Why Bill O’Reilly Should Boycott Minnesota

Christmas ‘warrior’ and triple ‘Polkbody’ award-winning ‘Paris Business Review’ Founder and Editor-in-Chief Bill O’Reilly declared July 7, 2009 as “a sad day for America” in his ‘Reality Check’ segment on the O’Reilly Factor because…. “Al Franken is now a U.S. senator”.

Why so sad? Well, “Franken is a blatantly dishonest individual, a far-left zealot who is not qualified to hold any office, a man who trafficked in hate on his failed Air America radio program. With people like Franken on the Hill, this country is in deep trouble.”

“If you want proof,” said O’Reilly, “check out Page 96 in my book Culture Warrior.”

Of course O’Reilly could have provided his 'proof' right then and there on his show (or provide it on his website, or on FOX’s website, or in one of his syndicated columns, or on his radio show) but really, why should he just give his 'proof' away for free when he can sell it to you via his book? Or, you can just take his word for it---just like Bill himself does.

But anyway, whilst America’s innocent eyes brim with tears and its nose starts to run because Al Franken is now a Senator, Bill O’Reilly is no doubt looking for some way to cheer America up—but how?

Maybe he could call for a boycott of Al Franken’s state of Minnesota? After all, as Bill told Heather Malick of the Toronto Globe and Mail whilst threatening Canada with a boycott over two conscientious objectors to the Iraq War who had sought refuge over the border:

“…they’ve lost billions of dollars in France, according to the Paris Business Review”

And if you want proof of that claim as well, well unfortunately the Paris Business Review doesn’t have a page 96 (or a page anything, as it was entirely a figment of Bill’s imagination) but you CAN check out his July 6 response to Jack Mathews’ June 28, 2004, New York Daily News column in which Mathews described O’Reilly as an ideological thug who plays fast and loose with the facts:

“First, Mathews writes that an O’Reilly Factor-led boycott if France did not economic damage to that country”, Bill harrumphs, before delivering a defiantly inert ‘no-spin’ O’Reilly Factor ‘fact’: “According to U.S. government figures, in the months following the boycott call, France did $138 million less business with the USA than it did the previous year.”

Of course France’s January and February figures (being the months in question) in the year before Bill’s Brie and baguette boycott even existed, were slightly worse----on account of the usual, utterly predictable annual drop in French exports to the U.S. every January and February since probably the American Revolution.

But the point is that Bill was able to 'prove' (after two months spent executing a two-second Google-search) that (notwithstanding the utter non-existence of the Paris Business Review) the fact remained that France had lost a number of ‘–illions’ (billions, millions, the actual word for the actual number isn't important) immediately AFTER his call for a boycott!

And the ‘fact’ that rabid bears hadn’t been admitted into the Boy Scouts to teach the homosexual agenda at the exact same time was just a bonus that Bill was simply too modest to mention.

And the only reason France actually finished 2004 with a billion-dollar increase in its U.S. exports was undoubtedly only due to Bill signing-up for another tour in the War on Christmas (which by the way, he won, once again, as he does every year).

So if we are to learn anything from history (even though there’s obviously no point because, as George Bush essentially observed; ‘we’ll all be dead by then’) it is that a Bill O’Reilly-patented boycott of Minnesota (especially in the midst of a deep economic crisis) could be just the thing to put a non-liberal-fascist smiley face back on America’s down cast visage!!.

So wipe those tears from your eyes and the snot from your nose, you ‘little-guys’ of America that Bill O’Reilly look’s-out-for from his non-elitist Long Island mansion!

Lift up your hearts and boycott Minnesota like you did France—because when the O’Reilly Factor ‘facts’ finally come in from the Minnesota Mercantile Bugle, you will be able to see the proof of your victorious stand against reality by buying Bill O’Reilly’s inevitable next best–selling book, on a page Bill himself will personally recommend to you—but only if you really need proof of course.

And then when Minnesotans hear Bill tells them what happened to their state’s economy, like France did, they’ll think extra-hard about whom they choose to represent them next time!

Beyond Palindrome: One Bimbo Enters, One Bimbo Leaves

On Friday, July 3rd 2009 ex V-P candidate Sarah Palin quit her job as Governor of Alaska whilst still in her first term, despite any particular evidence of the type of fiscal or moral corruption that usually triggers such actions.

Sarah Palin quit four different colleges and universities before finally earning her bachelor’s degree in Communications-Journalism.

She quit her second term on the Wasilla County Council to run for Mayor of Wasilla.

Leaving Wasilla (population 3,000) $25 million in debt, she then ran for Lieutenant Governor of Alaska.

Though losing the Lt. Governor position to State representative Lisa Murkowski (appointed by her father, then Governor Frank Murkowski), Palin was appointed to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and served as its Ethics Supervisor.

Winning the Governorship in 2006 on an ethics reform platform, she rejected a pay raise and an appointed chef, but on other hand claimed per-diem expenses whilst frequently at home.

In her 2008 State of the State Address she stated that “we cannot and must not rely so heavily on federal government [funding]” but she’d had no problem supporting Senator Ted Stevens’ infamous $442 million dollar “Bridge to Nowhere” and though that project was canceled, had no problem accepting the funds for general transportation purposes.

Eighteen months into her Governorship, Palin accepted the offer to run as John McCain’s Vice President during which she lied about her previous support of the “Bridge to Nowhere” and the acceptance of its original funding for other purposes.

Palin also claimed credit for what she described as an active “40 billion-dollar” gas pipeline project when in fact the project was estimated at the much lower figure of $26 billion, and in fact not only was it not active but she’d paid TransCanada Pipelines $500 million for what amounted to a feasibility study (of which there is as yet no obvious sign of being conducted).

As thus described her political resume is typical of most politicians---savvy expediency served political success.

But Palin wasn’t chosen as the GOP V-P candidate for her own political savvy or policy experience, but for the expedient requirements of Conservative “intellectuals” and machinators (like William Kristol) who faced an alarming “regime change” as their expected “permanent Republican majority” was shrinking so small that it was about to be “drowned in a bathtub”.

An old ‘White Elephant’ representing the past, who became the GOP front-runner by default, was losing in the polls to a young (semi-) black man and an established white woman, both of whom represented an enticing future.

Palin was desperately picked as an ‘affirmative action’ candidate to steal the Democrats’ dynamic thunder and Hillary’s nationwide support on the assumption that women can be persuaded to vote with their vaginas (and Republican men with their penises) and not with their brains. Palin was supposed to split the Democratic Party vote by virtue of both her sex and her youth.

But whilst sex sells product, it doesn’t necessarily sell policy and as stupid and easily manipulated as the larger American electorate appears to have been in the past, the majority in 2008 weren’t buying—not least because they simply couldn’t afford-to, either literally or figuratively.

When Palin was finally permitted by her GOP handlers to expose herself to primetime national media vetting, her most challenging inquisitors were Charlie Gibson (a 19-year veteran of fluffy morning TV ‘newstainment’ who’d embarrassed himself representing GOP talking points as valid questions during a presidential ‘debate’) and Katie Couric, another morning TV veteran best known for her incessant perkiness and general vapidity.

Perhaps because of the near universal criticism of Gibson’s pathetically biased debate mediation, Gibson took a tougher approach with Palin and ‘tut-tutted’ her for her clueless response when asked to articulate “The Bush Doctrine”---but he also came across (to me at least), despite the validity of the question, as a sanctimonious dick suddenly puffed-up with freshly minted gravitas.

Presumably the subsequent interview with Couric was supposed to provide a more even playing field; ex-cheerleader to ex-beauty pageant queen. But even the naturally friendly Katie Couric was visibly baffled and progressively amazed at Palin’s inability to name a single newspaper or magazine that she read, even though Couric gave her time and several opportunities to do so.

