Wednesday, 07 June 2006

CIA Spider Web

Here's a pretty striking image of the 'spider-web' the US has woven of illegal detentions and transfers, with collusion of Council of Europe member states:


click to enlarge

Posted by flow Frazao on June 7, 2006 at 08:26 PM in America, Current Affairs, Iraq, Scary Bush, War on Terra | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 23 March 2006

Rumsfeld: What a Lucky Guy

First he makes a bundle off the Iraq War from his ties to Bechtel, and now he stands to reap a hearty profit from all the Bird Flu hysteria:

The prospect of a bird flu outbreak may be panicking people around the globe, but it's proving to be very good news for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other politically connected investors in Gilead Sciences, the California biotech company that owns the rights to Tamiflu, the influenza remedy that's now the most-sought after drug in the world.

Rumsfeld served as Gilead's chairman from 1997 until he joined the Bush administration in 2001, and he still holds a Gilead stake valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to federal financial disclosures filed by Rumsfeld.


Here's Gilead's press release announcing Rumsfeld's Chairmanship back in 97.

Posted by flow Frazao on March 23, 2006 at 12:30 PM in America, Scary Bush, Science, US News | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saturday, 28 January 2006

Iraq and Wire-tapping

Who would've thought that the Iraqis would wind up with more freedom than Americans (at least on paper):

"The freedom of communication, and mail, telegraphic, electronic, and telephonic correspondence, and other correspondence shall be guaranteed and may not be monitored, wiretapped or disclosed except for legal and security necessity and by a judicial decision."

Hopefully their government will be better at upholding their constitution than King George has done with ours.

Posted by flow Frazao on January 28, 2006 at 11:38 AM in America, Iraq, Scary Bush | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 26 January 2006

From the Dept. of Irony

Bush Says No To Hamas:

"President Bush, in an Oval Office interview, declared that he isn't ready yet to deal with the radical Palestinian Islamist group Hamas no matter how well it does in Wednesday's Palestinian elections. Speaking to The Wall Street Journal as Palestinians were electing a new parliament, Bush lauded the Middle Eastern trend toward democracy that produced Palestinian elections, but he said that Hamas isn't a suitable partner for diplomacy until it renounces its position calling for the destruction of Israel. 'A political party, in order to be viable, is one that professes peace, in my judgment, in order that it will keep the peace,' the president said.

Posted by flow Frazao on January 26, 2006 at 06:03 PM in Current Affairs, Scary Bush, World News | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 14 November 2005

The Evolution of Cognitive Dissonance

"This is not a pipe." - Renee Magritte, 1929


"I am not a crook." - Richard M. Nixon, 1973


"We do not torture." - George W. Bush, 2005

Posted by flow Frazao on November 14, 2005 at 02:08 PM in Scary Bush | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 17 February 2005

Social (In)Security Calculator

For those of you who are as confused as I am about Bush's Social Security Plan, here's a handy, easy-to-use online calculator provided for us by the good folks at the US Senate:

I'm not sure how they're calculating the numbers since Bush has yet to release ANY details about how he's going to cut the most popular social program in US history, but it's good fun nonetheless.

For more crazy wackiness, try this Google Maps query for "Miserable Failure in Washington DC".

Posted by flow Frazao on February 17, 2005 at 04:24 PM in Scary Bush | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 06 January 2005

Does Anybody Here Remember Jose Padilla?

Soj has written an excellent diary over at Daily Kos that should be required reading for every American. I'm reprinting it in full here because I enjoy indulging in plagiarism.


Does anybody here remember Jose Padilla?  I'm sure you recognize the name, but you've probably mostly forgotten about him, right?

I'm sure you know his story:


Born in the United States and an American citizen his entire life, Jose Padilla was "arrested" in Chicago's O'Hare airport by federal agents.  I say "arrested", although the better word is "detained" since to "arrest" someone means to take them into custody and charge them with a crime.


Attorney General Ashcroft praised the arrest, saying Padilla had plans to make a "dirty bomb" and use it in a terrorist attack in the United States although Padilla had absolutely nothing illegal on his person or in his baggage at the time of his "arrest".  Padilla was sent to a naval prison (brig) in South Carolina where he has been ever since.


Padilla has never been charged with a crime in conjunction with his 2002 "arrest".  Instead, the Justice Department has declared he is an "enemy combatant".  He is not allowed to see his family, his loved ones or a lawyer.


