While hunting and pecking around Google News today, I found that,

On May 21, 2007, Kimball Electronics Group announced 214 workers will lose their jobs during the future closure of their Gaylord, Michigan plant. On July 31, 2007, The Department of Labor certified that the employees are eligible for benefits under the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which covers workers who lose their jobs due to increased imports or shifting of production to offshore locations.

On August 17, 2007, Maine's Governor John Balducci received word from the U.S. Department of Labor that about 150 workers who lost their jobs after the closure of the Domtar paper mill in Baileyville will be eligible for benefits under the Trade Adjustment Assistance Program.

On August 23, 2007, "Union and labor representatives at Fraser Papers Inc. told a U.S. senator, a workforce representative and local town managers Friday afternoon that the company needs assistance to retrain its remaining labor force and laid-off workers." At the Madawaska, Maine paper mill, "Thirty-six workers at the mill are finishing their final shifts this weekend, another 45 employees have accepted early retirement buyouts, and the possibility remains that as many as 24 more could be accepting packages in the coming months. Another 45 employees face losing their jobs in the next few months. At the end of the latest cost-cutting measures announced by the company, the Madawaska papermaking mill will employ 680 people. Just 10 years ago the company had 1,245 workers at the Madawaska plant."

On August 31, 2007 the Department of Labor certified that 100 plant workers at Wellstone Investors LLC in Eulala, Alabama "might have become unemployed as a result of increased imports."

On September 2, 2007, the Winston-Salem Journal reported that over 1,000 jobs have been lost in Mt. Airy, North Carolina as five plants closed down over the summer. Although many workers will be eligible for benefits under the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, I wish them good luck in finding new jobs. "The next wave of layoffs [in North Carolina] is well under way, this one among white-collar urban workers, with call-center workers, X-ray technicians and software programmers losing jobs to workers in such distant places as India and the Philippines." Finally, "Several major area employers in the region have decided that they can save money by contracting with companies overseas for information-technology services. A short list includes Aon Corp., BB&T Corp., Dell Inc., GMAC Insurance and Wachovia Corp."

On September 10, 2007, a meeting was scheduled to discuss the plans to close the Intec Groups Newton County, Indiana auto parts plant by the end of the year. Intec plans to "....lay off 99 workers by Oct. 1 and eliminate 170 total positions by December. "

On September 13, 2007, the Department of Labor approved Micron Technology's "...request for federal aid to help the more than 1,000 workers the company has laid off in the Boise area since June."

On September 14, 2007, the Republican-American News out of Waterbury, Connecticut reported that "A total of 33 employees laid off recently by Risdon International Inc. can apply for extra help while looking for work under a federal program that aids workers who lose their jobs because of foreign competition, state labor officials said."

On September 19, 2007, "....Carhartt Inc. officials told workers that 33 employees will be laid off, effective Dec. 31." The layoffs are necessary as the company converts the Galesburg, Illinois sewing plant to a distribution plant. "....although Carhartt manufactures more workwear in the U.S. than any company; 96 percent of the product produced domestically by the entire industry is made outside the U.S., making adjustments necessary."

On September 20, 2007, the Kansas City Star reported that (former Michigan governor) John Engler, the current president of the National Association of Manufacturers, seems to think that the American manufacturing industry is in pretty good shape right now. "...we think some of the fundamentals in the U.S. economy are still pretty strong as far as manufacturing is concerned." Engler said. He continued “Exports are up, and productivity is increasing for U.S. manufacturers. We just want to see steady progress being made.”

Whew!! Thank heavens for the reassuring words of John Engler! I was starting to get worried for a moment.

(Cross-posted at Carrie's Nation.)

Labels: employment, globalization, offshoring

Because this is the kind of tactic that Bush's private army, paid with OUR tax dollars, uses:

Iraqi investigators have a videotape that shows Blackwater USA guards opened fire against civilians without provocation in a shooting last week that left 11 people dead, a senior Iraqi official said Saturday. He said the case was referred to the Iraqi judiciary.

Iraq's president, meanwhile, demanded that the Americans release an Iranian arrested this week on suspicion of smuggling weapons to Shiite militias. The demand adds new strains to U.S.-Iraqi relations only days before a meeting between President Bush and Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said Iraqi authorities had completed an investigation into the Sept. 16 shooting in Nisoor Square in western Baghdad and concluded that Blackwater guards were responsible for the deaths.

He told The Associated Press that the conclusion was based on witness statements as well as videotape shot by cameras at the nearby headquarters of the national police command. He said eight people were killed at the scene and three of the 15 wounded died in hospitals.

Blackwater, which provides most of the security for U.S. diplomats and civilian officials in Iraq, has insisted that its guards came under fire from armed insurgents and shot back only to defend themselves.

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said Saturday that she knew nothing about the videotape and was contractually prohibited from discussing details of the shooting.

Khalaf also said the ministry was looking into six other fatal shootings involving the Moyock, N.C.-based company in which 10 Iraqis were killed and 15 wounded. Among the shootings was one Feb. 7 outside Iraqi state television in Baghdad that killed three building guards.

"These six cases will support the case against Blackwater, because they show that it has a criminal record," Khalaf said.

Labels: Blackwater, Iraq, war crimes

..film at 11.

Don't tell me this is about national security:

The U.S. government is collecting electronic records on the travel habits of millions of Americans who fly, drive or take cruises abroad, retaining data on the persons with whom they travel or plan to stay, the personal items they carry during their journeys, and even the books that travelers have carried, according to documents obtained by a group of civil liberties advocates and statements by government officials.

The personal travel records are meant to be stored for as long as 15 years, as part of the Department of Homeland Security's effort to assess the security threat posed by all travelers entering the country. Officials say the records, which are analyzed by the department's Automated Targeting System, help border officials distinguish potential terrorists from innocent people entering the country.

But new details about the information being retained suggest that the government is monitoring the personal habits of travelers more closely than it has previously acknowledged. The details were learned when a group of activists requested copies of official records on their own travel. Those records included a description of a book on marijuana that one of them carried and small flashlights bearing the symbol of a marijuana leaf.

The Automated Targeting System has been used to screen passengers since the mid-1990s, but the collection of data for it has been greatly expanded and automated since 2002, according to former DHS officials.

Officials yesterday defended the retention of highly personal data on travelers not involved in or linked to any violations of the law. But civil liberties advocates have alleged that the type of information preserved by the department raises alarms about the government's ability to intrude into the lives of ordinary people. The millions of travelers whose records are kept by the government are generally unaware of what their records say, and the government has not created an effective mechanism for reviewing the data and correcting any errors, activists said.

The activists alleged that the data collection effort, as carried out now, violates the Privacy Act, which bars the gathering of data related to Americans' exercise of their First Amendment rights, such as their choice of reading material or persons with whom to associate. They also expressed concern that such personal data could one day be used to impede their right to travel.

Last month Mr. Brilliant and I went to Jamaica. It was our 18th trip to that country. We go to Jamaica for a number of reasons, primarily because it's inexpensive to stay there, and there are places to stay where you never, ever have to get dressed up. Right now our favorite places to stay are here and here. Club Ambiance is great because we can book directly with the hotel (which is nice if you have to cancel for work reasons), you don't have to dress up at ALL, and you can do it for about a grand a head. Sunset at the Palms is a way to stay in Negril and enjoy that great beach and great sunsets without getting hassled as much as you can on Long Bay. It's a little pricier, but not much. But given Jamaica's reputation as a haven for hippies (one which really no longer fits), I'm sure that having a passport stamp for Jamaica every year is a red flag for the DEA. As a result, we're always very careful when we pack. For example, we usually bring coffee and a new, sealed package of nondairy powdered creamer, because we drink a lot of coffee while on vacation. And we leave it there because of the red flag that an open container of white powder would trigger.

It's a shame that you can't even vacation where you want to without worrying if it makes the government suspicious.

I'm also paranoid because of all this surveillance of dissidents. Every time I fly someplace, I'm amazed that I'm not on the no-fly list yet. I'm even careful about the books I pack. This year I wanted to bring the latest Jodi Picoult novel about a school shooting, and decided not to, for fear of the TSA deciding that I was looking to shoot up a school. I also don't bring any nonfiction political books. I can just imagine what having a copy of Armed Madhouse would do. I'm sure if they made me turn on my MP3 player, the preponderance of Air America podcasts would be a red flag.

Think I'm being overly dramatic? Guess again (this from the article cited above):

Zakariya Reed, a Toledo firefighter, said in an interview that he has been detained at least seven times at the Michigan border since fall 2006. Twice, he said, he was questioned by border officials about "politically charged" opinion pieces he had published in his local newspaper. The essays were critical of U.S. policy in the Middle East, he said. Once, during a secondary interview, he said, "they had them printed out on the table in front of me."