It is notable that the public’s estimation of Kate Couric’s qualifications as a primetime news anchor rose significantly after that interview (especially as she followed up in the press with some intelligent candid reflections of what Palin had revealed about herself as a prospective Vice-President).

When Palin dismayed even the ultra-accommodating and effervescent ‘Queen of Nice’, what chance would she have against her domestic political opponents, let alone foreign ones?

From that point on only the most fawning of the media establishment would be allowed one-on-one access to Palin---Greta von Susteren of FOX News proved to be the ideal, as there was a lull in missing-blond-female-teenager activity at the time and Greta’s hubby was functioning as a Palin consultant.

Twenty-four hours after her announced resignation as Governor of Alaska, for reasons she’s claimed to have explained but that no-one can fathom, the present prognosis is that Palin is essentially just “a quitter”, that she has no spine.

I’m not sure that’s really fair, at least in the sense in which the charge is being presented---she didn’t quit on her formal education, and for over 10 years she didn’t quit on her political ambitions either.

I think a fairer assessment is that she’s simply a self-absorbed congenital simpleton, perhaps most amply evidenced by the fact that in the one subject in which she can claim any kind of peer-reviewed (as opposed to vested interest-reviewed) qualification—“Communications-Journalism” she was and remarkably still is utterly clueless.

From the first to the last she has always found fault with the media pointing out her faults—the most significant being her inability to bullshit consistently even to the industries of politics, P.R. and journalism for whom bullshit is largely their stock-in-trade

Whatever the reason Palin has decided to quit her official job, I’ve no reason to believe it’s because of some personal epiphany that she just doesn’t have the skills to fulfill her ambitions and the ambitions of her deranged supporters. In her view she isn’t quitting, rather everyone around her is quitting her. One can’t help but abscond-with and manipulate Norma Desmond’s classic lines from Sunset Boulevard:

Joe (The Plumber): "I know you. You're Sarah Palin! You used to be in presidential politics. You used to be big!"

Sarah: "I am big! It's the politics that got small!"

Sarah: "We didn't need policy! We had outfits!"

Palin claimed in her rambling resignation speech that her quitting the Governorship job was her decision and a selfless act yet still falsely blamed the media for viciously kicking her in the shins---and to think she might have been elevated to the highest leadership positions in the world!

In Sarah Palin's world, she's still claiming leadership by quitting because she got kicjed in the shins If it works for her, it works for me and dare I say it, it works for America too,

Soccer Bitch

On Wednesday June 24^th the US Men’s National Soccer Team (US-MNST) beat European Champions Spain in the FIFA Confederations Cup and will now face Brazil in the Final in South Africa on Sunday, June 28th.

“All in all, a great moment for the sport we call “soccer” but the rest of the world refers to as “football” gushes Gary Schmitt.

Who is Gary Schmitt and why are his observations of American 2-0 victory against Spain in the world’s most popular team sport particularly relevant?

Well, although Schmitt is a luminary of the Project for a New American Century (the organization that brought us the Iraq War), and an American Enterprise Institute ‘thinker of tanks’ (mostly of oil tanks but also of Abrams tanks) he’s also quite the aficionado of what the rest of the world calls “The Beautiful Game”, but that he artfully calls "The Not-so beautiful Game”.

After all, as he writes:

“As someone who didn’t play soccer growing up, but had a dad who did and whose own kids played as well, I can say unquestionably that it is the sport in which the team that dominates loses more often than any other major sport I know of. Or, to put it more bluntly, the team that deserves to win doesn’t.”

In other words, having grown up in an environment where everyone except him played and enjoyed soccer, Schmitt’s extensive experience of having actually ‘heard-of’ the game informs his profound opinion that soccer is fundamentally unjust and therefore un-American.

And for this state of affairs to be “okay” with his “soccer-loving friends” who "argue that it’s a healthy, conservative reminder of how justice does not always prevail in life”, Gary Schmitt’s mature and scholarly rejoinder is “Well, hooey on that. And, thankfully, Americans are not buying it”

(Well-done, Americans, for not buying soccer-hooey! Also; well-done for not buying American cars either!)

Though admitting that “one can drive by an open field on Saturdays and usually see it filled with young boys and girls playing soccer,” and though acknowledging that the game has grown in the US, the fact that soccer has failed to garner the same attention and commercial investment as Baseball, Basketball and What-Americans-Call-Football (but that the rest of the world doesn’t call ‘soccer’) is, Schmitt suspects, because “the so-called ‘beautiful game’ is not so beautiful to American sensibilities.”.

In other words, soccer is inherently and irretrievably un-American and real Americans (like himself) aren’t fooled by its supposed egalitarianism and generally democratic appeal, at all.

As Schmitt explains:

“We (--non-sporting, balding, Americans named Scott Schmitt--) like, as good small-“d” democrats, our underdogs for sure but we also still expect folks in the end to get their just desert (sic). And, in sports, that means excellence should prevail. Of course, the fact that is often not the case when it comes to soccer may be precisely the reason the sport is so popular in the countries of Latin America and Europe.”

(Where the former is too-poor and the latter is too-socialist to accommodate illegal drug-fueled sporting excellence).

So for all you down-sized, foreclosed-on, health-care-bankrupted, retirement-savings-depleted, terrorism-targeted Americans out there looking for a little joy in the victory of the underdog US Soccer Team beating the best in the world, get a grip!

International soccer is just another expression of European socialism and Latin-American welfare masquerading as competition! It’s just a cheap knock-off of copyrighted and trademarked ‘American Free-Market Competition’ that falls apart as soon as you buy it!

After all, what’s so great about the US Soccer Team ‘winning’ against a team of socialists in a socialist game played worldwide by poor not-Americans? By buying into this non-American sporting welfare system where the undeserving get to win all the time, the US team players are actually complete losers, contaminated with the cooties of European Socialism and endemic Hispanic poverty!

Real Americans don’t measure their victories and superiority by the rest of the world’s standards! Globally-acknowledged excellence is exclusive to real America, determined solely by Real Americans, in America!

Who wins The World Series? Americans do! And how do they do that? By using American steroids supplied by the world’s best doctors who are part of the world’s most profitable health insurance and pharmaceutical systems, that’s how!

So just remember folks, anyone who celebrates the US Men’s National Soccer Team’s victories is actually un-American and if the US beats Brazil on Sunday and actually wins the Confederations Cup, it will just be a victory for socialism, illegal immigration, abortions, gay marriage, high speed rail, and the anti-Christ Barack Obama.

If the US soccer team succeeds in the global market and the MLS then becomes a real competitor to Real American sports franchises like the WWE and Monster Truck racing, the free-market system will be destroyed and the Islamo-fascists and their socialist sympathizers will have won!

So everybody, on Sunday, pray for America to lose to Brazil, so that the symbolic socialism of soccer can be shown to be uncompetitive and un-American. And if the US wins, ask God to damn the US team and all it’s supporters to hell for secret socialists---to do otherwise would be to deny American exceptionalism.

What could be more American and more Republican than hoping ‘America’ loses whilst a Democrat President sits waiting and hoping to congratulate the National Team for their success? That’s how America’s newly self-appointed soccer-bitch sees it, and in the words of Walter Cronkite, “and that’s, the way it is.”

h/t to Matt Yglesias

Bill O’Reilly: “Out Damned (Advertising) Spot”

Before Dr Tiller was even buried, journalists and pundits weighed-in on whether ‘alleged’ murderer Scott Roeder was aided or abetted in his actions.

Conservative opinion insisted Roeder was an internally-driven lunatic “lone wolf”.

Liberal opinion charged that conservative-dominated media rhetoric encouraged Tiller’s killer, and that Bill O’Reilly appeared to be the most obvious enabler.

