Clarification

Let's be clear about what's going on with the White House press breifing I mention below:

By responding -- twice -- to pointed questions about White House response to yesterday's Supreme Court decisions regarding the human rights of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay with "we'll look at the concerns of the Supreme Court", the Administration has put on the table the prospect that they will not comply with the Supreme Court decision.

That is wholly irresponsible. The only response the Executive should have for a supreme court decision is: "We will study this decision and abide by it."

Turns out, the Supreme Court Don't Have No Army!

In response to the slap-down the Bush Administration at last got from the Supreme Court yesterday, in which (8-1) the Supreme's said "unlawful combatants" have a right to judicial review of their status, and that that review must come from Federal Courts (6-3) Scott McClellan says that administration officials were pleased that the court "recognized the authority of the president as commander in chief."

Huh? Um, the Constitution established 200 years ago the President is the commander-in-chief, and that wasn't what the Supreme Court said to you. What about the point of the ruling -- that you can't continue doing what you've been doing to people for the past 2 years?

"We also recognize that the court had some concerns, and we respect those concerns."

Huh? Dude, a ruling by the Supreme Court against you, requiring you to change your behavior, is not a "concern", it's an order to stop doing what you are doing.

It sounds almost as if the Administration likes to pretend that it may or may not adopt what the Supreme Court is teling it to do, at its option -- you know, like they were interior designors or sumfin. I'm guessing what's dawning on the Executive Branch right about now -- probably through Alberto Gonzales -- is that they could respond to the Supremes: "Hey, you don't have no fricken Army! So what are they going to do? Force us? You and what Army? No Army!"

If you think I'm kidding, here's the transcript, from www.whitehouse.gov. Note that McClellan talks only about a Defense Department process, not offering judicial review:


And with that, I'll be glad to go to your questions. Deb.

Q Since the Gitmo -- the Supreme Court ruling on Guantanamo detainees, is this going to speed up the process of the administration sorting these people out and figuring out who is going to be freed, and who is going to go before tribunals, and who is going to be held incognito for many more years, or whatever?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, you actually brought up a very good point. If you recall, back in February Secretary Rumsfeld announced a process that he was putting in place to do an annual review of the status of those detainees at Guantanamo Bay. And the Department of Defense was moving forward on that process already.

Certainly, in terms of the Supreme Court decision, we're pleased that Supreme Court recognized the authority of the President, as Commander-in-Chief, to exercise his constitutional responsibility in a time of war. The President's most solemn obligation is to protect the American people. We also recognize that the court had some concerns, and we respect those concerns. So the National Security Council and the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice and others are discussing these issues. They're working expeditiously to move forward to put a process in place to address these concerns. And that is where things stand at this point.

Q Does the ruling speed it up even further? And how long are we talking about?

MR. McCLELLAN: They're moving expeditiously. Again, I don't want to put a time frame on it, but they're discussing these issues as we speak. They've already been under discussion since the court ruling on Monday, I believe it was. And we will have more to say soon. I expect that further announcements on this matter would probably come from the Department of Defense.

But we want to make sure that we put a process in place that respects the concerns that the Supreme Court raised and does so in a way that is consistent with the authority of the President to exercise his constitutional responsibility during at time of war. And the court recognized that authority, as well. The President's most important responsibility is the safety and security of the American people. We are a nation at war and the President does have the right to detain enemy combatants during this time of conflict and to hold them during that conflict. The court recognized that. But at the same time, they expressed some concerns. And we'll be putting a process in place to address those concerns.

Q Those concerns --

MR. McCLELLAN: To the former legal reporter.

Q Those -- and American citizen -- those concerns were the denial of habeas corpus to an American citizen, the denial of access to the courts indefinitely, forever, claimed by the Executive that the court slapped down. Those aren't minor concerns.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, there are two separate issues here. There are the American citizens who were picked up on the battlefield, and some of those individuals, we have already taken the step to provide them access to the courts. And then there are the non-American citizens who are picked up on the battlefield. And the court recognized that these are difficult issues to address. But they talked about the ability of those detainees to have notice and the opportunity to be heard. And so that's what we're working --

Q And I'm hearing, in your dismissal, it seems, of the court's --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I wouldn't look at it at that way at all, Terry.

Q -- concerns that that reflects somehow the administration's attitude about complying with the court's very clear command that the constitutional rights of American citizens like Mr. Hamdi and the human rights of the detainees in Guantanamo Bay must be honored by the Executive Branch.

MR. McCLELLAN: I wouldn't characterize it that way at all, the way you did, Terry. We respect the court's decision, and that's why we're moving forward quickly to put a process in place to address those concerns. But we want to do so in a way that is consistent with the constitutional responsibility of the President to exercise his authority during a time of war. And that's what we will do, because the President recognizes that his most important obligation to the American people is their safety and security.

We remain a nation at war; we remain a nation that is in a conflict. And the President has the right to detain enemy combatants during this time --

Q A nation under law.

MR. McCLELLAN: -- of conflict. And so we will move forward in waging this war and we will also move forward on addressing the concerns of the court.

Classic "Japan-Style" Deflationary Spiral Avoided

Or, put another way: I hope you locked in your low, low, low home loan-interest rate. The Fed raised the overnight interest rate a quarter point to 1.25.

Bush Not a Liar. Not.

Nicholas Kristof spent this morning's column to decry those on the left --- who usually take a nuanced view -- of calling Bush a liar, when he's actually just self-deluded, deceiving the public only as an incidental result of the fact that he can't tell what's true and what's not. And sometimes he's too confused even to produce a parsable sentence.

Kristof instead wants us to point out the intricate psychological difficulties of the President, with proper caveat for his lack of intent to deceive: He's dumb! What's a nation to do?

Let's try that out: Bush did not intend to deceive the nation into the Iraq war. He simply can't find his ass with his hands. And so, he only incidentally deceived the nation into the Iraq war.

There's a problem with Kristof's statement: it relies only on the textual evidence. If someone comes up to you to say, "That man has my wallet! I know he does! He's a thief, he's stolen wallets before! Grab him! Grab him! Grab him!", only to find the thief doesn't have the wallet -- and the someone explains "Well, I *thought* he had my wallet, and he did in fact steal wallets before. It was the best evidence I had at the time" is that someone a liar for over-reacting on faulty evidence? Yes, because they failed to hold their actions in proportion to their evidence. Their actions are the lie. "Doing the best they can" may work for grade school -- it does not work when applying the war making power. The best thing to do with Saddam was what Clinton and Madeline Albright have been going around saying this last week: continue sanctions, inspections, and a policy of containment.

What Kristof may not understand is that our politics and country are being run by people who laugh at those hung up on such subtleties. What is important to them is that they have the power, and they will use it brutally, and rely on technicalities to not be held responsible. The right points at Clinton and says "Hah! Pot calling the kettle black! Clinton lied *under oath* and tried to use technicalities to get away with it." Again, lack of propotion: Clinton was about blowjobs. Bush abolished our constitutional rights (and thank you, Supreme Court, for giving them back yesterday) and exercised the most important power of the President -- warmaking. They use the same kind of disingenous technicalities of language that Clinton got off on (ahem), but for purposes which threaten our shared constitutional goals, not just blowjobs.

