Borders has announced that its stores (which includes Waldenbooks) will not carry the April-May issue of Secular Humanism Magazine because that issue will publish the cartoons of Mohammad that sparked riots across the muslim world. Their reason for doing so is fear that it could place their employees in danger. That’s not an entirely unreasonable fear. And so it begins? Corporations start censoring the media here because these jackasses halfway around the world don’t get pluralism or the notion of free and protected speech and the right to control one’s own mind.

What people don’t get about Scalia and his ilk is that they’re thugs. This man is an ideologue who cares about nothing so much as advancing his cause. He’s got a lifetime appointment and no fear of impeachment. He doesn’t care about ethics, propriety, or appearances. He’s got the power. You don’t. Fuck you if you don’t like it.

Of course he’s not going to recuse himself.

Sometimes I miss my masters having a little noblesse oblige.

Fitzgerald to indict Karl Rove or Stephen Hadley, possibly both.

God, if the Bush team is such a mess now, I’d hate to see how incompetent they’ll be after Bush’s Brain is forced out.

I’m sure many of you have already seen a story on this wonderful bit of religious freedom in Afghanistan. I wonder which of the following is more imperialistic and potentially bigoted a reaction:

1. No shock or surprise. These are the people who brought us the taliban and, really, the damn near whole muslim world seems utterly clueless when it comes to the notion of pluralism.

2. This is the afghanistan that the U.S. has created. Good job, guys.

The former is probably closer to how I really feel. The latter is less judgmental of the muslim world, but also kind of robs of them of their agency and responsibility for their actions.

If this were to come to pass, the U.S. economy would go to hell. While GM may not be what it once was to our economy, they still buy parts and components from hundreds, if not thousands of U.S. companies who employ tens of thousands of people.

General Motors in Crisis Talks to Cut 35,000 Jobs
By Richard Wray
The Guardian UK

Tuesday 21 March 2006

General Motors is trying to stave off the possibility of collapse by thrashing out a last-minute job reduction plan with its former subsidiary and now major parts supplier, Delphi, and the powerful United Auto Workers union.

The plan on the table is believed to involve offering up to 35,000 employees in both companies cash incentives of up to $35,000 (£20,000) to take early retirement.

Delphi went bankrupt last autumn as it lost out to nimbler rivals, especially from overseas. But GM, which employs 325,000 people worldwide and demerged Delphi in 1999, guaranteed worker’s pensions and benefits. GM, which yesterday said talks were continuing, has estimated it could be landed with a bill for $12bn if it failed to reach a settlement.

Delphi’s management want to slash wages and reduce headcount from 33,000 to about 10,000 to try to get the business back on its feet. GM, which is already planning to shed 30,000 US employees and freeze pension benefits, wants to cut its “jobs bank”, a pool of employees laid off on full pay whom it can call on to return.

If a deal with unions cannot be reached by Friday next week Delphi’s board has said it would ask the federal bankruptcy court to annul its staff contracts, a move unions have warned would lead to an all-out strike.

The problems at Delphi have raised fears that GM, the world’s largest car manufacturer, could go bust. Ron Tadross, the Banc of America analyst who caused a stir at the time of Delphi’s collapse when he said there was a 30% chance GM would also be brought down, now believes this is “more likely than not”.

The talks come as GM, already under investigation by the Wall Street regulator for accounting irregularities, has become embroiled in another accounting scandal. Late last week it admitted it would have to restate accounts for the past six years and its 2005 loss would be about $10.6bn, $2bn more than it had predicted.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031606R.shtml

War-Loving Pundits
By Norman Solomon
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Thursday 16 March 2006

The third anniversary of the Iraq invasion is bound to attract a lot of media coverage, but scant recognition will go to the pundits who helped to make it all possible.

Continuing with long service to the Bush administration’s agenda-setting for war, prominent media commentators were very busy in the weeks before the invasion. At the Washington Post, the op-ed page’s fervor hit a new peak on February 6, 2003, the day after Colin Powell’s mendacious speech to the UN Security Council.

Post columnist Richard Cohen explained that Powell was utterly convincing. “The evidence he presented to the United Nations - some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail - had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn’t accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them,” Cohen wrote. “Only a fool - or possibly a Frenchman - could conclude otherwise.”

Meanwhile, another one of the Post’s syndicated savants, Jim Hoagland, led with this declaration: “Colin Powell did more than present the world with a convincing and detailed X-ray of Iraq’s secret weapons and terrorism programs yesterday. He also exposed the enduring bad faith of several key members of the UN Security Council when it comes to Iraq and its ‘web of lies,’ in Powell’s phrase.” Hoagland’s closing words banished doubt: “To continue to say that the Bush administration has not made its case, you must now believe that Colin Powell lied in the most serious statement he will ever make, or was taken in by manufactured evidence. I don’t believe that. Today, neither should you.”

Impatience grew among pundits who depicted the UN’s inspection process as a charade because Saddam Hussein’s regime obviously possessed weapons of mass destruction. In an essay appearing on February 13, 2003, Christopher Hitchens wrote: “Those who are calling for more time in this process should be aware that they are calling for more time for Saddam’s people to complete their humiliation and subversion of the inspectors.”

