Krugman’s speaking the truth
If you’ve actually been paying attention these last coupla years, you already know most of this stuff, but it’s nice to finally see it in a mainstream newspaper:
So the Iraq hawks set out to corrupt the process of intelligence assessment. On one side, nobody was held accountable for the failure to predict or prevent 9/11; on the other side, top intelligence officials were expected to support the case for an Iraq war.
The story of how the threat from Iraq's alleged W.M.D.'s was hyped is now, finally, coming out. But let's not forget the persistent claim that Saddam was allied with Al Qaeda, which allowed the hawks to pretend that the Iraq war had something to do with fighting terrorism.
As Greg Thielmann, a former State Department intelligence official, said last week, U.S. intelligence analysts have consistently agreed that Saddam did not have a "meaningful connection" to Al Qaeda. Yet administration officials continually asserted such a connection, even as they suppressed evidence showing real links between Al Qaeda and Saudi Arabia.
...
So who will be held accountable? Mr. Tenet betrayed his office by tailoring statements to reflect the interests of his political masters, rather than the assessments of his staff — but that's not why he may soon be fired. Yesterday USA Today reported that "some in the Bush administration are arguing privately for a C.I.A. director who will be unquestioningly loyal to the White House as committees demand documents and call witnesses."
Not that the committees are likely to press very hard: Senator Pat Roberts, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, seems more concerned about protecting his party's leader than protecting the country. "What concerns me most," he says, is "what appears to be a campaign of press leaks by the C.I.A. in an effort to discredit the president."
In short, those who politicized intelligence in order to lead us into war, at the expense of national security, hope to cover their tracks by corrupting the system even further.
Amazingly, even Nicholas Kristof , the much more hawkish NYT opionionist, is starting to come around:
What troubles me is not that single episode, but the broader pattern of dishonesty and delusion that helped get us into the Iraq mess — and that created the false expectations undermining our occupation today. Some in the administration are trying to make George Tenet the scapegoat for the affair. But Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, a group of retired spooks, issued an open letter to President Bush yesterday reflecting the view of many in the intel community that the central culprit is Vice President Dick Cheney. The open letter called for Mr. Cheney's resignation.
Despite the Bushies assertions to the contrary, I think this controversy may just be getting started. It’s about time.
Redner v Caton, this Friday!
From the Trib:
Advocate, Foe Of Adult Clubs Will Face Off: From The Tampa Tribune
T he Tiger Bay Club of Tampa will host two of the area's most controversial people for lunch on Friday.
Adult-business owner Joe Redner and antiporn activist David Caton will face each other and take questions from members of the nonprofit, nonpartisan political organization.
Caton is pushing Hillsborough County to adopt a strict antinudity law that would effectively close strip clubs. Redner has spent years battling police and the courts on grounds that shutting such clubs is unconstitutional and unenforceable.
County commissioners will have a public hearing at 6 p.m. July 29 to discuss the proposed ban on nudity.
Friday's lunch is at noon in the Wyndam Harbour Island Hotel. Reservations, which are required, can be made by sending e-mail to tigerbay@tampabay.rr.com or calling (813) 839-0801.
I’m not surprised…
But the Tampa Tribune is surprised that various groups lied about the need for malpractice caps:
employees with the state Department of Health and the Agency for Health Care Administration testified that the number of medical doctors practicing in Florida has increased during the past five years. They also said no emergency rooms or trauma centers have closed as a result of the double-digit increases doctors have seen in their medical malpractice insurance premiums.
That seemed to contradict the mantra of the Florida Medical Association and insurance companies that doctors are leaving the state in droves and that emergency medical centers are closing.
In the SP Times, Mary Jo Melone see’s the same solution that I mentioned on
5/30: (scroll down to find the post titled “Insurance reform...”)
MJM:
Other measures could be taken to cut back on the problems posed by bad doctors. According to figures compiled by another consumer group, Public Citizen, just 6 percent of the state's doctors are responsible for more than half of the malpractice payments. If we made sure they got put out of business, you would certainly cut back on costs.
