“Nothing can be done,” to stop the war in Iraq, if the Republicans don’t get on board, the media is now saying. “The Democrats are doing all they can.” Well that was fast. What about impeaching this lying Texas puppet for sending American troops into battle based on cooked-up intelligence? I just don’t get it….

Everyone’s so excited about this Baker-Hamilton “Iraq Study Group” and its upcoming determinations on “what to do” about the war—even columnists who know better, or should. As if giving James Baker a go at it represents any real change in course from the present “full steam ahead to victory!” Victory of the bottom line, for some. It’s just public relations.

I’m so tired of hearing this armchair Freudian mumbo-jumbo about Pappy Bush and Son. It’s all the same people, ultimately, all making the same fist-fulls of dollars, at taxpayers’ expense and at the cost of thousands of young American lives (not to mention hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis).

Just who is James Baker? Well, let’s open to the index of Vanity Fair writer Craig Unger’s excellent House of Bush, House of Saud (Scribner: 2004)—which asks the question, “How did the Bushes, America’s most powerful political family, become gradually seduced and entangled with their Saudi counterparts?”—and look for “Baker, James.”

Here he is, on page 44: “Tall, trim and athletic, Baker, who was forty-eight years old when [George H.W.] Bush began to explore a run for the White House, brought a compelling blend of unlikely characteristics to the Bush team. He chewed Red Man tobacco and wore cowboy boots, but had polish and a certain sartorial elegance. He mixed steely-eyed toughness with an unflappable serenity. He was unyielding, but a realist—the consummate negotiator. He was also the perfect partner for George H.W. Bush.

“If they had never met, Baker would likely have been merely another successful corporate lawyer, and Bush a politician with a fabulous resume. But, like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, they were more than the sum of their parts. Bush provided a genial, clubby exterior and contacts to power and capital at the highest levels in Washington and New York. Tough, decisive, and disciplined, Baker gave Bush the spine of steel he sorely needed.

“Together, the two men masked their enormous ambitions under a genteel, Ivy-covered veneer that was a distinct break from the profane, cajoling, flesh-pressing, arm-twisting, bourbon-drinking Texas political style of the era dominated by Lyndon Johnson and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. It started, appropriately enough, as a partnership on the tennis court, with Bush’s volley and net play complementing Baker’s strong baseline game so well that they twice took the doubles titles at the Houston Country Club….

“Baker had captained the tennis team at the Hill School, then still a traditional private boys’ school near Philadelphia, before moving on to Princeton, just as Bush had been a baseball captain at Andover before playing baseball at Yale. Likewise Baker had been tapped by Princeton’s most celebrated eating club, the Ivy, as Bush had been for Skull and Bones.

“The Bakers were the stuff of Texas legends. In 1872, Judge James A. Baker, Baker’s great-grandfather, joined Gray & Botts, a major firm that went on to represent railroad magnates and bankers such as Jay Gould and E.H. Harriman…. The Bakers were not of the East Coast establishment, but in their very Texas way, their pedigree was every bit as refined as Bush’s…

“Baker was all smoothness and charm, the Velvet Hammer, always proper, but a man no one wanted to cross. ‘Baker holds you locked in his gaze and Southern Comfort voice, occasionally flashing a wintry smile,’ the New York Times said. “…He is such a fox you feel the impulse to check your wallet when you leave his office.”

And what did the fox get up to after he met George, Sr.? A whole hell of a lot, and none of it suggesting that he would be all that opposed to a somewhat permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq, if not other parts of the Middle East.

More later…

Saving the Lab Monkeys Again? To Guantanamo With You!


These people—this still ruling party, lest we forget—are crazy. In the name of fighting terrorism (what terrorism?? you seen any terrorsim? you really think they’re keeping there from being terrorism after their—alleged—massive screw-up on 9/11??), in the name of fighting terrorism they are rapidly turning this country into something closely resembling an Eastern bloc country. Amerikkkastan. Now people who want to save bunnies are terrorists (see below).

No one in the media cares; they think activists and protestors are all wannabe hippies. Most people in the mainstream media have never been to a protest in their lives. So when protestors are beaten and tear-gassed and pepper-sprayed and shot with rubber bullets in Miami and New York, they barely report on it. “Well, maybe they were terrorists! Destroying property.” So they say.

Will they report on it when protestors are arrested and charged with terrorism? Because that is next, you know. The NYPD is currently maneuvering to outlaw protest in New York ("without a permit," which they will never grant). The Democrats are doing nothing to stop this madness. The mid-term election is looking more and more like a sleight of hand. I am haunted by the face of John Murtha, watching Steny Hoyer anointed as majority leader. It is the face of our collective disappointment. “So that’s the way it is. The fix is in…” Murtha stepped out against the war—at Nancy Pelosi’s urging—helped the Democrats take the Congress, and now he’s iced out.

Or maybe he was part of the fix, who knows. Honestly: Can we trust any of them?

