Diplomats Barred From Obama’s Berlin Speech, But Not McCain’s In Ottawa

State Dept. Double Standard


Think Progress
July 25, 2008


Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. Embassy in Berlin “instructed Foreign Service personnel stationed there not to attend Sen. Barack Obama’s [D-IL] public rally” in Tiergarten Park because the event is “‘partisan political activity‘ prohibited under its regulations for those serving overseas.”

The diplomats’ union objected to the ruling, calling it an “unnecessarily narrow interpretation” of the Foreign Affairs Manual. “The fact that you are working for the U.S. government overseas should not preclude political activity that you could engage in in the United States,” one retired senior Foreign Service officer said.

But a State official explained the ruling:
But “we always maintain that no U.S. government Foreign Service person overseas should be seen to be advocating one side or the other,” State Department Undersecretary for Management Patrick Kennedy said, adding that “it has nothing to do with who” the candidate is. “When a German sees you there, they’re not going to think, ‘Oh, he or she is on their off time.’ It’s ‘Oh, they are a Democrat, a Republican, an independent,’ God knows what,” Kennedy said in an interview.

But the ruling — which Kennedy admitted is unprecedented — appears to indicate a double standard from the State Department. Last June, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) delivered a speech to the Economic Club of Canada in Ottawa. The event was reportedly organized in part by U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins, whom President Bush appointed in 2005. But more than that, the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa confirmed to ThinkProgress that Wilkins also attended the event.

Not only did McCain make clear references to and critiques of Obama’s policy positions in the speech, but he also referred to his own presidential campaign six times.

Although both the McCain and Obama campaigns denied their respective speeches in Ottawa and Berlin were political, the State Department only prohibited diplomats from attending Obama’s event. The fact that Wilkins attended McCain’s speech without worries that he would “be seen to be advocating one side or the other,” undermines Kennedy’s justification for barring Foreign Service personnel from attending Obama’s speech.

Source:
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/25/state-obama-speech/
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How to lie with forensics


Xymphora
July 22, 2008


I've posted on the many problems with the 'science' used to convict people. The process of criminal prosecution is best regarded as a form of theater used to dole out penalties on the appearance of objectivity, befuddling fact finders enough to remove reasonable doubt.

Most of the 'science' is crap that wouldn't pass muster in any real field of research.

Now, a crime analyst in Arizona named Kathryn Troyer, doing searches against DNA databases, searches that researchers are usually not allowed to do (and which Troyer was eventually told not to do once officials found out how dangerous her research was!), has found that the nine-loci tests commonly used to convict people do not lead to unique identifications.

You know how prosecutors are always spouting off about how there is only a one in so many billion chance that another person could have the same DNA? Bullshit.

From the LA Times story:

"In the 1990s, FBI scientists estimated the rarity of each genetic marker by extrapolating from sample populations of a few hundred people from various ethnic or racial groups. The estimates for each marker are multiplied across all 13 loci to come up with a rarity estimate for the entire profile."

These estimates make assumptions about how populations mate and whether genetic markers are independent of each other. They also don't account for relatives.

Bruce Weir, a statistician at the University of Washington who has studied the issue, said these assumptions should be tested empirically in the national database system.

'Instead of saying we predict there will be a match, let's open it up and look,' Weir said.

Some experts predict that given the rapid growth of CODIS, such a search would produce one or more examples of unrelated people who are identical at all 13 loci.Such a discovery was once unimaginable.

"The FBI's research which forms the basis of all the confident proclamations of prosecutors has never actually been tested against the existing databases, and what evidence there is seems to prove that the astronomical certainty commonly used to describe DNA proof is simply untrue."

Bonus: the FBI is using every dirty trick to prevent exculpatory searches, including in one case bluffing to cut the state of Maryland off from the national CODIS database if it allowed searches in its own state databases that could be used to impugn DNA evidence!

The threat was used to allow prosecutors to craft an affidavit to have the court block the search. The FBI even claimed that the search itself could corrupt the entire state database!

The judge didn't buy it, the search went forward, the FBI didn't cut Maryland off, the database wasn't corrupted, and the search disclosed:

"In a database of fewer than 30,000 profiles, 32 pairs matched at nine or more loci. Three of those pairs were 'perfect' matches, identical at 13 out of 13 loci."

The FBI tried much the same trick in Illinois, where it also failed, and where the search tuned up lots of matches which were officially impossible. They should empty the jail cells of people convicted solely on the basis of DNA and fill them up with FBI officials, who have been allowed to get away with scientific obfuscation, bluffing, and outright lying, without any punishment at all.

Source:
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-to-lie-with-forensics.html
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Ohio Attorney Files to Lift Stay on '04 Election Case

Leading Data Security Expert Joins Press Conference, Case, Notes Fraudulent Patterns That Should Have Triggered Investigation

Motion to Proceed with Targeted Discovery in Case Explained as Effort to Help Protect Integrity of '08 Election...


Special to The BRAD BLOG
by Steve Heller of Velvet Revolution
July 17, 2008


At a press conference this morning in Columbus, Ohio, Cliff Arnebeck, lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the case of King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell, announced that he is filing a motion to "lift the stay in the case [and] proceed with targeted discovery in order to help protect the integrity of the 2008 election."

Courtesy of our colleagues at Velvet Revolution, you can watch the entire press conference here, and an interview with Cliff Arnebeck and Bob Fitrakis is here.

Arnebeck will also "be providing copies of document hold notices to the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform and the U.S. Justice Department for Karl Rove emails from the White House." See PDFs of the hold letter to AG Mukasey here, the hold letter to the U.S. Chamber here, and the motion to lift the stay here.

This case has the potential to put some of the most powerful people in the country in jail, according to Arnebeck, as he was joined by a well-respected, life-long Republican computer security expert who charged that the red flags seen during Ohio's 2004 Presidential Election would have been cause for "a fraud investigation in a bank, but it doesn't when it comes to our vote."

"This entire system is being programmed in secret by programmers who have no oversight by anybody," the expert charged, as Arnebeck detailed allegations of complicity by a number of powerful GOP operatives and companies who had unique access both to the election results as reported in 2004, as well as to U.S. House and Senate computer networks even today.

The presser was attended by some of the corporate-controlled media, including the head of the Ohio AP bureau, the Columbus Dispatch, and IndyMedia. Listening in by phone were ABC News, our friends from RAW STORY, and I, your humble blogger. I recorded the presser, so I have no links for the quotes in this post, but I transcribed them word-for-word and can vouch for their accuracy.

One of the more delightful and interesting quotes comes from Arnebeck, concerning what he expects to discover as the stay is lifted: "[W]e anticipate Mr. Rove will be identified as having engaged in a corrupt, ongoing pattern of corrupt activities specifically affecting the situation here in Ohio."

According to Arnebeck, his expert witness, Stephen Spoonamore, "works for credit card companies chasing data thieves, identity thieves around the globe, and also consults with government agencies including the Secret Service, the Pentagon, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in criminal matters. [He's] really one of the top, and in fact the top private cop in the world on the subject of data security."

First, some background. The King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell case was filed on August 31, 2006. At issue was "whether the rights, privileges, and immunities guaranteed to Plaintiffs by the Civil Rights Act, and the First, Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution have been violated by the past and ongoing conduct of Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell in connection with past elections in Ohio."

A stay was previously entered into on joint motion of the parties, Ohio's Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and the plaintiffs, to support settlement discussions in the case. "At one point," Arnebeck noted this morning, "this was interrupted when the Secretary wanted to bring all the ballots that had been ordered preserved by Judge Marbley, bring them in to one location. When the ballots came in, there was significant omissions and reports of the destruction of some of the ballots."

The BRAD BLOG reported previously on some of some of the ballots missing from 56 of Ohio's 88 counties, despite the federal court order.