Can you imagine what you've been doing since May 2002? All the places you've gone, all the things you've done? Now imagine spending two and a half years in jail, not charged with a crime and unable to talk to a single friendly person, not even a lawyer.


Here's what Ashcroft said at the time:

"We have acted with legal authority both under the laws of war and clear Supreme Court precedent, which establishes that the military may detain a United States citizen who has joined the enemy and has entered our country to carry out hostile acts," Ashcroft said.

A volunteer and unpaid legal team was assembled to argue for Padilla's case even though they couldn't meet with their client.  A year and a half after Padilla's "arrest", a federal appeals court in New York said President Bush does not have the power to detain an American citizen seized on American soil as an enemy combatant:

The three-judge appeals panel in New York -- in a 2-1 ruling -- said the detention of Padilla wasn't authorized by Congress -- and that the administration cannot designate Padilla as an enemy combatant without that authorization.

The majority judges also note Padilla is accused of serious crimes, and that the government should pursue the case vigorously under civilian law.

Despite the ruling, the government refused to either release Padilla or charge him with a crime.  The government appealed the New York court's ruling and the case was heard by the Supreme Court.  First however they decided to smear Padilla further by making allegations against him against which he could not defend himself:

Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen held as a terrorism suspect for two years, sought to blow up apartment buildings in the United States in addition to planning an attack with a "dirty bomb" radiological device, the U.S. government said Tuesday.

At a news conference Tuesday, Deputy Attorney General James Comey said Padilla's partner in the attacks was to be Adnan El Shukrijumah, one of seven suspected al-Qaida operatives who the Justice Department cited last week as planning attacks on the United States this summer. Nicknamed "Jafar the pilot," the Saudi native once lived in Florida and has been sought by federal authorities for more than a year.

Al-Qaida officials, including Abu Zubaydah and Mohammed, were skeptical of Padilla's ability to set off a dirty bomb but were very interested in the apartment operation, Comey said. He said Padilla was trained on how to seal the apartments after turning on the gas.

Despite the statements of the Justice Department, Padilla was still not charged with any crimes relating to this - or relating to anything else.  Furthermore, Comey admitted that if Padilla had been charged with a crime he would not have been convicted!


Padilla's case finally made it to the Supreme Court in Rumsfeld v. Padilla (PDF) but was thrown out on a technicality - Padilla's case was originally filed in the "wrong" jurisdiction (New York instead of South Carolina) and thus his lawyers had to begin all over again at square one.


Well yesterday Padilla's lawyers were in court yet again, this time in front of a federal judge in South Carolina named Henry Floyd:

"Anyone the government says in an enemy combatant can be plucked off the street of any American city and detained indefinitely without charge," attorney Jonathan Freiman said. "The government essentially is asking for its own power to be permanently enhanced. It's a total restructuring of our constitutional system."

Judge Floyd said it will take him at least 30 to 45 days -- and maybe even longer -- to make a decision.

Padilla was designated an enemy combatant by the government and has been held at the brig at the Charleston Naval Weapons Station since his arrest, though he has not been charged with any crime.

This man has been in custody since May 2002... almost three years.  He's never been charged with a crime so he cannot defend himself in court against allegations that he is a terrorist.  Maybe he is one and maybe he isn't, but how are we ever going to know if the government refuses to present evidence against him in a court of law?


As many of you know, I used to work in law enforcement.  There were times when we were sure we knew who the "bad guy" was but didn't have enough evidence against him.  Did we arrest him anyway and throw him in a hole for three years? No, what we did was go out there and find the evidence.  If someone committed a serious crime then there is going to be evidence, you just have to work harder in some cases to obtain it.


I think it's time for a look at the 5th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Those are supposed to be our rights, not privileges.  If they can be taken away whenever the government feels like it, then they are not rights, they are simply indulgences.


I'll end with the famous poem from Martin Niemoller:


They came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me--and by that time no one was left to speak up.


If they can do this to Padilla, they can do it to me and they can do it to you.

Posted by flow Frazao on January 6, 2005 at 06:46 PM in Scary Bush | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 03 November 2004

And So It Goes

What America wants, America gets.


Posted by flow Frazao on November 3, 2004 at 12:42 PM in Scary Bush | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Friday, 15 October 2004

OK Seriously - What Is That Thing?

