* Patriotic sadism ~ if at first you don’t succeed… - Former VP Dick Cheney and his chain gang claim that waterboarding works. That being the case one would think that after one or two or three or even unbelievably ten waterboardings a suspect would provide the information sought. Okay, it wasn’t a lucky interrogation for the inquisitors. Let’s try it 20 times on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. How about 30 or 40 or 50 times? That should cover it. But then again, maybe the guy is an encyclopedia of information. Let’s try waterboarding him 80 or 90 or 100 times. Nah, this is America with a documented work ethic and a penchant for going for the gold. Let’s waterboard the SOB 183 times. Maybe the interrogations ceased because they ran out of water.
* The Ticking Bomb ~ The Catastrophic Fallout – Defenders of torture generally begin the debate by saying, “Torture methods are necessary to get information from a detainee who has information about a bomb about to go off that will take American lives.” Seemingly compelling, one wonders whether this scenario applied to any of the hundreds (or more) of detainees “harshly” interrogated at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and untold secret sites? Even more telling of this blanket reasoning is the recently released report by the Senate that abusive techniques were used to try to produce evidence of ties between al Qaeda and Iraq. To summarize: detainees were abused to extract evidence of a relationship that never existed, except in the necon planet of the Bush administration. This may be the greatest lesson to be learned from the Bush years: the dangerous and self-defeating consequences of believing your own lies.
* Bombastic rhetoric – I find it interesting that those folks defending the actions of the Bush administration at Guantanamo et al reply that critics of such behavior can only be found in the political far left. I guess this means that citizens on the near left, moderates and conservatives (near and far) believe that torture is acceptable. Except for the majority of conservatives the majority of Americans are against the use of torture. Look at the polling. For as long as I have been on this planet, at least until seven years ago, I was under the impression that AMERICA AND AMERICANS DO NOT TORTURE. That being said, Defenders of the Bush Administration would have us believe that what took place at Guantanamo et al was not torture. John McCain strongly disagrees with his fellow conservatives and stated on Face the Nation that under George W. Bush the U.S. violated the Geneva Convention. FBI director Robert Mueller told his agents who had observed and reported back CIA enhanced interrogation techniques, "No, you can't do that. That violates our own rules. That violates our understanding of the law. You have to step back." Both the inquiries yet to take place and history will condemn this period and note that torture, even when wrapped in the Stars and Stripes, is still torture.
* Two misunderstandings have gained widespread attention concerning Barack Obama and his approach to dealing with the torture issue. Contrary to many media pundits, it is not Obama’s decision to seek or not seek investigations into the commitment of torture. It is the decision of the Attorney General, the person designated to oversee the legal interests of the American people (contrary to how Alberto Gonzales interpreted this position).
The second area that requires further thought is when Obama said that he was immunizing CIA personnel from possible prosecution for committing torture. Recall that we function under the laws of the U.S. AND international law that our country has signed on to. From Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com: “After President Obama announced last week that he opposes prosecutions of CIA officials who tortured detainees in reliance on OLC memos purporting to legalize that conduct the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, announced that Obama's policy of immunizing CIA torturers violates international law and, specifically, the clear obligations of the U.S. under the Convention Against Torture (signed by Ronald Reagan in 1988).”
For those macho guys (and gals) who want to treat waterboarding as a day at Wet N Wild, they should be reminded that, “After World War II, we convicted several Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American and Allied prisoners of war.” They were hanged or sentenced to 15 years in prison. Apparently the Bush lawyers who wrote justifications for the use of waterboarding were ignorant of or ignored history and the law.
If you have the stomach the LA Times offers 10 just-released photos depicting treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib. We may never know to what extent abusive American actions contributed to the further recruitment of terrorists but it is safe to say that what are known as “enhanced techniques” did little or anything to make us or our troops in Iraq safer. If anything, such actions increased the threat to American troops and citizens.