There is absolutely no reason why any of this stuff is necessary. It's none of the government's Goddamn business what I read or where I go on vacation or what I wear or what I listen to. They can say it's about finding patterns of behavior that might be somehow consistent with what their silly ideas of what a terrorist would do are, but there is no way I will ever believe that. Like everything this Administration has done since it decided to look the other way and let terrorists attack this country, it's about creating a police state where its own citizens have to live in fear of its own government.

Update: But wait, there's more! This via Jane at Firedoglake:

In a major shift, the National Security Agency is drawing up plans for a new domestic assignment: helping protect government and private communications networks from cyberattacks and infiltration by terrorists and hackers, according to current and former intelligence officials.

From electricity grids to subways to nuclear power plants, the United States depends more than ever on Internet-based control systems that could be manipulated remotely in a terrorist attack, security specialists say.

The plan calls for the NSA to work with the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies to monitor such networks to prevent unauthorized intrusion, according to those with knowledge of what is known internally as the "Cyber Initiative." Details of the project are highly classified.

As Jane says,

I’m sure the NSA is exempt from the politicization that every other department in the federal government has been subject to under the Bush administration, and that when they call anti-war activists terrorist sympathizers and traitors they are only kidding.

And who's coordinating the whole mess? Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell -- the same Mike McConnell who lied last month when he claimed that the intrusive FISA law passed last month helped facilitate the arrests of the so-called terrorists in Germany.

Labels: police state

Somehow I get the feeling that this is designed to allow the Bush Administration to claim Congress is on board when the inevitable bombing of Iran takes place:

Amazingly, no one anywhere in the US media seems to have noticed that yesterday Jon Kyl (Arizona) and Joe Lieberman filed an extremely threatening amendment on Iran to the FY 2008 Defense Authorization bill. I guess all their time was taken up with the earth-shakingly important issue of newspaper ads.

It's a "Sense of the Senate" resolution, which means it has no legal force, but as the Congressional Research Service will tell you, "foreign governments pay close attention to [such resolutions] as evidence of shifts in U.S. foreign policy priorities." If you want you can read it yourself (.doc), but here are the most important paragraphs:

(3) that it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies;

(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments, in support of the policy described in paragraph (3) with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies.

If something like this passes both the House and Senate, I think Bush could legitimately argue that between it, the War Powers Act and the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations to Use Military Force, he has all the authority he needs to attack Iran.

Labels: Bush Administration, insanity, Iran

Meet George W. Bush's privatized military:

Federal prosecutors are investigating whether employees of the private security firm Blackwater USA illegally smuggled into Iraq weapons that may have been sold on the black market and ended up in the hands of a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, officials said Friday.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Raleigh, N.C., is handling the investigation with help from Pentagon and State Department auditors, who have concluded there is enough evidence to file charges, the officials told The Associated Press. Blackwater is based in Moyock, N.C.

A spokeswoman for Blackwater did not return calls seeking comment Friday. The U.S. attorney for the eastern district of North Carolina, George Holding, declined to comment, as did Pentagon and State Department spokesmen.

Officials with knowledge of the case said it is active, although at an early stage. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, which has heightened since 11 Iraqis were killed Sunday in a shooting involving Blackwater contractors protecting a U.S. diplomatic convoy in Baghdad.

The officials could not say whether the investigation would result in indictments, how many Blackwater employees are involved or if the company itself, which has won hundreds of millions of dollars in government security contracts since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is under scrutiny.

Nice. This is how George W. Bush "supports the troops." He gives huge military contracts to a company that AT BEST isn't providing adequate oversight to its own employees. Like the president, Blackwater's "security" personnel in Baghdad operate without oversight and without accountability.

And Congress refuses to put an end to this. Unbelievable.

Labels: corruption, Iraq, NOW can we impeach?

The title says it all. Think, as Brent Budowsky invites us, what this could mean not only for the Democratic party and the candidates that we're fielding but also how it could help heal the wounds inflicted on this nation and perhaps even the ones inflicted by us on the world at large.

Well, winning the Nobel Peace Prize would be quite a way to finish a year that saw the former Vice President accept an Academy Award for An Inconvenient Truth, quite possibly the best environmental documentary ever committed to celluloid.

Yet at the risk of acting like a nay-saying cold blanket, I'd also like to remind Mr. Budowsky that when President Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize himself just five years ago, it was just over five months before our barging into Baghdad under the pretext of looking for WMD's that were even more non-existent than the al Qaida terrorists and Saddam's connection to them. The Republicans largely responsible for the most self-destructive and Draconian legislation in the history of our republic retook a majority in the Senate and tightened their grip on the House less than a month later. Over a month after that, Carter, in his acceptance speech, quoted Ralph Bunche who'd presciently said,

"To suggest that war can prevent war is a base play on words and a despicable form of warmongering. The objective of any who sincerely believe in peace clearly must be to exhaust every honorable recourse in the effort to save the peace. The world has had ample evidence that war begets only conditions that beget further war."

Obviously, those worthy words had fallen on deaf ears or those already dedicated to the incessant beating of war drums from both the White House and its stenography pool.

The 2002 midterm elections were essentially a hit job on Democrats unfairly blamed for September 11th as the 2006 midterm elections were more fairly a hit job on the Republican party for their own bungling on Iraq and their countless corruption scandals (indeed, it can be plausibly advanced that the last several election cycles have been motivated not so much by liberal progressiveness or conservative values as by fear and vengeance). Jimmy Carter's Nobel Prize, while certainly nice to gaze upon on the Democrats' collective mantle, did not in any way, shape or form elevate our nation's standing on the world stage, certainly not in the Middle East, nor did it help avert us by even as much as an inch from war with Iraq.

Granted, a lot has changed in the five years since President Carter won the highly prestigious award and perhaps if Vice President Gore follows in his footsteps it will restore some credibility and spread some desperately-needed salve on the wounds of the nation. And, on a more superficial level, it will also be heartening to think of the humanitarian efforts pursued by former Democratic Presidents and Vice Presidents who seem to become even more productive once they leave office (Habitat for Humanity, global warming, President Clinton's Climate Initiative, not to mention the work all three men have done for Hurricane Katrina victims), while Republicans like George Bush are already salivating over how much money they'll make on the rubber chicken circuit.

But another Democrat winning another Peace Prize will not do a damned thing for Iraq or Afghanistan or help bring back the one million people that we've directly or indirectly killed in those countries alone. And only a Pollyanna would believe that Gore being made a Nobel laureate would help avert us by even so much as that elusive inch from a new war, this one with Iran.

Here's the answer Alison Kohler, spokeswoman for the Fort Riley U.S. Army post, the cemetery of which is full, to overcrowding at the post's burial ground:

Fort Riley can bury bodies on top of other bodies if family members want to share a plot, said Kohler.

That's supporting the troops, Republican-style. Bury 'em in stacks. I never thought I'd ever agree with Pat Roberts and Sam Brownback on anything, but on this one I do: fund a new cemetery. Hell, I'll hold a bake sale to fund it. If this Administration won't respect these guys while they're alive, at least let's give them their own fucking gravesite.

Sheesh.

*Yes, this is sarcasm.

(via Cookie Jill at Skippy's place.)

Labels: supporting the troops

Few examples in recent popular culture have been able to encapsulate everything that's bigoted and narrow-minded and intolerant about American fundamentalist Christianity quite as well as last night's premiere episode of Survivor: China:



Leslie Nease, the woman who rudely walked out on a Buddhist welcoming ceremony because her religious faith is so weak that the mere exposure to the spiritual (note I didn't say religious) practices of others is sufficient to corrupt her own beliefs, has a Christian radio talk show in Charlotte, NC. She runs some kind of ministry called "Potential Unlimited" and has endowed herself with the title "AFC", which stands for "Ambassador for Christ." Nice fucking ambassador she is.

It's always cringeworthy to watch the American, largely actor/model contestants on this show, as they watch their first exposure to the local culture of the show's host country. That this group (which promises to be the most loathsome group of people in the show's history; Yau Man Chan, where art thou?) attended a Buddhist ceremony at the Mi Tuo Temple, when the Cbinese government has been doing its best to eradicate Buddhism in Tibet for years, and two cast members proceeded to walk out (Neese) and behave disrespectfully (New York waitress Courtney Yates, who ought to know better) is no small irony.

But the distasteful sight of Neese walking out of what was clearly explained was not a religious ceremony, but a welcoming one ("Na Muo A Mi Tuo Fu" being a verbal expression of compassion and respect) on the grounds that the ceremony represented "idol worship" was a harbinger of things to come this season. It is useful to note, however, that Neese's aversion to "idolatry" and spiritual traditions that are not hers, didn't extend to aversion to the show's immunity idol, nor did it extend to the immunity challenge's incorporation of elements of the Chinese Lion Dance, which in the Southern part of China, also has a close relationship with Buddhism.

