The 11 o'clock News

McNasty with Cheese

Forget the polls. It's over but the shoutin' and the sceamin' in the Barack Obama -John "McNasty" McCain race.  Former Reagan chief of staff and ultimate GOP insider Ken Duberstein (Franklin and Marshall '65) intends to vote for Democrat Barack Obama.  Duberstein said he was influenced by another prominent Reagan official - Colin Powell - in his decision. Duberstein said  expects Obama to win comfortably.

"Well, let's put it this way - I think Colin Powell's decision is in fact the good housekeeping seal of approval on Barack Obama."

Powell served as national security advisor to Reagan during Duberstein's tenure as chief of staff.

"There will not be a comeback curmudgeon by the name of John McCain,'' said Duberstein, who estimates that Obama will take between 320 and 350 electoral votes." 

Duberstein said the next administration ought to begin developing a plan during the transition ``and start selling it to the American people, so that when come Jan. 20 and the inauguration, an awful lot of the spadework has been done -- not just on the proposal, but also on working with people on Capitol Hill.'

"One of the real challenges is going to be to keep everybody focused on Senator or President-elect Obama's agenda, and not the leadership or the Democratic rank-and-file in the Congress who may want to push him a little bit more to the left,'' said Duberstein. ``He's going to have to learn how to say `no' to some of his strongest supporters in Congress.''

Duberstein said the Bush administration ``by and large, is over, absent a major security crisis,'' and ought to focus now on ensuring a smooth transition.

On Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, Duberstein agreed the first-term Alaska governor had proved a liability to her party's ticket.

"She is viewed, increasingly, as somebody not experienced enough to be president of the United States, which is the sole criterion to be vice president,'' said Duberstein.

"If there's a major turning point in the campaign, her selection, which was received so gloriously'' by the Republican convention in Minneapolis, ``probably turned out to be the beginning of the end,'' he said.

"I think it has very much undermined the whole question of John McCain’s judgment. You know what most Americans I think realized is that you don’t offer a job, let alone the vice presidency, to a person after one job interview. Even at McDonald’s, you’re interviewed three times before you get a job."

The end.

PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES WORLD CHAMPIONS

The Curious Case of the Anthrax “Investigation” – Part 2

The Hunt for the September-October Anthrax Killer

In the Government’s never ending story, The Hunt for the September-October Anthrax Killer, the case against Dr. Bruce “Crazy” Ivins reads like a Tom Clancy novel, you know…CIA fiction.   The Government’s story, which will not be judged by a jury,  has plot holes that rival those in Clancy’s “Hunt for Red October.”  The Government’s  circumstantial case against Ivins rests heavily on motive, specifically, why did he travel hundreds of miles to Princeton University  to mail his poison pen letters? 

To help to understand the plot holes in the Government Anthrax investigation one needs to read the Bible – i.e. the Screenwriter’s Bible by David Trottier – to learn about common screenwriting tools such as MacGuffins and plot devices.

A MacGuffin is an object which drives the actions of the characters, but whose actual nature is not important to the story; another object would work just as well, if the characters treated it with the same importance.

A plot device is an element introduced into a story solely to advance or resolve the plot of the story. In the hands of a skilled writer the reader or viewer will not notice that the device is a construction of the author; it will seem to follow naturally from the setting or characters in the story. A poorly-written story, on the other hand, may have such awkward or contrived plot devices that the reader has serious trouble maintaining suspension of disbelief.

MacGuffin 1:  Government investigators had an explanation for why Ivins drove hundreds of miles to mail the anthrax letters from a particular mailbox in Princeton,New Jersey: they said it was located across the street from  college sorority Kappa Kappa Gamma,that Ivins had a grudge and obsession with for many years.  The Government said  “a sorority that sits less than 100 yards away from the mailbox from which he is said to have sent the letters.”

BUT the Associated Press reported Kappa Kappa Gamma did not have a Princeton University house for its members at all.  The mailbox is near where the sorority has a storage unit for its initiation robes, rush materials, and other property.  

While Government investigators apparently didn’t know that fact, Ivins apparently did. The New York Times reported Ivins had visited Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority houses at universities in Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia but the last such visit was in 1981.