Arnebeck explained that part of the reason for the stay, at the time, was to allow the Ohio Attorney General to proceed first, as provided in Ohio House Bill 3 which states, in part:

...the attorney general may initiate criminal proceedings for election fraud under section 3599.42 of the Revised Code which results from a violation of any provision of Title XXXV of the Revised Code, other than Chapter 3517. of the Revised Code, involving voting, an initiative or referendum petition process, or the conducting of an election, by presenting evidence of criminal violations in question to the prosecuting attorney of any county in which the violations may be prosecuted. If the prosecuting attorney does not prosecute the violations within a reasonable time or requests the attorney general to do so, the attorney general may proceed with the prosecution of the violations with all of the rights, privileges, and powers conferred by law on a prosecuting attorney, including, but not limited to, the power to appear before a grand jury and to interrogate witnesses before a grand jury.

Arnebeck said that the Attorney General's office said they were ready to begin the investigation of the 2004 presidential election in Ohio, and Arnebeck said he submitted a great deal of material to them, including "Bob's [Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman's] book on what happened in Ohio, documentation of the exit poll discrepancy, [and] John Conyers' report to the Congress which was the factual basis for the challenge to the electoral votes of the Ohio vote in January of 2005."

About a month later, the Attorney General's office contacted Arnebeck and asked him, "Who do you want to indict?"

Arnebeck explained that the AG's "concept of looking at this from a criminal standpoint was not to convene a grand jury and cast the net broadly and use the grand jury process to investigate and narrow the focus into the question of who may have tampered with those votes. But rather they wanted us to come to them with a more focused case."

Arnebeck then informed the AG that they were going to file the motion to lift the stay so that the plaintiffs "could proceed with the civil case in order to collect discovery to do that" and create a more focused case.

Fitrakis, who was also at today's presser, said that early on they went to Washington and met with the House Judiciary staff who agreed to come to Ohio in early March of 2007. Fitrakis informed Ohio's then-Attorney General Mark Dann's office, but the office never got back to them.

Arnebeck also explained that he met with Conyers within the last two weeks. He made the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee aware of what they have: new resources and information, and the assistance of Spoonamore to help the state of Ohio, the Congress, and the court understand what needs to be done to help secure the 2008 election.

Also, Arnebeck has sent out document "hold" notices. A hold notice is, essentially, a letter sent to the parties of a lawsuit informing them of their legal obligation to hold on to (and not destroy) all relevant documents, including electronic documents such as emails, pending the outcome of the suit.

Hold letters have been sent to the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, asking them to hold documents relating to their activities to use corporate money to influence the Ohio Supreme Court elections. Another hold letter was sent to U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey asking that he advise the federal government to hold emails from Karl Rove.

Arnebeck said "We think [Rove] is an individual who has been at the center of both the use of corporate money to attack state Attorneys General and their elections and candidates for the Supreme Court and their elections in the states, and also in the manipulation of the election process."

"We expressed concern about the reports that Mr. Rove destroyed his emails and suggested that we want the duplicates that should exist [to be put] under the control of the Secret Service and be sure that those are retained, as well as those on the receiving end in the Justice Department and elsewhere, that those documents are retained for purposes of this litigation, in which we anticipate Mr. Rove will be identified as having engaged in a corrupt, ongoing pattern of corrupt activities specifically affecting the situation here in Ohio."

Arnebeck said they are prepared "to go after the issues of election integrity in a very targeted way, as opposed to a casting of a fishing net. We're able to do some 'rifle shots.'"

Along those lines, Arnebeck plans to subpoena and depose GOP operative Michael (Mike) L. Connell, who as described by SourceWatch, is....

Chief Political Strategist and CEO of New Media Communications, Inc., a Republican website development and internet services firm based in Richfield, OH.

New Media's GOP clients are a "'Who's Who' of Republican politics", having provided campaign web services and Internet strategy for Bush-Cheney 2000/2004, as well as Republicans such as Dick Armey, Spencer Abraham for Senate 2000, Heather Wilson for Congress 2000/2002/2004, Rick Santorum for Senate 2000/2006, and John Thune for Senate 2002/2004 to name just a few. New Media also designed GOP.com for the Republican National Committee, RGA.org for the Republican Governors Association, and between two and three dozen state GOP sites.

According to Arnebeck, Connell "[D]esigns websites and he manages the information technology. Interestingly, he's done this for the Bush campaign of 2000 and the Bush campaign of 2004. Simultaneously, he was doing IT work for the State of Florida in 2000, and for the office of the [Ohio] Secretary of State in 2004."

"And just think of this: here's a person who is an instrument of a major presidential campaign simultaneously setting up the hosting of the votes in the Ohio election."

Arnebeck added: "We're not saying that he [Connell] did anything wrong in the sense of his conduct, but we're saying that these conflicting roles raise some issues."

According to Arnebeck, "Mr. Connell also worked with the various front groups for the US Chamber, tobacco industry front groups, and starting in 2000 after the New Hampshire primary, there was an unleashing of a variety of these Washington-based lobbying groups that created these phony grass-roots groups that attack candidates, supposedly independently. We believe there is clear evidence of a coordinated campaign in which Mr. Rove is involved, in which Mr. Connell is an instrument. And this emphasizes his value of a witness in bringing some of this together."

Indeed, Arnebeck believes that Connell's role in the suit, at least at first, will be that of a witness.

"He, by virtue of his involvement in a variety of these roles that we're concerned with --- as a witness, he can provide a perspective. He's the one person who can bring a great deal of information together to better inform folks of what happened and what some of the vulnerabilities are and where some of the data security breaches may have occurred."

One of the more frightening aspects of Connell's work is that his company, Gov Tech Solutions, was the first private company to be allowed to put servers behind the firewall of the Congressional computer systems. This led to him creating and managing several powerful Committee IT networks, including those for the House Intelligence Committee, the Ways and Means Committee, the Judiciary Committee, the Ethics Committee, and the House Committee on Rules. Of course, it is completely possible that the firewall could have been created with secret security gaps that can be exploited to hack into any congressional computer. If that has happened, every computer in any senate or congressional office is subject to hacking by Bush/Republican operatives.

Currently, Connell is running the IT operations for the McCain campaign. Isn't that a comforting thought…

Expert advisor Stephen Spoonamore, who among other things designs and runs computer programs to analyze and detect fraudulent financial activity for the world's leading credit card companies, said, "You cannot secure electronic voting. You set up a bunch of grandmothers to put together a bunch of computers once every two years, basically those machines are architected in such a manner to maximize their capacity [for] fraud.

"In the 2004 election, from my perspective, on any of the programs we run for any of my credit card clients, the results from the 14 counties, those are the sort of results that would instantaneously launch a credit card fraud investigation or a banking settlement investigation."

Spoonamore's reference to the "14 counties" refers to the so-called "Connelly Anomaly" in which down-ticket candidates got more votes than John Kerry. The name comes from the candidacy of C. Ellen Connelly, an African-American woman who was running for the Ohio Supreme Court in 2004. She was endorsed by pro-choice and civil rights groups, and was relatively unknown to Ohio voters, in addition to being vastly outspent by her opponent in the campaign. Yet, somehow, Connelly got scores of thousands more votes than did John Kerry at the very top of the ticket.

Arnebeck said that "if you adjust for the [Connelly] anomaly or that situation, it's enough votes to have changed the outcome of the election. So the focus of our efforts, in cooperation with the Secretary of State, would be to find out who is responsible for that."

He targeted the Rapp family and the Triad Voting Systems company, who ran the tabulators in a number of Ohio counties in 2004, as those who need to be closely investigated.

"If it's the Rapp family and the programming of the [Triad] tabulators," Arnebeck stated, "we need to know that so that the Rapp family will be closely monitored, if not put in jail, before the 2008 election."

Spoonamore continued, "I am extremely confident in [our] analysis of the 2004 election anomalies because of the way the tabulators were programmed, and all were programmed by the Rapp family on Triad systems. So in my opinion, there should be an investigation launched into exactly what happened."