You know, I can't begin to tell you how many Christian funerals and weddings I've sat through where the primary message from the guy at the front of the room was "Nyah nyah nyah, we're going to heaven and you're not" -- including that of my own father-in-law. I recently went to a Lutheran funeral where the Bashing of the Unconverted was so relentless that I too wanted to walk out. But I didn't, because there's such a thing as being respectful in someone else's house -- even if it's a house of worship. And especially if what you're attending is not a specifically religious ceremony.

As with so many American fundies, Nease's outrage is highly selective, and her strong religious belief doesn't find any problem with trashing a local culture while participating on a television game show where backstabbing your way into a million bucks is not just encouraged, but mandatory. And it took her five tries before making it onto the show, so she's been lusting in her heart for those million George Washingtons for a long, long time.

Labels: Christofascist Zombie Brigade, hypocrisy

As if it weren't bad enough that 2 million Iraqis (including Riverbend and her family) have become refugees as a direct result of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq, or that Iraqis have less electricity now than before the invasion, now the turning of that country into a third world nation as a result of Bush's utilization of the military to resolve his psychosexual issues with his father is complete.

They now have a cholera outbreak:

The World Health Organization confirmed on Thursday the first cholera case in Baghdad since 2003, raising fears the disease is spreading from the north of the country where it has struck more than 1,000 people.

A 25-year-old woman from eastern Baghdad was found to have cholera after she turned up at a hospital with severe diarrhea, said Dr. Naeema al-Gasseer, the WHO's representative in Iraq.

Cholera is a gastrointestinal disease that is typically spread by drinking contaminated water and can cause severe diarrhea that, in extreme cases, can lead to fatal dehydration.

The disease broke out in Iraq in mid-August, but had been confined to northern Iraq, affecting the provinces of Sulaimaniyah, Irbil and Tamim, which is home to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. At least 10 people have died, according to WHO.

Several suspected cholera cases also have been reported in Diyala province, north of Baghdad, but al-Gasseer said none had been confirmed.

Cholera is endemic to Iraq, with about 30 cases registered each year. But the last time there was an epidemic in the country was in 1999 when 20 cases were discovered in one day, said Adel Muhsin, the Health Ministry's inspector-general.

Al-Gasseer said health authorities were concerned the disease could spread because of the movement of people within Iraq's borders. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people have been forced to flee their homes because of violence.

A disease that would otherwise be easily treatable has been made all the more dangerous because of Iraq's precarious security situation following the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

And this is what insane Republicans (and cowardly Democrats) are perfectly willing to continue indefinitely.

It's appalling.

Labels: Iraq

What election cycle would be complete without the Republican candidates' squawking about government spending? And yet, I don't hear any of them talking about the massive squandering and outright disappearance of billions of dollars in taxpayer money into the black hole that is the Republican war in the Middle East:

Military officials said Thursday that contracts worth $6 billion to provide essential supplies to American troops in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan — including food, water and shelter — were under review by criminal investigators, double the amount the Pentagon had previously disclosed.

In addition, $88 billion in contracts and programs, including those for body armor for American soldiers and matériel for Iraqi and Afghan security forces, are being audited for financial irregularities, the officials said.

Taken together, the figures, provided by the Pentagon in a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee, represent the fullest public accounting of the magnitude of a widening government investigation into bid-rigging, bribery and kickbacks by members of the military and civilians linked to the Pentagon’s purchasing system.

Until the hearing on Thursday, the Army’s most detailed public disclosure about the scale of the problem was that contracts worth $3 billion awarded by the Kuwait office were under review.

At the hearing, a panel of high-ranking Defense Department officials described a war-zone procurement system in disarray. They said that the Pentagon failed to provide adequate training for contracting officers for their assignments, offered insufficient oversight of contracting officers’ activities and had not put in place early warning systems to catch officers who violated the law.

“In a combat environment, we didn’t have the checks and balances we should have in place,” said Shay D. Assad, director of defense procurement and acquisition policy. “So people who don’t have ethics and integrity are going to be able to get away with things.”

No, asshole, it's because of systemic and irredeemable problems with the Bush model of government, in which the coffers are the United States are thrown open for Administration cronies and campaign contributors to plunder at will, and in which government functions are privatized with zero accountability.

I wish that the voters who have been equating "government spending" with "welfare queens" ever since the Reagan Administration would take a closer look at how profligate Republicans are with their money, stuffing handfuls of it into the pockets of the richest Americans and into the coffers of those companies who best stand to profit off the Republican doctrine of endless war.

Labels: Bush Administration, corruption, Republicans

Well, I was going to put this together, but someone has already done a bang-up job of it.

Labels: Bush Administration, fascism

20 wussy-ass Democrats voted with Republicans to continue grinding American soldiers into empty husks, in a vote that actually was important:

The US Senate on Thursday crushed a latest, and largely symbolic attempt by anti-war Democrats to cut off funding for most Iraqi combat operations by next June.

Only 28 Senators, all Democrats, including presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama backed the measure, which fell 32 votes short of the 60 vote supermajority it needed to pass.

The bill, co-sponsored by Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and Senator Russ Feingold, would have allowed funding only for a strictly limited US mission, based on training Iraqi forces and targeted counter-terrorism operations.

Before the vote, Reid bemoaned the fact that Democratic attempts to force Bush's hand on the war had been rebuffed again and again.

"There is nothing the Democratic majority can do to force our Republican colleagues to vote the responsible way," he said.

But 20 Democrats also voted against the Reid/Feingold bill, reflecting the fact that many Senators are wary of being seen to cut off vital funding for US troops on a foreign battlefield.

And God forbid they should put out the effort required to explain how voting to end this God-awful war IS supporting the troops. That might actually take some work and a bully pulpit. It's just so much easier to just give in to a party of thugs and their sociopathic leader and continue to sacrifice American young men and women for nothing.

It's disgusting, repulsive, and reprehensible. I'd say may they all rot in hell if I believed in a hell other than the one that these cowards and the Republicans whose boots they're licking are creating right here on earth.

Labels: cowardice, Democrats, spinelessness

I don’t normally like to write alarming articles about bills that are being considered in either the U.S. Senate or House of Representatives, particularly during the early stages of negotiations. As my dad once said, he used to constantly get these email alerts begging him to call or fax his senator or representative right away about some huge issue before the world collapsed. My dad would usually do nothing, and Congress would usually vote the right way.

As early as today or tonight, our U.S. Senators could be voting on various proposals that would, in the words of NumbersUSA, "….when taken together, would grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens and dramatically increase the importation of foreign workers at a time 10 million Americans are looking for jobs and can't find employment." Naturally, since similar proposals were overwhelmingly rejected in June of this year, these proposals are in danger of being piggy-backed onto H.R. 1585, the Defense Authorization bill for fiscal year 2008.

I took notice after seeing how grass-root activism helped the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 go up in flames on the Senate floor on June 28, 2007. Among other measures, the Act would have raised the annual H-1B visa limits for "highly-skilled" workers from 65,000 to 115,000 per year. I knew that business oligarchs led by Bill Gates at Microsoft would not go away quietly. I also knew that these business leaders would use every means necessary, from soft-sell tactics to playing hardball, to get the visa limits raised this year. Knowing that stealth would be their weapon of choice, I resolved to keep my ears open for any new developments. I also resolved to get off my butt recently and start following this story a little bit more closely.

Here’s a little background on the whole saga. In 1990, thanks in part to my U.S. Senator at the time, Spencer Abraham (R-MI), Congress enacted the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1990, which established the H-1B category of "highly skilled" guest workers who were brought in to fill open positions due to a perceived shortage of qualified American candidates. The number of H-1B visas allowed per year fluctuated at various times between 65,000 per year to a peak of 195,000 per year. (Rob Sanchez has a nice history at his Job Destruction website.) From that point on, employers have been falling over themselves to slash as many American information technology and engineering workers as possible from their payrolls and give the jobs to lower paid and (often lower qualified) foreign guest workers, mostly from India.

When the Senate failed to approve the bill raising the H-1B limits to 115,000 in June as mentioned above, the assault began.

On July 5, 2007, Microsoft announced they were forced to open up a new software development office in Vancouver, British Columbia in order to get around the current visa limitation of 65,000 per year.

On July 10, 2007, Hillary Clinton made a video-conference speech to the Indian Institute of Technology 2007 Global Alumni Conference in Santa Clara, California, and affirmed her support for expanding the H-1B visa program.