Wonder what’s going to happen to the anti-war protestors who step out as this war in Iraq drags on, and on, and on, as we “stay the [mad, murderous] course”…


House Passes "Terrorism" Act Against Animal Activists
By Megan Tady
The NewStandard

Wendnesday 15 November 2006

Monday afternoon, the US House of Representatives passed a bill that reclassifies unlawful animal-rights tactics as terrorism under certain conditions, even if they are non-violent.

As reported by The NewStandard just hours before the House took its voice vote on the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), the bill will classify civil disobedience actions - such as blockades, property destruction, trespassing, and the freeing of captive animals - as terrorism.

The AETA amends current law enabling the government to prosecute activists for intentionally damaging property used by "animal enterprises" - businesses that use or sell animals. The AETA expands those provisions to enhance penalties against activists who "interfere" with animal enterprises by destroying property or engaging in behavior that appears "threatening." It even includes perceive threats to companies that work with animal enterprises and takes into account resulting profit losses.

The House passed the Senate's version of the bill, which was approved in September. Critics consider that version bad enough, but they had been especially alarmed that a House version of the bill swept in "non-violent physical obstruction of an animal enterprise" as an offense if it causes a loss of profits. While the Senate version does not explicitly ban such activity, critics believe it to be vague enough to encompass civil disobedience in its scope.

The AETA does make specific provisions to safeguard activity protected under the First Amendment, but critics have raised concerns it could have the effect of discouraging even lawful protests.

Because only a voice vote was taken, there is no record of who approved or opposed the AETA bill. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) spoke against the legislation, saying it compromises civil rights and threatens to "chill" free speech.

Kucinich also addressed the animals he fears will be less protected if the legislation scares off protesters. "Just as we need to protect people's right to conduct their work without fear of assault, so too this Congress has yet to address some fundamental ethical principles with respect to animals. How should animals be treated humanely? This is a debate that hasn't come here."

Best Chocolate Cake Ever

I just made a chocolate cake. It’s absolutely the best cake in the world; it has an old-fashionedy, magic taste, indescribable and addictive. I always feel like making it around Thanksgiving time, because it’s my grandmother’s recipe and it reminds me of her. She was a wonderful lady, patient, serene and soft-spoken, with a fascinating past I never knew about until I was grown.

She was born Ina May Lewis on a dairy farm in Indiana in 1895; after her father and siblings died of typhoid, she became a schoolteacher. She had a one-room schoolhouse, and then moved to Indianapolis, where she taught Spanish. She had a platonic, letter-writing relationship with Charles Lindbergh. “Will you fly with me to Mexico?” he flirted on a postcard. She was a suffragette. We have pictures of her with some very stern-looking women in billowing black; in one, Ina May rocks a kind of Peter Pan look, with pants and a jaunty cap. She was into fashion. I have a picture of her in a bathing suit, rowing on a river (around 1920), where she looks fit and happy in the sunshine.

She didn’t marry until she was 36, very unusual back then. My grandpa, Raymond Fox, was a postman and veteran of World Wars I and II (he played the coronet in the Navy band). He was a widower with a teenager, my Aunt Jenny, who passed away last year. My mom was born to Ina and Raymond in 1935. My stepfather always jokes that it was this chocolate cake that made him want to marry my mom (along with her sailboat). And I made it for my husband after I met him as well. You can be a feminist, bake a cake and eat it too. Why not? Well, here's the man (or woman)-catchin' cake of all time. Or just enjoy it on Thanksgiving. Your family and friends will love it.


Ina May’s Magic Cake

For some reason, it comes out best if you mix it by hand in a crockery bowl with a wooden spoon, like Grandma did.

Step 1— Put 1 t. white vinegar in 1/2 cup whole milk and set aside.
Step 2— Melt 1 stick margarine (or butter) with 3 T. Hershey’s cocoa powder and stir till smooth. Take off fire and add 1 cup cold water. Set aside.
Step 3— In mixing bowl: 2 cups sugar, 2 cups flour, pinch salt, 1 t. cinnamon, 1 t. baking soda. Stir and add step 2 to step 3. Beat till smooth.
Step 4— Add 2 eggs and 1 t. vanilla. Beat till smooth.
Step 5— Add Step 1 and beat till smooth.

Pour into 3, 9” greased and floured cake pans. Bake in preheated oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.

(Note: the mixture will be thin, almost runny, but that’s o.k. It rises. Also, you can exchange the 3 pans for one large-ish flat one, 16 or 18 inches, if you don’t want a layer cake. It will come out about brownie-high.)

Frosting
This can be done by hand or in Cuisinart or mixer.
While cake is baking, melt 1 stick margarine (or butter) with 3 t. Hershey’s cocoa powder.
Take off fire and add 1 box confectioner’s sugar, a little at a time alternately with 2 or 3 T. milk.
Beat, beat, beat, till smooth.

When cake comes out, poke holes in it with a toothpick and frost while hot. If making layer cake, frost between layers, stack, and then frost top.

Mmmm.

Yikes. See below from http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/022106a.html.
Contact your newly elected Democrats...