"There was an enormous number of strange activities in which Triad and the Rapp family were running around the state taking hard drives out of computers, putting in new hard drives, and posting poll results. And the reason all this was going on, I'm quite confident, was that the hard drives they were pulling out had fraudulent coding. Simple as that."

"Certainly if that happened at one of our banks, you could be arrested."

Spoonamore has told Arnebeck and the plaintiffs that there is a clear pattern of fraud. He said the Ohio 2004 election was "a frighteningly un-auditable system."

"When, in the Green Party recount, all of the sudden [people are] driving around the state pulling and swapping hard drives, they should have been in handcuffs that day," argued Spoonamore.

Arnebeck noted that Triad Voting Systems "has never been interrogated under oath in either a civil or a criminal context, to the best of our knowledge. There was an FBI investigation launched at the request of John Conyers, and very shortly a letter coming back from the FBI stating that they had found no problem. But it was very minimal and it appears to have been a politicized investigation, not a normal serious investigation by the FBI."

Spoonamore said that he knows the key FBI cyber investigation people "quite well, and they were certainly never involved [in the investigation Conyers requested], there was no hardware ever involved. So whatever investigation was launched, it was topical, but they never examined the equipment."

When the stay on the King Lincoln case is lifted, Arnebeck intends to depose Connell, key members of the Rapp family, and says that he will make Spoonamore available as an expert witness and advisor. After discovery, they will amend their complaint as needed and "focus on corrective actions that are necessary for the protection of the 2008 election."

More quotes from today's presser…

Spoonamore on vote counting: "What happens at the end of the day, all those votes are thrown into a magic box with one troll inside, the troll jumps out and says 'Here are your results! Ta-Da!!' That's it. There's no validation of the code, there's no authentication."

With the Connelly Anomaly, if that was in a banking environment, instantaneously --- instantaneously! --- the entire system inside that box would be frozen. Any programmer who reviewed any of that code would be alerted, all the executives assisting in that process would be alerted, the hard drives would be frozen in place, extracted and immediately placed in forensic analysis. 'Cause somebody did something major.

Spoonamore again: "None of us [the American people] really want to confront the fact that there appears to be an extremely coordinated effort by a very small group of people to rig elections and take control of the executive branch."

"You can spend all day every day looking at this stuff and saying, 'Well that would certainly launch a fraud investigation in a bank, but it doesn't when it comes to our vote.' Why?"

When asked by a reporter to respond to the fact that both Democratic and Republican Secretaries of State and elected officials will say that our elections are run on a bi-partisan system, Spoonamore responded, "No it's not. It's not a bi-partisan system. This entire system is being programmed in secret by programmers who have no oversight by anybody. In my opinion, both sides [Democrats and Republicans] have no friggin' clue what they're talking about."

"The person who programs the code inside the machine will decide the results."

Spoonamore was asked, "Are you a Republican?" And his priceless response was "Yes, I've been a life-long member of the Republican party. Sadly." That prompted a burst of laughter from all assembled.

When a reporter asked Cliff Arnebeck what specifically he alleges Karl Rove did, Arnebeck said, "Karl Rove was involved in the Bush campaign for president in 2000. Our understanding is when they lost the New Hampshire primary, they were quite concerned and they made a decision to take the gloves off. Mr. Rove contact[ed] people with whom he had worked with in the industry, Grover Norquist and others, on behalf of the tobacco industry."

At the time, the tobacco industry was fighting the Clinton administration $260 billion class action RICO case. That industry alone had a tremendous incentive to do whatever was necessary to kill that lawsuit. And George Bush, on Rove's recommendation, positioned himself as a reformer with results. Not meaning the McCain reform with campaign finance reform, but the Bush reform in Texas where they changed the composition of the Texas Supreme Court to be business-friendly and to effectively immunize corporations from meaningful tort liability.

"They turned these groups loose in South Carolina, they won South Carolina with a lot of independent expenditures and dirty tricks."

"Rove was the architect of a strategy to, in effect, undo the rule of law, turn business loose free of government regulation."

"We certainly want to take his [Rove's] deposition. His deposition has never been taken. Mr. Conyers is currently seeking his deposition in regard to what he did...in terms of going after Governor Siegelman in Alabama. And Mr. Rove is currently evading the congressional subpoena for his testimony."

Cross-posted at Velvet Revolution and Velvet Revolution's Election Protection Strike Force

Related Story:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Ohio-Attorney-Files-Motion-by-steveheller-080718-804.html

Source:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=6189
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Bush Administration Tries to Redefine Contraception as Abortion


July 16th, 2008
by Karina


The New York Times reports that the Bush Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services is drafting a rule that would place new restrictions on domestic family planning programs.

While current law allows health care providers and professionals to refuse to provide abortions based on their religious beliefs, this provision would threaten the funding of organizations and health facilities if they do not hire people who would refuse to provide birth control and defines abortion so broadly that it would include many types of birth control, including oral contraception.

Speaker Pelosi released the following statement on the Administration’s draft proposal:

If the Administration goes through with this draft proposal, it will launch a dangerous assault on women’s health.

The majority of Americans oppose this out of touch position that redefines contraception as abortion and represents a sustained pattern of the Bush Administration to reject medical and sound science in favor of a misguided ideology that has no place in our government.

I urge the President to reject this policy and join with Democrats to focus on preventing unintended pregnancies and reducing the need for abortion through increasing access to family planning services and access to affordable birth control.

From Congresswoman Lois Capps, Chair of the Democratic Women’s Working Group:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today Congresswoman Lois Capps called on the Bush Administration to stop its misguided effort to restrict access to basic family planning services. According to press reports, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is drafting new rules that would severely restrict women’s health care options while undermining the ability of health care providers to secure funding and provide essential services. It would require all recipients of federal health care funding to sign a written certification that they will not “discriminate” against health care entities who refuse to provide patients with abortions or even birth control.

“Once again, the Bush Administration is carelessly playing partisan politics with women’s health care,” said Capps, a nurse and Vice-Chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health. “Time and again this Administration has jeopardized women’s access to essential family planning services for purely ideological reasons. Sound science and responsible public health practices should never be trumped by political ideology. This proposal is unnecessary and would be harmful to women’s health.”

Federal law already protects individuals who prefer to not participate in abortion services and many states have refusal clauses for either individuals or institutions that object to providing or participating in abortions. The Bush Administration proposal goes far beyond those measures and attempts to define abortion services so broadly that it would include many types of birth control, including oral contraception and emergency contraception. Capps and several of her House colleagues will be sending a letter to the Department of Health and Human Services objecting to the draft rule and urging the Administration to reconsider its position.

Capps has worked in the past to stop other efforts by the Bush Administration to restrict access to family planning services and contraception. She was part of the successful efforts to allow over-the-counter sales of Plan B emergency contraception and also to prevent attempts to restrict funding from certain health providers who provide comprehensive family planning services.

Source:
http://www.speaker.gov/blog/?p=1441
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Freedom's Watch runs robocalls against Dems


Politico
July 09, 2008


Freedom’s Watch, the conservative advocacy group that has vowed to spend millions against Democratic congressional candidates this fall, will be running robocalls this week in 16 congressional districts where Democratic incumbents seem vulnerable or where an open seat has given rise to a competitive election.The robocalls will focus on the issue of high gas prices.

Ed Patru, vice president for communications at Freedom’s Watch, said the group sees this as an especially hot issue for voters: “We believe that energy, and specifically the high price of gas, is the number one issue in the country right now.”

There are two scripts for the robocalls: one that runs against congressional incumbents, and another that runs against challenger who hold state elective office.

A sample call against Dina Titus, the Democratic candidate in Nevada’s Third District, asks listeners, “Did you know Nevada gas taxes add more than 32 cents to every gallon of gas?”

Accusing Titus of not working to alleviate the high price of fuel, the call concludes by telling listeners to call the state legislator, adding: “If we can’t depend on Dina Titus to stand up for us today, when can we count on her?”

