Who Was the 2007 Deep Throat Who Saved Us?

W. Mark Felt was the Nixon-era Deep Throat who leaked information about the Nixon cover-up to the press that ultimately led to the resignation of Richard Nixon. He only revealed his identity in 2005, apparently afraid of some long-held fear of reprisal. His bravery saved our nation. Too bad that George Bush didn't grab one of those Medal of Freedom pins and pin it on him as he did to Rumsfeld.

Who is [are] the newest savior[s] of our nation over in the CIA? Clearly one or more brave senior members of that staff threatened to leak the NIE Report on Iran to the press if the Bush Administration did not release it. There is no doubt in my mind that Bush was forced to release it.

The right-wing talking heads and bloggers, fed by the White House PR Team, are right now castigating the report, hoping to save this president from the same fate as Nixon. As I type this, a bevy of Republican talking heads are making the rounds on the Sunday morning shows, spinning that report, watering it down, picking out parts of it to keep the fear alive, the fear that will keep the masses afraid, very afraid.

Hopefully in my lifetime, the name or names of these brave and patriotic Americans will be revealed. They along with Mr. Felt ought to be memorialized in statues on the White House lawn.

The Lunkheads Still Are With Us

update Dec. 10 below



Their minds are like steel doors, unable to be opened to any fresh and differing ideas. 'Stubborn' doesn't quite get it, nor 'stupid.' They appear normal, walk with a regular gait, and even speak well. Unless, of course, you press a button. Then, like one of those talking Christmas dolls, the pre-programed message spews out and plays over and over.






Surely we all know these lunkheads; I've got one as a brother-in-law. Quite a smart chap, he, unless I press his button, then he becomes a mindless buffoon, reciting the pre-programmed
message over and over again.



Each Saturday we in Toledo are able to read that usual pap from op ed columnist for The Blade, Jack Kelly. He has two pre-programmed messages- Democrats are bad and the Bush War is good. On C-span's Washington Journal each morning three or four of the callers regularly lay down the same script only verbally. One this morning told us that we need to bomb the hell out of the insurgents and those Americans against the war ought to be deported. Sure.



I suppose it all began with the excellent propaganda piece produced by the Bush/Cheney PR Team before the preemptive invasion. Fear, flags, lies and patriotism. That's the recipe, simple stuff to make, with long-lasting effects. Apparently, very long-lasting for lunkheads.



There are blogs, too, that are run by these lunkheads. I stumbled into one just yesterday right here in Toledo. KoozNews. Be sure your anti-virus software is up-to-date before clicking over there! Your brain may become infected. He has links to Rush, Coulter, Beck, Savage and Drudge and FoxNews so you may already suspect some brainwashing.



The blog administrator is a 'producer for Toledo’s # 1 news talk radio station. Have been producer for the station going on almost four years. Trying to attain my goal of becoming a talk show host dealing with political issues.'



He has no chance of that here in Toledo. One of his heroes is the recently-dumped former WSPD Radio personality, Bob Frantz. Bob was booted out due to his extreme right-wing views. Luckily he landed at a cesspool station in Cleveland where he continues to spew his hate. Toledo didn't have enough hard-core bigots to sustain his ratings.



Maybe Mr. Kooz would have a chance on WPOS-FM, the Christian radio station in the Toledo market. After all, his biography begins with this: A born-again Independent Baptist believing Christian with political leanings toward Libertarian and Republican values. Believer and supporter of strict interpretation of the Bible and U.S. Constitution. I believe all people are born into sin and in need of Salvation through The Blood of Jesus Christ. Man must acknowledge sin and repent and accept the gift of of Christs’ death on the Cross for the sins of man. I believe in the Trinity of God The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit. I believe the Ten Commandments should be displayed in every public building including schools.



Apparently Mr. Kooz believes that folks here in the Toledo market want to hear about Jesus and Bush, Cheney and the Bible, Rumsfeld and the Ten Commandments, waterboarding and the blood of Christ.. Surely he would attract all of the evangelicals in the area who need to have their heads reprogrammed from time to time.



Here's an interesting line in the bio: 'I believe the United States is in moral decline due to its continual removal of the Christian God from personal and public life.'



I know, I know, some of you are snickering and I did too, but you have to remember that he is one of those lunkheads of which I spoke at the top of the page. He's pre-programmed to the propaganda's four: fear, flag, lies, and patriotism. Only those very vulnerable are still 'with the program,' so to speak. America's moral decline is because of 'those' people, 'that group,' but clearly not with the ruling junta, the warmonger-in-chief. After all, George Bush is a born-again Christian. Praise Jesus and pass the ammunition.

update Dec. 10

The poor man with the KoozNews blog has posted a rebuttal of this post but doesn't have the courtesy to post my comments there. Of course you can't see my comments, but he does tell his meger set of visitors that 'they are inappropriate.'

I invited him over here where the air is fresh and the posting is free and open, but he refuses, enjoying his closed little fortification with the 'comment moderation' tool.

Too bad, Koozman, that you have to hide like that. But then, slick right-wingers are quite like that as we all have come to understand.

Antibacterial Chemical Disrupts Hormone Activities, Study Finds

Our mothers insisted that we wash our hands before eating, and often we did. That was when bar soap was essentially rendered lard and some perfume. Today's hand soap and other body cleansers have anti-bacterial agents in them to zap those nasty microbes.

As usual these days, all is not well with new technology. According to an article in ScienceDaily, "A new UC Davis study shows that a common antibacterial chemical added to bath soaps can alter hormonal activity in rats and in human cells in the laboratory--and does so by a previously unreported mechanism." Rats!

The article reports that some studies 'are revealing that some synthetic chemicals in household products can cause health problems by interfering with normal hormone action.'

The reports goes on:

"Called endocrine disruptors, or endocrine disrupting substances (EDS), such chemicals have been linked in animal studies to a variety of problems, including cancer, reproductive failure and developmental anomalies.

"This is the first endocrine study to investigate the hormone effects of the antibacterial compound triclocarban (also known as TCC or 3,4,4'-trichlorocarbanilide), which is widely used in household and personal care products including bar soaps, body washes, cleansing lotions, wipes and detergents."

Triclocarban is also called TCC, Cutisan, and Solubacter. On another site I found our that 'Triclocarban resembles triclosan in structure and function.' Triclosan is found in my hand sanitizer as the 'active ingredient.'

Apparently we ought to read the labels of those bars of soap and body washes to see if the dreaded 'TCC' appears in them. I guess we ought to go back to good old Ivory Soap, 99 44/100 % pure.

Defense Sec. Gates Forced to Play Bush-Cheney Game

The photo reveals it all. Behind the kowtow-ed U.S. Defense Secretary are the Muslim representatives of the nations in the Persian Gulf area. Gates is already corrupted by the Bush/Cheney junta when he mouthed the words that Cheney wrote for him about a month ago- the ones about Congress' delay of the newest $x billion and how the Pentagon would have to begin layoffs.

This morning he had to do it again. He told the assortment of folks at the meeting that the Persian Gulf nations must demand that Iran come clean about its past nuclear ambitions and openly vow to not develop such weapons in the future.

"Everywhere you turn, it is the policy of Iran to foment instability and chaos, no matter the strategic value or cost in the blood of innocents..." he said.

Right, Mr. Gates.

I wonder, as those words were being received in the headsets of the Arabs actually living there, how many of them said to themselves, 'And the U.S. government hasn't?'

The photo captures the 2007 version of another Anglo-Christian whose armed forces have arrived on their soil to exploit the resources of the people there. No doubt, we history-illiterate Americans do not see the irony in this man lecturing the natives of the Persian Gulf. Many Americans, in fact, believe that it is our oil under their sand. Fools like this help propel naive presidents into international debacles such as the one we are now experiencing.

Sorry that you have sold your soul to 'El Diablo' Mr. Gates. The fact is:the Bush/Cheney virus is virulent and deadly.

Rep. Henry Waxman Exposes Another Blackwater Shill in the State Department

update below

A video clip of the congressional hearing with an introduction to the procedure can be found at this link.

The Washington Post report of this incident and the exposure of the Blackwater shill is here:

Howard J. Krongard, the State Department's inspector general, has repeatedly thwarted investigations into contracting fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan, including construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, and censored reports that might prove politically embarrassing to the Bush administration, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform charged yesterday in a 13-page letter.

The letter, addressed to Krongard and signed by the committee chairman, Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), who released it yesterday, said the allegations were based on the testimony of seven current and former officials on Krongard's staff, including two former senior officials who allowed their names to be used, and private e-mail exchanges obtained by the committee. The letter said the allegations concerned all three major divisions of Krongard's office -- investigations, audits and inspections.

'Howard J. Krongard, the State Department\'s inspector general, has repeatedly thwarted investigations into contracting fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan, including construction of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, and censored reports that might prove politically embarrassing to the Bush administration,Waxman demanded documents and testimony for a hearing next month into Krongard's conduct. A copy of the letter was sent to the committee's top Republican, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.).

A statement released by Krongard's office said he had just completed a visit to Afghanistan and was "en route to Baghdad for the remainder of September." In the statement, he described the allegations as "replete with inaccuracies including those made by persons with their own agendas" and said he looks forward to the opportunity to respond fully to the committee. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino referred questions to the State Department, where spokesman Sean McCormack said he had not yet seen Waxman's letter.

The letter alleges that Krongard "interfered with ongoing investigations to protect the State Department and the White House from political embarrassment." It said that "your strong affinity with State Department leadership and your partisan political ties have led you to halt investigations, censor reports and refuse to cooperate with law enforcement agencies."

update 4:40 PM Friday

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard, under scrutiny for his brother's link to the Blackwater security firm, has decided to resign, U.S. officials said on Friday.

Ronmey's Speech: Quite the Duplicity of a Slick politician

In his speech yesterday, covered gratis by all of the TV networks, Mitt Romney argued that Mormonism was 'merely a different brand of Christianity and that to pick at the differences between Mormons and other faiths was incompatible with America's history of religious tolerance.' He said, "Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle, indeed, if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree."

Yet in the next breath he claimed that religion is 'essential to freedom,' without pointing to any specific faith. "Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone," Romney said.

Wow!

It reminds me of that famous '50's pop tune, "First you say you do, then you don't, then you say you will, then you won't..."

I'll coin a phrase: duplicit dualism. Romney wants no test of faith, but he requires faith. As he tried to recreate the John Kennedy moment, we might parody the elder's famous inaugural speech this way: 'As not what my religion is, ask what religion can do for your country.'

More crudely, this all boils down to sucking up to the Bible-thumpers. Clearly, the GOP is becoming the political wing of the Christian Right. The important question is this: does America need a religious political party? To find the answer we need not search too far for examples of nations run by a religious sect: Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan.

Sure, Mr. Romney, freedom needs religion.

Military Families Now Reject the Bush War But Americans Still Gullible

A Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll shows a "growing disenchantment within the broader military community, long a bastion of support for the Bush administration and Republicans. Among active-duty military, veterans and their families, only 36 percent say it was worth going to war in Iraq. This compares with an Annenberg survey taken in 2004, one year after the invasion, which showed that 64 percent of service members and their families supported the war. The views of veterans and their families are now closer in line with overall public sentiment. The poll shows that 32 percent of the general population supports the war."

The loyalty to the Commander-in-chief is strong, but, apparently not completely blind. The military clearly have been the scapegoats for the madness of the aggressive Bush-Cheney foreign policy. I was wondering just how long they would kowtow to continuing this useless war in Iraq. Apparently 4,000 deaths and 50,000 wounded does matter even though the right-wing talking heads and their captive audience, sitting in their easy chairs at home, often try to downplay these 'minor losses' and compare them to WWII. The fools.

One other sad fact about the American mind-set and its still-apparent gullibility and malleability is reported at the end of this story. The article says:

Separately, the poll also finds that almost half of Americans would support some form of military action against Iran over its nuclear program. The survey was conducted before the Bush administration released an intelligence assessment this week that concluded Iran halted nuclear-weapons development in 2003.

Isn't that amazing? And frightening! After all of the lies and spin over the WMD's in Iraq, still half of the American citizens were so brainwashed, so propagandized, that they were willing to do it all over again. That is scary, absolutely scary.

Religious Purification, Romney and the Taliban

NYT columnist Thomas Friedman wrote an op ed pretending to be the Iran intelligence report on the United States. Not only is it a clever idea, but a highly instructive one as well. In the spoof, Iranian intelligence reports this about America:

...at a time when America’s bridges, roads, airports and Internet bandwidth have fallen behind other industrial powers, including China, we believe that the U.S. opposition to higher taxes — and the fact that the primary campaigns have focused largely on gay marriage, flag-burning and whether the Christian Bible is the literal truth — means it is “highly unlikely” that America will arrest its decline.

Hardly either intelligence or intelligent. But then, it has become the norm these days in American-style politics. This morning, for example, GOP candidate Mitt Romney must give a speech defending his religion to the primary voters in the Republican Party. Can you imagine the implications of such an act? Think of the hundreds and hundreds of U.S. soldiers who died/are dying in Afghanistan to fight the intolerant religious group, the Taliban, when at the same time we witness in this country the need for religious purification ceremonies.

Is this nation moving backwards in time to the era when a person's religious beliefs could actually imprison him or burn her at the stake? Rather than the Holy Roman Empire are we becoming the Holy Christian empire? Oddly neither the word 'God' nor 'Jesus' appears in the U.S. Constitution, but Freedom of [and from] Religion does.

Note what has happened in Iraq since the downfall of Saddam: more and more women are wearing the Hijab as they go out in public and fewer and fewer are working outside of the home. Our 'good' ally Saudi Arabia does not allow women to drive a car nor vote. Religious reasons, all.

Is this what we want here in America? A morality code based on the Bible? Watch the progress of GOP candidate Mike Huckabee to see just how many 'believers' there are in America. His upward move in the polls is propelled single-handedly by fundamentalists. And fundamentalists have Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan tightly in their grip.

Toledo Blade Gives FirstEnergy a Pass on Deadly Fire

From one business to another, a little pat on the back. In its lead editorial today, The Toledo Blade absolved FirstEnergyCorp of any wrong-doing in the deaths of a mother and her three children last week in Toledo. The paper reported that it received many letters condemning the practice of FirstEnergy of shutting off power to families, especially in winter. The newspaper printed three of them along with their editorial.

The following sentence caught my eye:

Beyond those issues, moreover, there is no evidence we know of that Edison callously or precipitously pulled the plug on the family, which moved to the home at the beginning of October but - for whatever reason - had not had the electric service put in their name.

'Callously' is an interesting legal term; I wonder how that would be defined in a court of law? No doubt FirstEnergy lawyers would point out that there was no malice in their decision to pull the power from the home, and I'm sure that 'malace' played no role in their decision. Profit, yes, malice, no.

The Blade goes on:

Over the course of at least a month and a half, Edison customer service personnel had explained to Ms. Crawford or her fiance the procedure for avoiding a cutoff because of unpaid bills, and the help in paying that is readily available to those in need for medical or economic reasons.

Here's where it becomes murky: how does The Blade know that this is a true statement? No doubt, the PR Department of FirstEnergy told 'their side of the story' to the Blade reporter. I find it interesting that The Blade would swallow the line that FirstEnergy was doing their best to help this family.

Here's why I am such a skeptic of the PR Department: I have posted a concurrent story of another family whose power was shut off here in Toledo and the ball was dropped in restoring the power to this family after the payment was made.

Don't tell me that FirstEnergy is a sweet, well-run utility that looks out for the citizens of Toledo. The Blade may buy that story, but my recent experience indicates the opposite. Here is a quick summary or you may read the detailed version in my previous post here.

Just after I posted a story of the tragic fire that killed the mother and her three children, I received a phone call from a Catholic Sister who told me of a family of 9 [7 children] who had been without electricity for 2 weeks. My wife and I investigated the situation and helped out with some food and flashlights and lanterns because the Sister said the children were using candles to do their homework.

The mother scraped together the money from relatives and paid the bill on FRIDAY afternoon. Power was not restored until 2:30 in the afternoon on TUESDAY. Slip-ups and incompetent employees of FirstEnergy here in Toledo caused this family to be in the cold and dark for FOUR days after the bill had been paid. My wife and I were witnesses to this incompetence as we made several phone calls on her behalf.