MacGuffin 2:   The Greendale School   return address? The U.S. Attorney had circumstantial evidence linking Ivins to Greendale.  Ivins was a frequent contributor to the American Family Association of Tupelo, Miss.  In October 1999 the American Family Association wrote a newsletter about a dispute between the Wisconsin Department of Human Services and parents of students at Greendale Baptist Academy. The U.S. Attorney's office called this a "possible link" between Ivins and the name Greendale. Nothing about the return address on the anthrax letter marked  Franklin Park made sense. Franklin Park is located in FranklinTownship ; the zip code on the letter was South Brunswick. There is no Greendale school in the area. There is a Greenbrook School  in South Brunswick.

Interestingly, this MacGuffin was also the “circumstantial” link to the other “mad scientist” who John Ashcroft acknowledged as a “person of interest”.  During the investigation of Dr. Steven Hatfill it was learned that he attended medical school in Rhodesia in the 1980s and the campus bordered a suburb called Greendale.

Plot holes? What plot holes?

And yet the Government still asserts absent the PU motive the evidence against Ivins as “overwhelming, any chance at full certainty was lost when Ivins took his own life in July, said Ed Montooth, the FBI special agent in charge of the investigation the bureau dubbed "Amerithrax."  "We were truly disgusted after we knew he had killed himself," Montooth said, "because we knew the only way we'd have justice was to be in court."

Will someone please take the FBI up on Montooth's offer? 

Holt for 1 too?

"I would like to have had the evidence tested in a court of law," Congressman Rush Holt said. "This is playing out in the court of public opinion and not in the court of law. The American way is to allow the accused to rebut the case in court. Of course, this guy never will."

Who writes this stuff?  Perhaps the answer lies with "Red October".

Capt. Bart Mancuso: Central Intelligence Agency... Now, there's a contradiction in terms.

Jack Ryan: I'm not an agent, I just write books for the CIA..

The Anti-Midas Touch

When historians assess the legacy of George W. Bush and the decline of US as a Superpower, there will be some who will take a cheap shot and dredge up Bush’s unfortunate association with “The Pet Goat” on 9-11 as the turning point in our country’s future.  But I prefer to remember the Bush legacy as a perverse Greek fable of King Midas: "The Anti-Midas Touch" 

The latest victim of the Bush Anti-Midas Touch:  the economy. 

Golden Girl Dana Perino warned  US yesterday to prepare for a sharp rise in layoffs and unemployment, amid fresh warnings of a painful and lasting recession. Dana said former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan was right to warn, in testimony to a US congressional panel, of what he called "a significant rise in layoffs and unemployment."

"I think that that is right. And I think that's what we have been saying”.

Say what?  Oh really.  Didn’t seem not so long ago Dana was saying the economy was …golden.

"I don't forecast recessions," Dana said, but "looking at reality  and how long it's going to take for people to return this country to job growth, it could be a while."

Remember this is from the guys “that make their own reality.”  

So add the US economy to the Bush Anti-Midas Touch list:  9-11, Iraq, Katrina, the Constitution, our privacy, our kids’ future.

What happened to our Golden Girl?  Perhaps she was just a victim of the Anti-Midas Touch.

“Angler” on the Hook for US

A “must read” to help US understand the stormy seas that we find ourselves - Barton Gellman’s informative “Angler.”  “Angler” is Dick Cheney’s Secret Service code name.  (Interesting names these SS guys give out; perhaps Johnny McCain should reconsider that “I’m not George W. Bush, I’m a Maverick” slogan.)

By hook or by crook: According to Gellman, the downfall of US began as a fishing expedition in 2000 when  “W” aka “Maverick” allowed “Angler” to bait and switch the vice-presidential vetting proc­ess.  Angler was assisted by that fishy David Addington, who threw the candidates back one by one after noting their blemishes.  Of course, Angler would have been rejected by his own standards if he was required to answer his own questionnaire, let alone supply medical or financial records.

Shark infested waters:  Angler knew the dangerous sea of politics of Washington.   He was not a fish out of water and he knew the entrenched government agencies were filled with traitorous liberals.  A Cheney ally explains to Gellman that the State Department is “basically an Al Qaeda cell.”  Richard Haass, then the director of policy planning at the State Department, was generally viewed as an enemy agent:  Cheney’s office was requesting secret National Security Agency transcripts of Haass’ conversations abroad.  “In the first term,” Gellman writes, “most White House staff members were unaware that many of their e-mails were blind-copied to Cheney’s staff.” The snooping habits of these aides prompted their “nervous counterparts” at other agencies to call them the Watchers.