Patru said Freedom’s Watch does not generally disclose its campaign expenditures, including the cost of these calls.

The list of targets, however, is extensive, and it includes vulnerable freshman House members like Don Cazayoux (D-La.), Nick Lampson (D-Texas), and Steve Kagen (D-Wis.), as well as nine promising candidates in districts from Oregon to New Jersey.

Targets:
CT-05 Chris Murphy (incumbent)
LA-06 Don Cazayoux (incumbent)
ME-01 Tom Allen (incumbent, running for Senate)
MS-01 Travis Childers (incumbent)
TX-22 Nick Lampson (incumbent)
TX-23 Ciro Rodriguez (incumbent)
WI-08 Steve Kagen (incumbent)

AL-05 Parker Griffith
KY-02 David Boswell
IL-11 Debbie Halverson
NV-03 Dina Titus
NJ-03 John Adler
OH-01 Steve Driehaus
OH-16 John Boccieri
OR-05 Kurt Schrader
NJ-07 Linda Stender

Source:
http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0708/Freedoms_Watch_runs_robocalls_against_Dems.html
_______________

On drug wars and opium fueled insurgencies


By Justin Podur
Smirking Chimp
July 13, 2008


Over the past few days the Americans have hit the Pakistanis at the border and are increasing threats of hot pursuit. Some of the peace deals between frontier forces and militant groups are holding. In other areas, the Taliban have besieged Pakistani troops, kidnapped soldiers and others, and killed them in ambushes. In Pakistan's newspapers the debate is about how much Pakistan can support the American war on terror.

An article by Mohammad Ali Siddique suggests that Pakistan can't afford not to support the Americans and must not engage in separate peace deals with Taliban and al Qaeda groups operating on the border. The Americans and NATO will tire of the war and decide on a negotiated peace, and at that point Pakistan can make peace. But not before, because that would cause America to tilt further towards India and isolate Pakistan from the West.

And being isolated from the West carries heavy penalties. Sudan is feeling that right now: the International Criminal Court has decided to pursue charges against Omar Bashir, the sitting president of Sudan, for war crimes in Darfur. Alex de Waal's books and blog are the best guides to that complex conflict, and on that blog the ICC's decision was referred to as "a Disaster in the Making."

Putting aside the political nature of such a prosecution, given that no one is considering prosecuting Bush for what the US is doing in Iraq or Israel for what it's doing to the Palestinians, there is also the effect of such a move on the possibilities for peace in Sudan. In that context, it is a very irresponsible move, a pre-emptive strike against a negotiated settlement. But it does have another effect: to show third world leaders what might be in store if they are too defiant. Or, in Pakistan's case, if insufficiently committed to the war on terror.

Of course, the war on terror is not the only war going on in this region. In the background, ready to be re-emphasized at any minute, is the war on drugs. Like the war on terror, it is ill-defined, open-ended, both unwinnable and unlose-able (drugs will never declare victory), and therefore a perpetually useful pretext: until it is widely seen for what it is. Below I will discuss supply, demand, and possible solutions.

Before delving the war on drugs, I would like to dispense with one little phrase. The idea of an "opium fueled insurgency" can be deceptive. It is true that the covert networks designed for smuggling arms and money to counterinsurgent forces - such as the CIA and ISI networks designed to supply the Afghan mujahadin when they fought against the USSR - are also easily converted to drug smuggling networks.

It is also true that illicit drugs were understood and tolerated as a way for these forces to support themselves financially during the war against the USSR (on the connection between drugs and covert operations, the indispensable book is Alfred McCoy's 'Politics of Heroin'). But the current situation in Afghanistan is slightly different.

Today, the Afghan economy is dependent on poppy, which, according to UN sociologist David Macdonald's book "Drugs in Afghanistan" (Pluto Press 2007), supplies 60% of Afghanistan's GDP and employs 10% of its people (pg.96). Everyone in the economy, from farmers to local warlords, from foreign intelligence agents to government officials, from the Taliban to probably NATO soldiers as well, are taking a piece. So it's not just the insurgency that's opium-fueled, it's the entire economy.

What is the drugs situation? As with any commodity, we can look at supply and demand. Part of the supply side is the covert networks just discussed. Most opium moves from Afghanistan by the 'Balkan route': through Pakistan, Iran, the Gulf States, through to Turkey and Europe (Macdonald pg. 105), taking about 9 months to arrive from the Afghan farm to the European street.

There are creative ways of smuggling employed, since high profits in the industry make it feasible to do things like stuff almond shells with heroin and smuggle them randomly interspersed with real almonds. But above all, the trade depends on the suborning of public officials. In Afghanistan, reports range from estimates that dozens to 60% of elected parliamentarians are linked to warlords and drug trafficking in some way (pg. 95). Similar percentages probably apply for police and of course the warlords who still control local areas. Then there are the officials in the countries along the route.

Another important piece in the supply puzzle has to do with the push-the-water-balloon nature of drug cultivation. Both Iran and Pakistan were major opium producers until 1979, when the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the dictatorship of Zia ul-Haq in Pakistan both outlawed production in their countries - production which simply shifted to Afghanistan. If production in Afghanistan could somehow be eliminated, it would no doubt shift somewhere else.

The final supply side consideration is the farmer. No Afghan farmer grows rich from growing poppy. On the contrary, sociologist David Mansfield (davidmansfield.org) conducts field studies for the UK government and other NGOs on why Afghans do or do not grow poppy. He found four differences between farmers who grow poppy and those who are able to make a living growing vegetables, fruit, wheat, and other cash crops.

First, poppy growers have less land (or no land, working as sharecroppers). Second, poppy growers have more debt. Third, poppy growers live in areas where access to market is difficult, while successful non-poppy growing farmers live near provincial centers. Fourth, poppy growers generally live in regions where the writ of the state is weak or not fully extended.

In this context, eradication programs lead to financial ruin for already heavily indebted farmers.

In a May 2007 report to the UK government, Mansfield warns that "talk of spraying elicits the threat of violence and/or a declaration of intent to support Anti Government Elements. The perception that corruption is endemic amongst those conducting eradication (including their involvement in the drug trade) and reports of bribery and partiality during implementation further weakens the legitimacy of counter narcotics efforts." He also notes reports that "in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar as well as Farah, there were increasing reports of Taliban and government officials finding ways to co-exist.

Respondents suggested that in many areas both sides had made agreements not to engage in hostile action. These agreements left government officials undisturbed in the district centres whilst the Taliban were free to operate in the surrounding rural areas." Evidently Pakistan is not the only place where separate peace agreements and local arrangements are being made.

Now we turn to the demand side. In the imaging of Afghanistan as a source of drugs that corrupt the streets and youth of the West, the many victims of addiction in the region are made invisible, as Macdonald shows. Addiction is complex, but it does go along with displacement and war.

Many Afghan refugees became addicted to opium in Pakistan or Iran (both of which have major addiction problems of their own) and brought their addictions back when they returned. Without prospects for peace or opportunity, religious and legal restrictions are insufficient to stop people from turning to opium and heroin to dull their pain. A study by the RAND corporation years ago suggested that the cheapest way to fight a drug war was to spend dollars on treatment for addiction, which was far cheaper than trying to interdict shipments of drugs or eradicate crops.

Finally, to solutions. The most likely possibility is that the drug war will be allowed to continue, providing its many benefits to many people and meting out suffering to many others. Perhaps a truce will be called for a time? The governor of Helmand province suggested in 2006 that those in the drug business should be encouraged to invest their profits in Afghanistan (construction companies and industries) rather than taking the money out to tax havens (Macdonald pg. 97).

Among those seeking victory in the war on drugs, some look to the Taliban's ban on opium in 2000 as a total success. Macdonald points out several problems with this: first, it was accomplished through terror. Second, it was only a year-long, a year in which, some suggest, the Taliban used the ban to drive the price up so they could sell off existing stocks at high profit margins, after which they would have probably allowed cultivation to resume (had they not been deposed).

