May 03, 2006

Taliban Insurgence

The NY Times reports(registration required), "Building on a winter campaign of suicide bombings and assassinations and the knowledge that American troops are leaving, the Taliban appear to be moving their insurgency into a new phase, flooding the rural areas of southern Afghanistan with weapons and men."

"The Taliban and Al Qaeda are everywhere," a shopkeeper, Haji Saifullah, told the commander of American forces in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, as the general strolled through the bazaar of this town to talk to people. "It is all right in the city, but if you go outside the city, they are everywhere, and the people have to support them. They have no choice."

"The security situation is not good," Governor Munib told General Eikenberry and a group of cabinet ministers at a meeting with tribal elders. "The number of Taliban and enemy is several times more than that of the police and Afghan National Army in this province," he said.

But the kicker is the unattributed quote:
"The Bush administration is alarmed, according to a Western intelligence official close to the administration. He said that while senior members of the administration consider the situation in Iraq to be not as bad as portrayed in the press, in Afghanistan the situation is worse than it has been generally portrayed."

Worse than portrayed? Portrayed by whom? The Bush Administration, when it was not refusing to talk about Afghanistan, told us how everything was under control. Now they attribute their own spin to this "general portrayal" through a back-channel.

Afghanistan. Iraq. Darfur.

Posted by Jon Boyd at 05:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 17, 2005

Conservative talk show hosts squirms to support Bush

Local talk show conservative host, Chris Baker on KTRH, was heard squirming on Thursday afternoon, attempting to find excuse ofter excuse for the President after he finally admitted the intelligence used to justify a war in Iraq was flawed, but the President continued to say that he would have done the same thing even if he knew then that the intelligence was flawed.

Uh....note to President....If Congress had known the true intelligence, there would have NEVER been a vote to use force against Iraq.

But to hear Chris Baker make every excuse known to man to continue supporting his failed President, his failed Iraq policy, and his failed leadership, was like eating spoiled Chinese food, sweet and sickening. Chris Baker stooped to new lows in defending the President, not once demanding accountability from the President for "taking responsibiliy" for the $300B cost of the war and the 2100+ killed soldiers, but on a number occasions calling for the head of the CIA, George Tenet. (That I agree with)

Nothing like listening to a conservative talk show host try to back away from the President while his lips are sew tightly to his ass.

Posted by John Cobarruvias at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

December 12, 2005

An American Nightmare Part I

Friends, this is my gift to you, a little bedtime story that is still a work in progress. Let's call it a fantasy inspired by the story of Scrooge. I don't know, maybe it's our last hope of any kind of freedom from a President who is an idiot.

