Author: Trish

A grassroots alliance in small town Florida isn’t just pontificating about a possible draft, they are doing something concrete about it.

St. Augustine Record:

Three local women returned to the St. Johns County School board Tuesday with a request that “Opt Out” of military service forms be made readily available to St. Johns County students and their families.

Anne Galloway and Laura Braly, both members of People for Peace and Justice, and Peg Maguire, a member of Grandmothers for Peace, asked the school board to provide parents and of-age students with a form that gives them the freedom to opt out of the service.

Few people know the Bush government sneaked a clause into law the forces schools to contribute to a national database on teens, for use when they become old enough for the draft we don’t have. Yet.

Braly pointed out that Section 9528 of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 requires schools to forward a student’s data to the military, but she also said that the law gives parents the option to prevent their children’s information from being sent to military recruiters.

“Parents need to be made equally aware of their option to deny this process,” Braly said.

This is just one little group of women taking a stab at a great big thing, but who knows, maybe it could grow into a movement. Hmmm, a movement. Reminds me of Arlo Guthrie.

“I went over to the sargent, said, “Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I’ve rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I’m sittin’ here on the bench, I mean I’m sittin’ here on the Group W bench ’cause you want to know if I’m moral enough join the army – burn women, kids, houses and villages – after bein’ a litterbug.”

He looked at me and said, “Kid, we don’t like your kind, and we’re gonna send you fingerprints off to Washington.”

And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I’m singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if you’re in a situation like that there’s only one thing you can do and that’s walk into the shrink wherever you are, just walk in say “Shrink, you can get anything you want at Alice’s restaurant.” And walk out.

You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he’s really sick and they won’t take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they’re both faggots and they won’t take either of them. And three people do it, three – can you imagine – three people walking in singin’ a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out?

They may think it’s an organization. And can you, can you imagine 50 people a day, I said 50 people a day walking in singin’ a bar of Alice’s Restaurant and walking out? Friends, they may think it’s a movement…”

Former Miami Herald columnist Dave Barry happened to be in England during the bombings, and has posted several great entries to his blog on the subject. I found this one particularly interesting.

Last night we went to see the musical production of “Mary Poppins,” which is quite different from the movie, and astonishingly good. If this show gets to New York, it will be huge, one of those shows that runs forever.

The theater had been closed the night before because of the bombings, but last night the house was full. We stood for a minute of silence in honor of the bombing victims, and then the show, as shows must, went on.

The show goes on everywhere here: The underground is running again, and people are resuming their lives. I remain awed by how calmly Londoners have handled the terrorist attack. I believe that one reason for this is that the British TV news people have displayed less excitability and hysteria than American TV news people displayed in response to the Michael Jackson verdict.

Our TV reporters, and really most of the members of our press, have been such a disappointment during all the W years, starting with election night 2000. I grew up with Uncle Walter, then lived my idealistic years (my teens) when investigative reporting was considered a noble and valiant calling. Somewhere along the way Geraldo Rivera morphed into Geraldo, and CNN paved the way for Fox News.

Howard Troxler, in the St. Petersburg Times summed up the state of the press – and the government’s view of it – in America today, starting with a quote from the special prosecutor in the Miller/Cooper/Rove case:

“Journalists are not entitled to promise complete confidentiality – no one in America is.” – special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald

I have no doubt that Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who got an American newspaper reporter thrown in jail this week, truly believes that “no one in America” is entitled to keep anything secret from the government.

I do doubt, however, whether he understands the scope of the power that he has now claimed on behalf of the crown.

No one in America!

No one may refuse to answer when the all-powerful government demands it!

Does he mean it?

Does he mean that the government is entitled to force ministers to inform against sinners, doctors against patients, lawyers against clients, wives against husbands, children against parents?

No one in America.

On Jan. 16, 1787, Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and future president, wrote a letter expressing his beliefs about a free press.