BlogWood:
Here's an idea: why don't mistake prone doctors get out of the business? Insurance rates would fall, patient care would improve, and consumers could still get just compensation if a jury decided they deserved it. Unfortunately, doctors hate to lose potential golf buddies, so the AMA would rather put an arbitrarily low price tag on a life than do the right thing.
Civil Liberties Watch
Today's must read take on our declingin rights, by Elaine Cassel:
For the French, the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789 symbolizes liberty,democracy and the struggle against all forms of oppression. Day by day, Americans are becoming more enslaved to the Bush regime's trampling of constitutional liberties. Ironically, the White House and Congressional kitchens' idiotic renaming of "french fries" as "freedom fries" had it wrong. It is the French who are still free; we decidedly are not.
ACLU report debunks Ashcroft PATRIOT lies
According to John Ashcroft, we are safer now than we were a coupla years ago, and we should continue to welcome governmental intrusion into our private lives.
A report from the ACLU details some of the lies about the USA PATRIOT act that have been bounced around by the Justice Department lately.
Elaine Cassel explains the reporthere, and she includes a link to the ACLU web site whish makes it very easy to Take Action!
FL parental consent law struck down
The SP Times reports on a significant ruling by the State Supreme Court in which Florida’s parental notification law for abortions was struck down:
The ruling will help girls in fractured families, said Gloria Feldt, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
"It's optimal when young women involve their parents in reproductive health decisions, but it just doesn't work out that way," she said. "We know from working with teens . . . that the ones who are most at risk for unintended pregnancies may be the least able to turn to their parents in a crisis situation."
Feldt stressed that for many pregnant girls, there is "virtually no distinction" between having to tell a parent about a pregnancy and getting a parent's consent for an abortion.
Girls forced to tell may face abuse, or may harm themselves rather than talk, said Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.
"When the courts force family involvement, the consequences frequently have been catastrophic - suicide, beatings and so on," he said.
Jeb is already talking about replacing the sricken law with another version:
Gov. Jeb Bush said he may go to lawmakers with a new bill.
"I'm really disappointed," Bush told reporters Thursday. "It's hard to believe that we live in a society where parents wouldn't be notified of an abortion, which is a very profound decision."
Easy for an unimaginative rich white male to say. In Jeb’s world, everyone is wealthy, pale skinned, and a member of what Jeb would consider a “normal” family: mom, dad, a coupla kids, a suburban house, good public schools (or private schools if there’re too many darkies being bussed in by those damn liberal courts), and church on Sunday. Places like Columbine, where good family values lead to stable, predictable, problem-free lives.
In Jeb’s world, anyone who does not fit into his stereotypically narrow vision of an average Christian family is marginalized and, in the Christian tradition, punished severely for their sins. In Jeb’s world, it is inconceivable that a daughter might be seeking to abort the result of a rape by her father or uncle. And if a father, upon hearing of his daughter’s decision to abort his brother’s spawn, decides to beat his daughter senseless, well that’s just strong parenting.
Strong parenting is a proven winner: just ask Jenna, if you can ever catch her sober, and if you offer Jeb’s daughter, Noelle, some Xanax, she’ll loosen up and admit that she really likes it when her daddy spanks her.
Cycling “accident” story just doesn’t add up
Reading this story and others about the recent incident in St. Pete involving a large car and over 20 bicyclists, I get the feeling that maybe, just for a moment, this driver meant to plow into the cyclists, and that when he came to his senses and realized someone might really get hurt, it was too late.
Pastore said he did not feel guilty because he did not think he was at fault.
"I'm not saying anything about remorse or guilt. I don't feel any remorse or guilt," he said. "I'm at peace with myself. . . . I know this was an accident."
But Ryder, the cyclist, said that after the accident Pastore displayed no sorrow.
"If I had just run over 15 people, I would be crying," said Ryder, 49, of Redington Beach. "He had no emotions whatsoever."
Further, Ryder said, none of the other cyclists could have squirted Pastore with water.
"I looked at the guy face-to-face, I didn't see any water on him or on his shirt," Ryder said.
