Paper Walls II By Mark Crouch

Pataki in 2008, It’s Really That Simple

2006-11-11T05:20:00.000-08:00

First, this is not an endorsement; it’s a review of the political realities in the wake of Tuesday’s Election. Personally I’m a Delaware Democrat and as such will support the Presidential aspirations of Joe Biden.

The past 72 hours the network talking-heads have been buzzing about what Tuesday’s Democratic recapture of Capitol Hill means for the Presidential aspiration of the likes of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden as well as Even Bayh, John Edwards, Russ Feingold and even John Kerry and Al Gore. On the GOP side there’s plenty of head scratching and hypothesizing over names like George Allen, Sam Brownback, Bill Frist. Chuck Hagel and John McCain.

You don’t need to do a point-by-point of why each of the names mentioned in the previous paragraph cannot embrace the hope embodied in the old adage, “politics is the art of the possible.”

Certainly anything is possible, but history is a cruel teacher that when it comes to the probable; electing a President whose resume includes “United States Senator,” is, under anything aside from rare circumstance: very unlikely.

November 4, 2008 will be one day shy of forty years since America last elected a United States Senator to the White House. Richard Nixon served a scant two years in the upper house before being tapped by Dwight Eisenhower to fill the second spot on the 1952 GOP ticket. Nixon would become the 15th Senator to eventually find his way to The Oval Office. But it took eight years of relative obscurity following his 1960 loss to John Kennedy plus a rare confluence of events including, Johnson bowing out, Robert Kennedy’s assassination, Vietnam and the overall social upheaval that was the 1960’s to make his return ‘possible.’

Of the fifteen former Senators only two moved directly from Capitol Hill to The White House: John F. Kennedy and Warren G. Harding. Others like Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman, Andrew Johnson and John Tyler found themselves elected to the Presidency by the single vote of the Grim Reaper paying a visit to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. while they were serving as Vice President. John Quincy Adams was elected by the House when the 1824 election failed to give any candidate the needed victory in the Electoral College. Benjamin Harrison won the Electoral votes while losing the popular vote. Others like Kennedy and William Henry Harrison edged into the office with extremely thin margins in the popular vote.

What was true from 1790 to 1968 is even more so today. In addition to the baggage of a partisan voting record which can easily be spun into a brutal attack ad, today’s Senators are haunted by the specter of a forgotten “macaca moment” captured and waiting like a nuclear time bomb in the arsenal of their loyal opposition.

When you eliminate the Senators from contention you’re left with a small corral of mostly dark horse governors like Richardson, Vilsack and Warner for the Democrats and unelectable long shots like Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani on the GOP side. Wesley Clark and Condi Rice are shear fantasies.

After Tueday’s “drumming” as Bush called it, the Republicans face about as much chance of finding a friendly face north of the Mason-Dixon Line as Robert E Lee’s army did on its march to Gettysburg. And while they did managed to hold the White House without the help of the Northeast’s 117 electoral votes in 2004, such a concession cannot be part of any future GOP victory strategy.

Tuesday’s election results show a pronounced case of Blue State Creep with Santorum’s thumping in Pennsylvania, Michael Steele’s lesser drumming in Maryland and George Allen’s narrow loss in Virginia. The GOP loses in other Red States like Missouri and Montana clearly hearken the end of Carl Roves , “Let them have the Northeast and California. We’ll take everything else and win,” strategy.

Enter Pataki. He heard the footsteps and wisely stepped aside to allow popular New York Democrat Attorney General Elliot Spitzer make mincemeat of the token GOP candidate for Governor. Unlike Bush and Giuliani, he steps from public life with his 9/11 medal of service mostly untarnished. He’s a viable candidate from a big money, big power state without a Senatorial shadow and while he might well lose the home state in a Presidential face-off with Hillary, he will win virtually everywhere else.

So now begins the parlor games, the what-ifs and the exploratory committees. But it’s all little more than cocktail party chatter and fluffy fill for a slow news day. For now, the White House is George Pataki’s to lose…but then again, in the art of the possible, anything’s possible.

Waterboys & Cheerleaders Belong On the Sidelines - Not In the Game

2006-11-09T06:40:00.000-08:00

It's a basic plotline that's as old as Mickey Mouse. The hometeam is down by 2 points. It's 4th and long and only 1 second on the clock. Suddenly, the ugly cheerleader or lowly waterboy rushes onto the field and kicks the winning field goal. The crowd goes wild as the unlikely hero is carried triumphantly into the sunset on the shoulders of the winners. But sadly, what works in the movies did not work out so well for the GOP on Tuesday.

The lowly waterboy (as he described himself Wednesday in his self-contradictory post-election pity party) was Rush Limbaugh. While the pundants and pollsters are quick to say the resurgence of the Democratic Party was all about Iraq it is obvious from the many razor-thin GOP loses that "a little thing" could have easily changed the outcome. In key battles like Virginia, Missouri and Montana Rush's 4th quarter effort to jump into the game with his now infamous imitation of Michael J. Fox may well have generated the margin of defeat suffered by the GOP.

During Rush's meteoric rise to popularity in the early 1990's, a quiet scandal bubbled behind the scenes. While Rush was soaring into the limelight as the unoffical spokesman-cheerleader-waterboy for the Right, many major advertisers on network radio were running for cover to avoid any hint of affiliation or support for his unapologetic ultra-conservative agenda. Each week, radio stations carrying Rush would receive a list of major name brand advertisers who were running commercials on other national networks the station was affiliated with. This list became known as the "embargo/shift" list and required Rush stations to swear to timeshift any spot for any company on the embargo list out of and away from Rush's program. In simple terms, if a station was airing network news from NBC Radio at the top of the hour during Rush's broadcast, and the network sponsor for that newscast was on the embargo list, then the station was required to record the commercial (while not letting it play on the air) and play it back after Rush's show.

This was no simple knee-jerk reaction on the part of overly sensitive media buyers. It was during these early days Rush coined and frequently used the term "Feminazi" to describe most if not all the leadership of the National Organization for Women. In response, NOW and other women's groups launched a serious coordinated boycott effort at any brand associated with Rush. Market research showed affiliation with Rush produced a strong negative response in a large part of the female buying public. In fairness to Rush, the list of programs on the embargo/shift list became almost as long as the list of advertisers seeking to avoid them. Other notable radio talkers on the list included Howard Stern, Pat Buchanan, G. Gordon Liddy and The Greaseman.

In the years since Rush's rise to popularity Madison Ave. has become much less sensistive. The current thinking is, if you want the demographic, go ahead and advertise be it Rush, Stern or Fox News. The logic here is people who don't like the program won't be listening and the days of the truly effective organized boycott has gone the way of vinyl records.

On any given day, 15-20 million American's tune in for their daily dose of Rush. His real impact on the political process amounts to little more than preaching to the choir or rallying the party faithful. But obviously the webcam imaging of him childishly squirming in his chair as he accused Fox of feigning or exaggerating the symptoms of his Parkinson's was seen repeatedly by a much larger audience.

Many women, including some of the security/soccer moms who had played an intregal roll in recent GOP victories were reminded of Rush's past machoisims and his brutal insensitivity. Did it tip the scales and send some otherwise conservative female voters to the opposistion? Almost certainly. Was the margin of defeat in some close races; quite possibly.

Rush ended his mea culpa by saying he was tired of "carrying water" for those members of the GOP who failed to openly embrace and promote his singular hard-right, victory at any cost, vision of conservatism. He need not worry. When the deep research into Tuesday's GOP disaster is complete it is unlikely anyone will want him in the stadium, much less on the sidelines and certainly not on the field of play.

Paper Walls WIll Be Back

2006-11-08T17:13:00.000-08:00

We are warming up the keyboard so stand by!

Jackson 2005!

2005-11-22T12:36:00.000-08:00

Jackson – 2005
WITH DEEPEST APOLOGIES TO JOHNNY AND JUNE
(Female Part In Italic)

We got married in Katrina,
underneath a water spout.
We been talking ‘bout – Jackson
ever since the sun came out
We’re going to Jackson, get some FEMA dough.
I’m coming with ya,
Bet with two they’ll give us more

When I roll into Jackson,
got a big fib to tell!
How the barn blew down and the cows all drown
and poor ole granny fell down the well..
I’m going to Jackson
Need me a new shotgun
And I want a diamond
and a new X-box just for fun

I’ve always voted for the right wing
a fact I’m proud to scream and shout.
But ole Michael Brown he done let us down
so George W. get your checkbook out!
I’m going to Jackson,
But better comb your hair,
Yeah I’m going to Jackson
Get us some Red State welfare!

(Reframe)

We got married in Katrina,
underneath a water spout.
We been talking ‘bout – Jackson
ever since the sun came out
We’re going to Jackson, get some FEMA dough.
I’m coming with ya,
Bet with two they’ll give us more

The Tidewater Project – The GOP’s Top Secret Strategy To Save 2006…Maybe

2005-11-17T19:36:00.000-08:00

For most of the year, Easton, Maryland is little more than another quaint little colonial town on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. It’s location, adjacent to busy U.S. Route 50 and halfway between the Baltimore-Washington Metro area and the Atlantic beach resorts has made it a familiar rest stop for generations of summer travelers.

Surrounded by miles of open farmland, it’s rural isolation, just over an hour from the D.C. beltway has also made Easton a popular out-of-the-way rendezvous for D.C.’s powerful elite. During the height of the Cold War, the CIA actually used some out-of-way farmhouses near Easton as safe houses for defecting Communists.

One weekend each year, the town officially rolls out the red carpet and doubles in size for it’s annual Waterfowl Festival. The event, begun in 1970 to lure wealthy shotgun bearing goose hunters away from other popular shore towns like Chestertown, has morphed into an artsy-fartsy orgy of aging uppiedom.

The pick-up trucks and SUV’s have been pushed out by a phalanx of BMW’s, Lexus and the occasional Mini Cooper. The genuine hunters are hard to find among the throngs of never-held-or-fired-a-gun who eagerly pay $1000 for a beat-up and faded hand-carved wooden rendition of a duck.

This year, Easton celebrated its annual carnival of all that’s “duckey” or “goosey” last weekend. The weather was unseasonably warm and the crowds flooded Easton’s six square downtown blocks in shorts and light-weight tops.

If one were patient and watched closely, they could spot the occasional Senator or Congressperson, perhaps sharing an crab cake sandwich with a recognizable talking head from the Washington-Baltimore or even national network news media.

If one was very observant, and familiar with the junior puppet masters who hide in the long shadows of those who endure the spotlight of the current administration; a few very familiar faces could have been observed.

An unmistakable pair, one of whom you can bet your life has Carl Rove’s private number on the speed dial of her cellular, was seen eating oversized hamburgers at Ruby Tuesday’s. Meanwhile, at downtown’s landmark Tidewater Inn, a party of five with enough clout to not only get a table without a reservation, but one in the “private” dining area, munched oyster fritter sandwiches and kept their conversations at a low whisper.

While the vast majority of Festivalgoers tried to impress their peers with a bogus knowledge of which Maryland Waterfowl Hunter’s Stamp is the most valuable, these “other folks” were cloistered in an old Victorian bed and breakfast reserved exclusively for them.
The objects of their attention were not avian but rather huge three-inch binders packed with fresh exit poll data from the off-year elections just completed. The topics of discussion were not the virtues of a Remington 12 gauge verses a Browning, but instead how to keep their master from resembling a flock of pathetically wounded ducks in twelve short months.

The conclave of GOP strategist held concurrent with this year’s Easton Waterfowl Festival was no accident. Most of these players were in town the weekend after Labor Day to hammer out an operational plan to try and develop a saving strategy as the President and the Party’s popularity went into a fatal flat-spin.

The Tidewater Project, when first conceptualized in late August, was meant to overcome the administration’s Katrina disaster response, soaring energy prices and of course: Iraq. But the static hadn't even faded from those initial Xerox copies when the team was hit with the new challenges of (Tom) Delaygate, Fristgate, Miersgate, Torturegate and Scootergate.

When the numbers came in from the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races, the panic was so severe that an emergency meeting was called and the vested parties were summonsed back to Easton to rework Tidewater from top to bottom.

The basic new outline goes something like this:

(1) Until Carl can rehab George W’s image and get the pop rating above 45%, only those GOP candidates running against long-dead liberal opponents in the reddest of Red States will acknowledge there is a Republican resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

(2) For his part, the Big Guy, scheduled to exit stage west for an economic visit to the orient, should take some wild potshots at the opposition as unpatriotic slobs for criticizing his noble war on terror, then drop off the face of the earth. He should return from his overseas foray directly to Camp Crawford and stay there as long as possible, preferably the entire holiday season, while Senators and Congress flock homeward to begin their 2006 stumping. Meanwhile, old Doc Cheney will stay in DC and fire away at any critic as a treasonous scoundrel, far worse than some poor guy who doesn’t tell the truth to the FBI.

(3) Meanwhile the GOP Senate will act-tough while carrying a toothpick and enact a meaningless piece of legislative drivel calling for “more regular meetings with Administration officials concerning our progress in the Iraq War.”

(4) Any GOP candidate living in the contiguous lower 48 must arrange at least one photo-op handing out frozen turkeys or cheap Christmas stockings to Katrina survivors. (Note: They will be easy to find, clumped together in small groups (the people not the turkeys) outside the motels they were staying in until FEMA evicts them on December 1).

(5) When speaking about Iraq, talk about supporting the troops avoid saying you support the President.

(6) Have your staff examine your record and find at least ten times you voted against the White House on non-substantive issues as a way of stressing your independence without alienating your base.

(7) Unless your district is a solid 50% evangelical Christian, avoid direct contact (i.e. speeches and photo-ops) with Fundamentalist leaders and for God’s sake, don’t accept an invitation from Pat Robertson to join him on the 700 Club to discuss anything.

(8) When asked about record oil company profits in the third quarter point out how fast prices have fallen now that hurricane season is over. (Officially not until December 1…the same day it’s ok for Katrina victims to live on the street again)

(9) Work with your State party to avoid costly and potentially damaging primary contests. You’ll need the money in the fall.

(10) Spin blame into shame. Your opponent can be easily put on the defensive by framing their platform as “shameful” and “unpatriotic” if they criticize Iraq, the Supreme Court nominations, or even the performance of the President.

(11) Avoid a (Doug) Forrester Folly (unsuccessful GOP New Jersey gubernatorial candidate). DO NOT let your opponent draw you out and define your position as solidly anti-abortion, anti stem cell.

(12) Talk about Ronald Reagan.

As Sunday night settled in and the last of the Waterfowl crowd headed towards the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, the GOP spin masters carefully packed their polls and wearily headed back to D.C.
My source tells me the next official Tidewater Project meeting is scheduled for the first week of March. Two media pros from the RNC are planning to join them and present some sample TV ads.

