Department of Injustice Part 3

The DOJ IG report continues:

We determined that Goodling’s Internet searches used the search
terms that Williams provided, which focused on political criteria.
Goodling kept the search string intact, but added terms when assessing
candidates for certain positions, such as IJs, when she added the terms:
“or immigrant! or immigrant! or asylum or DHS or ICE or border! or alien!
or migrant! or criminal! or justice or judg!” We also found that this
search string was included in an e-mail Goodling sent to the OIPL
employee, dated December 5, 2006, in which Goodling instructed her to
use the search string for all candidates she was asked to screen.


In addition, Goodling admitted in her congressional testimony that
she accessed www.tray.com and other web sites to get information about
political contributions made by candidates for temporary details,
immigration judges, and other positions.



In the matter of hiring Assistant United States Attorneys, the report concludes:

we believe that Goodling violated federal law
and Department policy, and committed misconduct, when she
discriminated against EOUSA detailee candidates based on political or
ideological affiliations.

But as those cheesy TV commercials say, "But wait! There's more!" Because Goodling not only vetted AUSA's, but also those Immigration judges! Back to the IG's report!

We determined that, under the process implemented by Sampson
and followed by Williams and Goodling, the OAG solicited candidates for
IJ positions and informed EOIR who was to be hired for each position.
The principal source for such candidates was the White House, although
other Republican sources provided politically acceptable candidates to
Sampson, Williams, and Goodling. All three of these officials
inappropriately considered political or ideological affiliations in
evaluating and selecting candidates for IJ positions. For example, we
found that Goodling screened the candidates using a variety of
techniques for determining their political affiliations, including
researching the candidates’ political contributions and voter registration
records, using an Internet search string with political terms, and asking
the candidates questions regarding their political affiliations during
interviews.
In sum, the evidence showed that Sampson, Williams, and
Goodling violated federal law and Department policy, and Sampson and
Goodling committed misconduct, by considering political and ideological
affiliations in soliciting and selecting IJs, which are career positions
protected by the civil service laws.

Not only did this process violate the law and Department policy, it
also caused significant delays in appointing IJs. These delays increased
the burden on the immigration courts, which already were experiencing
an increased workload and a high vacancy rate. EOIR Deputy Director
Ohlson repeatedly requested candidate names to address the growing
number of vacancies, with little success. As a result of the delay in
providing candidates, the Department was unable to timely fill the large
numbers of vacant IJ positions.
We also concluded that Goodling committed misconduct when she
provided inaccurate information to a Civil Division attorney who was
defending a lawsuit brought by an unsuccessful IJ candidate. Goodling
told the attorney that she did not take political factors into consideration
in connection with IJ hiring, which was not accurate.
In addition, we concluded that Williams provided inaccurate
information to us concerning her Internet research activities.
Because Goodling, Sampson, and Williams have resigned from the
Department, they are no longer subject to discipline by the Department
for their actions described in this report. Nevertheless, we recommend
that the Department consider the findings in this report should they
apply in the future for another position with the Department.

So there you have it. Violations of law by the religious, conservative wing of the Republican Party. Their delaying actions in hiring Immigration judges caused massive problems in the immigration system and problems processing legal and illegal immigrants. And all AG Mukasey can say is that there was a break down in the system??
What an insult to our intelligence! The so-called breakdown in the system consisted of clearly defined Republican policy that encouraged illegal activities in the Department of Justice. And they get away, Scot-free , as we used to say. So much for the republicans as the party of "Law and Order!"

So the next time you need a purge, stay away from the Ipacac and just think of how the DOJ is now the Department of INjustice.

Department of Injustice Part 2

Ms. Goodling had authority over hiring for both political positions and non-political positions and there are important distinctions in how those two hiring tracks are handled. Some background on the hiring process from the IG report:

It is not improper to consider political affiliations when hiring for
political positions. However, both Department policy and federal law
prohibit discrimination in hiring for Department career positions on the
basis of political affiliations.
The Department’s policy on non-discrimination is contained in the
Code of Federal Regulations, Section 42.1(a) of 28 C.F.R. Part 42,
Subpart A, which states:
It is the policy of the Department of Justice to seek to
eliminate discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion,
sex, sexual orientation, national origin, marital status,
political affiliation, age, or physical or mental handicap in
employment within the Department and to assure equal
employment opportunity for all employees and applicants for
employment (emphasis added).

The report goes on to say:

Our investigation demonstrated that Goodling sometimes used for
career applicants the same political screening techniques she employed
in considering applicants for political positions. In addition, she used for
candidates who were interested in any position, whether career or
political, the same political screening she used for applicants who
applied solely for political positions, and some of these candidates were
placed in career positions.

And how did dear Ms. Goodling do this? The IG report quotes her aide, Angela Williamson, who said of Goodling:

Williamson typed from memory the list of
questions Goodling asked as a guide for future interviews. Among other
questions, the list included the following:
Tell us about your political philosophy. There are different
groups of conservatives, by way of example: Social
Conservative, Fiscal Conservative, Law & Order Republican.
[W]hat is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to
serve him?
Aside from the President, give us an example of someone
currently or recently in public service who you admire.
We found that this last question often took the form of asking the
candidate to identify his or her most admired President, Supreme Court
Justice, or legislator. Some candidates were asked to identify a person
for all three categories. Williamson told us that sometimes Goodling
asked candidates: “Why are you a Republican?”

Sounds rather political, don't you think? But there is more.

Several candidates interviewed by Goodling told us they believed
that her question about identifying their favorite Supreme Court Justice,
President, or legislator was an attempt to determine the candidates’
political beliefs. For example, one candidate reported that after he stated
he admired Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Goodling “frowned” and
commented, “but she’s pro-choice.” Another candidate commented that
when Goodling asked him to name his favorite judge, it seemed to him
that she was trying to “get at my political views.”

Nor could Ms. Goodling claim that she was unaware of the prohibition of using political criteria for non-political jobs:

The evidence also indicates that Goodling knew she should not ask
applicants for career positions the same questions she asked of
applicants for political positions. For example, an AUSA who interviewed
with Goodling in September 2006 for a possible position in the ODAG
said that Goodling told her there were two types of positions potentially
available, political and non-political. Goodling told the candidate that if
she was interested in a political position, she would ask her separate
questions, which included questions about political activities and voting
history.

Ms. Goodling was very,very thorough in her vetting of candidates.

We found that Goodling’s Internet research on candidates for
Department positions was extensive and designed to obtain their political
and ideological affiliations.16 We determined that while working in the
OAG, Goodling conducted computer searches on candidates for career as
well as political Department positions. Goodling used an Internet search
string in her hiring research that she had received from Jan Williams,
her predecessor as the Department’s White House Liaison. At some time
during the year Williams served as White House Liaison, she had
attended a seminar at the White House Office of Presidential Personnel
and received a document entitled “The Thorough Process of
Investigation.” The document described methods for screening
candidates for political positions and recommended using www.tray.com
and www.opensecrets.org to find information about contributions to
political candidates and parties. The document also explained how to
find voter registration information. In addition, the document explained
how to conduct searches on www.nexis.com, and included an example of
a search string that contained political terms such as “republican,”
“Bush or Cheney,” “Karl Rove,” “Howard Dean,” “democrat!,” “liberal,”
“abortion or pro-choice,” as well as generic terms such as “arrest!” and
“bankrupt!”

When Williams left the Department in April 2006, she sent an email
to Goodling containing an Internet search string and explained:

“This is the lexis nexis search string that I use for AG appointments.”
The string reads as follows:
[First name of a candidate]! and pre/2 [last name of a
candidate] w/7 bush or gore or republican! or democrat! or
charg! or accus! or criticiz! or blam! or defend! or iran contra
or clinton or spotted owl or florida recount or sex! or
controvers! or racis! or fraud! or investigat! or bankrupt! or
layoff! or downsiz! or PNTR or NAFTA or outsourc! or indict!
or enron or kerry or iraq or wmd! or arrest! or intox! or fired
or sex! or racis! or intox! or slur! or arrest! or fired or
controvers! or abortion! or gay! or homosexual! or gun! or
firearm!



SEE PART 3

Department of Injustice Part 1

This article in the NY TIMES ran once and it seems that everyone then forgot all about the issue.

Mukasey Won’t Pursue Charges in Hiring Inquiry
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey on Tuesday rejected the idea of bringing criminal charges against former Justice Department employees who improperly used political litmus tests in hiring decisions, saying he had already taken strong internal steps in response to a “painful” episode.

Two recent reports from the Justice Department inspector general and its internal ethics office found that seven department officials — all but one now gone — had systematically rejected candidates with perceived “liberal” backgrounds for what were supposed to be nonpolitical jobs and instead picked conservative lawyers.

