New York and New Jersey lead the way

NYTimes

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will break the lease of a big container terminal at Port Newark to stop a company based in Dubai from taking over part of the operation there, the agency's chairman said yesterday.

"Fundamentally, this is a landlord-tenant dispute," said Mr. Coscia, who is a lawyer. "We're terminating their lease because they sublet illegally."

There was no pending dispute with the operators of the container terminal before the Dubai deal surfaced. But, Mr. Coscia said, the lease states that a tenant must get the agency's approval of a transfer of ownership interest.

"Our approval wasn't sought, so we haven't provided it," he said.

Good on yer, City Slickers. Go with what ya know.

Hoist by his own fearmongering

I've been waiting for days for Paul Krugman to weigh in on the seaport deal. I'm not disappointed.

The storm of protest over the planned takeover of some U.S. port operations by Dubai Ports World doesn't make sense viewed in isolation. The Bush administration clearly made no serious effort to ensure that the deal didn't endanger national security. But that's nothing new - the administration has spent the past four and a half years refusing to do anything serious about protecting the nation's ports.

So why did this latest case of sloppiness and indifference finally catch the public's attention? Because this time the administration has become a victim of its own campaign of fearmongering and insinuation.

Now comes the port deal. Mr. Bush assures us that "people don't need to worry about security." But after all those declarations that we're engaged in a global war on terrorism, after all the terror alerts declared whenever the national political debate seemed to be shifting to questions of cronyism, corruption and incompetence, the administration can't suddenly change its theme song to "Don't Worry, Be Happy."

Mr. Bush shouldn't really be losing his credibility as a terrorism fighter over the ports deal, which, after careful examination (which hasn't happened yet), may turn out to be O.K. Instead, Mr. Bush should have lost his credibility long ago over his diversion of U.S. resources away from the pursuit of Al Qaeda and into an unnecessary war in Iraq, his bungling of that war, and his adoption of a wrongful imprisonment and torture policy that has blackened America's reputation.

But there is, nonetheless, a kind of rough justice in Mr. Bush's current predicament. After 9/11, the American people granted him a degree of trust rarely, if ever, bestowed on our leaders. He abused that trust, and now he is facing a storm of skepticism about his actions - a storm that sweeps up everything, things related and not.

He should be facing impeachment and a rope. Please go read.

What it does...

I've tried (along with most of the reality-based veterans) to give folks a taste of what it's like in combat and the effects of that on the human mind in the years that follow, dealing with post traumatic stress disorder and the effect it has on the vet and their family. In light of the South Dakota abortion ruling (hateful cocksuckers), ReddHedd relays a personal experience and illustrates the after effects of rape are almost the same as combat troops face:

...

As I said, I was young -- but despite how horribly brutal the rape was, I was lucky. I never had to face the choice of an abortion because I did not get pregnant. Thank God.

But every single time I hear someone talk about being pro-life without giving a thought to the woman involved, I cringe. Because I could have easily been impregnated against my will. Violently, viciously impregnated.

And now, some young girl in South Dakota who is raped and finds herself pregnant will be forced to carry the child of her rapist, feeling it grow and move, a daily reminder of the rape -- with the flashbacks, the terror, the nightmares, the gut-wrenching fear -- everything that you have to overcome after being raped, along with handling the emotions and the responsibilities that come along with a pregnancy. [my em]

...

And again, the loudest voices in the 'pro-life' movement are men, the group most uniquely unqualified to comment on the female experience. The 'pro-lifers' merely want to keep women from having sex and punish them if they do. Being forced to carry the child of your rapist, I believe, is criminal in itself.

...

Last I checked, rape and incest victims didn't ask for the violent, terrifying, horrible action taken against them. But clearly someone in South Dakota disagrees.

...

You might as well send these poor women to Iraq. The effect on them will be the same.

Update:

Democratic Veteran adds his two cents.

Fire me up...

First thing in the morning. I see this at Atrios and it makes my blood boil:

I wonder if we'll ever really get the full story of why Hitchens still, in his own weird way, defends David Irving. Obligatory disclaimer: I of course think having laws which lock people up for odious speech is a really bad idea.