Bush's Mysterious 'New Programs'

By Nat Parry
February 21, 2006

Not that George W. Bush needs much encouragement, but Sen. Lindsey Graham suggested to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a new target for the administration’s domestic operations -- Fifth Columnists, supposedly disloyal Americans who sympathize and collaborate with the enemy.

“The administration has not only the right, but the duty, in my opinion, to pursue Fifth Column movements,” Graham, R-S.C., told Gonzales during Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Feb. 6.

“I stand by this President’s ability, inherent to being Commander in Chief, to find out about Fifth Column movements, and I don’t think you need a warrant to do that,” Graham added, volunteering to work with the administration to draft guidelines for how best to neutralize this alleged threat.

“Senator,” a smiling Gonzales responded, “the President already said we’d be happy to listen to your ideas.”

In less paranoid times, Graham’s comments might be viewed by many Americans as a Republican trying to have it both ways – ingratiating himself to an administration of his own party while seeking some credit from Washington centrists for suggesting Congress should have at least a tiny say in how Bush runs the War on Terror.

But recent developments suggest that the Bush administration may already be contemplating what to do with Americans who are deemed insufficiently loyal or who disseminate information that may be considered helpful to the enemy.

Top U.S. officials have cited the need to challenge news that undercuts Bush’s actions as a key front in defeating the terrorists, who are aided by “news informers” in the words of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com “Upside-Down Media” or below.]

Detention Centers

Plus, there was that curious development in January when the Army Corps of Engineers awarded Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root a $385 million contract to construct detention centers somewhere in the United States, to deal with “an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs,” KBR said. [Market Watch, Jan. 26, 2006]

Later, the New York Times reported that “KBR would build the centers for the Homeland Security Department for an unexpected influx of immigrants, to house people in the event of a natural disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space.” [Feb. 4, 2006]

Like most news stories on the KBR contract, the Times focused on concerns about Halliburton’s reputation for bilking U.S. taxpayers by overcharging for sub-par services.

“It’s hard to believe that the administration has decided to entrust Halliburton with even more taxpayer dollars,” remarked Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California.

Less attention centered on the phrase “rapid development of new programs” and what kind of programs would require a major expansion of detention centers, each capable of holding 5,000 people. Jamie Zuieback, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, declined to elaborate on what these “new programs” might be.

Only a few independent journalists, such as Peter Dale Scott and Maureen Farrell, have pursued what the Bush administration might actually be thinking.

Scott speculated that the “detention centers could be used to detain American citizens if the Bush administration were to declare martial law.” He recalled that during the Reagan administration, National Security Council aide Oliver North organized Rex-84 “readiness exercise,” which contemplated the Federal Emergency Management Agency rounding up and detaining 400,000 “refugees,” in the event of “uncontrolled population movements” over the Mexican border into the United States.

Farrell pointed out that because “another terror attack is all but certain, it seems far more likely that the centers would be used for post-911-type detentions of immigrants rather than a sudden deluge” of immigrants flooding across the border.

Vietnam-era whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg said, “Almost certainly this is preparation for a roundup after the next 9/11 for Mid-Easterners, Muslims and possibly dissenters. They’ve already done this on a smaller scale, with the ‘special registration’ detentions of immigrant men from Muslim countries, and with Guantanamo.”

Labor Camps

There also was another little-noticed item posted at the U.S. Army Web site, about the Pentagon’s Civilian Inmate Labor Program. This program “provides Army policy and guidance for establishing civilian inmate labor programs and civilian prison camps on Army installations.”

The Army document, first drafted in 1997, underwent a “rapid action revision” on Jan. 14, 2005. The revision provides a “template for developing agreements” between the Army and corrections facilities for the use of civilian inmate labor on Army installations.

On its face, the Army’s labor program refers to inmates housed in federal, state and local jails. The Army also cites various federal laws that govern the use of civilian labor and provide for the establishment of prison camps in the United States, including a federal statute that authorizes the Attorney General to “establish, equip, and maintain camps upon sites selected by him” and “make available … the services of United States prisoners” to various government departments, including the Department of Defense.

Though the timing of the document’s posting – within the past few weeks –may just be a coincidence, the reference to a “rapid action revision” and the KBR contract’s contemplation of “rapid development of new programs” have raised eyebrows about why this sudden need for urgency.

These developments also are drawing more attention now because of earlier Bush administration policies to involve the Pentagon in “counter-terrorism” operations inside the United States.

Pentagon Surveillance

Despite the Posse Comitatus Act’s prohibitions against U.S. military personnel engaging in domestic law enforcement, the Pentagon has expanded its operations beyond previous boundaries, such as its role in domestic surveillance activities.

The Washington Post has reported that since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the Defense Department has been creating new agencies that gather and analyze intelligence within the United States. [Washington Post, Nov. 27, 2005]

The White House also is moving to expand the power of the Pentagon’s Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA), created three years ago to consolidate counterintelligence operations. The White House proposal would transform CIFA into an office that has authority to investigate crimes such as treason, terrorist sabotage or economic espionage.