A few weeks later, on March 17, President Bush prefaced the imminent invasion by claiming in a televised speech: “Should Saddam Hussein choose confrontation, the American people can know that every measure has been taken to avoid war, and every measure will be taken to win it.”

In the same speech, noting that “many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast,” Bush offered reassurance. “I have a message for them: If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you.”

The next day, Hitchens came out with an essay featuring similar assurances, telling readers that “the Defense Department has evolved highly selective and accurate munitions that can sharply reduce the need to take or receive casualties. The predictions of widespread mayhem turned out to be false last time - when the weapons [in the Gulf War] were nothing like so accurate.” And, he added, “it can now be proposed as a practical matter that one is able to fight against a regime and not a people or a nation.”

With the full-scale attack underway, the practicalities were evident from network TV studios. “The American public knows the importance of this war,” Fox News pundit and Weekly Standard executive editor Fred Barnes proclaimed a few days after the invasion began. “They are not as casualty sensitive as the weenies in the American press are.”

And what about the punditry after the ballyhooed “victory” in Iraq? Researchers at the media watch group FAIR (where I’m an associate) have exhumed statements made by prominent media cheerleaders who were flushed with triumph. Often showing elation as Baghdad fell, US journalists lavished praise on the invasion and sometimes aimed derisive salvos at American opponents of the military action.

One of the most gleeful commentators on network television was MSNBC’s “Hardball” host Chris Matthews. “We’re all neo-cons now,” he crowed on April 9, 2003, hours after a Saddam Hussein statue tumbled in Baghdad.

Weeks later, Matthews was still at it, making categorical declarations: “We’re proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who’s physical, who’s not a complicated guy like Clinton or even like Dukakis or Mondale, all those guys, McGovern. They want a guy who’s president. Women like a guy who’s president. Check it out. The women like this war. I think we like having a hero as our president. It’s simple.”

Simplistic was more like it. And, in the rush of stateside enthusiasm for war on Iraq, centrist pundits like Matthews - apt to sway with the prevailing wind - were hardly inclined to buck the jingoistic storm.

Pseudo-patriotic hot air remained at gale force on Fox News Channel, still blowing strong. “Tommy Franks and the coalition forces have demonstrated the old axiom that boldness on the battlefield produces swift and relatively bloodless victory,” Tony Snow told viewers in late April. “The three-week swing through Iraq has utterly shattered skeptics’ complaints.”

What passes for liberalism on Fox also cheered and gloated. Sean Hannity’s weak debating partner, Alan Colmes, threw down a baiting challenge on April 25. “Now that the war in Iraq is all but over,” Colmes demanded, “should the people in Hollywood who opposed the president admit they were wrong?”

Part of this article has been adapted from Norman Solomon’s latest book, War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. For information, go to: www.WarMadeEasy.com.

Paul Krugman nails a warning that I’ve been giving about John McCain for years. This guy is no moderate. He’s a great politician who knows how to manipulate the media to create an image of being a maverick and a more reasonable voice than what comes from the Bush administration. That is all just spin and image making. Now that the media has a narrative that they’ve used for McCain for years, though, they’re unlikely to change it.

I still say he’s the odds on favorite for the nomination at this stage in the game. That’s doubly true if people like Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney actually end up running as well financed candidates. There’s no way that southern GOP primary voters will support a mormon. I don’t think there’s much of a chance of them supporting someone as pro-choice and pro-gay as Giuliani. He’d have to just kill in Iowa and New Hampshire to stay in it. With McCain’s past record of support in New Hampshire, that would be difficult.

Few things would make me happier than to see Grover Norquist and his organization go down in the fallout from the Jack Abramoff scandals. Really, those guys are some of the most poisonous people in our national discourse.

“America will help women stand up for their freedom no matter where they live.”

George W. Bush, March 7th, 2006.

Time to send the troops into South Dakota. We could call it Operation Enduring Constitution.

March 1, 2006

Video Shows Bush Was Warned Before Katrina
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON (AP)—In dramatic and sometimes agonizing terms, federal disaster officials warned President Bush and his homeland security chief before Hurricane Katrina struck that the storm could breach levees, put lives at risk in New Orleans’ Superdome and overwhelm rescuers, according to confidential video footage.

Bush didn’t ask a single question during the final briefing before Katrina struck on Aug. 29, but he assured soon-to-be-battered state officials: “We are fully prepared.”

The footage—along with seven days of transcripts of briefings obtained by The Associated Press—show in excruciating detail that while federal officials anticipated the tragedy that unfolded in New Orleans and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, they were fatally slow to realize they had not mustered enough resources to deal with the unprecedented disaster.

Linked by secure video, Bush’s confidence on Aug. 28 starkly contrasts with the dire warnings his disaster chief and a cacophony of federal, state and local officials provided during the four days before the storm.

A top hurricane expert voiced “grave concerns” about the levees and then-Federal Emergency Management Agency chief Michael Brown told the president and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that he feared there weren’t enough disaster teams to help evacuees at the Superdome.