In a speech Tuesday morning to the American Bar Association in Manhattan, Mr. Mukasey condemned the political abuses in his most forceful language to date, saying “the system failed.”

"The system failed"???? We aren't talking about sanitary plumbing in a house! We aren't talking about a computer network. We aren't talking about the subway after a downpour.

What we are talking about is the political corruption of an integral arm of the United States Government. We are talking about an agency that should be at the forefront of guaranteeing fairness for American citizens. Unfortunately, DOJ has suffered through some sad times. Who among us can forget Attorney general John Mitchell and his role in Watergate? While AG Mukasey was not involved at the time these latest actions took place, his down playing of the severity of the criminal activity spelled out in the Department of Justices's Inspector General report is loathsome.

I spent a bit of time going over this report. Allow me to introduce you to one Monica Goodling, who had a primary function in this dirty business. According to her entry in Wikipedia, Ms. Goodling prepared for her position of responsibility thusly (N.B. All Bold in quoted sections of the I.G.'s report were TRM's):

was a 1991 graduate of Northeastern High School in Manchester, Pennsylvania, and received her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1995 from Messiah College. After completing her bachelor's degree, Goodling continued her education at American University,[2] but she then transfered to the Regent University Law School, where she received her Juris Doctor degree in 1999. Regent University was founded by Pat Robertson, and it advertises itself as "America's Preeminent Christian University".

Goodling worked alongside Tim Griffin as an opposition researcher for the Republican National Committee during the 2000 presidential campaign. She joined the Department of Justice's press office after George W. Bush was elected president. She moved to the department's executive office, which is responsible for budgeting, management, personnel management and evaluation, later becoming deputy director of the executive office.[3] Ms. Goodling was hired by US Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan to work in the executive office. [4]

After less than a year, Goodling moved again, to the attorney general’s office, working as the White House liaison.[3] According to David Ayres, senior chief of staff to Attorney General John Ashcroft, "She was the embodiment of a hardworking young conservative who believed strongly in the president and his mission".[5] But according to Bud Cummins, one of the fired prosecutors and an Arkansas Republican, “She was inexperienced, way too naïve and a little overzealous".[3]

After moving to the Attorney General's office, she retained some of her executive office authority over personnel matters. Goodling's authority over hiring expanded significantly in March 2006, when Gonzales signed an unpublished order delegating to Goodling and Kyle Sampson, his then chief of staff, the power to appoint or dismiss all department political appointees besides United States attorneys (who are appointed by the President). The delegation included authority over interim United States attorneys (who are appointed by the Attorney General) and heads of the divisions that handle civil rights, public corruption, environmental crimes and other matters.[3][6][7]

SEE PART 2

American Military, American Presidency, American Democracy

A number of interesting and important issues are raised by retired Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich in his new book The Limits of Power, The End of American Exceptionalism. Here is an excerpt, courtesy TomDispatch.com

To appreciate the full extent of the military crisis into which the United States has been plunged requires understanding what the Iraq War and, to a lesser extent, the Afghan War have to teach. These two conflicts, along with the attacks of September 11, 2001, will form the centerpiece of George W. Bush's legacy. Their lessons ought to constitute the basis of a new, more realistic military policy.

[...]


Reconfigure the armed services to fight "small wars"; empower the generals; reconnect soldiering to citizenship -- on the surface each of these has a certain appeal. But upon closer examination, each also has large defects. They are the wrong lessons to take from Iraq and Afghanistan.

[...]

So the first lesson to be taken away from the Bush administration's two military adventures is simply this: War remains today what it has always been -- elusive, untamed, costly, difficult to control, fraught with surprise, and sure to give rise to unexpected consequences. Only the truly demented will imagine otherwise.

The second lesson of Iraq and Afghanistan derives from the first. As has been the case throughout history, the utility of armed force remains finite. Even in the information age, to the extent that force "works," it does so with respect to a limited range of contingencies.

Although die-hard supporters of the Global War on Terror will insist otherwise, events in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated definitively that further reliance on coercive methods will not enable the United States to achieve its objectives. Whether the actual aim is to democratize the Islamic world or subdue it, the military "option" is not the answer.

[...]

Here we come face-to-face with the essential dilemma with which the United States has unsuccessfully wrestled since the Soviets deprived us of a stabilizing adversary. The political elite that ought to bear the chief responsibility for crafting grand strategy instead nurses fantasies of either achieving permanent global hegemony or remaking the world in America's image. Meanwhile, the military elite that could puncture those fantasies and help restore a modicum of realism to U.S. policy fixates on campaigns and battles, with generalship largely a business of organizing and coordinating matériel.

The four lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan boil down to this: Events have exposed as illusory American pretensions to having mastered war. Even today, war is hardly more subject to human control than the tides or the weather. Simply trying harder -- investing ever larger sums in even more advanced technology, devising novel techniques, or even improving the quality of American generalship -- will not enable the United States to evade that reality.

[...]
But the problem lies less with the army that we have -- a very fine one, which every citizen should wish to preserve -- than with the requirements that we have imposed on our soldiers. Rather than expanding or reconfiguring that army, we need to treat it with the respect that it deserves. That means protecting it from further abuse of the sort that it has endured since 2001.

America doesn't need a bigger army. It needs a smaller -- that is, more modest -- foreign policy, one that assigns soldiers missions that are consistent with their capabilities. Modesty implies giving up on the illusions of grandeur to which the end of the Cold War and then 9/11 gave rise. It also means reining in the imperial presidents who expect the army to make good on those illusions. When it comes to supporting the troops, here lies the essence of a citizen's obligation.

Andrew Bacevich will discuss his new book -- and the limits of American power in the Bush era -- for a full hour on "Bill Moyers Journal," Friday, August 15th. Don't miss it.

The Democratic Party-The Eve of Destruction?

This story just moved from the Los Angeles Times. Barack Obama is giving Hillary the opportunity to have her name placed in nomination before the Democratic Convention in two weeks.

Obama is quoted as saying:

"I am convinced that honoring Sen. Clinton's historic campaign in this way will help us celebrate this defining moment in our history and bring the party together in a strong, united fashion," Barack Obama said in a statement issued jointly by their two press offices.

Meanwhile, E.J. Dionne has this take on developments:

Because the Clinton campaign failed to anticipate the importance of delegates elected through caucuses rather than primaries, her operatives regularly argued that Obama's caucus triumphs lacked the same weight as her primary victories.

Because Obama overwhelmed Clinton in many staunchly Republican states, he was said not to be the choice of real Democrats and swing voters in states such as New York and California, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

Some of the memos suggested, without quite saying so, that Clinton's voters were more inherently virtuous than Obama's. After all, she was the candidate of the constituency her pollster Mark Penn labeled the "Invisible Americans," the descendants of Richard Nixon's "Silent Majority." The white working class, especially less well-to-do women, was with Clinton. Obama had the well-educated voters, that crowd Nixon's Vice President Spiro Agnew saw as "effete," and, of course, African-Americans who would have been part of Clinton's base against any rival except Obama.

And there is that Penn memo that speaks of Obama's "lack of American roots." Clinton thankfully declined to take up this idea, but John McCain's ads are now subtly toying with it.

The more Obama's victories were cast as less than real, the more passionate Clinton's own supporters became about the injustice of her defeat. A minority of her supporters threatens trouble at the Denver convention unless Obama gives her a roll call vote in which never-say-die Clintonites could express their loyalty one last time.

Obama has already given the Clinton forces a night for Hillary and part of a night for Bill. In truth, he has little choice in a nearly 50-50 party, but the Obama people have to be frustrated with the Clintonites for not recognizing how far he is going to give them their due.

Yet some of the Clinton folks still think that Obama has not been respectful enough of the Clintons and their historical contributions. Bill Clinton is clearly put out. This perceptive politician has to be more aware than anyone of the mistakes he and his wife's campaign made. That makes the whole thing harder, for him and for Obama.

Obviously, Obama hopes that placing Hillary's name in nomination will quiet the Clintonistas and assuage their anger for his winning the party's nomination. Obama is very,very wrong in this assumption. What he is doing is taking a pile of straw, pouring some gasoline on it in the form of having Bill Clinton take a prominent speaking roll, and then having Hillary hold a lighted match one millimeter from the explosive pile while Obama is saying "See, I'm in control and it's safe!"

This move might very well blow up in his face if the voters at home watching on T.V. see a split and angry Democratic party forming its quadrennial circular firing squad. The electorate's utter disgust could lead to more ballots marked for McCain, as the undecided and independent voters wonder, "This guy can't stand up to Hillary. How is he going to stand up to Putin?"