We got to get a bigger boat:  Much attention has already been devoted to the administration’s malignant torture and surveillance policies, erected on the wobbly boat of a monarchical view of the presidency.  But Gellman reveals that the F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller  was not about to go down with the boat and was prepared to resign rather than accede to an extension of a surveillance program that was Cheney and Addington’s brainchild.   Bush realized he was in over his head and headed back to the  shore of legality in the face of this rebellion — which Cheney had hidden from him.  It wasn’t until the Republican debacle in the 2006 midterm elections that Maverick finally realized Angler was going to sink them all.   

Call me Fishmeal:  Is it too late for US all?   Let US not forget that great American fishing novel, “Moby Dick.”    Perhaps “Angler” is a modern day Ahab, driven by a maniacal desire to conquer his enemies he lost to in his last voyage under the fateful ship, Nixon.   Jack Goldsmith, a former Justice Department official who helped lead the revolt against the surveillance program, put it to Gellman, “they were principled to the point of being stupid, holding fast to hard-core views of unilateral executive power even when they led to self-­defeatingly adverse political consequences for the presidency.”

... to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.

The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung.

“LOST” in Space: Lookout Hollywood, Here Comes Bollywood

Attention World’s Superpower: While you “LOST” your kids’ inheritance on the Derivative Meltdown and the Iraq Fiasco, your competition, India, was working on leaving US in the dust, specifically MOON dust.   

Item: The Chandrayaan 1 Moon Craft" spacecraft blasted off from the Sriharikota space center yesterday in southern India , kicking off a two-year mission aimed at laying the groundwork for further Indian space expeditions.  Chief among the mission's goals is mapping not only the surface of the moon, but also what lies beneath. A principal objective is to look for Helium 3, an isotope which is very rare on earth but is sought to power nuclear fusion and could be a valuable source of energy in the future, some scientists believe.   Helium-3 is quite precious, 100 times more valuable than gold.    Helium-3 is clean and less radioactive than uranium and thorium. It is estimated the Moon could have one million tons of Helium-3.

Item:  “LOST” in space race – As China and India are racing to the moon,  from 2010, when NASA shuts down the space-shuttle program, to 2015, when the next generation of American spacecraft is scheduled to arrive, the US expects to have no human flight capacity and will depend on Russia to get to the $100 billion station, buying seats on Soyuz craft as space tourists do.

(Spoiler Alert:  The exploration of the moon and the need for new energy sources such as Helium -3 play a significant role in “LOST”, the sci-fi drama of the survivors of flight 815.)

Of course, controlling space is about much more than manned spaceflight and races to the moon. But putting — and sustaining — humans in orbit goes to the heart of being able to repair complex space-based assets. And manned missions to the moon are the ultimate proof of concept for sustaining human life in space. Though this may ultimately ring hollow in the current day and age, it is a display of national purpose that will become increasingly necessary for those nations that intend to compete in space as the orbit around Earth becomes increasingly crowded.

Though the world is still a long way from territorial claims and debates over mineral rights on the moon, Washington intends to have a foothold on the ground when that conversation begins. Chinese and Indian moves toward a foothold will only heighten the sense of urgency for the United States.

The next race for the moon is just beginning to take shape.  The question is whether it will be a friendly one.

If the war in Iraq was about oil, what will happen in space when the oil wells run dry?

 

Follow the (Hedges) Money

- Chris Hedges 

“Andrew Lahde, the Santa Monica, Calif., hedge fund manager who made an 870 percent gain last year by betting on the subprime mortgage collapse, has abruptly shut down his fund, citing the risk of trading with faltering banks. The follow excerpts are from his farewell letter to his investors:

“The low hanging fruit, (i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale, and then the Harvard MBA) was there for the taking,” he said of our oligarchic class. “These people who were often truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government. All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America."

