Letters to the Editor
Frank Smith, Bluff City, KS
Published Letters: 131 Editor's Choice: 15
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Jena "idyllic?" Not hardly.
[Read the article: After Jena]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Jena should have been famous for something else, as well as the collective fate of the unfortunate six. It was the town where for-profit prison scamsters hooked Governor Edwin Edwards with six-figure bribes to build their gulag. Edwards is doing ten years in the Federal pokey for that lapse of judgment, snared by Patrick Graham, a Texas wire-wearer trying to reduce his own anticipated sentence.
Jena hosted the GEO Group prison where so many kids suffered broken bones at the hands of staff that a judge was forced to close it down for half a decade. It was the place where a brutal guard kneed a prone youngster in the back with such force that the boy's intestines exploded into his colostomy bag.
I'm delighted all those latter-day Freedom Riders showed, but they should have had a better look-around while they were there.
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Fairly usable translation
[Read the article: Report: Bush said he'd invade Iraq no matter what]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The European Tribune has a quick translation, complete with typos. Here's the URL plus an interesting snippet not carried in the Salon or other readily available sources, that shows that Bush was blackmailing or ready to blackmail other Security Council and U.N. member states:
http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2007/9/26/13028/3569
PB. Countries like Mexico, Chile, Angola and Cameroon must know that what's at stake is the security of the US and act with a sense of friendship towards us. [Chilean President Ricardo] Lagos must know that the Free Trade Agreement with Chile is pending confirmation in the Senate and that a negative attitude in this matter could endanger it. Angola is receiving funds from the Millenium Account and those could also be in jeopardy if they do not show a positive attitude. And Putin must know that with his attitude he is putting in danger the relations of Russia with the United States.
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Schmitz is from a much more bizzare background than portrayed
[Read the article: The Bush administration's ties to Blackwater]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Schmitz
Schmitz's dad was loony California state legislator, congressman, AIP fringe candidate for president, notorious philanderer. His daughter Mary Kay LeTourneau was the nutcase Washington state teacher who got involved in an affair with a little Samoan student in her class. He was so far right that he was expelled from the John Birch Society. He wouldn't let his kids attend Catholic school because it wasn't controlling enough.
The right wing, including Bush 41 and 43, have taken very good care of baby Schmitz.
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Couric toeing the line at CBS also
[Read the article: The liberal news media]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]When Couric first started at "60 Minutes" she led off with an interview of Condi Rice. Condi stated, regarding the invasion of Iraq, that the administration's intelligence, "was the best we had at the time." Couric let that monstrous lie slide by, despite the Downing Street Memo, despite Joseph Wilson, despite all the warnings about "Curveball," despite the regular resignations from the military and administration staff and the cabinet and the tell-all books that followed, despite the differing opinions from the French, Germans and others, despite Scott Ritter, despite reporting from Robert Fisk, Sy Hersch, Juan Cole and so many other truly well-informed correspondents, despite Chalabi's obvious distortions and perhaps worst of all, despite picking through the detailed mass of intelligence delivered by then-defector Hussein Kamal in 1995 to both claim proof of the existence of WMDs while at the same time denying the testimony as to their destruction, mostly back in 1991. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1845
To anyone who read Congressman Ron Paul's statements made on 10/3/02 and 10/8/02 and others made during the runup to the invasion, it was quite obvious that the information and predictions emanating therefrom as well as a cogent analysis of the facts (such as the hostility between secularist Saddam and theocrat bin Laden) were readily available to anyone in D.C. who spent a few hours thinking about them. http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul57.html http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul58.html
So for Couric to ignore all that information and to accept Condi's nonsense as not worthy of further probing leads one to believe that though she had left NBC, she retained the corporate "don't ask, don't tell" atmosphere that prevailed there.
I was so incensed at the time that I wrote Couric a lengthy snail mail letter on the subject. I received no response.
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Hey, do the math!
[Read the article: Let's abolish the Electoral College]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]To get rid of the present structure of the electoral college would require a constitutional amendment. An amendment requires ratification of 3/4ths of the states, 38 states.
There are 12 states that enjoy substantially disproportional representation in the electoral college since each gets two votes for their senators plus one (7) or two (5) more based on population, so therein lies a formidable constituency for retaining the status quo. (D.C. gets three votes but doesn't vote on amendments.) The 12 states have 3.78% of the population in 2000, yet had 7.62% of the electoral votes, 41 total electoral college votes. California has only 55 votes with 12% of the U.S. population.
Only two low population states, Vermont and Rhode Island, harbor significant progressive sentiments. Given the primacy of the principle that motivates the majority ("I got mine!") why would anyone dream that any would surrender that advantage?
Assuming none would be likely to ratify the amendment, it would have to garner approval from every remaining state in order to be ratified.
Fat chance!
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Don't ask, don't tell.
[Read the article: He's with the generals, generally]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Graham: "And, I am not gay!"
"And neither is Mitch McConnell."
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The Daily Show did a better job on Matt Lauer than Lauer did with Craig
[Read the article: Playing softball with Larry Craig]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Fortunately, I have never had any incentive to watch NBC "News" and Salon has even lessened that temptation.
I thoroughly enjoyed the Craig interview as excerpted by the editors at the Daily Show, narrated by Jon Stewart. It's all a matter of context.
The best part was where Craig's wife said that the Idaho Stateman's informant had a description of Craig's nether parts all wrong. How would she know? She's probably never seen Larry with an erection.