First of all, I'm not of the opinion that W was wearing an earpiece during the debates. His inarticulate performance made that fairly obvious. But he's definitely been wearing something:

The White House can continue to pretend the problem isn't there (a strategy they've been employing regularly for the past four years), or they can address the issue. What the fuck is that thing?

If I had to guess, I'd say that he's probably wearing a medical device. Perhaps something like this:

The LifeVest was designed as an intermediate-term treatment option for people at high risk for sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). Right now, people at a high, short-term risk of SCA are typically monitored in a hospital intensive care (ICU) or coronary care unit (CCU).

Patients with a high, long-term risk of SCA are often candidates for an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), but this option is also expensive (up to $65,000) and requires surgery.

The LifeVest fills the therapeutic gap between hospitalization and an ICD. The LifeVest has the same important characteristics of both an ICU/CCU and the ICD; it continuously monitors the heart and is designed to provide prompt defibrillation when needed.

If this is what he's wearing, the question immediately becomes "Why does the President need to wear it?" Does the President have some sort of medical condition of which the American people should be made aware?

I blog, you decide.

(Photos via Kevin Drum, many more photos here)

Posted by flow Frazao on October 15, 2004 at 05:13 PM in Scary Bush | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Saturday, 09 October 2004

Bush Goes Mental

I couldn't believe it last night when Bush started yelling at the moderator (windows/mac). No wonder the guy was in such a hurry to start dropping bombs - his anger management skills suck.

And just in case you missed it, George W. Bush does, in fact, own a timber company:

Bush got a laugh when he scoffed at Kerry's contention that he had received $84 from "a timber company." Said Bush, "I own a timber company? That's news to me."

In fact, according to his 2003 financial disclosure form, Bush does own part interest in "LSTF, LLC", a limited-liability company organized "for the purpose of the production of trees for commercial sales."

So Bush was wrong to suggest that he doesn't have ownership of a timber company. And Kerry was correct in saying that Bush's definition of "small business" is so broad that Bush himself would have qualified as a "small business" in 2001 by virtue of the $84 in business income.

From factcheck.org (the site Dick Cheney tried to refer voters to a few days ago).

Posted by flow Frazao on October 9, 2004 at 11:45 AM in Scary Bush | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack

Thursday, 05 August 2004

Why Does George Bush Hate America?

Finally the truth:

"President Bush told a roomful of top Pentagon brass on Thursday that his administration would never stop looking for ways to harm the United States.

The latest installment of misspeak from a president long known for his malapropisms came during a signing ceremony for a new $417 billion defense appropriations bill that includes $25 billion in emergency funding for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we," Bush said."

What a dumbass.

Posted by SmooveJ Zao on August 5, 2004 at 03:13 PM in Scary Bush | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 03 August 2004

Bush eases EPA pesticide approval

In case you missed it:

"The Environmental Protection Agency will be free to approve pesticides without consulting wildlife agencies to determine if the chemical might harm plants and animals protected by the Endangered Species Act, according to new Bush administration rules."

How these people can sleep at night is beyond me.

Posted by SmooveJ Zao on August 3, 2004 at 10:37 AM in Scary Bush | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 30 June 2004

Lawmakers Ask Ashcroft Why Suspect Freed

Imagine that you were a cop and you had a guy in custody who had trained in an Afghan militia camp, provided money to convicted terrorists, and had been implicated in a plot to blow up the Holland Tunnel in New York City. Would you let him go?

Neither would I. But that's exactly what John Ashcroft did:

"AP reported June 2 that the Bush administration earlier this year set [Nabil] al-Marabh free to Syria, a country regarded as a state sponsor of terrorism, even though prosecutors in several cities sought to bring criminal cases against him and judges openly expressed concerns about al-Marabh's possible terrorist ties.

The U.S. attorney in Chicago at one point even drafted an indictment against al-Marabh and interviewed a jailhouse informant who alleged al-Marabh admitted he had been plotting to blow up a gas truck inside a New York City tunnel, according to documents reviewed by AP.

FBI and Customs agents gathered evidence al-Marabh had trained in Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s militant camps, sent money to a roommate convicted in a foiled plot to bomb a hotel and was tied to overseas financial transactions that raised red flags even before Sept. 11.

