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'She'll always be there': Cardinals punter Lee honors late daughter with cleats
USA TODAY SPORTS 12/8/2019 Katherine Fitzgerald, Arizona Republic
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Andy Lee's cleats honor Madelyn Lee, his late daughter, who passed away in February 2015 at just 8 days old.
© Derrick Spencer/The Arizona Cardinals
Andy Lee likes his cleats tight, really tight.
The cleat on his planting foot is half a size smaller than his normal shoes. For the soccer cleat on his punting foot, he goes a size and a half down. It is certainly effective, but not exactly comfortable.
"When the defense is on the field, I sit down and untie it, so my foot doesn't go to sleep," Lee said.
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So throughout every game, the Cardinals veteran punter will tie and untie his right cleat, in sync with the ups and downs of the game.
And on Sunday, each time he looks down, bends down and reties his shoe, Lee will be reminded both of the darkest day of his life and of the good that has since come from it.
'Something positive for other people'
The NFL's My Cause My Cleats campaign allows players across the league to decorate their footwear for charitable causes. Twenty-four Cardinals players are participating this weekend, and the organizations they represent are as varied as the players themselves.
But three sets of cleats are notable instead for their shared cause and the reason behind them.
Punter Andy Lee, kicker Zane Gonzalez and long snapper Aaron Brewer will take the field Sunday all donning cleats for Madelyn's Fund, a non-profit started by Lee and his wife, Rachel, in November 2016.
Madelyn's Fund provides support to infant and pediatric patients in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and their families, particularly those who experience the trauma of infant loss. It is named in honor of Madelyn Lee, Andy and Rachel's late daughter, who passed away in February 2015 at just 8 days old.
"Doing this and going through all this, it's just really helped us kind of heal from that loss," Lee said. "I mean, obviously, it is still ... I mean it sucks. It's horrible. There's not a day goes by — I still sleep with her blanket, her baby blanket, every night.
"She'll always be there, but doing this, it's just helped us to be able to turn the worst thing that's ever happened to us into something positive for other people."
Currently, they work with two hospitals in Charlotte, near where Lee grew up: Levine Children's Hospital and Novant Presbyterian Medical Center, where Madelyn was born. They hope to add one more in 2020. At Levine, they are also able to work within the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit, or CV ICU.
To date, they have helped more than 700 families. Recently, they funded their 100th funeral. There's no pride in knowing that 100 other families have gone through the same gut-wrenching pain of losing an infant, but there is solace for the Lees in knowing that they can first empathize with and then financially assist other grieving families.
"Nobody plans for that," Rachel Lee said. "That was what started our whole visions for this. When we got our bills from the funeral home. We were like 'Oh my gosh.' ... It was just another reminder. While how awful it is to actually plan something like that, we knew there were so many other families who were not like, 'Oh okay, we can pay this right now.' "
There are many organizations that do important and powerful work with pediatric hospitals in other ways. There is fundraising for research and cures. There are preventive measures. Some of the other Cardinals are raising awareness for those causes, like Christian Kirk's cleats for the Children's Cancer Network or J.R. Sweezy's for Johns Hopkins Children's Hospital.
But losing a child, and the logistical aftermath that builds on the emotional trauma, can devastate a family. That's where the Lees come in.
They find they are able to meet almost any need with Rachel adding that they're now meeting around 50 requests each month. It can vary from covering major bills to helping with gas to drive to and from the hospital: things that no family wants to think about and needs that are not always met.
"From what I've heard from the social workers (at the hospitals), there's not a lot of resources," Rachel said. "They're like, 'Oh my gosh, you wouldn't even believe it. I just couldn't help people before, and now I can,' and so that's a really encouraging thing to hear, because we wanted to fill a need."
Transforming a tradition
Wearing cleats once a year in honor of Madelyn and the foundation is not new for Lee, but this year, for the first time, it spread to his teammates. During training camp, Lee floated the idea out there to Gonzalez, a kicker in his second year with the Cardinals, and Brewer, an eight-year veteran long snapper who arrived in 2016.
The cleats, designed by Charlotte-based artist Neely Purcell, all have similar colors, styles and symbols, but are not exact matches. Purcell is involved with Madelyn's Fund and designed Lee's cleats last year as well. All three sets featuring a looping pink bow.
The bow, the foundation's logo, stems from a pattern on the bedding the family had in Madelyn's would-be nursery at their home. Madelyn, who had fluid in her lungs, and later, an infection, never made it home.
On Lee's kicking foot is a pink butterfly. After the family lost Madelyn, Rachel received a short poem in a care package.
Here's to all the caterpillars that never became butterflies; For all the butterflies that never felt the wind in their wings, Rachel recites over the phone from memory.
To the Lees, the butterfly symbolizes transformation and hope, something they've found through the ways Madelyn continues to impact families in need during the most traumatic process they've gone through, and how she continue to impact the Lees themselves.
"Honestly it was our counseling," Andy Lee said. "It was hard for us to talk about things, especially right after it happened."
There were times when Andy worried that talking about Madelyn with Rachel would upset her, and that was the last thing he wanted. They tried to find a new normal as they raised their two sons. But though the work of the foundation, through even just being reminded to say Madelyn's name every time they talked about Madelyn's Fund, they were better able to reckon with their grief.
Now, at their annual golf tournament, Lee is candid about the pain he went through.
"I've had it the past three years, I've spoke all three years, I've cried all three years, in front of everybody," he said.
"I'm not scared to show my emotions. I just feel like at times, I feel like sometimes you're like, 'I shouldn't be sad,' and you kind of almost kind of talk yourself into not (showing it)."
Even when he had tried to suppress his feelings, they were still there. A song could (or still can) bring it all back. There is no cutoff date for grief, but the grieving process often morphs as time passes.
"It's slow," Lee said. "And I think the thing that's hard about that is everybody thinks you're normal. So everybody stops asking how you're doing.
"It is not that everybody stops caring. They just think you're OK. So I think that can be a hard thing, too. It's a tough process, and it's definitely still there. I don't think it will ever go away."
'Having the support of teammates is really special'
As the years do pass, Lee has found other ways to give small nods to Madelyn, even outside of My Cause My Cleats.
He wore No. 8 during his time with the Browns and the Panthers as a tribute to the eight days. Nowadays, he wears No. 4; In Arizona, No. 8 is retired in honor of Cardinals Ring of Honor member Larry Wilson.
"That was the only bummer about coming here," he said, smiling.
He often wears a navy blue baseball cap with the same pink bow logo, which led to an initial conversation with Gonzalez about Madelyn.
Those are ways he keeping her legacy alive, but he reiterates again and again: This is not about him. And it's not about one game, one weekend or one pair of cleats.
"My biggest thing is, I don't want Madelyn's Fund to be about me or what I've done in my life or the NFL or anything else. I want Madelyn's Fund to be going 20 years from now," he said.
So to keep the mission going, it starts by getting other people involved now, like Gonzalez and Brewer.
The fresh cleats do not present any problems for the three, but changing cleats can take an extra step or two for specialists.
"My whole thing is like I've wear the same cleats all year," Brewer said. "So that was my deal, but for him, I'll do it."
Gonzalez broke his in earlier in the week. Lee has a specific type of cleat he likes, and a limited supply. But nothing that prevented them from paying homage to a larger cause.
"Even the cleats I use, they don't make them anymore. So I only have a certain amount. So when I paint one, it's one game and done," Lee said. "I only actually have one more left after this one. ... But yeah, that is something you have to think about, especially with kickers."
It's not superstition-based for any of the players, simply a matter of making sure they're comfortable. And that in turn comforted the Lees.
"Having Andy wear them is really cool, but having the support of teammates is really special," Rachel said. "So I can't wait. I hope that they're kicking lots of extra points on Sunday."
It's a powerful message, stemming from a close-knit special teams unit. The trio spends downtime at practice together, giving them more time to talk, more time to learn about each other.
"We're all kind of spaced out evenly age-wise, a little bit. So that's good," Brewer said.
Gonzalez, 24, laughs, as he can't empathize with either about married life or with Lee, 37, in particular when it comes to kids. Their lives are different when they all head home for the day, but they soak it what they can in Tempe every day.
And there's plenty to learn from Lee. He set franchise single-season records in each of his first two seasons with the Cardinals. Now in his third year in Arizona, he's a Pro Bowl candidate once again, averaging 48.1 yards per punt, good for second in the league. He also has a perfect completion percentage this season, with a 26-yard pass on a fake punt in Tampa.
"Andy, he's my hero. He's my hero," Brewer said. "I'm trying to be like him. He's played 16 years and he's a frickin' pro and Pro Bowl guy, you know. He's a great mentor, and I look up to him."
But as Brewer looks up, Lee will look down to that cleat, look down to that butterfly, and know that Madelyn is looking down on him.
"I want people to honor my daughter, like for me to honor my daughter and her life with this, but also to show the good that is coming out of all these people," Lee said.
"It's not the good that's coming out of me and my wife for starting this. It's the good that's coming out of people donating their money to us and allowing us to help families."
Reach the reporter at kfitzgeral@gannett.com or 480-356-6407. Follow her on Twitter @kfitz134.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 'She'll always be there': Cardinals punter Andy Lee honors late daughter with cleats
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Visit the Arenal Volcano National Park during the morning and learn about the famous volcano: one of the most important icons of Costa Rica!