And let us not forget the complicity of some Democrats, if the claim is correct that a small number were informed of the program. And let us not forget the pathetic lack of opposition by the Democratic Party as the enhanced techniques became publicly know. This is not a political party issue. It is a humane issue, a legal issue and strikes at the heart of what this country stands for. It matters not to me, and hopefully other citizens, whether an individual politically affiliates with an R or a D. If they knowingly enabled or did not vociferously oppose the use of torture, the light of shame should be shone upon them.
For the record, a new poll out today by the New York Times and CBS found that 71% of Americans consider waterboarding to be a form of torture. It is interesting to note that 26% said it was not torture, about the same percentage of Americans that approved of George W. Bush as he left office. I will leave it to the political scientists to draw conclusions.
* The Party of smaller government ~ until government is needed – The recent outbreak of Swine Flu is a reminder that we are susceptible to pathogens that result in widespread illness or worse. Rightfully so, Obama’s original stimulus packaging contained $870 million for flu pandemic preparedness. In order to gain the support in the Senate needed to pass the stimulus bill, Republicans Susan Collin and Arlen Specter demanded that this money be cut from the spending bill. Perhaps these esteemed Senators did not feel it necessary to prepare for viral outbreaks since they benefit from an excellent government-sponsored health plan. For the rest of the citizenry, let them eat cake.
Last week tough-as-a-longhorn Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, stood on a soapbox and suggested that Texas could secede from the union. It is a good thing that secession takes time because this week, “Gov. Rick Perry has asked for 37,430 courses of anti-viral medicine from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because of the swine flu outbreak.” It reminds one of the child who runs away from home but returns in two hours because it is getting cold and dark.
* Swine Flu conundrum – The Center for Disease Control says, “If you have a fever and you're sick or your children are sick, don’t go to work and don't go to school." The National Partnership points out: “nearly half of private sector workers in the United States don't have a single paid sick day. It's even worse for low wage workers. And nearly 100 million workers don’t have a paid sick day they can use to care for a sick child. “
* “The layman's constitutional view is that what he likes is constitutional and that which he doesn't like is unconstitutional.”
Justice Hugo L. Black (1886 – 1971) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court 1937 to 1971
Showing posts with label FBI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FBI. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Saturday, January 12, 2008
1/12/08
*An anniversary ~ not to celebrate 1 – January 11, 2008 marked six years since the opening of Guantanamo prison to hold suspected terrorists. I have commented often about this national disgrace. Imagine the uproar in the United States if one of our American soldiers was subjected to incarceration, torture, no habeas corpus, little or no legal representation...for an indefinite number of YEARS. The organization Witness Against Torture , a campaign to shut down Guantanamo, has many details about this facility. I do not doubt that some of these prisoners are very bad guys. There is also suspicion that some of these detainees were in the wrong place at the wrong time and may be innocent of wrong doing. That is why, in a free society, there is a legal system that is intended to punish the guilty and abrogate the innocent from suspicion. Guantanamo exists outside of our legal system and is a stain on our national honor. It has diminished our moral standing in the eyes of the majority of Americans and the world community. Imagine a U.S. soldier...
*An anniversary ~ not to celebrate 2 - This past week marked one year since President Bush announced the surge for Iraq. A.J. Rossmiller at americablog.com sums up this failure: “The goal of the surge was political reconciliation, i.e., to provide a low-violence atmosphere in which the Iraqi government would agree on issues including oil revenue sharing, de-Baathification, federalism, and more. In the past year, none of those political objectives have been accomplished. There is a reduction in violence, thankfully, which means fewer Americans (and Iraqis) are being maimed and killed. There is not any movement on the political front.” As I listen to John McCain and Joe Lieberman spin the situation I hear that the surge is working. They apparently are watching a different channel. The U.S is an occupying military force expecting disparate groups of Iraqis, who have despised each other for centuries, to suddenly morph into shades of a Jeffersonian democracy. As this is not occurring the U.S. is paying and arming Sunnis and other minority groups in Iraq and praying that these groups do not turn their weapons on American soldiers and the Shiite majority. F for failure.
