"This was the voice of moderation until 13 Sept, 2025"
OK, so I’m not one of those who believe the official report on 9/11 is complete by any stretch. I’m confident other details, including many contradictions of the report, will emerge as time goes on. But even if those details were suppressed intentionally for political purposes, I have to say I agree with the NYFD … Read more
by hilzoy Barack Obama has posted on Dkos. It’s a thing of beauty, all the more so because he has posted explicitly to disagree with some of the people there, not to preach to the converted. Check it out.
The Good News is that Fitzgerald is by all accounts likely close to the end of his investigation, and, if the rumors are right, Rove will be joining DeLay and Frist in the "I am Not a Crook" chorus. The bad news is Judith Miller is free again. OK, so that’s unfair. Miller never belonged … Read more
by von Josh Trevino, echoing Paul Cella, writes: If the experiences of social legislation of the past half century have taught us anything, it is that tinkering with the basic institutions of family and moral structure by government fiat — however well-intended — is usually unwise and fraught with unintended consequences. No-fault divorce opened up … Read more
by hilzoy Form the WaPo: “Pictures of detainee abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison must be released despite government claims that they could damage America’s image, a federal judge ruled Thursday. (…) Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, had maintained in court papers that releasing the photographs would aid … Read more
Are you trying to comment but keep getting a message saying you can’t? Well…??? Speak up!!! Oh, heh, nevermind… Just kidding. Some folks have reported a messsage saying they cannot comment, but they haven’t been banned. If that’s happening to you, please accept our apologies, we’re working on figuring out what’s causing that. If you … Read more
by von David Brooks, on Meet the Press: Because we’re at a moment in this country where we had a debate for 20 years about: What’s the cause of poverty? Is it joblessness, which the liberals were saying? Is it family breakdown, which is what a lot of conservatives were saying? Now, we’re at a … Read more
by hilzoy
Today’s New Orleans Times-Picayune has a story alleging that many of the reports of murder and mayhem in the Superdome and the Convention Center after Hurricane Katrina were urban myths:
“Following days of internationally reported killings, rapes and gang violence inside the Dome, the doctor from FEMA – Beron doesn’t remember his name – came prepared for a grisly scene: He brought a refrigerated 18-wheeler and three doctors to process bodies.
“I’ve got a report of 200 bodies in the Dome,” Beron recalls the doctor saying.
The real total was six, Beron said.
Of those, four died of natural causes, one overdosed and another jumped to his death in an apparent suicide, said Beron, who personally oversaw the turning over of bodies from a Dome freezer, where they lay atop melting bags of ice. State health department officials in charge of body recovery put the official death count at the Dome at 10, but Beron said the other four bodies were found in the street near the Dome, not inside it. Both sources said no one had been killed inside.
At the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, just four bodies were recovered, despites reports of corpses piled inside the building. Only one of the dead appeared to have been slain, said health and law enforcement officials. (…)
As floodwaters forced tens of thousands of evacuees into the Dome and Convention Center, news of unspeakable acts poured out of the nation’s media: evacuees firing at helicopters trying to save them; women, children and even babies raped with abandon; people killed for food and water; a 7-year-old raped and killed at the Convention Center. Police, according to their chief, Eddie Compass, found themselves in multiple shootouts inside both shelters, and were forced to race toward muzzle flashes through the dark to disarm the criminals; snipers supposedly fired at doctors and soldiers from downtown high-rises.
In interviews with Oprah Winfrey, Compass reported rapes of “babies,” and Mayor Ray Nagin spoke of “hundreds of armed gang members” killing and raping people inside the Dome. Unidentified evacuees told of children stepping over so many bodies, “we couldn’t count.”
The picture that emerged was one of the impoverished, masses of flood victims resorting to utter depravity, randomly attacking each other, as well as the police trying to protect them and the rescue workers trying to save them. Nagin told Winfrey the crowd has descended to an “almost animalistic state.”
Four weeks after the storm, few of the widely reported atrocities have been backed with evidence. The piles of bodies never materialized, and soldiers, police officers and rescue personnel on the front lines say that although anarchy reigned at times and people suffered unimaginable indignities, most of the worst crimes reported at the time never happened. (…)
Rumors of rampant violence at the Convention Center prompted Louisiana National Guard Lt. Col. Jacques Thibodeaux put together a 1,000-man force of soldiers and police in full battle gear to secure the center Sept. 2 at about noon.