O’Reilly was not-surprisingly outraged at the accusation that the 28 episode segments of his show over the past 4 years devoted to Dr. Tiller---in which O’Reilly variously described Dr. Tiller as a “baby killer”, that he was guilty of “Nazi stuff”, that the doctor was the moral equivalent of NAMBLA and Al-Qaida and that Tiller “destroys fetuses for just about any reason right up until the birth date for $5,000."---might have provided ANY motivation for a fervent anti-abortion demonstrator to kill his philosophical and ‘moral’ opposite.

(Above "photoon" by 5thEstate).

O Reilly 'debunked' the accusations in his June 3^rd Talking Points Memo:

"Monday night we told you about the murder of George Tiller, the late-term abortion doctor in Kansas shot dead by an anti-government militant while he attended church last Sunday. We also told you that NBC News and other ultra-liberal outlets were blaming me and FOX News for inciting the killer.

"Now we have the murder of 23-year-old William Long, an Army private allegedly murdered by a Muslim militant in Arkansas. Police say 24-year-old Abdulhakim Muhammad, aka Carlos Bledsoe, a convert to Islam, told the cops he killed Private Long and wounded another soldier because of what the military had done to Muslims.

So here is my question: Is NBC News complicit in the murder of Private Long? After all, that network has relentlessly branded the United States as a torture nation, a country run by human rights violators. Didn't NBC News incite Mr. Muhammad to kill the soldier?

The answer is no. The killer is a loon. The media had nothing to do with it. That is the truth.”

Bill O’Reilly was absolutely correct! Of course NBC had nothing to do with Private Long’s murder, because NBC didn’t spend 4 years and 28 episode segments specifically accusing Private Long of mass-murder as O’Reilly did with Dr. Tiller.

Of course by exonerating NBC with regard to Private Long’s murder, O’Reilly also exonerates himself of culpability too (by the power invested in him by,…umm…him) under the collective innocence of “the media” whose only supposed responsibility is to report, and then let the viewer decide---“We Report, You Decide!”

Unfortunately this pat corporate phrase only helps to undermine Bill’s argument of his innocence; as he said himself in the New York Post on June 3rd:

"Even though I reported on the doctor honestly, the loons asserted that my analysis of him was "hateful." Chief among the complaints was the doctor's nickname: "Tiller the baby killer." Some pro-lifers branded him that, and I reported it”

Well Bill, the exact charge against you (and your ilk) is that you did indeed “report” and Shroeder decided, based open what you ‘reported’---which weren’t all facts, by the way, but overwhelmingly hyperbolic distortions and lies. .

Now, granted O’Reilly didn’t directly tell Shroeder to kill Dr. Tiller, but as a self-appointed moral authority figure Bill did say on June 12th 2007:

“If the state of Kansas doesn't stop this man, then anybody who prevents that from happening has blood on their hands as the governor does right now, Governor Sebelius."

And three days later Bill revisited his bloody theme and his demands for action:

"No question Dr. Tiller has blood on his hands. But now so does Governor Sebelius. She is not fit to serve. Nor is any Kansas politician who supports Tiller's business of destruction. I wouldn't want to be these people if there is a Judgment Day. Kansas is a great state, but this is a disgrace upon everyone who lives in Kansas, is it not?"

Now what ‘right-thinking’ citizen, listening to Bill’s ‘reports’, wouldn’t want to avoid the moral stain of having “blood on their hands” from failing to “stop this man” that Bill repeatedly described as a “baby killer”?

And then, apart from Bill’s insistence that his particular four-year long rhetorical campaign against Dr Tiller couldn’t possibly have encouraged Shroeder’s violence, is the contention that the constant repetition of a particular message in the media as a whole has no impact on human behavior.

If that were the case, why does anyone advertise? Why does any place multiple ads? Why do corporations make adverts that appeal to emotions rather than simply reporting the factual details of their products? Why do politicians have advertising campaigns to persuade people to vote get elected?

O’Reilly’s multi-million dollar salary is based not on the actual intellectual superiority, practicality or moral rectitude of his opinions, but on the fact that around 2 million people a night are persuaded to constantly buy his philosophical product, and can also be persuaded to buy whatever crap is advertised along with it.

O’Reilly (and his ilk) advertised that stopping “Dr. Tiller, the baby-killer” would wash off the guilty “blood on their hands” from anyone who was the “first on their block” to buy the moral outrage that was being sold and act upon it. .

Now he’s claiming his promotions and advertising have no effect. So why does he advertise his own merchandise, and why does anyone advertise on his show?

Because promotion and advertising DOES motivate people, and Bill damn well knows it.

Like Lady Macbeth, Bill O’Reilly “doth protest too much” and try as he might, he can’t wash the blood off his hands.

:

Dr. Tiller, The Law and the 'Fear of God'

Last weekend, after years of attacks by religious anti-abortion groups against himself his property and his staff, lawful abortion specialist Dr. Tiller was finally killed in the foyer of his church; long-time religious militant abortion opponent Scott Roeder is now charged with his murder.

Two years ago in Denver, Colorado, another abortion protest incident occurred in the foyer of a place of worship which also involved militant abortion opponents. In that particular case the local police responded immediately and no-one was killed.

In the subsequent trial of the accused, the litigant's spokeswoman asked the judge to "consider the safety of ministry employees and visitors" when handing down the sentences.

Did you catch that?

The incident that the police so efficaciously reacted-to did not involve a confrontation between legal abortion providers and abortion opponents, but rather between two factions of the anti-abortion movement and with the aggrieved party asking for future protection from harassment and possible violence.

WTF?!!

After years of vandalism, fire-bombing, death threats and an assault with a deadly weapon by members of religious groups, Scott Roeder was observed by eye-witnesses and recorded on videotape in felony acts by attempting to sabotage the locks on Dr Tiller's clinic---a federal offense under the FACE act.

The clinic provided the local police with the evidence of Roeder's felony and the police did absolutely nothing.

That left Roeder free to take his anti-abortion crusade to the next level in which he "allegedly" murdered Dr Tiller in a church foyer a few days later.

Granted, an act of vandalism is no predictor of murderous intent, but it is an indicator of violent tendencies. Furthermore Roeder had to know he was committing a federal offense and he had to know he might be exposed by the clinic security cameras, yet he took the risk anyway.

So, two years prior to Dr. Tiller's murder, extreme abortion opponents terrorized another establishment that was also protected by FACE statutes.

As the vigilant (and subtly snarky) Wendy Norris of the Colorado Independent reports:

Rev. Bob Enyart, a pastor at Denver Bible Church who proudly refers to himself as "America's most popular self-proclaimed right-wing, religious fanatic, homophobic, anti-choice talk show host" was sentenced to nine days in the city pokey after refusing to pay a $400 fine for trespassing on the Focus [on the Family] campus.

Enyart, his brother Brian and fellow Denver Bible Church pastor Kenneth Scott were convicted May 8 [2009] in a one-day trial after the trio staged a Sept. 4 [2008] protest in the reception area of the multi-million dollar Christian ministry and publishing empire.

Got that? Two hyperbolic 'Christian' political factions got into a spat in the foyer of what passes for a place of worship, the police stepped in the whole thing got settled in a court of Law.

The FACE Act which was originally designed specifically to protect legal abortion clinics from aggressive and disruptive protest actions also contains protections for "places of worship" too---which is why FACE passed the Republican-controlled Congress at the time.

As the Colorado Independent reported at the time of the confrontation:

Bob Enyart's 2007 one-hour sit-in at James Dobson's place of worship was supported amongst others by the extremely militant Operation Rescue director Flip Benham.

Focus spokeswoman Lisa Anderson asked the judge to consider the safety of ministry employees and visitors when handing down the sentences.

