Way, UW/Rhode Island President and CEO Anthony Mainone says,

The cost of housing has already outstripped the income of many in our state. Add to that dramatic increases in heating and transportation costs and you have a storm that will force more and more families into shelters. And we don't have enough shelters to provide safe haven to all of those needing it..... for an increasing number of our people the rain is falling in buckets and the wind is blowing hard. There are people right here in Rhode Island who live Katrina everyday. Their hope dwindles the longer we wait. The need is urgent and the time is now. We must be their hope. The cost of heat and housing will be front and center on United Way of Rhode Island's agenda this year and for years to come..."

The Fair

From the annual Buckwheat Harvest Festival in Penn Yan NY
These and all photos shown by Jude Nagurney Camwell

The Fair

I love the New York State Fair. The sights, the sounds, and the smells. Comedian Tom Kenny (who is the creator of Sponge Bob Squarepants) is from my own hometown of East Syracuse, N.Y. I saw him perform here at the Landmark Theater a few years back, and I recall a great joke he told about feeling like the most handsome man in the world when he walked the fairgrounds of another local fair, the East Syracuse Field Days. He looked around at his fellow fair-kind and realized he wasn't so bad after all. You certainly see a lot of ego-free characters at fairs. Odd folks - and I'm talking about the ones going to see the freak show, not the ones who are in it. Freak shows. There's a whole 'nother story altogether. Otis the Frog Boy had no arms to speak of, yet he could light a cigarette and flip it into his mouth and out again with it being still lit. How cool is that? Kids, don't try that at home.


This is me and Charlie Daniels at the New York State Fair

When I think of the New York State Fair, I think of the smell of fried dough and the wonderful scent of saugage, onions and peppers floating in the air from the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que stand. The Dinosaur is a favorite of Bill and Hillary Clinton, who visit the NY State fair every year without fail. After his first NY State Fair visit, then-President Bill Clinton said, "I come from a place where barbecue is not food; it is a way of life. It is a philosophy of human nature. I have rarely had any as good as this." (September 1, 2000).



I took this photo of a pair of feet and legs, and took home the Red ribbon at the New York State Fair a number of years ago.

Songwriter Chris Trapper of the Push Stars (Boston) wrote a song about fairs. Growing up in Buffalo, NY, I can't help but wonder if he wasn't inspired by the same New York state carnival scenes....

I've got cotton candy lips
Salt water taffy smile
I'm blowing all my money
But I'm going out in style
I start skipping down the street
'Cause I smell it in the air
Yeah I was, and I am, and I will always be a square
Meet me at the Fair..

The Shifting Ground

The Shifting Ground

There is an analogous relationship which can be derived from a view of the physical ground that shifted beneath the levees of New Orleans and the political ground which has shifted beneath the Republican party.

The Gulf coast was far more vulnerable than most people realized. The Republican party was far more vulnerable than cocky politicians thought when they believed that they would never collide with the consequences stemming from their perverted policies and practices.

Juan Cole on Dems and Iraq

Juan Cole on Dems and Iraq

I think you will be interested to read Professor Juan Cole's analysis and opinion about Democrats and the Iraq war.

Quotes from the article (Full text can be seen HERE [truthout.org]):

...The Democrats on the Hill may in some instances be anxious about criticizing the war because they had voted for it, and fear being tagged as inconsistent. But they have other options than silence. They could point out that they were misled by the Bush administration, which menaced them with visions of mushroom clouds from Iraqi nukes, visions that now seem likely to have been outright lies....

.....The potential of a strong antiwar stance striking a chord with the public has already been demonstrated by Paul Hackett. A Marine who recently served in Iraq, Hackett became a civilian and ran in August as a Democrat for Congress in Ohio's 2nd District, traditionally heavily Republican. He lambasted George W. Bush as a chicken hawk and said he should never have begun the Iraq war. Yet Hackett is no peacenik. He says, "I love the Marine Corps. I happen to think it's being misused in Iraq." He only narrowly lost the election, and the Democratic leadership is seriously thinking of putting him up for an Ohio Senate seat, according to the Hill.

Even Democrats who are not veterans of Iraq need to find the courage to speak out on the war if they are effectively to challenge the Republicans. Simply waiting around for things to get worse in Baghdad is a dangerous strategy, not so much because the situation is likely to improve any time soon but because the American people want real leadership on this issue and they know they are not getting it from Bush.

I couldn't agree more. Nothing turns me off, in a political sense, any more than when I hear prominent Democrats talking about purchasing more American blood and spending more American treasure for a failing venture of which we citizens were conned into. It's a poisoned war. The mission was never accomplished. If you ask any American what the mission was, I gurantee that you would get fifty different answers from each respective citizen. It's become the deadliest flip-flop in American history, and our President has led us into it. It is pathetic and unnerving to think that a Democrat would perpetuate this disaster, thinking that they're keeping themselves "electable." (Count the number of years now that they have lost American elections).

Americans need leaders who are brave enough to stick with convictions that fall in line with reality - and who can communicate the reasons for those convictions so the average citizen can understand, hope, and trust.

Listen to the Generals (courtesy of Mark Mazetti/LA Times). "The 149,000 U.S. troops currently in Iraq are increasingly part of the problem." That is not what we've heard from Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton.

Larry Franklin to plead guilty in AIPAC Case

Larry Franklin to plead guilty in AIPAC Case

Neocon Michael Ledden is furious with whoever leaked the information about his friend Larry Franklin. Franklin is the former Pentagon Iran analyst who is expected to plead guilty to three charges of mishandling government secrets next week in a deal his lawyers hope will guarantee his wife at least half of his civil service pension. [NY Sun]

Jim Larson has given a thorough overview of the neocons who've worked directly with the Bush administration, and in that examination of neocons and how their tight ship has become a traitorous ship of fools, Larson says:

When Mr. Franklin approached Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee with classified information, they were already under surveillance by the FBI. Caught red-handed, Mr. Franklin began to cooperate with the FBI.

Poverty: You Must See It to Fix It

Poverty: You Must See It to Fix It

Recognizing poverty in our own nation is an important step to fixing it, says anthropology student Meg Burd at the Rocky Mountain Collegian [Colorado State U]

Poverty often seems to be an issue swept under the rug...Poverty is present throughout the nation, and is not something we should ever let fade from our view.

See:
Winter Crisis Looms for the Poor in Iowa

Near-record-high gasoline prices, inevitable spikes in energy costs and out-of-state disasters pulling regular donations away from Iowa — these are the "indicators of doom" for the poor this winter, said Jerry McKim, who oversees the state's Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. [Des Moines Register]

NOLA Poverty Changes Philly Doctor's Outlook

NOLA Poverty Changes Philly Doctor's Outlook

A doctor from Philadelphia who assisted in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina says:

"How can you spend a week helping a destitute father find shelter for his family, or a poor elderly woman manage her diabetes, and not come away with a feeling of urgency that things have to change? [..] And since it took Hurricane Katrina for many of us to realize that crushing poverty is alive and well in America - because we've stopped seeing the poverty in our own communities - maybe first-person volunteering in Louisiana would keep that realization fresh enough that we'd agitate for change back home....

If the problem is bad in New Orleans, you know it's probably just as bad in Philadelphia..." - Philadelphia Daily News

Judith Miller Sprung From Calaboose

Judith Miller Sprung
From Calaboose

NY Times reporter Judith Miller was released from jail today. She was allegedly convinced that Scooter Libby's legal waiver was not "coerced." She'll testify later today. How many indictments will follow?

Arianna Huffington says:

"..there is no way that the New York Times editorial claiming “it should be clear…that Ms. Miller is not going to change her mind” can be squared with Ms. Miller changing her mind. And there is no way to accept at face value Miller’s grandstanding about “fighting for the cause of the free flow of information.” Who is she still trying to convince? Herself?"

After Miller answers Patrick Fitzgerald’s questions today, Huffington says she'd like to see Miller start answering some "obvious questions raised by her head-scratching stance." (link)

Edwards Launches "College for Everyone" Initiative

Edwards Launches "College for Everyone" Initiative
Pilot Program Will Benefit Students in Greene County, N.C.

