Posts from — May 2006

McCain just can’t stand the thought that his best friend, the Shrubbery, might not get everything he wants.

In this Associated Press story, Front-runner to lead CIA draws fire, we learn:

Support from McCain
Hayden has his defenders on Capitol Hill. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he hopes he could be confirmed.

“In all due respect to my colleagues – and I obviously respect their views – General Hayden is really more of an intelligence person than he is an Air Force officer,” he said on “Face the Nation” on CBS. “I think that we should also remember that there had been other former military people who have been directors of the CIA.”

So, John, you weren’t really in the Navy, you just drove airplanes and the uniform was a convenience? “If you don’t drive boats, you’re not in the Navy” makes as much sense as “If you don’t drive airplanes you’re not in the Air Force”.

You don’t think that lower ranking personnel salute Hayden? You don’t believe he’s subject to the UCMJ? You don’t think he earned his rank or his medals?

As for other “former military people” having government jobs after they leave the service, that’s true. We even let “former military people” run for the Senate. There are no restrictions on “former military people”. The restrictions are on current military people in the regular forces, and there are a lot of them, which you should remember, unless you weren’t really in the Navy.

CBS News says: 5 Arab Men Detained After Flight Lands.

The later CNN story explains: Men detained 3 hours for school materials.

FBI: Israeli, four Angolans on airliner posed no threat
…
Five airline passengers speaking in foreign languages and carrying “aircraft flight materials” were briefly detained Saturday until authorities determined they were simply returning to their home countries after attending a U.S. helicopter training school.

Educated Angolans speak Portuguese, tend to be Catholic, and are definitely not Arabs. As for the Israeli…

Glenn Greenwald reports that the Shrubbery is thinking of appointing General Michael V. Hayden, Negroponte’s deputy, to be the next Director of Central Intelligence.

[It just occurred to me that this is another “Harriet Meirs” appointment – the next name the Shrubbery heard when told of the vacancy.]

Billmon’s article, Rumsfeld Über Alles, talks about the conflict between Rumsfeld and Negroponte over control of the intelligence system.

Hayden is an active duty, serving officer of the military. He may be taking orders from Negroponte at the moment, but Rumsfeld controls his rank and his pension.

The CIA and the DoD do not have a close and friendly working relationship. The CIA is not going to appreciate a serving officer as its head, and Hayden can’t act independently while he is in uniform.

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. [Matthew 6:24 KJV]

Scout caught a short piece about Chertoff wanting embed reporters at natural disasters.

It won’t work. Reporters want to be where the action is, and I think Katrina made it quite clear that FEMA and Homeland Security are totally incapable of finding out what is going on. Without independent reporting they wouldn’t have had any idea what was really happening in New Orleans.

It took multiple media outlets and live images to convince DHS and FEMA that there were people at the New Orleans Convention Center.

Given their track record, FEMA will be lucky if anyone bothers to attend their press conferences.

Digby has a post about an active-duty Air Force major general engaged in blatant political activity using government facilities.

Major General Jack J. Catton Jr. has broken his dead father’s code of conduct. His father, General “Black Jack” Catton was commander of the 15^th Air Force when I was in the service, and he was a very “by the book” officer, as befits a product of Curtis LeMay’s Strategic Air Command.

From the Washington Post article:

Catton urged his classmates to support Bentley Rayburn, a recently retired Air Force general seeking the Republican nomination for a House seat being vacated this year by Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.). Hefley’s district around Colorado Springs includes the Air Force Academy, several military bases and the headquarters of Focus on the Family, James Dobson’s Christian broadcasting organization.

Both Catton’s e-mail and an accompanying note from Rayburn portrayed him as a candidate who would represent the military and conservative Christians.

“The lack of any Air Force presence within the Congress was particularly telling over the last few years,” Rayburn wrote, referring to controversy over proselytizing at the Air Force Academy and new Air Force regulations on religious expression. “For those of us who are Christians, there is that whole other side of the coin that recognizes that we need more Christian influence in Congress.”

First of all Congress is lousy with “Christian influence”. The whole Republican Party is beholden to the Religious Reich. You couldn’t swing a dead rat in either house of Congress without hitting someone ready to “speak in tongues”. I realize that criminal investigations are reducing their number, but there is a higher percentage of “Christians” in Congress, than in the country.

If these guys were worried about representing the Air Force, why didn’t they come up with some cash for Michael C. Francisco [Lieutenant Colonel, USAF retired] when he challenged Jeff Miller in the First Congressional District of Florida. Catton was stationed here at the time. Francisco got minimal support from retired officers, and was hurting for money.