But there really is no distinction between "Holocaust Denial" and "Holocaust Revisionism," except to the extent that the latter is an attempt to put a legitimate gloss on the former, sort of like the difference between young Earth creationism and creation science.

...

First off, Hitchens is a drunken idiot. He defends this:

...

In a 1991 speech, Irving said, "Until 1988, I believed that there had been something like a Holocaust ... but [in] 1988 ... I met people who knew differently and could prove to me that story was just a legend."

In 1990: "The holocaust of Germans in Dresden really happened. That of the Jews in the gas chambers of Auschwitz is an invention."

And, again, in 1991: "More women died on the back seat of Senator Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick than died in the gas chambers of Auschwitz."

...

I've been to the camps. I've seen what was done in the name of 'racial purity' and it's why these skinheads in this country piss me off so much. As a German, I've seen what fanatics did to the land I love, the place of my ancestry. I go to the graves of relatives lost who were conscripted into the army to defend that horror. And I've seen what Germans have done to ensure it never happens again. When some drunk defends a denier, an idiot who actually sees some good in Hiter's policies, it makes me nuts. Yes, the curtailing of free speech should be bothersome to us, but you're not allowed to yell 'fire' in a movie theater either.

Farwood

I got a kick out of this one Mrs. G sent me in an e-mail:

FARWOOD

"Hello, is this here the Sheriff's Office?"

"Yes. What can I do for you?"

"This here is Floyd. I'm calling to report my neighbor, Virgil Smith. He's drillin' holes in his farwood and hiding drugs inside!"

"Thank you very much for the call, sir."

The next day, the Sheriff & his deputies descend on Virgil's house. They search the shed where the firewood is kept.

Using axes, they split every piece of wood, but find no drugs. They sneer at Virgil and leave.

The phone rings at Virgil's house.

"Hey, Virgil! This here is Floyd. Did the Sheriff come?"

"Yeah!"

"Did they split yer farwood?"

"Yep!"

"Happy Birthday, buddy!"

(Who says rednecks aren't real bright?!)

Heh. Good thing they didn't notice the meth lab in the kitchen, huh?

How Neo-Cons Sabotaged Iran's Help on al Qaeda

Or, "Ideology trumps reality". From IPS News:

The United States and Iran were on a course to work closely together on the war against al Qaeda and its Taliban sponsors in Afghanistan in late 2001 and early 2002 -- until Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stepped in to scuttle that cooperation, according to officials who were involved at the time.

The bureaucracy recognised that there was an opportunity to work with Iran not only on stabilising Afghanistan but on al Qaeda as well. As reported by the Washington Post on Oct. 22, 2004, the State Department's policy planning staff had written a paper in late November 2001 suggesting that the United States should propose more formal arrangements for cooperation with Iran on fighting al Qaeda.

That would have involved exchanging intelligence information with Tehran as well as coordinating border sweeps to capture al Qaeda fighters and leaders who were already beginning to move across the border into Pakistan and Iran. The CIA agreed with the proposal, according to the Post's sources, as did the head of the White House Office for Combating Terrorism, Ret. Gen. Wayne A. Downing.

But the cooperation against al Qaeda was not the priority for the anti-Iranian interests in the White House and the Pentagon. Investigative journalist Bob Woodward's book "Plan of Attack" recounts that Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen J. Hadley, who chaired an inter-agency committee on Iran policy dealing with issues surrounding Afghanistan, learned that the White House intended to include Iran as a member of the "Axis of Evil" in Bush's State of the Union message in January.

So they offered help and we told 'em to get fucked so the Chimp could look like a big man. No wonder they're tellin' the West to get fucked now.

We certainly have a buncha dildos in charge of our country. Please go read the rest.

Veep was gooned up

Got this from Lurch at Main and Central. Lurch says:

Capitol Hill (yeah - I know) reports this morning that Secret Service agents in Mr Cheney's security detail have filed multiple reports that Mr Cheney was drinking on the hunt and was in fact as drunk as a Republican left alone in a cash room at a casino.

Secret Service agents guarding Vice President Dick Cheney when he shot Texas lawyer Harry Whittington on a hunting outing two weeks ago say Cheney was "clearly inebriated" at the time of the shooting.