In other words Focus on the Family wanted a deterrent judgment against the defendants and not just a routine misdemeanor punishment, for fear of further and more aggressive incidents.

The Colorado dispute revolved around Bob Enyart's belief that FotF needed to be more militant in its anti-abortion activities.

As Enyart had the support of Operation Rescue---which despite the FACE Act had been physically attacking Dr Tiller's clinic for years ---Lisa Andersen had good reason to fear continued harassment and possible violence against FotF members from Operation Rescue and its faithful, even though they were both supposedly on the same side.

Arguably Enyart could have been charged under the FACE Act instead of common Trespass but the fact remains that this single non-violent act of harassment by one very militant religious group against another less-militant one was dealt with effectively by the local authorities.

In comparison the Wichita police were provided with all the evidence they needed to arrest Scott Roeder immediately and charge him with a federal crime. They could have involved the FBI. Roeder could have been held on bail and if he made bail he could have been monitored by the FBI whilst awaiting trial.

Instead, nothing was done.

Dr Tiller is now dead, his clinic now closed, his employees now unemployed and women are further denied their legal and medical rights.

Meanwhile radical officially 'religious' groups use the particulars and principles of secular law for their own convenience and benefit even as they refuse to abide by them and seek to overthrow them, actively or passively abetted by supposedly secular authorities.

Scott Roeder was encouraged by religious leaders, his actions given justification by certain media authorities, his act enabled by the criminal negligence of the Wichita police and culpable Federal authorities.

When a religious organization in Colorado felt threatened by another more militant religious group, secular authority acted on mere trespass, but when a secular organization in Kansas had been attacked multiple times with vandalism, fire-bombings and assaults with deadly weapons and given clear evidence to act, Wichita authorities did nothing.

If Focus on the Family feared Operation Rescue and it's violent ilk (despite their common cause), shouldn't those they commonly opposed fear even more?

And shouldn't the Wichita police have been more aggressive in exercising the authority of the law when they possessed clear evidence of a federal offense?

It's not 'God' we should fear, but rather the "fear of God" and the lack of fear of the self-professed institutional "God-fearing" zealots and the negligent deference constantly provided them by supposedly secular authorities.

Note: As I was composing and editing this post over Thursday /Friday it turned out that the obvious conclusions I drew from this small comparative study are indeed symptomatic of an endemic problem, as evidenced by this story from Friday:

Bush DOJ Failed to Enforce Federal Law Protecting Abortion Providers Anti-abortion Extremists.

Religious White Christians Can’t Be Terrorists--Part II

It seems I wasn't the only one to notice the disparity of Dr. Tiller's murderer being charged only with murder, whilst Private William Long's murderer is being charged with murder, attempted murder and 16 counts of "terroristic" acts'.

On the cross-post over at The Zoo, houseofroberts commented "5th, I’ve heard three different talk show hosts use this same comparison on their shows, SINCE you posted yours."

Last night, Rachel Maddow spent a significant portion of her show addressing the exact same issues I'd already written about, the day before her show.

Coincidence? .....Definitely! In a nation of 200 million-plus mass-communication-connected adults unique observations on a national story are going to be very hard to come-by!

But Rachel Maddow drilled a little deeper than I did.

She asked a former FBI counter-terrorism agent how it was that Private Long's murderer under an active FBI 'watch' for a year, Muhammad/Bledsoe had acquired an "arsenal" of weapons.

She also asked how Dr Tiller's murderer, Scott Roeder, had complete freedom of movement when the FBI had been provided with multiple positive witness and security videotape identification of Shroeder violating federal FACE statutes multiple times and particularly just a few days before Dr Tiller's murder?

The former FBI agent responded with a statement of fact--for whatever reason, the 'system' failed--a disappointing analysis but fair-enough on its face; nothing is perfect.

With regard to both Shroeder and Mohammad, two murders which might have been prevented nonetheless unfortunately and tragically were carried-out.

But whilst not all crimes can be wholly predicted and thus prevented, treatment of the perpetrator after the fact should be and usually is quite predictable.
Crimes are measured in degrees of severity of harm and judged and punished accordingly; for example in cases of death distinctions are made between premeditation, accident, and willful negligence and these distinctions also hold true for non-lethal physical injury or financial/material injury.

So, in my previous post I argued that the charges against Shroeder and Muhammad should actually be reversed, or at least more equal.
Shroeder had a known history of intimidation and indiscriminate violent intent and was connected with a well-financed movement with a history of terroristic acts, whilst Muhammad's history presents nothing comparable--Muhammad seems to be a 'first offender', yet Muhammad is having 'the book' thrown at him whilst Shroeder isn't even facing the death penalty, despite it being an option

The "terroristic acts" that Muhammad is being charged-with are connected to those bystanders present at Private Long's murder. There's no public information as yet (to my knowledge) as to how these bystanders/witnesses where actually exceptionally terrorized.

(Everyone who watched 9/11 unfold were surely "terrorized" too --in fact the Bush administration made sure of it, after the fact--but Usama Bin Laden hasn't been charged with millions of counts of "terroristic acts", has he?)

Shroeder "allegedly" murdered Dr. Tiller in the foyer of his own church, during a service. It would appear one other usher was a material witness to Dr. Tiller's murder, as he informed Mrs. Tiller who was in the choir at the time. Is there not then a case for at least two counts of "terroristic acts" against Scott Shroeder? Apparently not.

So after the fact, Shroeder and Muhammad are being treated differently for the same crime--public politically- and religiously-motivated murder.
The former is being treated just a murderer, the latter however is a special case--a terrorist (which means a non-combatant; which means he can be held indefinitely, without corroborated evidence and who can be tortured at a whim. Shroeder meanwhile as a mere murderer is entitled to a public defender and the entire panoply of the US appeals system).

Now all the above is pretty much covered in my original post, so why the sequel?

Well, riddle me this, batperson/blogreader!!!


Radio-host Hal Turner — accused of hosting a website that incited Connecticut Catholics to "take up arms" and singling out two Connecticut lawmakers and a state ethics official — was taken into custody in New Jersey late today after state Capitol police obtained an arrest warrant for him.

SO, New Jersey State police (NOT the FBI) arrested a known racist (and pal of Sean Hannity, incidentally), Hal Turner, of simply inciting violence against officials of another state!.

What does this have to do with Shroeder, Muhammad, politically- and religiously-motivated murder and the responses of secular and egalitarian legal authorities?

Welllll....

Hal Turner has multi-year history of inciting violence.
Scott Shroeder has a multi-year history of being incited to violence.
Muhammad/Bledsoe has about one year (by the FBI's reckoning) of being incited to violence

Hal Turner was just arrested for simply inciting violence, by local police, even though to the best of anyone's knowledge no-one has acted on his incitements (interestingly he's also apparently been an FBI informant precisely because of his connections with extremists).
Scott Shroeder had a public record of violent intent and was an active participant in agressive demonstrations promoted by "pro-life" anti-abortion organizations that have a record for inciting violence and praising violence against its "spiritual/intellectual"and political enemies.
From their extremist ranks, extreme 'Christian soldiers' have sprung who have terrorized and murdered for the anti-abortion cause--which is to render abortion in any form, illegal.
(Except natural abortion of course, otherwise known as miscarriage. When God Himself kills babies it's perfectly okay, even though godless sinners may have the capacity to prevent miscarriages through the application of secular, sinful, medical science).

Scott Shroeder, even though he was known to the FBI and to Wichita locals, even though he had publicly expressed violent tendencies and participated in threatening actions towards a specific individual, even though he had bee proven to have violated anti -terror FEDERAL law multiple times, was NEVER arrested fopr his actions, let alone his own incitement or his propensity for being incited by others.