“Democracy is not an outgrowth of free markets. Democracy and capitalism are antagonistic entities. Democracy, like individualism, is not based on personal gain but on self-sacrifice. A functioning democracy must defy the economic interests of elites on behalf of citizens. This is not happening. The corporate managers and government officials trying to fix the economic meltdown are pouring money and resources into the financial sector because they only know how to manage and sustain established systems, not change them. Financial systems, however, are not pure scientific and numerical abstractions that exist independently from human beings."

"We may elect representatives to Congress to end the war in Iraq, but the war goes on. We may plead with these representatives to halt Bush’s illegal wiretapping but the telecommunications lobbyists make sure it remains in place. We may beg them not to pass the bailout but 850 billion taxpayer dollars are funneled upward to the elites on Wall Street. We may want single-payer, not-for-profit health care but it is not even discussed."

"The working class, which has desperately borrowed money to stay afloat as real wages have dropped, now face years, maybe decades, of stagnant or declining incomes without access to new credit.

The national treasury meanwhile is being drained on behalf of speculative commercial interests.

The government—the only institution citizens have that is big enough and powerful enough to protect their rights—is becoming weaker, more anemic and less able to help the mass of Americans who are embarking on a period of deprivation and suffering unseen in this country since the 1930s.

Consumption, the profligate engine of the U.S. economy, is withering. September retail sales across the U.S. fell 1.2 percent.

The decline was almost double the 0.7 percent drop analysts expected from consumers, whose spending represents two-thirds of U.S. economic activity.

There were 160,000 jobs lost last month and three-quarters of a million jobs lost this year.

The reverberations of the economic meltdown are only beginning."

Sound familiar?

"I do not know. But I do know that what is coming, as long as our oligarchy remains in charge, will not be good. We will either recover the concept of the public good, and this means a revolt against our bankrupt elite and the dynamiting of the corporatist structure, or we will extinguish our democracy."

 

VP In Waiting

Let US assume hypothetically enough voters buy the Obama anti-American crap the GOP is selling these days and Johnny and Sarah become the proud new owners of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  Let US also assume that, for whatever reason, Johnny cannot fulfill his duties as POTUS and Sarah replaces him.  Enter Section 2 of the 25th Amendment: "Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress."  (Remember when Gerald Ford nominated Nelson Rockefeller as vice president?)

Who then would be ready, willing and able to take Ms. Minnesota-accent’s place as VP?   Well, look no further than Minnesota:  It’s Michele Bachmann of the House of Representatives. 

Ms. Bachmann deserves it.  After all, she is the one leading the call to arms against  “The ONE” and those dangerous types of Americans, you know…liberals.  Witness her Paul Revere/Joe McCarthy role on MSNBC’s “Hardball” last Friday.   Bachman’s MSNBC attack started out as the tired old “Obama loves Bill Ayers and Rev. Wright” that went over like a lead balloon.  Sensing Chris Matthews was not responding, she switched gears, attacking Obama for being “the most liberal senator in the United States Senate”.  Then she hit her stride – We need an investigation by the MEDIA of Congress, including Sen. Joe Biden, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Harry Reid, and the rest of the subversives that threaten our bodily fluids.

My, oh my, how back to the future we have come and gone.  We’ve managed to construct a political discourse in which any criticism of American policy is instantly construed as anti-American. It’s no different than calling someone who opposes the Iraq war “anti-troops.”

So the “change” the Republicans seek is to return to those halcyon days of the “Say it isn’t so, Joe (McCarthy)?” 

What the fearful Sarahs and Micheles don't understand is critiquing American policy doesn’t make someone anti-American. That critique is vital to a healthy democracy. It’s the opposite that’s dangerous: If we don’t bother to think critically about our country’s direction, we’re susceptible to, say, being suckered into a war of choice on false pretense.

Of course, we are too smart to fall for that, right?

The Curious Case of … the Anthrax "Investigation" - Part 1

Assuming the polls are accurate, it is likely Barack Obama will become our next president.  If/when he does take office, Obama will face several serious threats to this country’s future:  An economy on life support, an unprovoked war that has damaged our standing in the world, allowing a resurgent international terrorist group that will very probably strike US again in the near future.  But perhaps the greatest threat to this country is one the Government apparently is determined to make US forget:  the domestic and international terrorists who were behind the Anthrax Attacks of 2001.