On July 16, 2007, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent a letter to the U.S. Senate supporting measures for the "….temporary relief for companies in need of highly skilled workers."

On August 23, 2007, Microsoft filed a lobby registration form with the US Senate showing they were hiring the firm of SC Partners LLC for purposes of lobbying on issues surrounding H-1B visas and Green Cards for tech workers.

On September 11, 2007 (talk about horrible timing!), a bipartisan group of 13 governors sent a joint letter to the US House of Representatives and the US Senate urging our lawmakers to pass legislation to raise the H-1B limit to 115,000 visas.

On September 18, 2007, about 1,000 "highly skilled" legal immigrants rallied at the US Capitol in Washington, D.C. to "…protest long delays and vast bureaucratic backlogs in the immigration system." Paul Donnelly, one of the godfathers of the current H-1B system and now a consultant for American Families United, was quoted by the New York Times as saying. "It is a significant thing to have foreign-born people, who are notoriously hard to organize, organizing themselves." Oh, so this was a grassroots, spontaneous assembly, huh?

Not to mention various well-placed articles appearing here and there talking about the difficulties in hiring qualified people for tech positions, how the public school system contributes to our country’s failure to compete with foreign workers, and the benefits of free trade.

I’ve been vaguely disgusted with the U.S. visa policies for a number of years as I’ve seen high tech workers laid-off, forced to train their lower cost replacements, told their skills were irrelevant, told they lacked work experience after spending time and money to update their skills, and told they were overqualified on the rare occasion the potential employer could find nothing wrong with their work history. I’ve become a very recent convert in the drive against amnesty for illegal aliens when I started witnessing something I thought I would never see – highly educated American workers competing directly against illegal aliens for jobs in the building trades. Big government and businesses have been able to push around American workers for far too long now, and it’s time for all of us to put a stop to it.

Please don’t be afraid to contact your Senators and urge them to vote against any measure that would take away jobs from American citizens.

(Cross-posted at Carrie's Nation.)

Labels: employment, H-1Bs, Hillary Clinton, immigration, Information technology, Microsoft

I take back the nice things I said about Senate Democrats last night. They ARE a bunch of wussy-ass cowards:

Senate Republicans decided this week that they would not allow votes on substantive bills relating to Bush’s Iraq policy, but they will push a resolution condemning MoveOn.org for questioning the credibility of a general executing Bush’s Iraq policy. As of a few minutes ago, the gambit worked.

For procedural reasons, the Senate GOP was able to force its MoveOn resolution onto the floor this afternoon, but Senate Dems made it a little tougher for members by offering an alternative resolution. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) sponsored a measure that condemned all political attacks on U.S. troops. That included the “Betray Us” ad, but it also included smearing John Kerry in 2004 and attacks on Max Cleland in 2002.

[snip]

When Boxer’s amendment came to the floor, it needed 60 votes to pass. Republicans, regrettably, voted against the measure.

Shortly thereafter, Sen. Cornyn’s more narrow, anti-MoveOn measure received a vote, and passed easily, thanks to 25 Dems breaking ranks. The final tally was 72-25.

Barbara Boxer should be ashamed of herself. I realize that she's trying to play a "sauce for the goose" game here, but this is ridiculous. It's a fucking newspaper ad; an opinion ad, covered by the right of free speech -- the same right of free speech that allows Ann Coulter to call John Edwards a faggot and allowed Jesse Helms to say that if Bill Clinton ever came to North Carolina, he should watch his back. By going along with this, the Democrats play right into the Republican narrative.

That said, the Republicans look ridiculous here as well, while we're on the subject of wussy-asses. They're like the sniveling little kid who tattles on every other kid on the block when they don't play his way. They want to have it both ways on David Petraeus. On the one hand, he's this noble, tough military guy -- wearing the kind of drag that makes wingnuts go weak in the knees. On the other hand, he's this fragile flower who can't cope with having mean things said about him and needs Senate Republicans to protect him.

Petraeus' own boss called him "an ass-kissing little chickensh*t". And it appears that his own troops may have called him "General Betrayus" long before MoveOn.org did.

Maybe that explains why Republicans didn't want to vote to give the soldiers some respite between deployments.

Shame on the Democrats for caving in to this kind of nonsense. And shame on MoveOn.org if they give another DIME to any of them.

UPDATE: Great minds think alike.

Labels: utter horseshit

Sometimes, one locks the door and the truth smashes a window to break in. Minstrel Boy:

I'm dragging myself through the morning today. Muttering to myself. Slouching and bitching through the chores. In three short hours I will be playing yet another funeral for a fine young man who has fallen due to the misguided policy and schemes of George W. Bush and also because of the craven cowardice or callous cynicism of the Congress that refuses to do their duty and stop this shit.

I'm doing this because it fucking hurts. That's right. I'll say it again, I'm doing this BECAUSE it hurts.

It hurts to see that another young person has been brutally killed. It hurts to see the faces of the surviving family. It hurts to stand with honor guard and play sad songs on the harp and pipes. It hurts even more when it is the child of a neighbor, it hurts even more when it was a kid that I knew.

Want to know something else? It hurts even more when I'm going to or leaving something like that and realize that most of this country doesn't even know, or much care, how bad it hurts.

Damn it. Just - damn it.

Here's my challenge to you. Find a way to make this personal. Do like Jersey Cynic and Liz did over at BlondeSense did. They got out in the street to protest. They even got Jim Yeager of Mockingbird's Medley to join them. You know Jim. He used to blog as Mimus Pauly, now he's just doing it under his name.

Make it personal. Find a way to make this shit mean something deep inside you. Make it hurt. Then Do. It. Some. More. Feel the pain, feel the sadness when a 20 year old kid gets rolled over in a truck wreck. Then go to the next one. And the one after that. And the one after that.

Keep. It. Personal. Do that and you might find a way to ensure that this madness stops. Drag people along with you so that they know how much it hurts.

My cousin and his partner are coming to the funeral with me today.

That's two more people.

Maybe we won't stop this war. It has the distinct potential of stopping itself. The military can simply break down and cease to function like it did with Alexander. Of course, it just might get worse. Still.

I'm keeping it personal. I'm going to walk through the hurt, the grief, the pain and do what I can to make something, some fucking where a little better.

That's what I'm doing.

How about you?

Frankly, I don't know if I have the strength to do as MB asks, but he is right and I have to try.

How about you?

Crossposted at Poor Impulse Control.

Labels: Army Recruitment Incentives, clusterfuck, music, youth

At least until wingnuts stop calling for the assassination of anyone who doesn't march in lockstep with them?

Labels: Paul Krugman, wingnuttia

ESPN:

Owens fined 'thousands' for videotape TD celebration

IRVING, Texas -- After seeing the videotape of Terrell Owens' latest touchdown celebration, the NFL office wasn't laughing.

Owens said Wednesday he was fined "a good chunk of money" -- which he later defined as thousands of dollars -- for a celebration that included him using the goal post and football to poke fun at the New England Patriots' spying scandal during Dallas' 37-20 victory over Miami this past Sunday.

A league spokesman said the fine was $7,500.

"It wasn't even the fact I used the goal post as a prop," Owens said. "They said I used the ball."

Beyond being confused about what he can and can't do, Owens is frustrated by the league's policing of end-zone scenes.

"It's kind of hard to understand the rules," he said. "It's like you can't do nothing no more. ... Dude, it's like they're trying to find any way to take fun out of the game. So I'm kind of limited right now as far as what I can do."

T.O. plotted his celebration days before, after getting suggestions from callers on his weekly radio show. He said he likes making them timely.

Now, though, he's going to be more careful with what he does.

"Nothing's worth getting a fine for," he said.

Owens said he'll consider an appeal, but "it may not even be worth it."

How about saving his act until he gets to the sideline?

"I guess so," he said. "Next, they're going to be saying you can't go to the sidelines."

When the NFL passed the rule banning “prolonged and excessive celebrations” on the field or in the end zone, it would have been simpler—-and more honest--to call it the “Terrell Owens” rule.

You do know who Terrell Owens is, right? The World's Greatest Wide Receiver? If you're not sure, ask him. He'll be happy to grab a loudspeaker, stand in front of you and tell you how incredible he is over and over again until your ears drop off and whisper, “No mas, no mas” before they crumble into powder.

Yeah, I know this new rules also targets loudmouth narcissists like Chad Johnson and Steve Smith. However, when you compare their antics to the bizarro stunts Owens has pulled, those guys will just have to settle for a “Honorary Mention”. Hey, T.O. earned his plaque in the Egomaniacs Hall of Fame as a 49er when he celebrated a touchdown at Texas Stadium by dancing on the team's star logo at midfield. (But I'm sure Owens conveniently forgot how Dallas Cowboy George Teague smashed into him like a runaway truck when he tried to do it a second time. Ouch.)