*Gulf of Tonkin ~ Gulf of Bullshit - Perhaps it was the hyper-reporting of the New Hampshire primaries on January 8th that overshadowed a report on the same day that we should all note and remember. The 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident “was a reported North Vietnamese attack on American destroyers that helped lead to president Lyndon Johnson's sharp escalation of American forces in Vietnam... The author of the report "demonstrates that not only is it not true, as (then US) secretary of defense Robert McNamara told Congress, that the evidence of an attack was 'unimpeachable,' but that to the contrary, a review of the classified signals intelligence proves that 'no attack happened that night.” Do you find it as dismaying as I do that the basis for the escalation of the Viet Nam war, being a deliberate and deceitful fabrication, received so little attention in this country? The Viet Nam war dramatically changed this country, cost tens of thousands of American lives, untold physical and mental injuries and enormous treasure. It was predicated on an incredible LIE. Can you say Iraq?
*Ventriloquist warfare? - Remember the video this week of U.S. warships being harassed by Iranian speed boats? Remember a voice on the video saying, "I am coming to you. You will explode after a few minutes." President Bush was quick to label this a provocative act by Iran. ABC is reporting that the Navy is now saying that, “the voice on the tape could have come from the shore or from another ship.” I have no way of knowing the truth but the history of the Bush administration and other administrations leaves one cynical. Reference Iraq. Reference the Gulf of Tonkin.
*Consequences – A new study by the World Health Organization estimates that 151,000 Iraqis died from violence in the first 3 years following the U.S. invasion of the country. That would be the equivalent of every man, woman and child living in Springfield, MA or Springfield, MO. The Bush group took the fight against terrorism to a country that was not responsible for terrorist acts against us and in the process increased terrorism in the world and the death toll. Consequences!
*No comment 1 ~ draw your own conclusion – President Bush said in an interview with Yonit Levi of Israel's Channel 2 News: “I can predict that the historians will say that George W. Bush recognized the threats of the 21st century, clearly defined them, and had great faith in the capacity of liberty to transform hopelessness to hope, and laid the foundation for peace by making some awfully difficult decisions." Okay, I will comment. My Aunt Mollie, rest her soul, was the Queen of Sheba.
*No comment 2 ~ draw your own conclusion – ThinkProgress.com noted that the conservative website Human Events chose Rush Limbaugh as their 2007 Man of the Year “for his relentless pursuit of truth”. Reference Aunt Mollie.
*New Hampshire Primary 1 – I liked Bill Scher’s observation on the NH primary polling at the blog Liberal Oasis. He said that the 2 best jobs in the world are weather forecasters and pollsters. The weathermen can be wrong more than 50% of the time and still get paid. Just prior to the New Hampshire primary none of the 9 pollsters had it right. Both CNN and Gallup were embarrassingly wrong. They both had Obama with a 10 point lead over Clinton and Clinton won by 3 percentage points. Having expressed my lack of confidence in polls before (they often claim, for example, that a poll of 679 people tell you what the entire country is thinking) I will let the pollsters of the NH primary misspeak for themselves. I would much prefer that polls prior to elections not be allowed. Voters would be better served concentrating on the candidates’ qualifications and platforms rather than how other voters “indicate” they will vote.
*New Hampshire Primary 2 - Prior to the actual voting, when we were told that Obama would decisively beat Clinton, the media gurus and pundits concluded that Obama would then automatically be anointed the Democratic nominee for president. Let’s try to interpret this. The nominee is “selected” following the results of two primaries that took place in states with small populations that may be the least demographically diverse in the country. What is wrong with this picture?
*The Decider pulled the trigger – On Tuesday President Bush signed into law legislation aimed at reducing gun violence. The law provides for improved checks of gun buyers to prevent criminals and emotionally disturbed people from purchasing weapons. Since Bush has rarely or ever contradicted the interests of the National Rifle Association – which opposes virtually any restriction on gun ownership – it was not certain that Bush would enact this bill. For those who are counting, this is the second week in a row I have had a positive comment about our President. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence does important work on this issue and deserves our support and a visit to their site.
*Dickheads of 2007 – A reader sent me Rolling Stone’s Dickheads of the Year as selected by Bill Maher. Of the 13 selected there was maybe one that had not been discussed in SVN. You can review the less-than-honor roll at this link.