However - let's take a moment to recognize that Kristof, through his columns these past few months, brought the impending genocide of 1,000,000 people in the Sudan to the US's attention, and maybe Colin Powell will be able to act on it quickly enough to stop some of it. An enormous, towering acheivement of opinion and reportage.

How's that Retirement Working For You?

The Army is re-calling 5,600 retired and discharged troops with a reserve obligation to be sent to Afghanistan and Iraq.

So, here's the question of the day: exactly to what extremes must the Army go to, before the government says "enough" and re-institutes the draft, in order to have soldiers in Iraq?

Ha Ha Ha Ha ha. huh?

We could all joke about restrictions against taking pictures of certain completely public, outdoor landmarks -- until now.

Two Iranians -- security guards for the Iranian UN mission -- fiming bridges, tunnels, the Statue of Liberty were expelled from the US. No law was broken.

We've always expelled members of foreign missions when we've gotten evidence of spying. But that's not the case here -- what they were doing was indistinguishble from being tourists. In fact, they may have been doing nothing different from what millions of tourists do every year, but were singled out because they work for the Iranian UN mission. Iran is presently being pressured to renounce ambitions for nuclear weapons. Perhaps this is just more of it.

New Apple Displays...

You know what's really awsome? Having three of the 30" displays on your desk. They're almost like cubicle walls with live pictures.

You won't see these new displays on gadget whore (see the link in the right column), but there are plenty of places reviewing them. We don't do shameful promotions of our day job work, but we'll do plenty of shameless self-promotion for gadget-whore.

FYI: The 30" displays will run on pretty much any recent graphics card at 1280x800 (I'm typing this blog entry on a 12" powerbook with the 30" attached) and will look decent. The main reason for the $600 card is to drive the display to its full resolution of 2560x1600 which, by the way, is magnificent.

They're Here...

The new Apple Cinema displays, I mean.

Awesome.

We Are Not In A Dictatorship

The US Supreme Court voted:

• 8-1 (Thomas dissenting) that 'enemy combatants' have the right to have the evidence requiring their detention reviewed by courts.
  
• 6-3 (Rehnquist, Thomas and Scalia dissenting) that the courts which have jurisdiction to review the cases of enemy combatants are the Federal courts.
  
• 5-4, that Jose Padilla was 'forum shopping' in bringing his habeas corpus case to the Southern District of New York, for being held in a brig in Charleston, SC (he is supposed to bring his petition to Federal court in SC).
  

The first two rulings are significant -- they say that, contrary to what Bush has asserted, the Executive Branch cannot hold prisoners without judicial review. All 600 prisoners at Guantanamo bay can, as a result, file in our Federal Court system for review of their status as an enemy combatant, forcing the Executive Branch to bring evidence against them for their status.

So When Was the Last Time YOU Completed an Occupation 2 Days Early?

Occupying powers don't typically bail out of the country early, but that is what it appears we have done in Iraq. Two days before we were scheduled to formally transfer power, Bremer handed the document of US recognition of Sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government.

It is every pundit's dream to be able to chant, "I told you so" as the world crumbles to dust. Yet few pundits have taken the opportunity with Iraq's soveriegnty. This is an experiment, the outcome of which has not been analysed in any depth, largely because no one can guess what those who do not want a stable Iraq are capable of doing. Nobody wants to see it fail, although there

Last week, five attacks on police stations throughout the country were executed simultaneously, demonstrating the existence of an extensive command/control structure within the opposition, killing over 100 people. Prior to that, most of the attacks in Iraq were one-offs, a bomb here and a missle shoot there, indicating sustained and distributed financial backing to maintain the guerrilla force -- but without centralized command and control, an opposition army cannot affect specific political outcomes, by directing attacks at desireable targets. Now, they have it.


Completely unrelated are these kidnappings of foreigners with threats of beheading them:

• Nick Berg was summarily killed , purpotedly in revenge for abuses at Abu Ghraib.
  
  
• a South Korean was beheaded after his captors demanded Seoul to remove military medics and engineers, and drop plans to send more troops. Seoul refused.
  
  
• The kidnappers of a Marine in Iraq (Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, an American muslim of Middle Eastern origin) demand release of all Iraqi's in "occupation jails".
  
  
• A Pakistani driver, taken in Iraq working for Haliburton , is presently held, his captors asking the Pakistani embassy in Iraq to be closed, and all Pakistani's be banned from going to Iraq.
  
  
• Three Turkish nationals, working in Iraq, are being held, their captors demanding Turkish companies to quit doing business with U.S. Troops in Iraq.
  
  

(Paul Johnson, also the victim of similar grisly murder, was kidnapped in Saudi Arabia, by captors demanding freedom for their comrades-in-arms; similar tactic, completely different goals, and different perpetrators).

It is believed that Berg, the South Korean, the American Marine and the three Turkish hostages were taken by the same group (Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi). However, not all are not being centrally coordinated, and even those which are have differing goals. Post-occupation, these will drop off eventually, and pose no long-term threat to Iraq.

But those five attacks on police stations -- that takes a lot of money, people, secret communications, and a jointly identified goal of people in cities which have never cooperated before. That goal is obviously to destablize the interim government -- which has now been handed power.

An obvious question to ask: were they handed power early because the US expected the attacks to ramp up by June 30 (as we have heard publicly stated), and this could head the attacks off? How could the early handover head the attacks off? Either the interim government has intelligence or police capabilities that the US does not (which seems unlikely) or the US simply washed hands of responsibility early so that, whatever happens in the coming days, it is the Iraqi government's responsibility to deal with it.

F9/11 Most Popular Movie In America

Earning $21.8M in only 868 theaters, Moore's film outdoes WHITE CHICKS, which did $19.6M in 2700 theaters. Other new releases it outgrossed: THE NOTEBOOK ($13.0M, 2300 theaters), and TWO BROTHERS ($6.2M, 2175 theaters).

Given Hollywood's copycat tendencies of success, can we look forward to an onslaught of anti-Bush film and reality shows?

"The Kerry Room" -- 9 Kerry staffers live together in a condo in San Francisco, as they work for Kerry's Election.

"Rumors of Jenna" -- Entertainment Tonight looks into the college antics of the Presidential children.

"Would you Pass Me That Coke?" -- Some of Bush's old drinking buddies recall the commander-in-chief's preference for soft drinks.

Jack Valenti Points Out That MPAA Rating System is Useless

Check out Jack's response, quoted in this story in the NYT, to theaters offering "R-cards" for under-18 teens whose parents let them see R-rated films:

It distorts... and disfigures [the rating system].... Not all R movies are alike. There are some R movies that children should not see.

Ponder that for a moment. "Not all R movies are alike": And yet all of them are rated R, Jack. "There are some R movies that children should not see": Ergo there are some R movies that children should see - hmm, very interesting. "It distorts... and disfigures [the rating system]": Exactly how, again? It takes its very definition from the rating system itself - it is an "R-Card", after all. As the theater owner who came up with the system puts it:

You can't say it's a parental guideline and then say the parents have no choice.

