womzilla | Wallowing in Politics

For the first time in quite a number of days, I've caught up with Atrios's Eschaton, Avedon Carol's The Sideshow, and jmhm's Sisyphus Shrugged, three blogs filled with political links of tremendous use. (And other things.)

Here are some highlights of things I found at one or another of these, or at secondary links off of those pages.

A Cleveland Plain Dealer article (simple pseudo-registration required) about the head of Diebold, a company which sells electronic voting machines:

Columbus - The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O'Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O'Dell's company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.
The Left Coaster itemizes the administration's statements and lies which lead most Americans to believe that there was a link between the Saddam Hussein government and al-Qaeda, even though they were, in fact, mortal enemies:

26 September 2002: Bush said he was concerned Hussein and al-Qaeda could decide to work together, adding that the two were already almost indistinguishable.

"The danger is, is that they work in concert," Bush said during a White House meeting with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. "The danger is, is that al-Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam’s madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world."

and

27 September 2002: On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said there is evidence of links between al Qaeda and Iraq, which he said had been discussed during a CIA briefing for NATO defense ministers meeting in Warsaw. On Wednesday, President Bush spoke of "the danger . . . that al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam's madness," and noted that "you can't distinguish between al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror."
A cri de coeur for Israel, from the Israeli left in the person of a former speaker of the Knesset:

It is very comfortable to be a Zionist in West Bank settlements such as Beit El and Ofra. The biblical landscape is charming. From the window you can gaze through the geraniums and bougainvilleas and not see the occupation. Traveling on the fast highway that takes you from Ramot on Jerusalem's northern edge to Gilo on the southern edge, a 12-minute trip that skirts barely a half-mile west of the Palestinian roadblocks, it's hard to comprehend the humiliating experience of the despised Arab who must creep for hours along the pocked, blockaded roads assigned to him. One road for the occupier, one road for the occupied.

[...]

But there is no prime minister in Jerusalem. The disease eating away at the body of Zionism has already attacked the head. David Ben-Gurion sometimes erred, but he remained straight as an arrow. When Menachem Begin was wrong, nobody impugned his motives. No longer. Polls published last weekend showed that a majority of Israelis do not believe in the personal integrity of the prime minister--yet they trust his political leadership. In other words, Israel's current prime minister personally embodies both halves of the curse: suspect personal morals and open disregard for the law--combined with the brutality of occupation and the trampling of any chance for peace. This is our nation, these its leaders.
The view from Baghdad, courtesy of a blogger called riverbend:

My favorite reconstruction project was the Mu’alaq Bridge over the Tigris. It is a suspended bridge that was designed and built by a British company. In 1991 it was bombed and everyone just about gave up on ever being able to cross it again. By 1994, it was up again, exactly as it was--without British companies, with Iraqi expertise. One of the art schools decided that although it wasn’t the most sophisticated bridge in the world, it was going to be the most glamorous. On the day it was opened to the public, it was covered with hundreds of painted flowers in the most outrageous colors- all over the pillars, the bridge itself, the walkways along the sides of the bridge. People came from all over Baghdad just to stand upon it and look down into the Tigris.

So instead of bringing in thousands of foreign companies that are going to want billions of dollars, why aren’t the Iraqi engineers, electricians and laborers being taken advantage of? Thousands of people who have no work would love to be able to rebuild Iraq--no one is being given a chance.

The reconstruction of Iraq is held above our heads like a promise and a threat. People roll their eyes at reconstruction because they know (Iraqis are wily) that these dubious reconstruction projects are going to plunge the country into a national debt only comparable to that of America. A few already rich contractors are going to get richer, Iraqi workers are going to be given a pittance and the unemployed Iraqi public can stand on the sidelines and look at the glamorous buildings being built by foreign companies.
John Dean, who knows a thing or two about it, says that Dick Cheney lied to Congress:

According to the Report, Cheney provided GAO with 77 pages of "documents retrieved from the files of the Office of the Vice President responsive to" GAO's inquiry regarding the Energy Task Force's "receipt, disbursement, and use of public funds."

To any lawyer, a mere 77-page document production seems suspiciously slim - especially when it is meant to represent information from a group of people on a fairly broad topic. Surely there were more documents that were not turned over.

Moreover, it turned out, as the Report reveals, that the documents that were turned over were useless: "The materials were virtually impossible to analyze, as they consisted, for example, of pages with dollar amounts but no indication of the nature or purpose of the expenditure." They were further described as "predominantly reimbursement requests, assorted telephone bills and random items, such as the executive director's credit card receipt for pizza."

[...]

Of course, Cheney is a busy man. Yet there can be no question as to whether he was aware of the July 18, 2001 letter from the Comptroller complaining about the 77 pages of documents' being unresponsive: He even attached it to his own August 2 letter to Congress, as part of a chronology. And again, he personally signed that August 2 letter.

Of course, making false statements to Congress is a criminal offense, even if you're not under oath.
The US is using torture devices to restrain John Allen Muhammad:

Last week accused sniper John Allen Muhammad raised a point of legal procedure and received a shocking response --literally. Muhammad objected to a medical test that had not been ordered by the court or discussed with his attorney. In response to his refusal to cooperate, the guards activated a stun belt that sent a powerful electrical charge through his body.

The guard holds a simple remote control that sends an eight-second, 50,000- to 70,000-volt surge through a prisoner, causing immediate loss of muscular control and incapacitation. When shocked, many individuals will defecate or urinate on themselves. Some can experience fatal cardiac arrhythmia. Muscular weakness and temporary paralysis or weakness continue for 30 to 45 minutes. Last spring Wisconsin sheriffs held a public display to show the media how harmless tasers (stun guns) and stun belts are by shocking one of their own deputies, appropriately named Krist Boldt. Boldt was hit with a five-second jolt and was sent to the hospital with a head wound after he hit the floor.

(Incidentally, Jim Henley's Unqualified Offerings is all over the, as he put it, American government's increasingly open embrace of torture.
Several pieces in scattered locations pointed out that yesterday's car-bomb assassination of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim at the Mosque of Ali is a pretty obvious consequence of the George "Woody" Bush's stated position on Iraq and terror--that terrorists are supposed to hit Iraq now, not the US. The words "flypaper" and "Bring 'em on!" figure prominently. Eventually, however, the terrorists are going to realize that when we said that we want them to attack Iraq, we really meant it, and turn their attention back to the US.
Ah, and according to a UPI article, Bush has decreed:

Perhaps the only hope lies in the story going around town that President Bush has told the Pentagon he wants "no more American dead" after next March.

Also, he will hie himself in his royal sedan chair to the Chesapeake Bay and prohibit the tides from flowing.