And those organizations that incited Shroeder, and continue to incite others to violence, were likewise allowed to continue and remain untouched by federal and local authorities.

Muhammad/Bledsoe, a newly-minted 'terrorist' with no local support whatsoever faces the maximum punitive weight that Federal authorities can bring to bear against him.
Shroeder, on the other hand is faced with the minimum sanctions available.

And yet Hal Turner who hasn't killed anyone or personally threatened to kill anyone or even engaged in any targeted property damage has been arrested by local authorities for verbally threatening 'across state lines' ( that's the only way I can express it).

Anyone CAN be arrested for verbal threats--it happens all the time, and when such official action is taken it usually results in a misdemeanor charge.

So why, if Hal Turner can be arrested by local police on one instance of 'verbal' (communicated) threats (supported by a record of threatening verbiage) wasn't Scott Shroeder with a record of aggressive behavior and proof of violation of federal law also arrested by either local or Federal law enforcement?

And why wasn't Muhammad/Bledsoe (under investigation for a year apparently) hauled-in for simple questioning at least, as the FBI is authorized to do? Did the FBI need him to actually commit a criminal act before charging him with anything?
Compare Muhammad/Bledsoe's case to that of any other 'domestic terror plot' the FBI has supposedly thwarted in the past 8 years. The ONE time a domestic MUSLIM 'terrorist' actually kills someone symbolic of US hegemony, and the FBI has to LET SOMEONE GET MURDERED before they DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT?!!!

By these three examples (and those that have gone before) it is evident to me that the rule of law and jurisprudence is not merely inconsistent but dangerously (and stupidly) so.
And the culprit for this regression of legal form and practicality appears to me to be an inordinate tolerance (to say the least) of the concerns of a minority of organized religious fanatics with no interest in democratic principles and the secular law that derives from those principles, in exchange for a temporary voting advantage that through temporary advantageous results became a perceived 'enduring' electoral advantage which has thus encouraged its most direct beneficiaries to sustain and promote minority sensibilities as a universal societal ( and thus political 'Zeitgeist'.

Thus a lone dark-skinned non Christian neophyte murderer is charged with 16 counts of terrorism, a white Christian practiced in terror tactics is charged with simple murder.

The 'spanner in the works' is the arrest of a white 'Christian' simply threatening violence.
But the example of Hal Turner's arrest dozen't actually refute the arguments I'm making:

Turner isn't part of a powerful religious/political entity. He's easily swept-up by the authorities. He's insignificant.

But Shroeder actually represents powerful domestic political interests, so he enjoys some some protection from the full force of the law (as do the organizations that encouraged him).

Muhammad/Bledsoe , through his religion, represents a political entity that has no relevant domestic power and thus is much easier to condemn than Shroeder.

Thus the discrepancies in the application of the law between the three of them.

One nation, indivisible, with liberty and equality for all"?

How much evidence does anyone need that this is not the case, not by a 100 miles?

And how much evidence does anyone need that protection from terrorism, that "National Security", and justice and the rule of law are still utter farces?

American Christian fundamentalists are more of a danger to the the rule of law and the principles of the US Constitution than any violent threat by their extremist foreign Islamic counterparts.
American 'Christian' extremists don't have to resort to the tactics of Al Qaeda because the 'Christians' have powerful options; they have the world's most powerful country and a gullible forgiving public that they can and do manipulate for their own ends.

Al Qaeda killed nearly three thousand in one day for their cause--their stupid criminal, venal jihad.
The US has likely killed 100-times that number in a misdirected response driven by an equivalent sense of Christian "jihad", led by a 'Christian' idiot president, loudly supported by a 'Christian' idiotic voting flock.


And here in the cases of Muhammad and Shtoeder, we see the same partisan allowances for politically privileged white 'Christians' in a nation where supposedly "all men are created equal" where religion and politics werer supposed to be divided, and where secular law was supposed to enshrine and support all the ideals the Constitution sow wisely provided.


These founding ideals hang by a thread, and the extremist 'Christians' , most clearly embodied by the pro-life movement, will kill to see that thread cut.
And yet despite all the evidence, they still have what is a reasonable hope of getting-away with the murder of the Constitution and all that it entails, for GOD.
And they are prepared to kill anyone who gets in their way because whatever retribution they may suffer in the process, they will still be comforted by the tolerance of others and the legal institutions the extreme 'Christians' nonetheless seek to destroy.
Thus white Christian Scott Shroeder faces a single charge he can appeal by the graces of secular law, whilst dark-skinned Muslim Muhammad faces either death or life with no parole--for the exact same crime.

And our legal system and all its policing authorities are allowing this inequality of judgement and punishment to pass unhindered and our pliticians are allowing it all to pass unremarked.


l

Religious White Christians Can't Be Terrorists

On Sunday May 30, 2009, in Wichita, Kansas, Dr George Tiller, a specialist in late-term abortion procedures, was murdered in the foyer of his church during a service.

On Monday, June 1, 2009, in Little Rock, Arkansas, Private William Long was murdered and Private Quinton Ezeagwula was wounded outside a military recruiting station.

Dr. Tiller’s ‘suspected’ murderer, 51-year old Scott Roeder, faces “possible first-degree murder charges, according to the Kansas City sheriff’s department.”

Private William Long’s ‘suspected’ murderer is 23-year old Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad (formerly known as Carlos Leon Bledsoe). Muhammad was apparently being investigated by the FBI's Joint Terrorist Task Force since his return from Yemen (after his religious conversion).

Muhammad was “not part of a larger group or part of a conspiracy” (according to Lt. Col. Thomas F. Artis of the Oklahoma City Recruiting Battalion) but was nonetheless driven by "political and religious motives" (according to the Little Rock police) and will be charged with capital murder and 16 counts of committing a terroristic act.

So Scott Roeder is facing one count of murder (and two counts of aggravated assault) whilst Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad/Carlos Bledsoe is being charged with murder and sixteen counts of terrorism?

In 1996, when Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad was 11 year-old Carlos Leon Bledsoe, Scott Roeder was a 38 year-old member of the anti-government Freemen group and was charged in Topeka for having bomb components in his car (for which he served 16 months in jail and 8 months on probation before the conviction was overturned on appeal due to issues with the search of his car).

Roeder was known to Morris Wilson, a commander of the Kansas Unorganized Citizens Militia in the mid-1990s, who said "I'd say he's a good ol' boy, except he was just so fanatic about abortion. He was always talking about how awful abortion was.”

According to CNN, Roeder’s associates describe him as a regular participant in anti-abortion demonstrations in Kansas City and Wichita---a characterization corroborated by one worker at the Kansas City Central Family Medicine clinic, who said that Roeder was “hard to miss” because of his height. Roeder had been interrupted several times trying to disable the locks of the clinic with epoxy, but was never convicted. Another employee of the clinic memorized Roeder’s license plate number.

Roeder has spent at least the last 8 years physically interfering with Dr Tiller’s legal and medically necessary practice with the explicit or tacit support of a network of “pro-life” religious organizations that have been pandered-to and encouraged-by the GOP, the Catholic Church and influential media personalities who have been calling abortion providers “mass-murderers” for the past 30 years or more.

And then, convinced of his ‘moral’ duties Roeder succeeded in killing Dr Tiller where others before him had failed.

Over the past 8 years Carlos Bledsoe, along with a growing number of Americans that has become a majority in the past two years, apparently became aware of the constant killing, mass arbitrary incarceration and torture of non-Christian human beings---babies, children, women and men---by a US military under orders from a wholly Republican and Christian government; and presumably convinced of his own ‘moral duty’ decided to side with the Muslim faith and then ‘protest’ by murdering a new Army recruit as blameless as anyone for the actions of the organization he’d just joined.

Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad/Carlos Bledsoe apparently acted on his own volition and without any 30 year-long explicit or implicit support from issue-specific organizations propped-up by a major political party, or exhorted to action by any media personalities with long standing social and business relationships with the same.

Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad appears to have been driven to an act of murder solely by the brief evolution of private personal convictions.

Scott Roeder, on the other hand, joined an anti government militia and then later the powerfully-represented and politically well-connected anti-abortion movement as a mature adult and acted in accordance with behaviors encouraged and praised by a long established national network of well-funded anti-abortion organizations whose members have consistently resorted to violence and murder in opposition to perfectly legal and majority public supported medical policy.

No one with national media access has appeared to defend or explain Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad’s actions, whilst Scott Roeder on the other hand is being offered affirmation of the morality of his actions by the likes of Reverend Rusty Thomas of Operation Save America and Randall Terry whose Operation Rescue organization moved from California, where it began, to Wichita Kansas specifically to terrorize Dr Tiller into closing his clinic.

Bill O’ Reilly insists that his ‘reporting’ on Dr Miller over the past four or five years has been entirely fact-based---despite the fact that O’Reilly has for example presented as ‘fact’ at least twice on his show that Dr Miller would perform abortions “any time, for no reason, for five thousand dollars”, which is simply a lie.

So one 23 year old with no evident history of political activity, incitement to violence, proof of violent intent nor any trace of material support for violence is now about to be charged with terrorism as well as murder.

At the same time one 51 year old, known to have been a member of an anti-government militia, known to have manufactured bombs and known to be a regular member of the politically supported anti–abortion movement that has a decades-long record of death threats, of bombings and of murder, faces NO terrorism charges.

“George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God. I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller’s killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name; murder. Those men and women who slaughter the unborn are murderers according to the Law of God” —Randall Terry of Operation Rescue, June 1 2009

And what's the analysis from a presumably less-extreme, more impartial and respectable religious figure?

"Yes, both Scott Roeder and Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad acted independently in their crimes this week. But while Scott Roeder’s ideology was just the fruit of his own psychological imbalance, Abdulhakim’s ideology is shared by dozens of well organized groups and thousands of men and women who have done harm to our country in the past and have sworn to wreak greater havoc on our homeland and military in the future.

Proof of this important distinction between the nature of these two tragic events has been the unanimous condemnation of Scott Roeder’s crime by every major pro-life group in our nation. That’s on the one hand. On the other hand, we get nothing but silence from the leaders of the particular strain of Islam that Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad studied in Yemen.

In other words, it is crystal clear that Scott Roeder, the man suspected of killing Dr. George Tiller, in no way represents the pro-life cause he heralded, while Abdulhakim will be considered a hero by many of his fellow Islamists whose cause is the destruction of America and Christianity in particular."–(emphasis added)--Father Jonathan Morris, Roman Catholic priest and FOX News Religion Contributor.

The Holy and Most Reverend Father Miller of the tax-exempt, child-molesting Catholic Church and ‘Christian’ foot-soldier of a nationwide multimedia propaganda arm of politically active religious Conservatives is doing exactly what the anti-abortion religious right has been doing for decades—ignoring the cumulative results of their own rhetorical persuasions on those who take the message to ‘serve God’ and punish the wicked according to God’s Will to heart and thus murder in God’s name according to the message of God’s ordained representatives and self appointed champions.

Apparently despite three decades of consistent death-threats, intimidation, arson, attempted bombings, successful bombings, attempted murder and assassinations directed at a select group of people for the specifically political cause of denying a majority of Americans their legal and constitutional rights in pursuit of the overthrow of a democratically determined secular law, religious white Christians Conservatives simply can’t be organized terrorists—that distinction is reserved strictly for Muslims.

Hurricane Ike Information Embargo: Politics, Economics and the Media

AP photo

Within hours of hurricane Katrina’s passing all the major TV news organizations had crews on the ground and in the center of the disaster.

It has now been four days since hurricane Ike made landfall and where are the major news teams? Has anyone seen even a 15-minute report on MSNBC, CBS, ABC Fox or CNN on the aftermath of Ike over the past four days?

Of course the financial news that broke on Monday and is continuing to break every day this week is the new big story but the only other major interest of the media apart from economics at the moment is politics, in the form of Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin.

Well, Ike is a significant economic story that is being excluded from the news.

Whilst Fannie Mae and AIG are being promised collectively around $100 billion in taxpayer bailouts the cost of Ike is currently roughly estimated at about $18 billion which is hardly chump-change.

It is unclear if that estimate includes the damage to the inland oil-processing plants and the offshore rigs that comprise 20% of the national oil infrastructure. If there’s any significant damage to the facilities will the oil companies demand taxpayer-funded disaster relief proportionate to that being offered to individual citizens? Given that they’ve consistently been handed tax breaks over the last few years despite making record profits I see no reason for them not to claim poverty once again—and of course bolster such claims as being an issue of “national security”.

Ike is also a significant political story.

In 2005 Bush staged a photo-op in NOLA to deliver “the message” he said he was going to deliver at an earlier Rose Garden press conference which he’d already iterated, and then having delivered the message he left, turning out the lights he’d brought with him and leaving NOLA in the dark again.

On Monday Bush said to the press:

“I'm going down tomorrow. I'm looking forward to going down. Members of my administration will be going down. We're looking forward to hearing from, you know, the local folks. I'm confident there will be people that are very frustrated because their lives have been severely affected by this storm. My message will be that we hear you and we'll work as hard and fast as we can to help you get your lives back up to normal”.

Once again, anyone with a working television and an interest in what the President had to say would have heard Bush’s message then, without Bush visiting the area where most of the victims of Ike wouldn’t be there to hear his message personally due to them either having evacuated days before and having been instructed not to return or due to them still being stuck in the attics of their flooded homes and without power.

There is also the political issue of how authorities are treating Galveston and its environs compared to NOLA. Toxic FEMA trailers apparently haven’t been deployed this time. The hardest-hit communities of Galveston Island and the Bolivar Peninsula had no higher-ground stadium in which to gather for relative safety so there have been no scenes of huddled masses desperate for aid. This time the mass evacuation appears to have been more organized and pets, the elderly and infirm and those without their own transportation were accommodated. It would seem that the DHS and FEMA have learned at least something from Katrina.

The authorities were quick to report to the Associated Press that some 2,000 people stranded by flood water had been rescued by Monday.

I watched one such rescue live on MSNBC; a fit-looking man about 25-30 years old who had decided to stay-put despite all the warnings and despite the fact that his home sat atop a bait-shop that stood on stilts at the end of a low jetty that jutted-out about 100 yards into the Gulf. The jetty had vanished, the shop had been completely demolished and the second floor apartment was left perched precariously on the remaining stilts most of which were far from upright. When he was brought to shore by the helicopter the MSNBC reporter at the scene asked him about his decision to ‘ride-out’ the hurricane but at that point he dismissed the question and quickly walked away (and got a friendly lift in a police car to points unknown).

On Tuesday evening ABC ran a 5-minute (at the most) report interviewing a couple (or three) of people who had stayed behind and were now trying to pick up the pieces. One reported that he had already encountered some break-in attempts at what was left of his property and declared his intent to shoot anyone else who might try the same. This was repeated with the others interviewed in the piece and their attitudes were greeted with a chuckle by the ABC anchor back in the studio as the report was wrapped-up: “Well of course, it’s Texas!”

Such a report contradicted earlier statements by local interviewees elsewhere claiming that everyone would help each other in the circumstances. Obviously an attempted break-in would have to be conducted by another local. The word ‘looting’ never passed the lips of the interviewees or the reporters, in contrast to its judicious use regarding events in NOLA.