One of the last one’s to leave the bed and breakfast conclave was heard to remark woefully, “Easton’s a great little town but I really hope we don’t have to come back here in the dead of winter.”

What Did He Say and When Did He Say It - Smart Dems Don't Want To Know!

2005-11-05T15:37:00.000-08:00

When Scooter Libby was indicted last week, I was working in a building where radio reception is poor and news tends to trickle in slowly with the arrival of individuals. I heard about the indictment first-hand over my car radio, but subsequent "hear-say" updates were not very accurate. At one point someone said they had just heard on the radio that Vice President Cheney was going to resign.

The statement gave me pause and flashbacks to 1973 and Spiro Agnew's departure. But then a very ominous and depressing reality settled over me (until I realized the story was false). My gloom was quickly noted by a co-worker who, knowing my total lack of fondness for the current administration, was perplexed why I would be saddened to see Cheney booted out of Veepdom. The answer is very simple.

With heir apparent like Tom DeLay and Bill Frist on the ropes, the departure of Cheney (who stands about as much a chance of succeeding his boss/protege as I do of having a drinking party with Jerry Falwell) would open the bully pulpit of the Vice Presidency to someone Like John McCain or Rudy G who could win in 2008!

It clear from Bush's ever-sinking popularity and the failure of the Harriet Meirs nomination that Falwell, Fox and Friends are spinning off into their own little fog of ultraconservatism and the illusion that they can actually influence more than 27% of the electorate.

Smart Republicans know that victory in '06 and '08 will mean getting out bed with the fundys and trying to find a safe spot in the middle of the road, or at least in the right lane with a lean towards the center. They also know a visible VP who has mastered the English language to say "one hundred percent," instead of "ah-hundredth purse enith" like their boss, could look incredibly attractive to voters of both parties.

The coming weeks and months will tell but in the meantime, Dems would do well to let their wounded adviser languish in the unending spotlight of cynical scrutiny and find good high middle ground on issues like energy prices, disaster recovery and Iraq.

I believe Bush won both times because he played the underdog to the hearts of the American people. No one likes it when someone beats a dog that's already down.

Texas Lawsuit Could Shatter Religious Right Coalition and Open Door For Biden Presidency

2005-08-21T10:18:00.000-07:00

Since 1972, every American President who won the popular vote (and the White House except for Al Gore in 2000) has done so by capturing a majority of the Catholic vote in the United States. Obviously Al Gore's plurality among Catholics, particularly in Florida, could have changed the outcome of the 2000 race had it been a few hundred votes stronger.

Ronald Reagan won the white House in 1980, thanks in large part to Fundamentalist Protestants, lead by Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority. Reagan also benefited from a strong Catholic turnout, many of whom saw Carter as representative to the historically anti-Catholic southern Evangelical church. But Reagan and his strategist realized that the future of the conservative movement in America rested on forging a voting coalition of fundamentalist Protestants and Catholics. The former could break the traditional Democratic lock on the south while the later could prove invaluable in swinging key northern rust belt states.

Towards this end, Reagan took the unprecedented step of extending full diplomatic relations with the Holy See. To insure that the evangelicals stayed in-camp, Reagan had Billy Graham quietly canvas and lobby Evangelical leaders to tone down their traditional anti-Catholic rhetoric. This dogma for years had decried the Roman Church as the seat of power of the future anti-Christ. Popular apocalyptic Protestant writers of the 70's like Hal Lindsey had linked Catholicism to the devil through nearly every doctrine and dogma, even the belt of the Pope which supposedly contained a poorly disguised 6 6 6.

Graham was able to convince the likes of Falwell, Robertson, Swaggert and others that a political coalition of evangelicalls and Catholics on such issues as abortion, euthanasia, and school vouchers was more important than the deep doctrinal differences.

In May of 2004, Carl "The Architect" Rove saw something in the mountain of polling data that sent a chill up his gelatinous spine. What he saw was a 3 to 5% lead for Kerry among voting Catholics. That plus was the result of Kerry's popularity with the key 'center' of the Catholic vote. Rove, (and everyone else) knew Bush would win the hardcore conservative Catholic vote: comprised of those devout Catholics who had joined hands and hearts with evangelicalelicals on the picket lines of abortion clinics. He also knew Bush stood no chance of besting Kerry among the so-called 'liberal Catholic' block. Victory in November could and did hinge on the large swing-center of moderate Catholics. The result of this reality was a hastily arranged visit in June 2004 to the Vatican and a reverencing photo-op of Bush with the severely ailing John Paul II.

The strategy worked and Bush went on to win the non-Latino Catholic vote by 6 points and demolish any Kerry support among conservative Catholics 72 to 28% . Evangelicals were not particularly happy with Mr. Bush's near genuflection to the heir of Peter, but as Rove had accurately deduced, Evangelicals would either have to vote for Bush or commit a sin by either supporting Kerry or shrugging their responsibility to 'save the nation' by electing conservative Christian politicians.

In the scant 10 months since Bush's reelection, it's clear that overall Republican strategy has shifted hard from right to center, not only to maintain strength with moderate Catholics but with the less-than-zealot conservative non-Catholic and non-Evangelical GOP voter. Bush's refusal to direct a Federal rescue of Terri Schiavo, followed closely by his attendance at Pope John Paul's funeral, was like a one-two punch to his loyal Evangelical Protestant base. The visible defection of Senate leader Bill Frist on the issue of stem cell research has been another staggering blow. But a lawsuit in Bush's home state could prove decisive in completely uncoupling the Protestant-Catholic alliance that has been foundational to the conservative power base.

The civil suit, now working its was through the Harris County Texas court, alleges that Catholic Priest Juan Carlos Patino-Arango molested three boys during counseling sessions in the mid 1990's. Patino-Arango is under criminal indictment by a grand jury but is currently listed as a fugitive from justice. While the criminal case is stalled, the civil suit is moving forward and with a question that could present Bush with a no-win conundrum.

Details of the suit and the dilemma facing the White House came to light at a press conference last week in Houston. One of the co-defendants in the lawsuit is Joseph Ratzinger , the person now known as Pope Benedict XVI. The suit alleges that Ratzinger, who at the time of the abuses was head of the Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, conspired with the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston and other Catholic Bishops to cover-up Patino-Arango's crime and hide him from authorities.

Daniel Shea, an attorney for one of the boys, cites a May 18, 2001 letter Ratzinger sent to bishops around the world as evidence of his (the future Pope's) complicity. In the letter, Ratzinger in effect said allegations of abuse should be handled in special Church tribunals and subject to the seal of 'pontifical secret'.

At issue is whether Ratzinger, as head of the sovern city-state of the Vatican, enjoys diplomatic immunity from American courts. The Pope's lawyers have launched a potentially lethal political hot potato at Bush by requesting a formal Administration clarification of the Pope's diplomatic status.

A negative ruling would almost certainly strip the GOP of broad based Catholic support in both the 2006 midterms and 2008 Presidential contests. An affirmation in favor of the Pope would likely galvanize hostile Protestant sentiment. Shea has also stated that a positive affirmation of diplomatic immunity for the Pope will force him to the Supreme Court to challenge the ruling under the First Amendment's guarantees of separation of church and state.

If the administration opts to do nothing the decision will fall to US District Judge Lee Rosenthal who is hearing the case, to decide the next step.

Most Catholics feel the sexual abuse scandals in the Church, while serious and troubling, have been greatly hyped by the secular media to the point of labeling every priest as a potential or practicing pedophile. What most Catholics don't know is that this stereotyping is in fact a core belief among many Evangelical Protestants. For years, groups like those associated with Bob Jones University, have produced and distributed millions of small comic book-style pamphlets supporting this belief with some outrageous accusations.

One such booklet explains how archeologists have 'repeatedly' discovered secret tunnels linking Catholic monasteries with near-by convents. The publications charge, among other things, that the tunnels were used for secret sex orgies between priests and nuns. The stories go further to state that "irrefutable archeological evidence suggests these tunnels and chambers were used for satanic sacrifice rituals of the infants born from these unholy unions."

Clearly, a Bush ruling that Pope Benedict is immune from some measure of accountability will only serve to underscore and reinforce the lurid imaginations of the increasingly disgruntled Evangelical right. Some political strategists on the right, particularly those laboring to pull the party more to the center and away from the fire and damnation crowd, see it as a necessary step to future survival. They are pointing to the rapidly emerging 'Christian center' as the new moral anchor for future victory. These same pundits tremble at the scenarios that could unfold if Bush strips the Holy See of the high honor of diplomatic recognition granted it by Reagan.

"You could forget 2008!" one such GOP stalwart lamented to me last week.

"If that happens (Bush ruling the Pope does not have diplomatic immunity) the party could write-off the Catholic vote with about the same numbers as the black vote. What's more interesting is how it would set the stage for a solid centrist Democrat. Someone without the liberal baggage of Hillary Clinton and particularly someone Catholic like your (Delaware's) Mr. Biden."

Biden, for his part, is getting more Sunday morning network face time than Tim Russert. At the same time, he's been quietly courting red state Democrats and playing well with the newly emerging Christian center.

As a Delaware Democrat, Joe Biden has always had my support. If Bush fumbles badly on the Ratzinger immunity play, Joe could well earn the eternal historical distinction of being the first President from the First State. We can only hope.

Bush FCC Blinded By Hypocrisy

2005-07-26T18:04:00.000-07:00

All Americans should take careful note of this week’s news that New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has slapped music giant Sony/BMG with a $10 million dollar fine for engaging in payola. What is worth noting is the chilling silence and granite stillness of the Federal Communications Commission: the agency that should be taking the lead in exposing and prosecuting this massive fraud.

Payola, the practice of dee-jays taking bribes to play records, is an illegal act because it constitutes an abuse of public trust. The airwaves of America belong to the people and are utilized by over-the-air broadcasters as “trustees” of this finite public resource. Taking money to play a record specifically violates FCC regulations, which require the sponsor of a broadcast be clearly identified.

It should come as no surprise that the FCC, which is so quick to levy seven digit fines on broadcasters for a stray curse word, is reluctant to go after payola. Any sweeping investigation of “pay-for-play” would ultimately end up at the front door of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

The Bush administration has been unapologetic and unabashed despite numerous “payola” revelations since the 2004 election. These include thousands of dollars to radio commentator and columnist Armstrong Williams to voice a pro-administration stance on education issues. Similar payments went to other “journalists”. GOP shill Jeff “Guckert” Gannon would be another example.

The most flagrant violation of misrepresentation by omission of sponsor identification involved the White House Press office which, hired actors to play TV reporters on pro-Bush puff pieces which were then distributed at taxpayer expense to friendly Red State media outlets which aired them during newscasts prior to the Presidential election.

Payola is no different than a corrupt county government official taking a bribe from a contractor for a favorable zooming decision. If we continue to allow everything in this nation to be sold we may someday have a dollar figure to satisfy the question: “at what price is freedom?”

Carl Rove and The Salvation of the Rotten Carrot

2005-07-17T09:35:00.000-07:00

Growing up Baptist in Lynchburg, Virginia during the 1960’s meant going to revivals. Most were forgettable muggy nights where the sounds of thunder and pouring rain often drowned out even the most spirited evangelical vocalizations. But one image-one story-from those countless orations remained with me through the years.
Before Falwell and the fundamentalists arrived on the scene with their “once saved always safe” dogma; the gospel of southern salvation was Jesus and good works. One traveling preacher focused on this fact in a parable about a rich woman…and a rotten carrot.
The story goes that there was this pious church-going woman of comfortable means, who despite her religiosity, was really quite selfish. She was said to have lived her life without ever sharing of herself or the blessings God had bestowed on her. She dies and instantly finds herself in the fires of Hell.
Looking up to heaven she pleads with the Lord for some explanation for her predicament.
“I never broke a single commandant my entire life,” she cried.
“Well,” said the Lord, “it’s not enough to simply not do anything bad in your life, you never did one single thing for another individual.”
“Oh but I’m sure I did…I must have,” replied the woman.
“Dear daughter,” God offered,”if you can give me just one example of when you showed any human kindness to another person I will deliver you to paradise this very day.”
The woman thought long and hard.
“Yes, now I remember,” she cried.
“One day I was cleaning my refrigerator and this old bum knocked on the backdoor looking for a handout. I just happened to have this little old slimy carrot in my hand I was about to put into the trash and I gave it to the bum.”
“Very well,” said God, “ come join me in heaven.”
With the woman watched as the very same slimy carrot drifted downward from heaven to rescue her from eternal damnation.
“Grab onto it and it will bring you to salvation, God instructed.
The woman clutched the pathetic vegetable with both hands and began to slowly rise from the flames of torment only to lose her grip after a short distance and fall back into the fire.
She regained the carrot and began to rise again only to lose her grip once more. After several more failed attempts she cried out in utter frustration.
“Lord! The carrot is too small; you’ve got to give me something bigger to work with!”
“Sorry,” came the divine reply, “but that’s all you gave me to work with.”
After watching today’s round of Sunday talking heads I can hear a hint of the same desperation in the voices of Rove defenders like RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman.
Pitted against an ever-growing mountain of evidence that Rove was neck deep in the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Palme’s cover to the media, Mehlman and his fellow- travelers have seized the single rotten carrot that Rove was apparently not the first source for Robert Novak’s column outing Agent Palme. This despite the fact that Rove was clearly Novak’s second source. When confronted with Time reporter Matt Cooper’s unambiguous sourcing of Rove, Melhman and company fall back to the deeply dug trench of, “we need to wait and see what the investigation uncovers.”
Obviously Mehlman is doing his duty by clutching frantically at this rotten carrot in hopes of avoiding a hellish mid-term election cycle. The only question that remains in this whole sorted affair is whether he can maintain his grip. There are many in both the media and opposition politics that believe he may well succeed where the poor house from the parable did not.
If the Republican spin machine is successful at taking the spotlight off of Time reporter Matt Cooper and redefining the issue to who leaked first to Robert Novac, then I feel compelled to offer one more nugget of wisdom from my childhood. This one, was a simple logic riddle from fifth grade.
“I have two current denomination American coins in my pocket. I have fifty-five cents in my pocket. One coin is not a nickel. What are denominations of the two coins?”

The Bush’s Snub of Jimmy Carter was Carl Rove’s, “UP YOURS!” to Disgruntled Evangelicals

2005-04-08T20:24:00.000-07:00

TO HEAR MARK'S AUDIO RECORDING OF THIS COMMENTARY, GO TO ODRADIO.COM

Pope John Paul II’s body is resting in the earth. Rome is starting to recover from the greatest invasion in its long history, and Air Force One is safely ‘wheels down’ near the Texas White House. As the stories, symbolism and sincerity of an incredible week start to fade, one message, albeit uncharacteristically subtle, still hangs in the post-funeral air like the scent of a thousand fading lilies.