The Pentagon also has pushed legislation in Congress that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies. But some in the Pentagon don’t seem to think that new laws are even necessary.

In a 2001 Defense Department memo that surfaced in January 2006, the U.S. Army’s top intelligence officer wrote, “Contrary to popular belief, there is no absolute ban on [military] intelligence components collecting U.S. person information.”

Drawing a distinction between “collecting” information and “receiving” information on U.S. citizens, the memo argued that “MI [military intelligence] may receive information from anyone, anytime.” [See CQ.com, Jan. 31, 2006]

This receipt of information presumably would include data from the National Security Agency, which has been engaging in surveillance of U.S. citizens without court-approved warrants in apparent violation of the Foreign Intelligence Security Act. Bush approved the program of warrantless wiretaps shortly after 9/11.

There also may be an even more extensive surveillance program. Former NSA employee Russell D. Tice told a congressional committee on Feb. 14 that such a top-secret surveillance program existed, but he said he couldn’t discuss the details without breaking classification laws.

Tice added that the “special access” surveillance program may be violating the constitutional rights of millions of Americans. [UPI, Feb. 14, 2006]

With this expanded surveillance, the government’s list of terrorist suspects is rapidly swelling.

The Washington Post reported on Feb. 15 that the National Counterterrorism Center’s central repository now holds the names of 325,000 terrorist suspects, a four-fold increase since the fall of 2003.

Asked whether the names in the repository were collected through the NSA’s domestic surveillance program, an NCTC official told the Post, “Our database includes names of known and suspected international terrorists provided by all intelligence community organizations, including NSA.”

Homeland Defense

As the administration scoops up more and more names, members of Congress also have questioned the elasticity of Bush’s definitions for words like terrorist “affiliates,” used to justify wiretapping Americans allegedly in contact with such people or entities.

During the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on the wiretap program, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, complained that the House and Senate Intelligence Committees “have not been briefed on the scope and nature of the program.”

Feinstein added that, therefore, the committees “have not been able to explore what is a link or an affiliate to al-Qaeda or what minimization procedures (for purging the names of innocent people) are in place.”

The combination of the Bush administration’s expansive reading of its own power and its insistence on extraordinary secrecy has raised the alarm of civil libertarians when contemplating how far the Pentagon might go in involving itself in domestic matters.

A Defense Department document, entitled the “Strategy for Homeland Defense and Civil Support,” has set out a military strategy against terrorism that envisions an “active, layered defense” both inside and outside U.S. territory. In the document, the Pentagon pledges to “transform U.S. military forces to execute homeland defense missions in the … U.S. homeland.”

The Pentagon strategy paper calls for increased military reconnaissance and surveillance to “defeat potential challengers before they threaten the United States.” The plan “maximizes threat awareness and seizes the initiative from those who would harm us.”

But there are concerns over how the Pentagon judges “threats” and who falls under the category “those who would harm us.” A Pentagon official said the Counterintelligence Field Activity’s TALON program has amassed files on antiwar protesters.

In December 2005, NBC News revealed the existence of a secret 400-page Pentagon document listing 1,500 “suspicious incidents” over a 10-month period, including dozens of small antiwar demonstrations that were classified as a “threat.”

The Defense Department also might be moving toward legitimizing the use of propaganda domestically, as part of its overall war strategy.

A secret Pentagon “Information Operations Roadmap,” approved by Rumsfeld in October 2003, calls for “full spectrum” information operations and notes that “information intended for foreign audiences, including public diplomacy and PSYOP, increasingly is consumed by our domestic audience and vice-versa.”

“PSYOPS messages will often be replayed by the news media for much larger audiences, including the American public,” the document states. The Pentagon argues, however, that “the distinction between foreign and domestic audiences becomes more a question of USG [U.S. government] intent rather than information dissemination practices.”

It calls for “boundaries” between information operations abroad and the news media at home, but does not outline any corresponding limits on PSYOP campaigns.

Similar to the distinction the Pentagon draws between “collecting” and “receiving” intelligence on U.S. citizens, the Information Operations Roadmap argues that as long as the American public is not intentionally “targeted,” any PSYOP propaganda consumed by the American public is acceptable.

The Pentagon plan also includes a strategy for taking over the Internet and controlling the flow of information, viewing the Web as a potential military adversary. The “roadmap” speaks of “fighting the net,” and implies that the Internet is the equivalent of “an enemy weapons system.”

In a speech on Feb. 17 to the Council on Foreign Relations, Rumsfeld elaborated on the administration’s perception that the battle over information would be a crucial front in the War on Terror, or as Rumsfeld calls it, the Long War.

“Let there be no doubt, the longer it takes to put a strategic communication framework into place, the more we can be certain that the vacuum will be filled by the enemy and by news informers that most assuredly will not paint an accurate picture of what is actually taking place,” Rumsfeld said.

The Department of Homeland Security also has demonstrated a tendency to deploy military operatives to deal with domestic crises.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the department dispatched “heavily armed paramilitary mercenaries from the Blackwater private security firm, infamous for their work in Iraq, (and had them) openly patrolling the streets of New Orleans,” reported journalists Jeremy Scahill and Daniela Crespo on Sept. 10, 2005.