The tour to Arenal Park starts with a pick-up from your hotel where you will meet your friendly and knowledgeable guide. When you arrive at the National Park on northwest side of the Volcano you will start the hike. This view is very different from what you can see from La Fortuna center. The northwest side is stripped of vegetation and deep craters are clearly visible.
An experienced nature guide will take you on safe trails with the best possible views of the Volcano. The vegetation along the trail is relatively new and you will see many pioneer species of plants and trees. Several inches of ash below a thin top soil prevent the roots of many larger species of trees from taking hold. Note that even though lava has not been seen for several years, the Volcano is very much active (you can sometimes still hear it rumbling and see small clouds of vapor rise from its cone) and on a guided tour you will learn all about the Volcano's fascinating history.
The hike is along easy flat terrain, the sparse vegetation can allow better glimpses of wildlife like colorful lizards and wild turkeys. As you approach the lava fields, be prepared to hike up one flight of steep stairs (less than 5 minutes). On clear days, what awaits is a spectacular view of the Volcano on one side and Arenal Lake on the other side. You will have the chance to experience walking on the uneven and rocky lava fields (good walking shoes recommended!), literally the cooled lava from past eruptions. Your guide will describe the eruptions of the past and point out interesting geological formations.
A Volcano tour (although this time it will be in a private reserve) may be combined with a visit to one of the Hot Spring in Arenal - check out the different hot springs available.
transport (included for most hotels but some hotels are outside our pick-up area and have an extra cost, please inquire).


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Woman Meets Birth Family Thanks to Genealogy Sleuthing
"My life has come full circle."
Meghan Rivard October 30, 2017
How would you respond if you had a gnawing desire to find the answer to the question of what is missing in your life, but you weren't sure you would like the answer? Jane Smith grew up knowing she was adopted and had a wonderful childhood, but there was always something missing for her. She wanted to learn more about her biological family.
"I always wondered if there was a lady out there thinking of me as much as I was thinking about her," Jane told the Panama City News Herald.
Jane was adopted an as infant and was one of three adopted siblings in her family. She had a wonderful and loving childhood, but there was always something lingering in her mind about her biological past.
In her 20s, Jane wrote a letter to the hospital where she was born and placed for adoption, but the records were closed. However, earlier this year, Jane researched her genealogy online and was able to find her original birth certificate. She found out her original name and a description of her mother and father; however, their names were not listed.
Jane hired a genealogy expert, who used this information to first track down a second cousin and then a half-sister. Jane was then able to obtain information about her biological mother through these and other family members. She found out that it was a very hard decision for her biological mother to place her for adoption. Her mother had a child at 16 years of age and then at 18 could not raise another child.
An adopted child may feel grief over the loss of the relationships with their biological family. They may also not have access to genetic medical information that could be vital later on in their life. As a child grows, they may start thinking about certain questions, such as what their birth parents look like and act like, and the big question of why they were placed for adoption.
Jane is looking forward to meeting her half-sister in person next month at the visit they have scheduled. Jane stated, "My life has come full circle."
Meghan Rivard
Meghan is an adoptive mother and a big advocate of adoption and foster care. She resides in Indiana with her husband, their one-year-old daughter who is the center of their lives, and their dog Max. She has a Bachelor's and Master's Degree in Social Work. Meghan stays at home with her daughter but is so happy she found this outlet to share her personal adoption story and educate about adoption!

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Family of Origin and Interaction with Other Families Consider your experience both within your own family of origin and when interacting with other families. What is different between these examples of families?
In the field of social work, it is imperative that you know how to assess families. When trying to identify what is happening within a family, a social worker must learn about the family's structure, identify their strengths, review their communication style, and understand the family's dynamics. Families are influenced by the unique individuals within the family, as well as by the larger cultural context in which the family exists. Families vary in how they define who is a member of the family unit, what role each family should play, and what the family dynamics are based on an individual member's contributions to the family system. Often, the social worker's role is to help identify trouble spots and help the family re-adjust to healthy system dynamics.
In this week's Assignment, you provide an assessment of a family and provide an analysis of the family using a social work perspective with consideration to strengths, cultural values, and social work theory.
Describe the structure of a family that is familiar to you.
Identify the strengths of the family.
Explain where in the life cycle this family is located and how that may influence family dynamics.
Analyze one form of communication used by this family and how this communication style influences family dynamics.
Describe the specific roles of two family members and explain if the various roles work well together for the benefit of this family.
Explain how understanding cultural values will help a social worker working with this family.
Analyze this family using systems theory or the ecological perspective.


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Hillary and John try to fix the debates
Friday and Elaine and I are doing quick posts by using headlines from Democracy Now! just like when she first started her site (and, before that, when she was guest blogging for Rebecca).
"Clinton, Edwards Plot Excluding Candidates From Debates:"
In campaign news, Senator Hillary Clinton and former Senator John Edwards have been caught discussing an apparent plan to exclude other Democratic candidates from future debates. On Thursday, Edwards and Clinton were speaking privately after an NAACP Presidential Forum in Detroit. Unaware their microphones were still on, Edwards is overheard saying: "We should try to have a more serious and a smaller group." Clinton agreed, responding: "We've got to cut the number...They're not serious." Clinton also indicated the two had discussed the plan before, telling Edwards "we've got to get back to it." In response, Ohio congressmember and Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich said: "No matter how important or influential they perceive themselves to be, [candidates] do not have and should not have the power to determine who is allowed to speak to the American public and who is not. Imperial candidates are as repugnant to the American people and to our Democracy as an imperial President."
Who's not serious? Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. They're devious and undemocratic. They don't think the other candidates are serious? Kucinich and Gravel are raising more real issues and take just one of them and pair them up against Edwards, Clinton and Obama and either Kucinich or Gravel alone is still raising more issues than the three of them combined.
Guess who's running chicken? Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. They can't win a fair fight so they scheme and plot. That's disgusting. And they're both insane if they think shutting Gravel out means any American's going to forget that they both voted for the illegal war. They can work real hard to make people disappear but their records are their records.
This really is disgusting. Dennis Kucinich said it right, they are "imperial candidates" and they are repugnant.
I'm waiting for the denials to start coming out of both of their campaigns. Don't even bother lying, just apologize for acting like little babies. If Hillary gets the top spot, bet you John's thinking, "I am so in!!!" Silly fool. If she'd plot against others, she'd plot against him and grab Obama at the last minute. John is so weak in my eyes now. Hillary couldn't get worse because my opinion of her is already so low, but John Edwards is someone I was considering voting for in the primary.
"Witnesses: U.S. Chopper Kills Iraqi Civilians, Journalist:"
In news from Iraq, at least sixteen people were killed Thursday in clashes between U.S. troops and Shiite militias in Baghdad. The dead included a photographer for the Reuters news agency and his driver. They apparently came under fire from a U.S. helicopter.
Unidentified witness: "The U.S. soldiers randomly fired on cars and children, even journalists were not safe. Over here was a Reuters crew."
Residents say the remaining dead were civilians, including at least two children. An Agence France Press journalist who interviewed witnesses on the scene said the helicopter appeared to indiscriminately fire on any gathering of people in the area.
Want to know why the illegal war needs to end right now? US forces are killing reporters and children. How much longer are we going to let this illegal war drag on? If you ask me, Congressional Democrats are disgusting and they better get off their asses real quick and starting ending this war.
Now, be sure you read C.I.'s "And the war drags on . . ." from last night. I'm pushing for us to do something with that this weekend. It is incredible (no surprise) and blow's the lid off this nonsense about The Nation's wonderful story. It's not a wonderful story, it's a really bad one. And, I heard from a veteran about The Nation just a few days ago. It wasn't pretty. I didn't know of the vet (but I'd say the vet is really cool and much cooler than they seem to know) before the e-mail but from what I've heard since, I'm really impressed. And glad that we both are sick of The Nation's nonsense.
Friday, July 13, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, another journalist is annouced dead in Iraq -- the 3rd in the last 48 hours, Matthew Rothschild addresses the theft of Iraqi oil law, and more.
Starting with war resistance. The Progressive's Hidden History Of The United States (available in calander form) notes that on this day in 1863, "Draft riots began in New York City, leaving 1,000 dead over four days." Ehren Watada is the first commissioned officer to public refuse deployment to Iraq. Currently, he is waiting while the appeals process determines whether he will have to face a second court-martial and, if so, whether Judge Toilet (aka John Head) will be allowed to preside over it again. While this goes on, people continue to demonstrate their support for Watada. Last Friday, we noted a rally held in San Francisco in support of Watada. Ryan Baladad (Asian Week) informs, "Members from the various groups, including Aisan Pacific Islanders Resist and the Watada Support Committee, took turns speaking in support of the Japanese lieutenant. Supporters held signs that read, 'Refuse Illegal War,' 'Bush lied, People Died' and showed photos of Watada in uniform. Malcolm Yeung of the Asian Law Caucus called the Army's actions 'frankly reprehensible' and said the case 'chills free speech'." Baladad closes with this statement from Rev. Norman Fong (Chinatown Presbyterian Church), "There shouldn't be another trial; they messed up the first time. We're proud of Lt. Watada."