An American Nightmare
Pseudofiction by Amy Branham

PART I – THE WOMAN
George climbed into bed beside Laura, tired from the long day of work. Running a nation isn't easy. It's really hard work. The war in Iraq wasn't going well and disapproval by the American people was growing by the day. His economic policies were awash. You have to make hard decisions when you are President of a country, he told himself. I'm the President and I can do what I want. The people elected me, and that gave me the freedom to do what needs to be done.
George drifted off to sleep with that thought running through his mind.
In the night he was awakened by a sound. He opened his eyes and scanned the room but saw nothing. Laura was still peacefully sleeping, undisturbed. Unconcerned, George closed his eyes. The White House was teeming with security at all hours of the day and night. He was safe. Nothing could happen to him here.
Just as he began to drift back into dreamland, he heard the sound again, louder this time. It seemed to be coming from the far corner of the bedroom. This time George sat up in bed and looked around. The sound continued to grow steadily louder. Crying, someone was crying. Who would be in his room crying at this time of night?
George sat there in his bed for a moment, not able to decide what to do. Where were those Secret Services agents that were supposed to be protecting him, he thought to himself. George rolled out of bed, slipped his feet into slippers on and grabbed his robe from the back of a nearby chair as he headed for the door, intending to find out where his guards were. As he did so, he looked back to the corner where the noise was coming from and stopped.
In the corner stood a woman, her head covered. She was weeping and moaning, a sound that came from the depths of her soul, eerily ghost-like that almost gave George a chill. He turned to face the woman.
"Who are you? What are you doing here?" George demanded of the woman.
The woman said nothing, but took a step toward George. He stood his ground.
"How did you get in here?" George demanded of the woman.
The woman still did not answer him. She continued to advanced toward him, her cries growing louder and more shrill with each step. George looked to the bed for help from Laura, but Laura was still sound asleep, her chest rising and falling gently with each breath. How could she not hear this?
The woman was now just a few steps away from George. He found himself backing away from her. One step. Two steps. Three steps. His back was now against a wall and he looked around, panic stricken, trying to find a way out. The door, there was the door that led out of the room, he thought to himself. Just get to the door and you can get out, call security.
There was no escape for George on this night. He was caught in a nightmare of his own making.
As he tried to inch his way along, back against the wall, the woman spoke to him.
"Mr. Bush, you killed me."
"What? I haven't killed anyone," George replied.
"Mr. Bush, you are responsible for my death. You killed me with your bombs. I was in my home, sleeping in my bed. Your bombs came and hit my house. I died."
"I'm dreaming. This is a nightmare. I didn't kill anyone." George said to himself as he began pinching himself on the arm trying to wake himself up. "Wake up, George, wake up!"
The woman continued, taking a step closer to George, "Mr. Bush, you invaded my country. You killed me. My children are now without a mother, my husband without his wife. They cry every day, Mr. Bush. My country is a war zone and an unsafe place to live. This, Mr. Bush, you have done."
"No, no, I am bringing Democracy and freedom to your country! I have freed you from a tyrannical leader! I have killed no one!"
The woman's hand reached out from under her robes, her skin the color of death. With her hand she pushed back the cover on her head, revealing a terrible gash that almost made her face look inhuman, unrecognizable.
"Mr. Bush, your bombs did this to me."
George looked with fascinated horror at the woman's face, his stomach feeling queasy. Then he looked away from the woman, unwilling to accept what he was seeing with his own eyes. "This is only a nightmare, a really bad dream. This isn't real."
"This is real. Now, you are coming with me." The woman's hand reached for George and he pulled away. Her cold hand touched his arm and instantly he was gone from his bedroom, transported to a cold, dark deserted road in the blink of an eye.
George was still pinching himself. The pain from the pinches was getting stronger each time, but he still was not waking up. George was confused. He looked down and saw the slippers on his feet, his blue terry cloth robe on his body, the red and white striped pajamas he remembered putting on just before climbing into bed with Laura.
"Follow me," the woman said simply as she opened the door to a building off the road. George had no intention of following this woman and he stood there in the road, looking for a way out.
"Help me!" he shouted, hoping someone would hear him. "I'm the President of the United States and I've been kidnapped! Help!" George yelled. No one came out of the buildings. The street was deserted. George looked around and saw buildings made of stone and dirt all around him, buildings that seemed only slightly familiar, but he could not quite place where he had seen them before.
The woman motioned for him to follow as she stepped through the doorway of the nearest building. "Come, Mr. Bush."
George had no intention of following that woman. His mind was filled only with thoughts of escape, of somehow getting back to his bedroom at the White House where he would be safe. How can I do that? He thought to himself. I don't know where I am. I don't know how I got here. This is a dream, a really, really bad dream.
The woman came back out into the road. "Mr. Bush, you must come with me. I have much to show you this night." She turned around and walked back into the building.
Reluctantly, George followed the woman through the door. Inside, he found a spacious room lit with the soft light from candles. One of the first things he noticed was that the room was cold, as his body shivered. George closed his robe more tightly to keep out the chill and wrapped his arms around himself in an attempt to get warm. As his eyes adjusted to the light he was able to look around the sparsely decorated and furnished room. There was a table in the center of the room, at which a man was sitting, staring off into the night. In his hands he held a picture.