Anyway, some fans, players and a few ESPN talking heads aren't happy about this. It's another example of the No Fun League turning the flamboyant rebels who make the game exciting to watch into bloodless automatons, they say. What's the big deal?

Well, if you ask me, one reason is that whenever I see these wanna-be comics do their routines (using a Sharpie to autograph the pigskin, talking on a cellphone after a touchdown or grabbing pom-poms and dancing with the cheerleaders), I always come to the same conclusion: They're not funny. Nobody's gonna be the next Chris Rock. None of them are quitting their day jobs to host a comedy special on HBO.

If any of these football players were contestants on America Idol, Simon would joyfully bludgeon them into pulp with a wisecrack gift-wrapped in barbed wire.

Other than sadists who want to watch their drunk friends loudly mutilate Bruce Springsteen's “Born In The U.S.A.” nobody goes to a karaoke bar to listen to music. So, applying the same logic, when I'm watching football, I don't need to see the amateur theatrics that unnecessarily slow down the game and piss people off. I just want to watch football, all right?

But the other reason why the media's canonization of T.O. bothers me so much is seeing the latest example of a contemporary African-American athlete who's controversial for the wrong reasons. And I believe there's a racist element of White America that likes it that way.

Although Terrell Owens hasn't kept his mouth shut, he also doesn't say anything that would cause those rich white men to stop signing his paychecks. In T.O.'s dictionary, what the word “controversy” means is being greedy, obnoxious and arrogant.

You want to shut Terrell Owens up? Ask him about Katrina, or the Jena Six or the war in Iraq.

Yeah, Owens pretends to be a snarling, bloodthirsty Rottweiler, but when his corporate masters are tired of the incessant barking and whack him on the nose, he gets quiet and does his business on the newspapers like he's supposed to. Do you think Rush Limbaugh smiled when he saw how T.O. betrayed Donovan McNabb by saying “I wasn't the guy who got tired in the Super Bowl” and unwittingly reinforced every negative stereotype about African-American quarterbacks? Way to go, Owens! Why should a racist bust his ass when you'll do the work for him instead, right? McNabb wasn't wrong when he called it a “black on black” crime.

No, T.O. ain't no rebel. Not to me, anyway.

He's housebroken.

Labels: NFL, Terrell Owens

Conspiracy? Or coincidence? You decide.

At the time of the 2000 election and its horrific aftermath, Mr. Brilliant was working for a small company populated by Very Conservative People, all of whom supported George W. Bush because it was good for their business. The sentiment they all had was that while they knew George the Younger was a dimwit, it was OK because the old man would really be running things.

In an article in Salon that demonstrates just how elaborate the apparatus in the White House is to feed the Dimwit-in-Chief's insatiable ego, Sidney Blumenthal explains how it all fell apart:

The elder Bush assumed that the Bush family trust and its trustees -- James Baker, Brent Scowcroft and Prince Bandar -- would take the erstwhile wastrel and guide him on the path of wisdom. In this conception, the country was not entrusted to the younger Bush's care so much as Bush was entrusted to the care of the trustees. He was the beneficiary of the trust. But to the surprise of those trustees, he slipped the bonds of the trust and cut off the family trustees. They knew he was ill-prepared and ignorant, but they never expected him to be assertive. They wrongly assumed that Cheney would act for them as a trustee.

Cheney had worked with and for them for decades and seemed to agree with them, if not on every detail then on the more important matter of attitude, particularly the question of who should govern. The elder Bush had helped arrange for Cheney to become the CEO of Halliburton, making him a very rich man at last. But Bush, Baker, Scowcroft et al. didn't realize that Cheney's apparent concurrence was to advance himself and his views, which were not theirs. When absolute power was conferred on him, the habits of deference lapsed, no longer necessary. ("Thank you for the privilege of serving today.") Cheney was always more Rumsfeld oriented than Bush oriented. The elder Bush knew that Rumsfeld despised him and that Cheney was close to Rumsfeld, just as he knew his son's grievous limitations. But the obvious didn't occur to him -- that Cheney would seize control of the lax son for his own purposes. The elder Bush committed a monumental error, empowering a regent to the prince who would betray the father. The myopia of the old WASP aristocracy allowed him to see Cheney as a member of his club. Cheney, for his part, was extremely convincing in playing possum. The elder Bush has many reasons for self-reproach, but perhaps none greater than being outsmarted by a courtier he thought was his trustee.

Labels: George W. Bush

One of the ways the Bush Administration was able to whip Americans into a fear frenzy after 9/11 was to release warnings of terrorists targeting "soft targets" like shopping malls and schools. It of course hasn't helped that incidents like the Virginia Tech shooting have fed these fears. But in a society in which parents outfit their kids in suits of armor before they allow them to ride a bicycle to a friend's house, there's nothing like terrorist threats against a school to tap into their worst fears.

Despite the strong, arguably strong-arm, influence of the local Democratic Party in Bergen County, and its relatively moderate social views, the county had enough casualties in the 9/11 attacks to make its residents sensitive to the possibility of terrorism hitting close to home. Not sensitive enough to go for George W. Bush in 2004, when John Kerry took 51.88% of the county's votes (after all, it IS a county of relatively educated people), but being a bedroom community for New York City gives us a certain sensitivity to the risk.

In this context, the fact that 10 area high schools are closed today because of a bomb threat yesterday doesn't even seem that much like an overreaction:

A bomb threat addressed to the mayor of Emerson set in motion a wave of school closings in 10 northern Bergen County towns that will keep more than 12,000 students out of class today.

School officials in Emerson closed the district's three schools and dismissed about 1,200 students shortly after 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, when they were told that an anonymous letter had arrived at Borough Hall. The letter warned that the borough's school buildings and two others in neighboring towns would be "blown out" at 11:30 a.m. today.

Because the other schools were not identified, Emerson police notified surrounding departments, officials said. Administrators in Oradell, River Edge, Closter, Demarest, Haworth, Harrington Park, Northvale, Norwood and Old Tappan followed Emerson's lead, suspending classes on Thursday as a precaution.

School officials also canceled today's classes at the Northern Valley Regional high schools in Demarest and Old Tappan, and River Dell Regional High School. In addition, administrators at some nearby private schools -- including Assumption Academy in Emerson and Bergen Catholic High School in Oradell -- decided to close today.

Carol Dray, the Emerson borough clerk, opened the letter Wednesday, Saudino said. The letter, addressed to Emerson Mayor Lou Lamatina, arrived in a small envelope with what appeared to be a computer-printed address pasted on the front, authorities said. The note inside also appeared to be computer-generated, and was pasted on a blank piece of paper.

"All three schools will be blown out on Thursday, Sept. 20th at 11:30 a.m., with two other schools in near by [sic] towns," the letter said.

The "20" was in much smaller type than the rest of the message, Saudino said, adding the note was sent to the Bergen County Sheriff's Office for forensic examination.

What's interesting is that two school districts -- Westwood Regional and Paramus -- both of which are within a few miles of Emerson, are keeping their high schools open today (though how many students will actually attend remains to be seen). It's also interesting that no one seems to be thinking "OH MY GOD IT'S AL-QAEDA!" -- for all that just about everyone in the county knows someone who either lost someone or has a friend or relative who lost someone in the 9/11 attacks. I think it's because the communities within commuting distance of Manhattan have the same fatalistic attitude that New Yorkers have -- we can't do anything about the risk, so what will happen will happen. We just don't have the luxury of living in obsessive fear, and because we tend towards liberalism, we don't want to give up our freedom for the illusion of security.

In all likelihood, the bomb threat is a prank by kids. But in the face of the recent rash of discoveries of tainted soil at local schools and the furor that generated, I can't fault school officials for preferring to err on the side of caution. Even if it's awfully convenient that it means the kids get a day off when it's expected to be 75 degrees and sunny in late September.

At first I thought that an article with the teaser line "Pasts Cloud Hopefuls' 'Bundlers" might actually be a balanced piece showing that Norman Hsu isn't the only controversial campaign donation bungler among the 2008 hopefuls. But the name "John Solomon" should have tipped me off.

Oh, there's passing mention of Alan Fabian, a bundler for Mitt Romney who was charged just last month in a 23-count indictment "alleging mail fraud, money laundering, bankruptcy fraud, perjury and obstruction of justice". But mostly it's about bundlers for Hillary Clinton and John Edwards (which shows you which of the candidates the hackocracy fears most -- Clinton because of her seemingly insurmountable campaign numbers and Edwards because of his obvious contempt for the punditocracy and advocacy for the middle class and the poor. And it of course drags out Useful Democratic Idiot™ Lanny Davis in an attempt to lend the whole hatchet job a thin veneer of credibility.