Meanwhile, who is Steve Yoczik? The War Resisters Support Campaign explains, "Steve arrived in Toronto on November 25th, 2006. He trained in communications at Fort Gordon, Georgia. After a few months there, he began to realize that the decision he'd made to join the Army was a serious mistake and that trading 4 years of his life for the opportunity to have college paid for was not an agreeable enough trade. Also after seeing pictures of wounded or killed Iraqi civilians (and combatants) as well as stories from soldiers that had been to Iraq and Afghanistan, he knew without a doubt that he did not want to be involved in the war. Halfway through training, the 'job' he'd been signed on for was cancelled, and 'joblees' people in this particular war zone go on patrols and kick in doors, so Stephen prepared a last-ditch effort to come to Canada, as all other attempts to leave the Army 'legitimately' were exhausted. Since arriving in Toronto, Steve has adjusted fairly weel, and is being careful in the decisions he makes in life now, as his Army expereience has taught him that signatures hold a lot of power . . ."
Yoczik is part of a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Ross Spears, Jared Hood and James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Care, Kyle Huwer, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty-one US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
Yesterday, Bully Boy went on and on, desperately attempting to stretch the definition of progress in yet another attempt to fool the American people. How bad did the spin and lies get? Kenneth R. Bazinet (New York Daily News) informs, "Even the White House was concerned Bush overstepped with his upbeat war talk, sending spokesman Tony Snow out to talk to the cable news outlets to clarify the President's remarks. 'The President isn't saying we're winning. He says we're in a fight. He says we cannot afford not to win,' Snow told Fox News." Tony Snow need not worry, reality will always Fact Check the Bully Boy upside his face. How are things with the Iraqi Parliament? Joshua Partlow and Sudarsan Raghavan (Washington Post) reports, "Iraqi politicians on Thursday struck a more pessimistic tone about Iraq than did the White House assessment, and said the deadlock between warring Sunni and Shiite factions makes major political progress unlikely in coming months." Well, as least those Iraqi troops are coming along nicely, right? Karen DeYoung (Washington Post) informs, "Despite stepped-up training, the readiness of the Iraqi military to operate independently of U.S. forces has decreased since President Bush's new strategy was launched in January, according to the White House progress report released yesterday." And try to find out the hard figures on this from the Pentagon, as DeYoung did, and be informed that's "classified information." Classified, apparently, on the grounds that Bully Boy is an incompetent.
And on the January 20th attack in Karbala that killed 1 US soldier immediately, wounded three and saw four kidnapped (all of whom would later turn up dead), Gregg Zoroya (USA Today) reveals the army's internal investigation has found:
•Iraqi police suddenly vanished from the government compound before the shooting started.•Attackers, evidently briefed on how U.S. forces would defend themselves, bottled up more than three dozen soldiers in a barracks and headquarters complex using a combination of smoke and fragment grenades and satchel charges to blow up Humvees.•Gunmen knew exactly where to find and abduct U.S. officers.•Iraqi vendors operating a PX and barbershop went home early.•A back gate was left unlocked and unguarded.Investigators recommended several changes to toughen defensive positions, including the installation of closed-circuit cameras to provide better early warnings, "duress devices" that can allow overrun outposts to signal headquarters, and requirements that any arriving convoy provide identification.
Now how do you suppose that got left out of Bully Boy's attempt to sell the continuation of the illegal war? In more reality the Bully Boy Never Told You, Robert Burns (AP via Los Angeles Times) reports that yesterday's White House progress report "strongly implies that the administration believes its military strategy will take many more months to meet its goals." And really driving home the lack of progress in Iraq, Mike Drummond and Hussein Khalifa (McClatchy Newspapers) tell the story of Nawal Na'eem Karim whose 18-month-child has learned to cry "Talaq inanan! Talaq inana!" ("Bullets here! Bullets here!"). Needless to say, the mother tells the reporters she just wants the US to leave. Of course, Bully Boy would probably get that dopey grin on his face (as when a woman explained she had to work two jobs) and say, "That's wonderful."
Meanwhile, Congressional Dems try to put one over on the public -- again, and it's the same shell game. From Democracy Now! today:
House Iraq Pullout Bill Leaves Thousands of Troops BehindThe House has approved a measure that would begin withdrawing combat troops from Iraq within the next three months. The final vote was two hundred twenty-three to two-hundred and one, mostly along party lines. Before the vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged lawmakers to vote "yes."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: "Let us pass this bill and those that will follow in the coming weeks and provide the new direction on Iraq that the American people demand and that is so urgently needed. I urge a 'yes' vote on the Skelton bill."Ohio Congressmember Dennis Kucinich was the lone anti-war Democrat to vote against the bill. The measure would remove most combat troops by April of next year but still leave tens of thousands soldiers behind.
As Amy Goodman noted above "leaves tens of thousands soldiers behind." And that's provided Bully Boy doesn't reclassify the ones that would be set to leave. Pushing the non-existant link between 9-11 and Iraq is a thread he picked up again yesterday. He could follow the Pelosi measure (if it passed) and reclassify "combat troops" as troops who will be fighting terrorists ("al Qaeda!") and none have to leave. He could also declare that the illegal war is over and that 160,000 US troops need to remain to maintain "police operations" which would mean no troops leave. It's the con game they pulled in March, credit Goodman with telling it straight and not sugar coating it.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State and Anger Condi Rice remakes Mariah Carey's "Love Takes Time" with new words resulting in "War Takes Time." (CBS & AP, text and video).
In a crimes and violence update, Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) updates her bank robbery story from yesterday with the information that the bank is revising the figures for the stolen money to "282 million Iraqi diners, equal to about $225,000 and $366,00 American dollars." In some of today's violence . . .
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a mortar attacks in Baquba claimed 2 lives and left fifteen wounded and a Baquba bombing that claimed 1 life. Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) notes that the Green Zone was "slammed" with mortars today, killing 2 Iraqi soldiers and that "U.S. civilian government employees have been required in the last few dyas to wear body armor and helmets because of the rising threat of rocket and mortar attacks. Reuters notes that 2 children died in Samawa from a roadside bombing, 1 Iraqi soldier died from a Baghdad roadside bombing and 1 police officer died from a Mosul roadside bombing.
Laith Hammoudi (McClatchy Newspapers) reports five police officers were shot dead in Baghdad, 3 Iraqi civilians were shot dead by the US military (in what appears to be -- me speaking not Hammoudi -- indiscriminate firing) and "Gunmen killed an Iraqi journalist working for New York Times newspaper near Al Saidiyah fuel station south of Baghdad around 9:00 am." John Holusha (New York Times) observes that Hassan joined the paper in 2003 (fall) and that he was the second Times' reporter for the paper to die in Iraq and notes: "Mr. Hassan was shot in the Saidiya district of south central Baghdad while driving to work under circumstances that remain unclear, Mr. [John F.] Burns said. He had called the bureau earlier and said his normal route to the office had been block by a security checkpoint." Executive editor Bill Keller states, "Khalid was part of a large, sometimes unsung, community of Iraqi news gatherers, translators and support staff, who take enormous risks every day to help us comprehend their country's struggle and torment. Without them, America's understanding of what is happening on the ground in Iraq would be much, much poorer. To The Times, Khalid was family, and his death is heartbreaking." Khalid Hassan's death brings to three the number of reporters killed in Baghdad in the last 48 hours. Yesterday, we noted the deaths of Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh, two journalists with Reuters. Today, Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) reports that in addition to eyewitnesses quoted in the early reports yesterday, Ahmad Sahib, with AFP, arrived on the scene shortly afterwards and he states, "They had arrived, got out of the car and started taking pictures, and people gathered. It looked like the American helicopters were firing against any gathering in the area, because when I got out of my car and started taking pictures, people gathered and an American helicopter fired a few rounds, but they hit the houses nearby and we ran for cover."
Reuters reports 3 corpses discovered today in Sawayra. And Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) noted that 28 corpses were discovered in Baghdad Thursday.
Turning to the theft of Iraqi oil, Nancy Youssef (McClatchy Newspapers) notes, "Earlier this month, Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki announced unanimous Cabinet approval of a draft hydrocarbon law. But on Wednesday, Kurdish politicians said they opposed the latest version of the law. The draft law hasn't been published." Steve Kretzmann (Oil for Change) observes, "We have heard conflicting reports, although it seems clear that the annexes are gone. There was an arabic version published two days ago in a Baghdad daily, however we've heard that there has been at least one change since then." AVAAZ.ORG has an online petition entitled "Support Iraqi Oil Sovereignty."
At Inside Iraq (McClatchy Newspapers), a journalist shares a surreal experience, "The Electricity Minister and the Oil Minister, both being questioned in the Parliament as to the electricity and fuel situation in the country. They were fighting the 'good' fight, back to back, with their sabers flashing. Fact after distorted face spilled forth from their tongues. The Oil Minister, high browed, blue blooded, married to a bluer blood still -- all leaning east, said he hadn't enough power and fuel to work the refineries -- butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. The Electricity Minister, a man of the masses; an excellent technician, worked his way up through the ranks, said he hadn't enough fuel to work the electricity power stations. Wasn't there something strange here -- was it a distortion in my dream?? A Catch 22 situation if ever there was one!!" Hussain al-Shahristani is the Oil Minister (since May of last year) and prior to that post he was the deputy speaker in the National Assembly. Last week, on KPFT's Progressive Forum (Thursdays, 7:00 pm Central), host Wally James discussed the theft of the Iraqi oil with Matthew Rothschild (The Progressive).
