Or so they say in journalism. Of course, the wingnut o'sphere does not even come close to anything resembling journalism. Not even a faint cry from what the mainstream media has become today. To the media's credit, they did break the story on the terrible conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The scandal created a huge firestorm that resulted in two generals being fired and the Army Secretary resigning.
With the White House in crisis mode, Bush is doing anything he can to look like a leader after the last six years of merely paying lip service to the hundreds of thousands of troops he has unjustifiably sent into harm's way. The media and the blogosphere has been on the case for two weeks now, but where are the right-wing blogs speaking out for the troops that they claim to support?
Well Jesus' General made this nifty little chart to show all the posts about the scandal on the right:
Wow, four fuckin' posts from those wingnuts that claim the left hates the troops. The same garbage that comes from those that cheer on the war without actually having the guts to serve on the front-line, or any line for that matter. For them it is back to the keyboard to type out their hate and their lies.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
All The News That's Fit To Print
Hannity Is No Match For A Preacher
Sean Hannity gets schooled in theology by Barack Obama's pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.
A Man Without A Country
No, this isn't about Kurt Vonnegut's latest novel. This is a story about a diplomat who realized what he was doing for the British government was morally wrong and that he needed to make a change. Carne Ross was a man who negotiated deals for Great Britain for over 15 years and realized that he could do more with his life. He went from a promising career by holding the status quo and then did everything he could to fight it. He spoke against the war and how intelligence was used to bring this 'war' about. He thoroughly debunked the WMD claims as a man on the inside.
Ross has been ostracized by his former employers in London for doing the 'right thing.' Instead of being a diplomat for one of five nations on the UN Security Council, he sits at the table for the voiceless, for the countries that have had little chance at negotiating favorable deals on the world stage and for people that don't even have a nation-state to call their own.
From The New York Times:
Unhappy with American and British claims that Iraq was developing unconventional weapons, Mr. Ross testified in June 2004 at an official inquiry into the British government’s use of intelligence. Two months later, convinced he could no longer work in the foreign service, he resigned. Since then he has written many articles criticizing the American and British rationale for going to war.
But it is his broad critique of the way international diplomacy is conducted that has ruffled feathers the most.
In a book released in April, “Independent Diplomat: Dispatches From an Unaccountable Elite,” he takes the foreign service to task. He says it routinely made “bad decisions in closed rooms” and acted “with little or no consultation of the people in whose name those decisions are made.”
When he made this revelation and wrote his book, he knew that he was meant for something different. With all of the bad decisions his government had made, he sought to fight against the machine and make a difference in the world for those that could barely speak. He became a diplomat for the voice-less.
He formed a non-profit organization called the Independent Diplomat named after his book. He has fought for the people of Kosovo and the rights of ethnic Albanians. Recently he has also taken up the charge to help the Polisaro Front. Not too many people even know who they are. The group is made up of 150,000 refugees camped out in southern Algeria. They are Sahawari refugees that want a homeland in the western Sahara to be carved out of Morocco.
Mr. Ross's goodwill has been noted by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and Richard Whitman, who is a fellow at the Chatham House. Unfortunately despite his fans, many of his former colleagues have disowned him.
Also from the article:
The British government has also chipped away at Mr. Ross, saying he has exaggerated his role on Iraq policy and his access to intelligence about unconventional weapons. “I am not sure how important he was,” Margaret Beckett, Britain’s foreign minister, recently told the BBC, although Mr. Ross was Britain’s official Iraq expert at the United Nations for four and a half years.
Carne Ross's critics are powerful forces in the world and especially hard on him because he used to be one of them. For people like the Foreign Minister of the United Kingdom and others around the world with similar titles, Mr. Ross is certainly one to be feared. The name of the game is to increase the power of the powerful at the weak's expense. So when a man that knows the game because he used to play it so well switches sides, he is definitely one to watch.
The Man In Black
No one can deny that Johnny Cash was a tough guy among tough guys. Along with his perceived machismo, it is hard to say that this man didn't have an opinion on war. This video shows Cash in 1971 singing 'Man in Black.'
Crazy Coulter Goes Over The Line
Tonight at CPAC Ann Coulter was cheered on by the Republican crowd for her vicious remarks against liberals. She railed on Hollywood, Al Gore and Barack Obama. She saved her most tasteless remark for Senator John Edwards.