F9/11: The Personal Impact

I saw FAHRENHEIT 9/11 in the upper west-side of Manhattan -- probably as sympathetic an audience the movie could hope to get. I watched with my older brother -- who hasn't been in a movie theater for 4 years -- and we were surrounded by Kennedy-coiffed women. I was surprised the 11am Saturday showing had sold out; I expected liberal democrats all slept in (Bush is an early riser). But I was expecting cheers, jeers and shouts of "Impeach! Impeach!" That is not what happened.

During the presentation, the audience was quiet. They laughed heavily at the scenes which were included to depict Bush as buffoon, but largely watched silently through most of the film.

The largest audience reaction came when a Flint, MI mother reads the last letter from her now dead son, written from Iraq. Fully a third of the audience was crying, wiping their eyes, sniffling. When this mother traveled to Washington DC to go to the White House, the audience fell back into tears. On the mall, she walks past a marginal character -- some shrill, high-pitched and frail lone-wolf protester in a tent, a shrunken woman surrounded by signs haranguing against the Iraq war as unjustified and illegal. The mother, crying, approaches the protester and says, "My son was there, my son died there" -- and the protester, hardly connected to reality, begins her anti-war speech. An unprompted third woman steps into the frame to declare to the camera "This is all staged! None of this is real". The grieving mother declares "This is real. My son was there, my son died there." "What day? Where did he die?" The grieving mother walks away, and as the camera follows her, we hear the indignant accuser assert "There are others, too" -- apparently under the idea that the number of surviving U.S. soldiers is directly proportional to the justification of the war.

Here we have a microcosom of the public debate: the ignored protester, the family who pays the price for Bush's war, and the unreasoning denier.

F 9/11: Bush, the Liar in Chief?

Republican critics say: "F 9/11 does what Democrats accuse Bush of doing! Moore puts out information and by allegation and implication, says 'How can this not be true?' while not proving anything."

First, the information that Moore puts out there looks pretty damning, and a damn sight more reliable than the "facts" Bush used to go to war in Iraq. But the hilarious aspect of this is that people like Mary Matalin are effectively saying "Bush should be allowed to lie, but nobody else." Bush, the liar in chief?

Fahrenheit 9/11

Three of us (myself, Robin, and Steve) have seen 9/11 as of this writing. What did we see? Too much to say. This is why the unanimous conclusion of all reviewers is: go see it, make up your mind.

Example: W. Bush and his family have strong business ties to Saudi Arabia. How strong these ties are, simply cannot be summarized. For example, you also have to understand what an objective failure W had been in life. He was fast heading to earning nothing -- losing money, while it rained black gold in Texas -- when he was put on the board at Harken Energy, a major investor of which was the Bin Laden family. He is shown explaining to an interviewer in 1990 that his access to his President-father is quite valuable to Harken -- putting his finger right on the reason he was able to draw salary, his dad was President, and he was the conduit between the Saudis and his dad. Heck, Harken never put me on its board.

The Saudi's have paid in salary and business $1.4Billion dollars to Bush, his family, and their business partners and friends over 30 years. In contrast, Bush will take home $1.2Million after serving in the White House for 4 years. This is not to say Bush has been "bought" -- but of course, since he and his friends have made 1000x as much from the Saudis, the Saudis have their sympathetic ears. On the day that the Bush administration had flown 24 members of the Bin Laden family out of the US on chartered flights, prior to chartered flights being generally cleared by the FAA -- Sept 13 2001 -- Bush had dinner with the Saudi Ambassador, a man who he calls "Bandar Bush". Bush considers the man a member of his family, a privelige not generally available to the public.

Further, why are the Saudi's investing in oil business in Texas -- where less than a percent of the world's oil is produced? How about this: because it gives them the opportunity to pay the salaries of people like Herbert Walker Bush, W. Bush, James Baker, and others who pull power in the US.

This goes to why Bush focusses on Iraq, and not Saudi Arabia, where 15 of the 19 9/11 hijakers came from.

We learn this in a stretch of 5 minutes. The movie is 1 hour 52 minutes long, and all of it this dense. The point here isn't that a crime against the US has been perpetrated by W., it is that, on the facts which are obvious, one should never trust this guy with guiding our policy -- he's obviously conflicted.

Fahrenheit 9/11 Media Intelligence Test

This was completely accidental. In the course of preparing my previous post, I did a mis-search on Google News. What I discovered is that since every news organization in the country is doing stories on Fahrenheit 9/11 this weekend, you can whittle the wheat from the chaff, intelligence-wise, by seeing if they managed to spell "Fahrenheit" correctly. Here's the tally of those who failed:

• KVUE TV, Austin, Texas
• Munster Times, Munster, Indiana
• KATV, Little Rock, Arkansas
• KSL-TV, Salt Lake City, Utah
• KWWL TV, Iowa City, Iowa
• MetroWest Daily News, Framingham, Massachusetts

Did your state make the list?

Soon to be #2

The biggest movie box-office story this weekend will undoubtedly be the opening of Fahrenheit 9/11, the R-rated Palme d'Or winner from Michael Moore. (Say what you like about this film, you can't argue that it has a great poster.)

Among the records sure to fall are (1) Best opening day for a documentary; (2) Best opening weekend for a documentary; and (3) Highest gross for a documentary. The first, I think, is already toast. Many commentators have pointed this out in their discussion of the film.

However, to date I have found exactly one news story online - thank you, indieWire - that actually names the film that until now has been the reigning king of documentaries - holding all these records and more (for instance, opening in hundreds more theaters than Fahrenheit 9/11 did). That film, of course, is Jackass.

Check it: Opened Friday, Oct 25, 2002, on 2509 screens. Opening weekend box office $22.8m, total 4-week box office $64.3m. And for all of you worrying about the MPAA ratings game: it was R-rated, too. Blows all those other so-called hit documentaries right out of the water.

Until now. Requiem in Pace, Jackass - you're now #2.

Cheney is still a Dick.

Y'all might have thought I was out of line earlier this month when I called Vice President Cheney a "dick". Turns out, I was just ahead of the curve -- in addition to telling Senator Patrick Leahy to go "fuck himself" while they both stood in the well of the Senate, Cheney today says it needed to be said, and he felt better for doing it.

Obscenity is the new black. Everybody's reduced reasoned argument to angry swearing. And, theraputic, you betcha, boy howdy. Besides, cursing people out was invented by Republicans! It's the wave sweeping the capitol. We're all feeling much better.

Cheney is still a dick.

Moon Coronation

Now this is bizzare. Several congresspeople attended a coronation of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon as the Messiah. The congresspeople claim they were misled.

Cheney to Sen. Leahy: "Go fuck yourself..."

CNN reports.

Apparently, there are rules against using profanity on the Senate floor while the Senate is in session, but technically they weren't in session.

It is not a rule, but generally a generally accepted rule among Senators from what I understand, that it is NOT ok to fuck yourself on the Senate floor.

Lee Iacocca flips from Bush to Kerry

Former Chrysler Chairmain Lee Iacocca, after making ads for Bush in 2000, has flipped his allegiance from Bush to Kerry.

