Remove the death grip insurance has around our health care

Literally.

It would be as if no illegal activity occurred at all...

Because we'll never know exactly what happened. House comes to compromise on telecom immunity.

Via TPM Muckraker, the Wall Street Journal:

Removing the final barrier to action on the measure, which has been hashed out in recent weeks by senior lawmakers in both parties, House Democratic leaders decided to allow a vote on the bill, despite the opposition of many in their party.

The new agreement broadens the authority to spy on people in the U.S. and provides conditional legal immunity to companies that helped the government eavesdrop after the 2001 terrorist attacks, according to congressional aides in both parties.

Right. You guys pass this law and you've just announced corporations are more important than individual citizens and your oath to protect the Constitution is a lie.

And just an aside, a question I've not yet found the answer to. Because the Bush administration was listening in on Americans long before 9/11, why did 9/11 occur? Isn't this whole invasion of privacy issue about protecting America? So why weren't they listening to all the cell phone calls to Saudi Arabia and Yemen and realizing something was up?

Or could it be they were too busy listening for juicy items to blackmail Congress into following their commands? Maybe we could ask the telecoms this question when we get them up on the stand under oath .... OooHHHhhhhh....

Congress passed a law, I tell you! It's not my fault!

Watch how Bush immediately goes into a semantics game to explain Abu Ghraib. Apparently asking this question means you are slandering America....

GEORGE W. BUSH: This was a law passed, Adam. We passed a law. Bypassing the Constitution means that we did something outside the bounds of the Constitution. We went to the Congress and got a piece of legislation passed.

REPORTER: Which is now being struck down, I think.

GEORGE W. BUSH: It is, and I accept what the Supreme Court did, and I necessarily don't have to agree with it. My only point to you is, is that yes, I mean, we certainly wish Abu Ghraib hadn't happened, but that should not reflect America. This was the actions of some soldiers.

The question unanswered is this, Georgie. WHY did you get Congress to pass a law bypassing the Constitution? WHY was there this odd need to torture? WHY?



Shorter Bush: We wanted to torture so we changed the meaning of the word so it wasn't called torture so we didn't torture so we could watch the tapes of ... uh ... it was the soldiers that did it!

crossposted at SteveAudio

Blackwater wants to apply Sharia law to a lawsuit

Because the plane crashed in Afghanistan. Sharia law would not let the company be sued for worker's neglect.

RALEIGH - To defend itself against a lawsuit by the widows of three American soldiers who died on one of its planes in Afghanistan, a sister company of the private military firm Blackwater has asked a federal court to decide the case using the Islamic law known as Shari’a.

The lawsuit “is governed by the law of Afghanistan,” Presidential Airways argued in a Florida federal court. “Afghan law is largely religion-based and evidences a strong concern for ensuring moral responsibility, and deterring violations of obligations within its borders.”

If the judge agrees, it would essentially end the lawsuit over a botched flight supporting the U.S. military. Shari’a law does not hold a company responsible for the actions of employees performed within the course of their work.

(The comments following Drum's post are hilarious).

Update: interesting discussion about the State Department extending Blackwater's contract for 5 more years. One more mine being planted by the Bush administration for President Obama to deal with.

Think before you fire

That Taser! They are not harmless. (my bold)

A new proposal to increase the number of stun guns in police hands is hitting a series of public relations hurdles, with a Brooklyn man dying this week after being shocked by a Taser and Amnesty International warning the police department to reconsider.

Since 2001, more than 300 people — including the Brooklyn man who was shocked by Suffolk County police officers Monday — have died after the guns were used on them, a statement Amnesty International sent yesterday to New York reporters said.

"Given their questionable safety record, TASERs should be used with extreme caution and not become a weapon of first resort for the NYPD," the group's director, Larry Cox, said.

According to Amnesty's records, the number of fatal Taser shocks has gradually increased as more police departments seeking less lethal alternatives to firearms have bought up the stun guns. Nationwide, 69 people died last year, compared with 13 in 2002, according to the group.

Amnesty said 90% of the 300 victims were unarmed.

Police sergeants on patrol are carrying stun guns in their holsters starting yesterday. Officers in specialty units already carry Tasers with them.

Lovely. Who on earth is encouraging police to regard Tasers as a quick and easy solution for dealing with irritating people? Don't answer that...

The Bush administration is guilty of war crimes

At today’s House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil Rights hearing on torture, Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, told Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) that over 100 detainees have died in U.S. custody, with up to 27 of these declared homicides

Which is why we need impeachment put back on the table, Nancy!

Trying to connect the dots

And finding how amazingly interconnected Blackwater is:

Erik Prince and Blackwater (North, USA, Worldwide, etc.) The Blackwater brass. The International Peace Operations Association which Blackwater left in 2007.