Noting the reputation of the Blackwater mercenaries as “some of the most feared professional killers in the world,” Scahill and Crespo said Blackwater’s presence in New Orleans “raises alarming questions about why the government would allow men trained to kill with impunity in places like Iraq and Afghanistan to operate here.”

U.S. Battlefield

In the view of some civil libertarians, a form of martial law already exists in the United States and has been in place since shortly after the 9/11 attacks when Bush issued Military Order No. 1 which empowered him to detain any non-citizen as an international terrorist or enemy combatant.

“The President decided that he was no longer running the country as a civilian President,” wrote civil rights attorney Michael Ratner in the book Guantanamo: What the World Should Know. “He issued a military order giving himself the power to run the country as a general.”

For any American citizen suspected of collaborating with terrorists, Bush also revealed what’s in store. In May 2002, the FBI arrested U.S. citizen Jose Padilla in Chicago on suspicion that he might be an al-Qaeda operative planning an attack.

Rather than bring criminal charges, Bush designated Padilla an “enemy combatant” and had him imprisoned indefinitely without benefit of due process. After three years, the administration finally brought charges against Padilla, in order to avoid a Supreme Court showdown the White House might have lost.

But since the Court was not able to rule on the Padilla case, the administration’s arguments have not been formally repudiated. Indeed, despite filing charges against Padilla, the White House still asserts the right to detain U.S. citizens without charges as enemy combatants.

This claimed authority is based on the assertion that the United States is at war and the American homeland is part of the battlefield.

“In the war against terrorists of global reach, as the Nation learned all too well on Sept. 11, 2001, the territory of the United States is part of the battlefield,” Bush's lawyers argued in briefs to the federal courts. [Washington Post, July 19, 2005]

Given Bush’s now open assertions that he is using his “plenary” – or unlimited – powers as Commander in Chief for the duration of the indefinite War on Terror, Americans can no longer trust that their constitutional rights protect them from government actions.

As former Vice President Al Gore asked after recounting a litany of sweeping powers that Bush has asserted to fight the War on Terror, “Can it be true that any President really has such powers under our Constitution? If the answer is ‘yes,’ then under the theory by which these acts are committed, are there any acts that can on their face be prohibited?”

In such extraordinary circumstances, the American people might legitimately ask exactly what the Bush administration means by the “rapid development of new programs,” which might require the construction of a new network of detention camps.

No one has yet adequately explained why the remains of the victims of 9/11 were apparently either vaporized or blown to bits. The media is simply accepting the city and federal government's story that bodies were shredded into "slivers of...fragments" (see below) and cast blocks asunder as a result of the plane crashes and the collapse of the Towers. But this just makes no sense; in a "pancake collapse" as described by the 9/11 Commission Report there would have been many more intact bodies, yet over a thousand people have never been found. "Where are all the bodies?" asked firemen at the scene. The victims of 9/11 deserve a relentless, thorough investigation of their horrible deaths, which there has not yet been....


Relatives Struggle With 9/11 Discoveries
By AMY WESTFELDT, AP

NEW YORK (Nov. 11) - Mary Jane Waring has waited five years for someone to find her brother so she can bury a small part of what she lost on Sept. 11, 2001.

The New York city medical examiner's office has stored more than 9,000 unidentified remains found since the 9/11 attacks at the world trade center.

But since the recent discovery of hundreds more bones in long-buried places at ground zero, she has become afraid of the emotions that could be stirred up.

"If they do find something, it would be very upsetting for everybody," said Waring, whose brother, James Waring, died in the top floors of the World Trade Center's north tower.

Some people who never received any remains of their family members are uncertain about what they want to find. Others, who have already buried some remains, face the possibility of another funeral or burial.

Hope for the return of remains to families of the 2,749 people who died at the trade center - more than 40 percent of whom have never been identified - has grown with the recent discoveries, and forensic experts say advances in DNA technology could lead to new identifications for many victims.

"I'll tell you the truth, I couldn't go through exhuming his body again," said Bruce De Cell, whose son-in-law, Mark Petrocelli, died in the north tower. The family has received remains five times and buried him twice, the last time in 2003. "As far as I'm concerned, I hope I don't hear any more."

The lengthy search for body parts is a rare thing for disasters. Experts have identified the remains of all 230 victims of TWA Flight 800, which crashed in the ocean off Long Island in 1996, and of the 168 Oklahoma City federal building bombing victims.

Although Hurricane Katrina killed more than 1,300 people in Louisiana, only about 30 bodies remain unidentified. Frank Minyard, the Orleans Parish coroner, suspects many of the unidentified victims may not have had close family who knew their whereabouts.

The New York city medical examiner's office has stored more than 9,000 unidentified remains found since the trade center attacks. Nearly 1,000 pieces were found during a renewed search on the roof of a skyscraper near the destroyed towers. The fragments found beginning in mid-October came from abandoned manholes on the western edge of the Trade Center site. City officials plan a yearlong search for more remains.

