In Ashcroft’s Darkened Hospital Room…
May 17th, 2007Like they’ve never soared before!
Via: NPR:
One senator called it some of the most dramatic testimony he’s heard in 25 years as a legislator.
Comey was the only witness at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, where for the first time, he publicly told the story of a dramatic confrontation at a hospital bedside between some of the most powerful men in Washington.
“I thought I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have the powers of the attorney general because they had been transferred to me,” Comey testified.
The sick man was John Ashcroft, who was in the hospital with acute pancreatitis. Hours before his hospitalization, Ashcroft and Comey had decided not to reauthorize the president’s secret, controversial, domestic-surveillance program.
The night after the Justice Department told the White House, Comey received a phone call. The president’s chief of staff, Andy Card, and then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales were on their way to Ashcroft’s hospital room.
“I told my security detail that I needed to get to George Washington Hospital immediately,” Comey testified. “They turned on the emergency equipment and drove very quickly to the hospital. I got out of the car and literally ran up the stairs.”
The room was dark. Mrs. Ashcroft was standing by the bed. Comey said that Ashcroft, in his sixth day in intensive care, was not in good shape. He was unfocused, disoriented.
“And it was only a matter of minutes that the door opened and in walked Mr. Gonzales, carrying an envelope, and Mr. Card,” Comey said. “They came over and stood by the bed, greeted the attorney general very briefly, and then Mr. Gonzales began to discuss why they were there — to seek his approval for a matter.”
Then, Ashcroft did something that stunned Comey. He lifted his head off the pillow and explained in strong, detailed terms why he would not sign the paper.
“And as he laid back down, he said, ‘But that doesn’t matter because I’m not the attorney general. There is the attorney general.’ And he pointed to me,” Comey testified. “I was just to his left. The two men did not acknowledge me. They turned and walked from the room.”
Research Credit: KL
Cryptogon Reader Signs Up for Hosting with BlueHost
May 17th, 2007Thanks to the reader who decided to host robnmeg.com with BlueHost. Cryptogon receives $65!
The Poverty Business
May 17th, 2007This reads like another evil-corporations-fleecing-ignorant-poor-people article, and it is, but it’s a huge mistake to think that the poor mindset only affects poor people. I know people who make a quarter of a million dollars per year who live week to week and are always struggling for more. I also know people who have declared bankruptcy who buy iPods. The lack of the concept of enough is the root of this. It creates the prisoners and the prison, regardless of income.
Do you know the one thing I’ve noticed that all people with the poor mindset seem to have in common?
Television.
Rich, poor, Ivy League education, no education, it doesn’t seem to matter: If they watch a lot of TV they are in debt up to their ears.
Have you noticed this too?
I wonder if anyone has done a study on hours of tv watched per day vs. household debt?
Via: Business Week:
In recent years, a range of businesses have made financing more readily available to even the riskiest of borrowers. Greater access to credit has put cars, computers, credit cards, and even homes within reach for many more of the working poor. But this remaking of the marketplace for low-income consumers has a dark side: Innovative and zealous firms have lured unsophisticated shoppers by the hundreds of thousands into a thicket of debt from which many never emerge.
Federal Reserve data show that in relative terms, that debt is getting more expensive. In 1989 households earning $30,000 or less a year paid an average annual interest rate on auto loans that was 16.8% higher than what households earning more than $90,000 a year paid. By 2004 the discrepancy had soared to 56.1%. Roughly the same thing happened with mortgage loans: a leap from a 6.4% gap to one of 25.5%. “It’s not only that the poor are paying more; the poor are paying a lot more,” says Sheila C. Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Once, substantial businesses had little interest in chasing customers of the sort who frequent the storefronts surrounding the Byrider dealership in Albuquerque. Why bother grabbing for the few dollars in a broke man’s pocket? Now there’s a reason.
Armed with the latest technology for assessing credit risks—some of it so fine-tuned it picks up spending on cigarettes—ambitious corporations like Byrider see profits in those thin wallets. The liquidity lapping over all parts of the financial world also has enabled the dramatic expansion of lending to the working poor. Byrider, with financing from Bank of America Corp. (BAC ) and others, boasts 130 dealerships in 30 states. At company headquarters in Carmel, Ind., a profusion of colored pins decorates wall maps, marking the 372 additional franchises it aims to open from California to Florida. CompuCredit Corp., based in Atlanta, aggressively promotes credit cards to low-wage earners with a history of not paying their bills on time. And BlueHippo Funding, a self-described “direct response merchandise lender,” has retooled the rent-to-own model to sell PCs and plasma TVs.
How Safe Is The Food Supply?
May 17th, 2007This article should be called, “How Well Prepared Are You for Collapse?”
Via: Business Week:
That powder keg hasn’t exploded–yet. But every month there are a surprising number of near misses. Europe just had a scare from harmful bacteria in vitamin A from China that nearly got into infant formula. And in the past few weeks alone, the FDA has issued warnings or recalls for brands of milk, olives, bottled water, bread, prepared fruit trays, melons, oysters, and peanut butter. The pathogens or contaminants implicated in such scares form an unholy litany: salmonella, listeria, norovirus, nitric acid, arsenic, even wire fragments. Toxins such as lead routinely show up in vitamins and dietary supplements.
Enemy Collaborator Democrats Keep War Going
May 17th, 2007Duh.
Democrats = Republicans in Jackass Costumes
Via: AP / Myway:
Anti-war Democrats in the Senate failed in an attempt to cut off funds for the Iraq war on Wednesday, a lopsided bipartisan vote that masked growing impatience within both political parties over President Bush’s handling of the four-year conflict.
Arizona Trying to Stop Sales of T-Shirts with Names of Dead Soldiers
May 16th, 2007Would you like some freedom fries with that?
Via: Arizona Daily Star:
State lawmakers voted Monday to approve a law blocking the sale of anti-war T-shirts with the names of dead soldiers on them — a measure one media lawyer says is “unconstitutional about three or four different ways.”
The Senate agreed to make it punishable by up to a year in jail to use the names of deceased soldiers to help sell goods. The 28-0 vote sends SB 1014 to Gov. Janet Napolitano for her signature. The measure also would let families go to court to stop the sales and collect damages.
Dan Frazer, a Flagstaff businessman who is selling the T-shirts that caused all the fuss, said he doesn’t intend to stop selling the $20 shirts even if Napolitano signs the measure. He said it’s an illegal infringement on his First Amendment rights.
Research Credit: PD
Commander’s Veto Sank Threatening Gulf Buildup
May 16th, 2007Brzezinski’s testimony indicates to me that the expansion of the conflict into Iran might not be allowed to happen. Don’t ask me how it will be stopped, but he is the mouthpiece of the people who run this show, not in appearance, but in fact.
—Zbigniew Brzezinski Before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
The war with Iran must be stopped by any means necessary… The full weight of this burden now rests squarely on the shoulders of the men and women of the U.S. military. Attempt to save America and the world from the diabolical lunatics who have subverted power, or parish in oblivion with the rest of us: Those are the options that every member of the U.S. armed forces must now consider.
—Bush Violation of FISA Law a Felony
Well, we’re still here.
Via: ipsnews:
At a mid-February meeting of top civilian officials over which Secretary of Defence Gates presided, there was an extensive discussion of a strategy of intimidating Tehran’s leaders, according to an account by a Pentagon official who attended the meeting given to a source outside the Pentagon. The plan involved a series of steps that would appear to Tehran to be preparations for war, in a manner similar to the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
But Fallon, who was scheduled to become the CENTCOM chief Mar. 16, responded to the proposed plan by sending a strongly-worded message to the Defence Department in mid-February opposing any further U.S. naval buildup in the Persian Gulf as unwarranted.
“He asked why another aircraft carrier was needed in the Gulf and insisted there was no military requirement for it,” says the source, who obtained the gist of Fallon’s message from a Pentagon official who had read it.
Fallon’s refusal to support a further naval buildup in the Gulf reflected his firm opposition to an attack on Iran and an apparent readiness to put his career on the line to prevent it. A source who met privately with Fallon around the time of his confirmation hearing and who insists on anonymity quoted Fallon as saying that an attack on Iran “will not happen on my watch”.
Asked how he could be sure, the source says, Fallon replied, “You know what choices I have. I’m a professional.” Fallon said that he was not alone, according to the source, adding, “There are several of us trying to put the crazies back in the box.”
Fallon’s opposition to adding a third carrier strike group to the two already in the Gulf represented a major obstacle to the plan. The decision to send a second carrier task group to the Gulf had been officially requested by Fallon’s predecessor at CENTCOM, Gen. John Abizaid, according to a Dec. 20 report by the Washington Post’s Peter Baker. But as Baker reported, the circumstances left little doubt that Abizaid was doing so because the White House wanted it as part of a strategy of sending “pointed messages” to Iran.
CENTCOM commander Fallon’s refusal to request the deployment of a third carrier strike group meant that proceeding with that option would carry political risks. The administration chose not to go ahead with the plan. Two days before the Nimitz sailed out of San Diego for the Gulf on Apr. 1, a Navy spokesman confirmed that it would replace the Eisenhower, adding, “There is no plan to overlap them at all.”
The defeat of the plan for a third carrier task group in the Gulf appears to have weakened the position of Cheney and other hawks in the administration who had succeeded in selling Bush on the idea of a strategy of coercive threat against Iran.
National ID: Biometrics Pinned to Social Security Cards
May 15th, 2007Via: Wired:
The Social Security card faces its first major upgrade in 70 years under two immigration-reform proposals slated for debate this week that would add biometric information to the card and finally complete its slow metamorphosis into a national ID.
The leading immigration proposal with traction in Congress would force employers to accept only a very limited range of approved documents as proof of work eligibility, including a driver’s license that meets new federal Real ID standards, a high-tech temporary work visa or a U.S. passport with an RFID chip. A fourth option is the notional tamper-proof biometric Social Security card, which would replace the text-only design that’s been issued to Americans almost without change for more than 70 years.
Massachusetts Electricity Infrastructure Facing Possible Collapse this Summer
May 15th, 2007Via: Boston Herald:
With temperatures already surging into the 80s and a scorching summer on tap, many Massachusetts communities could face a spike in blackouts – and possibly even explosions – from thousands of potentially dangerous overloaded electrical transformers.
Documents obtained by the Herald show more than 12,000 transformers from Attleboro to Ayer are operating at above 200 percent capacity, with some as high as 900 percent over design standards. Union officials, who last night reached an agreement in contract talks with National Grid, say the overloads are pushing the state’s electrical system to the brink and could lead to widespread blackouts this summer.
Research Credit: Life After the Oil Crash
Spin
May 15th, 2007My favorite part is when that Larry King creature is talking to Slick, fifteen minutes in:
“He would — uh — serve you — you know what I mean?”
Woh. Not before bedtime kiddies. Not before bedtime.
Via: Google Video:
Using the 1992 presidential election as his springboard, documentary filmmaker Brian Springer captures the behind-the-scenes maneuverings of politicians and newscasters in the early 1990s. Pat Robertson banters about “homos,” Al Gore learns how to avoid abortion questions, George Bush talks to Larry King about halcyon — all presuming they’re off camera. Composed of 100% unauthorized satellite footage, Spin is a surreal expose of media-constructed reality.