(Update: Muckety seems to reset itself or I'm not copying correctly. Click on Muckety and type in Erik Prince. The connections are fascinating.)





Erik Prince's background. Some of the foundations he's connected to.

Blackwater in Iraq.

Blackwater subverting the voice of the people?:

In January 2008, Marshall Adame, a Democrat running for Congress in North Carolina's 3rd District, took part in a live question-and-answer forum where he was asked a question about Blackwater. Adame, who had served as a State Department official in Iraq recounted, "I saw them shoot people, I saw them crash into cars while I was their passenger. There was absolutely no reason, no provocation whatsoever." He then stated, "There is no place in the American force structure, or in American culture for mercenaries, they are guns for hire; No more, no less."[citation needed] This led Blackwater executive vice president Bill Mathews to send an internal corporate email to staff:

There is a man named Marshall Adame who is running for congress in our district. He just put a quote online which says he wants this company and all of us to cease to exist. Do you like your jobs? Are you sick and tired of the slanderous bullshit going on in DC? If so, would you all mind joining me in reminding Mr. Adame that he is running for office in our backyard. Tell all your friends and family too. We welcome their assistance in making this point very clear to Mr. Adame.
Anyone who wants to send a letter may do so at the following address…....
His email is ....
He was too cowardly to put a phone number on the web. I ask that you keep your comments to Mr. Adame professional (well, mostly professional). We help him if our comments get threatening or too crass. Let’s run this goof out of Dodge….![citation needed]

As a result of the letter writing campaign Adame stated, "I feel very strongly about how extensively organized Blackwater has become, and I will do everything I can as a congressman to look into that, to find out whether or not the things they're doing are even legal."

Obviously, Erik Prince and his multiple corporations know that money to politicians buys power.

Most stunning of all:

Value of Blackwater's federal contracts in 2001: $736,906

Value in 2002: $3.4 million

Value in 2003: $25 million

Value in 2004: $48 million

Value in 2005: $352 million

Value in 2006: $593 million

Total value of all Blackwater contracts at the end of 2006: $1 billion

Percentage growth since 2001: 80,453

Current number of Blackwater's federal contracts, according to Erik Prince: "More than 50."

Percentage of Blackwater holding company Prince Group's revenue derived from federal contracts: 90

The Blackwater apologist showed back up in comments to try to burnish Blackwater's reputation.

I've had someone in Herndon, Virginia checking in regularly as well as from McLean Virginia. So, if you have a post up about Blackwater, Erik Prince, or any of his multiple subsidiaries, you may get a visit from one of these:

Domain Name qwest.net ? (Network)
IP Address 67.130.62.# (ONE VOICE COMMUNICATIONS)
ISP Qwest Communications
Location
Continent : North America
Country : United States (Facts)
State : Virginia
City : Mc Lean

In the Total Intelligence Solutions group there is The Black Group LLC run by Cofer Black, the Terrorism Research Center, and the Technical Defense, Inc.

Within the Technical Defense, Inc is the Talos Technology Consulting, the Terrorism Research Center, and Proconsul.

Talos Technology Consulting is in Herndon, Virginia:

Talos Technology Consulting, Inc.
3336 Fern Hollow Place
Suite 100
Herndon, VA 20171

And:

Now it has a brother company, Total Intelligence Solutions that offers intelligence services, risk analyses to companies and governments.Chairman of the Board is J. Cofer Black, former director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) counter terrorist center.

[snip]

The company is located in Ballston Virginia, very close to the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

Analysts in their 20s sit hunched over computers, scanning activities in the Middle East, Islamic World, Europe and South America.

And:

Prince Group, LLC:
1660 International Dr
McLean, VA, 22102-4848

And the Blackwater apologist?:

Domain Name rcn.com ? (Commercial)
IP Address 208.58.69.# (RCN Corporation)
ISP RCN Corporation
Location
Continent : North America
Country : United States (Facts)
State : District of Columbia
City : Washington

RCN corporation is in Herndon, Virginia

196 Van Buren St.
STE 300
Herndon, VA 20170

Whose sons are you going to send to fight your eternal war, Senator McCain?

Mad cow is good for you! Government is bad!

The Republicans say so.

Paul Krugman of the New York Times explains: (my bold)

Lately, however, there always seems to be at least one food-safety crisis in the headlines — tainted spinach, poisonous peanut butter and, currently, the attack of the killer tomatoes. The declining credibility of U.S. food regulation has even led to a foreign-policy crisis: there have been mass demonstrations in South Korea protesting the pro-American prime minister’s decision to allow imports of U.S. beef, banned after mad cow disease was detected in 2003.