Russian War Motives- Oil or Ethnic Politics?

Is the motive for Russia's Georgia invasion political or is it oil? Witht eh Eurasian rim a noted source for oil, don't discount the Georgia move as the first Russian action on its side of the Oil Wars of the 21st Century.

Take a look at this prescient 2006 article in Asia Times:

The United States' global energy-control strategy, it's now clear to most, was the actual reason for the highly costly regime change in Iraq, euphemistically dubbed "democracy" by Washington. But while it is preoccupied with implanting democracy in the Middle East, the United States is quietly being outflanked in the rush to secure and control major energy sources of the Persian Gulf, the Central Asian Caspian Basin, Africa and beyond.

The quest for energy control has informed Washington's support for high-risk "color revolutions" in Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan in recent months.

[...]

Some in Washington are beginning to realize that important figures might have been too clumsy in recent public statements about both China and Russia, two nations whose cooperation in some form is essential to the success of the global US energy project.

[,,,]

If the trend of recent events continues, it won't be US-style democracy that is spreading, but rather Russian and Chinese influence over major oil and gas supplies.

Some in Washington are beginning to realize that important figures might have been too clumsy in recent public statements about both China and Russia, two nations whose cooperation in some form is essential to the success of the global US energy project.
[...]

Next Thursday, member nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), led by China and Russia, will reportedly invite Iran, currently an observer, into full membership. Even if full membership is postponed, as has been mooted, the fact remains that Russia and China both want to seal closer cooperation with Iran in Eurasian energy cooperation.

The SCO was founded in June 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Its stated goal was to facilitate "cooperation in political affairs, economy and trade, scientific-technical, cultural, and educational spheres as well as in energy, transportation, tourism, and environment protection fields". Recently, however, the SCO is beginning to look like an energy-financial bloc in Central Asia consciously being developed to serve as a counter-pole to US hegemony.

Here is an interesting articla from the April 2007 edition of Oil and Gas, a trade magazine, on the strategic importance of Eurasia:

Since pipeline capacity will be unable to transport the desired quantity of Turkmen gas in 2010, a new pipeline should be constructed. One possibility is a pipeline along the Caspian seashore through Kazakhstan and Russia to Ukraine. The pipeline's length will be 3,000 km and cost an estimated $3 bln. Due to likely delays casued by tensions between competing interests construction of the pipeline would probably not be completed until after 2010.

Taliban, Terror, Afghanistan and Pakistan- Life is Tough All Over

While we are all looking at Georgia and Iran, Abu Muqawama has eyes and ears a bit further East. What's going on in the home of the home of Al Queda, is Pakistan over and done for, and to quote one of my favorite lines from the movie Apocalypse Now, "Who's in charge here"?
Take a look at this posting.

Putin, The Russian Magician

Russian prime Minister Vladimir Putin has displayed the skills of the KGB apparatchik par-excellence that he is. With the Russian invasion into Georgia, Putin has accomplished several important strategic goals with one move.

It is obvious that Putin is exerting direct pressure on Georgia and the other former Soviet states in Eurasia that have embraced the west. What is less obvious is that he has caused the eyes of the west to divert from the more serious problem of nuclear proliferation in Iran. Russia has always stymied in imposition of tough United nations sanction against Iran and now the world's focus has shifted to Georgia.

Is Iran near some nuclear nuclear milestone that would be make it impossible to prevent the development of an atomic weapon? With Georgia drawing all the attention of a new pole-dancing stripper, might the more important but uncovered story be Iran, Israel, and nuclear weapons?

Don't be surprised if Putin feels he can fully exploit other areas of geopolitical strength during this period of United States weakness. And don't let the magician's misdirection tricks fool you.

Putin Endorses McCain

While we understand that a week in politics is an eternity, you have to look at the long-term political implications of the Russian invasion of Georgia.

Will the American public decide that the days of the Cold War are back? Will the perception take hold that Russia launched its invasion while Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was getting chummy with President Bush at the Beijing Olympics?

Look at the results of election polls taken during this week to see whether McCain gets a bump up in his percentages. If he does receive such a bump, and if by November the public perception of threats to national and world security do not abate significantly, the electorate will decide that this is no time to elect Barack Obama so that he can invite Vladimir Putin to sing Kumbaya around a campfire. If these conditions hold, look for a McCain win.

Cyberwar in Georgia

This article in the NY TIMES details what may have been a cyberwar attack by Russia against Georgia prior to the invsion.

The TIMES refuses to call a spade a spade. Russia attacked in cyberspace. While Georgia is not as dependent on the internet as more developed countries, we have to understand that we will be similarly targeted should Russia or China , or even Al Queda decide to do so.

Cyberwar is a perfect weapon for any enemy to use. It it cheap, it can be carried out from any place in the world, and it is almost untraceable.

Letters to Putin

This is really funny, as Homer Simpson would say, 'cause it's true.

Or true enough.

Kathleen Parker of Real Clear Politics channels George Bush, Barack Obama, and John McCain to see what they are or would or would be telling Vladimir Putin if they were in the appropriate position.

Georgia on my Mind

A few thoughts on the trouble in Georgia:

1. The rapid introduction of Russian land, air and naval forces indicates that this was planned some months ago.

2. The Russians are in South Osettia to stay. They reject neutral peackeepers and will allow only their forces to remain in place.

3. The Russians will be happy with nothing less than "regime change" in Tibilisi. They want to show the other former Soviet states that they will not tolerate strong relations with the west, exemplified by NATO membership, or democracy in these former Soviet republics. They prefer the status qua ante, and for the Russian it refers to the time before the demise of the Soviet Union.

4. The Russian claim that their invasion was a response to the Georgian offensive to reclaim their breakaway province of South Osettia. However, the Georgian offensive began this past Friday, and it is obvious from its broad scope on land and sea, that the Russian military "response" was planned long ago for forces to be appropriately positioned for their actions. As stated in the knowledgeable web site Abu Muqawama:(and Georgia is on their mind, too!)

The Russian military happened to be ramping up for this week. Their response would not have been so swift if they were caught by surprise. This was pre-planned trap by having S.O. militias provoke a Georgian military response.

5. One of the more interesting reasons that I've herd for the massive Russian action has to do with oil. The always interesting Debka website posits:

Jerusalem owns a strong interest in Caspian oil and gas pipelines reach the Turkish terminal port of Ceyhan, rather than the Russian network. Intense negotiations are afoot between Israel Turkey, Georgia, Turkmenistan and Azarbaijan for pipelines to reach Turkey and thence to Israel’s oil terminal at Ashkelon and on to its Red Sea port of Eilat. From there, supertankers can carry the gas and oil to the Far East through the Indian Ocean.

Aware of Moscow’s sensitivity on the oil question, Israel offered Russia a stake in the project but was rejected.

Last year, the Georgian president commissioned from private Israeli security firms several hundred military advisers, estimated at up to 1,000, to train the Georgian armed forces in commando, air, sea, armored and artillery combat tactics. They also offer instruction on military intelligence and security for the central regime. Tbilisi also purchased weapons, intelligence and electronic warfare systems from Israel.

These advisers were undoubtedly deeply involved in the Georgian army’s preparations to conquer the South Ossetian capital Friday.

In recent weeks, Moscow has repeatedly demanded that Jerusalem halt its military assistance to Georgia, finally threatening a crisis in bilateral relations. Israel responded by saying that the only assistance rendered Tbilisi was “defensive.”

This has not gone down well in the Kremlin. Therefore, as the military crisis intensifies in South Ossetia, Moscow may be expected to punish Israel for its intervention.

DEBKA also considers the overall strategic impact of the Russian moves.

While the world’s attention was fixed on the Russian-Georgian contest over two breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, DEBKAfile’s exclusive military sources reveal that Russia has massed a fleet of warships and marine forces opposite the Gerogia's semi-autonomous Black Sea region of Ajaria.

Moscow is preparing to punish what it regards as Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili’s further provocations by occupying this coastal strip on Georgia’s southwestern border with Turkey.

The appearance of Ukraine’s president Viktor Yushchenko alongside Saakashvili, leaders of the pro-Western Orange and Rose Revolutions, at a huge national rally outside the Georgian parliament in Tbilisi Tuesday night, Aug. 12, may well be seen by the Kremlin as over the top. It came hours after Russian President Dimitry Medvedev’s gesture to the European mediation bid of ordering the Russian military operation in Georgia halted there and then.

Half of Ajaria’s ethnically Georgian population professes Islam, in contrast to the country’s Christian majority. The other half is Russian.

Ajarian has come to mean a Georgian Muslim.

The Russian Black Sea buildup is deployed opposite the Ajurian capital of Batumi, an important port for the shipment of oil from Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Its oil refinery handles Caspian oil from Azerbaijan.

When Saakashvili was elected president five years ago, the region’s leaders refused to recognize his authority and maintained close ties with Moscow up until May 2004 when, after Ajurians demonstrated against Tbilisi, he ordered them to obey the Georgian constitution and disarm.

Russia maintained a military base at Batumi which it agreed to close by November 2007.

DEBKAfile’s sources report that by recovering the base, Moscow will not only punish the Georgian president, but also profit from the turmoil of the past week in three ways:

1. A third semi-autonomous province will be hacked off Georgian territory after the loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

2. Russia will gain a strategic Black Sea foothold at Turkey’s back door.

3. It will also control a gateway to Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Note that these former Soviet states have come into the western orbit over the past few years.

Here is another interesting explanation of the Georgia-Russia war that hearkens back to post WW1 Europe:

The current situation is not wholly without precedent, but instead calls to mind the landscape of the Caucasus after WWI. In the wake of the Russian Revolutions and the disintegration of the Russian Empire in 1917, Wilhelmine Germany encouraged Georgian Mensheviks in May 1918 to proclaim Georgia a sovereign and independent state. Even as it was still engaged in a titanic struggle against France, Britain and the United States, Germany had its eyes on the future exploitation of the Caucasus and had identified Georgia as the key to control of the export of Caucasian and Caspian resources, and of oil in particular. In a similar way, the US and the EU have regarded the independence of Georgia as critical for the diversification of export routes for Eurasian energy resources beyond Russian (and Iranian) control.

[...]

The current situation is not wholly without precedent, but instead calls to mind the landscape of the Caucasus after WWI. In the wake of the Russian Revolutions and the disintegration of the Russian Empire in 1917, Wilhelmine Germany encouraged Georgian Mensheviks in May 1918 to proclaim Georgia a sovereign and independent state. Even as it was still engaged in a titanic struggle against France, Britain and the United States, Germany had its eyes on the future exploitation of the Caucasus and had identified Georgia as the key to control of the export of Caucasian and Caspian resources, and of oil in particular. In a similar way, the US and the EU have regarded the independence of Georgia as critical for the diversification of export routes for Eurasian energy resources beyond Russian (and Iranian) control.

[...]

Washington thus may well find itself facing a much bigger and messier crisis than it had ever bargained for in backing the youthful but perhaps too dynamic Saakashvili. It is difficult to argue that Georgia itself is a vital US interest ( ensuring a diversity of energy supplies is a real and growing concern for the EU, but the EU has little leverage with which to use against Russia). Moreover, as Moscow as only too aware, Washington has enough problems to contend with, ranging from Iraq, a worsening situation in Afghanistan, the probability of a nuclear armed Iran, and a domestic economy headed into recession. Yet with Georgian forces in Iraq and Georgia’s status as a candidate for NATO membership, Washington will find it difficult to wash its hands of Georgia without suffering a major loss of face and credibility. Moscow would find few outcomes more gratifying than that.

Be True to Your School

I'm waiting for the leftists in the United States and Western Europe, those professed paragons human rights, to organize massive marches with banners flying, "Russia Out of Georgia!". But since they can't protest against the United States, they will remain silent. Where is "Code Pink"? Where are the radical grannies?

Their silence speaks volumes.

Bear Facts

Here are the Russian successes on the international front:

They successfully protested the US's desired placement of an anti-ballistic missile system in various countries, including the Czech Republic. Despite repeated assurances that the system was designed to combat Iranian missiles and also despite the US's offer to allow the Russians full access to the command and control systems, the Russians said "Nyet". And we bowed to their wishes.

The Russians continued to thwart out efforts in the United Nations to place significant sanctions against the Iranians for the latters failure to come clean with international authorities concerning their nuclear development programs. Russian intransigence on the diplomatic front makes military actions by either the United States of Israel, or both, more probable. Further , the Russians have sold and are in the process of installing a sophisticated air defense system around those nuclear development sites.

While singing his own unique version of Hoagy Carmichael's "Georgia on My Mind", Prime Minister Putin sent his troops across recognized international borders and invaded that former Soviet republic, now an independent, capitalist, democratic state with the apparent intention of either re-absorbing it into Russia or destroying its current government and installing a puppet government in its place. The weakness of the west is too painful to describe as the decisions have been made not to take any action to aid the Georgians in their confrontation with the Russian armies.

The shame of our impotence is best expressed here:

GORI, Georgia — In retreat, the Georgian soldiers were so tired they could not keep from stumbling. Their arms were loaded with rucksacks and ammunition boxes; they had dark circles under their eyes. Officers ran up and down the line, barking for them to go faster.

All along the road was grief. Old men pushed wheelbarrows loaded with bags or led cows by tethers. They drove tractors and rickety Ladas packed with suitcases and televisions.

As a column of soldiers passed through Gori, a black-robed priest came out of his church and made the sign of the cross again and again.

One soldier, his face a mask of exhaustion, cradled a Kalashnikov.

“We killed as many of them as we could,” he said. “But where are our friends?”

It was the question of the day. As Russian forces massed Sunday on two fronts, Georgians were heading south with whatever they could carry. When they met Western journalists, they all said the same thing: Where is the United States? When is NATO coming?

The West has become expert at limp-wristed hand wringing and KGB man Vladimir Putin knows it and he will press every advantage he can find.

Fun in a Police State 2

When you have total control of the media it is possible to do this.

Part of the elaborate Olympics fireworks show broadcast to the world in the opening ceremony was altered, done digitally in 3-D computer graphics, according to several news reports.

While the dramatic display actually happened as portrayed on television, members of the Beijing Olympic Committee said it was necessary to replace live video with computer-generated imagery because the city’s hazy, smoggy skies made it too difficult to see, according to The Beijing Times, which first reported the story.

KGB in Charge

Vladimir Putin is firmly in charge of Russia.

The ex-KGB apparatchik fooled President Bush years ago,when Bush claimed that he looked into Putin's soul and said "We could do business with him," but could anyone really claim that was due to a spectacular effort of deception on Putin's part, or did he just depend on the information contained in his dossier on the nincompoop president?

While the eyes of the world are focused on the Beijing Olympics, Putin's Russian military is trying to re-establish the old Soviet union by force of arms, as the Georgians, who previously requested admission to NATO, fight back with their more limited resources.

Of course, the West and NATO will do nothing except wring its hands, ask for Russian withdrawals and diplomatic talks, and weep for the dead. Once again, NATO is proved to be as effective as a moth when it comes to dealing with a real threat.

For Putin, this is another major victory, and they are adding up. He maintains his position of power in the Russian government. He stymies the US desire for strong sanctions against Iran. And now he launches his troops to assimilate Georgia like Star Trek's Borg. Can you hear Putin saying, "Resistance is futile"? I can.

Bomb, Bomb, Bomb,Bomb, Bomb, Iran

If the United States and/or Israel want to bomb the nuclear facilities of Iran, the deadline is closing in on a daily basis.

Among the items to consider are:

1.When Russia will complete the sale of air defense missiles to Iran.

2. The end of the Bush Presidency

3. The end of the Olmert Prime Ministry in Israel

4. Status of Israeli air and defense forces. While everyone is watching the Air Force, keep your eyes on Israel's submarine forces, which can strike undetected from closer range:

Some reports suggest that Israel has adapted Harpoon cruise missiles, which have a range of 130 kilometers, to carry an indigenously developed nuclear warhead and guidance system, though other experts argue that such modifications to a Harpoon missile are not feasible.[6] Others believe that Israel has developed an indigenous cruise missile with a range of 320 kilometers that is believed to be a version of Rafael Armament Development Authority’s Popeye turbo cruise missile.[7] Still others believe that the missile may be a version of the Gabriel 4LR that is produced by Israel Aircraft Industries. Once encapsulated, it could be launched in 533mm torpedo tubes similar to the Harpoon.[8] Such speculation was further fueled by an unconfirmed test of a nuclear-capable, submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM) in the Indian Ocean in 2000. Some reports claimed targets 1,500 kilometers away were hit.[7,9] Such a range, however, implies an entirely new type of missile.[7,8,10] However, the Israeli Defense Forces denies any such missile tests.[7,11]

5. The phases of the moon, specifically, whether Israeli pilots would need a dark, moonless night, or a full moon to aid in target identification.

Check out this table for moon phases through the end of this year:

      NEW MOON    FIRST QUARTER        FULL MOON     LAST QUARTER

     d  h  m          d  h  m          d  h  m          d  h  m

AUG.   5  3 05   AUG.  13  2 38   AUG.  19 17 53   AUG.  26 15 18
SEPT.  3 18 45   SEPT. 11 11 37   SEPT. 18  2 01   SEPT. 25  6 41
OCT.   3 10 28   OCT.  10 19 01   OCT.  17 12 14   OCT.  25  1 17
NOV.   2  1 24   NOV.   9  1 57   NOV.  16  0 57   NOV.  23 22 11
DEC.   1 15 01   DEC.   8  9 36   DEC.  15 16 15   DEC.  23 19 36
DEC.  31  3 12

If Israel attacks Iran before the election in November, they could have an unintended impact of serious consequences on the outcome. Therefore, IF Israel decides to attack, the most probable dates are ( +/- 2) Nov. 16, Dec. 1, Dec. 15, Dec, 31.

Let's hope that diplomacy works. In this analysis in today's NYTIMES MAGAZINE, Noah Feldman looks at all the the sabre rattling and the diplomatic talks and concludes:

So which script will play out, the threat of war or the dull hum of diplomats negotiating a modus vivendi that might someday be called peace? The answer lies in no small part with the Iranian government, itself a complex mix of ideologues and foreign-policy professionals under the not-always-watchful eye of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. If Iran is in fact close to developing functioning nuclear weapons, then it probably will not compromise. As North Korea has shown, even a few weapons are enough to enhance a country’s status and bargaining power immensely. If, however, Iran’s leaders assess the difficulties of mastering centrifuge technology as a real barrier to gaining weapons, they might as well negotiate and try to get the best deal they can while the U.S. and Israel are worried about them.

Paradoxically, then, saber rattling against Iran may help achieve political resolution. It could turn out that the more it looks as if the coming months may bring war, the more likely it becomes that winter will instead bring meaningful progress toward peace.

However, if North Korea could master nuclear technology to the point where it could construct an explosive device, I have no doubt that those capabilities also are within Iran's reach.

The biggest questions are whether we are dealing with ideologues or pragmatists in Iran, whether Russia, which currently is flexing its military muscle in Georgia, sees it to be in its interest to defang Iran, and whether China would risk a reduction in its oil supply from Iran. If the ideologues are in control, if the Russians want instability, and if the Chinese must maintain their rate of industrialization, then war draws closer.

China, or How to Have Fun in a Police State

From Voice of America:

A Tibetan rights group says five of its members protested in Beijing's Tiananmen Square Saturday and were detained by authorities.

The group Free Tibet says three Americans and one German laid down and covered themselves with Tibetan flags while a Canadian told the story of China's invasion and occupation of Tibet.

The group says the protest lasted ten minutes before police led away the three men and two women.

In Hong Kong, security personnel removed at least one protester from an Olympic equestrian event Saturday, after an attempt to display a Tibetan flag.

Christina Chan, who became well-known for her protests during the Hong Kong leg of the Olympic torch relay in May, was ejected from the event. It is not known if the university student was placed under arrest.

China kept tight control in Beijing Friday, but foreign demonstrators managed to breach security at Beijing's main Olympic venue to stage a brief protest just before the opening ceremony of the Games. The U.S.-based group Students for a Free Tibet says three Americans displayed Tibetan flags for less than a minute before being detained.

Elsewhere Friday, protests against China's human rights record were held in a number of countries, including India, Nepal, Turkey, England, France, Belgium, Germany and Thailand.

Most demonstrators focused on China's treatment of Tibetans. Others focused on China's restrictions on freedom of religion and expression, as well as its treatment of minorities.

Getcha Scorecard Here!!

CQ Politics has this nifty scorecard that shows just where your congressperson and senator stands on key issues.

Note to the lefty Dems who want to drum Connecticut's Senator Joe Lieberman out of the party: He votes with his party 87% of the time, more than many other Democrats.

Opening Ceremony 2012

I think the Olympic opening ceremony has gotten a bit out of hand so here is my proposal for the London 2012.

The parade of teams is lead into the stadium by the white-coated medics who check whether any of the athletes are doping. After all the teams are in place, one guy in a toga releases one dove. Another guy in a toga, flicks a BIC lighter and lights a hibachi. Let the games begin!

Watching the Olympics

Thoughts on the opening ceremony:

Beautiful ceremony but:

Everyone looks the same. Cloning? A giant xerox machine? In a country that large,homogeneous, and under totalitarian rule, the authorities can select an almost infinite number of people based on the way they look to present a uniform appearance.
...
If one guy or girl made a mistake in the choreographed performances, they will "disappear". "Yo!Wang 136.You kinda dropped that oar in the ship scene. Step this way." No way they would allow someone to embarrass the party and get away with it.
...
It is so easy to do so many of these things with slave labor. All of those prison camps had to be working overtime.
...
Wonder what kind of show they would have been able to put on if they had to contend with unions and OSHA?
...
How many citizens of Beijing were made to "disappear" for the duration of the games?
...
So the director of the show didn't like the black light suits the guys originally had and immediately ordered 2000 in green? I bet the prisoners had to work nights and weekends for that change order!
...
Did I miss it or did they just happen to gloss over Mao, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution? And a couple million deaths?
...
And the Party, itself?
...
Totalitarian states sure make things look pretty.
...
Going forward, count how many times the announcers chalk up the terrible smog to "morning fog".
...
Nominated for worst team uniform: Hungary-Women. What were they thinking? Hadn't they ever watched one episode of "What Not to Wear"?. Runner up-Denmark. looks as though they bought some clam-diggers at the last minute at Old Navy.
...
Admit it. You loved those Chinese "cheerleaders" who lined the track, waving their arms in welcome, and wearing those short, white dresses and white go-go boots.
...

Very warm welcome for the United States team. If I recall correctly, the chinese name for the United states is Mei Mei, "Beautiful Country". Wonder if any regular Chinese citizens are actually spectators in the stadium?
...
Nominated for newest Olympic event: "Twister"! Then "Boggle"!
...
One of the best team costumes was Mongolia. Do you remember several Olympics past, when the Mongolian delegation consisted on one guy, either a weightlifter or wrestler, massive guy, who carried his country's flag on one of his hands while holding his arm outstretched for the entire lap of the field.? Impressive. Oh, and he was wearing some kind of animal skin. VERY Impressive!
...
Guilty Pleasure-The gorgeous women who carried in each country's name placard.
...
Remember when all the teams marched in with military precision and stayed in their designated infield areas? Much nicer to see a little more relaxed approach to this business. In the "old" day, the only times the teams mixed was during the closing ceremony.
...
Love the costumes of the African and Pacific nations. US team uniforms were more classic 1930s style from Ralph Lauren (The former Ralph Lifshitz of the Bronx. You can run but you can't hide, Ralphie Boy!)
...

Looking forward to watching 40 year old Dara Torres compete. Go, Girl!
...
China enters the stadium. Massive cheers. Never forget that China is one of this planet's most politically repressive countries.
...

Massive and beautiful fireworks from the inventors of the art.
...
Bob Costas and his on air buddy are nauseating. They have a lot of time to fill and it's a tough job. But they clutter the air with utter nonsense.
...

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

Polls Apart

The difficulty of conducting accurate political polls grows daily. Our more mobile society, which depends more on unlisted cell phones than traditional landline phones, is more difficult to measure accurately pollsters find, as several important demographic groups, the young, for example, have disappeared from the usual sources of telephone numbers used by pollsters.

This year, those missing demographic groups just might participate in the November presidential election in numbers large enough to confound the pollsters. Anopther confounding factor is the willingness of poll subjects to truthfully indicate whether they will vote for a black man.

This article in CQ Politics takes a close look at the difficulties in obtaining a valid and reliable poll.

Experts inside and outside the industry question whether pollsters are capturing big enough samples of the population at a time when Americans are increasingly on the move and more likely to be at work or in their cars in the early evening, when many surveys are conducted.

This is all creating considerable angst in a business that remains haunted by a series of Election Night gaffes that helped set the stage for the contested 2000 presidential outcome, and that was shaken again by a series of erroneous forecasts of an Obama victory in January’s New Hampshire primary.

Take a few minutes to read this worthwhile examination of one of our favorite election year activities.

Paris Hilton For Pres.

In case you missed this most talked about video, here it is:

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

Didja evah?? Paris talks! Paris makes sense! And she is so hot!

(But really! Gold heels at the pool??)

Brent Rinehart Update

Oklahoma County Republicans ordered County Commissioner Brent Rinehart to find another line of work as he went down to defeat in the July 29th party primary. The Daily Oklahoman reported:

Oklahoma County will have a new county commissioner next year after voters booted District 2 Commissioner Brent Rinehart from office Tuesday.

The embattled and controversial Rinehart received only 21 percent of the vote and failed to make a runoff in the Republican primary.

[...]

Brian Maughan received 4,230 votes, or 47 percent, and J.D. Johnston received 2,808, or 31 percent. They’ll square off in an Aug. 26 Republican runoff to decide who faces Democrat Jim Dickinson in the general election.

Maughan said he and Johnston pledged to run positive runoff campaigns.

“Our main concern was to replace Rinehart, and obviously that happened tonight,” Maughan said.

[...]


Rinehart hurdles included felony campaign finance charges related to his 2004 campaign and Internal Revenue Service scrutiny related to his tax returns.

Rinehart has said both are politically motivated.

Also, a comic book Rinehart’s campaign released this month received national criticism.

In case you missed it, CNN interviewed Rinehart before the primary. Here is a link to that clip, which contains sections of his vitriolic "comic book".

Flights of Fancy II

On July 12th, I posted a letter that went out from several airline CEOs to their frequent fliers in which they begged for government assistance as the high price of fuel was killing their businesses.

Now that oil has dropped from $150 a barrel to below $120, and with further declines in price probable due to a slowing world economy, what do you hear from the airlines? Silence. Well, not really silence, because they keep thinking up and announcing these new and wonderful "temporary" fees. Yesterday, Jet Blue announced it will begin selling pillows and blankets on board their jets. jey Blue claims it is doing this for health and environmental reasons but does anyone above the age of two believe that?

And when will all of those "temporary fees" be rescinded, now that oil is down $30 a barrel? Forgive me, but I just burst out laughing! Next time you fly, just make sure you bring plenty of quarters so you can use the lavatory, because that is sure to be the next "temporary fee" that will be imposed.

Panic in Obamaville?

The August 4 Gallup Poll has Sen. Obama leading Sen. McCain 46% to 43% among registered voters, maintaining what has been a long standing statistical tie. As the Gallup people state:

The three percentage point advantage for Obama matches the average since early June, when Obama clinched the number of delegates needed to head to the Democratic convention as the presumptive presidential nominee. Since then, Obama has never trailed McCain among registered voters, though McCain has tied Obama five times during this span, including Gallup Poll Daily tracking reports for last Friday and Saturday.

Total voters surveyed was 2,659 over a period of three days. MoE +/-2%


These results have to cause some bright light in the Obama headquarters to break into a sweat. Here they are, just coming off a Presidential quality tour of Europe and Iraq. They have the more charismatic candidate- the other guy is old and decrepit. Obama can wow a crowd of thousands. McCain can't deal with a teleprompter in a closet. Obama is the Ivy League educated lawyer. McCain is a shot-up and shot-down ex-fighter jock. Obama represents change. McCain represents a president loathed by the American people for starting an unnecessary war and trashing the economy.

Yet Obama can't break away from McCain in the polls. Even worse, McCain has caused Obama to tap dance like Bojangles on the issue of offshore oil drilling. MCain's Paris/Brittany attack ad caused Obama to overtly bring up the issue of when the Democrat said during a public appearance that he didn't look like all those guys depicted on our dollar bills.

Sure, we haven't even had the party conventions yet, but our bright light has to be thinking, "We have the candidate. We have the issues. We have the answers.Yet we are basically tied in the polls. So just what do we have to do to put this old man away"?

And the beads of sweat grow just a little larger.

Race and Polls

The issue of race is inevitably linked to the Obama campaign. Previously, I have written about the overt racism that has been directed towards Obama's campaign and I have wondered whether the polls are accurately reflecting the race issue.

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting story on how the pollsters approach this subject and try to get accurate results.

Peter Hart, a Democrat on a bipartisan team conducting the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, estimates that 10% of current Democrats and independents who say they support presumed Democratic Party nominee Barack Obama may not be giving a fully honest answer, at least based on their responses to broader questions about race. "This election is exceptionally tricky," he says.

It should come as no surprise that people lie to pollsters in order to look god, to project the image of themselves to a stranger that they want the stranger to believe, rather than what one would consider the absolute truth.

This is one reason I tend to think that polls are inflating Obama-positive results by approximately 2%-3%. This may or may not have enough power to effect the election results and result in a John McCain presidency.

When McCain Attacks!

It looks as though another one of Senator McCain's recent attacks has landed on target. McCain and his people know that high gasoline prices have hurt the voter where the pain is most palpable, the wallet. So McCain proposed the apparent quick fix-start of drilling off previously off-limits offshore sites.

There was no mention of the fact that the United States does not have enough refinery capacity to handle more oil , nor was there any mention that any new oil that might result from offshore drilling won't be available for a minimum of ten years, nor was there any mention that no credible source believes that offshore drilling will discover any significant new sources of crude.

But apparently the voters think that drilling is a nifty idea and that left Obama looking like former California Governor Jerry Brown, who earned the nickname "Governor Moonbeam" for his early advocacy of environmental issues. Obama could not be seen as favoring environmentally enlightened long-term energy policies over the well-being of Novembers lever pullers.

So this week Obama pulled back from his own stated positions by saying, well, sure, maybe we should drill offshore. From the New York Times:

Senator Barack Obama said Saturday that he would reluctantly consider accepting some new offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico in exchange for stripping oil companies of tax breaks and extending several tax credits to spur the search for alternative fuels.

At the same time, Senate Republicans appear to have dropped their insistence on opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

Mr. Obama has until now opposed any expansion of lands for offshore drilling. But in a news conference here, he noted that there had been “very constructive” talks between Senate Republicans and Democrats on this issue in recent days, applauding a plan unveiled by a group of Republican and Democratic senators to permit drilling while supporting an effort to convert most vehicles to using alternative fuels in 20 years.

Obama, who had a long history of opposition to off-shore drilling now looks like a political flip-flopper.

Obviously, McCain drew blood and Obama moved to reposition himself. How will this stand with the Obamaniacs? (And what about "Obama girl? Where does she stand? Or live?")? Now that Obama has the nomination wrapped up, he inevitably will move from the left to try to capture the political center. Will his left-leaning core follow him to the center or will they engage in their usual snit when they perceive a lack of political purity? The leftists certainly will stick with Obama as there are no alternatives available to them, unless Ralph Nader rises from the dead, and we know what Nader did to Al Gore in 2000.

At this point, McCain has landed two punches, one from the policy flank and one from the race flank, that have forced Obama into the position of responding to McCain's message, rather than emphasizing his own.

Obama has to decide whether his better course of action is to get down in the dirt and respond to these attacks or to take the political high road and come off looking like the elitist pansy that McCain is trying to paint him. Either course of action has risks for the Democrat.

Testi-lying- A True Story

A police officer told me about a burglar that he had collared, rightfully, he believed, for a string of burglaries. The officer went on to say that this burglar had practiced his chosen craft in a certain section of Brooklyn by using a pry bar to open various windows to allow him unfettered entry into various apartment. Part of the evidence collected included the scratch marks made by the pry bar against the window sills. The interesting part was that the scratch marks could only have been made by special tool made for and used by the New York Telephone Company.

The problem for our officer was that the arrested miscreant did not have this special tool on his possession when he was arrested. So the officer stole a similar pry bar from a telephone company truck , and presented it to prosecutors as belonging to the burglar. The D.A's office asked no questions. The cop got his conviction.

Polls and TV

The Votemaster's current tally of various polls (see chart on right) shows Sen. Obama with a significant and winning lead in electoral votes over Sen. McCain - 316 to 209 with 13 ties.

I disagree with the Votemaster counting statistical ties (those states with center colored white) in either camp-a statistical tie consisting of either candidate with a lead of less than twice the margin of error for a poll, usually 3%-4%.

My tally of the Votemaster's data has Obama leading with 244 electoral votes, McCain with 165, and 129 in doubt due to statistical ties.

Even though national polls show the race to be statistically tied, or with Obama in a slight lead, the important data are those for the individual states. As we learned in 2000, what matters is the electoral vote, not the national popular vote.

Yes, poll watching too closely is an intellectually flaccid endeavor; however, neither candidate has proposed anything recently that is either of national significance or intellectually engaging. Until the Democratic and republican parties have their conventions later this month,and the electorate returns from vacation, expect the campaigns to achieve a degree of stasis for the most part.

How McCain will direct his campaign going forward? Have you seen the television ad comparing Obama, a graduate of Columbia University, Harvard Law, and a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, with the vapid celebrities Paris Hilton and Brittany Spears? And why juxtapose the two blond, white women with the black Barack Obama? It seems too similar to the Republican attacks against Harold Ford in Tennessee on 2006 to be an accident, so chalk up that McCain ad to a blatant appeal to racism. It certainly looks at though McCain is following the lead of Republican muck-meisters Lee Atwater and Karl Rove.

You would think that Senator McCain, who was slimed by the Bush people during the 2000 South Carolina Republican primary with similarly race-based ads would be averse to these tactics. But it looks as though the "maverick" who piloted the "Straight Talk Express" has disappeared for the duration.

The Whole Truth and Nothing But- Police, Lies, Truth, and Their Accidental Concurrence

Perhaps you saw the story about the New York City cop who assaulted the bicyclist who was taking part in a mass bike demonstration in Manhattan. Here is a CNN clip in case you missed it:




It seems that the officer involved claimed in his official report that the bicyclist was being operated in a dangerous manner and that he was, in fact the target of a maniac. As Jim Dwyer reports in the New York Times:

Around 9:30 on Friday night, a bicyclist pedaling down Seventh Avenue veered to the left, trying to avoid hitting a police officer who was in the middle of the street.

But the officer, Patrick Pogan, took a few quick steps toward the biker, Christopher Long, braced himself and drove his upper body into Mr. Long.

Officer Pogan, an all-star football player in high school, hit Mr. Long as if he were a halfback running along the sidelines, and sent him flying.

As of Tuesday evening, a videotape of the encounter had been viewed about 400,000 times on YouTube. “I can’t explain why it happened,” Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said on Tuesday. “I have no understanding as to why that would happen.”

...

Later that night, Officer Pogan composed a story of his encounter with Mr. Long. It bore no resemblance to the events seen on the videotape. Based on the sworn complaint, Mr. Long was held for 26 hours on charges of attempted assault and disorderly conduct.

Then, there is this second recent example of police stupidity captured on video,

as reported in the the New York Daily News:

You have to ask yourself, How can these cops be so stupid?

I have a great deal of respect for police officers. They have one of society's toughest jobs as each day they confront dangerous situations- domestic disputes, drugs, violence, crime, filth. They handle all of those nasty, smelly, dirty and dangerous situations that polite society refuses to do. And we give them the power and authority to kill on our behalf.

At times, they are our heroes.

But there are other times when they are less than fabled blue knights. As with any group of humans, they have their failures, and when those failures become public they call into question the honesty and integrity of the thin blue line.


Many years ago, I was a student at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which was and continues to be popular with police officers and police higher officials and well respected in the world of law enforcement. I became friendly with many police officers and they took me into their confidence enough to introduce me to the term, "testi-lying".

I learned that some police officers had their own unique interpretation of the oath they take when testifying to "tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." Perhaps they thought the "So help me god" part was really a prayer to cover their imminent misdeeds and a plea for absolution.

They shared with me their experiences of manufacturing evidence to put away bad guys. They told me that they would carry a "cold piece", an untraceable gun, that they could drop near someone they shot in order to claim self defense. It seemed the lies were almost the norm, neither condemned nor condoned by either police officials or the prosecuting authorities.

Unfortunately, as evidenced by our two video examples, the police culture continues to provide fertile grounds for misconduct as it is shielded by the Blue Wall of Silence.

While one hopes such conduct occurs only to a minimal degree, in this You Tube-age police will be under more civilian video scrutiny. Lies and cover ups-on the open street will be exposed. Will the unseemly side of police culture change or will it just be driven further underground?

No Fuel-Comment from Paul

Dear TRM,

Maybe you should be “the Rational Moderate” rather than radical. It seems we are woefully short on “rational” in this country. Or perhaps the pragmatic moderate? Or the radical pragmatic?

Concerning your commentary on the energy crisis, what is coming is nothing short of an industrial revolution in energy. How we get there is another story. The “free market” forces of the right think that method most efficient to achieving energy independence. That it really is the most efficient method of enriching an already incredibly wealthy class of people. The left feels a full-on guvmint style program the answer. Hardly. There are too many individual special interests and agendas on the left for any semblance of efficiency. The war between to two sides promises a prolonged an inefficient process cheered on by OPEC and anyone else with their straw in the oil barrel.

The next president (you don’t think this one will do it, do you?) will have to have vision enough to “take us to the moon”. Kennedy grappled with the Soviets and that was a political win. Some say that this crisis does not have the political impetus to fuel (no pun intended) a revolution in energy. I beg to differ. People think that “Big Oil” is the problem. They forget that 70 percent of the world’s oil is produced by nationalized companies. I think the American people are tired of kowtowing politically to the OPEC countries. They are willing to change the way they live. What we need is leadership.

My belief is a Kennedy “moonshot” or FDR “Manhattan” style program is the answer. It could encompass the positive aspects of both sides politically and allow the oil-types a seat at the table. No program will succeed unless big oil can play. T. Boone Pickens is smart enough to know that. That is why he decided to take it upon himself to just take a seat, invited or not.

The next president should commission a blue ribbon panel of scientists, engineers, industrialists and big oil types and charge them to develop a plan to wean us of foreign oil in 10 years and wean us off of fossil fuel energy altogether in 20. Our approach in doing this will be in several overlapping phases that will get us from point A to point B in the most efficient way. How we use energy and where we use it must be addressed. Heating and lighting our homes, large and small transportation (cars, trucks, airplanes), manufacturing, and the needs of municipalities are just a sample of the types considered. Boone Pickens recognizes the “geography of energy” where wind in the middle states and sun in the southwest are logical answers to electrical needs.

We went to the moon starting with the small step of a 12-minute sub-orbital flight crewed by Alan Sheppard. Men envisioned the steps they would have to master to get to the moon and back…and then we did them. Getting to fuel cell cars will require cheap, renewable, non-carbon producing electricity (solar, wind, geothermal, tidal). Getting to mass biofuels for aircraft, biodiesel-electric trains, and biodiesel shipping trucks, ocean shipping and smaller boats will require advancements in switchgrass and algae biofarms. But that is a way off. It’s the last step. Until then, ALL energy sources to get us off foreign oil must be considered. Namely, offshore drilling, clean coal shale (Colorado), drilling for new reserves in the Dakotas and Montana and nuclear. This first step is a necessary compromise. This would stem the wealth transfer of the US to the OPEC countries and place investment back in the US where it belongs. This unpalatable first step would be done with the understanding that all US drilling and fossil fuel production would end in 30 years and all nuclear plants decommissioned in 40 years when the renewable conversion is complete.

We have the technology. We need the national will and political leadership to accomplish this.


Paul-

Thanks for your comments. In this age of the sound bite and issue-free campaigning, a rational and reasoned discussion of the issues is "radical". Invite your friends to join the fun here.

TRM

No Fuel- Comment by Anonymous

I'm no engineer, but given that we've been on the kick of oxidizing carbon-based fuels of all kinds for the entire history of mankind (wood, coal, petroleum, natural gas, methane, etc.), as a way to perpetuate our species and ensure some standard of living, it's going to be a major paradigm shift to find some other way to meet our energy needs in the future while preserving the environment. Finding some way to enhance the electric power grid and distribute power will be one challenge, but finding methods of generating the capacity necessary to operate that grid will be yet another.

Wind offers one avenue, but I also think that greater use of solar technology is necessary as well. For that matter, geothermal and hydroelectric potential (both ocean and river current) is also ripe for further exploration. That any of these options are yet not economically feasible should be no bar to some sort of Government subidies or grants. Of course, the current occupants will likely not easily abandon their own dependence on foreign petroleum.

There's No Fuel Like an Old Fuel

Hydrogen versus Direct Electric

In the new age of gasoline-free automobiles, the ultimate decisions will be made by the automobile companies regarding the power source for our engines. Will they be Hydrogen based fuel cells or rechargeable batteries that hook into your home ac circuit?

It seems that everyone is in love with the idea of the plug-in electric, but I have yet to read an analysis that concerns a basic concept such as where and how will that electricity be generated. It seems that everyone expects electrons to flow out of the house socket as if by wizardry. Those electrons have to come from somewhere, folks, and we have to answers those question soon. Will those electrons come from nuclear plants such as pebble bed reactors? From " clean" coal plants? Natural gas plants? Oil shale fired plants? Wind turbines from the Midwest?

Or will the energy be based on a hydrogen produced and transported by the oil companies who now fuel your car? Can you really believe that Exxon Mobil, Phillips, Conoco, BP, and Shell want to give up their automobile-based profits and turn those dollars over to the electric companies without a fight? Will they allow their distribution and refining facilities to be made as obsolescent as buggy whip and ice factories? Or will they get into the wind turbine and electric business and go head to head with Duke?

The nearly bankrupt general Motors is coming out with the Chevrolet "Volt",ostensibly an electric car, however it comes with a gasoline "range extender" ("engine") to get the car home while simultaneously charging the battery. Good thing, because so far, the batteries on electrics allow only a range of 40 miles, which might be great for in-city errands, but totally unacceptable for taking a decent trip. So what they really are talking about is a $50,000 "station car"."Cheap!" as they used to say on the cover of MAD Magazine.

When you think of it, the hydrogen proponents are living in the same fantasy world as the electric guys. Hydrogen won't be sucked magically out of the ambient air, so where does the hydrogen come from? Here is a posting that you might want to read:

The mass media's fascination with fuel-cell powered cars is understandable. The promise of "clean, cheap energy from water" has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Unfortunately, it makes better fiction than reality. Hydrogen-powered cars just emit their pollution elsewhere.

In any chemical reaction like the one that powers your car, energy must be conserved; meaning that the energy must "come from" somewhere. So where does the hydrogen "fuel" for a fuel-cell car come from? Two possible sources are

* Water - plentiful and everywhere.
* & Methane - while the U.S. has some methane reserves, we would need to import it from "non-friendlies" in order to meet current (and future) demand.

Let's look at water. First of all, the hydrogen molecules in water are strongly bound to oxygen. Therefore, it takes (substantial) energy to split water into useful hydrogen (used by the fuel cell) and oxygen molecules. The majority of that energy - in America - is derived from coal power. If you take into account that a significant minority of the power grid in America is also nuclear, we have traded a clean-burning gasoline engine for nuclear and coal powered fuel-cells. Since so-called "greens" would never advocate more nuclear power - even though that would be the best solution - we can't and won't power fuel-cell cars from water-derived hydrogen.

If, instead, we power the car by reducing methane (CH4), then we have merely traded one energy source (gasoline) for another (methane) that is far less efficient -- and therefore produces MORE carbon-dioxide per mile traveled than gasoline!

Even though Honda is beginning to produce a hydrogen fuel cell automobile, the FCX they still have not answered the hydrogen production question. Furthermore, hydrogen merely displaces the environmental impact from the end user to the fuel producer for no net environmental gain

Critics also point out that hydrogen is costly to produce and the most common way to produce hydrogen is still from fossil fuels.

Analysis of the environmental impact of different fuel technologies has shown that the overall carbon dioxide emissions from hydrogen powered cars can be higher than that from petrol or diesel-powered vehicles.

I am sure that you have seen those television advertisements with oilman T.Boone Pickens in which he extols the need to develop the wind power present in the Mid-West. Certainly, that area of the country has a lot of potential energy, as the song, "Oklahoma", says, "where the wind comes sweeping down the plains". While Mr. Pickens seems willing to put up a lot of his money to develop this potential, the question of distribution seems not to to be addressed. Does the continental United States electric grid have the capacity to act as an efficient distributor of the electricity generated by wind power, or will the government have to spend billions of dollars in system upgrades and if so, is it worth the expense? An engineer I was speaking with several weeks ago told me that the electric grid system currently operates with a 95% degree of efficiency and the only question that needs to be answered is that of capacity.

We are in a period of uncertainty about future fuels, and no one will be safe placing one bet on the energy craps table. Despite the bleating of the environmentalists, look for more drilling and more efficient gasoline vehicles to predominate until the industry and market both answer some questions regarding fuel production, distribution and efficiency that have yet to be adequately answered. But is Pickens right?

Any engineers want to weigh in on this? Anyone? Bueller?

Pick Up the Phone, Brent Rinehart, the 21st Century is Calling

This would be a total hoot if it weren't real. It is a local election in Oklahoma, and yes, it is a comic book (very telling!). But the folks there should be more than slightly embarrassed about the whole thing.Right-winger Oklahoma County Commissioner Brent Rinehart is running for re-election and he has taken dead-aim at his opponents, which basically includes everyone. He seems to have some powerful, but non-voting opponents!

In one sequence, Satan says: "If I can get the kids to believe homosexuality is normal!”

The angel replies: "Hey Satan, not with Brent around you won't!”

Rinehart said he doesn't think the depiction is inappropriate and that he is proud of the comic.

"The history of my office is that I do expose the homosexual agenda, and that it does exist in the state of Oklahoma, and my history also would show that I am very much opposed to the homosexual agenda,” Rinehart said.

...

Rinehart acknowledged that the comic is edgy at times, but said it explains important issues in a light-hearted way that his constituents will enjoy.

"It makes it interesting and something that people will actually look at and understand,” Rinehart said.

Toga-wearing gays, political figures, trench coat-clad henchmen, concerned residents and Rinehart round out the comic's cast.

"This is one of the strangest things I've ever seen,” said Keith Gaddie, a political science professor at the University of Oklahoma. "I've never seen a comic book with the phrase ‘anal sodomy' in it before. That was a new one for me.”

If I can get a copy of this "comic", I will post it immediately.

More "Disconnect"

The latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, here, buttresses my point about the disconnect between the publics feelings about the Republicans in general and John McCain, with the poll showing a statistical tie in preferences for McCain's and Obama's plans for Iraq.

Previous polls showed a preference for withdrawal from Iraq sooner rather than later, a position closer to Obama's stated goal.

I think people are really confused about Iraq. They don't want to leave precipitously if there is a chance that we are on the right road. They don't want to stay if we are in a no win situation. And they don't believe any of the information that both parties are feeding them.

Still, after five years of combat and 4,000 deaths in Iraq, this poll spells trouble for Obama.

A READER COMMENTS on FLIGHTS of FANCY

A Reader writes:

This letter was something unique in my experience. I have never seen an entire industry band together and canvas their customers looking for assistance. These are the same guys who keep providing me less and less on every flight, but I too have noted the record profits being posted by the oil and energy companies. I recognize the market forces that drive prices to these levels, but I feel a gentle upward slope is more natural and beneficial to all.

While I worry about the short term damage to our economy brought about by oil prices, when combined with the mortgage meltdown it is exponentially more frightening. We are looking at long road back to an energetic and robust economy that equals (10 years?) the economy of just one year ago. The DOW has lost 28% of its total value in the past year! There is more bad news to come.

Here is Obama's chance to be a 2nd FDR and oversee our recovery from what will become known as "The Great Depression 2.0". He will rise above partisanship, slash our incredibly bloated government bureaucracy (dismantling the huge worthless sections of DHS), organize a new WPA, and become the most beloved President of the 21st century.

I welcome all of the research and development to come that these high oil prices will bring about. This prolonged situation will finally lead to relief from our dependence on oil and will bring renewable energy sources to primacy. In fact, it may be this that leads us out from the economic doldrums.

Reader,

I agree that we are on the edge of disaster but I don't think we will go over the precipice. Yes, we are in a bear market but that is not unheard of.

What scares me is that we truly are at the end of the age of oil. Despite all of the R&D going on in the field of energy, the transition to a new energy source will be long and painful. Therefore, the climb out will have to account for that change in addition to the economic chaos caused by the sub-prime mortgage disaster. A couple of decades for recovery? How about a century?

Your hope for Obama is far more sanguine than mine (If he gets elected, and I still think that is a big "if"). A Roosevelt comes along only once in history, and even he made his mistakes and was mired in political battles with the Republicans and the Supreme Court. Despite Roosevelt's herculean efforts, the depression didn't end until the beginning of World War 2, when industry shook off the cobwebs and geared up to become "the arsenal of democracy".

And don't look for a Democrat to drastically cut the size of government.

Thanks for writing!

TRM

DISCONNECT

With all polls showing the popularity of the President, the Republicans, and Congress at almost all-time lows this new poll from Newsweek, which shows a statistical tie between Obama and McCain spells big trouble for the Democrats.

The public should be heaping scorn upon failed Republican policies and candidates. It should be a landslide year for the Democrats and Obama should be way ahead, yet he isn't. What happened to those polls just a week ago which showed the Democrat with a 15 percentage point lead over the Republican?

I think the overriding emotion that voters are feeling right now is fear.

Fear of war in the middle east, where nightly TV news shows Iran firing missiles.

Fear of high prices, with gas pumps showing numbers that once existed only on pocket calculators.

Fear of no oil, where even oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens has his own television commercials that says the age of oil is over.

Fear of food shortages, where Brits are asked to adopt the measures that got them through the shortages of World War 2.

Fear of financial disaster, where bank failures are no longer ancient stories of the 1930s depression.

FEAR.

Fear plays into the hands of the Republicans, long thought to be the "Daddy" party, the party of strength, as opposed to the "let's all play nice together and share the toys" "Mommy" Democrats. These aren't the times to gather down by the river and sing "Kumbaya".

So while Democrats may at an advantage in local races and with the pocketbook money issues such as health care, I think the public really wants a guy at the top who wields a big stick and knows how to use it.

Events leading up to the November election will have an out sized influence on the voters.

Make no mistake about it, this is going to be a very, very, tight race.