The most recent finds are in good condition, and forensic experts told family members that improved DNA technology could yield to many new identifications.

"We try to match whatever DNA profiles that we manage to create to whatever DNA profiles that were in our database," said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the city medical examiner's office.

In September, Joan Greener received word that remains of her niece, Karen Martin, were positively identified.

"It was like a knife in your chest again," said Greener, of Salem, Mass. "You spent a couple of days bawling your eyes out and feeling that pain again. But then you thought, you know, this is a good thing."

Greener's family had buried dust from ground zero in 2001 to remember Martin, 40, of Danvers, Mass., a flight attendant on the first hijacked airliner crashed into the trade center.

Bob O'Mahony prefers not to think about finding his brother, Matt O'Mahony, who worked on the top floors of the north tower.

"You're talking about slivers of bones and fragments and DNA. What does that really mean?" O'Mahony said. "The phone call comes in; it opens up a Pandora's box. A hard scab has already been formed. Do you really want to open it?"

Special Dark Comedy


The New York Times Magazine has a special issue all about comedy, but the funniest thing in Medialand today is the cover of the New York Post: a picture of President Bush wiping a tear from his eye—I think the tears are actually digitally enhanced, they look very shiny—with the headline, “Tears For A Hero.” The story is about the president’s awarding the Medal of Honor to a New York Marine, Cpl. Jason Dunham, who died in Iraq after diving on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers. “You might say he was born to be a Marine,” said a “choked-up W.,” on what would have been Dunham’s 25th birthday. You also might say that Cpl. Dunham was born to be a good father, a teacher, or president of the United States. But we’ll never know, will we? And neither will he. This president, who has not attended one funeral of the nearly 3,000 American soldiers who have died since he started this phony war for oil, could have, should have been crying for a lot of reasons. Including realizing he has a very good chance of going to hell, if such a place exists anywhere but in Iraq itself. It’s funny that the spin doctors tell us it’s because he was moved.

I’m over the election, over the Democrats. Could they be the worst, stupidest politicians we've ever seen? Do they really think we elected them to watch them skipping around the corridors of power hand in hand with these madmen who started the Iraq war? Oh wait a minnit, I forgot: they voted for it too. They’re singing love songs of bi-partisanship—but we gave them the whole damn Congress. Where was the bipartisanship when the Republicans were in power, ramrodding through legislation that would make an Eastern bloc dictator blush? Where are the calls for investigations, calls for repeal? They still don’t seem to understand who they’re dealing with; but we do.

I think, with all this pie-in-the-sky friendliness to the other side (which they think makes them looks politically mature, or gracious, but really only makes them look morally bereft, or compromised), they’re walking right into a trap. The voting machines were hardly cold when none other than Henry Kissinger was on TV (Wolf Blitzer) talking about how this election would be seen as a sign of weakness on the part of the American people by–yep, you guessed it, “the terrorists.”

Now, if you were a young man, or woman, who was a candidate for recruitment by Al Qaeda, would the American people’s repudiation of George Bush and Co. make you feel more, or less, angry at America?

But how would you feel if you saw no real change in policy; no end to the war; and no punishment for the lies and liars that started it?

The United States is currently, busily building military installations in Iraq.

What do the Democrats have to say about that?

An interesting view on the election from the always controversial Alex Jones, with Paul Joseph:

from www.prisonplanet.com (excerpt):

The empty "victory" of the Democrats' sweep of Congress has injected an
anesthetic of apathy into the body politic and slowed the momentum of
the move to have those responsible for 9/11 and the ensuing mess in Iraq
brought to justice....

Since leading Democrat power-brokers have already completely distanced
themselves from investigating even the Iraq WMD scandal, how on earth
can we expect them to look into 9/11 and it's ramifications? In that context in
what way was Tuesday night a defeat of the Neo-Cons if all it has done
is allowed them to escape the consequences of the last six years?...

The mid-term elections seem to have pacified large sections of activists
into believing the job has been done when in reality it's only just
beginning....

Many on the political left have betrayed themselves as partisan
hypocrites for not calling to task Democrats who are openly indicating they will
protect Bush from criminal proceedings. The trend is becoming painfully
clear as left-leaning websites across the blogosphere revel in
associating their power with the newly elected Democrats while poo-pooing problems
that were not fixed overnight but have seemingly evaporated into thin air for
some just because Democrats were successful.

The talking points of elite sycophants Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean are
reverberating across the political spectrum - no impeachment of Bush, no
investigation of Iraq and no independent inquiry into 9/11.
Establishment phonies who previously railed against Bush are lining up and following
orders.

Nancy Pelosi again repeated her assertion today that impeachment was
"off the table," echoing Howard Dean's comments to the Daily Show with Jon
Stewart last night that, "we're not gonna do that."