Al-Marabh "intended to martyr himself in an attack against the United States," an FBI agent wrote in a December 2002 report. A footnote in al-Marabh's deportation ruling last year added, "The FBI has been unable to rule out the possibility that al-Marabh has engaged in terrorist activity or will do so if he is not removed from the United States."


Now, both parties in Congress are starting to ask questions:
"The circumstances surrounding Nabil al-Marabh's release, detailed in a recent Associated Press story, are "of deep concern and appear to be a departure from an aggressive, proactive approach to the war on terrorism," Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote Tuesday in a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft.

"Al-Marabh was at one time No. 27 on the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) list of Most Wanted Terrorists," wrote Grassley, who leads the committee that controls federal spending and also is a member of the Judiciary Committee that oversees the Justice Department. "He appears to have links to a number of terrorists and suspected terrorists in several U.S. cities."

The Iowa Republican repeatedly cited the AP story and demanded that Ashcroft answer 19 questions about al-Marabh's case, including why the Justice Department didn't prosecute the man they had in custody for nearly two years either in a military tribunal or through a secret court proceeding that could protect intelligence information.

Grassley also asked Justice to detail what has happened to other terror suspects that appeared on the same post-Sept. 11 terrorism list as al-Marabh.

Aides to Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, have also made some preliminary inquiries into the case."


This is not a case of partisan sniping. It is a matter of national security - an area where the Bush Administration, despite their claims, has failed and continues to fail miserably.

Bush and his cronies have not only inflamed Arab hatred with an illegal, unjustified war, they've also been sending terrorists back to their homes instead of prosecuting them.

Posted by flow Frazao on June 30, 2004 at 08:25 AM in Scary Bush | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 25 June 2004

Bush Gives Tense Interview in Ireland

It's interesting to see Bush sit face to face with an interviewer who asks him real questions. He obviously has absolutely no idea how to deal with it so he just goes ahead and makes shit up:

Bush was asked whether he was satisfied with the level of political, economic and military support coming from European nations in Iraq.

"First of all, most of Europe supported the decision in Iraq. Really what you're talking about is France, isn't it? And they didn't agree with my decision. They did vote for the U.N. Security Council resolution. ... We just had a difference of opinion about whether, when you say something, you mean it."


Maybe if he read a newspaper once in a while he might have a clue. For those who don't remember, this was the scene in Europe during the rush to war:
From New York to Johannesburg, millions of people hit the streets last weekend in the largest collection of anti-war demonstrations since the Vietnam War. The biggest, record-breaking protests were in the countries whose governments have allied themselves with Bush: Rome (one to three million) and London (750,000 to one million).

So much for the "coalition of the willing" that Bush has promised to lead to war if the UN Security Council won't back him. The people who live under the NATO governments that are backing Bush, according to European polls, are overwhelmingly against a war without UN approval: Britain (90 percent), Italy (73 percent), Spain (90 percent), and Turkey (94 percent).


It would be funny if wasn't so frightening - Bush is simply not attached to reality. There's not much an interviewer can say to a response that's so far removed from the truth.

The interview continues on, and at one point Bush is actually forced to consider the possibility that he has not singlehandedly delivered the world from evil:

When Coleman said most Irish people thought the world was more dangerous today than before the Iraq invasion, Bush disagreed and responded, "What was it like Sept. 11th, 2001?"

Talk about a one-trick pony.

Words really don't do this interview justice. The real video link is here. If you've got the time and can bear to watch the smirking chimp, it's definitely worth checking out.

Posted by flow Frazao on June 25, 2004 at 08:23 AM in Scary Bush | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 22 June 2004

From One Who Knows

Although Bush hasn't been enjoying the same kind of free pass he was given over the past few years, it's still somewhat rare to hear a person within the establishment criticize Bush with full force. It seems as though the only people willing to do so are those who are actually old enough to personally remember what fascism was actually like:

A prominent federal judge has told a conference of liberal lawyers that President Bush’s rise to power was similar to the accession of dictators such as Mussolini and Hitler.

“In a way that occurred before but is rare in the United States…somebody came to power as a result of the illegitimate acts of a legitimate institution that had the right to put somebody in power.That is what the Supreme Court did in Bush versus Gore. It put somebody in power,” said Guido Calabresi, a judge on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which sits in Manhattan.

“The reason I emphasize that is because that is exactly what happened when Mussolini was put in by the king of Italy,” Judge Calabresi continued, as the allusion drew audible gasps from some in the luncheon crowd Saturday at the annual convention of the American Constitution Society.