George took a step towards the man. "Hey, you, you gotta help me! I've been kidnapped! I'm the President of the United States!"
The man didn't so much as twitch. He continued to stare off into space, unaware of his guests.
"He cannot hear you." The woman said. She was standing next to George.
"This man is my husband, Abdul. The woman in the picture is me, before I died."
"Hey, you!" George called out to the man, unbelieving, desperate to escape.
"Mr. Bush, listen to me. Abdul cannot hear you. He cannot see you. We are invisible to his eyes and ears.
George walked over to the man. He looked over the man's shoulder at the picture in his hands. It was of a beautiful woman. Her long, dark hair framed her face beautifully and her dark eyes seemed to pierce his soul as she looked back from the picture. George placed his hand on the man's shoulder, but his hand went right through the man's flesh. The man shuddered, not aware of what just happened to him.
"Whaaa -----?" George exclaimed.
"You are not really here, Mr. Bush. Your body is back at home, lying next to your wife in your bed. It is your spirit, your soul that is here tonight with me, Mr. Bush." The woman told him.
She went on. "Mr. Bush, tonight you are to see some of the death and destruction you have wrought upon my people, my country. For this you are responsible. Tonight you will see the sorrow and despair of my people, my family. You will begin to rethink the occupation of my country that you call a liberation."
With that, George was once again transported from the room he was standing in to another place he did not know. He found himself standing in a pile of rubble. There were people shrieking and screaming all around him, running in different directions. Smoke billowed up into the air and dust was falling all around him. In the distance he could hear sirens blaring, coming closer.
"Another bomb just exploded here, Mr. Bush. I want you to watch closely. Pay attention to everything." The ghostly woman next to him whispered in his ear.
As George watched, a man somehow climbed out of the rubble, covered in dirt and blood. Other men saw him and scrambled to help him. The man stumbled as he tried to take a step and the others nearest him caught him before he fell.
"My wife! My children! They are in there! Please, Allah, help them!" The man cried.
A swarm of men, young and old, descended on the rubble, pulling it away with their bare hands, piece by piece, calling the names of the family members stuck in the rubble. Shortly a body was pulled from the rubble, a young boy. A man silently and with tears running down his cheeks, carried the lifeless body to the father.
Others were pulled from the rubble, some lifeless, covered with blood and dust. A young girl was rescued, barely alive, with a broken arm. George watched as the rubble was pulled from the body of a woman, her body curled around the form of a baby as though to protect it from harm. The baby was alive. The woman was not.
"No. No. NO! This is a dream. I am not awake. This isn't real!" George said of the carnage before him. "In a little while I will wake up and forget all about this terrible nightmare!" George insisted.
"This is not a dream, Mr. Bush. It is very real and you will remember it when you awaken in the morning," said the woman next to him.
George looked away, turned his back on the horror and destruction he was witnessing. "Take me away from this," he begged the woman. "Let me go back to my bed, back to my sleep…"
With a start, George awakened from his sleep and sat up in bed. "Wow." He thought to himself, "that was quite a dream I had last night. What a nightmare!"
George got up and began to dress for the day. He went down to breakfast where he found Laura finishing her first cup of coffee.
"Good morning, dear," Laura said as he entered the room. "Did you rest well last night?"
"Yes," George answered, the dreams of the night already gone from his little mind.
As George poured a cup of coffee one of his aides came bustling into the room.
"Mr. President," said the aide, "there has been an incident. If you will follow me, Sir, we will brief you. This needs your immediate attention."
"It can wait a few minutes." Responded George.
"Sir, with all due respect, this needs your attention immediately. It cannot wait," the aide insisted.
"What in the world could be so important that it can't wait five minutes for me to have my breakfast?" The President asked grouchily.
"Sir, about two hours ago civilian homes in Baghdad were bombed. There are hundreds dead. There's a huge outcry from around the world. You must come now, Sir."
"I'll be there after I finish my breakfast. You are dismissed." The President took a swig of his orange juice and dug into the pile of biscuits and gravy on the plate in front of him.
The aide stood stubbornly in the middle of the room, staring at the President.
"I thought I dismissed you." Said George.
"Sir, I was ordered to bring you to the Briefing Room immediately. I'm not leaving until you come with me. I don't think you understand, Mr. President. This incident is all over the news. It is imperative that you come with me now, Sir," responded the aide.
Finally, with one last swig of his orange juice and a last bite of his breakfast, George wiped his mouth on a napkin and got up from his chair.
"This had better be good," he told the aide as they hurried down the corridor. "Otherwise, your ass is fired." By this time George was thoroughly irritated.
"Yes, Sir."
The aide opened the door to the Briefing Room and stepped aside for George to walk through. As George entered the room, he noted that most of his highest level aides and cabinet members were already seated, discussing the events. All immediately stopped talking as he entered the room, standing up from their chairs to greet him.
"Mr. President," they said in unison.
"All right, what's so goddamn important that I had to be dragged away from my breakfast this morning? It had better be good!" snarled George as he took his seat in the empty chair at the head of the table.