Agents observed several members of the hunting party, including the Vice President, consuming alcohol before and during the hunting expedition, the report notes, and Cheney exhibited "visible signs" of impairment, including slurred speech and erratic actions.

According to those who have talked with the agents and others present at the outing, Cheney was drunk when he gunned down his friend and the day-and-a-half delay in allowing Texas law enforcement officials on the ranch where the shooting occurred gave all members of the hunting party time to sober up.

The prez and The Dick love to go to Texas. They can get drunk as lords, with all kinds of folks - donors, henchmen, cops, doctors, cronies, etc. - to cover up their their knee-walkin', commode-huggin', drunken indiscretions and keep 'em out of the public eye and/or from bein' charged with anything. Beats the shit outta soberin' up in jail like us peasants get to do, huh?

Poetry

I think these are way bitchin'. From Firedoglake:

The bronze medal goes to:

The Ballad of Swagger and Scowler

They came from Wyoming and Texas, addicted to
power and drink;
They bullied and lied, they tortured and spied till most folks
were too scared to blink;
But when Scowl shot a hunter he thought was a bird and
Swag let New Orleans drown,
Folks finally saw what these guys really were: a crusty old
coot and a clown.

by a littlemusicalityplease

In second place, and by only the smallest fraction (one vote), our silver medalist is:

An accident it must have been,
And not a planned attack
Because Dick shot him in the face
Instead of in the back.

by rageneau

And the gold goes to:

If epitaphs were polygraphs,
This, terse and edifying,
Would crown the veep in final sleep:
Here lies Big Time--still lying.

by 88

Yella...not

The most excellent Friend o' the Brain, Patrick Yelladog, has gone through some changes. The best is that his software will let me commment again. Go take a look.

Bend over . . . continued

That Rethug bankruptcy law? Remember when we all said the only people it will hurt are the ones who really need the help? Well...

...

"Contrary to the claims of proponents of bankruptcy-law changes that they would zero in on the alleged legions of 'deadbeats,'" the new law is doing no measurable good, said Brad Botes, executive director of the bankruptcy lawyers' group. "Instead, (it has) put new hurdles in the path of people who are already flat on their back due to financial crises over which they have no control."

...

Details at CorrenteWire.

Of their own making

Suckers see what they get now for letting the Chimp run roughshod over their authority:

...

SANTORUM SAID: "RED FLAGS WENT OFF" ON PORT DEAL BUT VOTED AGAINST PORT SECURITY SIX TIMES.

...

FRIST CALLED FOR DELAY OF DUBAI DEAL BUT VOTED AGAINST PORT SECURITY SIX TIMES.

...

CHAFEE SAID DEAL "SHOULD BE VETTED PROPERLY" BUT VOTED AGAINST PORT SECURITY FIVE TIMES.

...

Thanks to His Most Exalted King of Zembla for the link.

The question

I know I've been asking it for a few years now.

...

If the president is above the law, what would stop him from canceling elections until his declared WAR is over?

That's it. That's the central question here. Is it a hypothetical? They assert that Bush is above all laws, that the never-ending "war on terror" gives him the right - the responsibility - to do anything he feels is necessary, and that the only recourse we have is trust in his wisdom.

...

I've had a bad feeling about this for a while. Personally, I don't think Chimpy Inc. will go quietly. I guess the upside of the Iraq War is that with all our National Guard troops over there, there aren't enough here for Bush to effectively declare martial law.

G.O.P. to W.: You're Nuts!

Maureen Dowd on Portgate. Thanks, Tennessee Guerilla Women.

Same old pattern: a stupid and counterproductive national security decision is made in secret, blowing off checks and balances, and the president's out of the loop.

Was W. too busy not calling Dick Cheney to find out why he shot a guy to not be involved in a critical decision about U.S. security? What is he waiting for — a presidential daily brief warning, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack U.S. Ports?"

Mr. Bush is hoist on his own petard. For four years, the White House has accused anyone in Congress or the press who defended civil liberties or questioned anything about the Iraq war of being soft on terrorism. Now, as Congress and the press turn that accusation back on the White House, Mr. Bush acts mystified by the orgy of xenophobia.