In fact according to a combined ABC/Associated Press report

“During house-to-house searches in Galveston, about 1,500 people were found to be safe, according to ABC News affiliate KTRK. Five dead bodies were also found. Eleven looters were arrested, and one person was airlifted out of the area with hundreds of mosquito bites. “

In 2005 MSNBC reported: “With much of the city flooded by Hurricane Katrina, looters floated garbage cans filled with clothing and jewelry down the street in a dash to grab what they could.

In some cases, looting on Tuesday took place in full view of police and National Guard troops. At a Walgreen’s drug store in the French Quarter, people were running out with grocery baskets and coolers full of soft drinks, chips and diapers.

Looters filled industrial-sized garbage cans with clothing and jewelry and floated them down the street on bits of plywood and insulation as National Guard lumbered by.”

Whilst grabbing jewelry and clothing in such circumstances is certainly looting in my view, grabbing food, water and hygiene products isn’t—especially when such products would be claimed on insurance anyway, as the DHS and FEMA weren’t supplying people properly and as the National Guard stood by and let it happen (and quite rightly). I note also the repetition of the “jewelry and clothing’ claim and the addition of “industrial-sized” adjective to the original and ordinary “garbage cans”.

Further in the article it was reported:

“At a drug store on Canal Street just outside the French Quarter, two police officers with pump shotguns stood guard as workers from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel across the street loaded large laundry bins full of medications, snack foods and bottled water.

“This is for the sick,” Officer Jeff Jacob said. “We can commandeer whatever we see fit, whatever is necessary to maintain law.”

As Dr. Greg Henderson wrote in an e-mail on August 30^th, 2005

"I am now a temporary resident of the Ritz Carlton Hotel in New Orleans.

[…]

We have a group of armed police here with us at the hotel that are admirably trying to exert some local law enforcement. This is tough because looting is now rampant. Most of it is not malicious looting. These are poor and desperate people with no housing and no medical care and no food or water trying to take care of themselves and their families. Unfortunately, the people are armed and dangerous.

[…]

The health care situation here has dramatically worsened overnight. Many people in the hotel are elderly and small children. Many other guests have unusual diseases

We have set up a hospital in the the French Qarter bar in the hotel, and will start admitting patients today. We are anticipating to dealing with multiple medical problems, medications and and acute injuries. Infection and perhaps even cholera are anticipated major problems. Food and water shortages are iminent.

The biggest question to all of us is where is the national guard. We hear jet fignters and helicopters, but no real armed presence, and hence the rampant looting. There is no Red Cross and no salvation army.”

So the police rallied to the needs of an ad-hoc hospital and maintained a sense of perspective given their own limited resources.

From the MSNBC/AP report:

Another officer, D.J. Butler, told the crowd standing around that they would be out of the way as soon as they got the necessities.

“I’m not saying you’re welcome to it,” the officer said. “This is the situation we’re in. We have to make the best of it.”

Right-wing radio in particular insisted that all the NOLA looting was criminal in intent despite the evident appreciation of the police and Dr. Henderson (amongst others) of the realities of the situation. So what’s the situation in similarly devastated Galveston and Bolivar now?

Well, clearly in Texas some looting has been attempted and has occurred as reported above.

But the fact is that the rest of nation has no idea of what is really going because the federal authorities are applying one lesson learned from Katrina that has nothing to do with their ability to provide aid and relief to victims of a natural disaster and everything to do with controlling media access to their activities so that no comparisons may be drawn between Ike and Katrina, between Galveston and New Orleans, between Texas and Louisiana or between the Federal Government’s actions of 2005 and those of 2008,

Media coverage of Ike has been embargoed.

In looking at the web-site reports about the Ike-afflicted area it appears that every MSM outlet—FOX, MSNBC, ABC. CBS, CNN---has AP attached to every single story. There appears to be not one exclusive report from any of these national news organizations and typical of these reports are paragraphs that read as follows:

“…emergency crews feared they would find more victims than survivors.

It was the first time anyone had gotten a look at the damaged resort barrier island of Bolivar Peninsula, just east of hard-hit Galveston.”

“Crews had no idea what they would find on Bolivar Peninsula, which from the air, revealed house after shattered house. “

“Search and rescuers from the Sacramento Metro Fire Department found 60 survivors on the Bolivar Peninsula, the sliver of sand that sits across Galveston Bay from the city of Galveston, according to the Associated Press.”

The AP appears to be functioning as the middle-man between officials and the MSM and the MSM seems to be acquiescing to this arrangement. The FAA has restricted over-flight of Galveston and the Bolivar peninsula to 2000 feet “to provide a safe environment for disaster response and relief operations” and disallowed helicopter-borne news crews from landing in the worst-affected areas.

According to one ABC News/AP report (referenced here earlier)

"The storm's fatal reach extended beyond Texas: Six people died in Louisiana, two in Tennessee, six in Indiana, three in Missouri, one in Arkansas and three in Ohio."

As hurricane death-tolls in general go that’s a bit above average, but then Ike was 900 miles across and most of its death-dealing potential still stretched over a 550 mile radius.

However…

“Emergency officials estimate that 400 to 500 of the 30,000 residents remained on the [Bolivar] Peninsula during the storm.

Bolivar may have been the hardest hit by Ike's 110 mph winds and estimated 16-foot storm surge. Towns all along the peninsula were virtually flattened by the treacherous winds, rain and floods from Hurricane Ike.

Over the town Gilchrist, seen from a helicopter, a single home stands alone, behind it a long stretch of waterfront homes have disappeared, pulverized by the wind and the storm surge. The bridge to this coastal area has buckled and officials found a car wrapped around a house. “

In Crystal Beach, the scene was even grimmer. A camper that had been ripped to shreds lay submerged in the canal alongside a mobile home and a giant sailboat that had both been destroyed.

Despite the devastation and reports of residents who decided to ride out the storm, Gov. Rick Perry would not confirm any deaths on Bolivar. “

The AP reported that according to Galveston City officials at least at least a third of the community's 60,000 residents remained in their homes.

We know that 60 were rescued at the last minute after being cut off and we’ve heard since that another 2,000 (as of Monday) were also plucked from dire straits. Others certainly changed their minds at the last minute whilst they still apparently had the means to evacuate so it is likely that the 1/3^rd figure was reduced though it is impossible to say by how much, but assuming that the official estimate of 1/3^rd were halved just before Ike made landfall that would leave 10,000 behind. Would it not be reasonable to imagine that 10% of those may well have been killed? That would mean a thousand people dead, despite all the warnings and the evacuation facilities laid on by the authorities.

Currently the Texas death toll is being reported as 30, the overall perhaps 60. Hopefully it really is that low. Michael Chertoff’s warning to those still resident during Ike’s landfall that they “may face certain death” would appear to be an exaggeration in hindsight but at the moment we the public just don’t know and the authorities aren’t willing to say.

Of course when so much is blown to smithereens it’s not fair to expect the precision of reporting that, for example, followed the California train crash of Sunday; but recall the effort in reporting on Katrina or the Eastern Seaboard blackout—that level of interest, effort and communication regarding Ike seems remarkably lacking in comparison, especially when it is surely a major economic story too.

Within the media reports I’ve found there have been some complaints about FEMA’s services. Oil pollution has been briefly noted and the occupants of graveyards have been disinterred by the flood-waters and are floating around with the usual storm detritus. These are as yet seemingly small details, but as yet, on the fifth day, even the larger picture is not being revealed as one might have expected by now.

When Katrina hit, authorities were so spectacularly unprepared they didn’t think of controlling media access and they were burned, rightly, by that over-sight but now it seems they have learned at least that lesson.

With Katrina the religious right immediately blamed the event on the inherent wickedness of NOLA’s civilians and pointed to subsequent looting as proof of it.