"Mr. President," began his Security Advisor, "there has been an incident in Baghdad."
"Yeah, so I've heard. Get on with it. I have a busy morning."
"I suggest you rearrange your schedule for the day, Mr. President. This one is big," replied another advisor.
"Just how damn bad could it be?" The President replied.
"Just watch." With that, the Security Advisor pushed the button of a remote control and the TV at the end of the room, came on. George watched as a sense of déjà vu descended upon him. He absent-mindedly rubbed his arm and sensed a touch of soreness as he did so. He watched as the events on the television screen played out, exactly as he saw them in his dream the previous night. Rubble everywhere, men scrambling through rubble as far as the camera could see, pulling broken bodies out. A man being pulled through the rubble covered in dust and blood, his friends catching him as he stumbled. Another man carrying the body of a dead child to him. A little girl was pulled from the rubble, alive, her arm twisted and distorted.
"Enough!" shouted George. "Turn it off!"
"Mr. President, last night numerous homes in this neighborhood of Baghdad were bombed. We received intelligence saying this was where some of the masterminds of Al Qaeda were staying, planning suicide bombing missions. We called in an air strike," Donald Rumsfeld told him.
"Did you get them?" Asked George.
"Sir, we don't know. I don't believe they were ever there at all. We are receiving reports that there are at least 25-30 dead Iraqi civilians, Sir, many of them women and children," another aide continued.
"Leaders of nations across the world are furious, calling for a statement from the United States, an explanation of what happened, the events of the night." Mr. Rumsfeld stated.
"What do we tell them? What do we do?" The question hung in the air.
George sat there, trembling, not believing what he saw on the television screen. "No, no," he thought to himself. "It was only a dream, only a dream." He sat in silence, unable to answer the question.
"Mr. President," Ms. Rice said, interrupting his thoughts, "We need to make a statement, say something, do something."
"Yes, yes. Continue the course. We are fighting terrorism and sometimes civilians get hurt. This is a war and these things happen. We are sorry for the loss of life. We are bringing Democracy and Freedom to Iraq. Stay the course. Stay the course…" George rambled.
He had to escape this room, go somewhere and be alone, gather his thoughts. "It was only a dream, only a dream. I'm still dreaming. This isn't real." George repeated over and over silently to himself.
"Excuse me, Mr. President? What did you say?" asked the gentleman sitting next to him.
"What? Oh, I must have been thinking out loud. Y'all take care of this. You know what to say. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have business to attend to." With that, George got up and left the room, leaving the attendees of the meeting in mute shock.
Somehow, George got himself out of the room and ran down the hall to the nearest washroom. Once inside, he locked the door. He went to the sink and splashed cold water on his face in an effort to wake himself up. "Only a dream" he muttered to himself as he looked at his face in the mirror. "Just a dream. Not real." He rubbed his arm once again, realizing it was a little sore. Quickly he unbuttoned the cuffs of the sleeve and pushed the sleeve up. He was surprised to see bruises up and down the length of his arm. "What the hell," George muttered.
There was a knock at the door.
"Mr. President, are you all right, Sir?" a voice on the other side of the door asked.
"Yeah. I'll be out in a minute," George replied. He took another minute or two to pull himself together.
George emerged from the washroom feeling shaky. He rubbed his arm as he walked down the hall on his way to the Oval Office.
In his office he found Condi and Rummy waiting for him, talking quietly.
"Mr. President." They acknowledged as he walked into the room.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
"Mr. President, we have got to deal with this situation in Baghdad. Already this morning the switchboard has been deluged with calls from around the world." Rummy stated.
"Handle it." George said.
"Mr. President, we need a statement from you," stated Condi.
"What the hell do you want me to say? Oh, I'm sorry. We had bad information. We bombed your homes and killed your families. This is war, a war on terror. These things are going to happen in a war. It isn't pretty. What the hell am I supposed to do about it?" George exclaimed.
"Sir, this has become an international incident. I advise you to not make light of it. This is a disaster for us – for you politically. Now we have to do some kind of damage control. You have to appear before the American people and the world, come across as being sympathetic and apologetic. You have got to say something," Rummy told him.
"Screw them. Screw them all! We are bringing Democracy and Freedom to the Iraqi people. We took Saddam Hussein out. We are fighting a war on terror!"
Condi took a deep breath. "Sir," she said, "Members of the United Nations are holding an emergency session tomorrow. They are calling for a vote regarding America's so-called occupation of Iraq. Before this incident our numbers were falling, our support from the American people and nations around the world was already plummeting. This is a P.R. disaster for you and for the United States. In order to even begin to turn this around, you, as President of the United States of America, are going to have to appear on television, give a speech. Make a statement about this. You can't just ignore this situation. It's not going to go away."
George stood at the window, looking out across the lawn as he rubbed his arm absentmindedly. Turning away from the window he said, "We have to stay the course in order to honor our commitments and the loss of life."
Condi and Rummy looked at each other, eyebrows raised in question.
"George," Rummy said, "what are we going to do? What are you going to say?"
"I'm not going to say or do anything right now. One of you can prepare a statement and send it out. I'm going to go finish my breakfast." With that, George left the room.