While the Toledo Blade may be right in saying that FirstEnergy had no direct role in the fatal fire, it does not get a pass on its incompetence nor on its so-called benevolence. From our personal experience in trying to help this mother and her family, we see FirstEnergyCorp as little more than a greedy Fortune 500 Corporation with profits in the billions and a monopoly business in the city of Toledo.

Would an Atheist Make a Good President?

No doubt our Founding Father are turning over in their graves at the headlines today about religion and politics. They were simple Deists, folks who believed in a supreme being and that's about it. No doctrines, no litmus tests, no churchy stuff: just an acknowledgement of a being who created us and then on with the task of moving the agenda Of the People forward.

A nasty email apparently has been landing in mailboxes across America saying that Obama was a Muslim during his youth in Indonesia. Mitt Romney is forced to defend Mormonism as a Christian religion. Baptist minister Mike Huckabee is running a TV spot in Iowa with the words CHRISTIAN LEADER appearing below his photo.

The Atlanta Constitution Journal this morning says this about the issue of politics and religion:

The additional problem for Romney is that the Republican Party is dominated by Christian fundamentalists who have preached for over 25 years that GOP stands for God's Only Party. Their reference to God is not to a generic civil deity but to the Christian God. If the Republican Party belongs to God, then the Republican Party can't be led by one who does not believe in that God, no matter how hard Romney tries to say that Mormonism and Christianity share the same God.

One-third of all GOP caucus members in Iowa identify themselves as Fundamentalist Christians. Romney's numbers there are miserable. Yet in New Hampshire, where Christian fundamentalists make up only 9% of the voters, Romney is in the lead.

The American Prospect today posted a story called The Fundamentalist List. It says:

Randy Brinson, formerly of the Alabama Christian Coalition and now head of Redeem the Vote, has, according to the Post, provided 414,000 contacts for Huckabee in Iowa alone, a full quarter of all expected caucus-goers. Redeem the Vote is a Christian organization devoted to registering young people to vote; it has been hailed as the second coming of the Christian right -- this time in a less divisive package. Huckabee's alliance with Brinson goes back to 2004, when he agreed to serve as the chair of the organization's advisory committee.

We in Ohio understand the power of the Christian Coalition: it was through their overt and covert actions that the Bush/Cheney administration won re-election. Ohio was the key state that cemented the victory.

That brings up an interesting question which I have yet to have answered: why do Christian fundamentalists listen so attentively to those Christian organizations which promote a certain candidate for public office? Are they the proverbial sheep so often mentioned in the Scriptures? Mindless folks following the tails of the one in front of them?

For example: Now that we have 'experienced' the Bush/Cheney administration for the past 7 years, what lessons have we learned from these years? Here's the question that is most apropos for the Christian voter who chose those two over the other two sets of candidates in 2000 and 2004: 'Did the Bush/Cheney Administration mirror the actions of Jesus Christ during their time in office?' Is ask this because, I assume, they voted on the basis of some 'Christian morality' that was suggested to them by the Christian wing of the Republican Party.

If that voter has to stop and think about whether Bush/Cheney mirrored Jesus, then they were clear victims of a scam, duped into voting for people for whom the expectation failed to materialize. Is the depth-of-Christianity of a candidate a valid litmus test for governance?

As I have looked through the history books and stories of the past Presidents of the United States, their religious affiliation may have been a footnote at best. Did George Washington's 'faith' help him steer our flimsy ship of state through those early murky waters? Did Lincoln's Bible beliefs help him through the Civil War and his condemnation of slavery? Were the humanitarian actions of Franklin Roosevelt after the Great Depression motivated by his religion? I think not. Yet today, some of our citizens think it necessary to place a man of deep Christian faith into the highest office of the land, as if because of that fact they will be effective captains of the Ship of State.

For the past decade radical religious fundamentalists have caused havoc throughout the world. Right now 150,000 of our men and women will miss Christmas with their families because they have to referee a religious war in Iraq and Afghanistan. For many, it will be their 2nd, 3rd and 4th missed Christmas with family. Haven't we had enough of religious fundamentalism? Why in the world would we want religious fundamentalists choosing the next leader of our nation?

I do not know that answer.