See, initial reports had Pastore claiming that he was splashed with water. Could he have swerved into the bikers to get revenge for his wetting? No one has mentioned the possibility of road rage in this case, but just because he wasn’t acting the raving fool by the time the incident ended doesn’t mean he wasn’t out of control when it started.
I think that it may come out that Pastore is one of those drivers who feels that bikes are a nuisance, and need not be tolerated. I bike in this area, and I have experience with these cowardly types. Hiding behind the protection of tons of steel, they use their vehicles to run bikers off the road. They throw things, lean on horns, and otherwise assert their physical superiority while attempting to teach the rider a lesson: if you’re on a bike, you have no right to use the public streets.
I hope this isn’t the case here, but I fear that it may be.
Troxler on Jeb
Howard Troxler is writing about Jeb, but he could just as easily be speaking of any number of Republican leaders (especially W) who feel that any compromise is a loss. Does anyone else remember when compromise on all sides, a meeting in the middle, was considered essential for a democracy to function?
You may not disagree with Gov. Jeb Bush.
No. You may not disagree. You are not permitted.
If you do disagree with Gov. Jeb Bush, then your disagreement is not based on principle.
No. Only the governor has principles.
You do not have any principles.
I guess when you live under the rule of one dominant party, you learn (perhaps you are re-educated?) to agree. As Jeb and his ilk are fond of saying, if you don’t like it, you can always leave.
How to steal an election
Two well researched articles (Article 1 Article 2) published in New Zealand paint a frightening picture of what we might be facing in 2004:
Imagine then if it were possible to somehow subvert the voting process itself in such a way that you could steal elections without anybody knowing.
Imagine for example if you could:
- secure control of the companies that make the voting machines and vote counting software;
- centralise vote counting systems, and politicise their supervision;
- legislate for the adoption of such systems throughout your domain, and provide large amounts of money for the purchase of these systems;
- establish systems of vote counting that effectively prevent anybody on the ground in the election – at a booth or precinct level - from seeing what is happening at a micro-level;
- get all the major media to sign up to a single exit-polling system that you also control – removing the risk of exit-polling showing up your shenanigans.
And imagine further that you;
- install a backdoor, or numerous backdoors, in the vote counting systems you have built that enable you to manipulate the tabulation of results in real time as they are coming in.
Such a system would enable you to intervene in precisely the minimum number of races necessary to ensure that you won a majority on election night. On the basis of polling you could pick your marginal seats and thus keep your tweaking to a bare minimum.
Such a system would enable you to minimise the risks of discovery of your activities.
Remember: all the companies that manufacture voting machines in use in the US are controlled by Republicans. Further, these companies use proprietary "closed source" software which makes it difficult or impossible to determine how accurately the votes are tallied.
Open season on cyclists
It’s becoming more and more dangerous to simply bike around the Tampa area lately. Long known as one of the most dangerous places for pedestrians, the Bay Area has been very hard on bicyclists lately too.
Yesterday , a car slammed into 20 cyclists in St. Pete.:
Witnesses said the eastbound Continental veered toward the cyclists, cutting into the group head-on about halfway through their ranks, then dispatching the cyclists like dominoes.
"There's no way he could not have seen us," Ryder said. "He went to pass, he accelerated and he never slowed down."
While cyclists were tumbled and tossed, the car sheared through their bikes, swallowing them underneath and snapping them in pieces.
The driver has not been charged. Last week, in Tampa, a cyclist was killed while standing with his bike on a sidewalk and waiting to cross the street. In both of these cases, an elderly driver was apparently confused. In the Tampa case, charges were eventually filed, but the message being sent out by cops is that hitting cyclists is no big deal. You wont be immediately charged. You will be allowed to keep driving and to keep ingesting the same prescription medications or vodka martinis that led to the crash.
As long as you act a little doddering and can come across as sweet and old, no problem: you will be treated as a hero. After all, you managed to clear out some of those slow and pesky bikes that seem to be everywhere on the road, forcing us to slow our SUVs lest we scratch our paint as we crush the riders underneath. Good job!