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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
gandhi
Published Letters: 264
The most inane part of it all is ...
Actually, the most inane thing is that these newspapers are losing readers and money at a record rate, and fretting about the challenges posed by online competition, and yet they still treat their readers with such contempt.
Seriously, the whole 8 years of the Bush Administration's crimes is the greatest story never told. And yet the media still won't touch it.
Why? Because the big media businesses in Teh USA are part of the global corporatocracy, and the dudes who run that game are happy to lose money hand over fist as long as they can hold on to power.
Now, you might think that these fools should exit stage right ASAP, having bogged themselves down in Iraq and brought the US economy to the point of collapse. But you haven't been paying attention to their bottom line: the richest of the rich have grown even more obscenely rich at an historic rate ever since Bush was elected (actually it started under Clinton, but that's another story). Why should they quit now?
McCain's campaign can be summed up with one word: "NONSENSE". It doesn't matter if it's true or not, it doesn't even need to make sense. This is pure political theatre for the masses who watch Nascar and MTV.
I know an awful lot of people who voted for Bush in 2004 and quickly regretted it, but defended their decision by saying they "just could not vote for that awful John Kerry." Hopefully they have all learned their lesson, but I wouldn't bet on it.
The man who advised the White House to start taking Cipro on 9-11 was Jerome Hauer.
Although he is now the director of the Office of Public Health Preparedness (OPHP),he still sends intimidating emails to bloggers who ask too many questions.
http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2007/02/meet-jerome-hauer-911-suspect-awaiting.html
http://winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2008/06/fan-mail-from-some-flounder-important.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Hauer
The anthrax letters were addressed to Daschle and Leahy. Why those two in particular?
At the time, Daschle was the Senate Majority leader and Leahy was head of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Both were identified in the media as holding up the proposed Patriot Act (signed into law on October 26, 2001) because of concerns that it would violate civil liberties.
Conclusion? Whoever did this was trying to push through the Patriot Act!
Now if somebody thought it was a good idea to have a “New Pearl Harbour” like 9-11, mightn’t they think that getting the Patriot Act though in the aftermath was also critically important?
Two points regarding the FBI's inept handling of this case...
Firstly, FBI head Robert Mueller personally turned this case into a media circus early on. This is from (http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/itsonlyfair/latimes0362.html) an old LA Times story:
On Oct. 15., 2001, Mueller assigned the anthrax investigation to Van Harp, a veteran FBI official. A photo editor in Florida had already died mysteriously from anthrax about a week earlier. But the onslaught of biological terrorism was not recognized until an aide to the U.S. Senate majority leader opened an envelope Oct. 15 on Capitol Hill, unleashing a plume of powdery material and a wave of national fear.Harp learned that this investigation would not follow FBI procedures for strict confidentiality. For starters, Mueller instructed him to brief U.S. Sens. Thomas Daschle (D-S.D.), then the majority leader, and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Each had been intended recipients of anthrax letters.
FBI officials wanted to assure the senators that the bureau was "very aggressively investigating the case," Harp testified. Nevertheless, sharing confidential investigative information was, he said, "an unusual step."
The same link details how media helicopters were ahead of the FBI on several occasions, indicating some serious leakage and/or a concerted attempt to smear Hatfield. (Note the role played by New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof here).
At one point, Roth and other FBI officials tried to trace who was accessing the central computer file in which all investigative interviews and other developments were stored. Roth said the file was "an open book," used by "a huge group of people."... [FBI Director Robert] Mueller resisted when an official recommended a criminal probe of the leaks, with mandatory lie-detector tests for the anthrax investigators, Roth testified. The FBI director raised a hand and said, " 'I don't want to do that. . . . It's bad for morale to go after these people,' " Roth said.
Mueller testified that he did not recall the episode.
Here's one little incident that perfectly illustrates how the FBI went after Hatfield:
An FBI employee drove over Hatfill's foot, prompting Washington, D.C., police to ticket him for "walking to create a hazard."
Can you believe it? They drove over his foot and then charged him with walking the wrong way!
Secondly, it would be very interesting to know whether the DoJ hindered the progress of this investigation. I've seen reports of Feds being ready to press charges but DoJ holding things up. One can only wonder if that has anything to do with the politicization of the DoJ under Bush.
BTW Interesting that Spertzel doesn't think Ivins did it:
"USAMRIID doesn't deal with powdered anthrax," said Richard Spertzel, who worked with Ivins at the Army lab. "I don't think there's anyone there who would have the foggiest idea how to do it. You would need to have the opportunity, the capability and the motivation, and he didn't possess any of those."
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2008/0804/1217628485411.html
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
