Daily Nonsense

Original image found on Telegraph.co.uk

In an interview with Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, Susan J. Crawford, has admitted that Mohammed al-Qahtani, the suspected 20th terrorist in the 9/11 attack on the US was brutally tortured while being detained in the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.  Brutally tortured by Americans while being held without regard for the Geneva Convention.

Tortured by us.  Tortured by Americans.

Let’s couple this with Still Vice President Cheney’s admission on December 15th that he authorized and approved of the interrogation tactics used against a so-called "high value prisoner" at the controversial Guantanamo Bay prison,.  So Cheney admitted to giving official sanctioning of torture.

Where is the moral outrage?  Where are the arrests and public humiliation of these government officials?  Why is Still Vice President Dick Cheney not locked up right now?  We know that he believes that he is above the law (or worse, a law unto himself), but surely saner minds know better.

Why has there been no action?  Why has the name Cheney not be irrevocably linked with torture like Aaron Burr has been linked with treason?

Detainee Tortured, Says U.S. Official
Trial Overseer Cites ‘Abusive’ Methods Against 9/11 Suspect

By Bob Woodward
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 14, 2009; A01

The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, interrogating him with techniques that included sustained isolation, sleep deprivation, nudity and prolonged exposure to cold, leaving him in a "life-threatening condition."

"We tortured [Mohammed al-]Qahtani," said Susan J. Crawford, in her first interview since being named convening authority of military commissions by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in February 2007. "His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that’s why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.

Crawford, a retired judge who served as general counsel for the Army during the Reagan administration and as Pentagon inspector general when Dick Cheney was secretary of defense, is the first senior Bush administration official responsible for reviewing practices at Guantanamo to publicly state that a detainee was tortured.

Crawford, 61, said the combination of the interrogation techniques, their duration and the impact on Qahtani’s health led to her conclusion. "The techniques they used were all authorized, but the manner in which they applied them was overly aggressive and too persistent. . . . You think of torture, you think of some horrendous physical act done to an individual. This was not any one particular act; this was just a combination of things that had a medical impact on him, that hurt his health. It was abusive and uncalled for. And coercive. Clearly coercive. It was that medical impact that pushed me over the edge" to call it torture, she said.

Military prosecutors said in November that they would seek to refile charges against Qahtani, 30, based on subsequent interrogations that did not employ harsh techniques. But Crawford, who dismissed war crimes charges against him in May 2008, said in the interview that she would not allow the prosecution to go forward.

Qahtani was denied entry into the United States a month before the Sept. 11 attacks and was allegedly planning to be the plot’s 20th hijacker. He was later captured in Afghanistan and transported to Guantanamo in January 2002. His interrogation took place over 50 days from November 2002 to January 2003, though he was held in isolation until April 2003.

"For 160 days his only contact was with the interrogators," said Crawford, who personally reviewed Qahtani’s interrogation records and other military documents. "Forty-eight of 54 consecutive days of 18-to-20-hour interrogations. Standing naked in front of a female agent. Subject to strip searches. And insults to his mother and sister."

At one point he was threatened with a military working dog named Zeus, according to a military report. Qahtani "was forced to wear a woman’s bra and had a thong placed on his head during the course of his interrogation" and "was told that his mother and sister were whores." With a leash tied to his chains, he was led around the room "and forced to perform a series of dog tricks," the report shows.

The interrogation, portions of which have been previously described by other news organizations, including The Washington Post, was so intense that Qahtani had to be hospitalized twice at Guantanamo with bradycardia, a condition in which the heart rate falls below 60 beats a minute and which in extreme cases can lead to heart failure and death. At one point Qahtani’s heart rate dropped to 35 beats per minute, the record shows.

The Qahtani case underscores the challenges facing the incoming Obama administration as it seeks to close the controversial detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including the dilemmas posed by individuals considered too dangerous to release but whose legal status is uncertain. FBI "clean teams," which gather evidence without using information gained during controversial interrogations, have established that Qahtani intended to join the 2001 hijackers. Mohamed Atta, the plot’s leader, who died steering American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center, went to the Orlando airport to meet Qahtani on Aug. 4, 2001, but the young Saudi was denied entry by a suspicious immigration inspector.

"There’s no doubt in my mind he would’ve been on one of those planes had he gained access to the country in August 2001," Crawford said of Qahtani, who remains detained at Guantanamo. "He’s a muscle hijacker. . . . He’s a very dangerous man. What do you do with him now if you don’t charge him and try him? I would be hesitant to say, ‘Let him go.’ "

That, she said, is a decision that President-elect Barack Obama will have to make. Obama repeated Sunday that he intends to close the Guantanamo center but acknowledged the challenges involved. "It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize," Obama said on ABC’s "This Week," "and we are going to get it done, but part of the challenge that you have is that you have a bunch of folks that have been detained, many of whom may be very dangerous, who have not been put on trial or have not gone through some adjudication. And some of the evidence against them may be tainted, even though it’s true."

President Bush and Vice President Cheney have said that interrogations never involved torture. "The United States does not torture. It’s against our laws, and it’s against our values," Bush asserted on Sept. 6, 2006, when 14 high-value detainees were transferred to Guantanamo from secret CIA prisons. And in a interview last week with the Weekly Standard, Cheney said, "And I think on the left wing of the Democratic Party, there are some people who believe that we really tortured."

"I sympathize with the intelligence gatherers in those days after 9/11, not knowing what was coming next and trying to gain information to keep us safe," said Crawford, a lifelong Republican. "But there still has to be a line that we should not cross. And unfortunately what this has done, I think, has tainted everything going forward."

"The Department has always taken allegations of abuse seriously," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said in an e-mail. "We have conducted more than a dozen investigations and reviews of our detention operations, including specifically the interrogation of Mohammed Al Qahtani, the alleged 20th hijacker. They concluded the interrogation methods used at GTMO, including the special techniques used on Qahtani in 2002, were lawful. However, subsequent to those reviews, the Department adopted new and more restrictive policies and procedures for interrogation and detention operations. Some of the aggressive questioning techniques used on Al Qahtani, although permissible at the time, are no longer allowed in the updated Army field manual."

After the Supreme Court ruled in the 2006 Hamdan v. Rumsfeld case that the original military commission system for Guantanamo Bay violated the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions, Congress rewrote the rules and passed the Military Commissions Act, creating a new structure for trials by commissions. The act bans torture but permits "coercive" testimony.

Crawford said she believes that coerced testimony should not be allowed. "You don’t allow it in a regular court," said Crawford, who served as a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces from 1991 to 2006.

Under the act, Crawford is a neutral official overseeing charges, trials and sentencing, with ultimate decision-making power over all cases coming before the military commissions.

In May 2008, Crawford ordered the war-crimes charges against Qahtani dropped but did not state publicly that the harsh interrogations were the reason. "It did shock me," Crawford said. "I was upset by it. I was embarrassed by it. If we tolerate this and allow it, then how can we object when our servicemen and women, or others in foreign service, are captured and subjected to the same techniques? How can we complain? Where is our moral authority to complain? Well, we may have lost it."

The harsh techniques used against Qahtani, she said, were approved by then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "A lot of this happened on his watch," she said. Last month, a Senate Armed Services Committee report concluded that "Rumsfeld’s authorization of aggressive interrogation techniques for use at Guantanamo Bay was a direct cause of detainee abuse there." The committee found the interrogation techniques harsh and abusive but stopped short of calling them torture.

An aide to the former defense secretary accused the committee chairman, Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), of pursuing a politically motivated "false narrative" that is "unencumbered by the preponderance of the facts."