Clinton's Book Outsells Hillary

Bill whips the pants of Hillary.

But enough about that. His book outsold Hilary's in first-day sales: 400,000 on first day , the most ever for a non-fiction book (fiction book winner: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix).

First Lollapalloza, now Comdex

It seems that Comdex isn't going to get off the ground this year either.

Motherfuckers are an "R", not PG-13

So Fahrenheit 9/11 is an 'R', since they use 'motherfucker' twice, and show corpses.

Paraded Sailors

Iran and Britain are not at war so, in answer to Bob's question, it's not clear to me that the Geneva convention is relevant. On the other hand, troops going armed (albeit very lightly) into another's territory might be considered an act of war.

End of an Era: Lollapalooza 2004 Tour canceled

They couldn't sell the tickets.

What will the String Cheese Incident do with all the new-found free time?

Update 5:00pm PDT: Swear, I didn't see Robin's post below. All this cross-reading has made us incestuous.

Iran Parades British Sailors Apologizing, on TV

Iran arrested 8 British sailors Monday, stating they were found in Iranian territorial waters. So today, they showed 2 on TV apologizing for their mistake.

Isn't this against the Geneva convention of parading POWs on TV?

Bush Tells Sick Veterans: "Be Flexible"

Kerry cancelled a trip to New Mexico to go back to DC and vote for a Veteran's Health Care bill which Bush opposes. Apparently, Bush thinks the quality of health care of all those folks the US asks to go oversees to have metal casings explode inside their vital organs -- a duty he saw fit to miss out on during his opportunity -- is good enough, and if a Veteran has got money jangling in his pocket then, hey, shouldn't they pay for their healthcare themselves?

"The administration believes it is best for veterans to maintain flexibility," said Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt. "The mandatory approach is an inflexible one and the rigidity does not best serve veterans."

That's *two* boneheaded quotes in a day for Steve Schmidt (see below).

It is idiocy to say to Veterans anything but: The sacrifices you made in serving the United States are highly valued, the country is grateful, and you will be looked after, well.

Perhaps we're learning that Bush doesn't value the contributions of those who take bullets on our behalf. After all, it's his experience that the people who served in Vietnam are suckers who didn't have the family connections to get out of it. Maybe he doesn't see their service as heroic -- which it is -- but sees it as getting the short end of a dumb, unlucky stick.

Science, Science Everywhere. And not a drop to drink.

On the occaision that 48 Nobel-prize winning scientists endorsed John Kerry, pointing out the decline in the position of science in our country, I might think that the Bush administration would fight that charge. But they don't. They've apparently conceded that science has no place in their administration, giving a week response
by campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt: : "'Only John Kerry would declare the country to be in scientific decline on a day when the country's first privately funded space trip is successfully completed."

Apparently, they couldn't find anyone who knows the difference between basic science and a technological/economic step forward. A hundred years ago, they would have said "Leave it to John Kerry to say science is in decline when we've just completed the world's largest suspension bridge built by the private sector."

Not mentioned by the campaign spokesman are things like, for example, draconianl immigration policies barring foreign scientists from even setting foot on our soil. Anecdotal example: last summer, I was in New Mexico at a conference on Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs). GRBs are types of super-novae. So, our State Department barred 2 Chinese scientists from coming. Full on, "Sorry, you can't come here for scientific exchange." Why? Who knows? How about xenophobia -- they didn't know what these people might do once they got here, so why take the risk of letting them in? What we do know is that the US never used to bar scientists for exchange. And this might sound like an isolated anecdote, but it is not -- the community is up in arms about how difficult he Bush administration (impossible, in many cases) for foreignors to come to the US to study, to get PhDs -- and stay, enriching our talent pools, or taking their positive connections home, building scientific bridges in a way which helped US science be at the center of it all.

Derek Takes the Bet

Derek has taken me up on my earlier bet. Any other takers?

NYT Eds take Bush to the Woodshed

On today's Editorial pages, the NYT Eds rip into the Administration over the Iraq / 9-11 links. First, Bush says that the 9-11 commission report supports his claims of Iraq / Al-Qaeda ties - that's a lie. Second, various members of the Administration are now saying they never associated Iraq with 9-11 (see earlier post) - and that's a lie too, because they did.

Curiously, they don't bring up the President's written justification for war. In my opinion, that's the petard right there.

NYTimes Declares Sedaris Sedaris

The New York Times > Books > Sunday Book Review > NYTimes Books reviews David Sedaris' "Dress your Family in Corduroy and Denim", and declares an outstanding humorist, and his own man.

They mention his first NPR recording -- "Santaland Diaries" was the most requested broadcast reproduction in NPR history, except the network's coverage of the death of Red Barber.

To which I could only wonder: who the hell was Red Barber?

Iraq's link to 9-11

No no, not in reality - in reality, we know, there was no link. I'm talking about the link as it existed in the statements of our Administration. Because although President Bush, Condoleeza Rice, and Dan Bartlett have been denying it nonstop since the 9-11 Commission report on Wednesday, the Administration has insisted on just such a link in the past. Here are the proofs:

• President Bush, in his official communication to Congress, March 18, 2003 (thanks to Timothy Noah at Slate);
• Vice President Cheney, on Meet the Press, September 14, 2003 (thanks to Spencer Ackerman at TPM).

Two useful references to keep in mind.

Perfect Iraqi Storm?

If you go to Google News right now, you will see the following:

Top Stories: (1) Bush disputes panel on link between al-Qaida, Saddam (1177 related); and (2) Few promising leads in Johnson case, about the kidnapped American contracter in Iraq (1792 related);

World: (1) Iran and nukes; (2) EU choosing leader of European Commission; and (3) Suicide bomber kills 35 in attack on Iraqi army office (211 related);

US: (1) Rumsfeld defends secret detention of Iraqi prisoner (425 related); (2) 9-11 Commission: US Defenses Were Unprepared for Attacks (693 related); and (3) Clinton's memoirs.

That's 5 of the top 8 stories for those of you keeping score at home.

It's Funny What you Can Find on the Web.

We all here at 13 Dickinson St. know that our name comes from -an apartment that some of us lived in for several years (not me -- i just visited, like Rerun on What's Happening?) , in Somerville Massachusetts. While in School. You know, like Doonesbury.

Anyhoo -- now the rest of you can enjoy the looks of the place. Because it's on the web - actual photographs, with it's own interior shots. It looks like it's up for sale. 13 Dickinson Street -- I gotta put this on the sidebar. The relevant photos are the 2nd floor and the bedrooms (which are for the second floor apartment, too).

Robin, Derek, Patrick, Erica -- relive the good times!

Bob Offers a New Bet

I am now offering bets on the following:

Resolved: That John Kerry will receive a greater share of the national popular vote than George W. Bush in the 2004 Presidential election, by an amount greater than or equal to 5 percentage points.

Terms: One Luxury caffeinated beverage.
Pro: Me
Con: you.

Yes, I am predicting a landslide. You may enter into this bet, even if you have an outstanding bet on the election outcome with me already. Takers?

Bob's Entry, if it comes from George Bush

"Sorry we invaded your country
or, rather, I say, we are not.
-- Sorry, that is. Got the message?
We do what we goddam well want."