Matthew Rothschild: It's amazing that with all that's been going on Iraq with maybes 600,000 Iraqis killed, 3600 US soldiers killed and 2600 US soldiers wounded, that the one thing the Bush administration really cares about is privatizing Iraq's oil. You know, they told us, over and over again, before this war started those of us that were talking about this war being for oil, that we were conspiracy people, but look, low and behold, the first thing that the army did when it got to Iraq was protect the oil fields, the second thing it did was protect the Oil Ministry and now the last thing it's doing is making sure that before all hell breaks further loose that they're going to get something on the books in Iraq that allows Exxon-Mobile and other US corporations to go in there and get their share of the oil there and expatriate the profits from that oil at a much greater degree than oil companies can do in that part of the world. I mean this is a huge sell out of Iraq's sovereign resource and there are, there have been strikes already by Iraqi oil workers and al-Sadr right now is aligning with the Sunnis to oppose this so there's all sorts of domestic opposition over there but this is the one thing that the Bush administration wanted al-Maliki to rail through if he could, railroad it through, he'd be back in the good graces of the Bush administration, back in the good graces of Exxon-Mobile.
Wally James: Well from the beginning you had Bush saying, you know, this is not about oil, we're not trying to get control of the oil. And, you know, but under the surface you have this going on and at the same time the US media just isn't reporting on it. They talk about how this is going to be a good thing if this goes through, how it's going to make for sure that the oil is divided up evenly in Iraq.
Matthew Rothschild: It is almost impossible, you're absolutely right here, Wally, and I think it's a really good point absolutely impossible to read the mainstream media and figure out what's going on with this Iraq oil behind the scenes. It's not about, or simply not just about, the equal sharing of the oil revenues. It's largely about the privatization of the oil industry in Iraq and allowing US and other foreign oil companies in to grab the oil. That's what's going on but you might get that in about paragraph eleven or paragraph fifteen and it won't explain really the benefits that are going to acrue to Exxon-Mobile and the other giants. And it certainly won't tell you that the Iraq oil workers were striking for a week in Basra over this. I mean, this has been one of the worst bits of coverage by the mainstream media in Iraq since what? The cover up or the funneling of propaganda about Weapons of Mass Destruction Prior to the war courtesy of Judith Miller and the New York Times.
Wally James asked Rothschild about the idea that Congressional Democrats might be refusing to impeach because they want Bully Boy around for the 2008 elections (as an issue to run against) and wondered if that was at least part of the reason Congress does nothing to end the illegal war, "they need him around in '08 to beat up" and the Iraq war? Rothschild responded: "Well this is kind of pragmatic politics at its worst, it seems to me. Because I think the same thing happened with the Iraq war vote. They want the Iraq war to go on so they can go against Bush and the Iraq war in 2008. But look at how callous that is. They want a hundred more US soldiers to die every month and 500, 600 to be wounded and what, you know, a couple of thousand Iraqis to die every month just because it's politically expedient and it might help them win the White House? I mean, come on, talk about immorality if that's what they're doing that's disgraceful on the war issue." Next addressed was the issue of impeachment which Rothschild's supported, publicly in his writing, since at least early 2006 and we'll use that as an opportunity to note that Bill Moyers Journal (begins airing on PBS in most markets today -- check local listings and you can also read, listen or watch online) will explore the topic of impeachment and, among the guests is John Nichols.
Back to Rothschild, he has a new book out entitled You Have No Rights: Stories of America In An Age of Repression (The New Press, list price $16.99) and he's doing stops across the country to promote the book:
Matthew Rothschild reading and signing YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS
Seattle, WA: 7/16 at 7:00PM San Francisco, CA: 7/17 at 7:30PM Berkeley, CA: 7/18 at 7:00PM Portland, OR: 7/19 at 7:30PMMadison, WI: 7/26 at 7:00PM San Luis Obispo, CA: 8/14 at 7:00PM Santa Barbara, CA:8/15 at 7:00PM Los Angeles, CA: 8/16 at 7:00PM Baraboo, WI: 9/8 all day
the new york timesalissa j. rubin
matthew rothschild
gregg zoroyathe washington postjoshua partlowsudarsan raghavan
bill moyers journal
Patrick Cockburn, Elizabeth Sullivan
Thursday. Every day this week has been great. :D Last night, we had shrimp gumbo that C.I. made and that was just great. I don't know pots and all so I'll just say C.I. made this huge vat of it. :D (And one without shrimp for vegetarians like Jess.) It was just excellent. It was spicy and smooth and cool and hot and I just do not have enough words to describe it. :D It was just incredible. I've had gumbo a few times before but never any like that (and no one in my family makes gumbo so I haven't insulted anyone! :D).
So Bully Boy did his usual song and dance today and we're all supposed to feel better and not believe a moron is running the country? Is that how it's supposed to work? The man is lost. It's not just that the illegal war is lost. This is a crook who is realizing that America has finally caught on to him. He looked desperate and it's only going to get worse. Which is why Dave Lindorff (and Barbara Olshansky, Elizabeth de la Vega, Elizabeth Holtzman, Cindy Sheehan and a huge portion of America) is not wrong, he needs to be impeached. It's only going to get worse as it really sinks in to the Bully Boy that he has lost it, he has lost the support of the people, and more and more of his crimes are made public. Impeachment needs to be started right away.
The bunker mentality is already beginning to set in and you could see that today. This is from Patrick Cockburn's "Bush's optimism is impossible to square with the situation in Iraq:"
Scrambling to shore up crumbling support for the war in Iraq, President George Bush released a report yesterday claiming sufficient political and military progress to justify the presence of 170,000 US troops in the country.
President Bush said he still believed victory in Iraq was possible.
"Those who believe that the battle in Iraq is lost will likely point to the unsatisfactory performance on some of the political benchmarks," he said.
"Those who believe the battle in Iraq can and must be won see the satisfactory performance on several of the security benchmarks as a cause of optimism." He added it was too early to say if his new strategy in Iraq was working.
But in Iraq as in the US there is a sense that Washington is playing its last cards. "I assume the US is going to start pulling out because 70 per cent of Americans and Congress want the troops to come home," Mahmoud Othman, a veteran Iraqi politician, said. "The Americans are defeated. They haven't achieved any of their aims."
"The Americans are defeated." Even "a veteran Iraqi politician" can speak the truth. It's just the White House and their flunkies that can't. And if he loses the ability to drag out the illegal war, he knows there will be even less for him to hide behind. He's already a loser to about 70% of Americans. If he ends the illegal war, the die hards are going to go wack job on his ass.
So because he can't take any more of a decline in favorability, more Americans and Iraqis will die. This is from Elizabeth Sullivan's "Bush Will Let Iraq Keep Drifting:"
President Bush removed any doubts in Cleveland on Tuesday: It will be up to someone else to face up to the damage done in Iraq.
It's someone else's problem that the world's most powerful military is about to run out of forces to carry out missions that no longer make much sense.
Those U.S. generals in Iraq struggling to figure out a workable U.S. strategy when they have no durable allies in Iraq? They should call their own shots on the war. Far be it from the commander in chief to interfere.
Let's just call President Bush the undecider in chief.
The president explained in Cleveland that the 9/11 terrorist attacks made him implacable about carrying the war to the enemy.
"I realized the biggest responsibility government has is to protect the American people from further attack, and that we must confront dangers before they come to hurt us again," the president told business leaders at the Intercontinental Hotel.
He didn't mention that the 9/11 enemy, al-Qaida, didn't prosper in Iraq until the U.S. attack and occupation gave it the foothold it could only dream about before.
So where is the decider in chief when he's needed?
White House planning for a phased withdrawal will not eliminate the likelihood that U.S. troops will face years of exposure to violence in Iraq as garrison forces or regional peace-keepers. However, it will make less likely a pell-mell withdrawal that could lead to Iraqi implosion and widened regional war - the very disasters the president seems most fixated upon.
Now check out Wally's "THIS JUST IN! RACISTS MOURN SENATOR CRAZY'S IMPLOS..." and Cedric's "Racists loved Senator Crazy McCain" because John McCain is flat out disgusting.
Thursday, July 12, 2007. Chaos and violence, the American military kills two workers for Reuters in Iraq, Bully Boy lies again to sell the war (again), the US military announces another death in Iraq, the Showboat Express Derails!, and more.
Starting with war resistance. Mark and Louise Zwick (Houston Catholic Worker via Spero News) report on the beatification of Franz Jagerstatter (October 27, 2007) by the Catholic Church. Jagerstatter became a war resister when drafted into the Nazi army who "believed that he could not be a soldier in an unjust war sponsored by a government determined on imperialist expansionsim and slaughter of innocents, presenting itself as a substitute for religion which saw and treated his Church as the enemy." The Zwicks tie Jagerstatter's stance then to those resisting today and note the case of Camilo Mejia in detail and conclude, "Martha's concern as she had heard about this soldier's conscientious objection was that her young son not be put in such a situation. She knew that at present there is no military draft, but that poor Hispanic youth in the United States are recruited early into ROTC Army training with the promise of assistance later with college tuition. Martha vowed to never allow her son to participate in ROTC. This may not be easy to achieve. High schools in lower-income neighborhood which serve Mexican Americans and immigrant youth are saturated with the ROTC presence. The local public school for 6th to 8th graders has ROTC as one of the electives. When one student who stayed at Casa Juan Digo transferred in during the middle of the year, the student was placed in ROTC simply because the classes of all other electives were filled. The irony is that the children of the undocumented, despised by many simply for being undocumented, are being sent to fight U.S. wars in foreign lands." Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) noted today of Mejia, "He was the first US soldier court-martialed for desertion, was ultimately sentenced to a year in jail." In May, Camilo Mejia's Road from Ar Ramaid: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia (The New Press) was released allowing him to tell his story of what he observed in Iraq and how it changed him. To the issue the Zwick's raise, Mejia was not a US citizen. In fact, the military was supposed to release him because he had completed his eight-year contract and Senator Ben Nelson had caused noise on this issue (thanks to the concerns Camilo's mother raised with him). The military's response was ridiculous ("We're not discharging fat people, are we?") and desperate (shoving off papers for citizenship -- which Camilo was not interested in). While on leave in the US, Mejia attempted to figure out how to get the US military to comply with their own regulations. First, he was told he would have to return to Iraq in order to be discharged, then he was told no discharge was happening regardless and finally he was ordered to board the plane back to Iraq. Instead, Mejia went underground, refusing to continue fighting in an illegal war. At the start of the illegal war, Stephen Funk refused to go to Iraq -- a very important and brave stand. Mejia is the first known member of the military to serve in Iraq and refuse to return. Again, he tells his story in Road from Ar Ramaid: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Mejia (list price $24.99) including his court-martial and what he felt and thought upon being sentenced.