The only possible check on the abuse of government power, Jefferson wrote, is informed public opinion. But the citizens cannot stand up to the government unless they are armed with a free press. This led to Jefferson’s famous conclusion:

“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

Of course, the person who blew Plame’s cover, Robert Novak, isn’t even being asked to reveal his source, let alone threatened with imprisonment. I have to wonder if it’s because Miller is so much more of a reliable martyr, as portrayed by James Wolcott in his stunningly fabulous and prescient book, “Attack Poodles.” Are they going after Judy because they know she will take that bullet, and ask for another, before giving them up for the petty, vindictive sleezes they are?

Although Troxler gives Miller the benefit of the doubt, he also puts the responsibility where it really belongs.

But this “crime,” if one exists at all, was committed by the government itself. The perverse claim here is that the government can commit an act, then “investigate” it, and jail reporters for not “cooperating.”

You think this is partisan? Go ahead. Feel free to believe that it’s okay under a Republican president to throw the New York Times in jail. Just be sure you’re comfortable with giving the same power to a future President Hillary Clinton, or whichever Democrat sneaks back into the White House first, over Fox News.

This is July, the month of Independence. This is not a month for kings.

No one in America, the king’s prosecutor now claims. But he is wrong.

Not only is there much to support a theory that genetics prevents any member of the Bush from admitting mistakes, this same postulated strand of DNA also keeps them from saying they’re sorry, or acknowledging they’re vindictive (tell me why we are in Iraq again?), overblown morons with supernatural powers of denial.

Jeb’s All-Star Vendetta Against Michael Schiavo is surely an integral part of the hypothesis.

Naples (Florida) News guest editorial:

At every stage of the Terri Schiavo case Jeb Bush has been wrong and the husband of the comatose woman and the local, state and federal courts, who supported Michael Schiavo, right.

The Florida governor and his allies in trashing the courts and the poor woman’s right to privacy, the Senate and House Republican leaders, Bill Frist and Tom DeLay, were conclusively and, one could only hope, for the last time proved wrong again last month when the medical examiner released the results of his autopsy…

There, you would have thought, the matter would rest.

But the implacable governor had one more shot at Michael Schiavo in his arsenal. Still unwilling to let go, he asked a state’s attorney to launch a criminal investigation into alleged discrepancies in the time of her collapse…

The state attorney assigned two experienced prosecutors to the probe and their findings were released Friday… They re-plowed…all evidence and found no justification “to use our investigative powers to perpetuate suspicion where, despite extended litigation and a detailed autopsy, we have no proof to suggest that a crime has occurred.”

Wow. That’s pretty definitive. Embarrassing for Jeb, but maybe he could still come out holding his head up by saying something about his heart being in the right place, or that at least now the Schiavo and Schindler families can move forward, or even just something philosophical about the nature of life. So what did he in fact say when he announced this was the end of the whole mess, that he would let it go now?

Palm Beach Post:

“It’s done,” Bush told reporters at a hurricane briefing early Friday afternoon. “Sad tragedy. Horribly sad.”

Asked to elaborate, he said, “I think it’s pretty clear — sad tragedy. That’s what I mean. It’s a sad tragedy that this woman starved to death.”

Did you get that? The tragedy here is that Teri Schiavo was taken off life support – after a decade and a half, with no chance of recovery. That’s the big tragedy.

Congress needs to pass emergency legislation prohibiting any member of the Bush family from further reproducing until science can ensure the gene pool will be safe from whatever mental disorder plagues Jeb, W, Barb, George H.W., Neil, and the whole defective lot.

Great guest editorial by Bud Hendershot in my local paper.

Recently the U.S. Senate voted on a bill that would ban the EPA from accepting data from companies who use intentional pesticide dosing of human beings as part of their studies…

It seems that chemical companies have been paying people to ingest pesticides. The subjects include pregnant females, and the fetuses they carry. According to the Wall Street Journal, these tests are designed by pesticide manufacturers to “prove” the safety of their products, in hopes of weakening EPA regulations regarding pesticide use on U.S. crops.