Catton needs to be nailed to put an end to this type of misconduct.

The Florida legislative session is over and they haven’t totally destroyed the state, but not for a lack of trying.

Now we must wait for the “Special Sessions” which cost us an obscene amount of money, so they can fix the mistakes that occurred in the last minute rush.

At Pacific Views Natasha was talking about the Iran Freedom Support Act in Congress.

She provided a link to a BBC site on the Iran government. If you look at the graphic and follow the links you will discover that the capo di tutti capi of Iran is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader. He controls the military.

At number two is Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who was defeated in the 2005 presidential elections by Mahmoud Amadinejad. Rafsanjani is deputy chairman Assembly of Experts and chairman of the Expediency Council. The Presidency would have been icing, but he already owns the cake.

The way the system works, Amadinejad has slightly less power in Iran than Queen Elizabeth has in Britain. He is essentially a contact person for all of those annoying people who want to say something to the government of Iran.

The Assembly of Experts gets to select the Supreme Leader, and the Expediency Council mediates disputes between the legislature and the Guardian Council.

Amadinejad isn’t a cleric, so he’s ineligible to even belong to the real power centers in Iran. This structure shows why the former reformer president, Mohammad Khatami, couldn’t institute any reforms.

Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin was the titular head of the Soviet Union from 1919 until his death in 1946. After 1938 his job tile was changed to President. The name of the city of Koenigsburg on the Baltic was changed to Kaliningrad to honor him. He is buried in the Kremlin. Almost no one knows who he was. That’s the kind of power Amadinejad has, so let’s just ignore him and he’ll disappear into history.

CNN reports on the results of the second autopsy on Martin Lee Anderson: Boot camp guards killed teen

Hillsborough County Chief Medical Examiner Vernard I. Adams conducted a second autopsy after Anderson’s family, other medical experts and civil rights leaders balked at the conclusion of the first examination.

“Martin Anderson’s death was caused by suffocation due to actions of the guards at the boot camp,” Adams wrote.

“The suffocation was caused by manual occlusion of the mouth, in concert with forced inhalation of ammonia fumes that caused spasm of the vocal cords resulting in internal blockage of the upper airway.”

The best I can say about these people is that they weren’t trained, except there was a nurse there and she should have known that if someone is having trouble breathing, covering their mouth and using an ammonia capsule is not the answer.

The mindset is that the inmates are slackers who need discipline, which is probably true for 90% of the inmates, but there is the other 10% that is the real problem. If Anderson did have sickle cell anemia, as claimed by the Bay County medical examiner, he wouldn’t be in shape for the physical activity of the camp and that should have been part of his medical record.

Just in via NPR news on the radio, Porter Goss has resigned as Director of CIA.

You have to wonder if it involves “poker parties” that Goss “absolutely, positively, unequivalently didn’t attend”…really…honest.

Experience the mind of the Culture Ghost.

It’s no fair looking in comments.

It is interesting that Wikipedia has had to “lock” its Cinco de Mayo page. I suspect it may be related to the sudden appearance of sites opposing the celebration of this semi-holiday.

In Mexico Cinco de Mayo or Batalla de Puebla, is only really celebrated in the state of Puebla, where the battle took place.

The Mexican army won on May the 5^th, 1862, but on May the 8^th the attack resumed and the French Foreign Legion captured Puebla and then went on to Mexico City.

It has the status of St. Patrick’s Day in the US, an excuse to eat different food, and drink different booze, and be obnoxious show an interest in other cultures.

Margaritas, tacos, and the destruction of piñatas, that’s what it is really about.

Three on a Ladder

Look Mom, the axe murderer!

[Editor: The Lone Ranger and two kittens atop a four-foot step ladder. I have no idea why the kittens are so paranoid, or how they managed to squeeze on the top step.

Friday Ark

Major General Rick Lynch thinks that running a blooper reel helps the cause: Outtakes show al-Zarqawi as poor gunman.

Yo, Rick, if al-Zarqawi is such a loser, why haven’t you caught him? Did he just “accidentally” kill dozens of our troops? Who thought showing your enemy as an incompetent would improve your ratings?

General, al-Zarqawi may be a klutz, but he’s apparently smarter than you are.

The latest CNN “QuickVote”: Would it be a problem for you to be the world’s richest person?

There would be one major problem: I don’t have the money.

If George Soros or Warren Buffett would like to adopt me, I could probably adjust.