In June 2005, Time magazine obtained 83 pages of Qahtani’s interrogation log and published excerpts that showed some of the extreme abuse. The report of a military investigation released the same year concluded that Qahtani’s interrogations were "degrading and abusive."

Crawford said she does not know whether five other detainees accused of participating in the Sept. 11 plot, including alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, were tortured. "I assume torture," she said, noting that CIA Director Michael V. Hayden has said publicly that Mohammed was one of three detainees waterboarded by the CIA. Crawford declined to say whether she considers waterboarding, a technique that simulates drowning, to be torture.

The five detainees face capital murder charges, and Crawford said she let the charges go forward because the FBI satisfied her that they gathered information without using harsh techniques. She noted that Mohammed has acknowledged his Sept. 11 role in court, whereas Qahtani has recanted his self-incriminating statements to the FBI.

"There is no doubt he was tortured," Gitanjali S. Gutierrez, Qahtani’s civilian attorney, said this week. "He has loss of concentration and memory loss, and he suffers from paranoia. . . . He wants just to get back to Saudi Arabia, get married and have a family." She said Qahtani "adamantly denies he planned to join the 9/11 attack. . . . He has no connections to extremists." Gutierrez said she believes Saudi Arabia has an effective rehabilitation program and Qahtani ought to be returned there.

When she came in as convening authority in 2007, Crawford said, "the prosecution was unprepared" to bring cases to trial. Even after four years working possible cases, "they were lacking in experience and judgment and leadership," she said. "A prosecutor has an ethical obligation to review all the evidence before making a charging decision. And they didn’t have access to all the evidence, including medical records, interrogation logs, and they were making charging decisions without looking at everything."

She noted that prosecutors are required to determine whether any evidence possessed by the government could be exculpatory; if it is, they must turn it over to defense lawyers. It took more than a year, she said — and the intervention of Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England — to ensure they had access to all the information, much of it classified.

Crawford said detainee interrogation practices are a blot on the reputation of the United States and its military judicial system. "There’s an assumption out there that everybody was tortured. And everybody wasn’t tortured. But unfortunately perception is reality." The system she oversees probably can’t function now, she said. "Certainly in the public’s mind, or politically speaking, and certainly in the international community" it may be forever tainted. "It may be too late."

She said Bush was right to create a system to try unlawful enemy combatants captured in the war on terrorism. The implementation, however, was flawed, she said. "I think he hurt his own effort. . . . I think someone should acknowledge that mistakes were made and that they hurt the effort and take responsibility for it."

"We learn as children it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than it is for permission," Crawford said. "I think the buck stops in the Oval Office."

Researchers Julie Tate and Evelyn Duffy contributed to this report.

Defense Lawyers for the Blackwater 5 had thought to influence justice by having their clients surrender in Utah.  A state that traditionally supports the military, the lawyers for the defense hoped to find a sympathetic jury there.

Those hopes were squashed like bugs underfoot when a federal judge there ordered the defendants to report to a District of Columbia courthouse on January 6th of next year.  Considering the likelihood that this will be a high profile case that is sure to set precedent, I can only applaud the judge’s decision to move venue to the capitol.

Of course, the larger issues remain.  Will the corporation itself and the legislators who approved the no-bid contract which allowed Blackwater to be in Iraq in the first place ever be called to task?  Probably not in this lifetime, but Karma is a bitch and we will certainly hope for justice.

 

Judge: Blackwater guards must report to DC court

Staff and agencies
08 December, 2008

Blackwater charges: 14 counts of manslaughter

The shooting by the largest U.S. security contractor in Iraq sparked international condemnation, launched congressional hearings and inspired anti-American insurgent propaganda.

A sixth Blackwater guard struck a deal with prosecutors, turned on his former colleagues, and pleaded guilty to killing one Iraqi and wounding another.

Prosecutors said the slain included young children, women, people fleeing in cars and a man whose arms were raised in surrender as he was shot in the chest.

Blackwater, which was not charged in the case, maintains its guards were protecting themselves from what they believed was an imminent car bomb attack.

In all, 17 Iraqis were killed in the assault. But Assistant Attorney General Patrick Rowan said evidence in the case could only prove the guards shot 14, although he left open the possibility of future charges.

The guards are Donald Ball, a former Marine from West Valley City, Utah; Dustin Heard, a former Marine from Knoxville, Tenn.; Evan Liberty, a former Marine from Rochester, N.H.; Nick Slatten, a former Army sergeant from Sparta, Tenn., and Paul Slough, an Army veteran from Keller, Texas.

The sixth guard, who is cooperating with the government, is Jeremy Ridgeway of California. He pleaded guilty to one count each of manslaughter, attempted manslaughter, and aiding and abetting. In his plea agreement with prosecutors, Ridgeway admitted there was no threat from a white Kia sedan whose driver, a medical student, was killed and his mother, in the front passenger seat, was injured.

Following a car bombing elsewhere in the city, the heavily armed Blackwater convoy sought to shut down an intersection. Prosecutors said the convoy, known by the call sign Raven 23, had violated an order not to leave the U.S.-controlled Green Zone.

Khalid Ibrahim, a 40-year-old electrician who said his father, Ibrahim Abid, 78, died in the shooting, welcomed the charges.

"The killers must pay for their crime against innocent civilians, Ibrahim said in Iraq. "Justice must be achieved so that we can have rest from the agony we are living in. We know that the conviction of the people behind the shooting will not bring my father to life, but we will have peace in our minds and hearts."

But the drama is far from over. After more than a year of investigative missteps and fierce debate, the Justice Department now faces stiff challenges to the evidence and legal grounds at the heart of its case.

Most importantly, prosecutors must prove they did not rely on protected statements the guards gave to State Department investigators within hours of the shootings.

The State Department gave limited immunity to all the guards in the four-car convoy, promising not to prosecute them based on the initial statements recounting how the violence began. The move left Justice Department and FBI investigators with a crime scene long gone cold and with limited forensic evidence to bolster their case.

"We fully expect that the defendants will raise the issue," Rowan said. "We‘ve been very careful and very painstaking in the way we have investigated this case, the way we have assembled evidence. And we fully expect to prevail when the court hears that issue."

Defense attorneys also will argue that the guards cannot be charged under a law intended to cover soldiers and military contractors since the men worked as civilian contractors for the State Department. Rowan, however, said Blackwater was supporting the military‘s mission in Baghdad and the law therefore applies to them.

It is the first time prosecutors have used that argument to prosecute contractors. The Justice Department recently lost a somewhat similar case against former Marine Jose Luis Nazario Jr., who was charged in Riverside, Calif., with killing four unarmed Iraqi detainees.

The Moyock, N.C.-based Blackwater said it stands behind the guards despite being "extremely disappointed and surprised" that one had pleaded guilty.

[Thanks, News One]

Remember those 17 Iraqi civilians murdered by member of the ‘elite’ security force, Blackwater?  On September 16th, 2007, a firefight (if the strafing of civilians with automatic weapons can be considered a firefight!) in Nisour Square left 17 civilians dead, 14 of whom the FBI has determined were unjustifiable.

Well, the 5 Blackwater murderers implicated in that heinous crime have agreed to surrender to US authorities in their home state of Utah. Specific charges against the murderous crew will be made public today.  Eye-witnesses are expected to testify that the killings were unprovoked.

Some of my original posts:

• Blackwater: Murderer, confession revealed.

• FBI Confirms: Blackwater Employees are Murderers

• Blackwater: Murderer, confession revealed.

Blackwater guards ‘to surrender’

Five employees of the US security firm Blackwater charged over the 2007 fatal shooting of 17 Iraqis will surrender to US federal authorities, reports say.

Contracted to defend US diplomats, the firm says its guards acted in self-defence when they opened fire when ambushed by Baghdad insurgents.