The likes of Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage embraced that meme and added that those who stayed had only themselves to blame for their subsequent plight.

Certainly with the apparent press embargo of Ike’s aftermath the right-wing is being denied sources for political hay-making and so too is the political left, but consider which side might gain if the MSM were to report from Texas with the same commitment and given the same access as they had in New Orleans?

Texas is a staunchly Republican state. Anywhere from 40,000 to 90,000 Texans, presumably mostly Republicans, ignored their Republican governments warnings to evacuate.

Are they now being blamed for their current destitution as so many of NOLA’s citizens were? Apparently not.

Are the reported lootings (as noted above) being used to condemn the entire community on Galveston? Apparently not.

Has Ike been declared a holy retribution from God for Texans’ wickedness? No.

The right wing media has kept its mouth shut this time for political reasons (just as it opened its mouth for political reasons during Katrina). The MSM has once again dropped the ball to focus on a new shiny object and once again let the authorities serve them the news as they see fit as has been allowed without significant protest since the beginning of the Bush administration, even now.

Even now the main stream media is still making political and economic decisions that favor the Republicans. The Republican presidency and its appointees are still making political and economic decisions that favor its own vested interested—to not get found-out for incompetence and self serving actions. Together, by the latter controlling information and the former acceding to that control in a partnership that extends for almost 8 years they are both still controlling not just the public discourse but life and death and the fortunes of all just so they can maintain their own relevance and elevated positions for the present and the future.

These are the politics and economics that surround the embargo on the aftermath of Ike. It may not be worse than Katrina but it is surely just as bad and cognizant of that the authorities and their surrogates in the media would far prefer that the rest of us not know that--especially with a presidential election looming on the horizon. .

National (Lampoon) Vacation

(Above 'photoon' is original to this blog but if used by others a credit/link would be appreciated)

If it’s August (which it is) then it’s that time of year again when George W. Bush puts down his deluxe armadillo-skin Veto-Matic-brand Unitary Executive pen (the one with the silver spoon clip and that uses oil for ink) to take yet another lengthy official vacation.

What with rising unemployment, failing banks, record gasoline prices, record foreclosures, a record national debt, a record budget deficit, record manufacturing losses, a record number of under-insured and uninsured, record incarceration (even for politicians!), record price increases on basic foods, records in produce contamination, record lows for the dollar on the international market, record domestic spying and two continuing wars draining money from the economy at record rates, you might think that the President maybe doesn’t deserve a vacation.

You would of course be wrong (and probably a gay Nazi socialist Islamo-fascist pro-tree librul fringe America-hater as well).

To paraphrase George Bush in the aftermath of 9/11: “When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping!”

When Katrina cut its deadly swath through New Orleans the president’s actions spoke volumes; “When the going gets tough, the tough go barbecuing!”

When the death toll of US troops in Iraq hit 4000 without any appreciable result for their sacrifices the President essentially declared “When the going gets tough, the tough give-up golfing!”.

Ordinary people might take stock of such situations and work towards mitigating their deleterious effects, but George Bush is no ordinary people…person…---he’s a leader and as a leader his primary job is to maintain his optimism and thus the nation’s optimism, in the face of adversity. Maintaining such optimism is “hard work” and as everyone should appreciate the obvious reward for hard work is a nice long vacation.

But George Bush isn’t just taking a vacation for himself---he’s selflessly relaxing on behalf of the whole country! That's just the authentic kind of guy he is!

As non-working citizens leave their foreclosed neighborhoods every morning to prove American competitiveness with illegal immigrant workers, they will be inspired by George’s example:

“One day” (they will say to themselves), “I too will be able to free myself from the bonds of servitude, the constraints of arbitrary search and seizure, the tyranny of taxation without representation and the suppression of inalienable human rights by a distant power-elite, and as the Intelligent Designer is my witness, I shall take a vacation again!” (I swear this reminds of something, but I can't think what!)

With the US on the verge of a psychological breakdown (as astutely noted by Senators John McCain and Phil Gramm) it is essential for the security and future of the nation that George W. Bush takes a vacation not just for himself but for all Americans...and America's allies too!.

If George weren’t so dedicated to the welfare of this nation and instead failed to take a vacation, there’s no telling what might happen if he stayed behind his desk in Washington.

As Bush himself has pretty-much said one way or another over the last eight years:

“You don’t change horses in the bottom of the ninth when you’re on the last down and you’ve got a free throw with two seconds on the clock that’s attached to a dirty bomb set to explode in Punxatawney when your first-responders' radios don’t work because Arabic-speaking FBI agents threaten Republican marriages because their gayness makes the baby Jesus cry and prevents gynecologists from practicing their love due to frivolous lawsuits that drive up the price of oil and encourage socialized animal-human cloning by Cadillac-driving welfare queens.”

For years now libruls have been trying to get Bush out of the Oval Office, but when he does take a vacation they then complain he should be back at work!! Hey libruls, hypocriticize much?!

In these difficult times libruls should stop their obstructionist shenanigans and let Bush lead the nation towards a deserved vacation from not only present problems but the last 7-1/2 years of “hard work”.

Just because President Bush already holds the record for the most frequent and the longest vacations doesn’t mean he should relax in his efforts to relax---that would be like Barry Bonds quitting steroids once he’d beaten Hank Aaron’s home-run record!

At a time when the US faces economic problems not seen since the Great Depression whilst it fights a war as pointless and expensive as Vietnam the last thing America and the world needs is a president, denied a well-deserved vacation, being forced to make executive decisions when he knows in his gut that there’s still brush that needs a-clearin’ at the old homestead.

If the phrase “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” isn’t just an old-timey way of saying “hey kids, we’re all going to Wally-World!” then I don’t know what is!

And besides what’s more fundamentally American than enjoying yourself in the present whilst you can and letting the future take care of itself?

So to all the nattering nabobs of negativism I say let the President take the kind of vacation from the White House that we all can only dream about---six months sounds about right. If we all let Bush have his own way, just this once, then we’ll all be better-off.

Pardoners In Crime

If the RESTORE Act arrives on Bush’s desk without an immunity clause for the telecom companies that enabled his impeachable, illegal (under FISA) and unconstitutional (4th Amendment) warrant-less “wiretapping” program, he will have to veto it not so much because of the telecom’s investment in him but more because if he doesn’t he will expose himself to the same kind of lawsuits and criminal charges that the telecom companies fear.

The telecoms are complaining that without immunity they risk bankruptcy from lawsuits. This argument is stupid. For a start they’d be subject to a class-action suit, (and possibly half a dozen individual suits at best) so they wouldn’t be sunk by lawyer’s fees and court costs. Secondly there’s no way a court would allow the total bankruptcy of any one of the telecom companies—it would be too disruptive.

If he hasn’t already done-so, Bush will likely write-up a pardon for the telecoms. It won’t matter to him that a pardon is supposed to apply only after a guilty verdict and time served. His father “pardoned” Caspar Weinberger for his indictment in Iran-Contra, thus averting a trial and exposure of G.W. Bush’s own important role in the affair, thus allowing Bush to effectively pardon himself--and he got away with it!
(The sub-headings of the NYT article—Bush Diary at Issue and 6 Year Inquiry into Deal of Arms for Hostages Swept Away)


The power to pardon falls under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution:

"The President shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment."

That’s all there is to it. It can be applied to a corporation as to an individual, and no standard of justification is required.

"Should I decide to grant pardons, I will do so in a fair way. I will have the highest of high standards." (George W. Bush, Feb 22nd 2001)

Ri-iight, George!

If history is any guide, George Junior is going to get away with it, just like his old Dad, though just to be sure he’s going to have to pardon is entire administration, and with all those pardons there’ll be just enough room in his presidential Library for “The Pet Goat” and a torture memo.