Posted by Amy Branham at 04:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack

August 20, 2005

Rumsfeld's Ray Gun

A non-lethal -- but potentially harmful -- crowd control weapon that heats human skin is bound for Iraq, and possibly to a police department near you.

A tough-talking Texan named Edward Hammond has to be a key element of any accurate study of the spooky history of what the military calls the "Active Denial System."

The head of The Sunshine Project, a Texas-based group opposing biological weapons, Hammond shows his disdain for military excesses through swear words and federal disclosure suits that seek to lift a window on military science projects. Two times now, he says, Marine Corp staff handling his Freedom of Information Act claims have mailed him the wrong envelope, mistakenly sending him materials meant for another military office, envelopes that contained classified information.

One of those times, he says, was in May when he received 112 pages of files on the Active Denial System, or ADS, a crowd control weapon built by Raytheon Corporation and slated for military deployment in Iraq in 2006...

The documents included descriptions of tests conducted on volunteer subjects at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico. Hammond, who had requested the documents, noticed something odd. "I saw some of the documents that were marked classified should have been redacted," he said in a telephone interview.

The Active Denial System is a Pentagon-funded, $51 million crowd control device that rides atop a Humvee, looks like a TV dish, and shoots energy waves 1/64 of an inch deep into human skin. It dispenses brief but intolerable bursts of pain, sending bad guys fleeing but supposedly leaving no lasting damage. (During a Pentagon press briefing in 2001, this reporter felt a zap from an ADS prototype on his fingertip and can attest to the brief but fleeting sensation that a hot light bulb was pressing against the skin). ADS works outside the range of small arms fire.

After a decade-long development cycle, the ADS is field-ready but not free of controversy. Military leaders, as noted in a recent USA Today article, say it will save lives by helping U.S. troops avoid bombs and bullets in urban zones where insurgents mix with civilians. Temporary pain beats bullets and bombs, but Edward Hammond's files have rekindled scientific questions about how the classified system works, what it does to the body and how it will be used in the streets of Basra or Baghdad or, one day, Boston.

As key scientific questions go unanswered, a version of the Active Denial System is being developed by the Justice Department for use by U.S. police departments. The National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the Department of Justice, has issued a half-million dollar grant to Raytheon Corporation for a "Solid-State Active Denial System Demonstration Program," according to the NIJ website. Alan Fischer, a Raytheon spokesperson, said the company is "working on a number of active denial projects, with various ranges. ADS may some day be miniaturized down to a hand-held device that could be carried in a purse or pocket and used for personal protection instead of something like Mace. The potential for this technology is huge."

The DOJ isn't the only one excited. The Department of Energy is experimenting with ADS as a security device that would "deny access" to nuclear facilities.