Missing is any mention of Ocean County Republican Chairman George Gilmore, a 2000 and 2004 Bush "Pioneer" who bundled more than $100,000 for George W. Bush in each of those election years. Gilmore is now a bundler for Saint Rudy of 9/11, but he seems to believe, like the late Leona Helmsley, that only the little people pay taxes.

Of course it doesn't matter that the entire system is rotten, what matters is that the Washington Post makes sure to taint Democrats -- and Democrats only -- in its quest to maintain the status quo in Washington. After all, the paper has worked very hard on its knees in front of George W. Bush for the last six years and doesn't want to lose the access it's gained as a result.

Labels: hack journalism

Ramesh Ponnuru in the New York Times:

As the Republican Party has gotten more socially conservative, its voter base has become lower in income.

You'd think its voter base would do the math already.

Labels: wingnuttia

...because this is the kind of stuff that could give me nightmares.

After the speech, I asked him about the best ways to spread democracy. “We have a variety of tools. Not all of them are hammers. Ronald Reagan deployed more of the array than many,” he said. Reagan used forceful rhetoric, but also small displays of force — shooting down Libyan jets over the Gulf of Sidra — to demonstrate American resolve.

“I don’t think you invade Iraq to bring liberty. You do it to eliminate an unstable regime and because sanctions are breaking down and you get liberty as a byproduct,” he continued. I asked him whether invading Iraq was a good idea, knowing what we know now. He looked at me for a bit and said, “I don’t know.”

The Secretary of Defense doesn't know whether invading Iraq was a good idea, despite the fact that he told Snuffalupagus on Sunday that he would recommend veto of the Webb Amendment if it had passed. Gen. David Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he didn't know if Americans were safer as a result of four years of war with a cost of over 3700 lives and tens of thousands of limbs, psyches, and ruined marriages and futures. Nobody knows why we're there, nobody knows if it was a good idea, nobody knows whether it makes us safer. And yet we're supposed to trust these guys in perpetuity that this war is necessary?

Labels: Bush Administration, incompetence, Iraq War, Robert Gates

Sometimes I think it's me; that I just don't do a good job managing time. I look at people who are on top of a story the minute it hits, and I wonder how they do it. I know that some of the Big Boiz make a living (such as it is) from advertising, but there are plenty of us out here who work Real Jobs and have lives and marriages and some have kids and other things that we do other than blog.

But it seems sometimes that others have a much easier time keeping on top of what's going on. It's not that my life has so many demands. I don't have kids that need help with their homework and rides to soccer practice. I'm an indifferent housekeeper at best. I don't have a long commute; at most it's 25 minutes. And yet most days, if I don't get with a story in the morning, I don't cover it till the next day.

It isn't that I sit staring off into space. I get up most mornings at 5:30 AM, have coffee and spend about eight minutes with Mr. Brilliant before he heads off for work. Then I have an hour and a half in which to read what's going on in the world, decide what to write about, and try to dash off 2-3 posts before either going for a walk or doing a half-hour of yoga before getting ready for work. I'm home by 6 PM, make dinner, clean up, watch Olbermann with Mr. B. and then either collapse into an unconscious heap or grab a few minutes of blog time -- which is what I'm doing now, when I should be working on my new template.

So those of you who DO manage to cover the news comprehensively and hold down a job, how the heck do you do it?

Tonight I really can't complain about the Democrats. Yes, the Webb Amendment was defeated, despite Olympia Snowe, Chuck Hagel, and Gordon Smith daring to risk the Wrath of the Bush Junta by voting with the Democrats in an effort to do the right thing. It's sad and it's tragic for the troops -- the soldiers being worn down to nothing by a president who cares only about trying to save his own legacy. But every Democrat plus Bernie Sanders did the right thing today in voting for the measure. Holy Joe Lieberman, of course, voted to continue to break the military, but that's expected of that particular piece of human excrement that continues to occupy the junior Senator seat from the great state of Connecticut.

But the important thing is that with this vote, the Democrats made sure that at least for now, Republicans own this war. That idiot Lindsey Graham (cue Sam Seder's sound clip of a closet door) blathered "The idea of winning the war in Iraq is beginning to get a second look." Then what the fuck have we been doing over there for four years? How many times does George W. Bush get a "do-over" in this war, using the blood of other people's children? I don't know who is giving "the idea of winning the war in Iraq a second look", when according to the latest Zogby poll, Captain Codpiece is sitting with a 29% approval rating overall and a 73% disapproval rating of the way he conducts his foreign policy; and in the latest USA Today/Gallup poll has 59% of Americans favoring a timetable for withdrawal. Still -- the Democrats did what they had to do: stand up for doing right by the soldiers fighting this war and dump their exploitation right in the laps of the Republicans. Call it stagecraft if you like, call it political posturing. If the Democrats don't have the votes to end this war, they sure as hell DO have enough votes to make damn sure that the Republicans who continue to support squandering America's future in Iraq have to take responsibility for what they support.

Similarly, the Leahy/Specter amendment to restore habeas corpus failed by four votes. That Republicans who claim to stand for the rule of law voted this down is even more disheartening, especially after a day that saw a college kid busted and tasered for the crime of being a pain in the ass. Americans are beginning...slowly...to recognize what the loss of civil liberties means. Whether it's enough to forestall the kind of police state for which the Bush Administration clearly salivates at the mere prospect remains to be seen. But again: if you don't have the votes, while it still matters that you didn't win, at least you made sure that it's Republicans that defecated on the Constitution, and it's Republicans who believe that nineteen guys with box cutters are enough to overturn not just the Constitution but the Magna Carta.

In making the Republicans own, as a party in its entirety, all of the most insane and egregious of the power-mad Bush Administration's policies, at the very least, it makes clear what voters' choices are going to be next year.

Labels: Democrats, habeas corpus, Iraq War, legislation

Maron & Seder: everyone's favorite liberal talk radio talk hosts who clawed their way to fame on Air America Radio by delivering the truth and the funny, are launching a new experiment in daring-do, anger, and magic, to bring their very own independent broadcast show, and their actual faces, into your homes and onto your players, via a new video-cast technology that Sam Seder has been playing around with on his much embattled and shuffled around, yet still beloved, Sam Seder Show/Seder on Sundays.


What started as the nicknamed SammyCam, was probably due more to Sam's love of tech and film making, and him trying things out than any grand plan to take over the world. But, it quickly turned into a fun and interesting glimpse into the inner workings of the technical side of broadcasting and also a live back and forth conversation with listeners during the breaks, with the audience on Sam's blog and instant messenger, with Sam making technical adjustments as he got feedback as to the video quality and streaming of the show, and also still talking politics. It seemed to me like it was only a matter of time before it took off, because Sam was running around YearlyKos 2 with a mission, trying it out during his audio interviews, (and Yes I did beg to sit in the corner of that room and watch, but he actually said...er...NO!...damn him!...not even for Joe Conason...)

I can only imagine how quickly this thing would have come together if Mark Green, the terrible new owner of AAR, hadn't taken Sam's daily slot away to give it to his buddy, who I wont even mention here because he makes me nauseous. But considering that he only had Sundays and a few odd trials, he has got it down pretty nicely.




















According to Sam himself, Marc Maron will be joining him on the unnamed-as-of-yet, experimental show that, though still in the planning stages, looks to be a must see/must subscribe to!
The duo will be trying out the format next Tuesday, September 25th, at 11AM EST, as they did this past Tuesday (Check Seder's page for an audio link to the rough first time trial... it will be posted soon,) with a dual screen, dual host, dual coast show, that will, when all the kinks get ironed out, offer a live version with viewer interaction,downloadable video on demand, guests, and who knows what else when you get those two together, working for themselves in a rather unregulated format. Expect politics and expect the funny...expect to feel better about the world in general. This thing will be available on a subscription basis, and I am so there, first on line, for it!
The details, such as cost and how subscriptions will be handled are still in their infancy....But I plan on supporting this no matter what cockamamie scheme they come up with.
Reached for comment for this piece on location in Vancouver, where he is performing at a comedy festival till the 22nd, Marc Maron said something to the effect of..."...its me and Sam on the screen talking about shit."...Which is code for Get ready for the Funny, People!!
More to come from the other coast as soon as he gets some ideas!!
Look for Marc at the UCB Theatre in LA on Oct. 5th and in NYC at Comix Oct 12th and 13th!
Check his page for details and additions!


I am just thrilled that out of the ashes of AAR we are going to see another interesting experiment...and who knows? Old Green might just figure it out somehow...I dunno...but miracles sometimes happen...right?