*Nothing is free – The Republicans repeatedly tell us that free markets, with no government oversight, are good for America. An example of this canard was cited by a recent editorial in the Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ). The volatility and magnitude of oil prices that could lead to $4 per gallon prices this summer is due, in part, to lack of government oversight of energy trading markets. “Washington had this authority until a company named Enron seduced Congress and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission into eliminating it for most of the energy markets back in 2000. Enron claimed growing electronic markets could operate fine on their own.” As we know, Enron’s management proved to be the personification of scumbags, cheating employees and investors out of tens of millions of dollars. The Star-Ledger suggests that restoring government authority to police energy trading markets would moderate wild petroleum price swings and even reduce prices. I continue to be amused (bemused) by the Republican fear machine that says “watch out”, Democrats will bring about higher taxes. What has been the cost of the Republican sell-out to U.S. business interests? I’ll take the taxes.
*Habla Espanol? – Rudy Giuliani has marketed his presidential campaign as tough on terror and tough on immigration. He has said that he believes all immigrants should be able to read, write and speak English in order to become U.S. citizens. I had to laugh the other day when I saw that he ran an ad in Florida in SPANISH. Although there is little to nothing that I like about Giuliani I do think that there is merit to the idea that some command of the English language be a requirement to citizenship or permanent residency. If this is the country in which an immigrant chooses to live their life they should be able to at least speak the language. They should be able to prepare their children for education in an English-speaking country. Both generations will be better prepared to take advantage of opportunities that America offers. Both generations will be more viable citizens. Habla Ingles?
*The odor of spoiled milk ~ and government performance – Effective February 1, 2008 the PA Dept. of Agriculture is prohibiting milk producers from labeling their cartons “no artificial hormones” .Dairy producers are not allowed to advertise the fact that growth hormones are NOT used on their cows. The synthetic hormones, produced by Monsanto, cause the cow to produce more milk but the effect on humans is not known. Imagine a state government agency, that has a mandate to protect citizen’s health, is interfering with the consumer’s ability to make healthy decisions. Ohio and other states are currently considering a similar regulation. I have just signed a petition to my Governor protesting this mindless ban on open labeling of milk. The petition is available at Consumers Union. Growth hormones may be okay for Barry Bonds and other cheating athletes but I have been told that my head is big enough.
*Crisis of friendship – I visited a friend the other night who was watching Walker, Texas Ranger. The show’s star is Chuck Norris, Mike Huckabee’s biggest supporter. Ugh. I did observe that Huckabee is a better actor than Chuck.
*Can you hear me now? 1 – “Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time... A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. Poor supervision of the program also allowed one agent to steal $25,000, the audit said... We also found that late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence, according to the audit by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine.” This situation is somewhat comical and more than somewhat serious. FBI management should be held accountable. At the same time a moment of perspective would be appropriate. I am grateful for the dedication and heroism that FBI agents exhibit in keeping us safe in a world filled with crime and hate. Yes there have been abuses by management and agents in this agency over the years but the entire organization should not be condemned because of occasional mismanagement and incompetence. It is a price we pay for bureaucracy.
*Can you hear me now? 2 – A number of telecom companies have forcefully lobbied for immunity from prosecution having broken the law assisting the government’s illegal wiretapping. They imply that they were supporting national security. When the government did not pay their phone bill the phone company pulled its patriotic plug. Oh say can you see?
*Will your vote count? – In the past I have referenced articles, organizations and studies that reveal unreliable and tamper-susceptible electronic voting machines being used across this country. A leader in the field of election integrity is Brad Friedman and his web site The Brad Blog is an excellent resource to learn more about this important subject. I mention it now because we are in a critical election year and The NY Times Magazine has a feature article that addresses this threat: “The winner of the 2008 presidential election could be decided by flawed, insecure, and hackable electronic voting machines.” Congress is about to consider a new emergency paper ballots bill. I signed a petition urging local, state and federal officials to require a paper trail for all votes cast in upcoming elections. The petition is available at this MoveOn.org web site.
