Bully Plays the Victim

Awww, look at the darling pixies sending messages of love to their Lebanese neighbors. Brings a tear to your eye, dunnit? Good to know our tax dollars are so hard at work. I know it's hard to believe, but there actually is another side to the story - one in which Izzy is the bad guy and not the innocent victim so often portrayed in the main$tream media. Click here to see where these made-in-the-USA love notes ended up. I'm not saying Hezbollah is a shining example of human dignity and honor, but they are not the sub-human ogres seen on Fock Snooze and in Israeli fairy tales. How many incidents like this would you tolerate before you started contemplating launching a few rockets? Almost seems as if Israel wanted conflict with Lebanon. Indeed, Israel - or at least Likud - has been planning this thing for quite some time. Well, at least our illustrious Secretary of State is hard at work on the problem...NOT.

George Galloway Savages SKY NEWS!

Unlike Sean Vanity & Bill O'Liely, at least Rupert Murdoch's UK version allows the dissenters to get a word in. They won't be having Galloway back anytime soon, though.

It’s the Jerry Springer Show and today’s guests are the leader of Hezbollah, Israeli PM Ehud Olmert, British PM Tony Blair and Bush.

First the Hezbollah leader comes out on stage and states his case in broad terms. He begins by saying, “I’m all, ‘you best stop fuckin wit us or we gonna rocket your ass.’ And he’s all like callin me a bitch and a towel head and a camel jockey and shit. And I’m all, ‘best stop wit dat. Ima warning ya.’”

Then Olmert comes out and states his case, saying, “Y’all started it when you kidnapped two of our soldiers, beeyotch.”

To which the Hezbollah guy responds with, “Nuh-uh. Y’all started it when you kidnapped two of our doctors, mothafucka.”

Then Olmert gets up and slaps the Hezbollah guy, who responds by tackling Olmert to the floor and the two of them wrestle desperately until the bald security guard comes out and separates them.

Springer restores order and gets them both to calm down. He then suggests that their problems are the result of machinations perpetrated by a third party, namely, Britain. “Wasn’t it Britain,” Springer asks, “who started this whole mess by abandoning the Arabs after WW1?” And the Hezbollah guy’s brow furrows. “And wasn’t it Britain,” Springer continues, “who forced the Palestinians to give up half of their territory so that the nation of Israel could be created?” The Hezbollah guy tugs his beard. Then, turning to Olmert, Springer asks, “And wasn’t it Britain who abandoned the newly created nation of Israel?” Olmert’s brow furrows. “And wasn’t it Britain,” Springer continues, “who signed lucrative oil contracts with Israel’s enemies, allowing them to purchase dangerous weapons?” Olmert grinds his teeth.

Hezbollah guy says, “Hey, he’s right.”

Olmert’s eyes light up. “Yeah. I never could stand that Tony Blair mothafucka.”

Then Hezbollah guy says, “Yeah, where that bitch at?”

Then the camera cuts backstage where a smug Tony Blair is waiting.

Olmert says, “That Blair mothafucka betta be glad he ain’t up in here, cuz if he was, I’d be kicking his ass.”

And then Hezbollah guy says, “Yeah, Ima shove a Cooper Mini up his narrow limey ass.” Olmert laughs and gives Hezbollah guy five. They both fold their arms defiantly, confident that they have identified the culprit behind their difficulties.

Then Springer says, “Well, fellas, you’re in luck. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome British Prime Minister Tony Blair!”

The crowd goes “Oooooohhhh!”

Blair immediately rushes up to Olmert and says, “I heard what you said.”

“So?” replies Olmert.

“So?!” mocks Blair. “So?! So why ain’t you kickin my ass, beeyotch? Now’s your chance, mothafucka. Why I don’t see no ass kickin?”

Hezbollah guy chuckles, attracting Blair’s attention. “And you. You gonna shove a Mini up my ass? That’s a good one, Towel Head.”

“Fuck you, honkey,” replies Hezbollah guy, shoving Blair. Olmert takes advantage of Blair’s momentary stumble to sucker punch Blair.

Blair says, “Oh yeah, bitch,” and punches Olmert in the nuts. Hezbollah guy tackles Blair to the floor, knocking over Olmert in the process and the three of them wrestle desperately until the bald security guard comes out and breaks it up.

Eventually, the three of them calm down and Springer again suggests that all of their problems have been caused by yet another party, namely, America.

“Wasn’t it America who toppled the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953, leading to an unfair trade pact with that country?”

“Hey yeah,” says Blair, wiping a trickle of blood from his lip.

“And wasn’t it America,” continues Springer, “who encouraged Hussein to attack Iran, thereby destabilizing the entire region and turning Arabs against Arabs?”

“Yeah, you right,” says Hezbollah guy, adjusting his turban.

“And wasn’t it America,” continues Springer, turning his attention to Olmert, “who helped weaken Labor and increase the suspicion of Likkud by highlighting nonexistent threats?”

“Uh-huh,” says Olmert, rubbing his nuts. “I never really liked that dopey cowboy act anyways.”

“Why that bitch can’t talk right?” demands Hezbollah guy. The crowd laughs.

Smiling broadly, Blair mimics Bush. “Ima help you put food on you family!” he says, laughing. “Don’t mis-underestimate me!” he says, laughing harder. Olmert and Hezbollah guy start to laugh.

“Is our children learning!” exclaims Olmert laughing.

“Will the highways of the Internet become more few!” adds Hezbollah guy gleefully. The crowd is roaring.

The camera cuts backstage where an angry George Bush is waiting. Finally, he can take no more; he rushes onstage to confront his mockers.

“Ladies and Gentlemen: The President of the United States!” announces Springer. The crowd hoots. First, Bush confronts Blair.

“I thought we was homies,” says Bush, “but now I see you ain’t nothin but a ho!”

The crowd goes “Oooooohhh.”

“Whip this ho, beeyotch,” challenges Blair.

“Yeah. Bring. It. On,” says Hezbollah guy. The crowd roars again.

“Where the WMDs at, fag?” says Olmert.

Blair shoves Bush, who falls easily to the floor. Blair, Olmert and Hezbollah guy start punching and kicking Bush Goodfellas style. The bald security guard comes out, but instead of breaking up the fight, he joins in stomping Bush’s face. Springer leads the crowd in a chant: “KILL! KILL! KILL!”

After a commercial break, Springer gives his moral of the story. “Lying and betraying your countrymen and your allies might get you to the top, but, as they say in Haiti, the higher the monkey climbs, the more you see his ass, and this monkey’s ass just got kicked!”

The crowd applauds and resumes its chant of “KILL! KILL! KILL!” Bush is already dead, but Blair, Olmert, Hezbollah guy and the bald security guard keep stomping him anyway.

The end.

9/11 Is a Joke pt 2

The problem with America – or a problem – is that we seem congenitally incapable of adhering to our own high ideals. Perhaps it is because we are comprised mainly of rejects from other countries. Or maybe it’s because the high ideals themselves are tainted by ulterior motives: The only way for the ruling class to gain support among the general populace for new paradigms is to frame the proposals in terms of inherent rights and an innate sense of justice. Indeed, the main impetus behind the American Revolution was the profits that colonial land barons were losing through taxes paid to King George. In order to convince working stiffs to do most of the fighting in that war, wealthy landowners resorted to espousing “self-evident truths” and “inalienable rights.” But once the shooting stopped, these truths and rights suddenly became less self-evident and inalienable, and working people were once again on their own. After all, what difference did it make to them whether they paid their taxes to a king in England or a congress in Washington? Shays’ Rebellion in 1786 and the Whiskey Rebellion eight years later vividly illustrate the alacrity with which early American rulers donned the crown they had knocked from George’s head.

This pattern repeats itself ad nauseam throughout American history. “Remember the Alamo” was the cry for justice that accompanied the shameless land-grab of the Mexican-American War. “Popular Sovereignty” was the principle behind Stephen Douglas’ westward railroad scheme that led inevitably to the Civil War. And as General Smedley Darlington Butler points out in his 1935 screed, War Is a Racket, “Woodrow Wilson was re-elected president in 1916 on a platform that he had kept us out of war, and on the implied promise that he would keep us out of war. Yet five months later, he asked Congress to declare war on Germany. What caused our government to change its mind so suddenly? Money.”

Time and again, the quest for corporate profit has drawn America into costly and unnecessary wars having nothing whatsoever to do with national security.

It is important to recognize that every war since the Civil War has been preceded by an unprovoked enemy attack against U.S. interests. The Spanish American War was sparked by an as yet unexplained explosion aboard the USS Maine while she lay at anchor in Havana Harbor. US entry in WW1 was triggered by the German U-boat attack on the civilian ocean liner Lusitania. The Pearl Harbor attacks inspired US involvement in WW2. The Korean Conflict was caused by unchecked Communist aggression along the 38th parallel; the Gulf of Tonkin Incident ignited Viet Nam. And then, of course, the September 11th attacks. Each of these incidents was accompanied by a massive PR campaign, including propaganda disguised as news. In addition to these conflicts, there have been numerous undeclared military operations in places like Nicaragua, El Salvador, the Philippines, Haiti, Panama, Cambodia and elsewhere, each accompanied by silence or, if necessary, spin from the media. In each of these cases, corporate, military and intelligence entities were the primary beneficiaries.

To supplement our military campaigns, declared and undeclared, America employs a rich arsenal of dirty tricks carried out by over a dozen top secret intelligence agencies. These dirty tricks include assassination, sabotage, kidnapping, terrorism, torture, propaganda, provocation and blackmail. With the help of press leaks, declassified documents and deductive reasoning, the observant news junkie can piece together a plausible scenario in which the inherent corruption of the American psyche combined with the unbridled greed of Wall Street could have led to something as insidious as the September 11th attacks. But first, let’s take a look at a few of the misdeeds that I feel illustrate America’s criminal tendencies.

Operation Northwoods
In 1962, General Lyman Lemnitzer, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Pentagon, authorized the implementation of a series of covert operations designed to justify military action against the communist regime in Cuba. Codenamed Northwoods, the plot involved “false flag” terrorist attacks in the Miami area and in Cuba, the sinking of an American ship reminiscent of the Maine episode, and perhaps most interestingly, the destruction of a drone aircraft disguised as an airliner. Had it been implemented, the scheme would have involved mock funerals for military and civilian “casualties,” and the framing and prosecution of innocent bystanders. As Body of Secrets author James Bamford writes, “Operation Northwoods, which had the written approval of the Chairman and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere. People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence, all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer and his cabal the excuse, as well as the public and international backing, they needed to launch their war.”
Kennedy scuttled the project and removed Lemnitzer from his post as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Lemnitzer later became supreme allied commander of NATO forces in Europe.

COINTELPRO
COINTELPRO is spook-speak for “counter intelligence program,” and it is the name of a twenty-year domestic spying operation conducted by the FBI. Its initial purpose was to infiltrate and disrupt chapters of the Communist Party USA, but soon the scope of the operation grew to include civil rights groups, antiwar organizations and anyone else who FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover disliked. Agents would intimidate organization members into abandoning the group, use illegal phone taps, plant false evidence and use perjured testimony to blackmail leaders, conduct violent interrogations, assaults and beatings. The program remained secret until 1971, when activists burglarized an FBI field office and then leaked several key documents the press. Within a year, Hoover announced the cessation of “centralized” COINTELPRO operations, meaning FBI field offices could continue if they liked.

Operations AJAX and PBSUCCESS
Allen W. Dulles is one of the most diabolical figures in our history. Most of the weird, dangerous, hard-to-believe stories associated with the CIA originate with Dulles. His first success came immediately after he was named Director of Central Intelligence in 1953, suggesting the plans were already in place before he officially assumed command. Indeed, a similar British-led operation had been suggested to Truman, who refused to cooperate. But with Dulles in charge of the CIA, and his brother, John Foster Dulles, at the helm of the State Department, such plans had new appeal. Called Operation AJAX, the plot successfully toppled the democratically elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh. You see, Mossadegh had the strange notion that most of the profits from Iranian oil reserves should go to Iran. But the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company – later known as British Petroleum – had other ideas. Kermit Roosevelt Jr., Teddy’s grandson, hired a band of agents provocateur to stage public demonstrations demanding the return of the Shah. After some key army units joined the movement, Mossadegh had no choice but to step down. AIOC changed its name to BP, and its Iranian monopoly was divided between seven other oil companies from the US, France and the Netherlands. The project was so cheap and successful that they tried it again the next year in Guatemala. This time the operation was called PBSUCCESS, and the hapless democratically elected president was named Jacobo Arbenz, and the commodity was fruit, not oil. One of Arbenz’ first acts as president was to redistribute the land, most of which had come under the control of the United Fruit Company. Naturally, United Fruit resented this, and they lobbied the Eisenhower Administration heavily. These efforts were unnecessary, however, since the Dulles bros. already had their eye on ole Arbenz, calling him a Soviet beachhead in the Western Hemisphere. Using fake radio broadcasts of fierce jungle fighting and occasional jet fighter fly-overs, the CIA convinced Arbenz and his supporters in the capitol that rebel forces had seized the countryside. Exiled general, Castillo Armas was installed as dictator. The plot was attacked in the European press and UN Secretary General, Dag Hammarskjold, accused the US of violating its UN charter. United Fruit’s international reputation was so badly damaged by this and other episodes of strikebreaking and exploitation that they did what anyone would do – they changed their name. Now known as Chiquita Brands International, the company continues to have large land holdings in Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Costa Rica and Colombia.

Skeptical?
“Okay,” you may say, “if all this shit is true, then how’s come it ain’t in the papers?” Well, there are two answers. This first answer is that sometimes stories about this stuff do appear in newspapers. Click here to find out what happens to tenacious reporters who manage to sneak though the corporate gauntlet.

The second answer is that there are sophisticated mechanisms in place designed to keep anti-corporate news items out of the press and to replace them with pro-corporate propaganda.

Operation Mockingbird
Operation Mockingbird, for example, was a CIA plot to plant agents or agency friendly operatives in newspapers and magazines throughout the United States and abroad. These operatives were instructed to write stories showing CIA-backed foreign policy initiatives in a positive light, and to ignore or misrepresent failed or unsavory operations. In Mockingbird: The Subversion of the Free Press by the CIA, Alex Constantine writes, “some 3,000 salaried and contract CIA employees were eventually engaged in propaganda efforts.”

In addition to publishing propaganda as news, the CIA also would buy up entire press runs of books and magazines it wished to suppress. In 1964, for example, the CIA threatened to buy the entire run for a book titled Invisible Government, which attempted to reveal the CIA’s foreign policy influence. The ploy failed, however, when Random House countered by threatening to print a second edition. In 1966, the CIA targeted the anti-war slick Ramparts, which had recently run an exposé on CIA funding of the National Student Association. CIA operative Edgar Applewhite was ordered to orchestrate a campaign against Ramparts.

“I had all sorts of dirty tricks to hurt their circulation and financing,” Applewhite later admitted. “The people running Ramparts were vulnerable to blackmail. We had awful things in mind, some of which we carried off.”

In a 1977 Rolling Stone Magazine article, All the President’s Men co-author Carl Bernstein describes who the Mockingbird operatives were and their motivations:

“Some of the journalists were Pulitzer Prize winners, distinguished reporters who considered themselves ambassadors-without-portfolio for their country. Most were less exalted: foreign correspondents who found that their association with the Agency helped their work; stringers and freelancers who were as interested it the derring-do of the spy business as in filing articles, and, the smallest category, full-time CIA employees masquerading as journalists abroad.”

In 1975, Church Committee revelations forced then CIA director George H. W. Bush to close Mockingbird, but by then the lessons had been learned by other dirty tricksters. After Ramparts editor Warren Hinckle left to form Scanlon’s Monthly, he again encountered difficulty – this time at the hands of White House counsel John Dean. In 1970, Scanlon’s ran a cover showing a fist punching President Nixon in the face with the headline, “Impeach Nixon.” Inside, there was a photo of a bunch of labor goons meeting with Nixon in the White House. The accompanying editorial detailed the criminal convictions of the men pictured, along with the observation that some of the men were violating the terms of their probations by leaving New York to visit the White House. In his book, Blind Ambition, Dean reveals that one of his first directives from the president was to “get Scanlon’s.”

“The entire 200,000 press run of the magazine,” writes Hinckle, “which had been printed in Canada was arrested and confiscated by the Canadian Royal Mounted Police as the truck carrying Scanlon’s neared the U.S. border. The printer was also raided and his men roughed up. The Canadian press reported that the Mounties had acted at the request of the Nixon White House.”

The Modern Era
Nixon’s spectacular crash-and-burn and America’s failure in Vietnam brought a momentary halt to operations like Mockingbird. By the mid 1970s, with the help of Daniel Ellsberg’s Pentagon Papers, the Church Committee, the Watergate Scandal and other revelations, America had grown to deeply mistrust the CIA and the FBI and secrecy in general. Future efforts to deceive the public would require a new approach. In the 80s, public relations firms sprouted like mushrooms, many employing former intelligence operatives and veteran corporate lawyers, who, with the help of outfits like Wackenhut, the Steele Foundation, DynCorp and Kroll, quickly privatized huge portions of the intelligence business.

One advantage these companies have over the CIA and other government agencies is that they are accountable to no one. From financing to operations, they conduct business all over the world utterly free from congressional oversight.

“They're very closemouthed about what they do,” says Kevin McCauley, an editor of the industry trade publication O'Dwyer's PR Daily. “It’s all cloak-and-dagger stuff.”

In Part 3, we will examine how this privatized approach to covert activity emerged and what it means to a populace that is hopelessly married to the concept of self-government.

Luckily for the schemers, Americans have short memories.

9/11 Is a Joke

Today, I’m going to bring up an uncomfortable topic: conspiracy theories.

As a resident of Left Blogostan, I am supposed to view conspiracy theories the same way I view Trickle Down Economics, school prayer and corporate welfare – that is, with utter contempt. Only a right wing survivalist kook from rural Montana can believe it’s a good idea to give tax cuts to ExxonMobil as they are experiencing record profits, and he’s got the grainy alien autopsy video to prove it.

Or something like that.

As I’ve mentioned before, I do not believe in Bigfoot – unless of course you are referring to the Barley Wine brewed by the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. I do not believe the government nor any elements thereof have made contact with extraterrestrials helping design secret technologies at Area 51. I’m not buying the cattle mutilation stories; I don’t believe UN troops are stationed in Canada preparing for attack.

I do believe that science and reason are the path to human understanding. I believe teachers and stay-at-home moms are criminally under-compensated, financially and psychologically. I believe that education, healthcare, public transportation and the environment deserve the bulk of our federal expenditures, and that whenever we run out of funding for such areas, we should dip into the Pentagon’s budget. I believe that altruism and not corporate profit should be at the core of our foreign policy treaties and initiatives.

Okay? Have I sufficiently established my liberalism and sanity? Well, not so fast.

I believe elements of the United States Government helped orchestrate the September 11th attacks.

Okay, for those few of you who are still reading, this is my explanation:


One of the first arguments I get whenever I share my opinion on this horrible chapter in history is that no one in the government would participate in such a scheme. It’s that faith thing again. Actually, it’s faith and denial – faith in the essential righteousness of the American Way and denial of our own dark impulses.

Despite copious evidence to the contrary, most people believe that government and industry are captained mainly by honest, morally erect individuals who have the nation’s best interest at heart. Eisenhower era Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson’s famous remark that, “what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa,” pretty much sums up most people’s view of the military indstrial complex Wilson helped create. It was Wilson who, as president of General Motors, declared that a “permanent war economy” was the only way to avoid returning to the depression economy that plagued America before WW2. With that in mind, Wilson kick-started the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, whose stated purpose was to provide evacuation routes in the event of a nuclear attack, but whose actual purpose was to coerce the taxpayers into footing the bill for a venue for his company’s products. Conservatives like to argue that these projects created jobs that enabled families to improve their standard of living, which is true in the short term at least. But what it also enabled was an irrational belief in the doctrine of endless expansion – ever new markets to penetrate, expenses to cut, enemies to confront. This belief and its goodie bag of breakfast cereal and board games and frisbees and hoola-hoops coaxed cold-war America into a junkie-dealer relationship with Wall Street. The endless cornucopia of material possessions – why, even homeless people have computers now – is the fix that temporarily relieves the negative side effects of our collective self-deception.

For most of us, this belief is essential to survival. How can we get up every morning and raise kids and attend school conferences and vote and everything else if all we are doing is serving narrow corporate interests? Sure, sometimes our leaders give in to temptation from time to time – a bribe here, an indulgence there – but who would go so far as to allow thousands of innocent lives to be lost? Besides, the CEOs and Generals and intelligence operatives and appointed officials who I believe perpetrated this crime are all products of American educational and cultural institutions. Therefore, we are all guilty of this and other crimes, if only by extension. But, more importantly, we are all capable of assisting in such an act; in fact, we do so every day in small ways. That’s the most troubling aspect of this thing, and the aspect about which we are most in denial.

When I was a kid, one of the most common dirty tricks involved one boy clandestinely getting on all fours behind another boy while a third boy pushed the second boy backward. The second boy would trip over the first boy and fall flat on his ass, resulting in several minutes of hilarity. These incidents were almost always carried out nonverbally, or with a minimum of whispering and inscrutable asides. One boy would be singled out – usually the geekiest or least fashionably dressed – and the other boys, thankful that they had not been selected as the fall guy, would become willing participants. Since early childhood, I have seen this routine repeated again and again in the workplace, in the classroom, during creative endeavors. Someone is singled out and the others either participate in that guy’s undoing or simply look the other way. Usually, the one who is singled out adheres most rigidly to the honest, logical course of action, while the members of the dog pile prefer the wing-it-and-then-lie-your-ass-off approach. The latter is always threatened by the former; history provides many examples. Leon Trotsky was singled out and eventually assassinated under such a plot, as was JFK. The “Wobblies” were similarly punked by Samuel Gompers and early industrialists; Judi Bari and her organization, Earth First!, suffered at the hands of the FBI, the Oakland Police and other, more moderate environmental groups. J.P. Morgan hosed down the inventor and electronics pioneer, Nicola Tesla. Later, Wall Street thugs tried to hobble the FDR White House. And on and on and on...

It’s difficult to admit you’re wrong or to relinquish power, especially in a society like ours that values status and self-assurance so much. It’s easier to simply undermine those who have proven you wrong or have demonstrated the validity of an alternative hierarchy in which you factor poorly. We are all guilty. Unless you come from another planet where they do things much differently than we do here on earth, you have participated – if only by silence – in the downfall of a classmate, co-worker or colleague. And we are all conspirators when it comes to undermining the labor movement or the civil rights movement or the environmental movement. Don’t deny it.

Well, this is the culture that spawned the September 11th attacks, and we are all part of it. To deny that Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Marvin Bush et al are capable of carrying out such a dastardly deed is to deny some essential-but-uncomfortable truths about ourselves. But if you’re still not convinced, in Part 2, I will discuss specific instances in which Wall Street, the “Intelligence Community,” the Pentagon and Organized Crime – or elements thereof – conspired to dramatically alter world history to the detriment of everyone but their own greedy interests.

The Next Kennedy to Die?

Interview: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Journalist Q&A
PR Week USA Jun 19 2006 11:00
This month, Rolling Stone ran an investigative feature claiming that Republicans used a systematic combination of voter disenfranchisement and fraud, centered in Ohio, to rob John Kerry of a win in the 2004 presidential election.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer and son of liberal icon Bobby Kennedy, wrote the article, available, along with supporting research, at rollingstone.com. Kennedy spoke to PRWeek about the story.

PRWeek: How did you come to write this piece?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: I had not paid much attention to this issue. And then a number of books came out, and I read them because I [wanted to use them] to interview people on my radio show. And then I read the [Rep. John] Conyers report, [a 2005 Congressional inquiry into the election], and started talking with people in Ohio. And at one point, I said, "Holy cow, this is real." And then I talked to [RS editor] Jann Wenner about it. I encouraged him to do a piece, and he said "We'll print one if you write it."

PRWeek: Tell me about the process of putting the story together - it obviously took a while.

Kennedy: I read the literature out there, and read the articles. Then I interviewed voters in Ohio, and public officials, and people who were involved in the election from all over the country.

PRWeek: Why do you think this wasn't covered heavily by major media directly after the election?

Kennedy: I think the mainstream media took up the Republican echo chamber, and just echoed the right-wing talking points.

PRWeek: Why didn't the Democrats themselves pursue this?

Kennedy: Well, there was a lot of complaining; there were a lot of lawsuits. But it got very little traction in the media. But you know, the Democrats on this issue have been abysmal as well.

PRWeek: Your story wasn't based on any secret information, correct?

Kennedy: No, that's the whole thing. This was not a secret conspiracy. This was done openly and shamelessly. Across Ohio, there were people who did everything they could to stop this.

PRWeek: Have you had any indication that the national media will take another look at this issue?

Kennedy: I had a good indication [June 7]. The New York Times, as its lead editorial, did a piece on [Ohio secretary of state] Kenneth Blackwell's current efforts to suppress registration drives in Ohio. And the Republicans are doing the same thing in Florida, and the Times talked about that, as well.

PRWeek: What reaction have you seen from the general public?

Kennedy: There's a huge reaction. Rolling Stone told me that it's gotten two and a half times as many e-mails [about this article] as it's ever gotten for any other story in its history. So there's a huge appetite for this story.

PRWeek: This story didn't have a 'smoking gun'; was there one person coordinating this entire operation?

Kennedy: There's never going to be 100% certitude that the election was stolen, because the only way you could get that is by recounting the ballots, and the recount was illegally derailed by Republican operatives. The mastermind behind the efforts in Ohio was Kenneth Blackwell, along with…[Toledo elections official] Bernadette Noe. But on a national level, it's [Republican National Committee chairman] Kenneth Mehlman and Karl Rove.

PRWeek: Have you gotten any reaction from the Republican Party on this?

Kennedy: I've gotten, certainly, reaction in the blogosphere. But most of the reaction has been supportive.

PRWeek: Is there a next step?

Kennedy: I've been meeting with attorneys... to devise a litigation strategy. And I would say that very soon we'll be announcing lawsuits against some of the individuals and companies involved.

PRWeek: Who exactly would that litigation be targeting?

Kennedy: I wouldn't say, right now.

PRWeek: The election is over. Is it too late now?

Kennedy: There's another election soon. And as the Times [just] reported, the same people are up to the same shenanigans.

From PRWeek.

Read Kennedy's Rolling Stone article here.

Happy Daddy's Day

How You Gonna Come?

When they kick at your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun

When the law break in
How you gonna go?
Shot down on the pavement
Or waiting on death row…

—The Clash, Guns of Brixton



Top court upholds no-knock police search
By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press WriterThu Jun 15, 7:05 PM ET

The Supreme Court made it easier Thursday for police to barge into homes and seize evidence without knocking or waiting, a sign of the court's new conservatism with Samuel Alito on board.
The court, on a 5-4 vote, said judges cannot throw out evidence collected by police who have search warrants but do not properly announce their arrival.

It was a significant rollback of earlier rulings protective of homeowners, even unsympathetic homeowners like Booker Hudson, who had a loaded gun next to him and cocaine rocks in his pocket when Detroit police entered his unlocked home in 1998 without knocking.

The court's five-member conservative majority, anchored by new Chief Justice John Roberts and Alito, said that police blunders should not result in "a get-out-of-jail-free card" for defendants.

Dissenting justices predicted that police will now feel free to ignore previous court rulings requiring officers with search warrants to knock and announce themselves to avoid running afoul of the Constitution's Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches.

"The knock-and-announce rule is dead in the United States," said David Moran, a Wayne State University professor who represented Hudson. "There are going to be a lot more doors knocked down. There are going to be a lot more people terrified and humiliated."

Supporters said the ruling will help police do their jobs.

"People who are caught red-handed with evidence of guilt have one less weapon to get off," said Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation.

The case provides the clearest sign yet of the court without Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
Hudson had lost his case in a Michigan appeals court. Justices agreed to hear his appeal last June, four days before O'Connor's surprise announcement that she was retiring.

O'Connor was still on the bench in January when his case was first argued, and she seemed ready to vote with Hudson. "Is there no policy of protecting the home owner a little bit and the sanctity of the home from this immediate entry?" she asked.

She retired before the case was decided, and a new argument was held this spring so that Alito could participate, apparently to break a 4-4 tie.

Four justices, including Alito and Roberts, would have given prosecutors a more sweeping victory but did not have the vote of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, a moderate conservative.
Ronald Allen, a Northwestern University Law professor, said the ruling "suggests those four would be happy to consider overturning" a 1961 Supreme Court opinion that said evidence collected in violation of the Fourth Amendment cannot be used in trials. "It would be a significant change," he said.

Kennedy joined in most of the ruling but wrote to explain that he did not support ending the knock requirement. "It bears repeating that it is a serious matter if law enforcement officers violate the sanctity of the home by ignoring the requisites of lawful entry," he said.
Kennedy said that legislatures can intervene if police officers do not "act competently and lawfully." He also said that people whose homes are wrongly searched can file a civil rights lawsuit.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said that there are public-interest law firms and attorneys who specialize in civil rights grievances.

Detroit police acknowledge violating the knock-and-announce rule when they called out their presence at Hudson's door, failed to knock, then went inside three seconds to five seconds later. The court has endorsed longer waits, of 15 seconds to 20 seconds. Hudson was convicted of drug possession.

"Whether that preliminary misstep had occurred or not, the police would have executed the warrant they had obtained, and would have discovered the gun and drugs inside the house," Scalia wrote.

Four justices complained in the dissent that the decision erases more than 90 years of Supreme Court precedent.

"It weakens, perhaps destroys, much of the practical value of the Constitution's knock-and-announce protection," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for himself and Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Breyer said that while police departments can be sued, there is no evidence of anyone collecting much money in such cases.

The case is Hudson v. Michigan, 04-1360.
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On the Net:
Supreme Court decisions: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/05slipopinion.html

Amurrikans R Stoopid

Once again, research has proven the obvious. Haven't they heard all those numbskulls asking, "If evolution is real, how's come we don't have three arms?" I mean, duh! Special thanks to Turkey for keeping us out of last place. Reminds me of a Mississippi/Arkansas joke I heard once.

More On That Faith Thing

I was reminded recently of this passage from Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut:

America is the wealthiest nation on earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, “It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.” It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power or gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: “If you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?” There will also be an American flag no bigger than a child’s hand glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.

Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times.
Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.

I'd say that about sums it up.