The mid-week flap over the White House’s apparent lack of polite accommodation for former President Jimmy Carter to attend the Pope’s funeral has been dismissed as simply a minor hiccup in post-Presidential protocol. Carter even humbly acknowledged this in a brief statement. But Washington sources for Paper Walls tell me the incident was far from a simple misunderstanding and in the micro-managed realm of Carl Rove’s White House, was in fact, a carefully crafted ‘shot-across-the-bow’ of the increasingly disgruntled evangelical Protestant community.

To understand the subtle nuances in play one must understand the world of political imagery of which there is, to my knowledge, no one on the planet equal to The Architect, Mr. Rove.

George W. Bush’s election and re-election have been a carefully scripted dance designed to play on the moral similarities between Fundamentalist Protestants and practicing Roman Catholics. Despite the obvious shared values on abortion, cloning and stem cells, there are monumental core differences between Catholics and Evangelical Protestants. Rove’s challenge has always been to keep his candidate looking enough like a born-again believer to keep a lock on the south and the bible-belt while making him look “Catholic Friendly’ enough to swing large blocks of Hispanic votes in states like Florida and Catholic heavy rust-belts states like Ohio.

It’s a very dangerous strategy because despite Pope John Paul II’s era of ecumenical harmony, when you get past the politics of abortion, the two constituencies have virtually nothing in common. Bush has had to walk a razor thin line. Too much pandering to the Catholic-hating, Klan inspired right like the gang at Bob Jones University could have cost him precious Catholic votes. On the other hand, his last trip to Rome where it looked like he was almost ready to kiss the Pope’s ring would not have played well anywhere in the Fundamentalist Protestant world where the Papacy is general regarded as the future office of the end times anti-Christ.

Despite the fact that he will never run for another political office, Bush still needs to walk this precarious line if his presidency is to do, as Rove as stated, “mark the beginning of a permanent Republican majority in Washington.”

So how does snubbing Jimmy Carter, a man who despite his public pronouncement of being a life-long born again Christian, was swept from office by Ronald Regan and his Jerry Falwell backed Moral Majoirty ,serve Rove’s grand design?

Again, the subtlety of political imagery must be clearly understood.

Both George W. and brother Jeb have seen their popularity plummet in the wake of the Terri Schaivo drama. This freefall took the normally prophetic Mr. Rove by complete surprise according to White House sources. Rove had assumed that the bold but meaningless gesture of Bush and the GOP rushing back to Washington to issue a meaningless and unconstitutional “Save Terri” law, would appease their Fundamentalist constituency.

“Carl is no idiot,” one source told Paper Walls. “He knew any legislative gesture would be immediately squashed by the courts. But to him this was a win-win. It would portray the President and the Republicans in congress as being ardently pro-life. Then, when the courts reversed it, this would help grow public opinion in favor of Bush’s roster of ultra conservative judges pending appointment to the Federal bench.”

But Rove failed to fully appreciate the Protestant right’s mindset that they had given both Bush brothers the “political capital” and “moral authority” to save Terri Schiavo “by any means necessary.” Their failure to set aside the rule of law and simply launch a combined Federal and State rescue of the dying woman has brought their “Christian Credentials” into serious question.

Rove needed a way send a backhanded slap at the Born Again base for their faltering faith in the Bush Dynasty-the funeral of the Pope was the perfect vehicle. He needed to remind them that the President has “other friends” (i.e. 50 million American Catholics) who were just as responsible for his electoral success. First, the President would curry the approval of Catholics by attending the funeral. This act, which has just been completed in the past 24 hours, has already started to increase the growing post-Schiavo rancor among Fundamentalist. Second, he would bring along his Father who now seems attached at the hip to the Fundys most hated political figure, former President William Jefferson Clinton. Finally, Rove chose the exclusion of former President Carter as his final disciplinary smack.

Despite his political failings, in the 25 years since leaving office, Jimmy Carter’s tireless personal efforts on behalf of the poor have earned him high marks from the Protestant Christian community that so chastised him as President. It’s hard to condemn an ex-President who, instead of retiring to a soft life of golf games and six-figure speaking fees (ala Ford, Reagan, Bush Senior & Clinton), has instead personally driven enough nails to build a small city for the poor and under privileged. Snubbing Carter while welcoming Clinton to the party was a message to Southern Born Again Christians not Liberal Democrats.

The message was simple, “If you don’t like the way we do things..we’ll find our friends in other places.”

Who these ‘friends in other places’ might be is sending cold shivers up the spines of bible-thumpers across the nation. First is the previously mentioned paring of Bush Daddy with Slick Willy. Who knows what new cause they might unite against when the memories of last years tsunami have faded. And then there’s Jesse Jackson’s late entry into the “save Terri” drama. A powerful and popular black Christian minister with platinum left-wing credentials, the quintessential anathema of all that Falwell and company have crusaded against for 25 years….openly supporting ‘their’ President!
One is forced to consider the possibility that Rev. Falwell’s harrowing respiratory arrest last weekend might have been the result of political shock and not lingering pneumonia!

In the short term, Carl Rove knows his ‘in your face’ actions will only further aggravate his already irritated base. But come election time, they’ll have no choice but to support Rove’s hand picked successor.

How could God ever forgive them if they did otherwise!

Carl Rove’s Attempt To Fire Up The Core With Schiavo Case May Turn Into GOP Emollition!

2005-03-27T07:58:00.000-08:00

I can’t blame President Bush, Governor Jeb Bush or their political advisors for underestimating the righteous zeal of their Red-State, Born Again, Fundamentalist Christian power-base. All are relatively new to the true depth of the unyielding rationalizations of the Fundamentalist mind-set. But for a veteran exile of the Fundamentalist movement like myself, I can only say, I told you so. (See Blog: Bush’s Unholy Trinity Posted 11/7/04)
The modern American fundamentalist movement was born in the south during the boiling years of the Civil Rights Movement. While it outwardly criticized the plight for equal rights, the movement borrowed ideology from both Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Malcolm’s, “by any means necessary,” battle cry and Dr. King’s , “responsibility to disobey unjust laws,” were hypercharged when they were adopted by the likes of Falwell, Jones and Robertson. If one is a born-again child of God and acting on divine inspiration (as Bush as claimed for his invasion of Iraq) then certainly any means are in-play if the end be God’s will. This is the logic that has driven violence against abortion clinics and justified a litany of overtly illegal acts by a small cadre of allegedly, “devoted follows of Jesus Christ.”
The Bush brother’s, both Jeb and George have seen their approval and popularity ratings plummet in recent days, driven by criticism from their loyal core. What the Bush’s don’t understand is that in the minds of their supports, God’s law (as they see it) overrides man’s law (the numerous Schiavo court rulings) and the brothers Bush should simply invade the hospice (the way GWB invade Iraq) and reinsert the feeding tube.
The Schiavo case, which GOP strategists were hoping would smother the reality of the quagmire in Iraq, soaring gas prices and Bush’s controversial Social Security reforms, has backfired badly because of the Bush brother’s reluctance to ignore the law.I doubt the Democrats will benefit directly from this growing schism in the Republican ranks. More likely, it will leave behind fertile political ground for more extremist fundamentalist candidates like Randal Terry who have nudged their way into the limelight of the Schiavo case. Normally such a drawdown of one party’s strength benefits the opposition. But the other reality is that ultra-extremists like Terry will actually take total of the GOP and many moderate members of the party will simply shut-up and go-along to get-along leading to the second American Civil War and bloodbath that will make the Spanish Inquisition look like a Methodist sprinkle baptism.
RETURN TO ODRADIO.COM

I'm Still Here!

2005-03-17T19:01:00.000-08:00

Still recovering from my post-election trauma, writng seven book, fighting the bastards at the University of Delaware who stole my daughters scholarship money. OD Radio, my new site is up and running at odradio.com.

Stand-by friends and fellow travelers.

I'm about to throw gas on the fire and buckets of bullshit into the wind.

Peace baby..or let it burn...let it all burn.

Delmax!

More Trouble In Space!

2004-12-12T08:07:00.000-08:00

President John F. Kennedy defined space as “the new frontier”. He also used the exploration of this frontier as the ultimate test of the supremacy of democratic free enterprise over state sponsored socialism. The space race of the 1960’s gave us the technology of the 1980’s, which Ronald Reagan used to bankrupt the Soviet Union as it tried to keep up with America. But the past five weeks have revealed an ominous shift in the “new frontier philosophy” which sought to insure that no nation would ever hold a monopoly on the endless domain just beyond our atmosphere.

An October 29th story on the BBC, widely covered in the European press but ignored in the U.S., revealed that our defense establish has warned our allies that we flatly will not allow them to deploy their own GPS (Global Positioning System) satellite system. A Pentagon spokesman, appearing on camera, so much as said, if you send it up, we will shoot it down.

Barely two days later, in another mostly ignored story, it was revealed that a ground-based, non-destructive satellite disruption system had been tested and was now fully deployed an incredible six years ahead of schedule. Then on Wednesday of last week, Democrats on the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, expressed concern over the soaring costs for yet another apparent “non-destructive” space-based satellite weapon. A system, which some experts believe, has already been successfully tested against America’s own communications satellites.

While no reasonable American would deny the need to deploy genuinely defensive space technology, the non-destructive nature of these systems as well as their design to only temporarily disrupt an enemy’s communications system, smacks of Orwellian intent. If another nation’s actions are so grievous as to warrant an act-of-war by attacking their satellites, why not simply destroy the vessel with our existing weapons technology? It makes no more sense to leave a potential enemy weapon in space than is does to leave stockpiles of them laying around in Iraq. The only logical conclusion is that these systems have been conceived with an eye towards using them against ‘friends’ as well as genuine ‘foes.’

Wal-Mart and Oil Spills Spell Trouble In the Food Chain.

2004-11-30T18:55:00.000-08:00

First, let me apologize to loyal Paper Walls readers for the recent extended hiatus. In addition to the holiday I have been busily working on my new book, Five-By-Five, The Simple Approach To More Effective Communications. Available January 15, 2005 from amazon.com.

Last Friday yielded two events, the similarity between them not being apparent until today when I heard two separate radio programs discussing them and their impact.

On Friday, I traveled to the colonial town of Easton, Maryland to visit my mother. Her and I, along with my two older sons enjoyed a late lunch at a local restaurant. Afterwards, we stopped at the local Wal-Mart for a little shopping. I was rather shocked that at 2 p.m. on Black Friday, the Wal Mart was less crowded than on a typical Sunday afternoon. For the first time in my experiences with the nation’s largest retailer, I actually walked into an open but empty check-out aisle!

Yesterday and today has generated significant business news articles and commentary on the fact that, despite a supposedly robust Black Friday, Wal-Mart sales went flat for the remainder of the Thanksgiving weekend; a significant and perhaps foreboding economic indicator.

I returned to my home Friday night. Around midnight, I was standing on my back porch when I noticed the air had a distinctive scent of heavy oil. My home sits barely one-hundred yards from the Delaware River and about 7 miles mile south of Friday night’s spill of 30,000 gallons of crude oil from a ruptured tanker.

Local public radio did an excellent job today of bringing together various experts to discuss the ecological impact of the spill on the environmentally challenged Delaware River. One expert offered the glum forecast that even after the massive surface sheen and tarry shores have been cleaned, large heavy globules will remain on the river bottom for years poisoning the smallest creatures who make up the bottom of the food chain, and impacting the river’s recovery for years to come. Some refer to this legacy as the “bubble-up” problem.

Later in the day, another program discussed the Wal-Mart sales story and I couldn’t help but see a clear correlation. I say this with all humility for I am among this class, but the people who regularly shop Wal-Mart are the base of America’s economic food chain and the retailer’s poor performance should be a clear warning that something may be terribly wrong in the economic environment.

Those of us who shop Wal-Mart, do so because saving $5.00 here and there means a lot more than the practice of spending more for slightly better quality and the “experience” of shopping a Macy’s, Bloomingdales, Lord & Taylor or even Sears & Penny’s.

The fact that an appreciable percentage of this “class” of shopper apparently did not have the financial ability to shop this weekend at the Mecca of bargain basements is a telling sign of the impact of the proliferation of George W. Bush’s $8 an hour jobs and $2 a gallon gasoline!
It is the labor and spending of the Wal-Mart class that feeds upward to fund the lifestyle of the still comfortable middle-class. For every 60 cubic yards of Wal-Mart goods not sold there is one less truck on the highway, one less trucker employed, one more person who loses a job with health care, one more draw on the unemployment line. Before you know it, those fortunate white-collar executive-types who have hovered just above the line where their job can be out-sourced to India, find themselves without a position.
George H.W. Bush, when campaigning against his eventual running mate in the 1980 Republican Primaries called Ronald Reagan’s tax-break and spend philosophy, “Voodoo Economics.” Apparently whatever did ‘trickle down’ from George W. Bush’s tax cuts, has trickled-out and the barrel is starting to run empty from the bottom up. All those extra dollars that have been spent this year for every tank of gasoline and can’t be spent on Christmas gifts at Wal-Mart, are the sub-surface tar balls now bubbling upward to destroy the Bush myth of a “robust economy.”

Who Really Killed J.F.K. ?

2004-11-21T07:48:00.000-08:00

Thirteen years ago this weekend, my life was quite different from the sedate obscurity I now enjoy. 1991 had begun with the excitement that Oliver Stone was moving forward with production of his epic film J.F.K. I was one of the minor contributing researchers to the film, allowing Stone full access to the Fox Autopsy Pictures as well as insights the aging Secret Service officer had shared with me prior to his death.

As the year progressed, I found myself drawn into the broad national debate surrounding the film’s historical accuracy. In late summer, an interview I gave a local Pennsylvania newspaper criticizing Stone’s critics, was picked up nationally by the Associated Press. By Fall, I was doing a half dozen radio, tv or print interviews each week. As a legitimate broadcast journalist, my words were given a slightly greater import than those of many other so-called ‘conspiracy theorists’. Stone even granted me a brief telephone interview fully a month before the film’s release.

November 22, 1991 began with an appearance on Philadelphia TV with author Harry Livingstone and Dr. Cyril Wecth and didn’t end until late that evening; the entire day a whirlwind of media buzz.

In April 1992, Livingstone published High Treason 2, a New York Times Best Seller in which Harry acknowledged I had ‘held his hand’ through the process. (and also contributed significant research, observation and opinion). It took months for the post-J.F.K buzz to die down.