*Will everyone’s vote count? – The Republican majority Indiana legislature enacted a controversial voter photo identification law that is now being reviewed by the Supreme Court (SC). The claimed intent of the law was to prevent voter fraud. This was in spite of the fact that there is no evidence of voter fraud. Groups opposing this law contend that the real purpose of the law was to disenfranchise poor voters who are much more likely to vote Democratic. Since the SC will likely rule before the November elections, the decision will therefore impact the elections. Having read about both sides of the argument it appears to me to be another attempt by the Republican Party to skew conditions in their favor (reference gerrymandering and the politicization and gutting of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division). Yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial spoke out against this law and offers a more complete analysis.
*Re-visiting Ron Paul ~ not unlike a root canal – Last week I made note of continuous racist and anti-gay remarks in newsletters published under the name of Ron Paul for some years. Copies of these newsletters have become quite public. This week Paul claims that he doesn’t know who wrote those comments. He is mystified. It was farcical watching Paul backpedaling and stuttering during a CNN interview. In case I am drafted to run for president some day I want to make the following statement: My name is Stephen Weinstein and I am solely responsible for everything written in Stephen Views the News. If nominated I will not likely run but I will accept campaign contributions. Thank you for your support.
* “But suppose God is black? What if we go to Heaven and we, all our lives, have treated the Negro as an inferior, and God is there, and we look up and He is not white? What then is our response?” Robert F. Kennedy (1925 – 1968)
*An anniversary ~ not to celebrate 2 - This past week marked one year since President Bush announced the surge for Iraq. A.J. Rossmiller at americablog.com sums up this failure: “The goal of the surge was political reconciliation, i.e., to provide a low-violence atmosphere in which the Iraqi government would agree on issues including oil revenue sharing, de-Baathification, federalism, and more. In the past year, none of those political objectives have been accomplished. There is a reduction in violence, thankfully, which means fewer Americans (and Iraqis) are being maimed and killed. There is not any movement on the political front.” As I listen to John McCain and Joe Lieberman spin the situation I hear that the surge is working. They apparently are watching a different channel. The U.S is an occupying military force expecting disparate groups of Iraqis, who have despised each other for centuries, to suddenly morph into shades of a Jeffersonian democracy. As this is not occurring the U.S. is paying and arming Sunnis and other minority groups in Iraq and praying that these groups do not turn their weapons on American soldiers and the Shiite majority. F for failure.
*Gulf of Tonkin ~ Gulf of Bullshit - Perhaps it was the hyper-reporting of the New Hampshire primaries on January 8th that overshadowed a report on the same day that we should all note and remember. The 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident “was a reported North Vietnamese attack on American destroyers that helped lead to president Lyndon Johnson's sharp escalation of American forces in Vietnam... The author of the report "demonstrates that not only is it not true, as (then US) secretary of defense Robert McNamara told Congress, that the evidence of an attack was 'unimpeachable,' but that to the contrary, a review of the classified signals intelligence proves that 'no attack happened that night.” Do you find it as dismaying as I do that the basis for the escalation of the Viet Nam war, being a deliberate and deceitful fabrication, received so little attention in this country? The Viet Nam war dramatically changed this country, cost tens of thousands of American lives, untold physical and mental injuries and enormous treasure. It was predicated on an incredible LIE. Can you say Iraq?
*Ventriloquist warfare? - Remember the video this week of U.S. warships being harassed by Iranian speed boats? Remember a voice on the video saying, "I am coming to you. You will explode after a few minutes." President Bush was quick to label this a provocative act by Iran. ABC is reporting that the Navy is now saying that, “the voice on the tape could have come from the shore or from another ship.” I have no way of knowing the truth but the history of the Bush administration and other administrations leaves one cynical. Reference Iraq. Reference the Gulf of Tonkin.
*Consequences – A new study by the World Health Organization estimates that 151,000 Iraqis died from violence in the first 3 years following the U.S. invasion of the country. That would be the equivalent of every man, woman and child living in Springfield, MA or Springfield, MO. The Bush group took the fight against terrorism to a country that was not responsible for terrorist acts against us and in the process increased terrorism in the world and the death toll. Consequences!