From RawStory:
"I was going to have a few comments about John Edwards but you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,'" Coulter said.
That type of vile language has no place in politics. Plenty of mud is slung in the political discourse but that is simply over the top. Republicans have let her open that cesspool of a mouth for far too long and over time she continually out-does herself to get a laugh from the people that think like her but are too afraid to have the 'original' thoughts that Coulter expresses.
Many groups were quick to denounce her remarks. The Human Rights Campaign slammed her, the Democratic Party addressed it, even right-wing whacko Michelle Malkin expressed disapproval. The Edwards campaign was also quick in their response. Campaign manager David Bonior set up a 'Coulter Cash' link that is dedicated to raising $100,000 to show that her vitriol has no business being in a political forum. You can donate to the fund here.
Meanwhile the media largely ignored the hateful comment. Only Dana Milbank of the Washington Post mentioned it in passing. Other media publication conveniently skipped over the fact that her anti-gay slur was met with cheering approval of an audience that shows it's true colors when grouped together. We can only hope that the candidates that these people admire will be quick to throw her under the bus....where she belongs.
Colbert Knows This District
The Congressional district in particular is Tennessee's 9th. Memphis is the major city in the district and is represented by Steve Cohen. Check this clip out as Colbert asks Rep. Cohen on his rejection from the Congressional Black Caucus among other issues:
Friday, March 02, 2007
The Pentagon Does Not Care About The Troops
The fact that our troops are sent in harms way without adequate equipment and body armor is something to shame even the most hardened soul. What is worse than that is what the Pentagon did today when they fired the commander of Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
It was the right thing to do to fire him for the terrible conditions at the Maryland facility. It was absolutely wrong to replace him with Lt. General Kevin Riley. Riley's current position is as the Army's Surgeon General. His previous post was at....Walter Reed Army Medical Center, while the problems were ongoing!
From the Washinton Post:
Steve Robinson, director of veterans affairs at Veterans for America, said he ran into Kiley in the foyer of the command headquarters at Walter Reed shortly after the Iraq war began and told him that "there are people in the barracks who are drinking themselves to death and people who are sharing drugs and people not getting the care they need."
"I met guys who weren't going to appointments because the hospital didn't even know they were there," Robinson said. Kiley told him to speak to a sergeant major, a top enlisted officer.
A recent Washington Post series detailed conditions at Walter Reed, including those at Building 18, a dingy former hotel on Georgia Avenue where the wounded were housed among mice, mold, rot and cockroaches.
Kiley lives across the street from Building 18. From his quarters, he can see the scrappy building and busy traffic the soldiers must cross to get to the 113-acre post. At a news conference last week, Kiley, who declined several requests for interviews for this article, said that the problems of Building 18 "weren't serious and there weren't a lot of them." He also said they were not "emblematic of a process of Walter Reed that has abandoned soldiers and their families."
So tell me, how does one claim these people support the troops while those that expose this shit hate America? What will it take for the wingnuts across the country to see that the real enemies of the troops at home are the ones that are supposed to take care of them. People like Kevin Riley, and people like George Bush.
The Albany Project has the story on NY's own Louise Slaughter's call for Riley's immediate removal.
Al Sharpton Discusses His Past On The Daily Show
Al Sharpton has been in the news recently after genealogists found that his great-grandfather was owned by relatives of the late-segregationist and dixiecrat Strom Thurmond. He was definitely shocked to find out the information, but it gave him (and us) an opportunity to talk about the divisions in America and for many to realize that slavery isn't that far behind us.
Bush Talks Tough About Veterans Care
With the tragic conditions at Walter Reed continuing to be on display in the media, President Bush is finally addressing it almost two weeks after the Washington Post broke the story on the squalid conditions that some of the hospital's veterans endure. As usual, George Bush made claims that he was going to seriously look at the problems that veterans face with their health care that the government provides. What he will actually do in reality is another story.
Bush proposed to name a bipartisan commission to look at all the government's facilities. He will even devote his weekly radio address to veterans' care. So let the talking begin, while real action languishes. Despite the rhetoric, Bush's record in the last six years is atrocious when it comes to taking care of those that serve our nation in combat. The Veterans Adminstration has seen deep cuts over the years and now it can be seen that even the army has cut funding for the care of the wounded. Those cuts are hard to justify with their ever-increasing budget that the President and until recently, the Republican Congress has granted them. With over half a trillion dollars in their budget in addition to the hundreds of billions spent on the war, we still see that our nation's soldiers are mistreated and abused.
If the President wants to really do something, he will cut back the funds that go to military contractors and fully fund the VA. Then he will force the Pentagon to adequately fund (if not go above and beyond) the hospitals that care for the thousands that have been wounded by his illegitimate war. Of course, the President is talking this weekend but somehow I don't see much action in the future.
War Between Spitzer And 1199 Heats Up
This week Eliot Spitzer fired off an ad likening the Greater New York Hospital Association and 1199 to crybabies over his new health care reforms. He was met with a returning salvo over the airwaves. Today the battle reached new heights with Spitzer's presentation of his plan to the Association for a Better New York.
With the leaders of his opposition in attendance, he featured a powerpoint slide that claimed they were “Guardians of the Status Quo,” and continued to say that each of the Hospital Associations claims were 'flat out wrong.' The entire audience, save for 1199 and the Greater New York Hospital Association stood and applauded the Governor's presentation. Later on the ad wars resumed and Spitzer's opponents unleashed an ad with a nurse replying to Eliot, saying that she was no crybaby.
Let the wailing continue, and we'll see how it all works out in the end.
In NOLA, Justice Is A Thing Of The Past
New Orleans was left in shambles following the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina. We all know that the disaster preparedness plan was nearly non-existent. We know that the government failed New Orleans and the region in the days, weeks and months following the hurricane. The problems still continue.
I visited New Orleans in October and saw a city in shambles. Sure there was some activity in the Vieux Carre, the Garden district and downtown, but besides that the city has a long way to go. The Crescent City lost half of its population after Katrina, yet for the half that still resides down there there is no justice system.
Out of the hundreds of thousands of residents that scattered across the country, most of those that worked in all facets of the justice system were part of that exodus. Many of the public defenders and court employees are gone, only a few fighters remain to provide legal services for a battered system that predominantly hurts the poorest of the community.
One example of this is Iben O'Neal:
Iben O'Neal, 32, languished in a New Orleans jail for a year and a half after his arrest in 2005, without seeing a lawyer, judge or the inside of a courtroom.
"I actually felt like I wasn't going to get out," he told ABC News' Steve Osunsami. "I was lost."
O'Neal was arrested May 19, 2005, on a charge related to simple drug possession. He remained in jail three months later when Hurricane Katrina flooded the courts and the rest of the city. He finally walked out of jail in November 2006, after a group of young lawyers discovered his records and convinced a judge to release him.
"There are a lot of people been in there a couple of years, man, and never been to court," O'Neal said.
The Justice Department concluded in a recent study that many people are stuck in the system. Defendents have extreme difficulty obtaining a trial, even if to plead guilty. There are many cases like Mr. O'Neal and many people that are active in getting justice for those frozen by the lack of services say there isn't much being done.
A USDOJ press release tried to refute the situation on the ground on January 25 of this year. The fact sheet details $61 million in funding to get the justice system up and running. Nevertheless, where is the proof that this money is working?
What makes matters worse is where the trickle of federal money is going. Not surprisingly, a sizeable chunk of those dollars are funding the reconstruction of the prisons first. One parish has already spent $5 million on a temporary facility with a pending request of $57 million to rebuild the jail to its original size.
Pamela Metzger is trying to make a difference in this sordid situation. She recently started Project Gideon, which is trying to get every criminal defendent sufficient counsel for their cases. She has already helped nearly 1,000 people to get out of their legal jams while fighting the lack of a justice system. In the ABC News article linked above, she had this to say about New Orleans justice:
"Think about trying to call the court and write the court to say, 'When do I see a judge' and there's no answer because no phone picks up," Metzger said. "There were no phones."
When asked if that's still the case now, she said yes.
Of course, this contradicts the rosy picture the federal government tries to portray in their program to re-build the region. They have a litany of examples that show they care and things are getting done. Of course with many things associated with the Bush Adminstration, what is said on paper usually contradicts reality.