The progressive community has put itself to shame by proving they only
ever cared about one party and not about America. Bellwether liberal websites
like Crooks and Liars are already slavishly drooling over "Speaker
Pelosi," even though that position is yet to be voted on. Bush and pro-torture
Pelosi (she voted against condemning torture of Iraqis) meanwhile are busy
kissing up to each other and scheming on how they can push through Bush's mass
amnesty program that his own Republican House rejected.

Do we really expect Pelosi to stand up to the war-hungry Neo-Cons when
she personally attacked the Iraqi President for not supporting Israel's
absolute butchery and destruction of Lebanon? Memories of liberal excuses for
Bill Clinton's Serbian holocaust come flooding back.

Bush has signed into law the framework of a dictatorship under the
Military Commissions Act, the updated Patriot Act and other bills, but the
Democrats have not uttered a sound to suggest they will attempt to repeal any of
this horrendous legislation.

The proto-dictatorship could never have been put in place without the
seminal event of 9/11 and it is imperative that the 9/11 truth movement
not be pacified by a sham re-arranging of the deck chairs. We must push like
never before for a new independent investigation of 9/11 and if
Democrats stand in our way they will be considered collaborators and part of the
cover-up.

Where's the call to repeal the torture legislation? Where's the call to
repeal the Patriot Act? Where's the call to stop the NSA spying on
Americans? What we should be hearing is repeal, repeal, repeal, but
instead it's betrayal, betrayal and more betrayal on the part of the brown-nose
Democrats. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss....

We don't seek to create divisions between the progressive community and
the so-called "conspiracy crowd" but unless immediate action is undertaken
to ensure Pelosi does not become Speaker of the House nothing whatsoever
will have been achieved by Tuesday night.

Liberals need to decide if they are on the side of a political party or
the side of America. The first step is to lobby for John Conyers to take the
position of speaker. Conyers has at least raised the possibility of
investigations into Iraq, illegal domestic spying and ultimately
impeachment, while Dean and Pelosi have repeatedly assured Bush and the
rest of his criminal cabal that they will be given safe passage.

Tony Soldo outlines the course of action required to truly achieve
justice for the hundreds of thousands that have died at the hands of the Bush
administration over the last six years, including the victims of 9/11.

"A Resolution, calling for the immediate with-drawing of U.S. troops
from Iraq, and the Impeachment of Bush and Cheney, and the trial and
prosecution of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, for war crimes, is completely valid
and covered in detail in a document called the United States Constitution."
"In Article II, (the Executive Branch), section 4, it states; The
President, Vice President, and all Civil Officers of the United States,
shall be removed from office on Impeachment For, and Conviction of,
Treason , Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors."

"If there is any doubt as to the blatant violation of the rule of law,
both Constitutional and International, there can clearly be no defense for
Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, in their role as war criminals, and war profiteers
after three years of chaos and mayhem in Iraq."

Ding, Damn, the Witch Ain't Dead


So we’re calling ‘em pretty good here at Rosebud; in July we called for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; the day before the election we predicted the end of the Rove-ian era. The American people have spoken, as they say, and the effect is exhilaration. Let freedom ring! If we have anything to thank George Bush and Co. for, it's waking the great democratic beast from its Cheetohs-and-American-Idol-induced slumber and reminding it that it has a Constitution to defend. Rooooooooaaar! But Tuesday was only the beginning.

Notice who has been curiously absent during this better-than-hoped-for upheaval: the “real” president, V.P. Dick Cheney. It’s another symptom of the Vice President’s seemingly colossal arrogance that he can’t come out and graciously give the Democrats—and the American people—their due. Wake up, for God’s sake, Mr. Cheney. Your administration came to power first by one dangling Supreme Court vote, and then by an extremely slim margin (if you can even believe the results of the iffy 2004 election), and yet you have ruled over us like a sly-faced martinet, as if we had given you an absolute mandate. Not so. Read the paper. Turn your television on. Emerge from your dark castle.

Americans by and large are not your kind, you and your Machiavellian crew. They, we, are marked by a good common sense which tells us that usually it’s better to just live and let live; that if gay people want to get married, oh, what the hell; that what we need is a living wage and affordable health care and housing and protection for the environment and education for our children; the things that make life good; not Democrat or Republican things, but what’s fair and right; and if the Democrats are taking up these causes, then that’s who we’ll vote in.

The best thing that happened on Tuesday, besides the time’s-up bell for Rumsfeld, was the ascension of Nancy Pelosi to Speaker of the House: an elegant, classy lady who knows how to call a spade a spade (she has called the president an incompetent liar—learn, Democrats!) and most importantly, sees the debacle in Iraq as a real threat to the future of this country, her five children and six grandchildren. I just hope politics on the big stage won’t water her down too much. She’s already talking massive conciliation. Let’s just hope it’s just her public face and she’ll continue to work behind the scenes for what she really believes in—as she did in convincing Senator John Murtha to be outspoken on his opposition to the war.