In the spring of 1993, attorney Gerald Posner struck back at the conspiracy theorists with his poorly researched apologetic for the Warren Commission Report entitled Case Closed. The book was not as much a critique of the contradictory evidence as it was a character exposé of many of the top conspiracy writers. All the turmoil eventually yielded the Assassination Records Review Board, which spent a large part of the decade trying to figure out how so much ‘secret’ material about the case had leaked into the public sector. Their single accomplishment, if you could call it that, was to pay the Zapruder family a million dollars for the grainy six second home movie of the assassination.

Among the many ‘minor’ stories emerging during and after the work of the ARRB were acknowledgments from Warren Committee members Arlen Spector and Gerald Ford that the Commission had indeed taken great liberty with the so-called Ryberg Medical Drawings, altering the location of the President’s wounds to more comfortably accommodate the Single Bullet/Lone Assassin theory. Aside from this seemingly minor revelation, the last ten years has seen little new information. But is there a simple irrefutable truth that can be mined from the mountains of evidence, theory, rumor and conjecture that have emerged over the past 41 years? Yes and it’s the same one I offered countless times a dozen years ago.

Fact 1 – In June of 1981 while managing a small radio station in Maryland I met and became friends with the late James K. Fox who, by all public record, was the man who processed the ‘official’ autopsy pictures for the United States Secret Service. Fox eventually allowed me to copy the photographs with the proviso that I not release them or reveal their origin until after his death. Fox died ion 1987 and in 1988 David Lifton published the photographs in a re-release of his 1981 best seller, Best Evidence.

Fact 2 – Following Lifton’s publication of the Fox photographs, authors Livingtone and Robert Groden published four additional photographs in their original High Treason. These pictures were obtained by Robert during his tenure as a photo expert for the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1978.

Fact 3 – All Kennedy autopsy pictures in the public realm are either from the Fox or Groden sets.

Facts 4 – To a man, every Dallas witness be they doctor, nurse of simple observer, every Bethesda witness, every person who saw Johns Kennedy’s body has stated that the Fox and Groden pictures do not accurately report the wounds they observed on the President’s body. Warren Commission supporter, the late Dr. John Lattimer stated, as most of the critics have, that the official pictures are ‘fakes or latter models.’ When Lifton showed the pictures to the Dallas doctors in 1987, all of them rebuffed the pictures.

Fact 5 – I cannot speak for Robert Groden but each and every one of the Fox autopsy pictures passed from Fox, to me and to the public unaltered. If they are fakes or later models as virtually every witness has agreed, then they are government created fakes.

As a young boy, I once broke a favorite glass figurine of my grandmother’s while visiting her. I tried to conceal my actions by hastily cleaning up the debris before I was discovered. But my grandmother caught me so I tried to blame it on her dog. She just smiled down at me and replied, “honey..a cat doesn’t cover another cat’s crap.”

Who killed JFK? Who knows, who cares! The United States Government deliberately corrupted the vital medical information in the autopsy pictures. If the Lone Nut Theory was the truth, this action would have been totally unnecessary. The simple truth is that in the most critical hours of American History, our government has proven time and again that it does not trust the American people with the truth.

If those in government perceive themselves as always superior to those who have placed them in that position, then do we ever truly enjoy a government of the people, by the people and for the people?

The Rude Awakening of the Pathetically Unenlightened

2004-11-19T03:44:00.000-08:00

In my last blog I briefly mentioned the apparent shock of that segment a of the Bush electorate which I previously defined as “The Ugly”. For those of you who did not read that one, basically these are the not-too-religious, yuppie-type suburban Republicans who accounted for one-third of the votes cast for George W. Bush. They are financially comfortable and generally well educated. But almost to a man (more than half are actually women), each one has expressed serious concern over some action of the President in the scant two weeks since they voted him in for another four years.
These actions include the “don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out,” response to Colin Powell’s resignation and Bush’s immediate appointment of Condoleza Rice as his successor. They are also shocked and a little worried about the storm of right-wing lightening flashing around Pro-Choice Republican Arlen Specter: the heir apparent to the top seat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. There are also those who are worried about the sudden ousting of numerous senior intelligence officials at the new Goss CIA.
A closer examination of the true motives behind their beliefs further exposes the myth of the supposed monolithic moral majority of likeminded Americans.
Unlike “The Good” the true hardcore evangelicals, who believe abortion, gay marriage and stem cell research are truly sinful, these Republicans of a lesser pioty were working from an entirely different motivation.
If you engage them in a conversation of more than five minutes, most will confide that they’re not really against abortion. In fact, a large number of them feel it should be legal in the case of rape or incest…particularly if the victim might just happen to be their daughter. What they were truly against is paying tax dollars for abortions for “those people” (translation ‘ lazy-assed white trash, blacks and Latinos who lay around and screw all day then expect us to pick up the tab for the kid or for an abortion!’)
They like the conservative agenda because they figure it will result in restrictions on abortion for those who can’t pay-as-you-go, without making it wholly inaccessible should they desire it. Now they see it might be a ‘choice’ THEY no longer have even though they can pay for it themselves!
There were similar motives behind their opposition to gay marriage. They really don’t care if the couple next door is Jim and Jane or Jim and Joe, they just don’t want to have to pay extra for their healthcare so that Jim can cover stay-at-home Joe under his medical plan because ‘one of them is sure to come down with AIDS and I’ll be dammed if I’m paying for their lifestyle!’. Now, despite the resounding defeat of the gay marriage proposals, many companies, wishing not to be caught up in the devise political battle, are actually moving forward with more liberal definitions of a ‘spouse’ or ‘companion’ to allow for this coverage. In point of fact, the Jim and Jane next door who smoke or take the pill or eat high fat diets are going to (by their lifestyle choices) cost their health insurer far more than the average monogamous same sex couple.
As for the CIA, the recently disaffected among the GOP faithful appreciate the potential consequences of losing experienced intelligence professionals. They could not see the writing on the wall when a dictorcrat like Goss is given is much power and authority. So I guess we’ll all just grit our teeth and pray that there’s no future 911 on tap until our new intelligence community can get on the fat side of the learning curve.

The NEW Goss CIA Could Get Us All Killed!

2004-11-16T16:29:00.000-08:00

Check it out
http://www.odradio.spyblog.us

Join Me As A Corpo Terrorist

2004-11-12T03:31:00.000-08:00

Got to Paper Walls 1 for all th details.

http://www.odradio.spyblog.com

A New Look At the Red And Blue States

2004-11-10T03:54:00.000-08:00

Click this link for today's Paper Wall.

http://www.odradio.spyblog.us

Just A Thought For Today

2004-11-08T18:55:00.000-08:00

Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear. William Ewart Gladstone

We Will Get Nuked…And I Think I Can Tell You When

2004-11-07T18:27:00.000-08:00

Billionaire Warren Buffet said it. Dozens of senior military commanders, security experts and intelligence analysts agreed. Some Washington insiders say it’s a primary reason George Bush spends more time away from Washington than a long-haul truck driver does from home.

A terrorist nuclear attack on the U.S. is eminent and when it happens it will shine a blinding white-hot fireball/spotlight on the Bush Administration’s failure to properly protect American ports.

In the spring of 1980 I lived in Chestertown, Maryland. One rainy March day my scanner went off with a dispatch for fire and rescue to report to the eastern banks of the Chesapeake Bay for a ‘downed helicopter’ in the bay. From the start, the event, which would ultimately take several years to unfold, had all the intrigues of a Tom Clancy novel.

The helicopter, owned by the Department of Energy had reportedly left Andrews Air Force Base for Summit Airpark in Northern Delaware on a mission to “pick up a spare part.” Summit is a small local airstrip owned by members of the Dupont family. As a pilot, I had heard ‘stories’ about Summit going back to the early 70’s. Those stories of Summit’s rumored links with the CIA were partially confirmed in the mid 1980’s.

A civilian aircraft modified as a jungle gunship and used by the ring-wing Contra guerillas in Nicaragua was shot down and the pilot captured. Ultimately, when the registration of craft was traced it led straight back to tiny Summit. But such connections were only vague ‘rumors’ when the DOE chopper crashed into the Chesapeake in March of 1980. Still, at the time, many locals involved in the search for the craft wondered what kind of ‘part’ was available at Summit that was not available at the home of Air Force One or one of the other major military airports around Washington. It was obviously a hastily hammered together cover-story.

At first, the search-and-rescue then search-and-recovery effort was a typical endeavor of state and local agencies. But anytime a piece of equipment washed ashore or an oil slick or floating debris was spotted, a small army of mysterious men in black cars and army green pick-up trucks literally appeared from nowhere to seize the evidence or takeover the search operations.

The intrigues surrounding this event are too numerous to detail but can be summed up with a logical deduction of established public facts. The helicopter was not simply a small two-man aerial transportation vehicle. In fact, it was a world famous machine which just one year earlier had appeared in headline pictures around the world. The craft was the DOE’s super-sniffer nuclear radiation detection platform which the previous spring was seen many times taking aerial samples around the cooling towers of Three Mile Island.

Any aircraft, leaving Andrews Air Force Base for Summit would assume a heading just east of due north. But the search for this craft was directed at an area indicative of a more easterly flight path. This flight path was directly over an area known as Pioneer Point, which juts out into the eastern Chesapeake, just north of the Bay Bridge near Annapolis. So what reason would there be to deploy our high-tech nuclear bloodhound over this mostly open and unpopulated expanse of cornfields?

The area was mostly large farms and a smattering of waterfront vacation homes. One of those farms was a tightly guarded 1,100-acre compound, which just happened to be the official summer diplomatic retreat of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

I can’t tell you what it’s like to be eating a pizza with your kids at Pizza Hut when then Foreign Minster, Andrea Gromyko, strolls in with his granddaughter and a security detail that gave everyone in the place a case of nervous bladder. But I digress.

Most informed people agree that during the cold war, as early as Eisenhower’s presidency, the Soviets had briefcase sized ‘Snoppy’ nuclear weapons deployed inside the U.S. for use in the event of the unthinkable. All those ICBM’s, B-52’s and Trident submarines were accessorial. The ultimate weapon that assured our destruction would be one dedicated Marxist standing innocently on the Mall in Washington with a heavy black attaché case in his hands.

It was obvious, once all the facts fell together, what the helicopter had been doing when it crashed. It was sniffing for evidence of a nuclear device at the Pioneer Point compound. The only mysteries that remain are whether it found any, and was the crash a simple accident or a shoot-down by security teams at the compound.

During the debates, John Kerry pressed Bush on the need for tighter control of our ports to guard against a smuggled nuclear device powered by a fraction of the missing or unsecured fissionable materials from the former U.S.S.R. Bush seemed unmoved by the plea, an obvious tell that he feels the present screening efforts are sufficient. Those efforts include the publicly acknowledged inspection of around 5% of the containerized cargo coming into the country and presumably, some helicopter based scanning of the remainder as it approaches U.S. Shores. But the huge question is whether such scanning can detect a low-yield well, shielded nuclear device. While I won’t profess to be an expert in current nuclear detection capabilities, the fact that we still must closely inspect 5% of the cargo would seem to point to a vulnerability in the aerial platform screening. No one has ever confirmed whether every cargo vessel approaching U.S. shores gets such a flyover.

Over the years, as I have researched the Pioneer Point incident, I learned that most types of low-level nuclear detection suffers from one glaring fault. It is nearly useless during the predictable surges of solar sun spot activity when the earth is bombarded with a shower of the same radioactive particles being sniffed by the senor systems. During such periods, which can last for two weeks, safety systems at nuclear plants are ‘desensitized’ (sent to a much lower level of sensitivity) until the solar storms pass.

I for one have been paying close attention to the status of the sun, particularly when necessity dictates a trip near Washington or New York.

When all other rhetoric and hyperbole are set aside, I pray..I sincerely hope and pray.. that this failing of the Bush Administration does not result in the realization of his ‘mushroom cloud’ which will serve as the ultimate and eternal symbol of his enduring blind obtuseness and total incompetence.

Bush’s Unholy Trinity Represents No Moral Mandate!

2004-11-06T15:37:00.000-08:00

Obviously the major news media was as tired of the election as the rest of us by Wednesday morning. So it is understandable that they were anxious to offer a quick “post game wrap-up” to the endless year of campaigning. Most outlets simply grabbed the first available man-of-the-cloth and shoved a microphone in front of him asking: ‘was this election a moral mandate?’ Understandably they all agreed to some degree. But in reality the real analysis of George Bush’s victory is just getting started.

Dan is an acquaintance I met several years ago while taking evening college courses in advanced database management. His career and company, which I will refer to by what they do, DBPA (Deep Background Polling & Analysis), fascinated me. Dan called me to see if I was interested in some temp work with his company. They are currently culling over 10,000 interviews, some with as many as 100 questions, which have been conducted since Tuesday evening. Unlike the quick snap-shots of exit polling, DBPA offers what we data nerds call, “heavy duty drill-down.”

I was curious why his company would engage in such a massive endeavor after the election when there was little demand for the information. On the contrary I was told, not only do many political organizations thirst for this data to begin long range planning for the next election, but also there is a huge and immediate market on Madison Avenue. The election offers corporate America an opportunity to see how all those millions of dollars in commercials motivated the American public who, between now and the next election, will spend around 20 trillion dollars on everything from pet food to health care.

Dan offered to meet me Friday evening for dinner and some “unofficial” preliminary results on who really put George Bush back in the White House. I was ready to hear that Bush’s return was the result of countless millions of halcyon-era Ozzie and Harriet Nelsons voting for the bible, against terror and in opposition to that dreadfull national cancer called ‘liberalism’. What I learned was that the results were driven by three groups, whom Dan, a Republican, laughingly called The Good, the Bad and The Ugly! When we examined the supposed ‘similarities’ of the three groups beyond the superficiality offered by the media, the results were shocking. It has been said that ‘politics makes strange bedfellows’, but in Tuesday’s case, it was a ménage-a-trios so bizarre that the Marquis de Sade would have been reluctant to join the frolic.

The Good

This third of Bush’s electorate was comprised of 65% Protestant, 35% Roman Catholic. 68% attend church once a week and offered “moral issues” as the main determinate in their vote. The vast majority:
1. Had household incomes under $65,000 per year
2. Drank alcohol Never or Very Rarely
3. Could not name a relative or friend serving in Iraq
4. Had 2.45 children living with them
5. Among the married, were still with their first marriage partner

The Bad

This third of Bush’s electorate was comprised of 45% Protestant, 25% Roman Catholic and 30% who expressed no firm religious affiliation. 45% attend church once a week and offered “economics and terrorism” as the main determinate in their vote. This group seemed to be comprised of left-over Reagan Democrats and the traditional Uppie. The vast majority:

1. Had household incomes over $75,000 per year
2. Drank alcohol on average 1-3 drinks per week.
3. Could not name a relative or friend serving in Iraq
4. Had 1.87 children living with them
5. Among the married, averaged 1.75 trips to the alter.