*No comment 1 ~ draw your own conclusion – President Bush said in an interview with Yonit Levi of Israel's Channel 2 News: “I can predict that the historians will say that George W. Bush recognized the threats of the 21st century, clearly defined them, and had great faith in the capacity of liberty to transform hopelessness to hope, and laid the foundation for peace by making some awfully difficult decisions." Okay, I will comment. My Aunt Mollie, rest her soul, was the Queen of Sheba.
*No comment 2 ~ draw your own conclusion – ThinkProgress.com noted that the conservative website Human Events chose Rush Limbaugh as their 2007 Man of the Year “for his relentless pursuit of truth”. Reference Aunt Mollie.
*New Hampshire Primary 1 – I liked Bill Scher’s observation on the NH primary polling at the blog Liberal Oasis. He said that the 2 best jobs in the world are weather forecasters and pollsters. The weathermen can be wrong more than 50% of the time and still get paid. Just prior to the New Hampshire primary none of the 9 pollsters had it right. Both CNN and Gallup were embarrassingly wrong. They both had Obama with a 10 point lead over Clinton and Clinton won by 3 percentage points. Having expressed my lack of confidence in polls before (they often claim, for example, that a poll of 679 people tell you what the entire country is thinking) I will let the pollsters of the NH primary misspeak for themselves. I would much prefer that polls prior to elections not be allowed. Voters would be better served concentrating on the candidates’ qualifications and platforms rather than how other voters “indicate” they will vote.
*New Hampshire Primary 2 - Prior to the actual voting, when we were told that Obama would decisively beat Clinton, the media gurus and pundits concluded that Obama would then automatically be anointed the Democratic nominee for president. Let’s try to interpret this. The nominee is “selected” following the results of two primaries that took place in states with small populations that may be the least demographically diverse in the country. What is wrong with this picture?
*The Decider pulled the trigger – On Tuesday President Bush signed into law legislation aimed at reducing gun violence. The law provides for improved checks of gun buyers to prevent criminals and emotionally disturbed people from purchasing weapons. Since Bush has rarely or ever contradicted the interests of the National Rifle Association – which opposes virtually any restriction on gun ownership – it was not certain that Bush would enact this bill. For those who are counting, this is the second week in a row I have had a positive comment about our President. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence does important work on this issue and deserves our support and a visit to their site.
*Dickheads of 2007 – A reader sent me Rolling Stone’s Dickheads of the Year as selected by Bill Maher. Of the 13 selected there was maybe one that had not been discussed in SVN. You can review the less-than-honor roll at this link.
*Nothing is free – The Republicans repeatedly tell us that free markets, with no government oversight, are good for America. An example of this canard was cited by a recent editorial in the Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ). The volatility and magnitude of oil prices that could lead to $4 per gallon prices this summer is due, in part, to lack of government oversight of energy trading markets. “Washington had this authority until a company named Enron seduced Congress and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission into eliminating it for most of the energy markets back in 2000. Enron claimed growing electronic markets could operate fine on their own.” As we know, Enron’s management proved to be the personification of scumbags, cheating employees and investors out of tens of millions of dollars. The Star-Ledger suggests that restoring government authority to police energy trading markets would moderate wild petroleum price swings and even reduce prices. I continue to be amused (bemused) by the Republican fear machine that says “watch out”, Democrats will bring about higher taxes. What has been the cost of the Republican sell-out to U.S. business interests? I’ll take the taxes.
*Habla Espanol? – Rudy Giuliani has marketed his presidential campaign as tough on terror and tough on immigration. He has said that he believes all immigrants should be able to read, write and speak English in order to become U.S. citizens. I had to laugh the other day when I saw that he ran an ad in Florida in SPANISH. Although there is little to nothing that I like about Giuliani I do think that there is merit to the idea that some command of the English language be a requirement to citizenship or permanent residency. If this is the country in which an immigrant chooses to live their life they should be able to at least speak the language. They should be able to prepare their children for education in an English-speaking country. Both generations will be better prepared to take advantage of opportunities that America offers. Both generations will be more viable citizens. Habla Ingles?
*The odor of spoiled milk ~ and government performance – Effective February 1, 2008 the PA Dept. of Agriculture is prohibiting milk producers from labeling their cartons “no artificial hormones” .Dairy producers are not allowed to advertise the fact that growth hormones are NOT used on their cows. The synthetic hormones, produced by Monsanto, cause the cow to produce more milk but the effect on humans is not known. Imagine a state government agency, that has a mandate to protect citizen’s health, is interfering with the consumer’s ability to make healthy decisions. Ohio and other states are currently considering a similar regulation. I have just signed a petition to my Governor protesting this mindless ban on open labeling of milk. The petition is available at Consumers Union. Growth hormones may be okay for Barry Bonds and other cheating athletes but I have been told that my head is big enough.
*Crisis of friendship – I visited a friend the other night who was watching Walker, Texas Ranger. The show’s star is Chuck Norris, Mike Huckabee’s biggest supporter. Ugh. I did observe that Huckabee is a better actor than Chuck.
*Can you hear me now? 1 – “Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time... A Justice Department audit released Thursday blamed the lost connections on the FBI's lax oversight of money used in undercover investigations. Poor supervision of the program also allowed one agent to steal $25,000, the audit said... We also found that late payments have resulted in telecommunications carriers actually disconnecting phone lines established to deliver surveillance results to the FBI, resulting in lost evidence, according to the audit by Inspector General Glenn A. Fine.” This situation is somewhat comical and more than somewhat serious. FBI management should be held accountable. At the same time a moment of perspective would be appropriate. I am grateful for the dedication and heroism that FBI agents exhibit in keeping us safe in a world filled with crime and hate. Yes there have been abuses by management and agents in this agency over the years but the entire organization should not be condemned because of occasional mismanagement and incompetence. It is a price we pay for bureaucracy.
*Can you hear me now? 2 – A number of telecom companies have forcefully lobbied for immunity from prosecution having broken the law assisting the government’s illegal wiretapping. They imply that they were supporting national security. When the government did not pay their phone bill the phone company pulled its patriotic plug. Oh say can you see?
*Will your vote count? – In the past I have referenced articles, organizations and studies that reveal unreliable and tamper-susceptible electronic voting machines being used across this country. A leader in the field of election integrity is Brad Friedman and his web site The Brad Blog is an excellent resource to learn more about this important subject. I mention it now because we are in a critical election year and The NY Times Magazine has a feature article that addresses this threat: “The winner of the 2008 presidential election could be decided by flawed, insecure, and hackable electronic voting machines.” Congress is about to consider a new emergency paper ballots bill. I signed a petition urging local, state and federal officials to require a paper trail for all votes cast in upcoming elections. The petition is available at this MoveOn.org web site.
*Will everyone’s vote count? – The Republican majority Indiana legislature enacted a controversial voter photo identification law that is now being reviewed by the Supreme Court (SC). The claimed intent of the law was to prevent voter fraud. This was in spite of the fact that there is no evidence of voter fraud. Groups opposing this law contend that the real purpose of the law was to disenfranchise poor voters who are much more likely to vote Democratic. Since the SC will likely rule before the November elections, the decision will therefore impact the elections. Having read about both sides of the argument it appears to me to be another attempt by the Republican Party to skew conditions in their favor (reference gerrymandering and the politicization and gutting of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division). Yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial spoke out against this law and offers a more complete analysis.
*Re-visiting Ron Paul ~ not unlike a root canal – Last week I made note of continuous racist and anti-gay remarks in newsletters published under the name of Ron Paul for some years. Copies of these newsletters have become quite public. This week Paul claims that he doesn’t know who wrote those comments. He is mystified. It was farcical watching Paul backpedaling and stuttering during a CNN interview. In case I am drafted to run for president some day I want to make the following statement: My name is Stephen Weinstein and I am solely responsible for everything written in Stephen Views the News. If nominated I will not likely run but I will accept campaign contributions. Thank you for your support.
* “But suppose God is black? What if we go to Heaven and we, all our lives, have treated the Negro as an inferior, and God is there, and we look up and He is not white? What then is our response?” Robert F. Kennedy (1925 – 1968)
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