-- Hugs and kisses, GWB.

A Hallmark card for Iraq

Not to stomp all over Derek's contest, but I've got a new one here.

So now that we know, and that Congress knows (without a doubt) that:

1) Iraq had no WMD prior to invasion and:
2) Iraq had NO ties to 9/11. None.

Shouldn't we be getting the Iraqis a big Hallmark card that says "Sorry we invaded your country..."?

The contest is this: What would the poem inside read? The only rule here is that the poem must have rhyming stanzas or couplets.

Here are my first shots:

"Sorry we invaded your country
for killing your family and friends
just keep the oil flowing
or we'll be back again."

"Sorry we invaded your country
we know it's a real big drag
to have all your neighborhoods bombed out
and your children and friends shot and fragged"

Shocking but not surprising

This is a little late in coming, but Bob said he hadn't heard about the Enron traders caught on tape.

Of course, if you can't swallow their glibness, you can always listen to them in this sweet mash-up.

How To Tell When the President Is A War Criminal

When asked if bothered by the fact that Rumsfeld ordered a direct violation of the Geneva Conventions -- making him, by definition, a war criminal -- Bush answered (paraphrasing): "Not at all!".

From the Associated Press report::

Asked whether he was disappointed that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had improperly held an Iraqi prisoner in secret for more than seven months in violation of the Geneva Conventions, Bush replied: ``The secretary and I discussed that for the first time this morning. ... I'm never disappointed in my secretary of defense. He's doing a fabulous job and America's lucky to have him in the position he's in.''

Josh Marshall has a girlfriend!

And she's taking him on vacation! Ack!

Kerry/Gephardt?

Oh, sure -- that can happen. After all, Gephardt attracts and holds that elusive swing voter group,
shirtless men, who vote Republican since Reagan took office.

Actually, Gephardt's got no chance. He'd bring them in from the left, but makes no inroad to the right. The VP can't be an exercise in securing your base -- if he is, you've lost the election. His importance only comes in after the convention, when, if you don't have your base, it's over for you. You have to be gunning for members of the other party. I think the obvious choice is Edwards -- he's like Bush in the many ways that Bush is attractive to swing voters.

Sure, you might say, but Gephardt can attract the left that might otherwise go Nader. Oh, but the strong argument against voting for Nader is simple: "Vote Nader, and Enjoy 4 More Years of Bush". C'mon people, let's focus triangulation here.

Oh, and that McCain move? That was for show. It ought to freak the Republican party out because -- even as McCain was denying the crown, he was still credibly in it. Heck, even after denying it now, he's still credibly in it. And how do you think it makes the rank and file members of the Republican party feel that the Democrats could conceivably come in and scoop up a respected One Of Their Own -- one who was the last credible opposition to Bush in 2000? It makes them feel threatened, that's how.

Thirty Seven Deaths Certificates for Detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan Released In Past Few Weeks

ABC's Nightline reported tonight that, in the past few weeks, in response to the revelations of torture at the hands of Military Intelligence officers, 37 death certificates have been issued in the past few weeks for detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan listing homicide as the cause of death. Causes of death include Blunt force injury and Strangulation. These certificates go back 2 years.

In addition, last year, six JAG core members met with the Human Rights Committee of the New York Bar Association, and reported that the former rules of engagement governing military interrogations had been thrown out, and that nothing had been put down to take its place -- a situation ripe for creative abuse.

It becomes hard to argue that the failure was due to "bad apples", and not systemic, when the abuse happened over years, and happened because the Pentagon threw out the rule book constraining against torture.

Why Lookee Here

Seems that Rumsfeld ordered a prisoner to be held in Iraq while hiding him from the Red Cross. This, described by Major General Antonio Taguba -- who investigated the abuses at Abu Ghraib, is "deceptive, contrary to Army doctrine, and in violation of international law."

Cheney is a Dick.

Now that Congress has investigated the 9/11 events, and having reviewed all the same information which Dick Cheney has seen, they find there is no evidence whatsoever connecting Iraq to 9/11.

Will Cheney recant? Hell no, say his aides.

Look, the reason Cheney won't recant is because some people would admire him for his stick-tuitiveness, and still think he knows something they don't -- the same people who would hate him if he now changed his statements. He can simply assert blue in the face, smile, and chuckle. And we don't have any journalists who have the guts to publicly take him to task of his disingenuousness.

Steve's punchline entry

• For his 80th birthday, Bush does an impression of his son's Presidential career.

Derek's Punchline Entries

Former President Bush jumped out of an airplane to celebrate his 80th
birthday on Sunday...

• Politicians jumping out of planes - it's a great idea if you think about it.
  
  
• In fact, since then they've run clean out of gift certificates at the Capitol Hill's "Great Blue Yonder" skydiving school.
  
  
• I guess we all know what's in those 48 envelopes from the Senate Democrats that President Bush is getting for his birthday on July 6.
  
  
• In response, John Kerry has commended the former President for making a fine start with that jump, but pointed out that he seemed to get "hung up" about halfway down. If his son wants to do the job properly, Kerry said, he has a few suggestions.
  
  
• It's too bad though because Laura Bush has said she always wished her husband would take up a dangerous hobby... now that Dad's done it, the thing is - Dubyah never liked to follow in his footsteps.

Form One Line! No Pushing!

Microsoft launched their Stupid Poorly-designed Obselete Technology watches in Canada today. What are they good for? Sports scores, stock quotes, astrological forcasts, and telling you what the weather is outside right now. "The watches and service are available immediately," Microsoft said.

Good news for Music Lovers everywhere

If you've been missing Alanis Morissette's sharp edge -- as I have -- you too will be glad to know that she's been busy setting herself up for a weeping, self-destructive binge of anger and grief. Look for that album release in 2005-6!

I smell Grammy!

The Big Gun is Out for F9/11

Knowing that an "R" rating severely restricts the audience for a film, Michael Moore is appealing the MPAA's rating of the film. The rating came for "violent and disturbing images and for language".


So the distributors have retained former New York Governor Mario Cuomo to fight the rating. A hearing is scheduled for June 22 -- just 3 days before the June 25 release date.

my punchline entries.

Former President Bush jumped out of an airplane to celebrate his 80th birthday on Sunday......

• He used one of those "tandem jumpers", where he's strapped to somebody's chest. You know, like W. and Dick Cheney.
  
• Barbara didn't want him to do it, but he did it anyway. On the other hand, Laura Bush has been daring her husband, for his next birthday, to put a shotgun in his mouth and pull the trigger..... He'll probably chicken out.
  
• He says he was looking for Ronald Reagan up there. Next year, he says, he's gonna dig a hole to China instead.
  

13D Punchline Contest

A lot like the Haiku contest we had last year - only this time we get more than one entry. Okay here's the set-up:

Former President Bush jumped out of an airplane to celebrate his 80th birthday on Sunday.

Your job is to make up the best punchline. Extra points for political relevance. Here are two from the pros to get you started:

• If you look at the polls he's not the only Bush free-falling. (Letterman)
• I didn't even know he was a Lakers fan. (Leno)

I'll enter too (later). You're allowed to change the set-up line if you want but it should remain identifiable.