The Ugly

This final part of the Bush victory pie would probably not be invited to any family reunions of the Good and the Bad. They are 80% Protestant and 20% Other but only 20% attend church regularly. The majority:

1. Had household incomes under $35,000 per year
2. Drank alcohol on average 5 or more times per week.
3. Could name at least one relative or friend serving in Iraq
4. Had 2.8 children living with them and 1.3 living with someone else.
5. Among the married, averaged 2.1 trips to the alter.

The Ugly had some other interesting profiles. 85% said Kerry’s ‘religious values’
were objectionable but only 17% were ‘strongly’ or ‘somewhat’ opposed to abortion. Translated, these were people strongly opposed to a ‘Catholic’ president.

The Good Catholics and the majority of the Bad and Ugly overall did not believe gambling was a sin, while 86% of the Good Protestants think it is.

Dan offered that the so-called Nascar Dads were evenly divided across the three main groups. This lead to a discussion of the curious disappearance of 2000’s Promise Keepers movement of which Dan had been involved.

He shared with me the embarrassment suffered by his chapter when two of the officers were arrested on child support warrants, and the names of other members began appearing on a ‘Delinquent Dads”. I gathered the chapter dissolved when it’s moral mullah, Bill Bennett was found to be using his six-figure per appearance speaking fees to feed the $100 Slots in Atlantic City and not the desperate poor as instructed by the bible. But then, who ever said being ‘conservative’ and ‘moral’ meant following biblical principal.

Deep within Dan’s mountain of revealing data were statistics which confirmed other bizarre beliefs by some segments of the Bush Fan Club. Here are a few:

Believe John Kerry would outlaw the bible of elected
Good 37%
Bad 12%
Ugly 68%

Believe John Kerry was a POW in Vietnam who was released after turning traitor
Good 17%
Bad 2%
Ugly 47%

Would vote for a non-protestant president
Good 35%
Bad 67%
Ugly 7%

Believe Abortion is a sin
Good 93%
Bad 22%
Ugly 12%

Believe gambling is a sin.
Good 68%
Bad 17%
Ugly 10%

Believe homosexuality is a sin.
Good 87%
Bad 21%
Ugly 38%

The only clear fact regarding the re-election of George Bush is, when you run enough totally fictitious television ads you can convince half the voting population that they share the same “morality” when obviously they do not.

One final note. When I first met Dan, his company employeed 250 people locally and occupied a large office campus. I knew DBPA was no longer at it's old location which prompted me to ask Dan if the company had outgrown it's former corporate headquarters.

"No," he replied with a hint of saddness. "We downsized two years ago, cut about a third of the workfore. There's only about 30 of us left here."

Before I could ask the obvious question of where the other 100 were Dan offered.

"All the logistics, the phone calls, the data entry, that's all done offshore (India) now. We just do the sales and the analysis here in Delaware."

Such is life, in the boom enonomy of the great moral nation of George W. Bush.

Legacy: The Third Reason Bush Had To Invade Iraq Part 2

2004-11-02T16:13:00.000-08:00

For nearly three generations from 1860 to 1932, Republicans won 14 of 18 Presidential elections. But the dismissal of Herbert Hoover with the full blame for the nation’s terrible depression in 1932 was the beginning of a change in American politics. The Democrats got control and kept it for twenty long years. It wasn’t until 1952 with the decision by Democrat Harry Truman not to seek reelection, and the G.O.P’s fortunate draft of yet another beloved American war hero, Dwight Eisenhower, that the Republican’s could once again lay claim to the White House.

The Eisenhower years were marked with the growing unrest of the Civil Rights movement, the conservative radicalism of Joe McCarthy and the full unfolding of the Cold War. When President Eisenhower suffered a heart attack in 1955, his doctors and family urged him to retire but G.O.P leaders pressed the ailing and kindly Ike to seek a second term least they lose the White House and all hopes of reestablishing another long succession of White House occupants such as those enjoyed prior to Hoover’s loss to Franklin Roosevelt.

Republican’s were less concerned with the 1960 election. Richard Nixon had been an able, (and due to Eisenhower’s health) a very visible Vice President. Most party officials figured the American public had grown comfortable with the idea of Nixon as President since he had served for four years, “just a weakened heartbeat away from the office of President.” But that optimism dissolved to the wind when a young, handsome, charismatic and very well financed Democrat named Kennedy reclaimed the White House for his party. Of course Nixon would ultimately succeed to the Office in 1968 and win a resounding landslide reelection in 1972. But plans for another multi-term dynasty were soon a fading hope in the growing shadow of Watergate.

The Watergate Scandal was, to many loyal Republicans, the end of any future hope of even winning the White House, much less establishing a succession dynasty. This was reinforced by Gerald Ford’s loss in 1976 to the relatively unknown Georgia peanut farmer, James Earl Carter.

As a reporter, it hard for me to describe the depth of despair expressed to me by many Republicans in the early days of the Carter Presidency. Most felt the party would be plagued by the stigma of Watergate for years if not decades. A democrat was in the White House, a man who would obviously seek a second term and as I mentioned in Part 1, it had been 92 years since a Republican challenger unseated a elected incumbent Democrat running for reelection. But events of the late 1970’s and 1980 changed this almost certain political reality.

Ronald Reagan with George H. Bush established their own 12-year dynasty and despite losses in 1992 and 1996 to Bill Clinton, the G.O.P felt it had shed the Watergate stigma. The enduring popularity, respect and genuine admiration of the American public for Ronald Reagan were evident from the outpouring of emotion following his death earlier this year.

In early 2000, George W. Bush avenged his father’s humiliating loss to Clinton and set about laying the groundwork for what would hopefully be another enduring Republican run of successful Presidential campaigns. But there was one huge skeleton in the closet, a boogey-man of their own creation from the Reagan/Bush era; Saddam Hussein. Why was (or perhaps still is), Saddam Hussein so dangerous to the Republican’s legacy? There really is only one logical and powerful enough motive and that would be that Hussein is the lynchpin in a scandal so potentially devastating that it would all but erase the still-warm afterglow of the Reagan/Bush era (particularly Bush Sr.) and taint the Republican Party with a more devastating shame than even Watergate .

Most political observers agree that by and large, the Reagan/Bush legacy has washed off the smell of the still factually fuzzy October Surprise scandal, then later, the very obvious Iran-Contra arms for hostages money laundering operation to assist the Contras in Nicaragua. Bush Sr.’s pardoning of Iran/Contra players like Oliver North and friends by most measures, was not the factor which cost him reelection in 1992.

So what kind of scandal could Saddam and his top military lieutenants expose that would be even more devastating for the Bushes and the Republicans than even ‘arms-for-hostages’? When a careful and observant historian looks at all the facts, they are drawn to one inescapable possibility. The very real possibility that the United States of America actually assisted Saddam Hussein either with logistical support or actual technical advice which resulted in Hussein’s despicable gas attacks on his own Kurdish population in 1988.

BREAKING NEWS: U.S Deploys Orwellian System To Dominate Space 6 Years Ahead of Schedule!

2004-11-01T17:53:00.000-08:00

Note To PW Readers: I had planned to run the second and third installments of “Third Reason” today but as this article will attest, breaking news is more important than history. Also I would like to add that during my 35 years in broadcasting I was also a licensed and certified engineer, very familiar with digital satellite systems.

On Friday, the U.S. Air Force, in response to emails from Reuters, acknowledged to the news agency that it operationalized a sophisticated new ground-based satellite jamming system late last month, fully six years ahead of a planned 2010 roll-out. As recently as February of this year, the Air Force was sticking to the 2010 timetable. What is this system and what does it mean?

The CCS, Counter Communications System is designed to temporally jam ‘enemy’ satellite communications systems with a powerful non-destructive electromagnetic radio -frequency beam mounted on a mobile flat truck bed. The CCS, according to the Air Force is designed to, “deny and disrupt an adversary’s spaced-based communications and early warning,” without permanently “frying the electronics” of the satellite the way lasers or powerful ‘pulse-type’ weapons would do.

The news comes on the heels of a major European story that has been totally ignored by the American news media. That story, reported as recently as Friday October 29, 2004 over the BBC’s World Service concerns a growing conflict between American and our European ‘Allies” over the use of space. According to the story, the U.S. has warned Great Britain, France and Germany against any effort towards deploying their own G.P.S. type global positioning system. A U.S. spokesman appearing on camera effectively stated, “if you put it up..we will bring it down.”

Col. Xavier Ramsey, a retired Army intelligence officer and longtime consultant to this author, expressed bewilderment at the military practicality of a non-destructive weapon system designed to, “deny and disrupt,” an enemies, “early warning systems” without destroying those systems.

“That’s like giving all cops nothing but rubber bullets,” Ramsey responded incredulously when I explained the system to him.

“This is obviously an offensive, not defensive weapons system. The fact that it’s designed to disrupt an enemy’s communication and early warning of attack means it would be deployed at the beginning of a preemptive attack. Now think this through Mark, if we are about to go to war with one of the few major world powers who now possess this sort of satellite technology, or any country who is likely to possess it in the future, you are in effect saying we are at war with you but we want you to still have your satellite when the war is over? It’s totally ridiculous! If we’re talking about Russia, China or North Korea we’re gonna blow anything they have out the sky. You don’t fight a war by locking up the enemies weapons…you fight it by destroying those weapons!”

The real purpose of the new system, particularly it’s “non-destructive” capability to temporally shut down any communications satellite rings more ominously for battles which may be fought on the domestic front than those which might be engaged on foreign soil. Such a “friendly weapon” is usually designed to control ones friends and not ones enemies.

Virtually all news aside from the local news, which is broadcast over radio and tv or printed in the newspapers is distributed via America’s fleet of communications satellites in fixed geo-synchronous orbits at permanent altitudes approximately 22, 600 miles out into space. If we suppose that the present administration is successful in today’s election they would have at their disposal the ability to instantly (and non-destructively) mute any or all of the major news outlets. With the CCS, they could blind New Yorkers to the fact that irate Florida voters are storming the State Capital in Tallahassee. It is a useful device for someone who wants to control a deeply divided nation in times of crisis or uprising.

But all Orwellian fears aside, the single obvious fact evidence by this story and the one last week on the BBC is that America has boldly laid claim to the high frontier of space as an American controlled colony. The fact that the rest of the civilized world is seeing us as an overbearing global bully is not simply a matter of the failed adventure still unfolding in Iraq.

Legacy: The Third Reason Bush Had To Invade Iraq Part 1

2004-10-31T16:05:00.000-08:00

Whether Tuesday’s victor is George Bush or John Kerry one fact is certain, history will surely judge the man who occupies the Oval Office during the next four years, based on his ability or failure to successfully extricate our nation from the War in Iraq. Future historians, like today’s electorate, will probably also never agree wholly on the reason we went to war. But years from now, when the passions of the 2004 election had long faded to cold ashes, I wonder if someone will entertain, the third reason.

Recent polling of Bush supporters indicates many believe weapons on mass destruction were found following our invasion last spring. Despite the ever increasing evidence that most of official Washington knew there were no such weapons, the Administration seems wholly contented to continue to offer that the removal of Saddam Hussein and the ‘liberation’ of the Iraqi people, stand as sufficient just cause for the conflict.

The second widely accepted reason for the invasion; the one broadly lamented and scorned by Bush’s political opponents as well as some supporters is the economic factor. This camp offers the understandable logic that the big money players who tapped George Bush in 1998 as the ‘Nominee Apparent,” and flooded his campaign coffers with over one-third of a trillion dollars are reaping their due return on investment. It has been offered that Bush needed the War to mask the disastrous impact his tax cuts had on the Federal budget. Others point to the lucrative multibillion contracts to Halliburton as well as other Bush friendly defense contractors as examples of Bush’s gratitude.

This past week, the financial world labeled the on-going spike in oil prices as “the largest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind.” The benefactors of this windfall nearly all fall into the known “friends” of the Bush Family. These include not simply the Saudi Royal Family and petroleum connected giants such as Halliburton but hundreds of lesser known Texas oil families. As one observer put it, “when oil hit $50 a barrel, it was to many small Texas oil companies, like California falling into the Pacific making worthless Nevada desert, ocean front property to which they owned the development rights.” Indeed, many nearly dry wells along with those from which the crude must be cajoled to the surface with water or steam, have suddenly become viable and quite profitable. Obviously the fact that no one of any note who supported George W. Bush’s Presidency has gone unrewarded, particularly in the months since the war began, gives great credence to the economic motivations.

But is the war in Iraq simply a paper-thin “just cause” wrapped around an obvious “golden opportunity” for the friends of Bush & Company? Is there a third reason, something perhaps even deeper and more sacred to Bush and the Republican’s than money? Could there be a motivation which, if it were ever fully revealed, would forever taint the name Bush and with it the integrity of the G.O.P for generations to come. The answer is quite possibly, “yes.”

To fully understand what George W. Bush may have been trying to protect with his invasion of Iraq, it is necessary to briefly explore the legacy of the Republican Party.

As any fourth grade history student knows, the first Republican President was the much-loved (more posthumously) icon Abraham Lincoln. After Lincoln’s assassination, despite bitter in fighting within the party, the G.O.P held onto the White House for two decades. This period included an eight-year occupancy by beloved Union General, U.S. Grant. But the party nearly self destructed in the 1880’s and 90’s.

The Republican’s long-term ‘post-Lincoln’ lease on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue came up for renewal in the Election of 1884. Embattle President Chester A. Arthur who had ascended to the office following Garfield’s assassination in 1881, was widely disliked both in and out of the party. At the party’s 1884 convention, Arthur was dismissed in favor of Maine Congressman James G. Blaine. Despite Blaine’s open ties and conflicts with the big railroad barons of the day, the party ran him against New York Governor Grover Cleveland. Some historians believe Cleveland’s victory was assured when a popular fundamentalist preacher and vocal Blaine supporter named Samuel D. Burchard, referred to the Democratic Party as the party of, “rum, Romanism and rebellion.” Burchard’s widely reported insult was aimed directly at Irish American’s. Roman Catholics and Southerners, who threw their support and the election to Cleveland.

Stunned at their loss of the White House, the G.O.P resolved in 1888 to retake the presidency by any means necessary. The means would be by way of a fake document that came to be known as the Murchison Letter, the G.O.P’s first use of the October Surprise tactic.