One suggestion by the Senlis Council (a European think tank) in 2005, is to license Afghanistan to produce opium legally. Today, licit opium is produced by Turkey, India, France, Australia, Hungary, Spain, and a few other countries (pg. 34). The idea was rejected by the Afghan government.

The counter argument by the Afghan Minister of Counter Narcotics, that they could not guarantee that opium wouldn't be smuggled out for the illicit trade, seems to me to be unconvincing. How could a situation where some licit and some illicit opium was coming out of Afghanistan be worse than the current situation?

Of course, this kind of licensing would have problems too: it would drastically lower the price available to the farmer, who would probably then require some form of price support (which could also be applied to other crops). Without such support, and so long as an illegal market existed and set a higher price, smuggling would continue.

David Mansfield and David Macdonald implicitly suggest some mix of alternative development for farmers, interdiction, and fighting the addiction. Within the current framework of prohibition, that may be the best that can be done. But accepting the current framework means accepting some absurdities.

Macdonald reports that "Australian and German bio-engineers have also recently created another alternative to traditional opium poppy plants, mutated poppy plants that produce... thebaine and oripavine used in analgesic pharmaceutical drugs... but without producing morphine that can be processed into heroin." (pg. 71)

Surely we ought to be able to change the rules to fit the plants than to change the plants to fit the rules.

In the 1970s, under the imperially-controlled regime of the Shah, Iran managed to distribute opium legally to registered addicts. In Macdonald's words, this "suggested a humane drug regime that permitted older people who had used opium for many years the comfort afforded by regulated doses of opium for the aches and pains of old age and to avoid suffering withdrawals."

Those under 60 had to seek treatment - treatment based on a maintenance dose (for more arguments on ending prohibition, see Mike Gray's 2000 book "Drug Crazy"). Most societies seem to combine both irrationality and hypocrisy in their drug policies. These serve those who profit from the drug war, the monies, the weapons, and the pretexts that it provides. They do not serve addicts, users, or farmers. An end to prohibition and an end to the drug war would take a powerful weapon away from the war on terror.

Justin Podur is currently visiting Islamabad. He can be reached at justin@killingtrain.com.

Source:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15835
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Congress addresses the imminent martial law plan - in private

Secret meeting in Congress to discuss the imminent martial law.


This happened March 13th of 2008.

WHY? Congress is expecting the imminent collapse of the U.S. economy sometime in late 2008 and the possibility of “Civil War” in the United States due to the economic collapse.

Possibly the most disturbing, “The advance round up of insurgent U.S. citizens that are likely to move against the U.S. Government.”

It goes on to project the necessary and unavoidable merger between the U.S. , Canada and Mexico to save the U.S. economy. If this doesn’t motivate you into action then nothing will…. If nothing else watch CSPAN video of Dennis Kucinich asking for the reasons for secret meeting.

That video is a MUST SEE….

Read this NOW:
Bush Executive Order: I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat…

Here’s some of the links the author (Michael Herzong) refers to in the audios:
B.A. BrooksHouse of Representatives Secret meeting (Wired.com)House of Representatives Secret meeting (Dennis Kucinich)Detailed information that is connected to B.A. BrooksDavid J. Meyer congress secret meeting

Article & Video Source:
http://polidics.com/ethics/congress-addresses-the-eminent-marshal-law-plan-in-private.html
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Alabama US Attorney denies any involvement in university editor's termination

Blogger fired after criticizing US Attorney


By Lindsay Beyerstein
July 11, 2008


This 'case is definitely about the first amendment,' says Harper's journalist

The abrupt dismissal of a veteran University of Alabama employee who blogged about the firing of seven US Attorneys has added a bizarre new twist to allegations that the state's US Attorneys targeted political opponents for prosecution.

Roger Shuler -- a high-profile blogger and leading critic of Alabama's judicial system -- has written extensively about alleged corruption among U.S. Attorneys for over a year. In particular, Shuler focused on two US Attorneys from his home state: Alice H. Martin of the Northern District and Leura G. Canary of the Middle District.

An editor in the University of Alabama Birmingham publications office for the last 12 years and a university employee for 19, Shuler was placed on administrative leave May 7 and formally fired May 19.

"I had worked there for 19 years and never received anything but positive performance reviews," Schuler wrote RAW STORY in May. "I never received an oral warning about anything. Then I was fired without warning, contrary to university policy and almost certainly in violation of federal law."

Though he admits he can't prove it, Shuler believes that he was fired for criticizing Alice Martin and other high-ranking political players in Alabama, including Canary, and Alabama's Republican governor, Bob Riley.

He's not alone. Scott Horton, a journalist for Harper's Magazine and a professor at Columbia University who has written extensively about the US Attorney scandal, also believes Shuler's firing was politically fueled.

"Shuler's problem arose not because he blogged nor because he did so from his workplace, because it's clear he didn't," says Horton, who has been following both the Siegelman and Shuler's cases closely. "His problem came from the fact that he wrote critical, well received insights targeting a number of very powerful figures in Alabama, starting with U.S. Attorney Alice Martin and prominent Republicans with which she is aligned, and including a number of major figures in the Alabama media."

Political Prosecutions

Questions about the politicization of the US Department of Justice emerged in 2007, after seven US Attorneys were fired with little or no official pretext, kindling a national firestorm that eventually prompted both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees to investigate.

Shuler, a 51-year-old resident of Shelby County, began blogging on the scandal in spring 2007, particularly as it impacted Alabama and its former Democratic governor, Don Siegelman.

Siegelman was convicted of corruption charges and sentenced to seven years in prison in 2006. He had served nearly a year of his sentence by Mar. 27, 2008, when an appeals court overruled the lower court decision to hold him pending appeal.

As Raw Story Investigates revealed late last year, Siegelman was indicted on questionable charges brought by US Attorney Leura Canary, a Bush appointee with a direct relationship to former White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Karl Rove. Leura Canary is the wife of Rove's longtime friend and former business partner Bill Canary, who also advised the 2002 gubernatorial campaign of Siegelman's Republican opponent, Bob Riley. Riley currently serves as the governor of Alabama.

Alabama Republican attorney and longtime GOP opposition researcher Dana Jill Simpson alleges that Rove had a hand in Siegelman's fall.

Legal Schnauzer

Shuler's initial goal as a blogger -- at his personal blog, Legal Schnauzer -- was to expose the corruption of a local lawyer and his allies in the local judiciary, he says. His posts decried the tactics of Alice Martin, US Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. Martin attempted unsuccessfully to prosecute Don Siegelman for allegations of attempted bid-rigging in 2004, only to have the case dismissed with prejudice.

Shuler also sought Martin's help in her capacity as a federal prosecutor. In the summer of 2007, he complained in writing to Martin about alleged federal crimes by lawyers and judges in the Northern District. Shuler has accused Martin of deliberately dragging her feet on the investigation to protect political allies.

Shuler asserted that Martin was guilty of the same types of abuses of her official position that she and Canary had so vigilantly policed when they attempted to convict Siegelman and other Democratic elected officials in Alabama, including senior members of the state senate.

A stalwart Republican, Martin has made no secret of her ambitions to hold statewide elected office. Her political career officially began in 1997, when she was appointed by Republican Gov. Fob James to fill a vacancy on the Lauderdale County Circuit Court. She ran unsuccessfully for reelection as a Republican in 1998. Two years later, Martin ran for a seat on the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals and lost. President George W. Bush appointed Martin US Attorney for the Northern District in 2001, at the recommendation of Alabama's two Republican Senators, Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby.

Martin's critics say she's used the power of subpoena to further the Alabama Republican Party's electoral goals. During her term, she has shown a particular zeal for rooting out alleged corruption at colleges and universities. She's currently engaged in a frontal assault on state legislators who also draw a salary from the state's 2-year college system. Martin has subpoenaed at least a dozen legislators, the majority of them Democrats.