For a long time I've thought that this sorta streaming wireless content was going to be the wave of the future. I just finished listening to David Pogue's NY Times Circuits Podcast from August 17th, where he discusses radios that have WiFi chips on board. These chips make it possible to tune into any of thousands of streaming Internet radio stations or the Internet streams of terrestrial radio, not to mention podcasts, in pretty sterling clarity, depending on your WiFi setup or the public WiFi available.
I used to covet these very expensive and rare pieces of equipment, which were available at Dell for a while or on the Internet, but in short order, Air America Radio got killed by one Danny Goldberg and another Mark Green scavenging the wreckage, so I put it off until the prices came down.
Still, anyone who knows me knows that this is a big theme around here: Soon all phones will have these chips, all radios, even cheap ones, and thestartup streaming content sites will wrestle the cream to the top. To that end Ive been working towards starting up something myself with content produced by my grandfather. That is still in the air, and its very possible that the technology has already gone beyond that old time audio in that, here comeVid-casts for the YouTube generation. Its still going to be all about content and the quality of the content; the talent of the players.
The adoption of this technology will happen passively and be as successful with non-technical people as the tech designers are at integrating a search/scan, and save option into even the smallest transistor radio.
I believe that the future world will have cities and towns with fully free wireless, with America likely lagging behind in our struggle to re-regulate big business and get back to a population that knows whats going on. As more places like Cosi pop up, with their free WiFi and good coffee/better food/comfortable atmosphere and couches, its going to become more and more silly to pay a corporation via Starbucks $10 to get online for a day.
And I do believe, as does my friend from YK2, (who I imagine might be a blogger secretly, as he has a sensitive job but alot to say,) who has been struggling to bring WiFi to another large city, that it is possible. My exasperation with the city of Stamford is that their "free" WiFi that stretches through downtown, past UBS Warburg and on to the train station where the masters of the universe converge with their handhelds on their way to run with the bulls, runs just to the edge of the poor part of town, where too many people cant afford even cable TV much less a cable modem or even a dial up. Add to that the news that the library's hours have been cut back due to budget shortfalls that have hit the schools and public services pretty hard, and here we are.
So, with the understanding that things have to change and my sure feeling that they will first gradually and then all of a sudden, I've been keenly aware of what can be done with the emerging technology and how much of an investment it is in the future to try some of it out.

The other thing that is crystal clear is that the screen is here to stay, and that these shows do great if offered in audio or video versions. When theiPod Nano suddenly has a nice screen and the iPod itself has jumped generations by getting rid of that silly phone part and keeping the touch interface, I am positive that Sam and Marc are investing in the right area of this tech curve. Whats the worst that can happen? Wasted time? Streaming content for their own site? ...not so bad...and besides the fact that we need those intelligent and funny voices in the public discourse,
The obvious is to see the popularity of some of the shows out there like Ricky Gervais in audio, and Diggnation in audio or video (big or small....very cool!) You bring some people and sponsorship follows... or your subscriptions grow and you can offer more content.

This is one show that I will be watching develop.

Labels: Marc Maron, Sam Seder, technology

From CBS News:




...and my first thought on seeing this next one was "Why is John Rocker donating to the Jena Six? Maybe redemption is possible after all."

Some American Home Mortgage employees don't:

Bankrupt Melville-based American Home Mortgage is attempting to seize as much as $27 million that employees had set aside from their paychecks as retirement savings, and if it is successful, the workers may never see the money again.

In a flurry of objections filed in federal bankruptcy court here, employees around the country who contributed to AHM's deferred-compensation plan said its move to release the cash from a trust would put it in the hands of large creditors like banks and jeopardize their financial futures.

And the attorney for a group of former employees alleged AHM or its trustee for the retirement plan "may have acted inappropriately with regard to withholding distributions or encouraging contributions."

[snip]

The deferred-compensation plan enabled employees making more than about $200,000 per year to save money tax-free until they retired.

AHM has more than 1,000 creditors, some of which already have priority claims on the firm's assets and many of which are not expected to recoup any money.

Jeffrey Lewis, an employment benefits expert and partner with the Oakland, Calif., law firm Lewis, Feinberg, Lee, Renaker & Jackson, said it is not unusual for plans available only to select employees to end up in the hands of general creditors when companies go bankrupt.

"It's an unfortunate fact," he said. "They just don't meet the requirements for a regular, qualifying pension plan, and therefore the money is subject to the recapture of creditors."

Lewis said this would not be the first time American Home Mortgage has misled employees about retirement benefits. In 2003, he represented a group of loan officers hired when AHM acquired the retail branches of Principal Residential Mortgage Inc. He said AHM wooed employees by making promises about how it would contribute to and administer the new employees' 401(k) plans. The lender ultimately settled for about $2 million.

I don't know how many companies have this kind of self-administered 401(k) plan, and it could be argued that it's hard to feel sorry for people making over $200,000 a year selling bogus mortgages to people who can't afford them. But it seems to me that if an employee -- any employee -- can have his or her deferred compensation confiscated by company executives to pay off creditors as the result of bad management, it sets a very bad precedent.

Labels: corporatism, employment, retirement savings

This must be how the Bush Administration defines progress in Iraq:

The United States on Tuesday suspended all land travel by U.S. diplomats and other civilian officials throughout Iraq, except in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. The move follows a weekend incident involving private security guards protecting a diplomatic convoy in which a number of Iraqi civilians were killed.

In a notice sent to Americans in Iraq, the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said it had taken the step to review the security of its personnel and possible increased threats to those leaving the Green Zone while accompanied by such security details.

"In light of a serious security incident involving a U.S. embassy protective detail in the Mansour District of Baghdad, the embassy has suspended official U.S. government civilian ground movements outside the International Zone (IZ) and throughout Iraq," the notice said.

"This suspension is in effect in order to assess mission security and procedures, as well as a possible increased threat to personnel traveling with security details outside the International Zone," said the notice, a copy of which was provided to The Associated Press by the State Department in Washington.

The notice did not say when the suspension would expire.

So if it's unsafe to go outside the Green Zone, perhaps someone can explain to me why we should continue to pour American lives and money into this mess.

Labels: incompetence, Iraq

There is one good thing about the appalling rhetoric coming from the Republican presidential candidates this year on topics ranging from immigration to evolution to the Iraq war as they jockey for position in pandering to the most lunatic elements of their base. If it weren't so sad, it would be fun watching John McCain change religion on what seems to be an hourly basis.

We know that the Republican base is susceptible to the "immigrants are the boogeyman" rhetoric, but it also has been known to respond positively to race-baiting, as we saw with the infamous "Harold, call me" ad that ran in Tennessee's Senate race (heh) last year.

But the decision of the major Republican candidates to skip Tavis Smiley's All American Presidential Forum on the 27th shows you exactly where they stand on issues relevant to minorities:

"We sound like we don't want immigration; we sound like we don't want black people to vote for us," said former congressman Jack Kemp (N.Y.), who was the GOP vice presidential nominee in 1996. "What are we going to do -- meet in a country club in the suburbs one day? If we're going to be competitive with people of color, we've got to ask them for their vote."

Making matters worse, some Republicans believe, is that the decision to bypass the Morgan State forum comes after all top GOP candidates save McCain declined invitations this month to a debate on Univision, the most-watched Hispanic television network in the United States. The event was eventually postponed.

"For Republicans to consistently refuse to engage in front of an African American or Latino audience is an enormous error," said former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.), who has not yet ruled out a White House run himself. "I hope they will reverse their decision and change their schedules. I see no excuse -- this thing has been planned for months, these candidates have known about it for months. It's just fundamentally wrong. Any of them who give you that scheduling-conflict answer are disingenuous. That's baloney."

James Baker (yes, THAT James Baker, the Bush consiglieri) said to Bush Sr. in 1992, "Fuck the Jews. They don't vote for us anyway." Someone has clearly said something similar about black and Latino Americans to the Republican candidates. Well, let them enjoy this luxury now, because in future election years, the same minorities they snub now won't be the minority anymore.

And perhaps that's why they are pushing so hard on anti-immigration sentiment and limiting women's reproductive self-determination.

Labels: racism, Republic Party

Here's Greg Palast, author of the "mysterious book" being carried by University of Florida student Andrew Meyer when he committed the new American crime of daring to ask questions:

Now, I've given many talks. And some questioners have taken too long at the mic. But I've never done the Stalin thing of cops and electronic beating to limit the discussion. (Yes, it's true that Randi Rhodes recently threatened me with a taser when I've monopolized the mic in her studio.)

The Washington Post reported only that Meyers (sic) was holding a "mysterious yellow book." VERY mysterious.

