The Rag Blog

Remembering What Nixon Learned
by David Sirota

A half-century ago, Richard Nixon spearheaded his party’s national congressional campaign in the face of a recession like the one we face today. Then Dwight Eisenhower’s vice president, he decided that as a way to defeat Democrats the GOP would champion anti-worker laws pioneered in the segregationist South. Specifically, he rolled out “right to work” ballot initiatives to weaken the labor movement. These measures ban contracts that compel employees who benefit from union representation to contribute union dues.

When the 1958 election came, Nixon’s blame-workers-first initiatives bombed, and Republicans lost 48 congressional seats, handing the party “its worst year ever,” as historian Rick Perlstein recounts in his brilliant new book, “Nixonland.”

“Right-to-work wasn’t popular with a general public that understood how a strong labor movement had rocketed millions of voters into the middle class,” Perlstein writes.

Fifty years later, conservatives are ignoring history’s teachings and resurrecting Nixon’s failed strategy in a place that could decide a close presidential election. In Colorado, one of the most contested “swing” states, a group of zealots is hoping a “right to work” ballot initiative will drive up GOP turnout and help John McCain keep nine electoral votes in the Republican column.

The strategy is bold in its desperation. Right-wingers are betting that Colorado citizens will vote to cut their own pay. After all, according to the Economic Policy Institute, employees in right-to-work states make between 4 and 8 percent less per year than those in other states.

Already, a poll shows that 56 percent of Coloradans oppose “right to work” laws. Even one of Colorado’s most influential business groups has said it has “no desire” for such irrational measures. But the right is not in a rational frame of mind.

Colorado conservatives are reeling after Republicans lost both the Legislature and governor’s mansion for the first time in more than four decades. The state Republican Party is so unhinged that it hired a buffoon named Dick Wadhams to save it-the same Dick Wadhams who most recently made headlines running Sen. George “Macaca” Allen’s 2006 re-election campaign into the ground, effectively ending the Virginia lawmaker’s political career. Clearly, these are dire times for the right, and despair tends to deify the Nixons and the Wadhamses by embracing irrational extremism-whether YouTube-amplified racism or worker persecution inherent in right-to-work schemes.

Adding to conservatives’ troubles is Colorado’s emboldened labor movement. Rather than crouching in a defensive posture, unions are preparing two initiatives that could drive up turnout for Democrats and serve as a model for other states across the nation.

One forces the right to defend criminals-literally. The initiative would make a corporate executive personally liable under the law if he or she “engages in, authorizes, solicits, requests, commands or knowingly tolerates the business’s criminal conduct.”

According to union polling, 84 percent of Colorado citizens back the measure. Nonetheless, the Denver Chamber of Commerce is trying to keep the initiative off the ballot, claiming that punishing corporate criminals is “a direct assault on our business climate.” Yes, conservatives say lawbreaking is not an “assault on our business climate”-prosecuting lawbreakers is. Next thing you know, these shills will argue that locking up violent criminals hurts the “business climate” because, when not killing people, murderers contribute to the local economy.

The other labor-backed initiative would require employers to have a “just cause” when laying off an employee. The unions’ poll shows 70 percent of Colorado voters support the concept-not surprising, considering that many voters are probably shocked to discover that most states allow employers to terminate workers for any reason not already outlawed by existing anti-discrimination statutes. Your boss doesn’t like that you root for a particular professional sports team? Unless the ballot initiative passes, you can be fired “at will” for that and more in Colorado-and the initiative’s conservative opponents will be arguing that’s A-OK by them.

Perlstein notes that after Nixon’s anti-labor strategy backfired in 1958, he “hardly said an ill word about the labor movement in public again.” He learned a lesson that today’s conservatives have forgotten-namely, that the public punishes those who overtly denigrate workers. If these initiatives end up on the ballot in a state garnering so much election attention, voters will have the chance to teach the right that crucial lesson once again.

David Sirota is a bestselling author whose newest book, “The Uprising,” will be released in June of 2008. He is a fellow at the Campaign for America’s Future and a board member of the Progressive States Network-both nonpartisan organizations. His blog is at www.credoaction.com/sirota.

© 2008 Creators Syndicate Inc.

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Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo assures reporters at a Vatican press conference that it is far too late for club soda.

Shroud Of Turin Accidentally Washed With Red Shirt
The Onion / March 10, 2008

VATICAN CITY—The Shroud of Turin, an ancient linen cloth believed to bear the image of Christ and considered by many clerics and devotees to be one of the holiest relics of the Christian faith, was inadvertently dyed a light shade of pink after being washed with a red T-shirt, sources reported Tuesday.

The holy antiquity, thought by some to be the very garment Jesus Christ was buried in, was discovered in 1354. Though it has suffered oxidation and fire damage over the centuries, this is the first time that the shroud has been harmed in a laundry-related mishap.

“Simply because the shroud has been given a slight pinkish tint does not in any way diminish its sanctity,” Vatican spokesman Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo said during a press conference held to address the spiritual repercussions of the shroud’s staining. “It is still very much the icon of the suffering of the innocent of all times.”

The Vatican stressed that nothing out of the ordinary happened to the shroud during the initial preparations for its monthly laundering in Rome. As is custom, on the third Sunday of the month, the priceless relic—which is kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy—was taken from its hermetically sealed, bulletproof glass case and stuffed into the Blessed Papal Laundry Sack, and it was then transported by a retinue of Swiss Guards to Vatican City without incident.

According to Lajolo, the damage occurred when Pope Benedict XVI, whose turn it was to do the Vatican laundry, did not notice that a brand-new, bright-red Hanes Beefy-T belonging to Cardinal Angelo Sodano had been placed inside of the consecrated cleansing vessel, the Holy Whirlpool 24934 top-load washer.

The pope then started a load of white vestments, including the shroud, only realizing what had happened when he returned to remove the sacred artifact, which is always line-dried.

“His Holiness was distracted with trying to scrub a tough Blood of Christ stain out of Cardinal Nicora’s miter,” Lajolo said. “Not that this was some sort of mistake on his part. The pope is still infallible. We have to keep in mind that this is all part of God’s greater plan.”

“And who are we to question or reject the ways the Lord works through our laundry?” Lajolo continued.

The Cult of the Suicide Bomber
By Robert Fisk

14/03/08 “The Independent” — – Khaled looked at me with a broad smile. He was almost laughing. At one point, when I told him that he should abandon all thoughts of being a suicide bomber – that he could influence more people in this world by becoming a journalist – he put his head back and shot me a grin, world-weary for a man in his teens. “You have your mission,” he said. “And I have mine.” His sisters looked at him in awe. He was their hero, their amanuensis and their teacher, their representative and their soon-to-be-martyred brother. Yes, he was handsome, young – just 18 – he was dressed in a black Giorgio Armani T-shirt, a small, carefully trimmed Spanish conquistador’s beard, gelled hair. And he was ready to immolate himself.

A sinister surprise. I had travelled to Khaled’s home to speak to his mother. I had already written about his brother Hassan and wanted to introduce a Canadian journalist colleague, Nelofer Pazira, to the family. When Khaled walked on to the porch of the house, Nelofer and I both realised – at the same moment – that he was next, the next to die, the next “martyr”. It was his smile. I’ve come across these young men before, but never one who so obviously declared his calling.

His family sat around us on the porch of their home above the Lebanese city of Sidon, the sitting room adorned with coloured photographs of Hassan, already gone to the paradise – so they assured me – for which Khaled clearly thought he was destined. Hassan had driven his explosives-laden car into an American military convoy at Tal Afar in north-western Iraq, his body (or what was left of it) buried “in situ” – or so his mother was informed.

It’s easy to find the families of the newly dead in Lebanon. Their names are read from the minarets of Sidon’s mosques (most are Palestinian) and in Tripoli, in northern Lebanon, the Sunni “Tawhid” movement boasts “hundreds” of suiciders among its supporters. Every night, the population of Lebanon watches the brutal war in Iraq on television. “It’s difficult to reach ‘Palestine’ these days,” Khaled’s uncle informed me. “Iraq is easier.”

Too true. No one doubts that the road to Baghdad – or Tal Afar or Fallujah or Mosul – lies through Syria, and that the movement of suicide bombers from the Mediterranean coasts to the deserts of Iraq is a planned if not particularly sophisticated affair. What is astonishing – what is not mentioned by the Americans or the Iraqi “government” or the British authorities or indeed by many journalists – is the sheer scale of the suicide campaign, the vast numbers of young men (only occasionally women), who wilfully destroy themselves amid the American convoys, outside the Iraqi police stations, in markets and around mosques and in shopping streets and on lonely roads beside remote checkpoints across the huge cities and vast deserts of Iraq. Never have the true figures for this astonishing and unprecedented campaign of self-liquidation been calculated.

But a month-long investigation by The Independent, culling four Arabic-language newspapers, official Iraqi statistics, two Beirut news agencies and Western reports, shows that an incredible 1,121 Muslim suicide bombers have blown themselves up in Iraq. This is a very conservative figure and – given the propensity of the authorities (and of journalists) to report only those suicide bombings that kill dozens of people – the true estimate may be double this number. On several days, six – even nine – suicide bombers have exploded themselves in Iraq in a display of almost Wal-Mart availability. If life in Iraq is cheap, death is cheaper.

This is perhaps the most frightening and ghoulish legacy of George Bush’s invasion of Iraq five years ago. Suicide bombers in Iraq have killed at least 13,000 men, women and children – our most conservative estimate gives a total figure of 13,132 – and wounded a minimum of 16,112 people. If we include the dead and wounded in the mass stampede at the Baghdad Tigris river bridge in the summer of 2005 – caused by fear of suicide bombers – the figures rise to 14,132 and 16,612 respectively. Again, it must be emphasised that these statistics are minimums. For 529 of the suicide bombings in Iraq, no figures for wounded are available. Where wounded have been listed in news reports as “several”, we have made no addition to the figures. And the number of critically injured who later died remains unknown. Set against a possible death toll of half a million Iraqis since the March 2003 invasion, the suicide bombers’ victims may appear insignificant; but the killers’ ability to terrorise civilians, militiamen and Western troops and mercenaries is incalculable.

Never before has the Arab world witnessed a phenomenon of suicide-death on this scale. During Israel’s occupation of Lebanon after 1982, one Hizbollah suicide-bombing a month was considered remarkable. During the Palestinian intifadas of the 1980s and 1990s, four per month was regarded as unprecedented. But suicide bombers in Iraq have been attacking at the average rate of two every three days since the 2003 Anglo-American invasion.

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FBI Found to Misuse Security Letters: 2003-06 Audit Cites Probes of Citizens
By Dan Eggen, Washington Post Staff Writer

14/03/08 ” Washington Post” — — The FBI has increasingly used administrative orders to obtain the personal records of U.S. citizens rather than foreigners implicated in terrorism or counterintelligence investigations, and at least once it relied on such orders to obtain records that a special intelligence-gathering court had deemed protected by the First Amendment, according to two government audits released yesterday.

The episode was outlined in a Justice Department report that concluded the FBI had abused its intelligence-gathering privileges by issuing inadequately documented “national security letters” from 2003 to 2006, after which changes were put in place that the report called sound.

A report a year ago by the Justice Department’s inspector general disclosed that abuses involving national security letters had occurred from 2003 through 2005 and helped provoke the changes. But the report makes it clear that the abuses persisted in 2006 and disclosed that 60 percent of the nearly 50,000 security letters issued that year by the FBI targeted Americans.

Because U.S. citizens enjoy constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, judicial warrants are ordinarily required for government surveillance. But national security letters are approved only by FBI officials and are not subject to judicial approval; they routinely demand certain types of personal data, such as telephone, e-mail and financial records, while barring the recipient from disclosing that the information was requested or supplied.

According to the findings by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine, the FBI tried to work around the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which oversees clandestine spying in the United States, after it twice rejected an FBI request in 2006 to obtain certain records. The court had concluded “the ‘facts’ were too thin” and the “request implicated the target’s First Amendment rights,” the report said.

But the FBI went ahead and got the records anyway by using a national security letter. The FBI’s general counsel, Valerie E. Caproni, told investigators it was appropriate to issue the letters in such cases because she disagreed with the court’s conclusions.

In total, Fine said, the FBI issued almost 200,000 national security letters from 2003 through 2006, and they were used in a third of all FBI national security and computer probes during that time. Fine said his investigators have identified hundreds of possible violations of laws or internal guidelines in the use of the letters, including cases in which FBI agents made improper requests, collected more data than they were allowed to, or did not have proper authorization to proceed with the case.

Fine also pointed to the FBI’s “troubling” use of the letters to obtain vast quantities of telephone numbers or other records with a single request. Investigators identified 11 such cases, involving information related to about 4,000 phone numbers, that did not comply with USA Patriot Act requirements or that violated FBI guidelines.

The latest findings reignited long-standing criticism from Democrats and civil liberties groups, who said the FBI’s repeated misuse of its information-gathering powers underscores the need for greater oversight by Congress and the courts.

“The fact that these are being used against U.S. citizens, and being used so aggressively, should call into question the claim that these powers are about terrorists and not just about collecting information on all kinds of people,” said Jameel Jaffer, national security director at the American Civil Liberties Union. “They’re basically using national security letters to evade legal requirements that would be enforced if there were judicial oversight.”

Justice spokesman Dean Boyd said in a statement that Fine’s report “should come as no surprise” because the survey ended in 2006, before the FBI introduced procedural changes to better control and keep track of requests for the security letters.

FBI Assistant Director John Miller said a new automated system will keep better tabs on the letters, and they are now reviewed by a lawyer before they are sent to a telephone company, Internet service provider or other target. “We are committed to using them in ways that maximize their national security value while providing the highest level of privacy and protection of the civil liberties of those we are sworn to protect,” Miller said.

Fine said that FBI employees “self-reported” 84 possible violations of laws or guidelines in the use of the letters, in 2006, which “was significantly higher than the number of reported violations in prior years.” But he noted that his office already had begun its initial investigation into the letters by then, which might have contributed to the increase.

About a quarter of the reported incidents were because of mistakes made by telephone or Internet providers, including some in which they provided either the wrong information or disclosed more than the FBI requested. But many of those cases should have been caught by the FBI earlier, Fine said.

© 2008 The Washington Post Company

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The First Sixth-Anniversary-of-the-Iraq-War Article
By Tom Engelhardt, posted March 13, 2008 09:51 am

Please don’t write in with a correction. I know just as well as you do that we’re approaching the fifth, not the sixth, anniversary of the moment when, on March 19, 2003, George W. Bush told the American people:

“My fellow citizens, at this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger… My fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace. We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail.”

At that moment, of course, the cruise missiles meant to “decapitate” Saddam Hussein’s regime, but that killed only Iraqi civilians, were on their way to Baghdad. I’m perfectly aware that articles galore will be looking back on the five years since that day. This is not one of them.

Think of this piece as in the spirit of Senator John McCain’s recent request that Americans not obsess about the origins of the Iraq War, but look forward. “On the issue of my differences with Senator Obama on Iraq,” he typically said, “I want to make it very clear: This is not about decisions that were made in the past. This is about decisions that a president will have to make about the future in Iraq. And a decision to unilaterally withdraw from Iraq will lead to chaos.”

The future, not the past, is the mantra, which is why I’m skipping next week’s fifth anniversary of the Iraq War entirely. Now, let me ask you a future-oriented question:

What’s wrong with these sentences?

On March 19, 2009, the date of the sixth anniversary of President Bush’s invasion of Iraq, as surely as the sun rises in the East I’ll be sitting here and we will still have many tens of thousands of troops, a string of major bases, and massive air power in that country. In the intervening year, more Americans will have been wounded or killed; many more Iraqis will have been wounded or killed; more chaos and conflict will have ensued; many more bombs will have been dropped and missiles launched; many more suicide bombs will have gone off. Iraq will still be a hell on Earth.

Prediction is, of course, a risky business. Otherwise I’d now be commuting via jet pack through spire cities (as the futuristic articles of my youth so regularly predicted). If you were to punch holes in the above sentences, you would certainly have to note that it’s risky for a man of 63 years, or of any age, to suggest that he’ll be sitting anywhere in a year; riskier yet if you happen to live in those lands extending from North Africa to Central Asia that Bush administration officials used to call the “arc of instability” — essentially the oil heartlands of the planet — before they turned them into one. It’s always possible that I won’t be sitting here (or anywhere else, for that matter) on March 19, 2009. Unfortunately, when it comes to the American position in Iraq, short of an act of God, the sixth anniversary of George Bush’s war of choice is going to dawn much like the fifth one.

As a start, you can write off the next 10 months of our lives, right up to January 20, 2009, inauguration day for the next president. We know that, last fall, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was considering bringing American troop strength in Iraq down to 100,000 by the end of George Bush’s second term. However, that was, as they evidently love to say in Washington, just a “best case scenario.” Since then, the administration has signaled an end-of-July drawdown “pause” of unknown duration after American troop strength in Iraq, now at 157,000, hits about 142,000.

The President is clearly dragging his feet on removing even modest numbers of American troops. As he leaves office, it seems likely that there will be at least 130,000 U.S. troops in the country, about the same number as there were before, in February 2007, the President’s surge strategy kicked in. In addition, in the past year, U.S. air power has “surged” in Iraq — and continues to do so — while U.S. mega-bases in that country continue to be built up. As far as we know, there are no plans to reverse either of these developments by January 20, 2009. No presidential candidate is even discussing them.

Any official “best case” scenario for drawdowns or withdrawals assumes, by the way, that the version of Iraq created during the surge months — at best, an unstable combination of Sunni, Shia, Kurdish, and American plans and desires — remains in place and that Iraqi carnage stays off the front pages of American papers. This is anything but a given, as British journalist Patrick Cockburn reported recently in a piece headlined, “Why Iraq Could Blow Up in John McCain’s Face.” Indeed it could.

Best Case Scenarios

If Senator McCain were elected president, the American position in Iraq on March 19, 2009 will certainly be as described above — and, if he has anything to say about it, for many anniversaries thereafter. But, when it comes to the sixth anniversary of the Iraq War, the truth is that it probably doesn’t matter much who is elected president in November.

Take Hillary Clinton, she’s said that she’ll task the Joint Chiefs, the new Secretary of Defense, and her National Security Council with having a plan for (partial) withdrawal in place within 60 days of coming into office. Since inauguration day is January 20th, that means… March 21st or two days after the sixth anniversary; by which time, of course, nothing would have changed substantially.

Barack Obama has promised to remove U.S. “combat” troops at a one-to-two-brigades-a-month pace over a 16 month period. So it’s possible that troop levels could drop marginally before March 19, 2009 in an Obama presidency, but again there is no reason to believe that anything essential would have happened to change that “anniversary.”

In addition, the stated plans of both Democratic candidates, vague and limited as they may be, might not turn out to be their actual plans. Note the recent comments of Obama foreign policy advisor Samantha Powers, who resigned after calling Clinton a “monster” in an interview with the Scotsman during a book tour. Since name-calling will always trump substantive policy matters in American politics, less noted were her comments in an interview with the BBC on her candidate’s Iraq withdrawal policy. “He will, of course, not rely on some plan that he’s crafted as a presidential candidate or a U.S. Senator,” Powers said and then she referred to Obama’s plan as nothing more than a — you guessed it — “best-case scenario.”

Similarly, a Clinton sometime-advisor on military matters, retired General Jack Keane, also one of the authors of President Bush’s surge strategy, told the New York Sun that, in the Oval Office, “he is convinced [Hillary Clinton] would hold off on authorizing a large-scale immediate withdrawal of American soldiers from Iraq.” And Clinton herself, though less directly, has certainly hinted at a similar willingness to reconsider her policy promises in the light of an Oval Office morning.

So let’s face it, barring an Iraqi surprise, the next year in that country may be nothing but a wash (and the lubricant, as in past years, is likely to be blood). It will be — best case scenario — a holding action on the road to nowhere, another woefully lost year in what has now become something like a ghost country.

The Children of War

To put this in more human terms: Imagine that a child born on March 19, 2003, just as Baghdad was being shock-and-awed, will be of an age to enter first grade when the sixth anniversary of George Bush’s war hits. He or she will have gone from babbling to talking, crawling to walking, and will by then possibly be beginning to read and write. Of course, an Iraqi child born on that day, who managed to live to see his or her sixth birthday, might be among the two million-plus Iraqis in exile in Syria or elsewhere in the Middle East, or among the millions of internal refugees driven from their homes in recent years and not in school at all. (Similarly, a child born on October 7, 2001, when the President first dispatched American bombers to strike Afghanistan, will be in second grade in March 2009; of course, seven-and-a-half years after being “liberated,” an Afghan child, especially one now living in the southern part of that failed narco-state, is unlikely to be in school at all. As with Iraq, we could take some educated guesses about the situation in Afghanistan a year from now and they would be grim beyond words.)

Depleted uranium baby, Iraq
For those children, the real inheritors of the Bush war era that is not yet faintly over, the Iraq War has essentially been the equivalent of an open-ended prison sentence with little hope of parole; for some Americans and many Iraqis, including children, it is a death sentence without hope of pardon. All this for a country which, even by the standards of the Bush administration, never presented the slightest national security threat to the United States of America. Only this week, an “exhaustive,” Pentagon-sponsored study of 600,000 captured Iraqi documents confirmed, yet again, that there were no operational links whatsoever between Saddam Hussein’s regime and al-Qaeda.

With those children in mind, here’s what’s so depressing: In mainstream Washington, hardly anyone has taken a step outside the box of conventional, inside-the-Beltway thinking about Iraq, which is why it’s possible to imagine March 19, 2009 with some confidence. For them, the Washington consensus, such as it is, is the only acceptable one and the disagreements within it, the only ones worth having. And here are its eight fundamentals:

*A belief that effective U.S. power must invariably be based on the threat of, or use of, dominant force, and so must centrally involve the U.S. military.

*A belief that all answers of any value are to be found in Washington among the serried ranks of officials, advisors, former officials, pundits, think-tank operators, and other inside-the-Beltway movers and shakers, who have been tested over the years and found never to have a surprise in them. Most of them are notable mainly for having been wrong so often. This is called “experience.”

*A belief that the critics of Washington policy outside Washington and its consensus are, at best, gadflies, never worth seriously consulting on anything.

*A belief that the American people, though endlessly praised in political campaigns, are know-nothings who couldn’t think their way out of a proverbial paper bag when it comes to the supposedly arcane science of foreign policy, and so would certainly not be worth consulting on “national security” matters or issues involving the sacred “national interest,” which is, in any case, the property of Washington. Like Iraqis and Afghans, the American people need good (or even not so good) shepherds in the national capital to answer that middle-of-the-night ringing phone and rescue them from impending harm. (The very foolishness of Americans can be measured by opinion polls which indicated that a majority of them had decided by 2005 that all American troops should be brought home from Iraq at a reasonable speed and that the U.S. should not have permanent military bases in that country.)

*A belief that no other countries (or individuals elsewhere) have anything significant or original to offer when it comes to solving problems like the situation in Iraq (unless, of course, they agree with us). They are to be ignored, insists the Bush administration, or, say leading Democrats, “talked to” and essentially corralled into signing onto, and carrying out, the solutions we consider reasonable.

*A belief that local peoples are incapable of solving their own problems without the intercession of, or the guiding hand (or Hellfire missile) of, Washington, which means, of course, of the U.S. military.

*A belief that the United States — whatever the problem — must be an essential part of the solution, not part of the problem itself.

*And finally, a belief (though no one would ever say this) that the lives of those children of George Bush’s wars of choice, already of an age to be given their first lessons in global “realism,” don’t truly matter, not when the Great Game of geopolitics and energy is at stake.

Of course, the most recent Washington solution, involving the endless military occupation (by whatever name) of alien lands, can “solve” nothing. The possibilities of genuine improvement in Iraq or Afghanistan under the ministrations of the U.S. military are probably nil. And yet, because the only solutions entertained are variations of the above, little better lurks in our future at this moment.

Who would want to speculate on just how old those children of March 19, 2003 will actually be before the Iraq War is ended? So here’s my next question: What’s wrong with this sentence?

On March 19, 2010, the date of the seventh anniversary of President Bush’s invasion of Iraq, as surely as the sun rises in the East I’ll be sitting here and we will still have…

Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute’s Tomdispatch.com, is the co-founder of the American Empire Project. His book, The End of Victory Culture (University of Massachusetts Press), has been thoroughly updated in a newly issued edition that deals with victory culture’s crash-and-burn sequel in Iraq.

Copyright 2008 Tom Engelhardt

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Laura Ingraham-behind the scenes and uncensored!
March 13 / 2008

[Jim Baldauf sent this great transcript from Ann Coulter-impressionist right wing radio host Laura Ingraham getting really pissed at her guest. It was released by Harry Shearer and the post below comes from riverdeep on DemocraticUnderground.com — Thorne Dreyer / The Rag Blog]

Somehow Harry Shearer got audio of Laura Ingraham behind the scenes of her radio show (I’m guessing someone on her show hates her), off-air conversations with and about her guest, one Dr. Diane Sollee, some family counselor. He played it on his marvelous, off-beat radio show, ‘Le Show’, airing on NPR and other stations.

Listen to her ridicule her guest because she had the nerve to tell her she has never heard the great Laura Ingraham Show. It’s really harrowing, and gives some wonderful insight into how the conservative mind works, i.e. destroy your enemies.

Here is a link to Harry’s March 2nd show. The action starts at 28:44 and ends at 34:20.

http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/ls/ls080302le_show_-_march_2_20

Take a listen to his other shows, they’re all good.

http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/ls

Here is the piece excerpted.

http://telepathboy.fileave.com/LeShowIngraham.mp3

And the target of Ms. Ingraham’s scorn, Diane Sollee’s site.

http://www.smartmarriages.com/diane.sollee.html

And, for those of you who can’t get to these links, here is a transcript. Enjoy!

Harry Shearer: Uh, from the Found Objects Department…the, uh, the word to the wise is here, don’t tick off a conservative talk radio host by admitting that you haven’t heard her show.

This is from the Laura Ingraham show, both on AND off the air.

(Off air)

Radio Staff: You’re on with the guest.

Dr. Diane Sollee: Hi there.

Laura Ingraham: It’s Laura, I just wanted to say hi off air before we came back.

Dr: Well, thanks for having me, I’m really happy to be on.

LI: Great, well we’re gonna open it up to calls so you can be, uh…

Dr: Oh, I didn’t know that…

LI: Dr. Diane for a, for a, uh…

Dr: No one, no one told me about the calls.

LI: Well, we’re going to, uh, is that okay?

Dr: Yeah, I’m so sorry I’ve never listened to your show, but I’ve never listened to any show, so.

LI: Really? Well, here’s a word to the wise-before you’re going on a show with five million listeners, go online and listen to it.

Dr: Well…

LI: Do some homework.

Dr: …I know, I know. But don’t lecture me, ’cause I was up to three working two nights in a row so I don’t have a second. I would’ve, I wanted to.

Staff: One minute.

LI: Okay, well uh, I’ll try to forget that you’ve haven’t heard our show. I usually would hang up on people who haven’t heard the show, but…

Dr: Well, I haven’t heard, I’ve never heard anyone. I have never heard a radio show.

LI: How do you, how do you…you’ve never heard a radio show? How are you, how are you on the culture? You gotta listen to radio, you can’t, you can’t-

Dr: Well, obviously it’s not true. I mean, I don’t know when people listen, I’m never in a car and I work 24/7. I mean, literally.

Staff: Thirty seconds.

LI: That’s the way to endear yourself to hosts, tell ’em you never listen to the show. Here we come.

(on air)

LI: So Diane is a very successful marriage and family therapist, and it turns out that, guess what, marriage is good for your health and divorce isn’t. And Diane joins us now. Diane, how are you?

Dr: I’m fine. And you’re annoyed because I told you that I didn’t listen to your show, and I said I haven’t listened to ANY radio show.

LI: Yeah, I actually, I, well, to be, since you want to bring up something that happened during the break, let’s bring it up. Because I asked you, I said, have you, have you listened to the show? And yes, it’s a pretty big radio show. It’s not, it’s not the biggest thing on the earth, and who cares if you don’t. But, I was, I WAS surprised that when you’re in the business that YOU’RE in, where it’s about values and connecting with people, that-and it’s just interesting-you just have never listened to ANY talk radio in your entire life EVER, right?

Dr: I may have fifteen years ago before I started this thing I’m doing. But, I, I work 24/7, literally. You know, I worked last night ’till three o’clock, and the night before until three o’clock and I get up and I start working again. And I don’t, I don’t commute, I’m not in a car-

LI: You can have a radio, right? You don’t need to commute, you put on the kitchen.

Dr: I don’t turn on music, I don’t turn on talk radio, I’m sorry. You know, I, I, and I thought I should be honest with you -I haven’t- I haven’t heard your show. I didn’t realize there was call-in, even. No one told me that. Which I don’t mind, I look forward to-

LI: Let’s…um-hmm.

Dr: I know about talk radio, I think it’s incredibly (overtalk by Laura)

LI: Well, you’re a, but you’re a professional, you’re a professional, and you’re head of this big, ah, interesting, and I think a vibrant group and that’s why we wanted to have you on. I’m just, I’m always interested that people, who, you know, want to get the word out about your group, I mean, just, just a little research on, you know, with whom you’re talking and to whom you’re talking.

We’re going to take a break. When we come back, more questions for our guest, Diane Sollee. She’s the founder and director of Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education. You can go to smartmarriages.com for more information. We’ll get to all your calls. Be patient, be brief. Stay with us.

(off air, talking to her radio staff)

LI: If you are supposedly tapped into the culture, what’s happening, you’ve never listened to talk radio-you’re completely out to lunch. I mean, she’s out to lunch. Idiot. By the way-

Staff: An author.

LI: -really stupid for her, to, uh, open that door. Screw off, she revealed that, and so I’m going to friggin’ destroy her. What else can you find out about her? This is, uh, I didn’t really get any, this information about what kind of a person she is. So what else do we know about this woman?

Marriage and family therapist, let’s find out more about her.

Staff: She’s been in this-

LI: I don’t care how long she’s in it. She’s a friggin’ IDIOT.

Look at her…okay, I just saw a picture of her.

Staff: Two(?) minutes.

(laughter)

LI: This big liberal. She’s a big liberal, I can tell.

Staff: Big, stinky, long-haired liberal?

LI: She’s a…okay. She did something with Heritage, Tom, so can’t be all bad. (imitating the good doctor) “You’re just mad I don’t listen to talk radio.” Yeah, no, I just don’t think you do your homework, sweetheart.

Oh, she quotes Maya Angelou!! Maya Angelou’s on the front of the website! Oh my God! Oh, get out. (gibberish) What a, what’s her, what’s, she hasn’t given one piece of common sense information.

First of all, don’t PISS OFF one of the biggest talk show hosts in the United States…

Staff: One minute.

(on air)

LI: We LOVE Maya Angelou on the Laura Ingraham Show. We love, I love, if you’d listened, you’d know how much I love Maya Angelou.

Dr: Well, I wish you didn’t, I wish you’d just realize, you know, that, this is a, a full time revolution.

LI: You’re busy, you’re busy.

Diane, I really appreciate it, thanks so much.

Dr: Thank you, bye bye.

LI: Alright, stay with us on the Laura Ingraham Show, we’ll close it out.

(off air, to staff)

LI: Ah, was she annoying?

Staff: She’s ridiculous.

LI: “Oh, if you’d listen to the show, you’d know how much I LOVE Maya Angelou.” She didn’t even know what I was talking about, I totally goofed on her.

Staff: Yeah, mean-meanwhile, the listeners are…

LI: You guys, when she said she’d never listened to radio, I just couldn’t hold it back, I was so livid.

DON’T COME ON MY SHOW if you’ve never even bothered to even listen to it online. I just would never go a show that I’ve never heard before, unless it was like a local, you know, radio show that I had to do a book tour for.

Staff: Never.

LI: What’s odd is that, this Diana, Diane Sollee is pretty conservative, but she’s, she’s just a dummy on how to push her stuff.

I love that, “You’re just mad that you said, I said…” Well, big mistake, sweetheart.

What a nightmare! Alright, good job you guys. Good job.

This image comes courtesy of Mariann Wizard, who says of it, “I propose the ashram rules for general adhesion.”

Republican Treasurer Embezzles Hundreds of Thousands
From Congressional Committee
By Ben Pershing / Washingtonpost.com / March, 13, 2008

National Republican Congressional Committee officials acknowledged publicly today that they have found discrepancies in their books of more than a million dollars and evidence that the NRCC’s former treasurer, Christopher Ward, made “several hundred thousand dollars” worth of unauthorized wire transfers out of the committee that appear to have ended up in Ward’s own bank accounts.

The NRCC launched an internal probe and contacted the FBI in January after learning that Ward “apparently fabricated and submitted 2006 financial statements to the NRCC’s bank,” according to a memo issued by the committee today. Some details of the probe have been reported previously, but today’s memo and press briefing by a lawyer retained by the committee marked the fullest public accounting so far of the unfolding scandal.

The initial dollar amounts disclosed by the NRCC today suggest that this case could be the biggest campaign swindle ever recorded.

“Based on analysis conducted to date, it appears likely that over a period of several years Ward made several hundred thousand dollars in unauthorized transfers of NRCC funds to outside committees whose bank accounts he had access to, including joint fundraising committees in which the NRCC participated,” said the NRCC memo.

“He also appears to have made subsequent transfers of several hundred thousand dollars in funds from those outside committees to what appears to be his personal and business bank accounts. Those unauthorized transactions date back to at least 2004.”

The NRCC has found that the amount of cash on hand it reported to the Federal Election Commission at the end of 2006 was approximately $990,000 more than the committee actually had in the bank. The total the NRCC reported in the bank to the FEC as of Jan. 31, 2008, was $740,000 more than the actual amount, and the committee has discovered that it owes $200,000 more on its outstanding line of credit than it has reported to the FEC.

It is not clear yet to investigators whether those discrepancies are all due to money transferred out of the committee by Ward, or whether at least some of the shortfalls are attributable to other accounting errors.

“The evidence we have today indicates we have been deceived and betrayed for a number of years by a highly respected and trusted individual,” NRCC Chairman Tom Cole (Okla.) said in a statement.

Ward and his attorney have not spoken to the media since news of the NRCC investigation first broke.

While the FBI’s investigation is ongoing, the NRCC has also hired the law firm Covington & Burling to conduct an internal probe, and that firm has in turn hired PricewaterhouseCoopers to do a forensic audit of the committee’s books. NRCC officials now believe the last bona fide audit of the committee took place in 2001, and that Ward submitted “bogus audits” every year from 2002 through 2006 on faked stationary from a genuine, respected accounting firm.

Rob Kelner of Covington & Burling explained to reporters today that his firm’s initial probe revealed a “pattern in which Ward would wire transfer funds to other committees where he did accounting work and had signature authority.” The evidence further showed transfers from those committees to Ward’s bank accounts.

“The exact dollar figures are currently a moving target, and as the investigation progresses, it is entirely possible that these figures will change, either by increasing or decreasing,” the NRCC memo said.

The NRCC borrowed $8 million in 2006 from Wachovia Bank in order to fund that year’s Congressional races, and the committee was required to give the bank detailed financial information in order to secure the loan. It is illegal to knowingly submit false information to a bank for such a transaction, though Kelner said he believed the committee itself would not face any charges for its submissions to Wachovia.

“We’re not aware of any reason why the NRCC should have any [legal] exposure,” Kelner said.

In addition to the NRCC, Ward has served as treasurer for more than 80 other GOP fundraising committees, many of which are now concerned they may also have had money stolen.

Kelner pointed out that it is “not that unusual” for campaign committees to fall victim to embezzlement schemes, and several past examples can be found here.

As of now, Kelner said, this appeared to be a one-man operation. “We’re not aware of anyone colluding with [Ward] on this,” he said.

The NRCC already faces a challenging election cycle. Plagued by a rash of retirements, the GOP has far more open seats to defend in the fall than Democrats do, and the party suffered an important symbolic blow on Saturday when Democrats captured the Illinois seat of ex-Speaker Dennis Hastert (R) in a special election.

Republicans are also at a significant financial disadvantage. As of Jan. 31, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had nearly $30 million more in the bank than the NRCC had.

Source

Friends and fellow history buffs:

The first of my two-volume history of the Texas Rangers, “The Texas Rangers: Wearing the Cinco Peso, 1821-1900” (New York: Forge Books, 496 pages, $29.95) will be published March 18.

I am humbled that some 80 per cent of the first press run has already sold and that pre-publication reviews from Kirkus Reviews, the American Library Association’s Booklist, the San Antonio Express-News and others have been very favorable.

You all are invited to the book signings scheduled so far, as listed in the attached flyer. If that’s not convenient for you, the book is available at a nice discount of $17.33 from www.amazon.com or from Barnes and Noble and most other booksellers in the U.S. and Europe.

Not listed on the flyer is a talk I’ll be giving on the book at the Westlake Barnes and Noble in Austin at 7:30 p.m. March 27.

I hope you’ll consider ordering my book or that you can make one or all of the scheduled events.

I’ll look forward to visiting with you.

Best, Mike Cox

Tarot by Kate 512-454-2293
www.tarotbykateinaustin.com
kate_braun2000@yahoo.com

“In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it…”

Thursday, March 20, is the Vernal Equinox, also named Spring Equinox, Lady Day, Ostara, Oestra. Thursday is Thor’s Day; Thor is the Norse god of war. Lady Moon is in her second quarter of Virgo, a sign of new beginnings. The combination of blustery Thor and balancing Moon could prove interesting, to say the least. I recommend you take the attitude that anything can happen on this day.

The egg is a traditional symbol for the Vernal Equinox, as is the rabbit. Both were sacred to Eostra, Saxon goddess of the Dawn, and customs associated with venerating her have morphed over time into current traditions involving Easter egg hunts and the Easter Bunny. Eostra, so the lore tells us, was also fond of sweets; offerings to her shrines frequently included honey and other sweet dessert items. Today the sweet treat of choice for this celebration is: Chocolate! If you like rich, organic, dark chocolate treats of exceptional quality, I suggest you visit the Arte y Chocolate website at www.aychocolate.com to discover where you may obtain some of the highest-quality chocolate available in this area.

Much of the lore concerning the Vernal Equinox involves eggs. Equinoxes are the two times each year when a raw egg may be balanced on its larger end, which may be done at any time during the day and which might be fun for your and your guests to do together at the beginning of your feast. You may choose to use eggs or egg-shapes for placecards and party favors. Your guests might enjoy the opportunity to decorate eggs made of wood, papier mache, cardboard, or other materials. These eggs may then be exchanged among your guests and taken home as party favors to decorate their homes/altars. One custom dictates that hard-boiled eggs are first decorated and then ceremoniously buried in the garden as an offering to the garden deities to bring a bountiful harvest.

Spring festivals also tend to involve dressing up in various types of finery, yet another way to celebrate Lord Sun’s emergence. Array yourself, your festive table, your altar, and invite your guests to dress in pastel shades of all colors. Another focus of this festival is plants and planting. Wheatsville Food Coop‘s annual Herb Fest is on Saturday, March 15, starting at 10 AM, in the north parking lot, should you feel inclined to make some additions to your garden.

It is said that Alexander the Great was asked “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Alexander’s reply was that the Orphic Mysteries teach that the Egg is the origin of all things. I suggest that as you decorate, exchange, balance, and eat eggs on this day, you take some time to contemplate beginnings: consider the goals you would most like to start pursuing this year and choose one to focus on. Ideas, like eggs, are the origin of all things.

********
Reminders: 1. I will be Elaine Ireland’s guest on her live-on-the-internet radio talk show on Wednesday, March 19, from 7:55 PM to 8:50 PM. Go to www.bbsradio.com, click on Channel 2, scroll through the Wednesday listings for “Going Global With Spirit with Elaine Ireland“ and click there to listen. There is a toll-free number for listeners to call in to make comments, ask questions, and/or get a short Tarot reading from me.

2. The next Metaphysical Fair will be on April 12 & 13 at the Radisson Hotel, 6000 Middle Fiskvville Rd., Austin, TX., between Highland Mall and Lincoln Village. Saturday hours:10 AM – 6 PM; Sunday hours are 11 AM – 6 PM. $7.00 entry fee, good for both days. If you come to the fair because you read about it here, please stop by the Tarot by Kate table and say “Hi” whether or not you get a reading. If you decide to get a Tarot reading from me, mention this Seasonal Message and you will receive 5 additional minutes free.

2: Effective April 1, 2008, my bigstep.com website will cease to exist. The new site address is: www.tarotbykateinaustin.com. I will be continuing to fine-tune this site for as long as it takes to get it done to my satisfaction. Send your suggestions for changes/improvements to: kate_braun2000@yahoo.com.