Details of the charges are expected to be made public on Monday, with reports saying the men will surrender in Utah.

The Iraqi government has welcomed the move to hold "criminals accountable".

The killings have become a central issue in Iraq’s relationship with the US and raised questions about the oversight of US contractors operating in war zones.

Witnesses and family members maintain the shooting on 16 September 2007 was unprovoked.

‘Politically motivated’

Although the indictment was made in Washington, the Associated Press reported that the men would surrender to federal marshals in Utah, the home state of one of the five guards, Donald Ball.

That way the men could argue that the case should be heard in Utah, considered more conservative and pro-gun than Washington, AP said.

"Donald Ball committed no crime," said his lawyer, Steven McCool. "We are confident that any jury will see this for what it is: a politically motivated prosecution to appease the Iraqi government."

Defence lawyers are expected to file a series of challenges before the guards can even go to trial.

While the exact charges remain unclear, the US justice department has been considering manslaughter and assault charges against the guards for weeks.

The New York Times has previously reported that an FBI investigation had concluded that 14 of the deaths at the busy Baghdad intersection were unjustified.

Young children were among the victims.

As well as Mr Ball, the other men indicted are Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Nick Slatten and Paul Slough.

A sixth Blackwater employee is negotiating a plea deal in return for testifying against his colleagues, AP reported, adding that the indicted men are decorated military veterans.

Contractor conditions

The problem of private armed guards in Iraq remains unresolved, mainly because they continue to provide security for the many American and other foreign officials in the country.

US law is unclear on whether contractors can be charged in the US or anywhere else for crimes committed overseas.

In October 2007, the Iraqi government approved a draft law revoking the immunity from prosecution that private security contractors enjoyed under Iraqi law.

The US has since put in place new guidelines for security contractors.

Based at a vast ranch complex in North Carolina, Blackwater is one of the main private providers of security within Iraq, and its contract there was extended in April.

[Thanks, BBC News]

You really have to wonder what she was thinking.  When President George H.W. Bush officially pardoned the first Thanksgiving turkey in 1989, it became a cute little White House tradition and photo op for the President and his family. 

A lighthearted moment for the 6 o’clock news normally filled with war and famine. An opportunity for the POTUS d’ jour to appear a little less of a monster.  But fundamentally, it’s a silly and stupid ‘tradition’ that is better left forgotten.  My guess is it’s the National Turkey Federation and the Poultry and Egg National Board who continue to send the White House a live bird that foster this pseudo-tradition.  Like Americans need a reminder to eat a bird on Thanksgiving…

This last Thursday, Failin’ Palin decided that as governor she could enjoy the same photo op as still president Bush and held a little turkey pardoning of her own.  It all sounds banal, right?  Enough for a page 3 ‘feature’ in the Wasilla Wildlife Weekly perhaps?  Well, that would have been the case had she not totally failed to understand the underlying premise of the pardon itself. 

Her failure?  She pardoned one bird while standing directly in front of the mass wholesale slaughter of hundreds of other fowl victims.

Audiences gobble up latest Palin interview

BACKFIRE: Camera catches slaughter of turkeys after governor’s playful pardon.

By SEAN COCKERHAM
scockerham@adn.com

Published: November 22nd, 2008 02:33 AM
Last Modified: November 22nd, 2008 03:06 AM

It’s being called "gobblegate," "the interview of death," and "Silence of the Turkeys."

Gov. Sarah Palin granted a Thanksgiving pardon to a turkey at a Mat-Su poultry farm on Thursday, a photo-op associated with presidents but done by governors as well.

But by Friday, video of Palin giving an upbeat interview while other turkeys were being slaughtered behind her had turned into an Internet sensation, with the governor once again at the center of controversy.

The video, shot by KTUU Channel 2, had 1.2 million hits on YouTube. It was prominently featured on the home pages of newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune and Denver Post. MSNBC’s "Countdown" paired the video with "breaking news" headlines such as "Gov. Palin picks worst possible backdrop for TV news interview." Countered the conservative site RedState.com: "Media shocked to discover how farming works"

Such footage of any governor would no doubt have drawn interest, but the continuing obsession with the former Republican vice presidential nominee sent this one into the stratosphere.

The governor’s office wasn’t particularly amused.

"It’s unfortunate because it’s been a rough fall and this was meant to be a lighthearted event," said Palin spokesman Bill McAllister.

McAllister said Palin wasn’t aware that the slaughter was going on behind her in the interview — during which Palin was asked if she was concerned about "state programs on the chopping block" and why she wanted to pardon a turkey.

"For one, you need a little bit of levity in this job. … to just participate in something that isn’t so heavy handed politics that invites criticism," Palin replied. "Certainly we’ll probably invite criticism for even doing this too, but at least this was fun."

‘THAT’S JUST LIFE’

Anthony Schmidt, owner of Triple D Farm & Hatchery, where this all took place, said Friday that animal rights activists from around the nation had been calling all day to "say how horrible it was they were killing that turkey and people could see it."

"And I guess, to some degree I understand that. If I had my choice it wouldn’t have been aired, that part of it. But, on the other hand, that’s just life," he said. "Americans are going to consume 46 million turkeys at Thanksgiving. I’m only doing six or seven hundred. Give somebody else a hard time."

Schmidt said he was busy during the governor’s visit and didn’t realize turkeys were being killed right behind the governor, or he would have stopped it. He said the publicity is increasing turkey orders but he doesn’t like the fallout.

"They’re sliming the governor and I think it’s wrong, totally, wrong," Schmidt said. "I mean, come on guys, get a life."

McAllister said the slaughter had not started at the time the cameras were set up. He said that, while the cameras were rolling and a worker at the farm began placing turkeys head-down in a big metal cone to cut their necks and drain blood, Kris Perry, the governor’s friend and director of her Anchorage office, "was actually physically nudging (the KTUU videographer), saying ‘look at this,’ and encouraging him not to frame the shot to include that, or to do something about it later, where he wouldn’t use it," McAllister said. McAllister said KTUU showed the slaughter in its 5 p.m. broadcast, but not at 6 p.m., and pulled the video from its Web site. "So obviously there was concern about it there too."

BEHIND THE SCENE

KTUU News Director Steve MacDonald said the footage was too graphic, out of context, and should not have made it on the air at all. He said the station wasn’t attempting to embarrass Palin and had a breakdown in its vetting system.

"We feel really bad about what happened. We take our reputation very seriously, we take our place in the community very seriously and the last thing we want to do is harm our integrity with our viewers," MacDonald said.

MacDonald said the station’s videographer denies Perry was nudging him during the shot. He said the crew thought Palin knew what was going on behind her but believes McAllister was correct that the slaughter didn’t start until after the interview began.

Democratic blogger Linda Kellen Biegel was at the turkey pardon and didn’t believe Palin was unaware of what was happening. "Give me a break! There is NO WAY she couldn’t have known!" Biegel wrote on her blog, Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis.

MSNBC’s host David Shuster, substituting for Keith Olbermann on "Countdown," said on his show Thursday night that "governor Palin’s office is now telling our NBC news desk that a photographer asked her if she wanted that as a backdrop and she replied ‘no worries.’ " KTUU’s MacDonald said he’s not aware of that.

Palin spokesman McAllister said she may have said that before the slaughter started, but not after it began.

[Thanks, The Anchorage Daily News]

I’m so overjoyed I’m incapable of commenting!

Cheney, Gonzales indicted for alleged prisoner abuse

(CNN) – Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have been indicted on separate charges related to alleged prisoner abuse in federal detention centers, Willacy County, Texas, District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra told CNN Tuesday.

The indictment stems from Cheney’s investment in the Vanguard Group — an investment management company that reportedly has interests in the prison companies in charge of the detention centers, according to The Associated Press. It also charges Gonzales halted an investigation into abuse at the detention centers while he was attorney general.

Democratic state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. also is charged in the indictment.

Michael R. Cowen, an attorney for Lucio, issued a statement calling Guerra a "one man circus."

"In the March 2008 Democratic Primary, 70 percent of the Willacy County voters elected to remove Juan Guerra as Willacy County District Attorney," Cowen said. "Now, with only a few weeks left in his term, Mr. Guerra has again chosen to misuse his position in an attempt to seek revenge on those who he sees as political enemies."

Cheney spokeswoman Megan Mitchell said, "The vice president has not received an indictment."

Willacy is near the United States-Mexico border.

[Thanks, CNN]

I have been telling friends and family that once Ted Stevens was elected, Governor Palin was going to convince him to step down and hold a special election putting herself on the ballot.  That would satisfy the pundits who are calling for Ted’s resignation and satisfy the burning yearning in Sarah’s soul to become one of the Washington elite.

I may have spoken too soon.  The thing I didn’t count on was the Alaskan voters doing the right thing in the face of Mr. Stevens lying and ethical behavior.  For the above scenario to actually take place Stevens would have to win the election and that doesn’t seem likely.

Sarah had mentioned in her ‘interview’ earlier this week that she would keep an eye out for doors which her god might open for her.  Seems to me that this door has been slammed in her face.

Begich takes lead in latest vote count

SENATE RACE: Anchorage mayor swings from 3,000-vote deficit to 814-vote advantage.

By SEAN COCKERHAM and KYLE HOPKINS
scockerham@adn.com

Published: November 13th, 2008 01:20 AM
Last Modified: November 13th, 2008 01:56 AM

Mark Begich made a dramatic comeback Wednesday to overtake 40-year incumbent Ted Stevens for the lead in Alaska’s U.S. Senate race.

Begich, who was losing after election night, now leads Stevens by 814 votes — 132,196 to 131,382 — with the state still to count roughly 40,000 more ballots over the next week.

The state Division of Elections tallied about 60,000 absentee, early and questioned ballots from around the state on Wednesday. The ballots broke heavily in the Democrat’s favor, erasing the 3,000-vote lead the Republican Stevens held after election night Nov. 4.

Stevens is trying to become the first person ever elected to the U.S. Senate after a being found guilty of felony crimes. A Washington, D.C., jury found him guilty a week before the election of lying about gifts on his financial disclosure forms.

The state still needs to count at least 15,000 questioned ballots and an estimated 25,000 absentees. With all the absentee votes coming in, this will be one of the biggest turnouts, if not the biggest in terms of ballots cast, the state has ever seen. That’s despite questions in the media and on blogs about why turnout appeared low on Election Day.

Most regional elections headquarters will count their remaining ballots on Friday. But the most populous region, based in Anchorage, won’t count its ballots until either Monday or Wednesday, state elections chief Gail Fenumiai said.

Begich pushed hard in the campaign for people to vote early, a factor both Democrats and Republicans said contributed to his surge. More than 9,000 of those early ballots weren’t counted until Wednesday to give the state time to double check and make sure people didn’t vote early and then come back and vote on Election Day as well.

Candidates push early voting as a strategy to take away the potential their supporters won’t get around to it Election Day.

The absentee votes counted Wednesday were those that made it in to state officials before Election Day. Many of those might have been cast before Stevens came back to Alaska from his trial in Washington, D.C. Republican strategists credited Stevens’ homecoming, which was followed by rallies and advertisements where he blasted the verdict, as playing a key role in winning back support of voters.

Neither candidate was around Wednesday night as the drama unfolded. Begich was on vacation with his family "at an undisclosed location" and not available on Wednesday night to comment, his campaign staff said. Begich, who is the mayor of Anchorage, also did not return a message left on his cell phone.

Begich will be appearing on national liberal talk shows today to discuss the election. He will be on "The Ed Schultz Show" on radio and "The Rachel Maddow Show" on MSNBC.

Stevens is back in Washington, D.C., where it was well past midnight when the final returns came in. His campaign spokesman said there would be no comment on the turnaround.

Republican Party of Alaska Chairman Randy Ruedrich wasn’t giving up hope for Stevens, saying Begich’s advantage could lessen as the state finishes counting the early votes.

He said remaining mail-in absentee votes "should be much more favorable to Republicans" than the ones counted so far.

But state Democratic Party spokeswoman Bethany Lesser said Begich workers are cautiously optimistic the lead would hold. She noted that the election district based in Nome, which covers Northern and Western Alaska, has not counted any of its absentee ballots yet. Begich beat Stevens in that area on Election Day, just as he did throughout Bush Alaska, a traditional Stevens stronghold that relies on federal appropriations.

Begich also won the voting on all four of Alaska’s military installations on Election Day. That makes the Begich campaign optimistic about overseas absentee ballots from service members.

The state didn’t have a breakdown Wednesday night of where the remaining ballots come from.

Anchorage pollsters Ivan Moore and David Dittman, who had predicted a Begich victory before the election, both said Wednesday night they believe the Democrat would pull it off.

"I think it’s all over at this point," said Moore, who often works for Democrats but didn’t poll for either candidate in this race.

He said mail-in absentee ballots don’t favor Republicans as much as they used to. They historically tended to be from people out of town on business or other reasons, Moore said, adding that they were generally wealthier and more Republican than other voters, he said.

But now a wider variety of people vote absentee, he said. Also, Moore said, questioned ballots tend to favor Democrats, and are often people who have recently moved and might be single, less established, without as much money.

Dittman, who polled for Stevens during the campaign and tends to work for Republicans, also predicted Begich’s lead would widen, but not drastically, as the remaining votes are counted.

While Stevens’ era in the Senate is in danger of ending, another longtime Alaska Republican is returning to Washington, D.C. Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young maintained his solid lead over Democratic challenger Ethan Berkowitz after Wednesday’s count. Berkowitz made some headway but Young still led by more than 15,000 votes.

[Thanks, Anchorage Daily News]

We either have a faux Fox News story that it trying to diminish the impact of any "Incite to Riot" litigation against Palin or we have a cover-up.  What’s your guess??

Report: Secret Service Says ‘Kill Him’ Allegations at Palin Rally Unfounded

A Secret Service agent called charges that a man yelled "kill him" in reference to Barack Obama during a Sarah Palin rally "unfounded," .  

FOXNews.com

A senior Secret Service agent said allegations that a man yelled ‘kill him" when Barack Obama’s name was referenced Tuesday during a Sarah Palin rally are "unfounded," reports the Timesleader.com, a Northeastern Pennsylvania news agency.

Agent Bill Slavoski — who was standing in the audience along with other Secret Service agents during the rally in Scranton, Pa. — said neither he nor the other officers heard the comment, according to the report published Thursday.

The charges — first reported Tuesday on the Scranton Times-Tribune’s Web site — claimed that a male audience member shouted "kill him" after congressional candidate Chris Hackett mentioned Barack Obama’s name at the rally. 

Slavoski reportedly said he was "baffled" after first reading the report on Wednesday. 

Slavoski — who is charge of the Secret Service’s field office in Scranton — launched an official investigation into the charge and said he could not find anyone other than the Scranton Times-Tribune’s reporter to corroborate the story.

A Secret Service spokesman told FOXNews.com that the investigation is not closed and asks for anyone with information on the allegations to contact the agency.