“I’m concerned about … their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe,” Brown told his bosses the afternoon before Katrina made landfall.

Some of the footage and transcripts from briefings Aug. 25-31 conflicts with the defenses that federal, state and local officials have made in trying to deflect blame and minimize the political fallout from the failed Katrina response:

—Homeland Security officials have said the “fog of war” blinded them early on to the magnitude of the disaster. But the video and transcripts show federal and local officials discussed threats clearly, reviewed long-made plans and understood Katrina would wreak devastation of historic proportions. “I’m sure it will be the top 10 or 15 when all is said and done,” National Hurricane Center’s Max Mayfield warned the day Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast.

“I don’t buy the `fog of war’ defense,” Brown told the AP in an interview Wednesday. “It was a fog of bureaucracy.”

—Bush declared four days after the storm, “I don’t think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees” that gushed deadly flood waters into New Orleans. But the transcripts and video show there was plenty of talk about that possibility—and Bush was worried too.

White House deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and Brown discussed fears of a levee breach the day the storm hit.

“I talked to the president twice today, once in Crawford and then again on Air Force One,” Brown said. “He’s obviously watching the television a lot, and he had some questions about the Dome, he’s asking questions about reports of breaches.”

—Louisiana officials angrily blamed the federal government for not being prepared but the transcripts shows they were still praising FEMA as the storm roared toward the Gulf Coast and even two days afterward. “I think a lot of the planning FEMA has done with us the past year has really paid off,” Col. Jeff Smith, Louisiana’s emergency preparedness deputy director, said during the Aug. 28 briefing.

It wasn’t long before Smith and other state officials sounded overwhelmed.

“We appreciate everything that you all are doing for us, and all I would ask is that you realize that what’s going on and the sense of urgency needs to be ratcheted up,” Smith said Aug. 30.

Mississippi begged for more attention in that same briefing.

“We know that there are tens or hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana that need to be rescued, but we would just ask you, we desperately need to get our share of assets because we’ll have people dying—not because of water coming up, but because we can’t get them medical treatment in our affected counties,” said a Mississippi state official whose name was not mentioned on the tape.

Video footage of the Aug. 28 briefing, the final one before Katrina struck, showed an intense Brown voicing concerns from the government’s disaster operation center and imploring colleagues to do whatever was necessary to help victims.

“We’re going to need everything that we can possibly muster, not only in this state and in the region, but the nation, to respond to this event,” Brown warned. He called the storm “a bad one, a big one” and implored federal agencies to cut through red tape to help people, bending rules if necessary.

“Go ahead and do it,” Brown said. “I’ll figure out some way to justify it. … Just let them yell at me.”

Bush appeared from a narrow, windowless room at his vacation ranch in Texas, with his elbows on a table. Hagin was sitting alongside him. Neither asked questions in the Aug. 28 briefing.

“I want to assure the folks at the state level that we are fully prepared to not only help you during the storm, but we will move in whatever resources and assets we have at our disposal after the storm,” the president said.

A relaxed Chertoff, sporting a polo shirt, weighed in from Washington at Homeland Security’s operations center. He would later fly to Atlanta, outside of Katrina’s reach, for a bird flu event.

One snippet captures a missed opportunity on Aug. 28 for the government to have dispatched active-duty military troops to the region to augment the National Guard.

Chertoff: “Are there any DOD assets that might be available? Have we reached out to them?”

Brown: “We have DOD assets over here at EOC (emergency operations center). They are fully engaged. And we are having those discussions with them now.”

Chertoff: “Good job.”

In fact, active duty troops weren’t dispatched until days after the storm. And many states’ National Guards had yet to be deployed to the region despite offers of assistance, and it took days before the Pentagon deployed active-duty personnel to help overwhelmed Guardsmen.

The National Hurricane Center’s Mayfield told the final briefing before Katrina struck that storm models predicted minimal flooding inside New Orleans during the hurricane but he expressed concerns that counterclockwise winds and storm surges afterward could cause the levees at Lake Pontchartrain to be overrun.

“I don’t think any model can tell you with any confidence right now whether the levees will be topped or not but that is obviously a very, very grave concern,” Mayfield told the briefing.

Other officials expressed concerns about the large number of New Orleans residents who had not evacuated.

“They’re not taking patients out of hospitals, taking prisoners out of prisons and they’re leaving hotels open in downtown New Orleans. So I’m very concerned about that,” Brown said.

Despite the concerns, it ultimately took days for search and rescue teams to reach some hospitals and nursing homes.

Brown also told colleagues one of his top concerns was whether evacuees who went to the New Orleans Superdome—which became a symbol of the failed Katrina response—would be safe and have adequate medical care.

“The Superdome is about 12 feet below sea level…. I don’t know whether the roof is designed to stand, withstand a Category Five hurricane,” he said.

Brown also wanted to know whether there were enough federal medical teams in place to treat evacuees and the dead in the Superdome.

“Not to be (missing) kind of gross here,” Brown interjected, “but I’m concerned” about the medical and mortuary resources “and their ability to respond to a catastrophe within a catastrophe.”