The Murchison Letter was widely distributed in October of 1888 by Republican operatives working for the election of Benjamin Henry Harrison. The letter was actually two correspondences. The first one was from an unknown Englishman turned American, one Charles F. Murchison to Briton’s American Ambassador Lionel Sackville-West. Murchison’s letter innocently asked for the Ambassador’s opinion on the upcoming Presidential Election. Sackville-West responded that the re-election of Grover Cleveland would certainly benefit Great Briton.

The letter had the exact opposite effect on the groups who four years earlier had been so offended by the Rev. Burchard’s bigotry. The substantial Irish and Catholic vote swung to Benjamin Henry Harrison and a Republican was once again seated in the Oval Office. But later it was learned that Charles F. Murchison did not exist and the letter had actually been the handiwork of California Republican George A. Osgoodby. The indignity of the electorate at having been fooled lead to Cleveland’s reelection in 1892.

Republican’s would retake the White House in 1896, and with the exception of two-term Democrat Woodrow Wilson, hold the highest office in the land until the defeat of Herbert Hoover in 1932.

The important lesson found in this history is the fact that if you were a Republican during this American era, your party generally controlled the White House. From Lincoln’s election in1860 to Hoover’s defeat in 1932, only Grover Cleveland and Woodrow Wilson enjoyed victory as Democratic Presidential Candidates.

What is most important to appreciate at this point is the realization that Benjamin Harrison’s corrupted election over Grover Cleveland using the Murchison Letter would be the first time a Republican challenger ousted an incumbent Democrat. This feat would not be repeated until some 92 years later, and sets the stage for a complete understanding of the third reason George Bush took us to war in Iraq.

Bin Laden Message Exposes CIA’s Bogus Azzam “The Phony” American

2004-10-30T18:55:00.000-07:00

Eight days ago we reported the following widely publicized facts:

(1) Recently released research from Cornell University indicated clearly that George Bush’s approval rating enjoys a approximate 3% increase whenever the terror alert was raised or when a new threat was issued from Al Qaeda , and:
(2) Minnesota Senator Mark Dayton closed his Washington office during the election break because of Top Secret threat intelligence distributed by Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist.

Thursday, ABC News Broadcast portions of a tape from alleged Al Qaeda member, “Azaam The American..” Then on Friday, for the first time in three years, a tape from Osama bin Laden that could only be described as conciliatory, suddenly surfaces.

Now understand one thing. This reporter has no tolerance for bin Laden. He is a mass murderer responsible for the deaths of 3,000 innocent Americans and deserves ultimate justice. I am very anti-capital punishment but in bin Laden’s case, killing him would clearly fall under the rationale of self-defense. That being said, we must look at both tapes, their timing and other events in the context of a carefully orchestrated intelligence operation designed to manipulate the American electorate.

First, obviously Carl Rove and the brain trust behind Bush’s reelection have been aware of the potential benefit of getting “terror”, their candidate’s only strong point, into the headlines close to the election. Their dilemma has been some way to accomplish this aside from the obvious issuing of another vague warning based on “increased chatter” intercepts and a subsequent increase in the national terror alert status. Bush needed a “no fault” way to spook the national psyche which would not seem so overtly political.

It is my opinion that this is precisely what was attempted with the so-called “Top Secret” warnings circulated earlier this month by Bill Frist. I believe it was the Bush Campaigns hope that Senate Democrats would run screaming like a gaggle of Chicken Littles to the press and in effect do the Administration’s dirty work of stirring public emotion in a direction favorable to Bush. When this did not happen, a new approach was needed.

The Azzam tape reeks of phoniness and contrivance for several reasons.

(1) The tape is of unusually clear “broadcast quality” unlike bin Laden’s camcorder quality tapes.
(2) Historically, all previous al Qaeda communiqués have been delivered to Arab television network Al-Jazeera’s headquarters in the Qatari capital of Doha. The Azzam tape was “shopped” to ABC News via a Pakistani connection who received a $500 “travel fee.”
(3) The tape is riddled with rambling clichés about “blood in American streets.”
(4) Unlike all genuine threat tapes, it appears the Administration made no real effort to convince ABC to suppress the actual audio track for fear it may contain hidden code designed to signal or communicate with American al Qaeda cells. As for the actual bin Laden tape, American officials in Qatari lobbied heavily to prevent Al-Jazeera from airing the message. These efforts included pressing the Qatari government to take action. Recent tensions between Al-Jazeera and the American-Iraqi interim government lead to the expulsion of the network’s reporters from Baghdad.
(5) In the regimented hierarchy of al Qaeda, knowledgeable intelligence analysts know such a major communiqué would have to have been sanctioned by bin Laden. This raises the obvious conundrum, why would bin Laden sanction a bold “blood and guts” threat tape and almost immediately follow it up with his own “leave us alone and we’ll leave you alone,” edict. The obvious impression this would make on al Qaeda supporters is that bin Laden is weak and wishy-washy, while this bold American convert is dedicated to bloodier jihad! The bin Laden tape is reportedly 18 minutes long, 15 minutes of which was released and widely broadcast but the final three minutes have been sequestered. Why?
(6) The Azzam tape actually makes references to TV talk show host Bill Mahr. Such trivial detail is wholly out-of-character with any terrorist group.
(7) The arrival of the Azzam and bin Laden tapes has virtually knocked the story of the missing 320 tons of high explosives right off the table.

As of 6 p.m. Saturday night, tracking polls indicated Bush receiving a 2 – 3% point surge in the last 36-48 hours following a slump generally attributed to the missing explosives story. In the absence of any other obvious cause, it would seem the Cornell “fright factor”
has been once more validated. The question though, was it real or was it Rove?

Bad Day For American Troops.

2004-10-28T19:11:00.000-07:00

Click Over To Paper Walls 1 for the lowdown
http://odradio.spyblog.us

This Author Close To Committing Irrational Self-Destructive Act.

2004-10-27T17:32:00.000-07:00

My friends, and those of you who choose not to be in that category, if one more woman, one more African American or Latino, one more devote Catholic, one more gay Log Cabin Republican tries to convince me that their voting for George W. Bush is rational..well I’ll…go up to Chester County PA this weekend and fling my corpulent and aging carcass beneath the tires of the first Bush, Cheney, Kerry or Edwards campaign bus I see! If that doesn’t kill me I am certain the drumming I’ll get from the wheels of all those follow-up Escalades, packed with beefy Secret Service Agents will limit my suffering to a mere blink of an eye!

I was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, half my family are founding fathers of the Moral Majority! The other half decided they (The MM) were too liberal and simply stayed Klan! All of them disowned or disinherited me when I moved to Maryland, married and eventually became a Catholic. I am talking from personal life experience, first hand knowledge and absolute authority. You are voting for a man whose is totally supported by and believes in an agenda that you are not equal in the eyes of Almighty God to heterosexual, white males!

If you think I’m wrong, go into a Fundamentalist Christian Bookstore and spend one hour scanning the books. (Note: Not all ‘Christian stores’ are run by fundamentalists. You can easily identify those that are by asking for a Catholic Bible and better yet, a statue of Mary or any of the saints or their associated medallions. Fundys believe these are Idols so you won’t find them there).

Oh sure, now days, in an attempt to appear otherwise, you might see a book from the round brown T.D. Jakes or even a tome from Allan Keyes. But look hard and you’ll see titles railing against the ‘satanic’ Catholic Church along with books explaining to women how their ministry is confined to “other women” and that true happiness is only found when they worship at the feet of their man!

If you get into the heavy-duty stuff for ‘ministers’ you’ll be enlightened to know that small children, blacks and others of ‘weaker spirit’ are prone to be literally possessed by the devil during worship causing them to cry, act up or in the cases of blacks, shout out an occasional, “amen, thank you Jesus!” And should therefore be prohibited from attending the main worship services where their little outbursts might interfere with a political endorsement being offered from the pulpit!

A gay person supporting George Bush is absolutely analogous to a naïve German Jew supporting Hitler in 1936! Read the Old Testament, the prescribed penalty for, “a man who lays with a man,” is death! Fundy’s believe every word of the bible is true and literal (except when it might harm them like when Jesus talked about the righteousness of cutting off any ‘limb’ that causes one to sin. How’bout that Mr. Jimmy Swaggart! Oh..in that case..he was speaking metaphors!)

As recently as 1989 I had to take Fundamentalist preachers off the air at radio stations I owned and managed for preaching precisely that..that gays, who refuse to be ‘saved’ should be put to death!
Wake up people! Stop believing you have an informed opinion from the sound bytes offered up by the empty talking heads of the media be they right, left or center! Stop listening to ministers who spend all their time trying to get people elected while souls they should be serving go lost, hungry and mired in despair!

To women, I offer you one challenge and one plea. My late wife who I loved dearly bore me four beautiful children, 3 of them sons. The youngest, now sixteen, was a late arrival. Prenatal testing indicated he would possibly be born with Downes Syndrome. We never even entertained the thought of further prenatal testing because with or without defect, he was our child, a gift from God and we were not going to abort him! As it turned out, he is a handsome and intelligent young man, a straight ‘A’ student and perhaps even a budding math genius. But now, you want to re-empower a man who will, if reelected be forced by circumstance to conscript my son to fight and possibly die in what we all know is another trumped up war American war. You would have my son die! The soul of his dead mother backed by a chorus of 55,000 who left their bodies in a place called Vietnam cry at you from Heaven….think woman…think!

If your counter is what , “well Mark, what about the souls of the millions of aborted infants,” my answer to you is simple. Outlawing abortion will not stop it anymore than outlawing alcohol stopped its abuse. If you want to stop abortion then be a better mother, a better sister, a better aunt or a better friend to the women around you. Stop teaching young women that the only real measure of their worth as humans is their ability to lure some male to the orifice between their legs! Which is exactly what your President is teaching and preaching when you strip away the façade of his false self-righteous bigoted form of wholly (not Holy) non-Christian Christianity.

New Proof That The Draft Is Coming Back...SOON!

2004-10-26T18:30:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago I published a report that indicated apparent signs around Dover Air Force Base Delaware that the base, and more precisely it's massive morgue were preparing for a sharp increase in activity. [ See: Dover Insider Puts The Lie To Bush's No Draft Promise!]
Since the publication of that article I have received both publicly and privately, a number of other clear signs that the Bush Administration is rapidly ramping-up logistical activity which could only be justified by a sharp increase in the number of American military personnel deployed to either Iraq or somewhere. With the armed forces and reserves stricter to their absolute limit, these indicators can only mean the military is planning for a sharp influx of new recruits.

Several sources in the southern states have reported that military orders for foodstuffs from the notorious MRE's (Meals Ready To Eat) to coffee, non-dairy creamer, sugar and sugar substitutes have quadrupled in just the past three weeks. One source told me that the sudden surge in tomato prices, which has been attributed to damage from the Florida hurricanes and other "bad weather" in California, is actually a result of military suppliers buying huge quantities of the crop.

"Tomatoes are a base ingredient in many MRE's and other military favorites," one source explained. "pastas, pizza, spaghetti, all take a lot of tomatoes. Someone coming into the market suddenly with demand for several million pounds would be analogous to suddenly opening 2,000 McDonald's all at once. Tomato based products are popular because their acidic quality helps prevent spoilage particularly in hot climates."

Last week the New York Times ran a story of how sauces in the government had, "dusted off their contingency plans for a draft of medical personnel."

Some comments I have received wondered whether the sharp up-tick is merely Bush pushing some extra business to friendly patrons just in case he gets pink-slipped next Tuesday. That might explain some of the actions but certainly not a draft of medical personnel.
Other's have asked, how can Bush possibly turn around after having promised no draft during the debates? I laugh. Here, allow me to take some of the post election workload off of Carl Rove and you tell me he wouldn't say this:

And now the President of The United States,
"My fellow American's, before the election I said that it was my hope and belief that we would not have to resort to a military draft in order to win the war against terrorism. That belief was based on the process we had made in rooting out and destroying the enemies of democracy in Iraq. Just before the election, we all heard how the present insurgency had aligned itself with the al-Qaida. This merging to two terrible enemies of freedom demands we respond with the strength needed to insure victory and win a lasting peace for our nation, for the people of Iraq and for the world. As said many times during the campaign, this is hard work but it is a task we cannot shrink from regardless of the hopes and beliefs we may have enjoyed just a few short weeks ago. So tonight, I am announcing the reactivation of the Selective Service System. It would be my prayer that young Americans would heed this call to righteousness and voluntarily join with their brave brothers and sisters. For now, as a nation, we must commit ourselves, with every resource to insuring the victory over there so we do not face another day of defeat and despair over here. God bless you and God Bless the United States of America."

I must confess to you dear reader, that I am sitting here tonight, one week from the election, playing some of the more mournful selections from a collection of Bach, Mascagni and Ravel. I have also been reading Sinclair Lewis’s , “It Can't Happen Here" which I implore each and every thinking American to rediscover:

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/l/lewis/sinclair/happen/complete.html

As I see it now, George W. Bush will likely be reelected. If he isn't, then I can happily fade away as a false prophet, exposed by my erroneous prediction. And if I'm right, I will probably be simply taken away, as a treasonous anarchist in this land we once called, the land of the free.

To odradio Fans

2004-10-25T16:14:00.000-07:00

Our original blog at odradio.spyblog.us is back up for reading and comments but I still cannot post. Going forward we will post all new material here at paperwalls2 and then update odradio when it's back up.

Mark

Most Definitive or Dangerous Week In 42 Years?

2004-10-24T17:49:00.000-07:00

As America enters the final days of passionate election frenzy, it’s understandable how some things go unnoticed. Our nation, bitterly divided, each side desperately clawing and slamming itself against the other like two frenzied lovers, each racing for their own selfish orgasmic release on November 2. And like two lovers who know only one will ultimately achieve sweet release while the other will be left exhausted but wholly unsatisfied, both worry that the appointed hour of climax may not bring either the indisputable deep convulsion of certain culmination. For any human creature, so absorbed, it is understandable that anything less than a monumental distraction should go unnoticed until the act is finished. The unnoticed ‘child at the bedroom door’ of this erotic scene is the quiet anniversary of modern America’s most dangerous days. This week marks the forty-second anniversary of the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962.

When America and the world was threatened by a fate potentially ten thousand times worse than 9/11, it found the strength, resolve, leadership and courage to meet the awesome challenge in the person of a so-called ‘liberal’ senator from Massachusetts, a man named Kennedy.

This coming week, in many ways, may be the most dangerous America has faced since that fateful Fall so long ago.

Question all that you see and here.

PAPER WALLS II EXCLUSIVE HALLIBURTON CONTRACTS PREDATE BUSH ELECTION!

2004-10-24T08:18:00.000-07:00

(Wilmington,DE) An executive with a small plastics supplier in Wilmington, Delaware today told investigative author Mark Crouch, that Vice President Cheney’s former company Halliburton, began sending out massive requisitions for disposable plastics immediately after the election of the Bush/Cheney was assured by the Supreme Court.