…By a vote of 60-37, senators voted to prohibit the EPA from accepting, considering, or relying on chemical industry studies involving intentional dosing of human subjects. Who voted against this bill? Thirty-seven senators, all Republicans, including Mel Martinez. So did the very sanctimonious Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania; a man who never met a fetus he didn’t like.

Apparently, poisoning fetuses is a-ok with these senators. Just don’t abort them.

Interestingly, a subset of the 37 senators who voted against the protection of fetuses (and the already born) also voted against a recently passed anti-lynching bill [Editor’s note: actually, they just didn’t vote in favor of it] You’d think being against lynching would be a no-brainer for any senator, “pro-life” or not, right?

…[Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN)] is the perfect representative of this crew…He is vehemently anti-abortion. He spent weeks grandstanding to keep a brain-dead, blind woman alive, so full of life’s “sanctity” is he. Yet he loves the death penalty and supports the war (as long as it is fought by other people’s sons and daughters).

Lynching and pesticides? Fine by Frist! The contradictions are dizzying.

Thankfully, the Congress is busy with other important business, namely a Constitutional Amendment to prohibit Flag Burning. Yes, that is a critical problem these days. You can barely cross the street without tripping over burning flags, right?

With 1,700 soldiers dead in Iraq and a host of other tiny little problems, it’s good to see our government focusing on legislation that truly impacts our daily lives. Flag burning. It makes you angry enough to want to dose somebody with pesticides and lynch ’em, doesn’t it?

I am not making this up.

The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that while she was Florida’s Secretary of State, Katherine Harris ordered testing of “Celestial Drops” as a way to eradicate citrus canker, a disease that leaves a rusty looking scale on oranges, grapefruit, etc.

…For more than six months, the state, at the behest of then-Secretary of State Katherine Harris, did pursue one alternative method — a very alternative method.

Researchers worked with a rabbi and a cardiologist to test “Celestial Drops,” promoted as a canker inhibitor because of its “improved fractal design,” “infinite levels of order” and “high energy and low entropy.”

I don’t know whether to applaud Harris or boo her. O.K., I object to the heavy-handed way she went about it but I must say I didn’t think the girl had it in her.

The initial push came from Harris…the granddaughter of legendary citrus baron Ben Hill Griffin Jr., said she was introduced to one of the product’s promoters, New York Rabbi Abe Hardoon, in 2000.

Hardoon did not want to discuss Celestial Drops when contacted by the Orlando Sentinel.

But Harris said Hardoon told her he was working with Israeli scientists who had developed a compound that made plants resistant to canker. Harris acted as intermediary and urged state agriculture officials to work with Hardoon and his associates…

Canker spread quickly through Florida’s citrus groves, and the state’s only method for getting rid of it is to cut down the infected trees, even the ones in backyards. This has not been a popular program, with farmers or with homeowners.

…In the past 10 years, Florida has been swamped by companies claiming to have a cure for canker.

In virtually all cases, the state has thanked the companies for their interest and delivered the same message: “Test the product using accepted scientific principles and then show us the results.”

…But though the state told other companies it could not test their products, it made an exception for Celestial Drops. After months of correspondence, researchers took the unusual step of testing the product for Hardoon and his partner, New York cardiologist Artur Spokojny.

Wait. It gets better.

…Meanwhile, some scientists were wondering what role an ancient branch of Jewish mysticism played in the development of the solution.

One document in the state’s files indicates an official had searched the Internet for information on Hardoon and Spokojny and discovered both practiced Kabbalah, a religious movement whose followers include celebrities such as Madonna. Hardoon also teaches Kabbalah.

Mystically blessed water is a vital part of the faith and is sold for $3.80 a bottle at Kabbalah centers throughout the country.