“The king of Italy had the right to put Mussolini in, though he had not won an election, and make him prime minister. That is what happened when Hindenburg put Hitler in. I am not suggesting for a moment that Bush is Hitler. I want to be clear on that, but it is a situation which is extremely unusual,” the judge said.

Judge Calabresi, a former dean of Yale Law School, said Mr. Bush has asserted the full prerogatives of his office, despite his lack of a compelling electoral mandate from the public.

“When somebody has come in that way, they sometimes have tried not to exercise much power. In this case, like Mussolini, he has exercised extraordinary power. He has exercised power, claimed power for himself; that has not occurred since Franklin Roosevelt who, after all, was elected big and who did some of the same things with respect to assertions of power in times of crisis that this president is doing,” he said.

The 71-year-old judge declared that members of the public should, without regard to their political views, expel Mr. Bush from office in order to cleanse the democratic system.

“That’s got nothing to do with the politics of it.It’s got to do with the structural reassertion of democracy,” Judge Calabresi said.

His remarks were met with rousing applause from the hundreds of lawyers and law students in attendance.

Judge Calabresi was born in Milan. His family fled Mussolini in 1939 and settled in America. In 1994, President Clinton appointed the law professor to the federal appeals court that hears cases from the states of New York, Connecticut, and Vermont.


Of course, if the press picks this up, Calabresi will be vilified. But at least he's saying what needs to be said.

Posted by SmooveJ Zao on June 22, 2004 at 12:54 PM in Scary Bush | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Monday, 07 June 2004

A Fitting Tribute to Ronald Reagan

There has been, and will continue to be, a lot of talk about how to honor our 40th President. Instead of putting his smiling face on a coin or on Mount Rushmore perhaps we should give him the memorial Nancy Reagan has asked for:

In a rare appearance last month, former first lady Nancy Reagan spoke at an event to raise money for embryo stem cell research. She hoped, she said, that others would benefit from research on such diseases as Alzheimer's, which had afflicted her husband, Ronald.

"Ronnie's long journey has finally taken him to a distant place where I can no longer reach him," she said. "Because of this, I'm determined to do whatever I can to save other families from this pain."

Reagan, 82, who was married to the nation's 40th president for 52 years, had been by the ailing president's side, particularly as the family publicly acknowledged his bout with the disease 10 years ago. Reagan's recent public support of stem cell research, however, has put her at odds with other Republicans, including President George W. Bush, who opposes the research.

Still, Reagan, whose support carries much clout, is doing what she says she has to do. "I just don't see how we can turn our back on this," she said at the fund-raiser.


Luckily, not all countries have been taken over by fundamentalist regimes. The UK has recently opened the world's first stem cell bank, and Australia announced today that it would distribute embryonic stem cell lines free of charge to scientists who want to use them for research. Many scientists believe that embryonic stem cell research has the potential to yield
profound insights into a range of afflictions, including Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease. Sadly, the Bush Administration has made it illegal to distribute federal funds to American researchers who work in what has quickly become the most active areas of biological discovery.
Although the first human embryonic stem cell line was created in the United States, the majority of new embryonic cell lines - colonies of potent cells with the ability to create any type of tissue in the human body - are now being created overseas, a concrete sign that American science is losing its pre-eminence in a key field of 21st-century research. Nearly three years ago, the Bush administration prohibited the use of federal funds to work with any embryonic cell lines created after Aug. 9, 2001, because of moral concerns over the destruction of human embryos. At the time, the president said there would be more than 60 lines of these cells available. But today there are only 19 usable lines created before that date, and that number is never likely to rise above 23, according to the National Institutes of Health.

However, the number of cell lines available to the world's researchers, but off-limits to U.S. government-funded researchers, is now much higher: at least 51. It could rise to more than 100 over the coming year. There are three new lines in Dvorak's lab, with four more in progress. And there are also new lines in Sweden, Israel, Finland, and South Korea. Last week, the world's first public bank of embryonic stem
cells opened in Britain, a country where there are at least five new lines and more on the way.

"Science is like a stream of water, because it finds its way," said Susan Fisher, a stem-cell researcher at the University of California at San Francisco. "And now it has found its way outside the United States."

Posted by flow Frazao on June 7, 2004 at 09:06 AM in Scary Bush, Science | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack