Guerrillero

Iraq Mash-Up

Here’s an audio mash-up of two September 2002 House Armed Services Committee hearings held as Congress considered an Iraq invasion, followed by an audio montage of Invasion Day. Donald Rumsfeld, then the Defense Secretary testifies in one hearing; former NATO commander Wesley Clark and neocon Rumsfeld advisor Richard Perle (a.k.a. The Prince of Darkness) are point-counterpoint witnesses in the other.

Listen: RealPlayer;  mp3 (14Mb)

During the hearings, Missouri Democratic Rep. Ike Skeleton (D-MO) relentlessly pressed Rumsfeld and Perle for details of post-invasion planning. Clark presciently warned of chaos following the Sadaam’s fall. But Rumsfeld and Perle offered only vague answers and rosy scenarios based on false assumptions, not facts.

We now know that the administration shunned comprehensive post-invasion planning. Just as Clark predicted, chaos followed Sadaam’s fall and the stubborn insurgency that we continue to battle today took root. (Perle, who resigned his Pentagon post after allegations of conflict, spends his time these days shifting the blame for the Iraq disaster.)

One particularly telling moment comes when protesters who disrupted Rumsfeld’s testimony are literally laughed out of the hearing room. We’re fives years into the Iraq War, with nearly 4,000 U.S. dead and no end in sight, and no one’s laughing now.

Baghdad G.I. to “Car Talk”: Help!

Or: U.S. Military Gets the Shaft in Iraq

Sgt. Jason Young of the 4th Infantry Division called NPR’s “Car Talk” guys Tom and Ray from Baghdad for advice on how to keep heavily armored Humvees operating in a hostile environment.

Sgt. Young: With the "op tempo" and the roads around here, we frequently go through ball joints, shocks, springs, a-arms, tie-rod ends, and we change them out every 30 to 60 days.

I gather the "op tempo" Sgt. Young refers to is "fast and furious."

Tom and Ray’s advice: Grease the ball joints daily. Keep lots of spare parts on hand. And replace parts before they wear out.

The segment was lighthearted and heartbreaking at the same time, another reminder that, after three and a half years in Iraq, our soldiers are still struggling with inadequate equipment and equipment shortages.Makes you wonder where all the money is going.

All the best to Sgt. Young. Stay safe. As for Tom and Ray, their days on Armed Forces Radio might be numbered.

Leonid Meteor Shower

Leonid meteor shower peaks this weekend.

Lie back, face East, and scan as much of the sky as you can . You never know exactly where a Leonid will appear.

Leahy after Laura!

UPDATE: Think Progress has video of Leahy questioning a Justice Dept. flunky, who responds with a standard BushCo. mind-boggle.
_____

Laura Ingraham is on the ropes. From an e-mail to Crooks and Liars:

Pat Leahy [D-VT] at a hearing on voter fraud all but demanded that the Justice Department investigate and even prosecute Laura Ingraham for her election-day call to her listeners to jam the phone lines Democrats set up for reporting voter machine problems and the like.

Hurrah for Pat! E-mail the senator, thank him, and ask him to keep up the pressure. Write your own senators and tell them to support Leahy's quest to rid the public airwaves of the Ingraham blight.

And bring pressure to bear yourself by registering a complaint with your local Ingraham affiliate and the FCC.

Did Mercenary Kill for "Sport" in Iraq?

UPDATE: Good stuff in comments on Daily Kos crosspost. Nickle points to a Guardian story about private security contractors working the "Iraqi bubble." No one knows how many there are (possibly as many as 48,000), how many have been killed (more than 800), or who they're accountable to.

Sam Wise Gingy recommends this not-to-be-missed clip of President Bush taking a question on private security contractors earlier this year. He's laughing; we're not.

Help, indeed.

________

WaPo reporting on a lawsuit by two former employees Herndon, VA, security contractor who charge that a fellow employee shot without provocation into an Iraqi vehicle, “possibly killing at least one person.”

All three worked for Triple Canopy, a security corp. formed in 2003 to provide security for the U.S. government and private companies, like Halliburton subsidiary KBR, in the Middle East. Triple Canopy earned more than $90 million from the U.S. government last year.

Grisly details after the flip.

Go Ducks!

Lame duck Congress restores some sanity and accountability. From AP:

The Senate approved an amendment Tuesday to extend an investigative office that unearthed millions of dollars in waste and fraud associated with the rebuilding of Iraq.

The amendment, passed by voice vote as part of the military construction and veterans' spending bill, would keep the inspector general's office running through October 2008. Under current law, it will expire in October 2007.

The amendment was offered by Republican Susan Collins, the chairwoman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold.

Remember that Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee slipped a midnight rider into the spending bill to shut down the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.

Complainin's a Bitch

More on how to effectively register a complaint against Laura Ingraham from ipsos at Daily Kos (rendering most of our previous directions inoperative).

Short version: Angry complaints to TRN and Laura Ingraham might feel good, but accomplish little. "[Y]ou will only get results," says ipsos, "if you make [your complaint] against the STATION you heard carrying the show. That's something the FCC can sink its teeth into, at least in theory."

Find the station's carrying the Laura Ingraham Show here.

Rather than e-mail, as we've been recommending, ipsos recommends hard copy via certified mail to local affiliate "cc'd to the FCC."

All of ipsos' sage advice after the flip.

Turn-off

Video on the radio

 

 

Check out the sample FCC complaint letter. But read this first.

(I Can't Take Any) More Laura UPDATE

UPDATE: More advice on best way to register complaint here.

There’s a lively (and long) discussion taking place over at Daily Kos on the Fairness Doctrine. I posted a Laura Ingraham action alert on that thread and was advised to include in my FCC complaint a request that the complaint be placed in the network’s licensing file.

The letter, which can be cut-and-pasted into an e-mail to fccinfo@fcc.gov,  has been revised accordingly and follows after the jump.

Celebrate

I still can’t believe I’m happy after an election. Been a long, long time. And the eternal cynic in me says it won’t last long.

Let's celebrate the moment with something joyous and fun and invigorating: A different perspective on a colorful world.

What Could be Worser?

Keith Olbermann jumped on board the Laura Ingraham bandwagon last night, designating our gal the “Worser Person in the World” for her election-day prank."

 
What, you might ask, could be worser than using public airwaves to sabotage a voter hotline? How about the old Fox himself, Rupert Murdoch, quantifying U.S. losses in Iraq as “minute.”

Whack-a-Wingnut

UPDATE II, 11/15/06: Read this first.

UPDATE, 11/10/06: Includes revised cut-and-paste FCC letter.

We’re all euphoric over the Dem victory (and Rummy’s departure), but let’s not forget some of the voter-suppression outrages committed on election day.

One of the most egregious was right-wing lunatic radio host Laura Ingraham inciting her listeners to sabotage a Dem hotline for reporting incidents of voter-suppression. Ingraham used public airwaves to orchestrate a crank-call attack on a legitimate effort to insure that citizens could exercise their basic right to vote. I know it’s not curse words or boobs, but the FCC should be notified, conduct an investigation, and punish Ingraham.

I encourage everyone to complain to the FCC about Ingraham’s outrageous and likely illegal behavior. My complaint, e-mailed as per FCC instructions to fccinfo@fcc.gov ,  after the flip. Feel free to copy and paste, or compose your own.

Cheapskate/Big Stakes

Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee slipped a midnight rider into a spending bill that will shutter the office of the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction, the only office watching the expenditure of $20 billion U.S. taxpayer dollars in Iraq.

From the NY Times:

Investigations led by a lawyer named Stuart W. Bowen Jr. in Iraq have sent American occupation officials to jail on bribery and conspiracy charges, exposed disastrously poor construction work by well-connected companies like Halliburton and Parsons, and discovered that the military did not properly track hundreds of thousands of weapons it shipped to Iraqi security forces.

And tucked away in a huge military authorization bill that President Bush signed two weeks ago is what some of Mr. Bowen’s supporters believe is his reward for repeatedly embarrassing the administration: a pink slip.

The order comes in the form of an obscure provision that terminates his federal oversight agency, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, on Oct. 1, 2007. The clause was inserted by the Republican side of the House Armed Services Committee over the objections of Democratic counterparts during a closed-door conference, and it has generated surprise and some outrage among lawmakers who say they had no idea it was in the final legislation.

My Congressman, Jim Saxton, is a Republican on HASC, and deserves to lose his seat to Dem Rich Sexton on this issue alone.

Boobs!

Last March, President Bush, egged on by conservative Repbulcians like Sen. Rick Santorum, ordered tens of thousands of captured Iraqi documents to be released on a public website. Intelligence officials had no idea what was contained in the untranslated Arabic documents and warned against the release. But Bush and conservatives were desperate to find evidence of Iraq WMD, so they sanctioned the release .

Last week, the NY Times reported that the doc collection included plans for building nuclear weapons. Whoops.

Here's a comic video commentary. Laugh to keep from crying.

Fabulous Halloween Cakewalk

Reporting on our Halloween Cakewalk for Rich Sexton, who's challenging Jim Saxton for NJ-3 seat in Congress. 

Truth is, we almost punked out. (“Whose idea was this, anyway?”) But we screwed up our courage, headed out, and spent about 2 hours cakewalking through the goblin-infested streets of our old suburban town, ringing doorbells, and singing our ditty. Watch it.

The good news is that our reception was overwhelmingly positive. (Only one door slammed in our faces.) Better news is that most of those we “entertained” were planning to support Dems next week. The best news was that quite a few had actually seen and heard Rich Sexton at campaign events. (OK, we live in Sexton’s hometown, but it’s still impressive, since Sexton has had no paid media.)

More after the jump.

July 4th -- Just a Number?

On  June 15, after the number of U.S. killed in Iraq reached the 2,500 milestone, Fox News/White House Flak Tony Snow was asked for a comment. “It’s just a number,” he replied.

And the number just keeps rising.

Happy and safe 4th, here and in Iraq.

Ragtime Rummy

On June 22, reporters asked SecDef Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. George Casey about Iraq troop levels. Watch them dance around the answer in this short video. (Music by Fats Waller.)

Watch the WMV

As you watch, imagine Rummy decked out in bowler, starched collar, and tailored suit with a gold watch chain dangling from the vest. He’s right out of the Gilded Age.

A Bad Day ...

Michael Berg is the father of Nick Berg who was slain by terrorist mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq in 2004. He’s also a committed pacifist and a candidate for Congress in Delaware.

When al-Zarqawi was killed by U.S. forces on June 7, the press was all over Michael Berg for comment. And Berg delivered, saying he took no joy in the death of another.

Not surprisingly, Berg’s comments incensed blood-lusting right-wing noise merchants who were reveling in al-Zarqawi’s death – noise merchants like Bill Bennett, radio host and commentator –  paid commentator – for CNN.

During his June 8 morning radio program, Bennett spotted Berg being interviewed on CNN. Here’s what he said:

Turn Off CNN

What’s it going to take for CNN to fire Bennett. He’s a loud advocate for jailing reporters who publish leaks. He urges listeners to turn off CNN. Isn’t CNN, by keeping this guy on the payroll, sowing the seeds of its own demise and destruction?

News

Bigfoot (dragging)

Investigative reporter Murray Waas (via Crooks and Liars) reports on former Attorney General John Ashcroft’s foot-dragging during early months of the FBI’s investigation of administration outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

FBI investigators, Waas reports, briefed Ashcroft on suspicions that Scooter Libby and Karl Rove were covering up their roles in leaking Plame’s name. Yet Ashcroft waited more than two months before handing the investigation over the special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

Ashcroft's decision to continue overseeing the leak investigation through December of 2003 was a sore point among some federal investigators: Rove and Libby were top aides to the president and vice president at the time, and Rove also had been a political consultant to Ashcroft in his senatorial and gubernatorial campaigns.

Specter v. Cheney

Republican Sen. Arlen Specter gives VP Cheney hell – in a letter. The chairman of the Judiciary Committee was irked that Cheney had worked behind the scenes to thwart the committee’s investigation of the NSA’s deal to obtain phone records from big telcos.

I was advised yesterday that you had called Republican members of the Judiciary Committee lobbying them to oppose any Judiciary Committee hearing, even a closed one, with the telephone companies. I was further advised that you told those Republican members that the telephone companies had been instructed not to provide any information to the Committee as they were prohibited from disclosing classified information.

Here’s hoping that Specter will finally match his deeds to his words.

News

Excellent NPR backgrounder on Haditha, scene of alleged massacre in Iraq.

Vanity Fair (via dKos) reports that BushCo's Iraq-Niger yellowcake fiction "appears to have been the cornerstone of a highly successful 'black propaganda' campaign with links to the White House."