Believers maintain the blessings performed over the water change its molecular structure and imbue it with supernatural healing powers. The traits attributed to so-called Kabbalah water — “elegant crystalline structures” and “high energy and low entropy” — are virtually identical to those of Celestial Drops.

Hardoon said he did not want to discuss any possible connection between the two.

Asked whether the mystery cure was really Kabbalah water, he said, “I can’t really give you that information.”

Asked whether the canker project was related at all to Kabbalah, he said, “It is, and it isn’t.”

He then referred all further questions to the Kabbalah Centre of Los Angeles, headquarters of the movement. Officials there did not return calls, and Spokojny was not available for comment.

As always, Katherine denied knowing anything about anything.

Harris seemed surprised Friday that the product she once hoped might cure canker may be nothing more than blessed water…

As for the possible Kabbalah connection, Harris said she was in the dark.

“Clearly, it isn’t something I knew about,” she said. “This is the first time I’ve heard any of this.”

Great opinion piece on the Republican branding of Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson in today’s Palm Beach Post:

How dare Sen. Bill Nelson accept support from MoveOnPAC.org?

…there it was in the black-and-white electrons of an e-mailed news release from the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “Left Coast Liberals’ Lackey: Bill Nelson,” the e-mail screeches…

How could Sen. Nelson, Democrat and one-time shuttle astronaut, let those left-leaning, Hollywood liberal peacenik wackos offer him support? MoveOn.org, famous for its ads against President Bush during the 2004 campaign, had the temerity to condone something less than all-out warfare after the 9/11 attacks, as the National Republican Senatorial Committee news release points out…

Is reelection really so important to Florida’s senior senator that he is willing to take help from people who suggested that the president rely on “international judicial institutions and international human rights law to bring to justice those responsible for the attacks.” Sen. Nelson must know that this group condoned same-sex marriage and that its real financial power is derived from left-wing billionaires, as so clearly spelled out by the National Republican Senatorial Committee in its release — 17 months before Election Day.

…The National Republican Senatorial Committee pumped $5.6 million into last year’s Florida Senate race, $3.6 million to defeat Democrat Betty Castor and $2 million to support the eventual winner, Republican Mel Martinez. By contrast, the Democratic Senatorial Committee put up $3.6 million on behalf of Ms. Castor. The race was decided by 1 percentage point…

The question isn’t even which viewpoint Americans will believe; it is which they will hear.

That’s the problem with politics today. Broad brushes obliterate subtle frescoes. It’s not the most sensible point of view that captures elections. It’s the loudest. The National Republican Senatorial Committee is counting on it.

My mother, the first of four children born in this country to Italian immigrants, is the queen of all things red, white, and blue. Her father came through Ellis Island in the 19-teens and my parent’s house has little Statues of Liberty, bunting, and flags in unexpected places.

Mom personally tends the marker in the plaza downtown that lists the names of our town’s fallen from every conflict from the Seminole Wars through the first Gulf War. They didn’t leave much room after that one, thinking that would probably be all the names to add for a long time, but now there are more.

Every Memorial Day and 4th of July and Veteran’s Day, Mom gets up early to hang the wreath and the flag, and every evening on these days she goes back to collect them so they won’t be stolen or vandalized or desecrated.

But that’s what has happened to my flag, to my sense of patriotism. It’s been stolen by people who don’t understand what it means, it’s been hijacked and prostituted to support an evil war that is killing thousands of people who were just trying to get through it and hoping it would end soon and they’d get their lives back. It’s been made into a logo and slapped on the back of SUVs with the code phrase, “Support our troops.” What that really means is “Support Bush, right or wrong. But probably wrong.”

4th of July, 2002 I flew an American flag in front of my house. So did almost all my neighbors. This year, I see only one flag, and it’s the next street over. My mom keeps her own sense of patriotism, inherited as it was from a man who was told the streets of this country were paved with gold and who loved it even when he found out they weren’t, even when he struggled to find work, even when he taught himself to speak English by sounding the words out in newspapers left behind on the subway, even when he was called a WOP, a dago, a dirty Italian. Her gratitude for our way of life is never diminished, not by Bush, not by Rumsfeld, not by Rove.