Fox News LAUDS "Fahrenheit 9/11"

And by laud, I mean LAUD. Delcaring it to be a "really briliant piece of work, and a film that members of all political parties should see without fail."

INFLATION!

The boogey man is back: the NYTimes reports that the consumer price index rose 0.6% , pushed by energy prices -- the highest rate since Bush took office.

This will spur the Fed to increase interest rates, which in turn will cool the bubbling housing market. Good thing my sister and her husband bought the new house on Sunday, although I'm not sure when escrow closes.

Oh, and you know those 1.4M jobs the Bush administration (read: Mary Matalin on "THIS WEEK WITH GEORGE STEPHANOPOLOUS" last Sunday) is bragging about adding since last August (an arbitrary time picked to make them look good -- since they'd still lost 3.0M jobs between Bush taking office and last August, meaning he still needs 1.6M new jobs just to be treading water)? You know what a rising interest rate does to job creation? Squelches it.

Bush is going to face an election where he's lost jobs for Americans. And made interest rates rise, making houses harder to buy. And added $1.5 Trillion new debt. And shifted the tax burden to the poor and middle class, so that they can pay that debt. And put us into a costly war unjustified by the criteria he gave us (i.e. he lied to us): get rid of WMD in Iraq. Lost us our friends in the world.

Connect the dots already.

This Stuff Freaks Me Out

The WaPost has an article describing the celebrities showing up for the NBA finals.

What's freaky about this is: the article quotes Jackie Chan, saying that studio executives told him to go to the game, so he came -- otherwise he would never be there.

Why go? "Chan and Coogan were publicizing their upcoming film, a remake of 'Around the World In 80 Days.' The actors got their plug in when ABC showed them sitting courtside together and mentioned the movie. Disney, the studio that produced Chan's film, also owns ABC."

Now THAT's synergy.

You Can Thank God For That

Seems all those senators and congressmen on the capital steps, intoning in loud indignant voices UNDER GOD won the war.

Oh, for the Reagan Days

John Patrick Diggins, a history professor, points out in a NYTimes OpEd that the necons who Bush today stands by no matter what, were rejected by Reagan.

"Mr. Reagan gave us an enlightened foreign policy that achieved most of its diplomatic objectives peacefully and succeeded in firmly uniting our allies. Today those who claim to be Mr. Reagan's heirs give us 'shock and awe' and a 'muscular' foreign policy that has lost its way and undermined valued friendships throughout the world."

On the front page of the NYTimes website:

A. O. Scott says Frank Oz has turned "a dusty, second-rate thriller from 1975 into a loud and shiny postmodern farce."

This quote above, which makes it sound like Scott lauds the film, appears no where in Scott's review. Here's the basic tone:

The Stepford Wives," Frank Oz's madcap re-engineering of a dusty, second-rate thriller from 1975, opens with a montage of happy housewives and their household gadgets. Making fun of images like these — smiling women in Eisenhower-era perms and evening gowns swooning over their automated kitchen cabinets — has become such a tiresome pop-culture staple that you may wonder if the movie, which opens today nationwide, has anything new to say about feminism, suburbia or consumer society. The answer is not really, but it does manage to fire off a handful of decent jokes and a few sneaky insights before losing its nerve and collapsing into incoherence.

The closest Scott comes to calling this movie a "loud and shiny postmodern farce" is calling it "a gaudy, noisy farce that perpetually threatens to spin out of control and eventually does."

How can we expect the NYTimes to get right the truth about Iraq if they can't even get right what's in their own pages?

Hawaiin Log Cabin Republicans are Freaking Weird

File under: "Whatever".

According to this article on Yahoo, Jeffrey Bingham Mead -- a self-described leader of Log Cabin Republicans in Hawaii -- is disbanding the group.

According to the article, Nat'l Log Cabin Republicans asked him to spearhead Hawaii efforts to overturn Hawaii's famous state constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Unlike most other Log Cabin Republicans, Mead prefers marriage to be defined as between a man and a woman. Referring to members of his group: "All of us, including me, believe that marriage is between one man and one woman. I offer no apologies to anyone," Mead said.

Also, he's angry that Republican governor Linda Lingle didn't hire him or other Log Cabin Repubiicans into her staff, seeing as the Hawaii Log Cabin group formed to defend her during her 2000 campaign against gay Democratic attacks. "I have been disappointed that the warm welcome we received from the Lingle campaign was highly elusive after the inauguration. I wish to make it clear that no gays or lesbians hired or appointed to staff, commissions or committees in the administration included members of the Log Cabin Republicans of Hawaii or its supporters," sayd Mead.

Going on, the National organization says the Hawaii chapter doesn't exist.
"There was no Hawaii chapter to disband," said Log Cabin Political Director Christopher Barron. Apparently, Mead's group was just an ad hoc organization which interacted with the Log Cabin Republicans.

Tommorrow: Mead isn't gay.

Bush Outsmarts us all

Of course! Why didn't I see it earlier!

Bush is using the classic Reagan technique: he is going to economically destroy terrorists, by deficit spending to the tune of $500B/year, forcing them into an arms race which will bankrupt them, destroy their economy, and cause a coup which will usher in a democracy!

Forward with the deficit spending!

A Stunning Op Ed

The editorial board of the WaPost makes a stunning statement about the Bush administration, saying: "There is no justification, legal or moral, for the judgments made by Mr. Bush's political appointees at the Justice and Defense departments. Theirs is the logic of criminal regimes, of dictatorships around the world that sanction torture on grounds of 'national security.'"

I don't remember the last time a serious newspaper accused a President of using the logic of criminal regimes and dictatorships.

Folks, this is no small thing. This begins to have the air of an impeachment hearing. Granted, the WaPost is not the WSJ -- but the WSJ is also following this story very closely, with two separate pieces on the website today. If the President is breaking international law, and our own laws, by permitting de-facto torture in Guantanamo Bay, how could he not be impeached?

Bush wanted to know in 2002: Can we torture these guys?

The WaPost is reporting that the CIA asked for and got legal guidance from the justice department: Can we torture members of Al Qaeda? The Justice department replied: "necessity and self-defense could provide justifications that would eliminate any criminal liability".

Oh, but nobody reads all those memos, you say? Not so. The memo's legal reasoning was used by a March 2003 Pentagon assessment of interrogation rules at Guantanamo -- an assessment written in response to a a request from Rumsfeld about Gitmo interrogation techniques.

It becomes difficult to claim that it was "just a few bad apples" when Defense was setting up a policy that will permit the US to use torture.

Read the article -- the memo contains legal advice on how to demonstrate you didn't use torture. Like, survey the professional literature on how to avoid significant, long-term psychological harm while inflicting pain and fear.

On the bright side: Dept. of Defense Lawyers protested -- no way, they said.

Danforth to be new U.N. Ambassador

A new representative to the UN! What great news!

WaPost is reporting that Bush named John Danforth, a former Republican senator from Missouri, as his nominee to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Hurrah! A new era of effectiveness and cooperation.