[Thanks, FauxFoxNews]

Yikes, I seem have been a little quick off the mark yesterday when I mentioned that the only real critical reports on the Republican VP candidate were from outside of our borders.  I’ll assume that Alaska is still part of the US for the purposes of this discussion, much to the chagrin of Todd, Alaska’s otherwise unemployed First Dude, member in good standing of the separationist movement in Alaska.

Here are a flurry of stories responding to the official reaction by Sarah to the Alaska Legislature’s Troopergate report.  They range from editorials in her local daily paper, which since she can’t name as a news source I can only guess she has never read, and include a scathing analysis on MSNBCs ‘First Read’ site.

But let us start with an article from Editor & Publisher:

Anchorage Paper Calls Palin Response to Troopergate ‘An Embarrassment’
By E&P Staff
Published: October 14, 2008 10:10 AM ET

NEW YORK Since its release late last Friday, the Alaska legislatures "Troopergate" has drawn much attention, and Gov. Sarah Palin has claimed numerous times that it actually found no ethical misdeeds on her part — even as it charged her with a serious "abuse of power." The main paper in her home state is not buying it.

The Anchorage Daily News’ angry editorial today was topped with the headline: "Palin vindicated? Governor offers Orwellian spin." It opens: "Sarah Palin’s reaction to the Legislature’s Troopergate report is an embarrassment to Alaskans and the nation.

"She claims the report ‘vindicates’ her. She said that the investigation found ‘no unlawful or unethical activity on my part.’

"Her response is either astoundingly ignorant or downright Orwellian."

An excerpt follows.
*
In plain English, she did something "unlawful." She broke the state ethics law.

Perhaps Gov. Palin has been too busy to actually read the Troopergate report. Perhaps she is relying on briefings from McCain campaign spinmeisters.

That’s the charitable interpretation.

Because if she had actually read it, she couldn’t claim "vindication" with a straight face.

Palin asserted that the report found "there was no abuse of authority at all in trying to get Officer Wooten fired."

In fact, the report concluded that "impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired."

Palin’s response is the kind of political "big lie" that George Orwell warned against. War is peace. Black is white. Up is down.

Gov. Palin and her camp trumpeted the report’s second finding: that she was within her legal authority to fire Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. But the report also said it’s likely one of the reasons she fired him was his failure to get rid of her ex-brother-in-law trooper.

That’s not "vindication," and surely Gov. Palin knows it.

[Thanks, Editor & Publisher]

And let’s quickly segue into that original article from the Anchorage Daily News:

Palin vindicated?

Governor offers Orwellian spin

Published: October 13th, 2008 10:02 PM
Last Modified: October 13th, 2008 10:17 PM

Sarah Palin’s reaction to the Legislature’s Troopergate report is an embarrassment to Alaskans and the nation.

She claims the report "vindicates" her. She said that the investigation found "no unlawful or unethical activity on my part."

Her response is either astoundingly ignorant or downright Orwellian.

Page 8, Finding Number One of the report says: "I find that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Executive Branch Ethics Act."

In plain English, she did something "unlawful." She broke the state ethics law.

Perhaps Gov. Palin has been too busy to actually read the Troopergate report. Perhaps she is relying on briefings from McCain campaign spinmeisters.

That’s the charitable interpretation.

Because if she had actually read it, she couldn’t claim "vindication" with a straight face.

Palin asserted that the report found "there was no abuse of authority at all in trying to get Officer Wooten fired."

In fact, the report concluded that "impermissible pressure was placed on several subordinates in order to advance a personal agenda, to wit: to get Trooper Michael Wooten fired."

Palin’s response is the kind of political "big lie" that George Orwell warned against. War is peace. Black is white. Up is down.

Gov. Palin and her camp trumpeted the report’s second finding: that she was within her legal authority to fire Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan. But the report also said it’s likely one of the reasons she fired him was his failure to get rid of her ex-brother-in-law trooper.

That’s not "vindication," and surely Gov. Palin knows it.

Gov. Palin does have a defense. She could have said:

"I’m gratified that the report confirmed what I said all along, that I had the authority to terminate Walt Monegan as public safety commissioner.

"I absolutely disagree that I violated state ethics law. In repeatedly complaining about trooper Mike Wooten, Todd and I were not pursuing a personal vendetta. We were trying to protect the integrity of the Alaska State Troopers from having an arrogant, almost-out-of-control law-breaker in their ranks. Because the action we were seeking was in the public interest, not purely our personal interest, there is no ethics law violation."

Gov. Palin and her husband felt so passionately about Wooten because the case was so personal to them. Their passion blinded them to any other considerations.

They had no sense that the power of the governor’s office carries a special responsibility not to use it to settle family scores. They had no sense that legal restrictions might prevent the troopers from firing Wooten. They had no sense that persistent queries from the governor’s office might be perceived as pressure to bend state personnel laws.

Gov. Palin and her husband were obsessed with Wooten the way Capt. Ahab was obsessed with the Great White Whale. No Wooten, no peace.

Has Gov. Palin committed an impeachable offense? Hardly.

Is what she did indictable? No.

But it wasn’t appropriate, especially for someone elected as an ethical reformer. And her Orwellian claims of "vindication" make this blemish on her record look even worse.

You asked us to hold you accountable, Gov. Palin. Did you mean it?

Bottom line: Gov. Palin, read the report. It says you violated the ethics law.

[Thanks, Anchorage Daily News]

And let’s flesh out this round of condemnation with MSNBC’s First Read:

Palin: Anchorage paper not happy

Posted: Tuesday, October 14, 2008 9:16 AM by Mark Murray

It’s not good when your home-state paper’s editorial page puts your name and "embarrassment" to the state in the same sentence. "Sarah Palin’s reaction to the Legislature’s Troopergate report is an embarrassment to Alaskans and the nation. She claims the report ‘vindicates’ her. She said that the investigation found ‘no unlawful or unethical activity on my part.’ Her response is either astoundingly ignorant or downright Orwellian." 

But wait, there’s more. Another independent investigator is looking into more ethics complaints against the guv.

The New York Times writes, “Here is the thing about Gov. Sarah Palin: She loves America. Really loves it. She loves the smell of cut grass and hay, as she told Ohio voters Sunday. She loves Navy bases, she said in Virginia Beach on Monday morning. She loves America’s ‘most beautiful national anthem,’ she told a crowd here a few hours later.”

“Apparently there are people who do not feel the same way about America as Ms. Palin does, she said at campaign rallies over the last two days. Those people just do not get it.”

The AP: “Gov. Sarah Palin’s rural adviser resigned Monday amid criticism of the governor’s record on hiring Alaska Natives.” 

"Palin mistook some of her own fans for hecklers Monday at a rally that drew thousands" in Virginia, the AP writes. " ‘Louder! Louder!’ they began chanting, and the cry spread across the crowd to Palin’s left. Some pointed skyward, urging that the volume be increased. Palin stopped her remarks briefly and looked toward the commotion. ‘I hope those protesters have the courage and honor to give veterans thanks for their right to protest,’ she said. Some in the crowd tried to shout toward her what was really being said, but she couldn’t hear them."

[Thanks, MSNBC]

Presidential hopeful John McCain has shown time and again that he is far out of touch with the world as it is today.  He displays no clue as to the severity of our economic crisis, he has no idea where Spain is and that they are our ally in Afghanistan, and he has no idea of some of the concerns of women in this country.

The Planned Parenthood Action Center has put together a list of things YOU should know about John McCain.  The elections are coming quickly, but the time to decide is now.

10 Things Everyone Should Know About John McCain

Sen. John McCain is not just the Republican candidate for president, he is also frighteningly out of touch on issues crucial to the women of the United States. By now, many people have heard about the wildly popular condoms the Planned Parenthood Action Fund passed out at the Democratic National Convention. On them, we pulled together the top 10 things every voter needs to know about John McCain before this Election Day. Check them out:

1. John McCain opposes equal pay legislation, saying it wouldn’t do "anything to help the rights of women."
2. John McCain opposes requiring health care plans to cover birth control.
3. John McCain opposes comprehensive, medically accurate sex education.
4. John McCain opposes funding to prevent unintended and teen pregnancies.
5. John McCain opposes funding for public education about emergency contraception.
6. John McCain opposes restoring family planning services for low-income women.
7. John McCain opposes Roe v. Wade and says it should be overturned. 
8. John McCain wants to nominate Supreme Court justices who are "clones" of conservative Justices Alito and Roberts.
9. John McCain said he was "stumped" when asked whether contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV.
10. In his 25 years in Washington, DC, John McCain has voted anti-choice125 times!

Even though the word is getting out about John McCain’s extremist record on women’s health, we still need your help.

Join the One Million Strong Campaign and stand with the Planned Parenthood Action Fund in the 2008 election. Your voice will strengthen the work we do every day fighting for women’s health in Washington.

[Thanks, Planned Parenthood]

I read this disturbing post on BoingBoing this morning about an Oregon man who was harassed by a Portland police officer for filming the officer on a public street.  The officer in question seized the camera and proceeded to give a ticket to the guy.

In the end, the District Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute.  Isn’t that special.  Their inability to determine if a law has been broken has essentially empowered the police department to abuse anyone that films them in a public space.

If I give up my reasonable expectation of privacy by walking out my front door, why is a public servant given a different set of rules?  Why, for instance, is it against the law for me to drive and talk on the phone here in Seattle but not for a police officer?

Anyway, I saw the picture accompanying this article and thought a post would be apropos.

p.s. go to boingboing and watch the video in question.  To Serve and Protect – not from that jackhole!

Oregon man threatens suit for the right to video-record cops on the job

Posted by Cory Doctorow, September 17, 2008 2:06 PM | permalink

Ben sez, "After a Portland, OR man videotaped two Portland cops hassling a couple of men on a downtown sidewalk, one cop seized his camera and gave him a ticket, saying he’d broken the law by recording the officers without their permission. The District Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute, and now the man is trying to force the Portland Police Bureau to take a formal position on whether it’s OK for civilians to videotape cops — with sound — in public places."

Portland police spokesman Sgt. Brian Schmautz said he believes the public doesn’t have a right to record officers’ conversations – on or off the job – without their consent.

"Just because somebody is a police officer doesn’t mean they give up their rights," Schmautz said.

Man threatens suit over seizure of videocamera after he tapes Portland police rousting two men (Thanks, Ben!)

[Thanks, BoingBoing]

Apparently the French government has decided that the Cult of $cientology is an ‘organized fraud’ and is "illegally practicing as pharmacists."  This is in keeping with France’s refusal to recognize the Cult as a religion.  Since the French government has declared that the Co$ is a commercial enterprise they are not bound by the same protections as a real religion might be.

I say a real religion because it is my understanding that you need a deity to be considered a religion and all evidence point to the fact that the cult only worships the money that they are accused of extorting from their members.

Some links to other articles follow……

Scientologists charged with fraud in France

By Thierry Leveque

Reuters
Monday, September 8, 2008; 11:27 AM

PARIS (Reuters) – A French judge has ordered two departments and seven prominent members of the Church of Scientology in France to stand trial on charges of organized fraud, a judicial source said on Monday.

The case is the latest in a series of legal battles that have pitted the French judicial system against the Scientologists, who could be forced to stop their activities in France if found guilty.

The latest suit centers on a complaint made in 1998 by a woman who said she was enrolled into the Church of Scientology by a group of people she met outside a metro station.

In the following months, she said she paid 140,000 francs (21,340 euros) for "purification packs" and books which she said were a fraud. Other complaints then surfaced, prolonging the investigation.

Judge Jean-Christophe Hullin ruled that the Scientologists’ Celebrity Center, bookstore and seven Church leaders should be tried for fraud and "illegally practicing as pharmacists."

The Church of Scientology is registered as a religion in the United States but has struggled to be accepted in Europe, with French authorities seeing it as a sect masquerading as a church to make money.

The Church of Scientology denounced Monday’s ruling, saying it was being "stigmatized" by the courts.

"The special treatment reserved for the Church of Scientology Celebrity Center raises questions about the equality of the justice system and the presumption of innocence," it said in a statement.

The public prosecutor had said the case should be shelved. In a relatively rare move, Judge Hullin ignored the recommendation and ordered a trial, which is not expected to start for at least six months.

The Scientologists said the suit was "empty and concocted," adding that the original plaintiff had been reimbursed.

The Church of Scientology, which counts actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta among its members, was founded in 1954 by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.

It has faced numerous setbacks in France, with members convicted of fraud in Lyon in 1997 and Marseille in 1999. In 2002, a court fined it for violating privacy laws and said it could be dissolved if involved in similar cases.

(Writing by Crispian Balmer; editing by Elizabeth Piper)

[Thanks, Washington Post]

• Scientology ‘faces French trial’ @ BBC News
• Church of Scientology in France accused of fraud; ordered to stand trial @ WikiNews
• French court to try Church of Scientology @ UPI

I stumbled across this interesting dissertation on the Cult of $cientology, L. Ron Hubbard’s delusions and the current ‘leaders’.  It’s one of the first articles I’ve seen that spells out the enormity of the con that they are running.

What You Didn’t Know About Scientology

- by Mark Owen ©, Jan. 27th, 2006

All men shall be my slaves.
All women shall submit to my charms.
All mankind shall grovel at my feet.

- L. Ron Hubbard Affirmations

There has been a revival of interest in Scientology recently, largely driven by the ministrations of Hollywood jackanapes Tom Cruise.

An episode of South Park titled ‘Trapped in the Closet’ aired in late 2005. The cartoon featured Scientologists Nicole Kidman and John Travolta trying to coax Cruise out of a closet, a reference to rumors concerning his sexual preference. Also featured was an L. Ron Hubbard character denigrating Cruise’s acting ability. The extremely litigious Cruise immediately threatened Paramount with legal action, and it is unlikely that the episode will air again.

It is perhaps timely to revue some of the history of the ‘church,’ its membership and especially its mercurial founder Lafayette Ronald Hubbard.

Various Scientology hagiographies of Hubbard are widely divergent from known facts. This is mainly due to the phantasmagoric history that Hubbard fashioned for himself and repeated ad nauseum to his followers.

Hubbard would often boast of a distinguished pedigree, claiming descent from nobility going back to the Norman Invasion. He also claimed at various times to have been a barn-stormer in a circus, a great white hunter in Africa, an explorer of the upper Amazon and a heavily decorated naval officer, the recipient of more than 2 dozen medals and palms. He also claimed that his naval exploits were the inspiration for Henry Fonda’s character in the film Mister Roberts. On the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor he stated that he was the only person to survive the sinking of the destroyer he was on near the coast of Java and that he swam ashore and lived for weeks on the jungle flora. Later he would be wounded in the back and kidneys by machine-gun fire, making urination difficult.

The truth is somewhat more prosaic. In fact, Hubbard’s urinary difficulties stemmed from a bout of gonorrhea contracted after sex with a prostitute named Fern. Court documents in Hubbard’s own handwriting later confirmed this.

[Thanks, Mark Owen]

With increasing frequency, colleges and universities around the country are telling the RIAA to find other ways to identify file sharing students.  In the past the colleges have collaborated with the RIAA (much like the French collaborated with the Nazis) when the burden was light.