Lawmakers, many up for re-election, have learned well from Karl Rove. Playing the terror card works.

A bristly Bush said yesterday that scotching the deal would send "a terrible signal" to a worthy ally. He equated the "Great British" with the U.A.E. Well, maybe Britain in the 12th century.

One of the real problems here is that this administration has run up such huge trade and tax-cut-and-spend budget deficits that we're in hock to the Arabs and the Chinese to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. If they just converted their bonds into cash, they would own our ports and not have to merely rent them.

Just because the wealthy foreigners who own our debt can blackmail us with their economic leverage, does that mean we should expose our security assets to them as well?

Now, however, the president has pulled us together. We all pretty much agree: mitts off our ports.

I got a couple ports I wish ol' MoDo would control...

Also, more Cafferty on the deranged port deal.

"How do you know his life would have been good?"

This video will piss you off even more than you are now. A Tip o' the Brain to Sis.

Marriage Contract

Try gettin' yer ol' lady to sign this. If she does, drop her like a hot rock fer bein' crazy. Thanks, Cleek.

Lights...tunnels...

Heh...

Who's Counting Bush's Mistakes?

Stephen Pizzo, that's who:

Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best, "The louder he spoke of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons." And no administration in U.S. history has spoken louder, or as often, of its honor.

So let us count our spoons.

And count 'em he does. Funny thing, but I always look at the flatware in restaurants. They're all from China and Korea.

He counted the spoons a coupla days ago, so he didn't put in the port fiasco. Other than that, not much new, but it's all on one page.

I wonder what apparel he took off to count that high? Blush!

Bits 'n Pieces (Like Our Ports Might End Up)

Sirotablog

The dirty little secret behind the UAE port security flap

Politicians and the media are loudly decrying the Bush administration's proposal to turn over port security to a firm owned by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) - a country with ties to terrorists. They are talking tough about national security - but almost no one is talking about what may have fueled the administration's decision to push forward with this deal: the desire to move forward Big Money's "free" trade agenda.

There is no better proof that our government takes its orders from corporate interests than these kinds of moves. That's what this UAE deal is all about - the mixture of the right-wing's goal of privatizing all government services (even post 9/11 port security!) with the political Establishment's desire to make sure Tom-Friedman-style "free" trade orthodoxy supersedes everything. This is where the culture of corruption meets national security policy - and, more specifically, where the unbridled corruption of on-the-take politicians are weakening America's security.

The fact that no politicians and almost no media wants to even explore this simple fact is telling. Here we have a major U.S. security scandal with the same country we are simultaneously negotiating a free trade pact with, and no one in Washington is saying a thing. The silence tells you all you need to know about a political/media establishment that is so totally owned by Big Money interests they won't even talk about what's potentially at the heart of a burgeoning national security scandal.

Here's a blast from the past:

The Central Intelligence Agency did not target Al Qaeda chief Osama bin laden once as he had the royal family of the United Arab Emirates with him in Afghanistan, the agency's director, George Tenet, told the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States on Thursday.

Had the CIA targeted bin Laden, half the royal family would have been wiped out as well, he said.

Here's the kicker from Americablog:

Bush didn't even know about the deal with the UAE that's he is now defending

Kinda sums up the whole Bush administration. Now the White House says Bush didn't even know about the UAE port security deal til it was a done deal. But he's going to defend it -- even to the point of a veto:

President Bush was unaware of the pending sale of shipping operations at six major U.S. seaports to a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates until the deal already had been approved by his administration, the White House said Wednesday.

If this is White House spin to make Bush look better, they're wrong. It makes him look even worse and more out of touch. They've screwed up again.

Lemme see if I got this: Big Money wants to give away - pardon me, sell, they never give nothin' away - our National Security and Bush has to go along or they'll take away the shiny toy they bought him - the United States of America. They're so sure of their ownership of him that they they don't even bother to tell him! (Note: I don't believe that part but it may be true.) The CIA, who will happily blow away whole neighborhoods of common folk if there's the teensiest chance to get #862 in the line of Osama's No.2s & 3s, won't (more likely told not to) target Osama himself because they might get four or five of the Chimp's daddy's business partners. Is that about it? Am I missing anything? Of course I am, but I'm sure there'll be more later.