The source of the information, who agreed only to be identified as T. True, provided documentary evidence that Halliburton was either able to psychically predict the future need for millions of tons of plastic products used only for military deployment or, more likely was told the new administration would have us in a major war within it’s first year in office. The channel for that information, almost certainly was Vice President Elect, Dick Cheney.

“You need to understand the world of ‘just in time’ delivery to fully appreciate what I am trying to explain,” True told our investigative team.

“Different types of plastic, all derived from petroleum products of course, are like a commodity. The facilities, which generate the raw plastics, need to run basically 24/7 because if you shut them down you end up with a factory full of pipes forever clogged with rock hard material. So the factories are very sensitive to any fluctuation in demand either up or down”

“The plastics industry has a pretty good idea month-to-month and year-to-year of how many plastic forks, cups and other disposables it needs to meet demand here in the U.S. Now if you’re talking about, let’s say a 90 day supply of field plastics to feed and take care of 100,000 deployed troops, you’re talking about a significant bump in typical demand.”

“Consider something simple like three disposable forks for each soldier, that’s three hundred thousand a day, twenty-seven million for the first three months.”

“Halliburton’s job is to be ready to deploy these materials as part of it’s logistical support for our troops. They need these things ordered, delivered, and packaged before they can begin to deploy their support infrastructure. And they need to be ready to go when the troops hit the ground.”

According to True, massive orders for disposable plastics began arriving from Halliburton and Halliburton subcontractors ten days before the inauguration of Bush and Cheney and continued to flow in at a rapid pace for the first six months of 2001. Documents, which True showed but refused to allow to be photocopied for fear of reprisals against his small company, confirmed his statements.

“By 9/11, Halliburton was sitting on a literal mountain of disposable plastics. I began to wander if these guys had lost their minds because in today’s economy you just don’t tie up that kind of cash in ‘dead’ inventory. But after the attacks, it all made sense. I figured the administration knew what was coming. But incredibly, after 9/11 the orders soared to new levels. Then when the President started talking about Iraq, I realized these guys were planning to keep a lot troops out in the field for a long time.”

True’s most alarming revelation was that Halliburton orders have continued to rise at a rate which indicates the military is apparently planning to increase, perhaps double the number of deployed troops in the months immediately after the November election.

“That’s really..really scary,” True confided.

Howard’s Move To Satellite Will Destroy Radio As We Know It-Good Riddance!

2004-10-24T08:15:00.000-07:00

(Posted on od.radio.spyblog.us 10/7/04)

Howard Stern’s announcement yesterday that he will be moving to a satellite distributed signal in January of 2006 does indeed spell the beginning of the end of contemporary radio, but not for the reasons everyone might think.

First, as a contemporary of Howard’s (b.1954) who spent years 15 – 45 in the radio broadcasting business, I have always been a fan as well as a professional admirer. While the mass media still tries to portray Howard as just a “shock jock” few have ever really appreciated the simple but brilliant genius of what he did and how it revolutionized entertainment.

Howard’s simple genius was to realize that the wild antics and inter-play that went on when the microphone was off, was far more entertaining than the same old records everyone was playing. Sex, farts, pranks and personality conflicts are as common in radio as time and temperature, but no one before Howard was honest or courageous enough to put it all on the air. In so doing, he pioneered reality entertainment and the plethora of current television programming.

Howard’s boast that this move will spell the ultimate demise of right-wing radio behemoth Clear Channel may seem tongue-in-cheek or grandiose to some, but I for one agree, and I said so in a 1991 featured letter in Broadcasting magazine.

Most American’s are blissfully unaware that the rest of the world has totally eclipsed us with crystal clear digital radio broadcasting which has been around since the late 1980’s. Meanwhile Americans have been forced to suffer along with the century-old technology of a near useless AM band and a cramped FM spectrum, which is squeezed between channels six and seven of commercial television.

The reason for this technology freeze was simple. In the 1980’s nearly every radio station in America was sold at least once. Huge nine-figure prices were paid for major market stations while even remote rural FM’s, which had traded just a few years prior for less than $100,000, commanded million dollar prices.

The major broadcasters, including Howard’s beloved Infinity, teamed with the National Association of Broadcasters to thwart any roll-out of the new digital technology which would have completely replaced existing AM and FM bands and in so doing, rendered those millions of dollars worth of investment worthless. For twenty years the industry has strung along regulators and the public with promises of IBOC (In Band On Channel) digital broadcasting, which would maintain the existing AM and FM signal franchises. While IBOC is almost practical for FM broadcasting it is almost impossible for AM and so the status-quo has been maintained while engineers worked out the bugs in this pie-in-the-sky rouse.

I was not in radio the entire time between 1970 and 1999; I did take two years off in the mid 70’s to manage a Radio Shack store.

FM was just starting to come of age in the 70’s and the industry wanted something to give it a shot in the arm. This led to the sad but mercifully brief experiment of quadrature or four channel broadcasting. The logic of course was if two (stereo) were good, four (quad) would be even better. Radio Shack was also going through an explosive growth spurt in the 1970’s and was quick to offer some of the early quad receivers. Unfortunately, the record industry did not jump in with both feet as it did with CD’s. FM station owners were having trouble turning a profit with their existing plants, which, for most, were less than ten years old, so few made the investment in quad broadcasting technology.
At the 1979 Radio Shack Manager’s conference, the head purchaser for the company was asked about the looming arrival of AM stereo and whether the company would be offering a receiver for the new signal. I’ll never forget the response, “ Sure we will, but only when every AM radio station in the country is broadcasting in stereo. We learned our lesson with quad. Next time, we’ll wait for the market to create a demand through programming.” This sentiment has been carved in stone among the major electronic manufactures and retailers ever since.

A few years ago, the FCC forever closed the door on terrestrial high frequency digital broadcasting when it allocated those frequencies for satellite use.

Howard’s move will do precisely what must be done to snap America out of its analog-broadcasting quagmire. It will create demand for digital broadcasting technology with proven programming not available anywhere else. Like PCs, CD.s and DVDs; once the door cracks open everyone will rush to get inside.

In an age where you can easily download almost any song ever recorded and have it available for playback on a pocket MP3 or cell phone, who’s going to listen to standard commercial radio for music? If you don’t want to go through that effort, fine, Howard’s arrival will bring with it more and cheaper availability of satellite music in every genre imaginable and all commercial free. So why even bother with standard radio?

The holdouts and old farts of the industry will try to console themselves with the illusion that commercial broadcasting will survive because it’s free. But across America the vast majority of households gladly pay $50 a month for cable, which is far from commercial free. And where cable isn’t available, and even many places where it is, people are willing to stick a small dish up and pay a monthly fee to get the entertainment they want.

My grandmother used to say, “if it’s free..you’re getting what you paid for”. She was correct.

Good luck Howard and Good Bye Clear Channel!

Health Care Part III

2004-10-22T16:16:00.000-07:00

To recap Parts 1 and 2: Health Care insurance premiums are soaring because health care costs are skyrocketing. There’s little economy of scale savings available by pooling premiums. Health care technologies, which could offer economy of scale and lower per-use costs, are regularly eclipsed by newer, better more disease specific technology. All things being equal though, why has health care experienced an annual inflation rate nearly triple that of other goods and services over the past thirty years? Some of the numbers may surprise you.

It would nice if we could blame greedy doctors, greedy hospitals, greedy insurance and drug companies and those damn greedy trial lawyers for all the ills of modern health care. But even if we could wave a magic wand and turn them all into altruistic incarnations of Mother Theresa, we would barely make a dent in the problem and here’s why.

One spring day back in 1964 Mac Crouch, my father, was fishing along the banks of the James River near Lynchburg, Va. Around mid-morning he noticed a thick column of smoke rising from the woods up river from his location. Being a local volunteer fireman, and aware we were experiencing an unusually dry spring, he took off to battle the blaze.

While trying to clear a firebreak in a field of tender-dry waist-high brush, the wind shifted and sent a rolling wave of fire racing towards him at 20 miles per hour. Realizing he could not outrun the flames, Dad jumped into a dry ravine and let the inferior pass over him. When the danger passed, he stood up. He was covered in soot and looked like a man with severe sunburn. The truth was, the radiant heat of the fire as it washed over his location had inflicted 2nd and 3rd degree burns over 75% of his body. That night at the hospital he slipped into a coma. Though unconscious his will to live and the tireless efforts of a legion of doctors and nurses allowed him to hang onto life for seven long weeks before his injuries claimed his life.

I was nine-years old and among my many memories was the discussion of the adults that it was a “good thing” Dad had Blue Cross and Blue Shield through his job because his medical bills totaled nearly $6,500. To put that amount in perspective in 1964 dollars, just seven months after Dad’s death my mother purchased a roomy new 3-bedroom rancher on an acre lot closer to town for the exact same amount.

Today, by conservative estimate, seven weeks in a burn center would result in a bill of approximately 1.5 million dollars! But what’s curious is, aside from advances in antibiotics to prevent infection and some new skin replacement technologies, the treatment today is essentially the same as it was for my Father 40 years ago. That being the case, what is responsible for the 230-fold increase in costs?

To understand one component of the cost increase we need to go back to 20 years before my Father’s death.

During World War II the government, in an effort to control costs on the home front, capped any annual increase in waves to 5% per year. In 1944, a Philadelphia area nursing home was cited by the government for breaking this cap, when, in a desperate attempt to recruit new nurses, it raised the starting salary from $40 to $45 PER MONTH, for a 72 hour work week! Fifty years later, positions for skilled Registered Nurses in the Philadelphia area went begging despite an hourly salary base of $45 along with numerous incentives and signing bonuses in the thousands of dollars. So why did nurses get so greedy? They didn’t, the cost increase was a result of simple supply and demand.

In 1971, my late wife began her first year of college with the career destination of being an elementary school teacher. Even then, at the dawn of the modern women’s movement, career opportunities for women were still generally limited to teaching, administrative (secretary) and of course, nursing.

Last month, my daughter, began her freshman year of college, in Analytical Chemistry with a career focus on forensic chemistry. We have come a long way baby, but in opening nearly every career opportunity for women, nursing has been forced to compete for staff among what was once an abundant labor pool.

For a young person embarking on a medical career as a doctor, the future presents a formidable financial challenge. In a nut shell, after medical school, internships and years of building a practice, a family doctor is likely to be well into their forties before they pay off their student loans and begin realizing the financial rewards generally associated with the position.

So what can we do to rein in the costs and what realities should our elected leaders be reminding us of about the issue?

The wrap-up comes in Part IV.

Now I’m Really Scared

2004-10-22T13:43:00.000-07:00

In a previous edition of PW [The Dooms Day Barometer] I expressed my belief that should a consensus of polls push John Kerry’s numbers beyond the margin of error, we may well experience a big ‘terror scare’ to try and swing the numbers back toward George Bush before the November 2nd. election.

Two items from the news of the past week give some measure of credence to my apprehension.

On Wednesday, a study by a Cornell University graduate student revealed that indeed, Bush’s approval rating go up virtually each and every time the terror threat warning goes up. Robb Willer’s study, part of his doctorial thesis revealed that since 2001, any increase in the terror threat level is followed the next week by an average 2.75% increase in President Bush’s approval rating. The data represents a detailed analysis of 131 Gallup Polls and up ticks that correspond to the 26 times since 911 that the government has issued terror advisories (with or without an escalation of the now familiar color code). A shift of 2.75% of the electorate would almost certainly clinch a second term for Bush and company.

More disturbing than Mr. Willer’s study was the news Thursday that Minnesota Democratic Senator Mark Dayton closed his Washington office when congress adjourned for their election recess, based on the possibility of a terrorist attack prior to Election Day.

Dayton said he refused to make his staff stay in the capitol as “human shields” while he returned home to Minnesota. He further stated his actions, while viewed as overly cautious, were in his words; “an extreme but necessary precaution” based on some top-secret intelligence reports, which have apparently been floated around Capitol Hill in recent days. According to the story, Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist circulated the reports two weeks ago.

Are lawmakers on both sides of the aisle being prepped for a bogus terror alert to spike the President’s approval ratings in the days immediately prior to November 2nd. ? But perhaps the evil political genius of Carl Rove is at work. Consider the facts. If you know an increased terrorist threat raises the President’s approval numbers, but you’re worried an overt act by the administration may seem patently self-serving, then what do you do? Simple, you raise the terrorism threat level by proxy by shoving a hyped up intel report in the face of some key Democrats. Then when you’ve scared the hell of them you just sit back and wait for one of them to leak it or commit some other overt act like Sen. Dayton’s and there you are, mission accomplished!

Lets just hope it’s all hype.

Please, Think Past One.

2004-10-22T13:42:00.000-07:00

My follow-up book to Bouncing Off Paper Walls – Ten Steps To Becoming A Black Belt Problem Solver; is being written under the working title of: Think Past One. The book is my simple ten-step program for teaching the one-dimensional minded to think of the big picture and understand how problems and their solutions are frequently interrelated.

Based on the growing likelihood that George W. Bush will be reelected President, I can see a huge potential market when the book is published next year.

During the third and final Presidential debate, Bush offered that education was the alternative to raising the pitiful national Minimum Wage. Apparently, a large segment of the otherwise intelligent population [and the national press] accepted this rambling, wholly evasive and totally illogical answer.

First, Bush scarcely has any real credentials as a supporter of education as evidenced by his much touted but under-funded No Child Left Behind program. But even if you accept his response the next question in the logical train of thought is, “does an education create more well paying jobs?” Obviously it does not as evidenced by the huge number of well-educated people working for little more than the minimum wage. How does an education stop a corporation from outsourcing thousands of jobs overseas? This presents a classic case of people simply refusing to “think past one” and seek the real solution to the problem.

Today, while campaigning in Michigan, Vice President Dick Cheney offered that the solution to poverty in our country is for people to, “get a job.” Good answer, if our economy was suffering from a vast market of unfilled, above minimum wage jobs. But of course the truth is, we have lost millions of well paying jobs under the Bush-Cheney regime. It was sad to see people in Michigan, which has suffered some of the worst unemployment, could cheer such blatant one-dimensional idiocy.

Bush’s one dimensional thinking is the reason he cannot introspectively critique his own failings and this dangerous mindset is classic in persons who believe their way of thinking is “morally correct.” If you convince yourself that a certain action is God’s will expressed to you, then even considering any mitigating argument, or worrying about other potential ramifications of your actions, is, in such minds, sacrilege. If God tells you to “invade Iraq” then ‘thinking past one’ to dealing with all the problems we now face, is not something a lesser man of God would do. Of course, throughout the bible greater men of God did frequently question God and look for answers beyond the mist of absolute blind faith.