How did America find itself back in The Jungle?

It started with ideology. Hard-core American conservatives have long idealized the Gilded Age, regarding everything that followed — not just the New Deal, but even the Progressive Era — as a great diversion from the true path of capitalism.

Thus, when Grover Norquist, the anti-tax advocate, was asked about his ultimate goal, he replied that he wanted a restoration of the way America was “up until Teddy Roosevelt, when the socialists took over. The income tax, the death tax, regulation, all that.”

The late Milton Friedman agreed, calling for the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration. It was unnecessary, he argued: private companies would avoid taking risks with public health to safeguard their reputations and to avoid damaging class-action lawsuits. (Friedman, unlike almost every other conservative I can think of, viewed lawyers as the guardians of free-market capitalism.)

Such hard-core opponents of regulation were once part of the political fringe, but with the rise of modern movement conservatism they moved into the corridors of power. They never had enough votes to abolish the F.D.A. or eliminate meat inspections, but they could and did set about making the agencies charged with ensuring food safety ineffective.

So every e-coli drenched spinach leaf and every tomato seething with salmonella comes directly from a government run by Republicans. Take a look at a government run by those who hate governing. It doesn't, can't, won't work. Which is what they intended all along.

Paul Krugman ends his article:

The moral of this story is that failure to regulate effectively isn’t just bad for consumers, it’s bad for business.

And in the case of food, what we need to do now — for the sake of both our health and our export markets — is to go back to the way it was after Teddy Roosevelt, when the Socialists took over. It’s time to get back to the business of ensuring that American food is safe.

Just an interesting aside... weren't the Republicans just a moment ago embracing the legacy of Teddy?

Continuing where he left off in his economic talk last week in Brooklyn and foreshadowing his major speech tomorrow on the topic tomorrow in Pittsburgh, McCain said “there is a role for government” in improving the economy. “There always is.”

“I am a Teddy Roosevelt Republican,” he reminded.

crossposted at SteveAudio

Blackwater is in the money no matter who wins the presidency

An email sent out by Jeremy Scahill reprinting his Los Angeles Times article. I've posted it in full.

Blackwater's bright future
No matter who wins the White House, the security firm is shooting for lucrative work.
By Jeremy Scahill

June 16, 2008

From California to Iraq, business has never been better for the controversial private security firm Blackwater Worldwide. Company President Gary Jackson recently boasted that Blackwater has "had two successive quarters of unprecedented growth." Owner Erik Prince recently spun his company as the "FedEx" of the U.S. national security apparatus, describing Blackwater as a "robust temp agency."

Such rhetoric may seem brazen, given Blackwater's deadly record in Iraq and troubled reputation at home, but here is the cold, hard fact: Blackwater knows its future is bright no matter who next takes up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The company's most infamous moment came last September, when Blackwater operatives were alleged to have gunned down 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad's Nisour Square. A U.S. military investigation labeled the shootings a "criminal event," and a federal grand jury in Washington is hearing evidence in the case.

The father of one of the dead, a 9-year-old boy shot in the head, testified before the grand jury in late May. He has rejected offers of monetary compensation from the U.S. government and Blackwater; he demands a public admission of guilt by the company. "This is important for me, morally, for my family and my tribe," said Mohammed Hafidh Abdul-Razzaq. Other survivors have been offering testimony to the United Nations, and some have filed a lawsuit in federal court in this country.

At the end of the day, perhaps criminal charges will be brought against a handful of Blackwater operatives as a token gesture. But this will not bring substantive change to the unaccountable private war industry. Indeed, the killing of Iraqi civilians and other scandals do not seem to hurt Blackwater's business at all. Quite the opposite.

In April, over the objections of the U.S.-installed Iraqi government, which has demanded Blackwater's expulsion, the Bush administration quietly renewed the company's lucrative Iraq contract for yet another year. To date, the company has pulled in over $1 billion from its Iraq and Afghanistan "security" contracts alone.

Blackwater is also winning at home. The company recently fought back widespread local opposition to its plans for a new warfare training center in San Diego. When residents and local officials tried to block it, Blackwater sued the city. A federal judge, appointed by President Bush's father, ordered San Diego to stand down. Now the company is entrenched, guns a blazin', in San Diego and is well positioned to cash in on the increasingly privatized border-patrol industry.

Blackwater's California expansion is just one of several ventures that reveal how Blackwater is growing. Among the others:

* Prince's private spy agency, Total Intelligence Solutions, is now open for business. Run by three veteran CIA operatives, the company offers "CIA-type services" to governments and Fortune 1000 companies.