Martin says Shuler's allegations don't fall under her office's purview.

"Mr. Shuler has made, in writing and in person, numerous allegations against various individuals to my office which, if memory serves deals with civil litigation," she wrote in an email to RAW STORY Wednesday. "Many of his allegations are set forth on his blog."

"The US Attorney, when receiving complaints, refers them to an appropriate federal or investigative agency, as we do not investigate cases," she added. "His complaints were forwarded to the US Postal Inspection Service, as I advised him in my email, as he asserted the mails were involved. He was also advised to contact the Alabama Bar Association. He met with an Assistant US Attorney and presented no evidence of an offense, only has opinions, [and was referred to agencies] that could conduct an independent investigation. I have no knowledge of him contacting those agencies."

She also denied her office was in any way involved with Shuler's termination.
"There has been no contact by the office to Mr Shuler's employer," she wrote.

Shuler, a journalist by training, has published numerous original investigative reports on Martin, Gov. Bob Riley, and both Leura and Bill Canary.

Riley also has close ties to Alice Martin. In 2007, whistleblower Dana Jill Simpson testified before the House Judiciary Committee that she heard Canary promise Gov. Riley that "his girls" would take care of Siegelman. Canary's "girls" were his wife, Leura Canary, and Alice Martin.

He's also president ex officio of the Board of Trustees of the University of Alabama, and a frequent target of Shuler's barbs.

Shuler's blog-based reporting on the Siegelman prosecution and other high-profile cases has won him recognition in Alabama and beyond. Last month, Shuler was cited as an authority in an appeal filed by attorneys for prominent Mississippi Democrat Paul Minor, whom Shuler has defended as a victim of politically-motivated prosecution.

Shuler's reporting has also attracted interest from national media, including Scott Horton of Harper's Magazine, Raw Story, author Mark Crispin Miller and Jay Allbritton of AOL News.

Prior to his dismissal, Shuler appeared on a local TV news segment about bloggers and the Siegelman case.

Like many bloggers, Shuler vociferously expresses his opinions. His posts offer scathing headlines, such as a five-part series on Alice Martin titled "A Corrupt Bushie in Alabama" -- a sequel to a three-part series, "The Malice of Alice," which Shuler published shortly after "Alice Martin: Outlaw Woman."

"How would you define an outlaw? I would say it's a person who operates outside the law and gets away with it," Shuler wrote on Apr. 24, "By that definition, Alice Martin, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, is an outlaw. Comforting thought for those of us who live in Martin's district."

"Is it possible that Alice Martin is the worst U.S. attorney in American history?" Shuler asked in a April 8 post titled "Alice Martin: Bad to the Bone."

The Firing

The former University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) employee started to become suspicious that he was being targeted for his opinions in late 2007, when his supervisor, Pam Powell, began what he calls a "harassment campaign" against him shortly after having given him a positive performance review. He says he found Powell's sudden change in attitude bizarre, because they had had a good working relationship for the past 12 years.

On Apr. 15, Shuler received a strange comment on his personal blog from an anonymous user, threatening to report him to his superiors for blogging on university time.

"Schnauzer does your employer UAB know you blog at work," the anonymous commenter wrote. In fact, Shuler was on vacation that day.

It's not clear how the anonymous commenter knew that Shuler worked for UAB. Shuler never identified himself on his blog as a UAB employee but did describe himself as a "university editor" on the masthead of his blog. Shuler wrote under his real name and identified himself as a resident of greater Birmingham, so it wouldn't have been difficult to figure out that he worked for UAB.

According to Shuler, his immediate supervisor Pam Powell, Director of Publications, called him in into her office Apr. 15 and gave him a verbal warning for filling out a leave request form and leaving it on her chair the previous Friday afternoon instead of asking her for permission. Shuler says Powell had given him conditional permission to take Monday off. She was out of the office by the time Shuler left work that day, so he filled out the form and left it on her chair, as he'd done many times before.

Shuler's official termination letter from University of Alabama Associate Vice President Dale Turnbough, dated May 19, says, "You were verbally counseled on April 15, 2008, for failure to seek authorization for time off and for failure to document work time in our billing system. During this counseling session you displayed belligerent and threatening behavior towards your supervisor and received a written warning for your actions."

Shuler denies that he threatened Powell when she spoke to him about vacation time and billing.

He also denies violating any UAB policies.

"I've never had a client claim I overbilled them or falsified their billing in any way," he wrote in his official grievance protesting his dismissal. "Pam Powell approves our billing, and she reviews our timesheets. If I had done anything wrong in timekeeping, it would have been with her blessing."

Believing Powell had made unfounded accusations about his job performance, Shuler arranged a meeting with Turnbough to discuss his concerns on Apr. 22. Shuler says he raised the issue of his blog in the meeting but was assured that it wasn't a problem. Shuler filed a written grievance against Powell the same day.

On Apr. 24, an anonymous commenter threatened Shuler: "Yours is coming sooner rather than later." Google, the company that owns Blogger, refused RAW STORY requests for IP information that might be used to pinpoint the source of these threats.

The official letter of dismissal explains Shuler's firing as a result of an IT review of his work computer. According to the dismissal letter, Shuler's computer logs showed that he averaged nearly 3 hours a day of "non-work related" online activities, including research for his blog. The letter also cites insubordination, unauthorized use of vacation time, and unspecified inaccuracies in filling out his electronic timesheets.

But Shuler says that at the closed-door hearing, Sean Maher, a university IT staffer who had investigated Shuler's computer for policy violations supported Shuler's assertion that he never updated his blog at work.

"A representative from UAB IT testified at the hearing that his investigation showed I had never written anything on my blog from UAB equipment," Shuler said. "I have printed news items, things to keep for my story-ideas file -- and they are claiming that was non-work related activity. In fact, keeping up with such news items is a part of my job description."

Maher did not respond to requests for comment.

A Closed-Door Hearing

At his June 25 disciplinary hearing, Shuler learned that Powell had his computer audited for Internet use less than a week after he'd filed a written grievance against her. An audit in retaliation for a grievance would be a violation of university policy.

Shuler readily admits to reading and printing news stories at work, but he insists the sites that showed up in the IT logs represented work-related activity. As a university editor, Shuler was responsible for keeping up with current events, especially if those that involved the university or members of the UAB community.

"I spend most of every work day writing my own stories, conducting research for my stories or publications, copyediting my colleagues' stories, proofreading projects that are either my own or my colleagues'," Shuler explained in the written grievance protesting his termination, "I constantly use the Web to check or verify information. It's a critical aspect of my job -- and of my coworkers' jobs. Not only is this activity work related, it is required of my job."

The Siegelman case was big news at UAB, especially since Siegelman's co-defendant Richard Scrushy is an alumnus and a major donor. Alice Martin pursued a major whistleblower lawsuit on behalf of two UAB employees who reported that the University had misused federal grant money, and in 2005 the University agreed to pay $3.39 million to settle allegations that researchers double-billed on federal research grants. Under the terms of the settlement, Martin retained the power to reopen a civil or criminal investigation against UAB officials. This power, coupled with Martin's demonstrated enthusiasm for investigating corruption at universities, may have given UAB officials pause.

Shuler contends that he never blogged from his work computer. He says he can only access his blog through a special password-protected email account, an account which he says he never touched at the office.

At his June 25 disciplinary hearing, Shuler learned that Powell had his computer audited for Internet use less than a week after he'd filed a written grievance against her. An audit in retaliation for a grievance would be a violation of university policy.

The personnel hearing was closed to the public and the only account of the information regarding the IT investigator's findings is Shuler's.

Under UAB rules, Shuler was not permitted to bring a lawyer to his disciplinary hearing. Nor has he been given access to the judgment of the disciplinary committee in writing. The university made an audio recording of the hearing, but Shuler has not received a copy. He says that at the hearing, Powell was unable to produce documentation to substantiate her allegations. Shuler said she had no written record of having given him the verbal warnings alluded to in his official letter of dismissal.