The first commissioned officer to refuse to deploy to Iraq is Ehren Watada. Speaking with E. Ethelbert Miller (Foreign Policy in Focus), David Mura (poet, playwright, critic, performance artist and soon to be novelist -- Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire) notes the No-No Boys of WWII (Japanese-American males who bravely refused to serve while their relatives and peers were interned for the 'crime' of race) and states, "I feel that the current case of Lat. Ehren K. Watada, who refused to go to Iraq because he believes it is an illegal and unjust war, ought to be seen against the backdrop of this history. His position as a soldier and his actions of civil protest, reflect the legacy both of the 442nd and of the No-No Boys."
And in Iraq, a US service member has publicly refused to continue fighting in the illegal war. Eric Ruder (Socialist Worker) notes, "Army Spc. Eleonai 'Eli' Israel was stationed at Camp Victory in Baghdad when he told his commanding officers June 19 that he would no longer participate in the illegal and unjust war on Iraq. 'We are now violating the people of this country in ways that we would never accept on our own soil,' said Eli."
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Ross Spears, Jared Hood and James Burmeister, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Augstin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder , Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Joshua Key, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Jeremy Hinzman, Stephen Funk, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Care, Kyle Huwer, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, forty-one US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.Information on war resistance within the military can be found at Center on Conscience & War, The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline, Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters.
So today Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman (Democracy Now!) did what they usually do but tried to credit The Nation for finally doing something four years and four months after the illegal war started. Good manners must have prevented Gonzalez and Goodman from pointing out the obvious -- they've been doing -- for years -- what the overly praised article half-assed does today. The lengthy, weak ass article by The Nation will be addressed this evening ("And the war drags on . . ."). Today, it allowed the centrist (Democratic Party cheerleader and sometime video spokesperson) to get on Democracy Now! and the utter more than fifty lines more (check the transcript) than Garett Reppenhagen who actually is worth listening to. Reppenhagen: "So the contrast is very real, and the division, once you're there and you're being told to give these people democracy and they're shooting at you and trying to kill you, it creates a lot of tension, and the American soldiers begin to hate the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people hate the American soldiers. And the bottom line is, we're not seen as peacekeepers. US forces in Iraq are no longer seen as peacekeepers by the Iraqi people and most of the Muslim world. We're seen as occupiers and invaders, and that undermines our ability to keep the peace there, it undermines our ability to do our jobs, and it undermines our national security here at home. So right now it's a very complex situation, and the animosity is growing. And there's no cure other than removing ourselves from Iraq." From the broadcast:
SGT. DUSTIN FLATT: Yes. The innocent deaths happened at different times, different places and different occasions. Convoys were commonplace. The only incident I have firsthand knowledge of was a convoy that was actually not our convoy. It was a convoy had just driven by us. And an Iraqi vehicle with a mother, three daughters and an older teenage son who was driving the car were following a convoy too close. It got too close, and they shot into the car. It was a warning shot, and it ended up killing the mother. And they actually pulled the car over, or the son pulled the car over right next to us, and we just happened to be near a hospital in Mosul at the time. And the mother was obviously dead, and the children were just crying and asking if they could actually get into the hospital.
AMY GOODMAN: So the mother was dead. The three little girls, what happened?
SGT. DUSTIN FLATT: Right. The three little girls, we just -- we took them and just -- the last time I saw them they were on the side of the road just crying. They had no idea what had just happened. And it was funny -- it was with another unit -- it was a unit actually that we were attached to in Mosul, and on the back of their last Humvee in the convoy, they had a sign that read, "Stay back 100 meters." And after that, we took our interpreter, our Iraqi interpreter, up to the sign to see how far away he could read it, and he had to be within about thirty or forty feet before he could read it.
STAFF SGT. TIMOTHY JOHN WESTPHAL: The terror that I saw on the patriarch's face, like I said, that really was the turning point for me. I imagined in my mind what he must have been thinking, understanding that he had lived under Saddam's brutal regime for many years, worried about -- you know, hearing stories about Iraqis being carried away in the middle of the night by the Iraqi secret service and so forth, to see all those lights, all those soldiers with guns, all the uniform things that we wear, as far as the helmet, the night vision goggles, very intimidating, very terrifying for the man. He screamed a very guttural cry that I can still hear it every day. You know, it was just the most awful, horrible sound I've ever heard in my life. He was so terrified and so afraid for his family. And I thought of my family at that time, and I thought to myself, boy, if I was the patriarch of a family, if soldiers came from another country, came in and did this to my family, I would be an insurgent, too.
JUAN GONZALEZ: And you say that that was a turning point for you. In what way?
STAFF SGT. TIMOTHY JOHN WESTPHAL: It was a turning point for me in the sense that -- you know, prior to going into Iraq, both Dustin and myself, we talked about this many times in the days leading up to the war. We came into Iraq after the initial invasion, so we had a chance to see a little bit of the buildup to the war, as well as the actual invasion piece. And several of us, including Dustin and myself, were very much opposed to the Iraq war. However, we chose to go, number one, out of a sense of loyalty to each other and our unit; second, because we were hoping as leaders, as combat leaders, leaders of soldiers, we would be able to influence those young men to make good decisions and not do things like kill indiscriminately or let their emotions get into their decision-making abilities. So that's why we chose to go. And again, because this is our profession, we were very proud of what we were doing, even though we opposed the mission itself, are proud to serve with our brothers and to be a part of something like that.
However, that night -- and that was about halfway through my yearlong tour -- that night I really admitted to myself -- and it was a very hard thing to do, but I admitted to myself that America is not the good guy in this thing. And, you know, if you factor in that you have these young men who most of them are high-school-educated -- some have a bit of college, some do have college degrees -- but the education level, for the most part, is high school graduates only.
Reppenhagen is the chair of the board of Iraq Veterans Against the War, Dustin Flatt and Timothy John Westphal are also with IVAW. (The other guest? He's with Mommy's Pantyhose.)
Listen, watch or read today's Democracy Now! segment (nearly 50 minutes are devoted to the topic). Skip the nonsense of The Nation (it will be addressed tonight).
Staying on IVAW, Adam Kokesh's site carries the message that Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr.'s kangaroo hearing has been delayed from this month to August with Yearwood noting, "It has been incredible to hear that so many of you have made plans to come support me as I challenge the Air Force's attempt to discredit me and our work for peace. My request for a delay has been granted so I may better prepare my case and raise funds for my legal defense. We will publish the new date as soon as it is determined and along with our plans for action." The kangaroo hearing is supposed to address the laughable allegation that Rev. Yearwood's actions have been "clearly inconsistent with the interest of national security" when, in fact, his work since being discharged (discharged from service, he's currently in the IRR which needs no discharge) has been on ending the illegal war including Make Hip Hop Not War.
War, war and more war, endless war, is all the Bully Boy understands which is why the White House released [PDF warning] "Initial Benchmark Assessment Report" today. And though it won't rival the latest Harry Potter, it certainly belongs on the fiction list. David S. Cloud and John F. Burns (New York Times) explained this morning that the report would "qualify some verdicts by saying that even when the political performance of the Iraqi government has been unsatisfactory, it is too early to make final judgements" and that this qualification "will enable it [the White House] to present a more optimistic assessment than if it had provided the pass-fail judgement sought by Congress." Which may be a nice way of noting that, unlike Bully Boy's No Child Left Behind, there is no standardized testing, no standardized grading and no deadlines. The system that's good enough for his attack on America's public schools is not to be utilized when addressing his illegal war of choice.
CBS and AP report that the Bully Boy declared today, "I believe we can succed in Iraq and I know we must." We? But it's probably an improvement on his verbal equivalent of painting a bulls eye on the back of every US service member a few years back with the taunt of "Bring it on." William Douglas (McClatchy Newspapers) notes that the fudged/qualified report reveals "only eight of 18 benchmarks" can be stretched enough to indicate even some progress. Douglas also notes that Bully Boy sees the Initial Assessment as an ink blot which can be interpreted in any way depending upon where you're coming from -- proof positive that we've got a Stoner in the White House? 2008 presidential candidate and Senator Joe Biden peels off the best one liner of the day, "This progress report is like the guy's who's falling from a 100-story building and says halfway down that everything's fine." Karen DeYoung and Peter Baker (Washington Post) update their article in this morning's paper on the report and note that the White House sees "some positive movement in eight of the 18 congressional benchmarks" while, at the same time, dispatching Stephen Hadly (US National security advisor) and Condi Rice (US Secretary of State and Anger) to Congress to role play House Minority Whip for both houses apparently. CNN's Ed Henry (text and video) observes, "The president is pleading for more patience. He's not really oferring a new prescription to deal with the violence on the ground in Iraq. Instead he's urging lawmakers to give him until September to see if the current troop increase will work -- but a growing number of his fellow Republicans are telling him time is running out and they want a course change sooner than September." Which is a nice way of putting. Patience was when he asked for it (over and over, every year of the illegal war). The report he's pushing is more half-truths and outright lies which, if you think back to how the illegal war was sold, isn't at all surprising. Bully Boy has come full circle: Lied to get his war, must lie to keep it. And what's with this "Congressional benchmarks"? Paul Richter (Los Angeles Times) rightly notes: "The Bush administration's decision to set benchmarks . . . When they began publicizing the benchmarks a year ago, addministration officials . . . President Bush turned to benchmarks amid intensifying criticism from Congress and plummeting public support. Benchmarks offered a way to counter congressional demands for timetables and to dampen the midterm election rage that ultimately cost his party control of Congress." The administration, stealing from the James Baker Circle Jerk, grabbed the imposed (upon Iraqis) benchmarks and ran with them. They own them now.
As if the region hasn't suffered enough, Nico Hines (Times of London) reports that Rice and US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates will visit it next month and notes several laughable statements by the Bully Boy. "I don't think Congress ought to be running the war. The idea of telling our military how to conduct operations, for example, or how to deal with troop strength, I don't think it makes sense today, nor do I think it's a good precedent for the future." Well, he is uneducated. But the Congress is not attempting to run the illegal war (though with Bully Boy's lack of leadership, someone might need to step in) it is demonstrating the civilian control. The war is over and someone needs to be adult enough to pull the plug. (That may or may not be Congress at this point.) He then went on to insist that troops should not leave just "because pollsters say it'll be good politics" -- this from the man who conducted the roll out (in August! 2002) for the war to make electoral hay in the 2002 mid-terms.
In the real world, Nancy A. Youssef (McClatchy Newspapers) reports that 429 Iraqis have been "killed or wounded . . . at checkpoints or near patrols and convoys during the past year" and that warning shots accound for "more than" one death per day. Also in the real world, over 3600 US service members have died in Iraq. CBS and AP note that the illegal war "is costing the United States an estimated $10 billion a month." With Jonathan S. Landay, Nancy A. Youssef (McClatchy Newspapers) notes that the conclusions "of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies" in a new report (Global Security Assessment, delivered by the National Intelligence Council to Congress) which found, among other things, that "Even if the bloodletting can be contained, Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish leaders will be 'hard pressed' to reach lasting political reconciliation". Amazingly, while ignoring every thing else that can be spun, the White House refuses to take credit for the big bank robbery Wednesday night. Alissa J. Rubin (New York Times) reported on the heist that made off with "$282 million from the Dar Es Salaam bank" which was kept not in the Iraq currency but "in American dollars . . . It was unclear why the bank had that much money on hand in dollars, or how the robbers managed to move such a large amount without being detected." Surely there's some way that can be spun into a success? Bully Boy could declare it not just the biggest heist in Iraq, but among the biggest in the world and, noting Donald the Rumsfled's "Freedom is untidy and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things" (a White House motto?), could declare the heist as a sure sign of progress.
Nancy A. Youssef also looks at the 18 benchmarks to offer an independent analysis and it's not pretty -- benchmark 16 is among the ones that can't be stretched to show even some desire for progress ("Ensuring that the rights of minority political parties in the Iraqi legislature are protected") leading Youssef to conclude: "The Iraqi government has done nothing on this benchmark."
In some of today's violence in Iraq . . .
Reuters reports that Namir Noor-Eldeen (22-year-old photographer) and Saeed Chmagh (40-year-old driver and camera assistant) were killed "in what police saidw as American military action and witnesses described as a helicopter attack" -- the victis of what is euphemistically dubbed "random American bombardment" in Baghdad. Reporters Without Borders notes that over "60 media workers" were killed in Iraq during 2006 alone. Reuters notes Karim Shindakh stating that, while Noor-Eldeen was taking photographs, "The aircraft began striking randomly and people were wounded. A Kia (minivan) arrived to take them away. They hit the Kia and killed . . . the two journalists" and that 6 "Reuters employees [have been] killed in Iraq" since the start of the illegal war. Ned Parker (Los Angeles Times) notes that the 2 died along with 17 others and that of the 19 dead the US optimisticallly states nine were most likely gunmen/militants/resistance, etc. Accepting that inflated (and non-verifable) claim means that 10 innocent Iraqis died. Also dying today, Reuters reports, were 7 Iraqis attending a wedding when a bomber "detonated a suicide vest" in Tal Afar outside the party wounding four. Reuters also notes that five Iraqis were killed in Diwaniya from a US air strike, a Mosul car bombing that wounded 2 police officers, a Mosul car bombing that claimed 2 lives (10 more people wounded) and a police officer injured in Falluja by a bicycle bomb. Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports 4 dead from missiles launched by US helicopters in Samara.
Hussein Kadhim (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a police officer shot dead in Baghdad
AFP reports a family four was shot dead in Karbala (with two more wounded).
Today, the US military announced: "A Task Force Marne Soldier was killed in an attack east of Baghdad." The announcement brought the ICCC total to 32 US service members killed in Iraq this month and 3611 since the start of the illegal war. APF's count is 3612 dead since the start of the illegal war. Reuters' count is 3611 since the start of the illegal war.
In England, Fran Yeoman (Times of London) reports that Andrew Walker (Oxfordshire Assistant Deputy Coronor) has ruled that the March 2003 death of British soldier Stephen Allbutt was a "completely avoidable tragedy" and instead pointed to person in charge at the time Walker was shot by British troops noting, "The center of this tragedy represents a serious failing and it will fall to others to question the fitness of this officer to hold command". That would be Lt. Col. Lindsay MacDuff whose resignation Debbie Allbutt (wife of the deceased) has called for.
Finally, in US campaign news, "VOTE INSANE! VOTE JOHN MCCAIN!" -- his mind, like his campaign, had come undone. Yesterday, Senator Crazy had a hissy fit in the Senate cloakroom (someone must have run off with his Dora the Explorer rain slicker) and began screaming about Iraq, Vietnam and Cambodia -- sounding even crazier than many feared. Cedric and Wally provided humorous takes yesterday, Mike noted it, and Elaine, noting Cambodia, lays it out on why McCain's unfit for office. The John McCain Showboat Express Doesn't Stop Here Anymore.
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Wednesday! "VOTE INSANE! VOTE JOHN MCCAIN!" If you don't know about Senator Crazy going even nuttier, read Cedric's "The Certifiable Senator Crazy" and Wally's "THIS JUST IN! IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE SENATE?" because the man doesn't need to be running for president, he needs to be running from the guys with the straight jacket. Insane.
And on the subject of insanity, Bully Boy's still not impeached. Cindy Sheehan is giving Nancy Pelosi a few weeks and if articles of impeachment aren't introduced, she's going to run against Pelosi. If she does, does she have a chance? C.I. says if there's a debate, Sheehan wins the election. (C.I. explained that but I'll stay mum. It's more than just knowledge and presentation.) Someone who has been working his butt off on impeachment is Dave Lindorff and this is from his "On the Road for Impeachment:"
Austin--I just spent the weekend in this state capital, talkin' impeachment at a meeting organized by the Texas Green Party, World Can't Wait, Code Pink and Austin Impeach (www.austinimpeach.org), and was flying back home via Atlanta. As I was boarding my flight, the pilot, an Air Force veteran like many commercial pilots, looked at the bold "Impeach Bush and Cheney" emblazoned across my chest, smiled and said, "I like your shirt." Some 20 minutes later when the flight attendant came through serving drinks and I asked for a bottle of red wine, she handed me a bottle and then waved away my proffered five dollars. "With that shirt, you don't have to pay," she said to me. The Texas and Georgia passengers sitting around me laughed appreciatively.
The mood in America is shifting rapidly, and President Bush has gone from hero to goat.
On this trip to the state where George Bush launched his disastrous political career, I purposely decided to wear my impeachment shirt while traveling, as a way of gauging popular sentiment. I'll confess that, having experienced some ugliness back in the '60s, when wearing long hair and a beard into the wrong bar or neighborhood could be dangerous, I was a little anxious at first.
I needn't have worried.
Instead of holding me up at the security gate in Newark, TSA inspectors there complimented me on my prominent call to oust their boss. I got more favorable comments from people waiting at the gate for the flight to San Antonio, including from several guys whose well-muscled physiques and buzz-cut hair suggested they were military.
Not one person even scowled, much less took issue with the sentiment expressed on the shirt.
It got more amazing when I landed in San Antonio, where two men in military fatigues separately flashed discreet thumbs-up signs as they passed me in the terminal.