If I fly a flag today, it will be for Mom, not for any of them. It will be for the men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan who just want to be home, not for their chicken hawk leaders. It will be for the memory of the idea of what this country was and can be again, not for what it is now.

Happy 4th of July Mom.

In what’s starting to look like a pattern, another prominent Florida Democrat has been cleared of bogus allegations that never should have seen daylight.

An official state audit has found the worst thing they could pin on former Democratic Party chair and 2006 candidate for governor Scott Maddox was “poor hiring decisions.”

[…]

If there’s one thing that distinguishes Katherine Harris’ career, it’s the ability to play fast and loose with the rules. You might be able to believe that Harris was just looking for her missing contact lens when her hand got stuck in the MZM Inc. cookie jar, except for the pattern of such behavior her entire elected life.

Now Harris is offering to return the illegal contributions she received from the defense contractor, which is implicated in a shady deal with another Republican Representative, California’s Dean Cunningham.

Southwest Florida Herald-Tribune:

Harris, R-Longboat Key, received $50,000 in contributions from defense contracting firm MZM Inc…

Most of the money was contributed individually by employees of MZM, which has headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Recent news stories have quoted anonymous MZM workers complaining that they were pressured into giving money to the firm’s political action committee. Such coercion violates federal campaign finance laws.

Harris wants to make the whole thing go away but she’s hanging onto the cash for now.

After hearing of the reports, Harris said she sent letters offering to refund the money…

This is Florida’s former Secretary of State, the person charged with not only knowing the ins and outs of every election and campaign finance law in the land, but enforcing them and prosecuting violators.

Harris said in an interview Tuesday that she has no idea if the campaign money she received was obtained illegally.

At the time they offered the contributions, Harris said MZM officials told her that the firm planned to open a facility in Sarasota.

Harris said she saw no downside: The deal would have brought at least 40 jobs to her district, and the firm’s agents were writing checks to her campaign account.

But she said she was a little puzzled by the donation, since she wasn’t assigned to any committees that handled defense budgets or policy.

At that time, she wasn’t on the Homeland Security Committee. She has since won a seat on that panel.

Is it me, or is there open acknowledgment here of the quid-pro-quo expectations resulting from accepting MZM’s money?

This isn’t the first time Harris has been caught groping in the bottom of the money jar, or funneling illegal contributions through a company’s employees. In 1998, the St. Petersburg Times reported on Harris’ violations while she was still a state sentor.

Federal prosecutors say nearly $400,000 of Riscorp contributions to Harris and dozens of other politicians were illegal…Riscorp’s founder, Bill Griffin, was sentenced to five months in federal custody earlier this month in connection with the scheme to reimburse his employees for the illegal contributions…

Harris got $20,292 in illegal contributions from Riscorp during her 1994 state Senate campaign — more than any other legislative candidate…Harris also received $13,000 in legal corporate contributions from various Riscorp companies, more than any other candidate in any race, federal records show.

Federal prosecutors described her 1994 campaign manager as one of the “co-conspirators” or “co-schemers” in an effort to hide the true identity of campaign contributors on campaign finance reports.

And a 1994 memo shows that Riscorp advised the campaign manager on how to change the addresses on Riscorp checks to keep the media from tracing them back to Riscorp.

Harris said she thought her campaign wanted different addresses for Riscorp checks because they preferred street addresses rather than post office boxes.

Harris might be forgiven for her current troubles, if she hadn’t already been down this road, and if she wasn’t an expert on campaign finance laws, and if she could come up with an alternate explanation for her actions besides, “I am a nasty Republican skeezer and I will do anything I can get away with. Now, beat it and let me get back to figuring out who to shake down next.”