But as the RIAA has increased their demands for information regarding file sharing students and significantly augmented their number of ‘pre-litigation’ letters, colleges have found that their labor has been forced to increase in order to keep up.

Hiring more full time employees to deal with hundreds and sometime thousands of RIAA requests, added expenditures for software and hardware, it’s been hard trying to keep up with the unreasonable demands for victims.  And finally the schools are saying no.

The University of Wisconsin, the University of Kansas, and Oregon State university have all recently denied requests for information by the RIAA.  As Brian Rust, marketing manager of the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s Department of Information Technology, said "This is between the recording industry and the people who may be violating their copyrights."

If this trend by colleges continues, the RIAA will have to find yet another litigious way of making money rather than trying to adapt to a changing market.

Colleges push back against RIAA’s methods

Many universities say helping the recording industry track down students is taking too much time and too many resources
By Dennis Carter, Assistant Editor, eSchool News

Administrators and IT chiefs at public universities nationwide say the recording industry’s search for students accused of online piracy is cutting into their faculty’s work day. In recent months, some universities have refused to forward "pre-litigation" letters to students offering them a settlement to avoid further legal action from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

Forwarding these documents is not a legal responsibility of the college, administrators say, and tracking down students who might have downloaded music or movies illegally is time-consuming, forcing IT specialists to comb through an enormous university network, pinpoint specific illegal actions, and find students.

"This is between the recording industry and the people who may be violating their copyrights," said Brian Rust, marketing manager of the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s Department of Information Technology, which has seen a steady increase of subpoenas and "cease-and-desist" notices forwarded from RIAA officials in recent years. "But public institutions are an easy target. We’re very transparent about access to our network."

Higher education has been a primary ally in the recording industry’s fight against online piracy, but over the last year, university officials say tension has mounted.

Filtering or monitoring technologies designed to spot incidents of illegal downloads have forced many colleges to assign full-time employees the job of tracking down the IP addresses of network users who might have violated copyright laws, find out if those users are still enrolled in the university, and make sure the alleged violators receive notice that the RIAA is looking for them. The software has been installed at campuses across the country after the recording industry’s intensive lobbying effort for better network monitoring.

Denise Stephens, vice provost for information services and chief information officer at the University of Kansas, said the school decided to stop forwarding pre-litigation papers to students because the practice did not fit the mission of the college.

"We really had to make a decision philosophically about what our role was in this whole issue," said Stephens, who also has seen a rise in RIAA "cease-and-desist" notices. "We’d be acting as a go-between for an external party seeking to get information about our students. … We decided that was not our role."

Stephens insisted that Kansas’ new policy was not intended to pick a fight with the RIAA. She stressed that the university maintains "a zero-tolerance [file-sharing] policy," stripping students and faculty of their network access privileges in they are found guilty of internet piracy.

"This is not an effort to thumb our nose at anyone," she said.

The RIAA did not return messages left by eSchool News. In courtroom arguments and media reports over the last year, however, the group has argued that compliance with subpoenas has not been a burden to universities in the past, so it should not be considered a burden now. But higher-education officials insist compliance with the RIAA is requiring too much of their time as the organization’s anti-piracy campaign has become more rigorous.

[Thanks, eSchool News]

Here’s an interesting turn of events, Tom Cruise is named as a defendant in a 250 million dollar lawsuit that cites the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization) law as reason for the government to break up the Scientologists.  The claim by the plaintiff is that the CoS is a crime syndicate and needs to be systematically dismantled like the Gambino crime family.

Along with Tom, Scientology head David Miscavage is mentioned in the lawsuit.  A quote says that Miscavage is "aided and abetted by the actions of Tom Cruise, his right-hand man for foreign and domestic promotion, as well as for foreign and domestic lobbying. He has assisted the syndicate in acquiring funds and [made] his own donations of money believed to be in the multiple tens of millions of dollars."

Articles abound on the interwebs, but here’s a short one from FauxFox News.

Report: Tom Cruise Named in $250M Suit Against Scientology

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Tom Cruise is named in a $250 million federal lawsuit that is using the RICO statute against the Church of Scientology, the New York Daily News reports.

Ex-Scientologist Peter Letterese, a longtime critic of the church, filed suit in Southern District Court in Florida on July 15 alleging, among other things, that members of the church harassed him after he left.

Letterese calls the church a "crime syndicate" and wants it broken up under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization law, just as the feds have broken up Mafia families.

He singles out Cruise, saying that Scientology head David Miscavage is "aided and abetted by the actions of Tom Cruise, his right-hand man for foreign and domestic promotion, as well as for foreign and domestic lobbying. He has assisted the syndicate in acquiring funds and [made] his own donations of money believed to be in the multiple tens of millions of dollars."

[Thanks, Fox Mulder News]

I don’t quite understand the tactics of either the Congress or the Senate.  Rather than enjoy the next 178 days impeaching both of the liars and thieves we have in the White House, they would prefer to incessantly question someone like Michael Mukasey, the newest stain on the Justice Department.  Maybe they are simple enough to get a kick out of hearing ‘I don’t recall’ stated in 2,467 different ways.

Personally, I was bored with hearing that phrase back when Rumsfeld was uttering it to Ray McGovern, but my elected officials in Washington either can’t get enough of it or can’t recognize it as the bullshit that it is.

I recently stumbled across this NPR article from the 10th of July that pretty much sums it all up, they know he’s wasting their time, but would rather hold another committee meeting.

Panel Accuses Mukasey Of Maintaining Status Quo
by Ari Shapiro

NPR.org, July 9, 2008 · When Michael Mukasey became attorney general eight months ago, Democrats were hopeful that he would take an aggressive role in overhauling the Justice Department, which had become embroiled in various scandals over the last few years. At a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing Wednesday, Democrats told Mukasey that so far, they have been disappointed.

The committee chairman, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), accused Mukasey of reneging on his promise to review and potentially withdraw Justice Department legal opinions that authorized controversial national security policies. In written closing remarks, Leahy said, "I wish you were more focused on restoring the department’s role as protector of the rule of law. Instead, you seem content to serve as a caretaker."

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) accused Mukasey of a "pronounced reluctance to look backward into the problems at the Department of Justice."

And Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) listed ways in which she said she believes the department was politicized in the last few years, including civil rights enforcement, hiring of immigration judges, U.S. attorney firings, detainee treatment and spying laws. Feinstein concluded her litany by telling Mukasey: "In the view of many of us, the department has lost enormous credibility."

The attorney general told Feinstein that he has made policy changes in some areas but that many others are already being investigated. "When those reports are received," he said, "they will be acted upon."

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) asked why Mukasey has not done more to hold accountable people who were faulted in a recent Inspector General report documenting politicized hiring in the prestigious Justice Department Honors Program. Mukasey replied, "To the extent there is to be accountability, that was covered in the [Inspector General] report."

Whitehouse seemed to capture the frustration many Democrats feel with the Justice Department, saying, "If we can’t be assured that you’re looking backward, we can’t be assured that it’s been cleaned up. And if we can’t be assured it’s cleaned up, we can’t be satisfied that the Department of Justice is back where it needs to be."

Looking forward, Feingold asked about a proposed set of guidelines that would let the FBI investigate Americans based on a profile that could include the person’s race or ethnicity, even if the person isn’t suspected of a crime.

Mukasey told Feingold that a person’s race alone would not be enough to open an investigation.

Feingold then asked whether a U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent who traveled frequently to Pakistan would be subject to investigation by the FBI. Mukasey replied that he was not prepared to discuss hypothetical situations.

He said Judiciary Committee members would have an opportunity to review the final policy before it is released.

[Thanks, NPR]

Tom Cruise has recently been making a lot of headlines, but not as a headliner.  With his acting career overshadowed by his space alien affiliations, Tom has become just another aging, mediocre actor.