One of the many issues about the illegal war that gets avoided by the press is the prostitution which is going on in the Green Zone. This is an issue C.I.'s hit on for years and it's rare that it gets written about so I called dibs on Debra McNutt's "Military Prostitution and the Iraq Occupation: Privatizing Women:"
On leave from Iraq in 2005, Army Reservist Patrick Lackatt said that "For one dollar you can get a prostitute for one hour." But as the war has escalated in Baghdad and the other Arab regions of Iraq, it has become too dangerous for Westerners to move around outside of the military bases and the Green Zone. Contractors are now advising each other to do their "R & R" in the safer northern Kurdish region, or in the bars and hotels of Dubai, the UAE emirate that has become the most open center of prostitution in the Persian Gulf. Meanwhile, any prostitution rings in Iraq have to go deeper underground to hide from Iraqi militias.
As observed by Sarah Mendelson in her 2005 Balkans report Barracks and Brothels, many U.S. government protocols and programs have been implemented to slow human trafficking, but without enforcement they end up merely as public relations exercises. Military officials often turn a blind eye to the exploitation of women by military and contract personnel, because they want to boost their men's "morale." The most effective way for the military to prevent a public backlash is to make sure that the embarrassing information is not revealed. It is not necessary to cover up information if it does not come out in the first place.
It has been difficult for me (and other researchers and journalists) to get to the bottom of this crisis. In his book Imperial Life in the Emerald City, Rajiv Chandrasekaran observed, "There were prostitutes in Baghdad, but you couldn't drive into a town to get laid like in Saigon." The question of who is behind the trafficking of people is as hard to crack as the trafficking of drugs (if not more so). It is difficult enough to track the widespread illegal trafficking of workers to Iraq. But the trafficking of Iraqi or foreign women for prostitution is even better concealed. The prostitution rings keep their tracks well hidden, and it is not in the interest of the military or its private contractors to reveal any information that may damage the war effort.
The fact that information is difficult to find, however, is a reason to intensify the search, and to make military prostitution a major issues of the women's and antiwar movements. It is our tax dollars that fuel the war in Iraq, and if any women are exploited as a result of the occupation, we owe it to them to take responsibility for these crimes.
McNutt's looking for information on the topic for a paper's she's writing and her e-mail address is included at the bottom of the article, so if you've got anything to share, use the link and e-mail her.
One of the things that amazes me is not only how little we get in the press about what goes on in Iraq but also how little we still know. I mean in terms of history. There was an idiotic thing on NPR where this guy (pro-war) back from Iraq was saying that Americans needed to know the country's history. I agree. I don't agree the history starts with Saddam Hussein but that's what the guy thought. I read Robert Fisk's book last winter and this stuff going on today is just a reply of when England tried it last century.
Be sure to check out Like Maria Said Paz for Elaine's thoughts. Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Wednesday, July 11, 2007. Chaos and violence continue, a brother 'chops' his sister's head off in Iraq, the US Congress continues to do nothing, Bully-flop is in the air, a hostage is released, the US military announces another death bringing July's death toll for US troops to 31 thus far, and more.
Starting with war resistance. "The army takes the position, of course, I mean they wouldn't say this directly, but they need to make an example of somebody like Lt. Watada because if Lt. Watada was able to walk away from this it would send, for the army's perspective, a very bad signal to the other soldiers," Kenneth Kagan explained to Margaret Prescod on KPFK's Sojourner Truth Tuesday. Kagan and James Lobsenz are Ehren Watada's civilian attorneys. Ehren Watada? The first commissioned officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq (June 2006) who was in the midst of a court-martial (February 2006) when Judge Toilet (aka John Head) declared a mistrial over the objections of defense (and over the realities of the law). Speaking with Prescod about Judge Toilet's ruling last Friday (Judge Toilet would not recuse himself and said there was no double-jeopardy at play), Kagan explained that the Court of Appeals decided June 29th to allow Head to rule before they did. Kagan called Judge Toilet's ruling "a necessary step" to allow the case to be reviewed by a higher court. Army Court of Criminal Appeals would be the next court on the chain with the Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (which covers all branches of the military "and those judges are civilians. They have 15 year terms and they are not part of the military"). Kagan stated,
"I think that the law is solidly on our side it is just that this is a highly politicized and very closely watched case" and that he was optimistic about their case. Margret Prescod asked about the timeline and Kagan revealed that there is a good chance, due to the appeals process, that should a court-martial go through, it could be as late as next year before it starts.
So every now and then the lie makes it into print that the US military doesn't care a thing about self-checkouts. This despite the fact that they (from the base in Kentucky) were the ones calling the police and instructing them of where Kyle Snyder was supposed to speak next on his West Coast speaking tour in 2006. This despite the fact that they instructed Canadian police to arrest Snyder in February 2007. This despite that two were sent into Canada and posed as Canadian police when showing up on the doorstep of Winnie Ng . . .
And round and round the lies wrap around the spire but no one's ever supposed to notice. Notice.
Lance Herring may or may not be a war resister. He apparently self-checked out and staged a mountain disappearance last year. KMGH Denver reports that his parents' home was searched yesterday. Why? On "a tip from the military that Hering might be at his parents' home". Vanessa Miller (Boulder Daily Camera) reports that the police searched the home for over an hour ("acting on a tip from the military") and notes that his friend Powers has stated "Hering staged his disappearance because his life was in danger because of something he knew about his fellow Marines. Hering is a lance corporal in the Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment based in California -- the same unit that had eight soldiers charged with conspiracy, kidnapping and murder of an Iraqi civilian in Hamdania, Iraq." Lance Hering's family has created several sites -- here and here -- the latter's top post by his father states: "Lance, where ever your might be, we are on your side. We wish we couldl make contant and send what you may need."
So the lie that the US military isn't interested? Well if your name was Michael Shepard, Sarah Jenkins and Bill Lee and you served on the Yakima Herald-Republic and wrote today's editorial "Military has more pressing business than tracing deserters" then you would be a DUMB ASS. That's DUMB ASS Michael Shepard, DUMB ASS Sarah Jenkins and DUMB ASS Bill Lee. No wonder The Seattle Times Company alternately talks of selling off the loser paper or of doing a clean sweep of the paper. Michael Shepard, Sarah Jenkins and Bill Lee are DUMB ASSES in other ways as well but we just went over this topic yesterday. All the points noted apply to Shepard, Jenkins and Lee.
And on the topic of dumbnes, moving from village idiots to global ones, Bully Boy underwhelmed in Cleveland, Ohio yeterday as he spoke on the topic of the illegal war doing his usual song and dance. Carolyn Lochhead (San Francisco Chronicle) reports that Bully Boy says the escalation "is only beginning" and reminds everyone that, in December 2006, Bully Boy bragged to the press that the issue of withdrawal is "not going to face this government. . . . We've mad that part clear. It'll face future governments." Jeff Zeleny and Sheryl Gay Stoblerg (New York Times) note that Bully Boy is saying that there must be patience (his mantra whenever he screws up) until the September report to Congress. Michael Abramowitz (Washington Post) notes Bully Boy spoke to "a friendly audience" and quotes Bully saying, "I believe that it's in the nation's interests to give the commander a chance to fully implement his operations. And I believe Congress ought to wait for General Petraus to come back and give us an assessment of the strategy that he's putting in place before they make any decisions." AFP notes that the Bully-flop took place "days before an interim assessment is due on the operation to surge 30,000 more troops into Iraq, amid reports that the Iraqi government has met none of its required political and military targets."
These 'targets' or 'benchmarks' are the imposed ones set by the US that have nothing to do with improving the lives of Iraqi but do include things such as the theft of Iraqi oil via a hydrocarbon law. On that proposed legislation, CBS and AP note, "Kurdish leaders on Wednesday spoke out against a key oil law, raising further doubts over efforts to pass one of the political benchmarks sought by the U.S. at a time when the Bush administration is trying to fend off critics of its Iraq policy." As Patrick Cockburn (Independent of London via CounterPunch) observes, "The benchmarks the Iraqi government is meant to achieve in exchange for US support were never realistic and have more to do with American than Iraqi politics."
Howard La Franchi (Christian Science Monitor) reveals that the White House was "caught off guard" and "scrambling" to get control of an issue that they apparently didn't know they had lost. Attempting to gain control included, as Susan Milligan and Michael Krandish (Boston Globe) report, involved sending Dick Cheney to Congress in an attempt to charm members of Congress. At risk, as Anna Mulrine (US News and World Report) noted yesterday, was the $649 billion for the Defense Authorization Bill which would continue to fund the illegal and expensive war. Anne Flaherty (AP) noted today that private conversations between Bully Boy and Republican members of Congress were on the need to 'change course' (which is not the same "End the war"). Therefore, it was no surprise the way the vote for the Webb Amendment went today. Noam N. Levey (Los Angeles Times) explains, "Democrats fell four short of the 60-vote super-majority demanded by Republican leaders for an amendment to the defense authorization bill now being debated in the Senate." It should be noted Republicans aren't the only ones posing. The much touted Webb amendment would only pull US 'combat troops' out of Iraq -- those doing training, police work or fighting terrorism would remain. If it seems familiar, yes this was the nonsense of the Pelosi-Reid measures.
From one scandal to another. Robert Kubey (FAIR's Extra!, May/June 2007, pp. 14-15) reports on the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act of 2007 (passed October 16, 2007) which gave the Bully Boy amazing powers and shredded the Constitution, "giving Bush -- and all future U.S. presidents -- new and sweeping powers to use the U.S. military anywhere in the United States, virtually as he sees fit -- for disaster relief, crowd control, suppression of public disorder, or any 'other condition' that might arise." With guest Frank Morales, Bonnie Faulkner explored this issue today on her program Guns and Butter -- how it could be used, when it could be implemented and those KRB/Halliburton emergency pens we're all supposed to forget about (we've covered that already, as have Robert Parry, Margaret Kimberley, Bonnie Faulkner and others). [Note the archived broadcast of Guns and Butter usually goes up at the show's website on Thursdays.] Kubey notes that the law is opposed by the Adjutants General Association, the National Governors Association, the National Guard Association and others. The Extra! link is text the Guns and Butter is audio.