The title, Think Past One, was inspired by a childhood experience with my late grand mother, Sadie Crouch. One afternoon, when I was around seven years old, I recall sitting on her living room floor playing solitaire. After several frustrating hours I angrily pushed the cards away from me and began pouting at my inability to win even one game.

Granny Green had been quietly watching me and when my anger subsided she smiled and offered the advice that I could have easily won several games but I had simply overlooked several multiple-move plays. Her advice was to, “slow down and think past one.” She explained how I needed to think about all the cards in front of me, on every play not just the one quick match here and there. I also needed to think about the cards I had in my hand and how they’d come up in my next round of looking for matches.

The one thing you should know about my grand mother was that she was a poorly educated backwoods hillbilly girl from Rockfish, Virginia, the rustic setting for the popular Walton’s TV series. She never learned to drive a car and was so naive about the world around her that after marrying and moving to Lynchburg, Virginia she earned the nickname Sadie ‘Green’ which was the reason her grand children called her Granny Greene. He maiden name was Carter. Obviously what she lacked in education and worldliness was more than overcome by her incredible common sense grasp of the essence of problem solving; the need to always think past one.

I have seen many things in my almost half-century on this planet, but I never dreamed I would see the day that our nation was ruled by someone who could learn a lot from dear old Granny Green.

Dover Insider Puts The Lie To Bush’s No Draft Promise!

2004-10-22T13:39:00.000-07:00

Simply because this reporter happens to reside in the normally unnoticed three county state know as Delaware does not mean I am trying to position our fine little territory as the center of the universe. But for the second time in three days, the most important news I can convey to my readers is here in Delaware.

Since the early days of Vietnam, Dover Air Force Base has had the noble duty of receiving the bodies of dead Americans. From the military causalities of Vietnam and Iraq to the civilian remains from Jim Jones’ Guyana death camp, Dover has served as the first portal to the soils of the homeland for thousands of dead American’s.

In our state of just under a million souls, its hard not to know someone connected in some way with DAFB (Dover Air Force Base). The military mortuary is actually a small part of the massive base operations. DAFB is home to the gargantuan Lockheed C-5 Galaxy Transport Fleet of MAC (Military Airlift Command). You could think of Dover as the hub of the United States military’s air freight operations. When it absolutely, positively has to get there to support our troops, the job falls to Dover.

Following the publication of my previous article on advance military orders from Halliburton, I heard from an old Dover friend. A friend who happens to be a die-hard lifelong Republican, but a friend who is truly worried about some subtle and secret happenings around the airbase in recent weeks, called me last night.

“Everyone is really edgy,” he confided.

“In the months before the war, we knew it was coming. The morgue usually keeps a few hundred body bags on hand and in a matter of weeks we had received nearly 5,000. Now obviously we still have a lot of those, but then last week another shipment of at least that many more arrived. I was talking with some buddies and we figure the morgue is now stocked with enough materials to handle another 9/11 and all the causalities so far in Iraq, times two!”

When I asked my friend what he and others around the base thought that meant his response had a hint of incredulity.

“Well obviously somebody thinks we’re going to see a sharp rise in the number of bodies coming back. But that’s not everything. The whole base is ramping up like we’re either getting ready for a second war or we’re going to be deploying a whole lot more troops to Iraq.”

When I inquired about the other indicators my friend gave me a rambling but enlightening education on the ABC’s of military logistical support. Basically, the base for the past 14 months has been in a steady rhythm of regular flights moving supplies to the troops in Iraq. But the last few weeks, base operations have shifted into a mode indicative of going on 24-24 turnaround status. This means the base is in a constant state of loading, launching then refuel, reload and launch again.

“Bottom line, the brass around Dover all had these funny smirks last week after Bush promised that he would not reinstate the draft. I saw regulars (Air Force Personnel) cleaning up some old barracks. Either we’re getting a shitload of new recruits or… Mark, the draft is coming back. You can bank that.”

Health Care Part II

2004-10-22T13:24:00.000-07:00

In Part 1, I explained how the problem with health care costs is not the inability of small groups to purchase coverage at large group rates. Insurance premiums go up because health care costs keep spiraling upward. Control the cost of health care and premiums in the highly competitive health insurance field will moderate accordingly.

So who’s to blame? It’s simple, grab a phone book and start in the white pages with the ‘A’s’.

The Bush Campaign likes to point the finger at trial lawyers, like opposition VP candidate John Edwards, and their ‘frivolous lawsuits’ as the reason for soaring medical costs. Opponents counter that medical malpractice and liability accounts for a mere 1% of the overall bill. The, Bushites respond that this figure doesn’t include the cost of doctors practicing defensive medicine. This is correct but defensive medicine is still a minor component of the equation.

Defensive medicine means your doctor will order a battery of tests in order to cover every possible diagnosis for your symptoms. This is not as common as some would like you to believe because HMO’s will simply deny excess testing and the physician is generally off the hook if an HMO has denied a test which could have yielded a helpful early diagnosis.

The problem with all the tests now available to your doctor is, that each type of test has become more and more specialized. Here’s an example. Thirty years ago most major medical practices had basic x-ray machines on-site. The basic x-ray machine could be used to diagnosis everything from broken bones, to possible tumors to bowel obstructions. Today, doctors have a long list of imaging technologies available, each designed to be more precise than a typical x-ray at diagnosing a specific condition. These include MRI, MRA, CAT, CT, PET, Ultrasound, Mammography, Colonoscopy, and various Endoscopies to name a few. Now in the old days, your doctor could invest $50,000 in an office x-ray machine and amortized the cost over many patients because it was the only available technology.

Today, many of the new technologies cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and are used only to diagnosis specific diseases. As a consequence fewer uses means a higher per-use fee must be assessed to pay for the machine. As new technologies continue to emerge, fewer people use the old that means even higher per-use costs must be accessed on the older technology.

The same factor drives up the cost of prescription drugs, which have become more and more specialized, to a patient’s specific condition. This is the reverse economy of scale that drives health care costs upward.

Twenty years ago, as an electronics technician, I had a very peripheral involvement in the development of a device know as a Bone Growth Stimulator. BGS’s are small, regulated battery packs that supply a constant current. The current is applied across a fracture, which is not healing, via four surgical stainless steel probes. In some rare cases, applying a steady low voltage across a fracture helps the bone knit back together.

The early BGS’s were built with less than $20 worth of electronic parts directly off-the-wall of a local Radio Shack. The cost of the four probes was about $100. These costs have not changed much in the past twenty years, but a typical BGS today sells for about $5,000! The reason is simple, the market for this potentially helpful medical appliance is a small fraction of all those broken bones American doctors see in a given year. But the mark-up is needed so that the small companies making BGS’s can stay in business with just a few sales each month.

So one way to reduce health care costs would be to realize an economy of scale by reducing the number of new drugs and new technologies, forcing increased use of existing technologies and lowering the per-use cost. But who wants to wave the development and availability of a new medical breakthrough that may save their life or the lives of someone they love?

Any volunteers?
More in Part III.

Health Care, Neither Bush nor Kerry Get It!

2004-10-22T13:23:00.000-07:00

George Bush and John Kerry have vastly different views on many issues, but the distinction between them on the issue of America’s health care crisis is..zero!

When you strip away the rhetoric what remains are some tired misconceptions, which do not address the real issue: which I promise you I will.

The chief misconception being promoted by both camps is that there are potentially substantial savings that could be realized by pooling health care premiums. The principal of quantity discount may work for commodities but it’s a deluded myth that it could work for health care.

Let’s take a line directly from George Bush’s campaign ads that promise to lower health care premiums by, “allowing small companies to pool together to get the rates that big companies do.”

The implication is that big companies enjoy noticeably lower rates because of their size. Absolutely not true, and that’s not me, that is a fact as offered by the HIAA (Health Insurance Association of America) one of the foremost independent training and certification organizations in health care.

People called ‘underwriters’ set insurance premiums. Underwriters look at the ‘risk’ a certain group represents and factor that into the premiums for that group. Let’s say for example a group that is composed of 100 males between the ages of 25-50 is seeking health care coverage. The underwriter has access to vast databases that indicate that on average, in a group of 25-50 non-smoking males in a white-collar job setting, one would expect 1.34 heart attacks per year requiring a two-day hospitalization and cardiac catherterzation. They then look at the cost of that service in that area, which for this example we shall say is $12,000.

The financial ‘risk’ is 1.34 x $12,000 or $16,080. You then divide the $16,080 by 100 for the number of employees and then by 12 for the monthly premium. The underwriter adds $13.40 per month to the per-member, per-month premium. The process is repeated examining all potential risks and their costs. This is how rates are determined. Of course, when the potential risks are all added up the insurer will add a small percentage of profit to cover expenses of the company.

In almost all cases, the premium rates for large companies are not determined by the national averages but by the actual health history of that particular group. This is why most large group premiums are less, per enrollee.

Large companies often have company sponsored health initiatives like company gyms, free access to smoking cessation, weight reduction programs and healthy lifestyle choices, on-site cafeterias with low fat/ low cholesterol menus, etc.! Larger companies in today’s America tend to be white collar and hire more (younger) entry-level employees. When you add all this up, you’re likely to find that among such a company the expected incidents of heart attack requiring the above noted care would be more like .84 per hundred instead of 1.34 per hundred as in the small group. So therefore the large group earns a lower premium, not because of it’s size but because of the lower financial risk it presents to the insurance company.

Allowing small groups to band together for lower rates is not something new. Nearly every appreciable sized Chamber of Commerce and business organization in the country has some group pool to help it’s members attain lower rates, but the savings are often very small because small groups generally present higher risk for the reasons I have stated.

Everyone would like to believe that HMO’s and other health insurers are sitting on mountains of cash similar to the well-established life and casualty companies. Again, this simply is not the reality. HMO’s and their derivatives are only about 20 years old while the major life and casualty companies have been here since Ben Franklin, who established the nation’s first fire insurance company.

A well run HMO pays out 85% of every premium dollar it receives this month, for the claims generated by it’s members last month. A well run HMO manages to run it’s business which is highly complex, pay it’s people, advertise and pay it’s rent with 10% of those premium dollars. In the end, a well run HMO can expect between 2-5% profit, most end up closer to the 2% figure. So obviously there is very little room for ‘quantity’ discounts.

Since small groups rates are basically set by the experience rating of similar small groups, then by lumping them together to create a large group, nothing has changed, the heart attack rate is still 1.34 per 100, the costs to treat them is still the same. An HMO may knock down 1-2% for that big chunk of business, but when rates are going up at 15-18% or more per year, all that effort represents a three-week freeze on the ever-spiraling cost of health coverage.

Even if you lump the small groups with the larger groups all you will have accomplished is to cost-shift the risk dollars from the less healthy smaller to more healthy larger group. In the end, the overall costs stay the same.

John Kerry’s plan is essentially the same flawed logic that the bigger the group, the lower the rate.

Health care coverage simply does not work that way because health care itself does not work that way.

More later….a lot more!

God, Robertson and Reagan were Right, Bush was Dead Wrong!

2004-10-22T13:14:00.000-07:00

NOTE: Due to some server problems at our main blog [od.radio.spyblog.us] we have set up "paperwalls2" here at blogger.com.

First, I apologize for any the fact that Paper Walls was apparently off-line for a few days, but what an interesting few days it has been!

In an interview with Paula Zahn of CNN, CBN (Christian Broadcasting Network) founder Pat Robertson confessed that he tried to warn Bush against invading Iraq in April of 2003. According to Robertson he warned Bush that God had told him (Robertson) that invading Iraq would, “A, be a disaster and, B, lead to many casualties,” Bush responded that there would be no casualties with a confidence bordering on arrogance, according to Robertson.

As mentioned many times during the debates and on the campaign trail, Bush took us to war after only after “prayerful consideration.” This leaves us with one of two possible explanations. Either God did a John Kerry flip-flop between the time he spoke to Robertson and when he spoke to Bush, or , much more likely, Bush mistook the low murmuring encouragement of Dick Cheney for the voice of God.

I tend to believe Robertson as having had the genuine conversation with The Almighty for two reasons. First, it was delivered with bullet points, just like the Ten Commandments and his detailed instructions to Noah, and secondly, Robertson has a record of successfully diverting hurricanes with prayer while all Bush can do is send in FEMA after the winds die down.

The White House responded by all but calling Robertson a liar. Rumor has it that by sundown Wednesday Carl Rove had pooped enough bricks to pave the D.C. Beltway.

In all seriousness, John Kerry has offered that George Bush and Dick Cheney are the only people in America who, “don’t get it,” that Iraq was, is and will be a terrible mistake. When you see Pat Robertson on the same side of the issue as John Kerry, then Kerry’s metaphor looks more like simple absolute reality.

I didn’t vote for Ronald Reagan in 1980, but I did in 1984. One key reason was Reagan’s actions on his promise to slash and burn a large forest of federal regulations, including those governing broadcasting. But as the 80’s wore on I began to feel that perhaps the industry was getting a little too deregulated. The legacy of that deregulation is today’s multi-outlet media monsters like Clear Channel Radio and Sinclair Broadcasting. Reagan’s mantra was, “let the marketplace (not the government) dictate programming policy”.

The Gipper was apparently right on.

After a week that’s seen it’s stock drop by more than 1/3rd and scores of advertisers canceling their spots, the right-winged Sinclair Broadcasting Company has tried to slowly back away from it’s bold partisan plan to air Stolen Honor, a GOP hack/hatchet job on John Kerry’s post-Vietnam experience. Sinclair even went so far as to fire their Washington Bureau Chief, when he criticized the company’s plan. This was apparently the final straw for a number of stockholders. In addition, a former Vietnam veteran now Univ. of Delaware professor has filed suit against the film’s producers for taking excerpts from filmed conversations he had with Kerry in 1971 and overlaying a wholly misrepresentative monologue of what the men where actually discussing.

The latest word is that “portions” of Stolen Honor will be featured in a special this Friday on the broader subject of political documentaries. Michael Moore, on the Tonight Show, even offered Sinclair royalty free clearance of his Fahrenheit 9/11 to balance the Kerry piece. They did not respond.

Sinclair Broadcasting should have known that politics is the third rail of marketing.
Since the early days of “controversy radio”; Limbaugh, Gordon Liddy, Stern, Buchanan and others, the major advertisers have demanded that their spots not air during controversial programming. When you’re Coke and Pepsi fighting tooth and nail to get a 0.1% edge in market share over the other guy, you can’t afford to offend half of your potential audience.

In this case, the marketplace did a much better job than the FCC at correcting an obvious malfeasance of broadcasting responsibility.