If the UAE, Dubai's Royal Family, the Carlyle Group, whoever, wants to open a chain of Al Qonvenience stores, that's one thing. Fine. Let 'em. But this port deal is absurd. Like Fixer says, after four years of Bush doing his best to turn the people of this country into stone pussies with fear of Arabs, Muslims, swarthy Middle-Easterners, anybody with dark skin terrorists to solidify his power, and then to hand 'em the keys to the whole East and Gulf Coasts (Two out of three ain't bad. The Chinese got my coast*.) and let 'em control what goes in and out of the U.S. is so patently, certifiably insane that it staggers belief to think that anybody could possibly be that stupid or incompetent. Well, if anybody could, it'd be the Bush administration, but I can't help but think there's more to it.

We ain't heard anywhere near the last of this amazing fuck-up. Get Bush's keys away from him. He's in no condition to keep driving this country. This could be the cliff we've been waiting for. Do we stop this bastard and his madness, or do we argue who gets to be Thelma and who gets to be Louise?

*Also Korea (South, I hope) and Singapore, I just found out.

Ports...again

A thought:

Think about this: we are so afraid of terrorists, that we have to kidnap people and jail them in secret prisons, keep innocent people in Gitmo, listen to people's calls without wiretaps, and buy bulletproof vests for dogs.

Yet, when the UAE, a country which defines the word shady, wants to run US ports, we're bigots for opposing this? I have no problem with Arabs. I have a problem with people who enable terrorists. Why doesn't President Bush[?]

...

Okay, some Kool-Aid drinkers I know were spouting the White House line yesterday - 'they're an ally in the War on Terra', 'if the Brits could run our ports, why can't the Doobies (whatever the plural of Dubai is)?', 'what, you don't like them just because they're Ay-rabs?' - like good little Faux News zombies. My response: You're even dumber than you look.

Look, I don't like the idea of the British operating our front gates. And yes, just because they are Arabs shouldn't disqualify them. I agree. The facts of anyone's birth should not be a consideration in this nation, but the ones who are hailing this deal are the same folks who constantly yell we should kill all the Arabs and take their oil for ourselves. These are the same ones who support the war in Iraq, want to nuke Iran, are anti-abortion, and want to marginalize gays. Now you're getting all 'civil rights' on us? Kiss my big white ass.

You want to make a symbolic gesture of goodwill toward the Arab world? Begin negotiations with Hamas in Palestine, pull our troops out of Iraq, press your Saudi buddies to clean up their human rights record, warn Israel to behave itself with regard to the Palestinians. That will go a lot farther to promote goodwill in the Arab world than allowing a bunch of uber-rich businessmen in UAE to run our ports. Trust me, the Arab Street doesn't give a shit.

What you are watching now is the White House getting bitten in the ass by their own bullshit and rhetoric. When you scare the Americans so badly over the course of four years, only the morons in this country believe our ports will be safe on your say so.

Update:

Joe must go.

When even Bill Frist, Dennis Hastert and Fox News have abandoned him on the matter of the ports, Commander Codpiece knows that Joe Lieberman can always be counted upon for the public fluff.

...

Cafferty

Link via Atrios:

Wolf, this may be the straw that finally breaks the camel's back, this deal to sell control of six US ports to a company controlled by the United Arab Emirattes. There are now actually Senators and Congressmen and Governors and Mayors telling the White House "you're not gonna do this." And it's about time. No one has said "no" to this administration on anything that matters in a very long time. Well this matters. It matters a lot. If this deal is allowed to go through, we deserve whatever we get. A country with ties to terrorists will have a presence at six critical doorways to our country. And if anyone thinks that the terrorists, in time, won't figure out how to exploit that, then we're all done. Nothing's happened yet, mind you, but if our elected representatives don't do everything in their power to stop this thing, each of us should vow to work tirelessly to see that they are removed from public office. We're at a crossroads - which way will we choose? [my em]

Jack and Olbermann should have their own show.