In other scandal news, Richard Lardner and Anne Flaherty (AP) report that a review conducted by the inspector general for the Pentagon has fond that the DoD put many US troops at risk especially via a contract awarded to Simula Aerospace and Defense Group which did not qualify as a "responsible prospective contractor" so it was no surprise that they were unable to deliver "the kits, which were needed to make Humvees, less vulnerable to roadside bombs." In other scandals and violence, Debra McNutt (CounterPunch) reports, "Within the Green Zone, a few brothels have been opened (disguised as a women's shelter, hairdresser, or Chinese restaurant) but are usually closed by authorities after reports about their existence reach the media. The U.S. military claims that it officially forbids its troops to be involved in prostitution. But prviate contractors brag on sex websites that they have sometimes been able to find Iraqi or foreign women in Baghda or around U.S. military bases. These highly paid security contractors have much more disposable income, and are not held accountable to anyone but their companies. One contractor employee living in the Green Zone reported in February 2007 that 'it took me 4 months to get my connections. We have a PSD [Personal Security Detail] contact who brings us these Iraqi cuties.' Western contractors' e-mails also suggest that some Chinese, Filipina, Iranian and Eastern Europe women may also be prostituted to Americans and other Westerners within Iraq."
And among today's violence . . .
Mohammed al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a Karradah car bombing that damaged a military vehicle. Reuters notes a home bombing in Garma where the residents were locked inside the house and "at least 11 people" are dead. Molly Hennesy-Fiske (Los Angeles Times) notes the Karada bombing left two wounded and 1 dead.
Reuters notes that, in Samarra, the mayor was shot dead.
Beheadings?
Mohammed al Dulaimy (McClatchy Newspapers) reports a beheading in Salaheddin where Fakhri Badri Nida "chopped" the head of his sister off (the sister's name is not given)
Reuters notes 30 corpses discovered in Baghdad.
The US military announced today: "A Multi-National Division - Baghdad Soldier died from a non-battle related cause July 11." This brings the total number of US service members killed in the Iraq war since it began to 3610 -- with 31 for the month thus far.
Meanwhile, Hannelore Krause has been freed (Tuesday). The 61-year-old German woman has been held hostage since February 6th. Her five month ordeal has not ended. Claudia Rach and Andreas Cremer (Bloomberg News) report that her son, twenty-year-old Sian Krause, remains a hostage and notes that 3 "other Germans are known to have been kidnapped in Iraq in the past 21 months. Susanne Osthoff, an archeologist married to an Iraqi, was abducted for three weeks before being freed in December 2005. Rene Braeulich and Thomas Nitzschke were kidnapped early last year, a day after arriving in Iraq to carry out contract work. They were released after 99 days." BBC speculates that Hannelore Krause is "married to an Iraqi doctor" and their son Siam, "who holds dual German and Iraqi citizenship, is reported to have worked at the Iraqi foreign ministry." AFP dispenses with speculative terms and declares that the woman is married to an Iraqi doctor and her son was working at the Foreign Ministry in Iraq. DPA states that she was held (and her son still is) by a group entitled Arrows of Righteousness and that Germany's Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, states the focus will not be on freeing Siam Krause. Russia's Pravada notes that Hannelore Krause was held for 155 days and that she delivered, to Al-Arabiya TV, a request for Germany to leave Afghanistan (Germany has no troops in Iraq). China's Xinhua explains Hannelore Krause was released Tuesday and is currently "at the German Embassy in Baghdad" citing Foreign Minister Steinmeier.
And in media news, Matthew Felling (CBS' Public Eye) weighs in on the editorial coverage of the illegal war noting, "What began with a drip with the Los Angeles Times two months ago is developing into a trickle. And while the New York Times editorial from this past weekend may or may not wind up being a seminal moment in the domestic debate over Iraq, the more noteworthy objections come from some smaller outlets, like last week's Olympian editorial (from Olympia, Washington) and this past Sunday's Tuscaloosa News." Anthony DiMaggio (CounterPunch) also weighs in on the issue of the editorials and points out, "Despite the increasing calls for withdrawal, detractors and supporters of the war in the mainstream press still agree on the veracity of the Bush administration's objectives in Iraq. The New York Times speaks with romanticism and contradiction about the goal of making 'progress toward a stable, democratic Iraq' and 'stop[ping] the chaos from spreading," while concurrently striking deals with Iraqi Kurds to keep U.S. military bases in northeastern Iraq indefinitely. . . . The assumption common to all of these editorials is that the US is somehow working as an honest broker in Iraq, trying to prevent civil war, rather than incite it. The reality is quite the opposite. The United States is the primary force responsible for the destabilization of Iraq; it disbanded the Iraqi army, dismantled the government, and set the stage for the power vacuum that resulted in the political and military battle between various Iraqi militias who are still vying for power to this day."
In US election news, John V. Walsh (CounterPunch) has issued a call for Ralph Nader to launch a presidential campaign and to do so now. Walsh notes the momentum Nader built in the 2000 election: "In 2000 when Nader's influence was felt, Gore clearly won the popular vote, both nationwide and in Florida. Unfortunately Gore's lack of backbone and the Dems' failure to use a filibuster to prevent the packing of the Supreme Court with right wing theocrats resulted in the theft of Gore's victory. Then in 2004, when the Democrats and their lapdogs like Katrina Vanden Heuvel at The Nation managed to marginalize the antiwar Nader while endorsing the prowar Kerry, Bush actually won the popular vote!" On Monday's Democracy Now!, Amy Goodman spoke with Ralph Nader on a number of topics. We'll close with covering elections, dirty-dealings and healthcare:
AMY GOODMAN: The Independent unannounced: Ralph Nader.
RALPH NADER: Too early to say. It's too early to say. If I was going to run -- and I have not decided at all -- the biggest problem is getting on the ballot. The Democrats filed twenty-one phony suits against us. We won most of them, but it was very draining. In Pennsylvania, they got a Democratic judge, using a Republican law firm, Reed Smith, to assess me and Peter Camejo $81,000 in transcription costs and handwriting expert fees for defending our right to be on the ballot, which they got us off through all kinds of shenanigans. First people in American legal history who had to pay court costs for defending their right to be on the ballot. So ballot access obstructions is the political bigotry of American politics. It's very hard to get liberals who love civil rights and civil liberties and who are Democrats to be at all excited about the systemic obstruction of fifty state laws at one level or another that can be used by either Democrat or Republicans against third-party candidates.
And historically, Amy, that's where all the great ideas came from. In the nineteenth century it was the anti-slavery party, the women's suffrage party, the farmer party, all the things we read about briefly in our history books that pushed these social justice movements before one or both of the two parties picked up on them. So they're -- you know what I like to say? What would happen to nature if it prohibited seeds from sprouting? What would happen if big business could totally extinguish small business? That's what the big two-party elected dictatorship is doing to a whole array of local, state and national candidates who would like to give the American people more voices and choices.
AMY GOODMAN: How do you think mass movements should organize themselves and hold politicians accountable, make them more accountable to citizen, civilian, non-citizen movements than corporations?
RALPH NADER: Well, let's start with the easy things, like half of democracy is showing up. So why don't workers who have lost their jobs or their pensions to industries that have gone to communist China with US Department of Commerce subsidy and encouragement, why don't they mass and rally? I mean, who's keeping them from rallying and massing? American Idol? Is that what's doing it? I mean, let's stop making excuses for ourselves. Let's take the farmers, the dwindling number of farmers. They have great important causes that mesh with environmental causes at times, and the whole issue of genetic engineering and the dispossession of the small family farm by the big suppliers corporations and the big buying corporations. Why don't they come to Washington, the way they did twenty years ago with their tractors? Show up!
Why, for example, can't a coalition of existing groups -- the Urban Coalition, the NAACP, the trade unions, the consumer, the environmental groups, the neighborhood groups -- in each city sponsor auditorium sessions for the major candidates or whatever candidates they want to invite that are going through New York or Boston or Houston or Denver or Los Angeles or St. Louis or Miami? They couldn't turn them down. And they could say, "We want you to be here at the auditorium to respond to our agenda. We're the ones who are going to say no. We're the ones who are going to say yes."
AMY GOODMAN: I want to end with healthcare, I think one of the critical issues of the day that is so rarely explained. If there was a healthcare system in this country that you designed, what would it look like?
RALPH NADER: Well, it would look like full Medicare for everybody, whereby the government is the payer. The government now pays over 50% of the healthcare bill. Huge amount of waste in fraud inflicted by these corporations on Medicare and Medicaid, for example, drug companies getting all kinds of corporate subsidies. So the government is already over 50% -- federal, state and local government. So it's full government -- it's called a single payer, which means it can almost eliminate $200 billion of computerized billing fraud and abuse, which has been documented by the General Accounting Office and by the leading expert on this, who should be on your program, Malcolm Sparrow, a lecturer at Harvard University. And when I said, "$200 billion, Mr. Sparrow? Every year?" he said, "That's the lowest estimate." That's just computerized billing fraud and abuse in the healthcare industry.
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