Former Sen. John Edwards promised 140 high school seniors in one of the state's poorest counties that they could get free college tuition through a new program that will require them to work while they study. [Greensboro News and Record]

Edwards says the program would be funded by donations from individuals, companies and charitable foundations. Students could attend North Carolina State, East Carolina, Fayetteville State, North Carolina A&T and UNC-Wilmington. They could also go to two nearby community colleges. [WFMY News, Greensboro-High Point-Winston-Salem]

See the story by guest blogger Jon at the One America website.

See today's feature on John Edwards at The Daily Tar Heel by Erin Gibson -
A man with many hats

Also, Edwards appeared on News and Notes with Ed Gordon (NPR) today:

Former V.P. Candidate Edwards: Class and Katrina: News & Notes with Ed Gordon, September 29, 2005 · Former North Carolina senator and vice presidential candidate John Edwards talks about America's class crossroads and what can be learned from Hurricane Katrina.

*Audio for this story will be available here at approx. 1:00 p.m. ET

Keep It Real, David Brooks

Keep It Real, David Brooks
We'll respect you a lot more if you stop repeating what we know to be false

David Brooks really needs to get over himself and the patently false point he keeps trying to drive home, which is that Democrats are divided between those who are bitter partisans and those who are less so.

The Democrats have drawn the 10-years-out-of-date conclusion that in order to win, they need to be just like Tom DeLay. They need to rigidly hew to orthodoxy. They need Deaniac hyperpartisanship. They need to organize their hatreds around Bush the way the Republicans did around Clinton.- [NYT Select]

It just isn't true, no matter how many times Brooks says it. Perhaps this is what some pundits hope will become CW ("conventional wisdom,") if it is repeated enough. Democrats will have to show David Brooks that he is wrong. George Bush has become an unpopular president, and it has stunned those of us who have paid attention all along that he has gotten away with so much and has fooled so many Americans, with the help of pliant and intentionally tilted (Fox News) media.

Partisanship is a natural political tendency. To see the Bush administration getting away with lies and the systematic destruction of social democracy has never seemed natural. To see Fox News intentionally tilting the news to the right has never seemed natural. To see the Republican majority virtually shutting the Democrats out from the participatory process in Congress at every opportunity has never seemed fair, natural, or democratic.

If Howard Dean takes the time to remind Americans that it was a vile (and sometimes criminal) kind of partisanship that has allowed us to be in the weakened position our country is in today and to allow the evils of poverty and inequality to flourish, then I say more power to him. At the same time, I look to potential presidential candidates who can offer positive ideas to pull our nation out of the rot to which the Bush administration has led us. Americans aren't so stupid that they're going to continue falling for the line about how Democrats hate Bush. We don't have to hate him anymore - he's a proven abuser of the public trust, and so are many who played vile games thinking the media would continue to cover for them. Drunk with power, Republicans got much too cocky. As Bush and his Republican cronies (in Congress, his administration, and beyond) continue to screw up royally, and as each wrongdoer falls in shame, it will be less likely that Democrats will be forced to convince Americans of what's been true all along.

Bill Bennett Helps GOP to Lose More Minority Votes

Bill Bennett Helps GOP to Lose More Minority Votes
..This idiotic run-of-the-mouth may lose the GOP as many minority votes as the Hurricane Katrina federal response failures

A titan among moral titans. Virtuous spokesman of the virtuous Republican party. Distinguished Fellow of the Heritage Foundation. Bill Bennett says...

"You could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down"
[See Steve Gilliard]

A commenter at Gilliard's News Blog says, in response:

We could come up with some stats that prove that if we aborted the offspring of conservative whites about 50-60 years ago, we would have less white collar crime, federal cronyism and government incompetance.

The Public's Changing Mood

The Public's Changing Mood

David Michael Green on the changing mood of the public toward American politics:

Even conservative columnists like David Brooks (though not Novak) are writing articles nowadays accurately describing the changed mood of the American public. Where those powerful currents are heading is unclear, but given the radical right experiment of the present as their point of departure, there would seem to be only two choices. We can either go completely off the deep-end and finally constitute the Fascist Republic of Cheney, or we can turn to the left, toward some semblance of rational policymaking. The latter seems far more likely, especially as America increasingly regains its senses after a long bout of temporary insanity. These are bad bits of news for poor George, but worse yet is that they are only the first signs of the coming apocalypse. The real fun stuff is just around the corner.