The following analysis of the Anthrax Attacks suggests the “poison pen letters”   were part of an international coordinated effort to lead the country into an unjustified war against “Islamofascism”, along with the Italian Niger Yellowcake forgeries, the Mohammad Atta non-meeting in Prague with Iraqi agents and the “Curveball” intelligence that a gullible Sec State sold US at the UN. . If so, the “truth” and some very dangerous people are still out there.  Where does this sordid trail lead?  As in another conspiracy the FBI did its best to ignore,  as Deep Throat advised,  “follow the money.”

“We are not alone”:  The investigation into the anthrax mailings has drawn harsh reviews from critics in recent Senate and House hearings, such as Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who questioned whether one person could have carried out the attacks.  The Justice Department publicly named Bruce Ivins as their lead suspect in the attacks in August, days after his suicide.  Ivins' attorney, Paul Kemp, says his client was innocent and suggested many researchers had access to the anthrax identified by genetic fingerprints.

Reasonable Doubts

The Department of Justice says it is confident that Ivins sent the letters containing powdered anthrax that killed five people in 2001. But because Ivins allegedly committed suicide, (he did not leave a suicide note) his guilt or innocence will never be determined in court.  This begs the question, if Steven Hatfill had cracked under Government pressure and “committed suicide”, would Ivins be alive today?

In disclosing its evidence against Ivins, the government links the anthrax used in the attacks to a sample Ivins created. But Ivins' lawyer, Paul Kemp, says "dozens . if not hundreds" of scientists, contractors and others used that same anthrax.

The curious case of the Anthrax investigation has many unresolved issues that would cause a reasonable one to concede there is a “reasonable doubt” as to Ivins’ guilt, such as:   

“Weird Science”

According to the USA Today, the FBI never examined anthrax samples from the 2001 contamination of a bio-defense lab that was covered up by their lead suspect in the anthrax mailings -- a decision that one of the FBI's leading anthrax experts calls "weird."

FBI investigators have not yet analyzed the genetic fingerprints of 25 anthrax samples supplied from the lab contamination investigation, says Vahid Majidi of the FBI's Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate.

"They're still in my lab," says Paul Keim, a microbiologist.. Keim called the FBI's decision not to examine the contamination samples "weird" given the intensity of investigators' focus on biodefense researchers, which included polygraphs of Army institute researchers.

"I don't know" why the FBI never analyzed the 2002 anthrax in Ivins' office, says Debbie Weierman of the FBI's Washington Field Office. "Suspicion on him was immense, if you look at this in hindsight."

"Why didn't the FBI analyze it? One presumes this was pretty relevant evidence," says bio-defense analyst Michael Stebbins of the Federation of American Scientists

"It raises questions about systematic errors in the FBI investigation."

The 11 O clock  News will attempt to shine a light on these “systematic” (read: systemic)  errors.

"When you have one of the first brains of Europe  up against you, and all the powers of darkness at his back, there are infinite possibilities." – Sherlock Holmes

"It Was a Mad, Mad, Mad World", Edie Adams

Actress and singer Edie Adams, who won a Tony Award for bringing Daisy Mae to life on Broadway and who played the television foil to her husband, comedian Ernie Kovacs, has died.

A liberated woman decades before the movement, the multi-talented Ms. Adams was a survivor.  She single-handedly repaid the  IRS a half million dollars in back taxes after Ernie's death. That tapped into her years of selling Muriel Cigars in TV commercials.  She also successfully raised three girls. Two were from Ernie's first marriage.

Edie's film career was prolific with over 20 titles but it was her performance as Monica Crump, Sid Caesar's wife,  in 1963's "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" that was her most high profile one.

"It was a gift," she says, referring to working in the film soon after Ernie's death. Though grieving, it helped to be surrounded by the biggest names in comedy. I love to be around funny men; Sid Caesar and Ernie were very similar in their comedy."

Edie fondly remembers her "Mad World" co-stars Phil Silvers pulling pranks on a scene-stealing Milton Berle, and Jonathan Winters.

"Ethel Merman was intimidated by Jonathan," Edie recalls. "This loud, blustery Broadway legend was totally soft spoken around Jonathan (off camera), and would leave the area when Jonathan was coming near."

The shy Pennsylvania girl raised by "strict Hessian parents" hit the big time in show business, despite a controlling mother who advised her daughter to seek nothing more than to "sing a pretty song and wear a pretty dress."   

She was 81.