RAW STORY repeatedly phoned and emailed department head Pam Powell, Associate Vice President of Marketing and Public Relations Dale Turnbough, and other UAB officials in an attempt to get UAB's side of the story.

When asked whether Shuler was fired for blogging, Turnbough wrote in an email, "No, as I said before, that is inaccurate, but we cannot comment further on this personnel matter."

Turnbough's comment is the only response UAB has provided to RAW STORY over a two-month period of repeated calls and emails. UAB staffers declined to comment, even to the point of ignoring requests for confirmations of basic factual details, such as the spelling of their names and their exact job titles.

Press Interest and the Possibility of Reinstatement

Shortly after the June 25 hearing, Shuler was informed that the committee had voted to overturn his dismissal, but he remains unemployed as of this writing. He is scheduled to meet with Chief Human Resources Officer Cheryl Locke July 11 to discuss the terms of a possible reinstatement.

He says, however, that he is reluctant to return to work under the terms that have been explained to him. If he goes back to work, he will be assigned to a new position and he will still have two written warnings in his file.

Shuler alleges that Locke told him she was well aware that the media were following the case. He says she warned him that press coverage might affect her decision, a remark Shuler interpreted as a threat.

Shuler maintains that he's done nothing wrong and he is determined to clear his name. He says he won't rule out the possibility of legal action if he can't negotiate a fair resolution with UAB.

"In the end, the Shuler case is definitely about the first amendment, and whether it will be a dead letter in Alabama," Harper's journalist Scott Horton told RAW STORY. "There are certainly a number of folks at UAB who obviously wish it were dead. They may be in for a very unpleasant surprise."

Source:
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Alabama_bloggers_firing_raises_troubling_questions_0709.html
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Jesse Helms, John McCain and the Mark of the White Hands


by John Nichols
07/04/2008


Jesse Helms was a segregationist, and a nasty one at that.

Long after his contemporaries abandoned old "Jim Crow," Helms kept playing the race card when it served him politically. And when he was not picking on African-Americans, he picked on ethnic minorities, immigrants, trade unionists and gays and lesbians.

While Helms served thirty years in the Senate, his tenure on Capitol Hill was never so historically significant as his crude pursuit of power and the unsettling lengths to which he went to retain it. "He'll be remembered, in part, for the strong racist streak that articulated his politics and almost all of his political campaigns - they were racialized in the most negative ways," recalled Kerry Haynie, a political science professor at Duke University.

Helms' death Friday, at age 86, brings America a small step closer to the end of the post-antebellum era in our politics that saw the men who had battled to deny the franchise to millions of Americans because of the color of their skin -- and who fought even more aggressively to deny adequate education, nutrition and health care to African-American children -- make the easy transition to leadership positions in the "modern" Republican Party.

Helms was not always a Republican. As a young man of the Old South, he had no interest in joining an organization that, well into the 20th century, proudly referred to itself as "the party of Lincoln."

Only when the Grand Old Party adopted a southern accent and replaced references to the Great Emancipator with grumping about "racial quotas" did Helms make the switch to the party of Ronald Reagan, George Bush and John McCain. He brought along the symbols and sounds of the "Jim Crow" Democrats, insisting that Republican events celebrate the memory of Robert E. Lee and encouraging the singing of "Dixie" at party rallies.

Helms was not just any Republican, however. He was an essential player in the remaking of the party. With his National Congressional Club, a money-raising machine that helped forge what came to be called "the New Right" within the GOP, Helms aide Carter Wrenn says the senator forced "the realignment of the Republican party."

"You can't really separate the growth of the Republican party from Jesse's career," explained Wrenn.

The wily Richard Nixon was one of the first Republicans to recognize Helms' utility.

The North Carolinian was welcomed into the GOP by then President Nixon and his southern strategists of the late 1960s and early 1970s because they understood that Helms was skilled at working the fault lines that could turn white fears into Republican votes.

The Republicans are still working those fault-lines. Indeed, some of the people who worked most closely with Helms as he transformed what began as an anti-slavery party into a comfortable retreat for white-backlash voters are now key players in the campaign of John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for president.

"Let us remember a life dedicated to serving this nation," McCain declared in a statement on the death of Helms, to whom he was compared favorably by former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole earlier this year. (Actually, Dole suggested that McCain was somewhat more conservative than Helms.)

Those who battled hardest against Helms and his racial politics are quite certain that the 2008 campaign of Republican McCain against Democrat Barack Obama, who in August will become the first African-American nominee of a major party for president, will take a Helmsian turn.

"There's no question appeals will be made by McCain's campaign on racial lines," says North Carolina Congressman Mel Watt, who felt the full brunt of that racial politics when he managed the campaign of Harvey Gantt, an African-American Democrat who challenged Helms in 1990 and 1996.

Jesse Alexander Helms Jr. got his start in national politics as a campaign strategist for Willis Smith, who mounted a race-baiting challenge to U.S. Senator Frank Porter Graham in the 1950 North Carolina Democratic primary.

Graham, a former president of the University of North Carolina, served in the Senate as a national Democrat, who supported President Harry Truman and accepted the party's emerging commitment to civil rights.

Smith, who was backed by the segregationist dead-enders who that had supported the 1948 States' Rights Party ("Dixiecrat") campaign of segregationist Strom Thurmond, hired Helms to help him win by exploiting racist sentiment in the state.

One advertisement that Helms and his team created screamed: "White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races."

Another advertisement allegedly worked up by Helms highlighted a doctored photograph that purported to illustrate the penchant of Graham's wife for dancing with African-American men.
The Smith campaign was, according to the Raleigh News & Observer, a publication for which Helms once worked, "called the most overtly racist campaign since the turn of the century."

Unfortunately, it was also successful -- a lesson that was not lost on the 29-year-old Helms.
Smith beat Graham, won the general election, went to Washington and brought the campaign along as his administrative assistant.

But Helms was soon back in North Carolina, encouraging massive resistance to integration, as a Raleigh city councilman and a television commentator who referred to the University of North Carolina as the "University of Negroes and Communists" and suggested that walls be erected around the UNC campus to prevent enlightened thinking from "infecting" the rest of North Carolina.

Though he was genteel in person -- so much so that this reporter would sometimes describe him favorably when compared to less gracious members of the Senate -- Helms went wide-eyed and brutal when the cameras went on.

Helms warned that, "Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced."

He suggested that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a communist dupe and refused, even decades after King's death, to honor the Nobel Peace Prize winner.

He dismissed the civil rights movement as a cabal of communists and "moral degenerates. As the movement gathered strength -- and as murderous violence against activists in particular and African-Americans in general increased -- Helms menacingly suggested to non-violent civil rights activists that, "The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that's thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men's rights."

When his fellow Democrats began to reject his brand of race-baiting politics in a series of primaries that saw moderates such as former North Carolina Governor Terry Sanford beat segregationists, Helms followed Thurmond into the Republican Party.

In 1972, he determined to follow Thurmond into the Senate.

Helms got a couple of lucky political breaks. First, President Nixon was running his "southern strategy" reelection campaign to attract segregationist Democrats to the GOP. Second, the Democratic nominee for the Senate that year was North Carolina Congressman Nick Galifianakis.

Galifianakis was a Greek-American, which to Helms and his supporters meant the congressman was a bit too "ethnic" to represent North Carolina. The newly-minted Republican, who could always be counted on to exploit any difference that might benefit his candidacy, campaigned on the slogan: "Vote for Helms --- He's One of Us!"

That was mild compared with the 1990 and 1996 campaigns Helms ran against Gantt, the former Charlotte mayor who was the first African-American to compete seriously for a southern Senate seat in the modern era.

In 1990, after Helms fell behind in the race, his campaign began running television advertisements that showed a white man's hands crumpling up a rejection notice from a corporation that had refused to hire him because affirmative action policies had supposedly required that the job go to a "less qualified minority." After those words were uttered, an image of Gantt flashed on the screen.

Helms won a narrow victory that year, as he did in 1996. Helms did not leave his sentiments on the campaign trail.

Unlike George Wallace and a number of other southern pols, who made racist noises at election time but then quietly funded roads, schools and other projects in African-American communities, the former North Carolina senator's hometown newspaper noted delicately in an obituary that, "Although Helms denied he was a racist, his work in the Senate seemed at odds with the interests of blacks."

In addition to waging a filibuster in an attempt to block the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday, Helms opposed extension of the Voting Rights Act and championed the apartheid regime in South Africa.

Even as he rose in stature in the Senate, where he eventually served as chair of the powerful Foreign Relations Committee, Helms remained the son of the south that he had always been.

When Carol Moseley-Braun of Illinois became the first African-American woman to sit in the Senate, Helms followed Moseley-Braun into an elevator, announcing to Utah Senator Orrin Hatch: "Watch me make her cry. I'm going to make her cry. I'm going to sing 'Dixie' until she cries."

Then, emphasizing the lines about how "good" things were before the Civil War ended slavery, Helms sang "Dixie."

In one way or another, that's all he ever did. As the Rev. Jesse Jackson recalled, "At the height of his power, he fought for the values of the old confederacy. He resisted the new South. He resisted the opportunity to fight for a more perfect union."

Despite the best efforts of the senator and his spin doctors to rehabilitate the old man by hiring a few conservative staffers who happened to be people of color or by posing him for pictures with U2's Bono, Helms finished his career without the apologies that came from George Wallace, Orval Faubus and his fellow segregationists.

Even Strom Thurmond admitted his defenses of segregation were wrong, but not Helms. Nor did the North Carolinian ever make serious efforts to appeal to African-American voters -- as Wallace, Thurmond and "Jim Crow" politicians began to do late in their careers.

"He was sort of unrepentant until the end," said Duke's Kerry Haynie.

A biographer of Helms, Ernest Furgurson, put it more bluntly when he wrote: "All his public life, (Helms) has done and said things offensive to blacks, and to anyone sensitive to racial nuance." Jesse Helms may have started as a Democrat and finished as a Republican. But he always sang "Dixie."

And those who sang it with him are now working for John McCain.

Alex Castellanos, the veteran Republican media consultant who produced the so-called "White Hands" commercial that Helms used against Gantt, has according to the Washington Post been advising McCain's campaign on media strategy.

Castellanos bluntly refers to his work with Helms as "The Cause." And That cause has attracted other key players from the late senator's campaigns.

Republican strategist Charlie Black, perhaps the most prominent member of McCain's political inner circle (especially since he suggested that a terrorist attack on the U.S. would benefit the Republican's prospects this fall), advised Helms throughout much of the senator's career and played a particularly central role in the 1990 campaign, according to contemporary media accounts.

When the "White Hands" ad stirred a national controversy, Black appeared on the PBS's Newshour to defend it. Democratic National Committee chairman Ron Brown, who was also on the show, said to Black: "You are a principal adviser of Jesse Helms. Would you advise him to run that kind of ad, Charlie? Do you approve of that ad, Charlie?"

Black replied, "I advised Jesse Helms to do what he's always done."

The question now is whether Black will advise McCain, another Republican who is trailing an attractive African-American Democrat, to do what Helms always did?

The answer is: Not exactly. McCain's presidential campaign will not be a precise homage to Helms?

Black his fellow strategists will, undoubtedly, be a bit subtler. But Mel Watt suggested in a recent interview that we might still hear the faint strains of "Dixie."

"Clearly, times have changed, and people aren't going to be able to get away with those kind of direct racial appeals," said Watt, recalling the 1990 anti-Gantt campaigning by Helms and his associates. "But they will make them more subtle, and call them something else. They'll call them economic appeals, like they did with the 'White Hands' ad."

Source:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/334586
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Clark: McCain A Hero, But Lacks Command Experience


Huffington Post
June 30, 2008


Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a former Democratic presidential candidate now supporting Barack Obama, said Sunday John McCain's military service does not automatically qualify him to be commander in chief.

Underscoring during a national television appearance a position he has been expressing for several weeks, Clark said performing heroic military service is not a substitute for gaining command experience.

"In the matters of national security policy making, it's a matter of understanding risk," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "It's a matter of gauging your opponents and it's a matter of being held accountable. John McCain's never done any of that in his official positions. I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in the armed forces, as a prisoner of war."

"He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee and he has traveled all over the world, but he hasn't held executive responsibility," Clark said. "That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded _ that wasn't a wartime squadron."

Moderator Bob Schieffer, who raised the issue by citing similar remarks Clark has made previously, noted that Obama hadn't had those experiences nor had he ridden in a fighter plane and been shot down. "Well, I don't think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president," Clark replied.

In a March conference call with reporters while he was still backing Hillary Rodham Clinton, Clark said: "Everybody admires John McCain's service as a fighter pilot, his courage as a prisoner of war. There's no issue there. He's a great man and an honorable man. But having served as a fighter pilot _ and I know my experience as a company commander in Vietnam _ that doesn't prepare you to be commander in chief in terms of dealing with the national strategic issues that are involved. It may give you a feeling for what the troops are going through in the process, but it doesn't give you the experience first hand of the national strategic issues."

He reiterated that position last week in an article on The Huffington Post Web site.

"If Barack Obama's campaign wants to question John McCain's military service, that's their right," McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said after Clark's appearance Sunday. "But let's please drop the pretense that Barack Obama stands for a new type of politics. The reality is he's proving to be a typical politician who is willing to say anything to get elected, including allowing his campaign surrogates to demean and attack John McCain's military service record."

Source:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/30/clark-mccain-a-hero-but-l_n_109988.html
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Was Clark at Waco?


Counterpunch
June 28, 2008


On February 28, 1993 the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms launched its disastrous and lethal raid on the Branch Dividian compound outside Waco, Texas. Even before the raid, members of the US Armed Forces, many of them in civilian dress, were around the compound.

In the wake of the Feb 28 debacle Texas governor Anne Richards asked to consult with knowledgeable military personnel. Her request went to the US Army base at Fort Hood, where the commanding officer of the US Army's III corps referred her to the Cavalry Division of the III Corps, whose commander at the time was Wesley Clark.

Subsequent congressional enquiry records that Richards met with Wesley Clark's number two, the assistant division commander, who advised her on military equipment that might be used in a subsequent raid. Clark's man, at Richard's request, also met with the head of the Texas National Guard.

Two senior Army officers subsequently travelled to a crucial April 14 meeting in Washington, D.C. with Attorney General Janet Reno and Justice Department and FBI officials in which the impending April 19 attack on the compound was reviewed.

The 186-page "Investigation into the Activities of Federal Law Enforcement Agencies Towards the Branch Davidians", prepared by the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight and lodged in 1996 (CR 104 749) does not name these two officers and at deadline CounterPunch has so far been unable to unearth them.

One of these officers had reconnoitered the Branch Davidian compound a day earlier, on April 13. During the Justice Dept. meeting one of the officers told Reno that if the military had been called in to end a barricade situation as part of a military operation in a foreign country, it would focus its efforts on "taking out" the leader of the operation.

Ultimately tanks from Fort Hood were used in the final catastrophic assault on the Branch Davidian compound on April 19.

Certainly the Waco onslaught bears characteristics typical of Gen. Wesley Clark: the eagerness to take out the leader (viz., the Clark-ordered bombing of Milosevich's private residence); the utter disregard for the lives of innocent men, women and children; the arrogant miscalculations about the effects of force; disregard for law, whether of the Posse Comitatus Act governing military actions within the United States or, abroad, the purview of the Nuremberg laws on war crimes and attacks on civilians.

Source:
http://www.counterpunch.org/waco.html
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