Rall on Iraq War: Polarization, Apathy, and Silence

Rall on Iraq War: Polarization, Apathy, and Silence

Ted Rall has some interesting thoughts on the Iraq war.

A year ago, [certain developments] would have sparked accusations, counterarguments and fierce debates in the U.S. over what to do next. Now, no one cares.

Rall claims that political polarization has contributed to citizen apathy and silence.

The Iraq war, validated by neither constitutional legality nor (unlike Vietnam) international endorsement via the U.N., prompted millions to protest before it even began. So when the reality of Iraq belied the Bush Administration's promises--no WMDs, no body armor, no rose petals, no mission accomplished--we clammed up like a bickering couple whose positions are intractable and diametrically opposed. After 9/11, only a fool would have let Saddam remain in power, say the Bushian 44 percent. And 56 percent reply: only a fool would have attacked Saddam while 9/11 remained unavenged. But they keep their opinions to themselves and the occasional pollster.

How do you stop a war that you believe is unjust and immoral when most Americans could give a hoot?

"..the war has become institutionalized. It is background noise. It is hard to imagine what could happen in Iraq that would make pay attention and talk, even argue, about the war. A bomb that killed a thousand civilians? Probably not even that ... Right or wrong? Essential or idiotic? When it comes to the war against Iraq, Americans only agree about one thing: It is no longer interesting. And so, pro or con, it is lost all the same."

Republican Scandals Abound

Republican Scandals Abound

Catherine Dodge and Laura Litvan [Bloomberg] report that U.S. Senate Majority leader Bill Frist will cooperate with all probes and "denies having any non-public information when he directed the sale of his HCA Inc. stock a month before the company said quarterly profit would miss analysts estimates."

Otis Bilodeau [Bloomberg] follows up his own story about the probability of an SEC probe from yesterday with today's Frist Faces Heat as SEC Orders Formal Inquiry Into Stock Sale

The SEC authorized a formal order of investigation of Frist's sale in June of HCA Inc. shares, people with direct knowledge of the inquiry said yesterday. The order allows the agency's enforcement unit to subpoena documents and compel witnesses to testify, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the order hasn't been made public...``This turns the flame up under the kettle and keeps the water boiling,'' said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the independent Rothenberg Poltical Report in Washington.

At the WaPo, Terry M. Neal asks:

Is it 1994 all over again? .. Dark and ominous clouds are gathering over the Republican Party these days, with a series of ethical and legal scandals that threaten to further damage a White House and Congress already reeling from a sharp drop in public approval ratings...Rep. Tom Delay (Tex.), Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.) and a top administration official (David Safavian, the White House's top procurement officer) have all been ensnared in highly embarrassing ethics scandals recently.

Catherine Dodge [Bloomberg] reports that U.S. House Representative Roy Blunt will replace Tom Delay as U.S. House Majority leader. (Blunt info)

When will we hear about what U.S. federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald discovered over the summer about traitors/CIA outers Karl Rove and Scooter Libby?

The "I-word" (impeachment) is seriously discussed by Dr. Bernard Weiner.

Citizens/Media Speak Out on Posse Comitatus

Citizens/Media Speak Out on Posse Comitatus

- Farewell Posse Comitatus [watchblog.com]

- The Mother of All Bad Ideas [scalzi.com]

- The War on Posse Comitatus [mutualist blog]

- Posse Comitatus Problems
[qando.net]

- Using the Military at Home [PBS]

- Repealing Posse Comitatus Means Iraq in the US. Do We Really Want This? [ilcaonline.org]

- If Posse Comitatus is chucked, time to reconsider federalism
[PalmBeachPost.com]

- Hands off Posse Comitatus [newsleader.com]

- Leave things that don't need fixing alone [baxterbulletin.com]

- Should the military handle natural disasters? - Posse antiqus [mtulode.com]

- The Danger of Standing Armies [lewrockwell.com]

- Pentagon begins review of law on military's domestic role [govexec.com]

- Proposal for military to take lead in disasters raises concerns [Knight Ridder]

- Bush Wants to Consider Broadening of Military's Powers During Natural Disasters [NYT]