There are several pitfalls in being too conciliatory, at this juncture. The Democrats could greatly underestimate the people’s will to see the crimes of the Bush administration prosecuted. In assuming, as Pelosi seems to, at least publicly, that we just want to “get on with it” and let Bush bygones by bygones, the Democrats could squander an enormous amount of political capital, and also fail to do what’s right. The Republicans wasted a whole lot of our time and $100 million of our taxpayers’ dollars impeaching Bill Clinton for an ill-advised, and yet consensual, sexual indiscretion. The country thought it was crazy, and yet that doesn’t mean that we should ignore what is not crazy; what is, in fact, our moral imperative:

Bringing Bush administration officials to justice for knowingly lying about the reasons for sending American men and women to war; for enabling their cronies to illegally profit from this war with no-bid contracts and sweetheart deals (and the electricity in Baghdad still isn’t on!).

Bringing justice to bear on those who allowed men, women and children to die needlessly in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Between the war and Katrina, literally thousands of Americans have died as a direct result of the Bush administration’s actions, or inaction. These are crimes of Biblical proportions which one happy election doesn’t wash away. We need justice; but first, we need real investigations.

Another fortuitous result of Tuesday’s election was the probable appointment of John Conyers (D.-Michigan) to the House Judiciary Committee. Conyers has suggested that he believes the president has “engaged in impeachable offenses.” If so, are we just going turn away our eyes now that the Democrats have gained some power, Madame Speaker-To-Be? Isn’t there a Constitutional responsibility in this somewhere? The Democrats can never go wrong if they continue to insist on what is right; the American people will never leave them.

And speaking of what is politically inconvenient, for some, there is the question of 9/11. Nearly 50% of the American people believe there needs to be a new investigation, beyond the one handily managed by former Republican Governor and oil man Tom Kean and Bush insider and co-author of the war on terror Philip Zelikow. Most Americans are still unaware that the Bush administration refused to release documents, evidence, pertaining to 9/11 to the Kean Commission, but you Democrats in the House and Senate are well aware of this, all of you. So what are you going to do about it now?

The Bush administration has well over a year to continue governing in their reckless manner. They have over a year to continue waging their beloved war. They have over a year to try and come up with justifications for it, to bring the American people back to a place of fear and terror, instead of the beautiful place of freedom and power where we are now.

How do we keep them from doing this?

Re-opening the 9/11 investigation would be a very good start.

Eau de Rove

There’s Karl Rove on the cover of the Times/
Thinking he is smarter than us all/
Thinking he can fool us once again/
Believing in nothing/
Except winning.

We're all just suckers to Karl Rove/
We who drag our butts out to the polls/
We who think “democracy” means us/
There’s Karl Rove on the cover of the Times/
Predicting the Republicans will win.

But Karl, there’s 300 million of us
and one of you/
And if the democracy's still breathing,
we’re gonna let you know it, too/
Hope you’ve got a good exit strategy/
For yourself/
If not for our sons and daughters in the Middle East.

Hear you have a 17-year-old son of your own/
Hear he’s pretty handy with a gun (see Vanity Fair, Dec., 2006 issue)/
But you’re no sucker, Rove, and I'll bet he's not going overseas/
To fight the war you believe will win/
This mid-term election.

“As it gets close to Election Day,” Rove told Vanity Fair, “the question gets to be, ‘Do you want to win, or do you want to lose? Do you want America to prevail, or do you want America to lose?’”

There’s Karl Rove on the cover of the Times/
Thinking we’re all dumb as a slug/
Thinking we didn’t notice
his boss lied
About why our sons and daughters
Had to die.

Him Spooky

There’s an interesting passage in Todd S. Purdum’s piece in the latest issue of Vanity Fair (Dec., 2006) about top Bush strategist Karl Rove. “From the beginning of his career,” Purdum writes, “Rose used any weapon he could,” showing “an early predilection to play dirty…. When Rove was locked in a disputed election to become national chairman of the College Republicans, Terry Dolan…who would later found the National Conservative Political Action Committee, leaked a tape to the Washington Post in which Rove and another College Republican were heard trading tales about campaign espionage. Eventually, the chairman of the Republican National Committee concluded that Rove had won the election. The chairman at the time was George Herbert Walker Bush.”

…“One of us!”

Dirty tricks; dirty politics. And what might that mean for the mid-term election on Tuesday? Can you believe that we’ve arrived at a moment in our political life when the New York Times runs an editorial (today) with tips for voters about how to spot election malfeasance? And voters are vowing to show up to the polls with video cameras, a la the Rodney King beating?

Whatever happens on Tuesday, the next Congress that is not run by these lockstep Republicans (in 2046? when the nation’s capital has been moved to Boulder, Co., because Washington is under water?) should take upon itself a serious overhaul of the voting system... Or we should. By revolution, if necessary.

An America out of the grip of the Bush administration and their rubberstamp cronies.
Dare we allow ourselves a whiff of the joy?

Of the possibility of troop withdrawal from Iraq?

Of truth instead of lies?

Of a little looking out, as Jimmy Stewart said in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, for the other guy?

Of American values as we the people envision them, and not the elite spooks in the White House, the Pentagon, Incorporated, Skull and Bones and Bohemian Grove?

We shouldn't settle for anything but that.

We can't, and we won't.