Danforth, 67, an Episcopal minister who has served since September 2001 as the president's special envoy for peace in Sudan...

uh oh....

The President, Off-Camera

Consider this characterization from the NYT of our President's announcement of George Tenet's resignation (thanks to Josh Marshall for calling my attention to it):

Mr. Bush announced the resignation in a way that was almost bizarre. He had just addressed reporters and photographers in a fairly innocuous Rose Garden session with Australia's prime minister, John Howard. Then the session was adjourned, as Mr. Bush apparently prepared to depart for nearby Andrews Air Force Base and his flight to Europe, where he is to take part in ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the Normady invasion and meet European leaders — some of whom have been sharply critical of the campaign in Iraq.

But minutes later, Mr. Bush reappeared on the sun-drenched White House lawn, stunning listeners with the news of Mr. Tenet's resignation, which the president said would be effective in mid-July. Until then, Mr. Bush said, the C.I.A.'s deputy director, John McLaughlin, will be acting director.

How does this sort of thing happen? I have one guess: Bush forgot that he was supposed to announce Tenet's resignation. Once he got off-camera, a member of his staff reminded him, patted him on the shoulder, and sent him back out into the lights. You cannot say that Bush was told about Tenet (for the first time) during this intermission, because he says he spoke to Tenet at length last night.

Note that this morning was really the President's last chance to get the announcement off before his trip to Europe for the upcoming D-Day commemorations: as the NYT excerpt points out, his next stop was Andrews AFB, and from there, France. Thus it represents as well the Administration's last chance to control (to any degree) the breaking of this - rather large - story. At that moment, Tenet was probably already orating in front of his audience at CIA HQ. There was no time to lose. Thus, some conclusions:

1. Tenet was not fired. I realize this may be hard to believe, but consider the facts: the timing could not be worse for the Administration - GT was supposed to stick around and continue stopping bullets (Iraq and 9-11 intelligence failures) until the election. Even the NYT thinks it stinks. And the proof in the pudding is this: they had about 10 minutes free in the President's schedule to make the announcement, and no time for him (or the Press Sec'y) to take any questions. Poor, poor, poor show indeed for this crowd (Rove!), if they were running the show. And I don't care what Rummy says - he's lucky to still have a job, much less be calling hits in on fellow Cabineteers.

2. Our President is an idiot. I don't want to go overboard on this, but - come on! What did you think Tenet was telling you last night, Mr. President? It's not like GT was going to give his swan-song to the assembled corps without allowing the President to break the news to the public ahead of any leaks from Langley. Obviously the timing was worked out in full the night before, in a frantic burst of activity that included a rejiggering of morning plans, preparation of the President's statement, review of Tenet's resignation speech, and discussion of Administration talking points (personal reasons!). Given all that activity, how could the President fail to realize he would have to read his statement after the meeting with Howard?

It's a doozy of a "To-Do" to forget, on a bright sunny Rose Garden morning. But I have a theory for this one, too. You see, it was decided (not by W) that he would be the one to deliver the news to the assembled press corps. This is an unpleasant task. Moreover, the whole situation is darned unpleasant, when you get right down to it - Chalabi and Plame investigations ongoing, the CIA in a high dudgeon and the polygraphs loosed - the sort of situation you'd rather have take care of itself, if it could. Of course, like many a nasty situation, it can't, or won't, and that's what gets most of us out of bed to work on them, eventually. So:

3. Our President seeks to avoid unpleasant tasks. Whether he deliberately tried to "skip out" on the Tenet statement, like some frat boy baseball jock skipping Calculus lecture, or not is irrelevant here - even if it slipped his conscious mind, that could only happen if he allowed himself to think of the statement as an unpleasant chore that he would really rather not do - And by the way, isn't there anyone else who can do this? Scott?

All of which would only indicate a perfectly human aversion to unpleasant tasks, except: (a) He's the President; and (b) It's not hard to appreciate that in this case: No, Mr. President, no one else can make this announcement but you. Really. His resistance (subconscious or not) to this plain-on-its-face political reality, more than anything else, is what convinces me that this little window we just got into the President's behavior off-camera is proof positive that he is, in fact, an idiot.

GWBush can't recall who Chalabi is

I saw a clip of this talk that Bush gave yesterday. Jon Stewart rebroadcast it, showing Bush tapping his forehead and saying "Chalabi, Chalabi, Chalabi...", not remembering who the guy is.

Jon followed up with "C'mon! This is the guy that sat BEHIND YOUR WIFE at the State of the Union address this year! They don't give those tickets out to the 8th caller!"

Wow. Are we really supposed to believe that he doesn't remember Chalabi? Will he start referring to Plame as "What's her face?"

At this point I'm willing to bet a coffee that Bush forgets the name Abu Ghraib before the November election.

Pile-on time for Tenet!

With Tenet now among the dearly departed, it's pile-on time for supporters of the Administration. In a now-familiar pattern, we can expect right-wing partisans of all shades to jump on this long-suffering public servant. For the record then, let's review past comments on his performance from the President himself:

• On CIA performance in the lead-up to the September 11 attacks (recall the Aug 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing from the CIA, which triggered no action of any sort): "I've seen no evidence... that this country could have prevented the attacks."
• After Tenet accepted responsibility for failing to remove the Nigerian Yellowcake assertion from the President's 2003 State of the Union address: "I've got confidence in George Tenet."
• Following the complete failure of David Kay and his Weapons Survey Team to find any of the promised WMD in Iraq: The President still has "great confidence" in Tenet (McClellan)
• And finally, on the occasion of his resignation: "He has been a strong and able leader at the agency. He's been a strong leader in the war on terror."

Now for the first on-piler: Tenet blamed for exaggerating Iraqi WMD capabilities by... Ahmed Chalabi! Talk about your Chutzpah!

Update! Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) in at second place: "There were more failures of intelligence on his watch as director of the C.I.A. than any other D.C.I. in our history." Oooh - good point, Rich! And under which Administration?

Tenet Gone, and Rummy has no idea what Tenet was talking about.

Bush announced CIA directory George Tenet has resigned, "for personal reasons". Meanwhile, Rumsfeld is out there making sure everyone knows that he has no idea what Tenet was talking about when the CIA fingered Chalabi as revealing to Iran that we had broken their Inteligence Service's communications code.

Smells to me like Rummy called Bush and said "You've got to can Tenet, he's cramping on my boy Chalabi, and now he's running a polygraph witch-hunt on my department. Oh, and by the way, i was the one who told him we've got Iran's codes. So unless you want to see open Defense Dept vs. CIA warfare during your election season, you should finish Tenet off but good."

NYTimes Takes on Bush's Planned Program Cuts

The NYTimes has an editorial which hits Bush on his cuts in popular federal programs in 2006, after the election. The also point out that Bush has submitted legislation which includes spending caps, which would further reduce these programs every year through at least 2009.

ooooh: The Bush "Kill the Veterans" plan: after a $380M cut in Veterans' health care in 2005, another $1.5B cut in 2006!

The total of these cuts will be $21B in 2006, and $45B in 2009 -- making these social services the smallest fraction of GDB since 1963. More importantly, it only amounts to 5% of the budget shortfalls of the past 2 years -- not at all making up for the deficit spending Bush has pushed.