In the opinion of many, Tom’s career peaked with his 1983 portrayal of Joel Goodsen, the manic undies-clad pimp in Risky Business.

FauxFox News noted a recent snub to Tommy boy by Columbia Pictures regarding the role of Edwin A. Salt, a fictional CIA officer who is exposed as a spy.  It seems like the $20 million he demanded for the role was much too much moola for the producers to even consider.

Tom Cruise, ‘Salt’-Free: Comeback Hopes Dashed

Friday, July 18, 2008
By Roger Friedman

It looks like there’s a snag in Tom Cruise’s big career comeback film. According to sources, Cruise is probably not going to be playing the role of Edwin A. Salt, a fictional CIA officer who is outed as a spy.

"Edwin A. Salt," which is set at Columbia Pictures, has had a rocky road. First Terry George was set to direct. He left and was replaced by Philip Noyce.

But now Cruise is out, and I’m told it’s because of money. Apparently, Tom is unaware of the change in his status in the Hollywood community. Where once he was the top-paid star, Cruise now is in a position where a $20 million salary is not possible. I’m told an internal memo went around among the film’s producers and top creators in which the Cruise situation was discussed and names were gathered for a replacement.

The reasons for Cruise’s departure are not just his diminished popularity, negative public opinion and Scientology — although those would be good enough. It’s also just generational. Cruise is 45. His heyday as a box office star — if he ever had one — is over.

Like past huge leading action stars such as Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Cruise must face the brutal facts of aging. Ironically, he’s been replaced by Will Smith, whom Cruise has courted for Scientology. Talk about rubbing "Salt" in a wound!

Of course, it doesn’t help that his last big feature, "Mission: Impossible 3," was eons ago, in Hollywood terms — 2006. On top of that, even a film shot now and released next summer would have to erase in the audience’s mind Cruise’s upcoming release, "Valkyrie," aka The Nazi Movie, due next February.

And still, "Salt" was not even going to be released by United Artists, the studio where Cruise has a financial interest. With "Salt" back in the shaker, maybe he can concentrate on projects with partner Paula Wagner at UA, instead.

Meantime, Cruise remains at the center of the mystery concerning his kids Isabella and Connor’s continued absence from their mother, Nicole Kidman. The kids, I’m told, still have not visited Kidman in Tennessee nor met their new half-sister, Sunday Rose. This kind of thing, Cruise doesn’t seem to comprehend, only adds to his career predicament.

[Thanks, Fox News]

Still President Bush has gone on record once again stating that he will, in fact, attend the opening ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics.  Despite harsh criticism from human rights groups world-wide, Bush has stated that he doesn’t need to skip the ceremonies to show his position on religious freedom and human rights.

I wonder if he understands that his presence there will give tacit approval to the government of China for their horrific policies in Tibet, their own country and their policies regarding Darfur.  I mean, we assume he’s smart enough to recognize that if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem, right?  But given his record and the ability of almost everyone in Washington to pull the wool over his eyes, we might just be taking too much for granted.

It’s been clear to everyone except himself that Still President Bush isn’t the sharpest crayon in the box.  Maybe someone actually needs to sit him down and explain just how much of a public relations coup his presence will be to the Chinese government.

Oh, wait, I forgot.  Bush actually wishes he could treat his citizens in the same way that China treats theirs.  In fact, now that I think about it, Bush is going as a show of solidarity to the country that he feels gets it right in their treatment of the populous.

Rights Groups Disappointed With Bush’s China Olympics Trip

By James Butty
Washington, D.C.
04 July 2008

Human right activists say they are disappointed with President Bush’s decision to attend the opening ceremony of the summer Olympics in Beijing, China. The announcement by the White House Thursday is the first confirmation of the president’s plans to attend the August 8 ceremony. It comes despite calls from some U.S. lawmakers and activists for a boycott because of China’s human rights record and support for the Sudan government.

In an interview with the BBC on Thursday, Mr. Bush reportedly said he views the Olympics as a sporting event.

Jerry Fowler is president of the Save Darfur Coalition, an advocacy group that is working to end the violence against civilians in Sudan’s Darfur region. He told VOA President Bush has ignored the appeal of many to stay away from the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.

"We’re very disappointed to hear that the president has announced that he’s attending the opening ceremonies, and we suspect that he’s disappointed too because he chose to release the news at the beginning of a three-day holiday here in the United States, which is usually when you put out news you don’t want anyone to hear. In doing this he basically rejected broad-based bi-partisan calls from activists and members of Congress not to attend the opening ceremonies unless China is helpful in resolving the violence in Darfur, and so far they have not been helpful," he said.

In an interview with the BBC on Thursday, Mr. Bush reportedly said he views the Olympics as a sporting event, perhaps agreeing with those who believe that sports should be separate from politics.

But Fowler said China itself had played politics with sports in the past by boycotting the Olympics on many occasions.

"China sort the Olympics for political reasons in order to demonstrate their emergence as a world power. So the idea that the Olympics are separate from politics just doesn’t make sense. And in fact, China boycotted the Olympics for most of the second half of the 20^th Century for political reasons. But more importantly, we did not ask President Bus not to attend sporting events. We asked not to attend the opening ceremonies unless China started helping being part of the solution in Darfur," Fowler said.

He said rights groups asked President Bush not to attend the Olympics opening ceremony because it is blatantly political.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao reportedly said that boycotting the Olympics for political purposes would not help resolve the Darfur crisis.

Fowler said not attending the Olympics opening ceremony would have made a stronger political point about China’s support for the Sudan government.

"Given that the president is going now, I do hope that he would take the opportunity to personally press the Chinese president in a very vigorous manner about the things that China can do to be part of the solution in Darfur instead of being part of the problem, which is what they are right now," Fowler said.

China has in the past said that it had been pressing Sudan to end the violence in Darfur. But it also blamed Sudan rebel groups for the violence.

Fowler said China has been Sudan’s main arms supplier and protector at the United Nations.

"The facts are China has been Sudan’s heat shield at the United Nations, protecting the Sudanese government from any multi-national consequences for the violence that they are responsible for. China is also a major arms provider to the Sudanese government; it’s a huge financial patron. So I think the record is clear that China is part of the problem and not part of the solution," he said.

Last July the UN Security Council approved a hybrid United Nations-African Union civilian protection force for Darfur. But that force has yet to be half deployed.

Fowler said his organization had wanted for President Bush to skip the Olympics opening ceremony unless the civilian protection force was fully deployed.

[Thanks, Voice of America]

The world is going to hell in a hand-basket.  Oil prices at all time highs, the mortgage crisis forcing tens of thousands of American families out of their homes, and greedy Republican warmongers have embroiled us in an unwinnable war in Iraq.

Still President Bush has responded by hosting a Tee Ball game on the South Lawn of the White House.

Rather than attempt to use some non-existent diplomatic skills to repair the damage he and his cronies have caused to America, Americans and our status on the world stage, still President Bush would rather surround himself with 6 year olds and ignore the real problems in life.

That sounds like familiar behavior from the man.  Isn’t that what he did on 9/11?  Hide behind some first graders as the world came down around us?

Bush plays ball at the White House
Tuesday, July 1, 2008

President George Bush poses for pictures on the White House lawn as he gets into the holiday spirit.

He is pictured giving a commemorative ball to a player from the Little League Angels of Manati, Puerto Rico, after a Tee Ball game on the South Lawn at the White House.

Also in the shots is Roberto Clemente Jr (left), whose father’s number was "retired" at the field before the game.

The US celebrates its July 4 independence day holiday later this week.

[Thanks, Metro.co.uk]