I would note that enchained student was busted in Alachua County, Florida, where, six years ago, I uncovered massive, systematic and utterly illegal disenfranchisement of Black voters - ordered by Gov. Jeb Bush's office just before the 2000 election. ("Florida's Disappeared Voters," February 2001, The Nation.) Alachua remains under federal scrutiny for its long history of racial bias against Black voters.

And here's the video:



OK, let's take a look at what happened here. Yes, you have a guy who was obviously looking for a confrontation. But asking unexpected questions, even out of turn after the question/answer session is supposedly done is hardly an arresting offense. From what I see in the video, Meyer pulls away from the cops only once, then allows himself to be led to the exit, protesting. Note how the female officer tries to take his book away from him (as if the content of the book determines if he's committed a crime). And because he doesn't shut up, he's wrestled to the ground and tasered.

As Rachel Maddow said last night, the existence of tasers has broadened the number of activities for which police feel they can use force. Meyer is in no way a threat to anyone here, unless you regard asking questions as a threat. Of course, when the questions are to John Kerry about why he crumpled like a Yugo when there was clearly evidence of vote suppression in Florida and Ohio, and whether his status as a Skull & Bones member, just like George W. Bush, one could say that such questions ARE a threat -- to conventional wisdom.

Meyer may be a provocateur, but if you're going to go there, you start heading down a path of blaming the victim when cops overreact. And then you're headed into Rudy Giuliani territory, on whose watch Abmer Louima was brutalized and sodomized with a toilet plunger while in police custody after being arrested for the crime of being outside a nightclub. And Patrick Dorismond, shot to death for the crime of being outside a nightclub and declaring he was not a drug dealer. And Amadou Diallo, shot to death for the crime of trying to reach for his wallet to identify himself to police. And Sean Bell, shot to death for the crime of leaving a nightclub.

We live in a society in which there is a written procedure for insulating the president from even having to look at protesters, where anyone can be declared an enemy combatant at any time on the president's say so, where an executive order allows the president to declare you an unperson for "threatening stabilization in Iraq" -- which can include daring to question his policy. Constitutional expert Bruce Fein has said that this executive order would make it illegal for counsel to represent you and illegal for doctors to treat you if you are so declared. In the absence of the Administration's contempt for due process and the Constitution of the United States, it would be easy to dismiss this as a nonstory and dismiss Meyer as a college student looking for attention. But in a climate of increasing tolerance of suppression of opposing views, it's an ominous warning.

Perhaps the most chilling part of the video is listening to John Kerry, snarking in his droning voice about "I guess he wants to come up front to swear me in", while all this is going on, which makes me think even more that Meyer -- and Greg Palast -- are on to something.

Pam has more on how tasering, a practice meant to avoid lethal force, seems to be evolving into standard police procedure.

Labels: dissent

Heh. Ann Coulter says we think they're all rapists? I'd like to hear what she has to say about the Florida Deputy U.S. Attorney who flew to Detroit to rape a five-year-old.

Anyway, those brave new folks at Brave New Films deconstruct the Fox Noise coverage of the Petraeus hearings. It's only about a minute and a half, and it's in a good cause. I know even that much Faux Noise is a lot to handle, but we're with you in solidarity.

Labels: Fox News, General Petraeus, hack journalism

Well, the technology isn't 100% there yet, but Sam Seder and Marc Maron are just finishing up their first joint webcast over at Sam's show site. Apparently there will be an audio podcast available.

But even more exciting is that Marc and Sam are going to be working on making this a regular event, probably available by subscription. I somehow managed to get a bit of this webcast past Websense, though the audio was choppy, but it sounds like it's going to be a subscription service, and it'll combine the best of what these guys do well.

If there are two Air America personalities who best represent how the company has screwed the pooch, it's these two guys. Morning Sedition was killed by a guy who just didn't like Marc Maron, even though the show was starting to gain traction with NO promotion from the network. Sam Seder was moved to the 9 AM to noon timeslot, and then banished to Sunday afternoons because Mark Green somehow thought that the arrogant and condescending (and virtually unlistenable) Lionel was somehow a better fit.

Terrestrial radio is still skittish about anything that doesn't support the status quo, largely because of the reality that radio is more about delivering eardrums to advertisers than delivering content to listeners. That Air America's moves away from Sam Seder and Marc Maron's unique talents haven't helped them with either is immaterial; there is a sizable pent-up demand from the kind of loyal, "sticky" audience that you'd think radio programmers would want for exactly what these guys do.

I'll post as I find out more, and Melina, who is our resident radio maven, will fill in the blanks.

UPDATE: Here, my friends, is the future of broadcasting. It's a bit unpolished, as you can see, but then the Edison cylinder looks primitive today too.

Labels: Marc Maron, Sam Seder, Webcasting

At this point, I think it's safe to say that so-called "family values conservatives" are, to a man (or woman), deeply twisted and sick individuals trying to cover their own tracks.

Here's another one, and a particularly egregious example:

A federal prosecutor from Florida was ordered held in custody Monday after he appeared in U.S. District Court in Detroit on a charge that he flew to Detroit intending to have sex with a 5-year-old girl.

John David R. Atchison, 53, of Gulf Breeze, Fla., an assistant U.S. Attorney in Florida's northern district, is expected to appear again in court for a detention hearing on Tuesday.

He was caught in an Internet child sex sting run by the Macomb County Sheriff's Department and the FBI and arrested Sunday when he flew into Detroit Metropolitan Airport from Pensacola, Fla., according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Detroit.

A sheriff's deputy posed as a mother who was interested in finding someone to have sex with her children, in a sting that has already netted a California paramedic and numerous other alleged pedophiles from around the country.

According to the complaint, Atchison reassured the sheriff's deputy who was posing as the child's mother that he would not hurt the 5-year-old because he goes "slow and easy," and "I've done it plenty."

Although the article does not mention party affiliation, Atchison is, apparently, a registered Republican. I guess he's another of those fine, upstanding Administration lackeys hired by the United States Justice Department.

(via Melissa)

Labels: perverts, Republicans

Haven't we been here before:

The grand debate about Gen. David Petraeus' Capitol Hill testimony last week on U.S. strategy in Iraq focused primarily on troop levels, withdrawal dates and whether Bush's so-called troop surge was succeeding. But widely overlooked was Petraeus' sales pitch to lawmakers for one initiative he said will help save the war-torn country: massive arms sales from the U.S. government to Iraq.

"Iraq is becoming one of the United States' larger foreign military sales customers," Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Sept. 11, noting that Iraq has inked deals to buy $1.6 billion in arms from the U.S., with the "possibility of up to $1.8 billion more." Data obtained by Salon shows the arms sales could rise far higher than even the amount the general suggested last week.

Petraeus said that the arms sales are an important part of the initiative to keep the Iraqis "rapidly expanding their security forces." But Petraeus himself presided over an arms debacle in Iraq in 2004 and 2005 in which nearly 200,000 weapons went missing. And while U.S. arms might help the Iraqi security forces "stand up" in the short term, experts warn that the U.S. military could easily lose control over what may follow. Some fear a war zone flooded with weapons that could be turned on U.S. soldiers, or supply huge firepower for a full-blown civil war.

The Pentagon confirmed that this fiscal year, the United States has finalized $1.6 billion in arms sales to Iraq, placing the country in an elite club of weapons buyers. For example, in recent one-year periods Saudi Arabia bought $800 million and Egypt bought $1 billion in arms from the U.S., while Pakistan spent $3.5 billion, including the purchase of jet fighters. "This would put [Iraq] right up there with the top handful of arms buyers," said William Hartung, a weapons proliferation expert at the New America Foundation.

In fact, the numbers Petraeus presented on Iraq were the tip of the iceberg. According to data obtained by Salon from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency at the Pentagon, which manages the arms sales, the military has alerted Congress to up to $4.3 billion in arms sales that have been under discussion since at least 2006 between the U.S. and Iraqi governments.

The arms deals come as the U.S. has shifted strategy to enlist Sunnis in western Iraq -- some of them former insurgents -- into all-Sunni units of the Iraqi security forces. The fear is that these newly trained and armed units will ultimately turn against the Shiite-dominated central government or against U.S. forces again. "I think this is kind of crazy," Hartung said about the arms sales. "Now we are making deals with some of these Sunni groups. Well, what if they turn around and go back to being insurgents after we have built them up? I think the danger of these arms being misused, even in the short term, is fairly high."

In the 1980's, we armed the Afghan mujahadeen against the Soviets, and thus created what became Al-Qaeda. Now we don't even have that much caution. One of the problems with a president who doesn't know the difference between Sunni and Shi'ite is that you end up iin a situation where the "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" doctrine can change on a moment-by-moment basis.

I wonder how many of even the most rabid 28-percenters want their tax dollars paying for arms for people who have killed American soldiers.

Labels: insanity, Iraq