The best statistic: the Bush tax cut for the wealthy accounts for 17x the amount of swing from surplus to deficit than increases in discretionary spending. In other words: the budget deficit is a giveaway to the wealthiest tax payers, and soon that give-away will be giving away the little we spend on Widows and Orphans.

Update on the Stanley Hallliburton Scandal

So, although the below is confusing, what appears to be ocurring is this: of the $1.7B to the TSKJ consortium paid by NNLG, about $180M was paid to a company called "Tristar" (you, know, "3 stars"). That's about 10% -- not unusual for, for example, a finders fee. That "company" is "run" by a London lawyer. Money sent to that "company" was then disbused to Swiss accounts owned by 3 people: Jack Stanley of Halliburton, the Nigerian Oil Minister, and the director of the TSKJ consortium.

To me, this sounds like the Nigerian oil minister, who is the buyer, says to Stanley: "We require you have an agent for this deal. We will pay the agent 10% of the total contract. We get to approve who the agent is." This is how a kickback to the oil minister would take place. What's a little unusual is that it seems Stanley and the director of TSKJ took a little off that kickback.

Also, it turns out (stated in the CNN article below) that, although Cheney was CEO of Halliburton KBR from 1995-2000, when the first contracts were negotiated with the minister, Stanley was under Cheney at KBR -- it's possible that Stanley greased his palms without Cheney knowing it. However, it's also possible that Cheney got in on the action, too -- but that would be a monumentally dumb thing for Cheney, who knows that you've got to be squeeky clean to be in public service, and that taking such a payment would kill his chances to be in gov't.

So What if Jack Stanley Was Getting Kickbacks? Was he simply following Cheney's established procedures?

As I mentioned below, according to French investigators reported in the WSJ, Cheney's successor as CEO at Haliburton's Root, Brown and Kellogg division apparently took a $5M payment, deposited into a Swiss bank account under his control, in connection with a $1.7B contract to expand a natural gas complex in Nigeria. The press reports aren't clear about who made the payment, and they are definitely not clear as to why. What is clear, is that the payments were made not for efforts begun by Jack Stanley, but for efforts begun by Dick Cheney.

The expansion is referred to as "Trains 4 and 5" -- contracts awarded in March 2002 by the NNLG collaboration (the Nigerian gov't, plus Agip, Royal Dutch/Shell, and French company ELF). Stanley was CEO when that contract was awarded. However, these are just add-ons to existing contracts, which were won by Cheney during his 1995-2000 tenure as CEO.

The first development contracts were awarded to Halliburton/RBK under Cheney's watch -- as described in the 2002 Haliburton press release . Trains 1 and 2 were awarded to Halliburton/RBK (as one of four companies in a collaboration referred to as TSKJ) in December 1995, while Cheney was CEO; Train 3 was awarded in March 1999, while Cheney was CEO. These facilities were worth $3.8B, a somewhat larger award than the $1.7B for trains 4 and 5.

So, one is compelled to ask: why is Cheney's successor getting $5M payments into a personal swiss bank account? who was paying him? and -- most importantly, since this involves our Vice President --- did the payment happen because of demands by Stanley, or were they made as continuing practice established by Cheney, who won the initial contracts for Halliburton? Update at 8:43 EST CNN is reporting details of the payment. It was one of many payments, discovered in investigating $180M payments by the TSKJ consortium to a Gibralter company "Tristar", which apparently only has one person associated with it -- a British lawyer named Jeffrey Tesler. Some of the $180M payments made by the TSKJ consortium to Tristar, instead went to to Swiss accounts controlled by Stanley, former Nigerian oil minister Dan Etete and William Chaudan, a director of a Madeira-based unit of the consortium.

The payments were made between 1995-2002 -- that is, they happened while Cheney was CEO at Halliburton's KBR.

Cheney's Halliburton Successor Apparently Receives $5M -- Kickback? Bribe?

Vice President Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton's Kellog Brown & Root (KBR) division from 1995-2000. KBR notably was awarded a contract from the US Dept. of Defense, without a bidding process, to provide support services such as gasoline supplies and fire control. Cheney's influence in the awarding of the contract came up again this week as an email surfaced, in which the awarding of the no-bid contract was "coordinated" with Cheney's office. There's probably no more water in that well -- expect official denials of wrongdoing, and what else is there for an honest person to pursue?

Tonight, however, the Wall Street Journal is reporting : "French investigators have found evidence that at least $5 million of a payment tied to a large Nigerian natural-gas complex was deposited in a Swiss bank account controlled by Jack Stanley, the recently retired chairman of Halliburton's KBR unit."

In March 2002, the Dallas Business Journal reported that KBR, under Jack Stanley, -- as part of a joint venture including France's Technip-Coflexip, Italy's Snamprogetti, and Japan's JGC Corp -- was awarded a $1.7B contract to perform engineering, procurement and construction at a $3.8B liquefied natural gas plant at Bonny Island, Nigeria. A Halliburton press release at the time says that the contract was awarded by Nigeria LNG (NLNG) Limited.
Background documents at the NLNG website , NLNG is owned 49% by the Nigerian National Petroleum company owned by the Federal Government of Nigeria; 25.6% by Shell Gas, 15.0% by the French company ELF, and 10.4% by Agip International.

What's not clear: who made the $5M payment? What was its exat purpose?

Krugman echoes Bob

Today's Krugman column at NYT echoes Bob's post from Thursday.

What I hadn't appreciated was that (a) All this information about FY2006 budget priorities came from an internal OMB memo leaked to the WaPo; and (b) Senior Administration officials had previously discounted a similar set of leaked figures as not reflecting Administration policy.

Oh! You mean that Administration policy - the budget priorities set by the White House OMB?

Umm... yeah. That one.

Election fraud

Bob, before your going away party in December, both you and I mentioned this problem to Bill. He said the exact same thing then as he does now which is "How come I haven't heard anything about it?"

When he asked this question back then, we dug up the articles that had been linked from 13D, showed them to him, described the problem inherent in using Windows, maintaining dual databases, how the Republicans were able to defeat the favored Democrat in a Georgia city for the first time in 125 years etc, etc, etc.

Since that day, we have had at least one voting fiasco. San Diego gave the wrong ballots to 7000 people during the primary, and they can't identify who those people are because there is no trail. The city declined to redo the election because it wouldn't change the outcome, although there is one change that they could have by redoing the election: it would change the integrity of the election. Also, if you cannot go back and show a 1:1 correlation of the votes (THIS person voted for THAT candidate), how can you possibly prove that election fraud occurred? The only reason this problem was caught in the first place is because more Republican ballots were cast than there were registered Republicans in the city. In a Presidential election where the only number that can be used as a parity check is the number of registered voters, it will be even MORE difficult to prove that fraud occurred.

Bill and Dad's attitude about e-voting and election fraud underline a more dangerous problem in relation to this issue: until there is proof that fraud occurred during an election, it will never stick out in anyone's mind that this is a problem. Because there is no trail, it will be almost impossible to prove that fraud took place.