* Blackwater was asked by the Pentagon to bid for a share of a whopping $15-billion contract to "fight terrorists with drug-trade ties" in countries such as Colombia, Bolivia, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. Analysts say it could be the company's "biggest job" ever.

* Blackwater is wrapping up work on its own armored vehicle, the Grizzly, as well as its Polar Airship 400, a surveillance blimp Blackwater wants to market for use in monitoring the U.S.-Mexico border.

But is Blackwater counting its chickens before they hatch? Some may see it as a foregone conclusion that if Barack Obama wins in November, Blackwater's days on the federal payroll would be numbered. Obama has labeled it "unaccountable" and a danger to U.S. troops in Iraq. (By comparison, John McCain's top strategist, Charlie Black, has worked for Blackwater.)

But it is far more complicated than that. Obama may want to draw down U.S. troops in Iraq, for instance, but "diplomatic security" is where Blackwater's bread is lathered with golden butter. Obama has pledged to increase diplomatic activity in Iraq and to keep in place the Green Zone and the monstrous U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Despite his criticism, Obama may have no choice but to use these private forces. His top advisors have painfully acknowledged Obama "cannot rule [it] out."

Consider the numbers: At present, Blackwater has about two-thirds as many operatives in Baghdad as the U.S. State Department has diplomatic security agents in the entire world, including Iraq. Although Obama has said he wants diplomatic security to be done by U.S. government employees, accountable under U.S. law, the State Department estimates that it could take years to recruit, vet and train a force to take over Blackwater's work.

In addition, Obama's rhetoric on Latin America strikes familiar "drug war" chords, which bodes well for Blackwater, and he plans to send 7,000 more troops to Afghanistan, where the company is already firmly entrenched.

Blackwater's work in Iraq began with one $27-million no-bid contract to guard the U.S. administrator for the country, L. Paul Bremer III, in 2003. In five years it has metastasized into a central component of the U.S. presence in Iraq and is spreading fast into the most sensitive areas of the national security apparatus.

There is no question that a McCain White House would be preferred by Blackwater and its allies. The question is: Would a Democratic victory really be bad for business?

Jeremy Scahill is the author of "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army."

Update 6/17... interesting. I've been checked out by this site:

Domain Name qwest.net ? (Network)
IP Address 67.130.62.# (ONE VOICE COMMUNICATIONS)
ISP Qwest Communications
Location
Continent : North America
Country : United States (Facts)
State : Virginia
City : Mc Lean
Lat/Long : 38.9499, -77.2223 (Map)

And who is in McLean, Virginia?

CONTACT BLACKWATER

Mr. Erik Prince
Prince Group
1660 International Dr., Suite 47
McLean, VA 22102

I've also had many visits from Herndon, Virginia. Who is in Herndon? One Voice Communications. Which has on its testimonials a scrolling client list which has Blackwater. Oddly, every other company that appears has a quote, but Blackwater is silent.

Wonder why?

Update: Pay attention to Erik Prince's Greystone Limited company:

Yet the most important vehicle for Prince's global aspirations isn't Blackwater proper, but Greystone Limited, a company he quietly founded in 2004 as his firm's "international affiliate." According to Chris Taylor, a former Marine Recon soldier who until May was Blackwater's vice president for strategic initiatives, Prince sought to build a new brand. "Blackwater has a sexy name and people pay attention to it," Taylor says, and sometimes that high profile "may not fit the proposed mission." In particular, he says, "international opportunities" were to be "looked at through Greystone."

Nearly all of the 20 or more companies Prince has launched or acquired over the years are U.S. based. Greystone, however, was incorporated in the Caribbean tax haven of Barbados, although it is managed from Blackwater's headquarters in Moyock, North Carolina. (The Barbados address and phone number listed in the federal government's contractor database trace back to a firm that specializes in shielding corporate revenues from U.S. tax authorities.) "As far as I know, they were the same company with different names," notes a contractor who worked for Blackwater in Iraq.

Unlike Blackwater, Greystone has managed to stay almost entirely out of public view, and it remains a mystery even to industry insiders. Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association, a trade group of which Greystone was a member until late last year, couldn't say what the company does. (Blackwater pulled out of the group last October after the IPOA launched an investigation into its conduct; Greystone followed suit in November.)

[snip]

Prince and his diversified group of companies, though, are positioned to endure. The Greystone model doesn't depend on America's wars: Whether the future of the business lies in what the industry calls "peace and stability" work or in providing "proactive" strike forces to private clients, some element of the Prince network is in a position to deliver. "They're soldiers of fortune," says the security director of a well-known humanitarian NGO. "Today they are willing to do the bidding of the United States, because the United States is willing to pay them. Who are they willing to work for tomorrow?"

crossposted at American Street