For most Americans, zapping Iraqi insurgents in Baghdad with a potentially unsafe weapon is one thing; cooking political protestors in Boston or Biloxi will surely be another. Against this backdrop, observers say, Hammond's files become particularly important. "Right now the press really isn't on this," says Hammond. "But that will change when the first videos are released showing this thing being used on people."

More here.

Posted by Guest Blogger PDiddie at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

August 02, 2005

The Bush administration is pro-torture.

They have repeatedly demonstrated such.

But is the same true of the entire GOP?

What about the Religious Right? What's their stance on the pro-torture policies of Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, Rumsfeld, et. al.?

Bob Herbert in the NYT:

John McCain, John Warner (and) Lindsey Graham ... are giving the White House fits with their attempt to get legislation approved that would expressly prohibit cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees in U.S. custody.

There was a dramatic encounter during the floor debate last week when Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama, spoke out against the legislation, saying there was no need for it because, as he put it, the detainees are not prisoners of war, "they are terrorists."

Senator McCain, of Arizona, argued that the debate "is not about who they are. It's about who we are." Americans, said Mr. McCain, "hold ourselves" to a higher standard.

...

That such an initiative would come from high-ranking, hawkish Republicans is extraordinary, and the White House is not happy about it. In addition to prohibiting cruel and degrading treatment, the legislation would restrict military interrogation techniques to those authorized in a new Army field manual.

...

The White House has fought intensely, but so far unsuccessfully, against this revolt in the usually steadfast Republican ranks. Vice President Dick Cheney, in a meeting with Senators Warner, McCain and Graham, said the legislation would interfere with President Bush's ability to fight terrorism. He was not able to change their minds.

Unable to fend off the amendments, the Senate majority leader, Bill Frist, put off further consideration of the defense bill until September. Senator McCain and his allies will try to build further support for the amendments during that period. The White House has threatened to veto the defense bill if the amendments are approved.

Republicans -- the ones outside the White House -- have a second chance to make clear their stance on torturing "enemy combatants".

Let's watch which course they take.

Posted by Guest Blogger PDiddie at 06:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 26, 2005

The news that's been ignored this week

is the Bush administration's refusal to release the worst of the evidence of torture at Abu Ghraib.

In a perverse way, you can't really blame them for trying to keep this sort of thing covered up; it's so bad even Don Rumsfeld and Lindsey Graham were appalled, and that was over a year ago when the photos and video were first discovered.

The Bush administration isn't stopping there, though.

They have threatened to veto legislation advanced by liberals like John McCain to establish groundrules for investigating and preventing the kinds of detainee abuse that has happened at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

And now the tie-in to Supreme Court nominee, John Roberts (from the transcript of yesterday's Democracy Now radio program):

Roberts was also part of a three-judge panel that handed Bush an important victory the week before Bush announced Roberts nomination to the bench. In fact, the day before the ruling was issued, President Bush interviewed Roberts at the White House. The next day, the court released their ruling that the military tribunals of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could proceed. The decision also found that Bush could deny terrorism captives prisoner-of-war status as outlined by the Geneva Conventions.

AMY GOODMAN: We go now to Yale University, where we are joined by Bruce Shapiro, contributing editor for The Nation magazine and a national correspondent for Salon.com. He also teaches journalism at Yale. His latest article is at The Nation online and is titled "The Stakes In Roberts's Nomination." Welcome to Democracy Now!, Bruce Shapiro.

BRUCE SHAPIRO: Well, the case involves a man named Hamdan, who was allegedly Osama bin Laden's driver. He is one of the detainees at Guantanamo, captured on the field in Afghanistan, who the military has designated, the Pentagon has designated, for military tribunals, trials without benefit of review of court. A lower federal court had thrown these tribunals out, issued an injunction against them, saying that they violated the Geneva Convention and were -- and represented an illegitimate extension of presidential authority.

Well, one day after being interviewed by President Bush, a Federal Appeals panel, three judges of which Judge Roberts was a member, handed down a unanimous decision -- all three judges, by the way, Reagan-Bush appointees -- permitting the tribunals to go forward, reinstating them, and in particular, invalidating those Geneva Convention protections, and saying, in fact, that the courts had no business reviewing this question of Geneva Convention status, that it was purely a matter for the Executive Branch.