It took only 20 minutes to take control, and soldiers met no resistance, Thibodeaux said. What the soldiers found – elderly people and infants near death without food, water and medicine; crowds living in filth – shocked them more than anything they’d seen in combat zones overseas. But they found no evidence, witnesses or victims of any killings, rapes or beatings, Thibodeaux said. Another commander at the scene, Lt. Col. John Edwards of the Arkansas National Guard, said the crowd welcomed the soldiers. “It reminded me of the liberation of France in World War II. There were people cheering; one boy even saluted,” he said. “We never – never once – encountered any hostility.”
One widely circulated tale, told to The Times-Picayune by a slew of evacuees and two Arkansas National Guardsmen, held that “30 or 40 bodies” were stored in a Convention Center freezer. But a formal Arkansas Guard review of the matter later found that no soldier had actually seen the corpses, and that the information came from rumors in the food line for military, police and rescue workers in front of Harrah’s New Orleans Casino, said Edwards, who conducted the review.”
So: what’s going on?
by hilzoy Via Ezra Klein: this story is from the Guardian, not the Onion: “Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico. Experts who have studied the US navy’s cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying ‘toxic dart’ … Read more
by von Even though Michelle Malkin reports it straight, I prefer to believe that John Hinderaker is engaging in some Swiftian satire in his double-barreled blast on the MSM’s reporting on Katrina. The alternative, of course, is that Hinderaker is f–cking insane. He writes: It’s time for some accountability here. The conventional wisdom is that … Read more
For those interested in trenchantism, read the always-readable Hilzoy on HIV and AIDs. For those looking for meandering bloviating that goes nowhere, there’s more below the fold.
by hilzoy
From the LATimes:
“Christine Maggiore was in prime form, engaging and articulate, when she explained to a Phoenix radio host in late March why she didn’t believe HIV caused AIDS. The HIV-positive mother of two laid out matter-of-factly why, even while pregnant, she hadn’t taken HIV medications, and why she had never tested her children for the virus.
“Our children have excellent records of health,” Maggiore said on the Air America program when asked about 7-year-old Charlie and 3-year-old Eliza Jane Scovill. “They’ve never had respiratory problems, flus, intractable colds, ear infections, nothing. So, our choices, however radical they may seem, are extremely well-founded.”
Seven weeks later, Eliza Jane was dead.
The cause, according to a Sept. 15 report by the Los Angeles County coroner, was AIDS-related pneumonia. These days, given advances in HIV care, it’s highly unusual for any young child to die of AIDS. What makes Eliza Jane’s death even more striking is that her mother is a high-profile, charismatic leader in a movement that challenges the basic medical understanding and treatment of acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
Even now, Maggiore, a 49-year-old former clothing executive from Van Nuys, stands by the views she has espoused on “The Ricki Lake Show” and ABC’s “20/20,” and in Newsweek and Mothering magazines. She and her husband, Robin Scovill, said they have concerns about the coroner’s findings and are sending the report to an outside reviewer. “I have been brought to my emotional knees, but not in regard to the science of this topic,” said Maggiore, author of an iconoclastic book about AIDS that has sold 50,000 copies. “I am a devastated, broken, grieving mother, but I am not second-guessing or questioning my understanding of the issue.””
by hilzoy CharleyCarp notes in comments that yesterday was the birthday of chief Justice John Marshall, who gave us judicial review of federal and state laws, the doctrine that the federal government can do things that further, but are not explicitly included in, its enumerated powers, and various other constitutional doctrines whose importance is hard … Read more
by hilzoy
Human Rights Watch has a new report of detainee abuse in Iraq. (It has been covered by various newspapers, including the NYTimes and the Washington Post.) If anyone still believes the ‘few bad apples‘ theory, these reports should test their faith. These are not untrained reservists. They are regular soldiers from the 82nd Airborne. According to HRW and their testimony:
“The soldiers came forward because of what they described as deep frustration with the military chain of command’s failure to view the abuses as symptomatic of broader failures of leadership and respond accordingly. All three are active duty soldiers who wish to continue their military careers. A fax letter, e-mail, and repeated phone calls to the 82nd Airborne Division regarding the major allegations in the report received no response.”
One of the soldiers, a captain, spent seventeen months trying to clarify what sort of treatment was permissible, and to report this abuse through the chain of command, without success.
Some excerpts from the account of ‘Sergeant A‘, who gives the clearest picture of the abuse itself (note: PUCs are Persons Under Control, i.e. prisoners):
“We got to the camp in August [2003] and set up. We started to go out on missions right away. We didn’t start taking PUCs until September. Sh*t started to go bad right away. On my very first guard shift for my first interrogation that I observed was the first time I saw a PUC pushed to the brink of a stroke or heart attack. At first I was surprised, like, this is what we are allowed to do? This is what we are allowed to get away with? I think the officers knew about it but didn’t want to hear about it. They didn’t want to know it even existed. But they had to. (…)
The “Murderous Maniacs” was what they called us at our camp because they knew if they got caught by us and got detained by us before they went to Abu Ghraib then it would be hell to pay. They would be just, you know, you couldn’t even imagine. It was sort of like I told you when they came in it was like a game. You know, how far could you make this guy goes before he passes out or just collapses on you. From stress positions to keeping them up f*cking two days straight, whatever. Deprive them of food water, whatever.
To “F*ck a PUC” means to beat him up. We would give them blows to the head, chest, legs, and stomach, pull them down, kick dirt on them. This happened every day. (…)
Guard shifts were four hours. We would stress them at least in excess of twelve hours. When I go off shift and the next guy comes we are already stressing the PUC and we let the new guy know what he did and to keep f*cking him. We put five-gallon water cans and made them hold them out to where they got muscle fatigue then made them do pushups and jumping jacks until they passed out. We would withhold water for whole guard shifts. And the next guy would too. Then you gotta take them to the john if you give them water and that was a pain. And we withheld food, giving them the bare minimum like crackers from MREs [Meals Ready to Eat, the military’s prepackaged food]. And sleep deprivation was a really big thing.
Someone from [Military Intelligence] told us these guys don’t get no sleep. They were directed to get intel [intelligence] from them so we had to set the conditions by banging on their cages, crashing them into the cages, kicking them, kicking dirt, yelling. All that sh*t. We never stripped them down because this is an all-guy base and that is f*cked up sh*t. We poured cold water on them all the time to where they were soaking wet and we would cover them in dirt and sand. We did the jugs of water where they held them out to collapse all the time. The water and other sh*t… start[ed] [m]aybe late September, early October, 2003. This was all at Camp Mercury, close to the MEK base like 10 minutes from Fallujah. We would transport the PUCs from Mercury to Abu Ghraib. (…)
On their day off people would show up all the time. Everyone in camp knew if you wanted to work out your frustration you show up at the PUC tent. In a way it was sport. The cooks were all US soldiers. One day a sergeant shows up and tells a PUC to grab a pole. He told him to bend over and broke the guy’s leg with a mini Louisville Slugger that was a metal bat. He was the f*cking cook. He shouldn’t be in with no PUCs. The PA came and said to keep him off the leg. Three days later they transported the PUC to Abu Ghraib. The Louisville Slugger [incident] happened around November 2003, certainly before Christmas.
People would just volunteer just to get their frustrations out. We had guys from all over the base just come to guard PUCs so they could f*ck them up. Broken bones didn’t happen too often, maybe every other week. The PA would overlook it. I am sure they knew.
The interrogator [a sergeant] worked in the [intelligence] office. He was former Special Forces. He would come into the PUC tent and request a guy by number. Everyone was tagged. He would say, “Give me #22.” And we would bring him out. He would smoke the guy and f*ck him. He would always say to us, “You didn’t see anything, right?” And we would always say, “No, Sergeant.”
One day a soldier came to the PUC tent to get his aggravation out and filled his hands with dirt and hit a PUC in the face. He f*cked him. That was the communications guy.
One night a guy came and broke chem lights open and beat the PUCs with it. That made them glow in the dark which was real funny but it burned their eyes and their skin was irritated real bad.”
(Parenthetically, how did we get to the point where people think that beating up prisoners is an acceptable way to deal with stress, but that stripping them, in an all-male camp, would be a bit too close for comfort to the edge of a real taboo?)
by Charles
With all of the budgetary numbers flying around in the wake of Katrina, I did a little number crunching myself, but rather than just see the short term, I looked back the last twenty five years in five-year increments and then looked forward to 2010 (full disclosure: I’m a CPA by training, not an economist). Given the longer perspective, there are both encouraging and excouraging aspects to our fiscal future. First, the spreadsheet, using CBO historical and projected figures:
by hilzoy Via Mark Kleiman, the latest example of moral values in action: “President Bush decided Wednesday to waive any financial sanctions on Saudi Arabia, Washington’s closest Arab ally in the war on terrorism, for failing to do enough to stop the modern-day slave trade in prostitutes, child sex workers and forced laborers.” Why should … Read more
by hilzoy
There are lots of plans to cut pork floating around, though in all likelihood all that will be adopted are token gestures. (When NASA announced Monday that it would be spending $100 billion to send people to the moon, I said: huh? Now? I have since concluded that it was announced so that it could be cut, with great fanfare. But if we’re going to go in for gimmicks, why stop there? Why not announce that we’re going to spend $500 trillion to send people to Jupiter, and then announce that we’re going to realize huge savings by cutting that?) The best start, I think, would be to eliminate these two tax cuts, scheduled to take effect in January. 97% of these tax cuts would go to people making over $200,000 a year, and 54% to people making over a million dollars a year. The savings, over the first ten years that they will be fully in effect, would be $146 billion. This we can do. (The DLC has endorsed this.)
A Republican plan, “Operation Offset”, is here (pdf); it proposes savings of about $526 billion over 10 years. As Matt Yglesias points out, the largest chunk of savings comes from Medicaid, which is to say: from denying health coverage to very poor people. Ezra Klein adds that Medicaid is hardly in a position to take these cuts, since a lot of health care for victims of Katrina is being paid for by the very program the Republicans propose to cut. Think Progress has a liberal alternative, focussing on repeal of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% of Americans, cutting farm subsidies, and cutting several weapons systems.
You can come up with your own plan using this budget simulator: I almost eliminated the entire federal deficit on my first try, and that despite the fact that I didn’t cut the war in Iraq. (Here’s why not.)
And then there’s Porkbusters: an attempt by bloggers to identify pork ripe for slicing. I really like the idea of this. And I really like Slarti’s having gone through the parts of the highway bill that concern Florida. I think this is great. However: there has to be some sort of quality control over the suggestions. For example: Porkbusters currently lists all spending under the Violence Against Women Act as pork. Why? The person who added it to the list explains:
“Since actual help for bona fide victims of domestic violence does not exist anywhere in these programs, why not start with one of the most damaging and money-wasting programs we have in the US? The only people this would negatively affect are those who benefit from VAWA now — the people and agencies who run these clearly inefficient and counterproductive programs.”
Ha ha ha. A joke, right? Wrong.
So I’ve been over at RedState having the same tired argument I’ve been having for years now about how insulting it is as a gay American to be told we’re not being treated like a second-class citizen with regards to the marriage issue because our right to marry is intact. We just have to marry someone of the opposite sex.
I understand that most folks who are on the fence tend to withdraw from the argument, back into a more conservative stance, if the rhetoric gets too heated (that’s natural, I realize), but I’ve got to get this out of my system once and for all.
Again, the argument forwarded by those opposed to gay marriage when the subject turns to rights is that the state is not denying gay Americans any rights, because we’re just as entitled to marry someone of the opposite sex as the next American is.
To support this claim, however, they must then explain why it is that intimacy is not a requirement for a marriage to be considered "valid" in this country. In other words, marriages of convenience are legal, and if a gay American wants the benefits of marriage, no one will stop them from getting married (even to a stranger, even someone they have no intention of consummating the relationship with, or even living with) in order to secure those benefits.
This implies that the state places no value on the emotional commitment of the couple to each other, at least not enough to legislate against loveless marriage between strangers. And since that is legal, so the arguments go, gays are not being discriminated against.
There’s a small problem with that, however, in that the state does in at least one instance make it crystal clear that loveless marriage between strangers is not equal to marriage between a committed couple. That instance is when one of the spouses is not a citizen. In those instances, the couple must prove to the government that theirs is a "real" marriage, that they entered into marriage in "good faith":
by hilzoy In a recent comment, Edward wrote: “What we’re learning is that the only party in favor of fiscal responsibility is the party out of power.” With respect, this is not true. There is one party that has a consistent record of fiscal responsibility over the last few decades, and one party that has … Read more
You have to read this awesome publication (pdf file) put out by Reporters Without Borders helping folks set up anonymous weblogs and avoid censors in places where blogging can be dangerous to one’s employment or even health. There’s lots of info about how or why to blog, but a chapter titled "HOW TO BLOG ANONYMOUSLY" by Ethan Zuckerman (fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School), outlines the following 6 steps:
I’ve got a couple of free moments on hand, and at the same time I saw this (via Glenn Reynolds): Bloggers, too have latched onto this theme. A coalition of bloggers have launched a website called “porkbusters.” The site lists every member of the House and Senate by the name and has a column next … Read more
–Sebastian There is talk of the diplomatic breakthrough at the recent 6-party North Korean talks. I suspect that this deal is indeed a diplomatic model for how the world intends to deal with Iran. Unfortunately this is another example of the modern practice of diplomacy. Diplomacy never fails–you just let expectations free-fall until whatever you … Read more
Lovely Rita, ain’t so lovely and seems to be growing in her nastiness by the hour. [update: Steve Gregory reports Rita is now a Category 5] The latest extended forecast from the National Hurricane Center predicted that Rita would likely make landfall Saturday somewhere on the Texas Gulf coast, but said it could instead hit … Read more
I’ve admitted this before, so I’m not embarassed to bring it up again in this context: I’ve watched it. In fact, every night at 11:00 we used to turn it on. Until, well, it was replaced with something even more scandalous. I’m talking, of course, about the re-runs of "Friends" that aired at 11:00 pm … Read more
by hilzoy I swear: you can’t make this stuff up. Via dKos, this story: “Hours after the hurricane hit Aug. 29, the Federal Emergency Management Agency announced a plan to send 500 commercial buses into New Orleans to rescue thousands of people left stranded on highways, overpasses and in shelters, hospitals and homes. On the … Read more
by hilzoy
North Korea has agreed, in principle, to give up its nuclear program:
“The United States, North Korea and four other nations participating in nuclear negotiations in Beijing signed a draft accord in which Pyongyang promised to abandon efforts to produce nuclear weapons and re-admit international inspectors to its nuclear facilities. Foreign powers said they would provide aid, diplomatic assurances and security guarantees and consider North Korea’s demands for a light-water nuclear reactor.
The agreement is a preliminary one that would require future rounds of negotiations to flesh out, as it does not address a number of issues, like timing and implementation, that are likely to prove highly contentious. China announced that the six nations participating in the talks would reconvene in November to continue ironing out the details.”
However, North Korea has just demanded a light-water reactor in exchange for a deal.
As far as I can tell, if this agreement works out (which seems to be a big ‘if’), it would mean that after five years of stalemate, during which North Korea has acquired nuclear weapons, we are going to return to something a lot like the agreed framework. I rather liked the agreed framework, not because I thought it was a magic solution that would enforce itself, but because it was the least dreadful of a set of bad alternatives. I just wish we hadn’t taken that little detour during which North Korea became a nuclear power.
by hilzoy Via BOPNews, this story from the Advocate: “In the midst of administering chest compressions to a dying woman several days after Hurricane Katrina struck, Dr. Mark N. Perlmutter was ordered to stop by a federal official because he wasn’t registered with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “I begged him to let me continue,” … Read more
by hilzoy One of the things I did while I was feeling flattened was to listen to some of the music on Jeanne d’Arc’s New Orleans music list. Some I knew, but I hadn’t heard of James Booker before. (No doubt the rest of you have, being cool and hip and all.) He had what … Read more
by hilzoy
Last weekend, it seemed as though every major news organization put out a story attempting to explain what went wrong with the response to Hurricane Katrina. This weekend, the theme is the continuing screwups by FEMA. (NYT, WaPo, CNN, LATimes.) From the New York Times story:
“Nearly three weeks after Hurricane Katrina cut its devastating path, FEMA – the same federal agency that botched the rescue mission – is faltering in its effort to aid hundreds of thousands of storm victims, local officials, evacuees and top federal relief officials say. The federal aid hot line mentioned by President Bush in his address to the nation on Thursday cannot handle the flood of calls, leaving thousands of people unable to get through for help, day after day.
Federal officials are often unable to give local governments permission to proceed with fundamental tasks to get their towns running again. Most areas in the region still lack federal help centers, the one-stop shopping sites for residents in need of aid for their homes or families. Officials say that they are uncertain whether they can meet the president’s goal of providing housing for 100,000 people who are now in shelters by the middle of next month. (…)
The president of St. Tammany Parish, Kevin Davis, is praying that it does not rain in his sweltering corner of Louisiana, because three weeks after the storm severely damaged his drainage system, FEMA has yet to give him approval to even start the repairs. Up north in the poor parish of Washington, residents are sleeping in houses that were chopped in half by oak trees. The promised wave of government inspectors have not shown up to assist them.
James McGehee, the mayor of Bogalusa, a small Louisiana city near the Mississippi border, could barely contain his rage in an interview on Thursday. “Today is 18 days past the storm, and FEMA has not even put a location for people who are displaced,” he said. “They are walking around the damn streets. The system’s broke.” (…)
In Tangipahoa Parish, the parish president, Gordon Burgess, said he called FEMA officials daily to ask when they would arrive to assist residents with housing. Mr. Burgess said the federal workers say, ” ‘I’ll get to you next week,’ and then the next week and then you’d never hear from them again.”
Indeed, almost every local leader interviewed – even those sympathetic to FEMA’s plight – complained that they could not get FEMA to approve their contracts with workers, tell them when they would be opening help centers or answer basic questions. Often, they say, the FEMA worker on the ground, eager to help, has to go up the chain of command before taking action, which can take days.
“People on the ground are wonderful but the problem is getting the ‘yes,’ ” said Mr. Davis of St Tammany parish, who has a contractor ready to clean his drainage system of the same trees FEMA allowed him to take off his streets, and to repair parts of the sewage system. “I’m saying, ‘Wait a minute, you pick up debris on the road but not the drainage?’ If it rains, I’ve got real problems. I just need someone to tell me make the public bids and I could rebuild our parish in no time.””
by hilzoy From Time: “Federal troops aren’t the only ones looking for bodies on the Gulf Coast. On Sept. 9, Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions called his old law professor Harold Apolinsky, co-author of Sessions’ legislation repealing the federal estate tax, which was encountering sudden resistance on the Hill. Sessions had an idea to revitalize their … Read more
There are few things I loathe more than people who seem to be altruistic but end up demonstrating that they were merely pretending in order to screw someone over down the road. I’ve been around…I know how the world works, but even crooks have integrity, so long as they admit they’re crooks. Here’s a letter … Read more
After about 2:00 tomorrow (West Coast time) I’ll be out of touch for 4-5 days because my grandfather (blood relative, not my Japanese grandpa) died and I’m flying to Bozeman, Montana for the funeral. You wouldn’t believe how few flights there are into Bozeman. So just two quick thoughts one serious and one amusing: 1. … Read more
by hilzoy
I agree with Edward that Bush may or may not have known that the electricity that illuminated his speech was turned off after he left. More generally, though, I don’t “wonder if the blame for the President’s obvious disconnect from reality shouldn’t be placed at the feet of his handlers.” For one thing, the President is an adult, and he is perfectly capable of asking his handlers questions, or for that matter turning on the news. For another, as far as I can tell, his disconnection from reality is caused by his failure to take steps that any competent manager would take to ensure that he knew what was going on.
by Edward At a certain point, I think, you have to wonder if the blame for the President’s obvious disconnect from reality shouldn’t be placed at the feet of his handlers. I mean, often I’ve imagined that on the morning of 9/11, W was simply picked up and thrown over the shoulder of a Secret … Read more