Torture? Cover-up? Complicity on both from the future Supreme Court Justice?

Activist judges?

Meanwhile, some Democrats are having discussions about things like this.

Posted by Guest Blogger PDiddie at 04:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 13, 2005

"Bush's Brain" needs a hug

...a pat on the back, a warm word of encouragement.

Go give it to him.

Posted by Guest Blogger PDiddie at 07:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 07, 2005

Sympathies to Londoners (and all Brits)

... for the tragedies today.

Posted by Guest Blogger PDiddie at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

May 31, 2005

San Jacinto Democratic Brigade Memorial Event

ecbc.jpg

More pictures can be viewed at: http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/tgederberg/album?.dir=/1c6f&.src=ph&.tok=phbR4EDBtgcOyDq8

Here is a short report of an event that I had the privelege to be a part of.

The volunteers of the San Jacinto Democratic Veterans Brigade read the names of the soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq and planted a flage for each one. After 5 1/2 hours the last flag was planted, the last name read and white roses donated by a passerby was placed at the last flag.

Taps was played.

And we were dismissed.

The volunteers removed the flags (due to insurance reasons) and then returned at 5:00am to replant the flags for the day. The event was held in Sam Houston Park in downtown Houston. The flags were visible from the high rise towers surrounding the park.

The Brigade did an absolutely fantastic job.

Posted by John Cobarruvias at 07:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

May 19, 2005

The Halliburton shareholders protest yesterday

...turned violent.

Fifteen people were arrested; protestors, police, and horses were injured.

Houston Indymedia has video, photos, and accounts from the scene.

This is the Chronicle's story. This is KHOU's report (including videotape also).

Stan Merriman, chairman emeritus of the Progressive Populist Caucus of the Texas Democratic Party, was there and posted this in comments elsewhere on this blog:

..."On May 18 I participated in the Haliburton protest at the Four Seasons Hotel. I had done so last year as well and it was one of the finest examples of the free exercise of our first amendment rights I've ever experienced. No so on May 18 '05. I saw first-hand the police state in full exposure. Mayor Bill White (he was once a Democrat, am I remembering correctly?) turned loose on the people, peacefully demonstrating, 30 mounted Houston police, trampling us into the asphalt in front of the Four Seasons Hotel. In contrast to last year when the police, under Chief Bradford, allowed us to mass in the street in front of the Hotel, without a permit, and even stage a peaceful sit-in at the Hotel drive-around, this year they had us relegated to a caged area reminiscent of Boston '04 and the Democratic convention. Last year, maybe one arrest. This year, a dozen. And people hurt being cuffed and arrested. I sensed a different mood on the part of the Mayor and his Chief when I saw the police Bus parked in the back of the Four Seasons, later used to transport the offending protestors, dragged there by abusive men in blue. But, worst of all, the HPD mounted forces were not content to use these beautiful animals to block us from no-go areas. They used those horses as weapons against us with numerous persons trampled. ..."

While there are dozens of questions I'd like answers to, I'll settle for these:

Why did police officers on horseback charge into a crowd of people on the sidewalk?

Why did they ride their horses around barricades they erected into the authorized protest zone they established?

Why did HPD feel it necessary to escort Halliburton shareholders across an elevated, climate-controlled walkway to their shareholders meeting, which was closed even to the establishment media such as Reuters?

What was the threat?

Posted by Guest Blogger PDiddie at 12:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

May 08, 2005

So-called Victory in the War on Terror Really a Case of Mistaken Identity

Victory in the War on Terror or publicity stunt? You decide.

From The Times Online:

Captured Al-Qaeda kingpin is case of ‘mistaken identity’

Christina Lamb and Mohammad Shehzad Islamabad
THE capture of a supposed Al-Qaeda kingpin by Pakistani agents last week was hailed by President George W Bush as “a critical victory in the war on terror”. According to European intelligence experts, however, Abu Faraj al-Libbi was not the terrorists’ third in command, as claimed, but a middle-ranker derided by one source as “among the flotsam and jetsam” of the organisation.


Posted by Lyn Wall at 08:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack