Empathy Meets Realpolitik

Summertime and the living is easy . . . for our elected politicians in Washington D.C..

In just a few days they will suspend their hearings and deadline-driven decision making and return to the voters back home who keep them in office.

Homeless veterans across America, American children who do not have enough to eat, families facing foreclosure and unemployment all will still all be there when this great leadership body returns in a month or so, their campaign cash needs having been firmed up after non stop meetings with their voter base.

Meanwhile, last weekend almost one thousand homeless American military veterans in the San Diego, California area sought help at a three-day tent city program called "Stand Down." This volunteer effort has been operating for more than 20 years. It is a three-day chance for homeless veterans, many from the Vietnam era, but with increasing numbers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to get free housing and social services. Hot food, a haircut, dental work, legal aid and a clean place to sleep in a familiar military camp setting is there to help these souls living on the very edge.

That in the USA we have a thousand former military veterans, down and out in the shadows of one large city should evoke both sadness, and no small amount of outrage and frustration. However, it is not just San Diego. The Department of Veterans affairs estimates that one out of three homeless people across America is a veteran.

How do all the car magnets and lawn signs urging that we "Support Our Troops" somehow exclude those troops who become disabled and fall through the cracks once they get back home? Do we just say tough luck to those who turn to drugs and alcohol, the ones who desperately need extra help? Where is our empathy?

Empathy? Conservative politicians have loudly used that word as a pejorative just recently. The word was invoked by President Obama as a desirable quality in a federal judge. More specifically his nominee to the Supreme Court, Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

Empathy? An effete, bleeding heart label? Hardly. Empathy is simply the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. But in that very definition we see among our elected leaders many who neither understand, nor share the feelings of others than themselves and their starchy conservative cohorts.

Empathy? How many of our nation's leaders have ever gone to bed hungry? U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics show that, "12.4 million children in the U.S. are 'food insecure' -- defined as not being able to get enough food to maintain a healthy, active life."

Food insecure? Simply say too many of our kids are hungry, not getting enough to eat. American kids. Using some bureaucratic euphemism does not fill empty tummies. Euphemisms do make the reports coming out of Washington agencies look a little less shocking. "Food insecure" doesn't jump off the page like "starving" or "undernourished," and helps keep this disgrace beneath the political radar.

Homeless American veterans and American children who never get enough to eat are merely two examples of ongoing problems that many of our politicians somehow must not hear about when they go back home. Our bloated and ineffective health care system is on this long list of old and worsening problems. But as a majority of our politicians now are working diligently to finally bring forth a new overhauled and affordable universal health plan for all Americans, conservatives reflexively throw up roadblocks.

Conservative protests about leaving huge indebtedness to our grandchildren actually mask a selfish fear of losing votes back home if they support a new, and initially expensive national health care plan. Empathy is absent from this narrow reasoning. Personal political career interests hold hostage the entire inertia and completion of work, particularly in the House of Representatives.

The very politicians now expressing such deep concern for our national debt were deafeningly silent as President Bush raised the national debt each of his eight years in office to a breathtaking record $11.3 trillion.

Properly done, universal health care would eventually greatly reduce soaring insurance and overall medical costs. But initially, funding for such a massive landmark change in the way we take care of America's health will be expensive and will require political backbone to make it a reality. More backbone is still needed to address the needs of homeless Veterans and our undernourished children.

Approval of long overdue universal health care will require the very two things sorely lacking in current political opponents - statesmanship and empathy. For those lacking these qualities, it is essential that we point them out, on both sides of the aisle, and inundate their offices with email, letters and phone calls demanding that they use their stated concerns for program cost as positive negotiable input to the committees working to craft the final health plan and not as a singular duplicitous barrier to progress.

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Graphic - Larry Ray

Senator Sessions : Alabama Hypocrite Would Sit in Judgment

The Republican Party's finest continue to exhibit just how sorry, brazen, and unprincipled many of them can be as questioning of Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor has gotten underway. One of the worst and most shameless of the GOP interrogators is Alabama junior senator, Jefferson Beauregard "Jeff" Sessions III.

In 1986 Sessions himself sat in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee as a Reagan nominee for a federal judgeship, and was promptly rejected because of his history of racially insensitive remarks and a poor civil rights record. One of those questioning Sessions was Senator Edward Kennedy who even back in 1986 called him "a throwback to a shameful era."

Today, after 23 years of playing the good old boy politician, becoming a U.S. Senator in 1997, Sessions, who switched from the Democratic to the Republican party, was assigned to be the Ranking Member on the Senate Judiciary Committee less than three months ago.

There is great irony here in the once rejected federal judicial nominee now trying to sharpen his claws on Judge Sotomayor. But she is lots tougher and sharper than Sessions could ever be, and is letting him claw away, as he loudly displays his lightweight duplicity and demagoguery.

In his confrontational opening statement of the confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor, Sessions, in his high nasal whine, lectured the nominee about 'prejudice' in the legal system.

Twenty years ago when Sessions sat before the very panel he now heads, he was asked about well documented reports of his publicly recognized racism. His response, "I may have said something about the NAACP being un-American or Communist, but I meant no harm by it."

Sessions allegedly referred to the (NAACP) and the (ACLU) as "un-American" and "Communist inspired" because they "forced civil rights down the throats of people." At his confirmation hearings, Sessions said that the groups could be un-American when "they involve themselves in un-American positions" in foreign policy.

Sessions had been frequently accused of "gross insensitivity” on racial issues by his detractors. Among a variety of blatant racial comments his opponents pointed to, was his joking reference to the Ku Klux Klan which he said "was not so bad until he found out that some of them smoked marijuana." Sessions, with a straight face, claimed his remarks were made in jest.

The panel didn't buy it, and rejected him. One of those voting against him was Alabama Democratic Senator Howell Heflin.

Today Republican Senator Sessions is but one more example of GOP leadership tinged with documented hate, racism, anti immigration xenophobia, and unrealistic conservative dreams of "keeping things like they have always been."

The almost certain approval of Judge Sotomayor will, indeed, not be the way things have always been. That is the point of President Obama's having nominated her to the join the ranks of what has historically been the dominion of white men only, with relatively recent minor exceptions.

Meanwhile Senator Sessions may himself well be called to testify in future hearings since he was one of of only nine opponents of Senator John McCain's anti-torture amendment. Sessions supports former Vice President Dick Cheney's proposal to exempt the (CIA) from any ban on the use of torture.

Sessions is not real big on empathy either. Last month reportedly during testimony by a 42-year-old Filipino woman scheduled to be deported, the mother of two American children who had been in the USA for 23 years, Sessions was clearly heard telling one one of his aides, "Enough with the histrionics," when the woman's 12-year-old son began crying during the testimony.

And now he lectures a Supreme Court nominee about "prejudice in the legal system."

The only thing more disgusting and upsetting than Sessions' troubling racist background and narrow agenda are the voters out there who are nodding their heads in agreement with his "tough questioning" instead of asking themselves if Sessions is the best Alabama can do to represent them in the U.S. Senate.


.Graphic: US News & World Report June, 16, 1986

ASCAP Wants To Be Paid When Your Phone Rings

When I first read about being forced to pay every time your cell phone's ringtone plays I thought it was a prank or hoax email. It wasn't. If you don't know what ASCAP is then turn off your cell phone and read this.

The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers was born in 1913 following passage of the Copyright Law of 1909. The law was enacted, the old tale goes, after songwriter Stephen Foster died penniless while sheet music publishers became wealthy selling his music. ASCAP set up a royalty rate structure and under New York law became an unincorporated membership association. Licensing contracts with composer and publisher members give ASCAP the power to "collect and distribute money and police infringements."

By the 1990's ASCAP had membership of some 30,000 writers and around 14,000 music publishers who retained their individual copyrights. ASCAP's contracted powers grew exponentially as hand cranked Victrolas gave way to movies with sound, radio, TV and an explosion of elevator music, video, jukeboxes, tape decks right up to today's iPods, the internet and and downloadable music.

BMI is also part of the alphabet soup. Broadcast Music Incorporated collects fees from radio and TV stations for the music they play and was formed in the 1940's when broadcasters began to feel ASCAP was more and more engaging in monopolistic practices, price fixing, and other unsavory practices.

So, with that bit of background, let's look at just one of the inevitable excesses ASCAP has indulged in based upon it's interpretation of licensing practices that are, "the only practical way to give effect to the right of public performance which the Copyright Law intends creators to have."

It is a tough call as to whether it was music industry greed or just plain stupidity that led ASCAP to actually go after Girl Scouts singing songs around a campfire. In 1996, ASCAP, ever seeking more licensing and musical moolah, cast a wide net covering hotels, restaurants, funeral homes, even resorts demanding payment for the right to "perform" licensed or recorded music.

Under copyright law, "where a substantial number of persons outside a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances are gathered," that qualifies as a public performance. Summer camp is sort of like a resort, they reasoned, so the suits around the table opened negotiations with the American Camping Association asking $1,200 annually each from the 288 camps in the association. They finally settled for a nag of $257 per camp. But reportedly when the public learned that the Girl Scouts were among the camps being dunned and would have to pony up their Girl Scout Cookie money to sing around a campfire, ASCAP took a PR beating and called off the whole camping caper.

Now, just a couple of weeks ago, ASCAP decided every time that snip of music you bought for a ringtone blares forth on your cell phone that constitutes a performance, violating copyright law meaning you must pay up! ASCAP is in a big legal skunk peeing contest with major mobile cell phone carriers like AT&T and Verizon.

Customers who have legally bought ringtones have already boosted the music industry's bottom line by millions of dollars. But now ASCAP's lawyers are dialing for more dollars. Existing law from the much earlier Sony Betamax ruling says companies are not liable for how their technology is used. It would seem like ASCAP doesn't have a case at all.

But these are the same folks who crisscrossed America threatening and intimidating small business owners for having a radio playing in their small shop, diner or bar, demanding they pay an annual fee. Those found playing a radio or recorded music were hounded month after month not unlike mafia shakedown goons seeking protection money. ASCAP agents didn't burn down the businesses who refused to pay for playing a radio but hounded them mercilessly.

I doubt many of us are keeping up with briefs filed in court by ASCAP, but THIS BRIEF in their battle with AT&T pretty well shows where this may all be headed after the big buck lawyers finish knocking heads.

The outcome of their insatiable greed may just be coming to a cell phone near you.


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Sarah Palin Reads Vanity Fair, Resigns as Governor

Illustration by Risko for Vanity Fair

Sarah Louise Palin, erratic governor of Alaska and the G.O.P.'s 2008 Vice Presidential candidate, must have felt more than just the heat that is melting the glaciers in her state. She announced her resignation one day before all the real Fourth of July fireworks, from her Wasilla, Alaska home.

I read Todd S. Purdum's tell-all article, "It Came From Wasilla" just two days ago in the August 2009 issue of Vanity Fair. Purdum's article was more than telling. It was prophetic. The title could now be "It Never Really Left Wasilla."

The article carefully documents Palin from all sides, including inside stories now being told by top McCain campaign staff about Palin's petulant meltdown as a serious candidate. She dazzled the eager conservative base like a master magician during her brief stage appearances, but a look behind the curtain discloses a small town, clueless lightweight former beauty queen whose life, Purdum notes, "has sometimes played out like an unholy amalgam of Desperate Housewives and Northern Exposure."

The Vanity Fair article is, well, fair. It definitely is not a superficial whack job. It is so on target, and so well documented that one has to wonder if it is more than coincidence that she decided to fold up her political tent. After Vanity Fair, she can expect a steady barrage of even deeper investigative reporting if she decides to run for anything other than head of her church's glossolalia discussion committee.

Will she leave politics, or will she run for a U.S. Senate seat or the Presidency? Cable TV is having a field day. Interestingly, Palin's timing in announcing her resignation evidences her utter lack of understanding of the fine points of making political news. Millions of Americans are traveling, taking holiday vacations to visit family and friends. And after the nonstop weekend news coverage of fireworks, parades and celebration of American Independence, constant news coverage immediately shifts to the Michael Jackson memorial free for all in Los Angeles through the end of the following week.

Palin has reportedly gotten a sizeable advance for a book contract. She has chosen a senior writer for conservative Christian World magazine as her co-author. But if you can't wait for her book to come out, I suggest you grab a copy of Vanity Fair for a more sober look at the real Sarah Louise Palin.

Vanity Fair also has strong presence on the web where you may also read the article.

Even the woman in the red dress who told candidate McCain at a town hall campaign gathering in 2008 she thought Obama "was an Arab" should be able see past Palin's lip gloss, if she reads the VF article.

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Sign of the Times . . . Finally! Coleman Out - Franken In

One term Republican Minnesota U.S. Senator, Norm Coleman, has finally thrown in the towel conceding the Senate race to Democrat Al Franken, who won by a narrow 312 votes out of 2.9 million ballots cast by Minnesotans last November. A 5-0 Minnesota Supreme Court decision against Coleman ended eight months of G.O.P. delaying tactics in the courts following a total vote recount, and endless legal challenges to Franken's narrow victory.

The more Coleman desperately claimed voter irregularities, the more the vote recount eliminated his thin 206 vote lead and uncovered votes that eventually shifted a 312 vote victory to Franken.

The G.O.P.'s worst nightmare has become reality. When Franken is seated next week, the Democrats will have a filibuster-stopping 60 vote majority in the Senate.

And the old-boy National Republican Senatorial Committee will have a lot of crow to choke down. Below is a reduced version of a November 2008 G.O.P. plea for money to "stop the liberals' plan to break our firewall!"

Orrin Hatch, in this almost comical appeal for "Just $7" unabashedly vilifies Al Franken:

"If you are like me, 'Franken wins' are two words you never want to hear again in your life. We have to stop Al Franken! He is the darling of the radical left. He is the hero of Move-on.org, Big Labor and anti-drilling environmentalists. Al Franken is also the poster boy for the liberal's plan to break our firewall in the senate and to seize control of our government. Frankly, Al Franken is unfit for office."

Then Orrin winds up his hysterical diatribe:

"Washington liberals are spending millions of dollars raised by Barack Obama and Joe Biden to attack our Republican candidates, just like they are attacking Gov. Sarah Palin - and elect liberals like Al Franken to the Senate."

Well, what a difference eight months makes, Orrin. Not only did Poster Boy nemesis Saturday Night Live comedian, Al Franken win, you will now get to smile and shake his hand.

After all the dust settled on the old crumbled firewall, six GOP senators had lost their places on the wall, falling off just like a bunch of Humpty Dumpties including a long-time Dumptyette, Liddy Dole. Add the specter of a G.O.P. defection to the Democrats actually happening, the disgrace of Ted Stevens of Alaska, and viola' the despised 'liberals' now tote up a 60 seat majority.

Orrin, you might like to know that Al graduated cum laude from Harvard College, is a highly successful author, and a little occasional SNL humor in the Senate chambers might be a good idea. You really should read Frankin's, 1993 book, "I'm Good Enough, I'm Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me."

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Where's Waldo? Play "Find The Health Care Lobbyist!"

National Public Radio has done an amazingly creative bit of public journalism. They turned their cameras around and pictured, instead of the Congressional committee, the assemblage of lobbyists sitting before them. Now NPR has started to identify individuals and publish how much cash they have thrown at elected officials to maintain the status quo for private health care insurance companies and affiliated companies profiting handsomely from the present broken health care system.

Below is the story from the NPR web site, and a link to the site where you can visit the interactive photo which has icons above heads of lobbyists identified so far. Mouse over the icon and learn who they are, what companies they represent and how much money they are spending on lobbying to weaken or even kill a universal health care program. Typical of those identified include, Kate Leeson of Holland & Knight. The firm's 2008 lobbying income from health care clients: $2.3 million. The list grows as readers help identify individuals in the photo.

Turning The Camera Around: Health Care Stakeholders

When 22 senators started working over the first health care overhaul bill on June 17, the news cameras were pointed at them -- except for NPR's photographer, who turned his lens on the lobbyists. Whatever bill emerges from Congress will affect one-sixth of the economy, and stakeholders have mobilized. We've begun to identify some of the faces in the hearing room, and we want to keep the process going. Know someone in these photos? Let us know who that someone is -- NPR STORY AND PHOTO

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U.S. National Debt : Cliffs Notes for Conservatives

As soon as Barack Obama's hand left the Lincoln bible after taking his oath of office as President of the United States of America, the race was on within the tattered ranks of the Republican party to see who could scream "tax and spend" the loudest.

The same conservatives who uttered not a dissenting word during the past eight years of Republican "spend and spend" now sputter forth about their perceived perilous excesses of President Obama.

It is time for a review of some hard facts and numbers.

Mr. Obama has calmly and deliberately taken charge, faced with inherited wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the threat of a global financial meltdown, and a laundry list of national and international challenges. And all the while he is pressing ahead and funding promised new programs and change. His Republican detractors, ranting about the national debt, seem to have forgotten George W. Bush's early months as president.

Mr. Bush inherited a federal budget that had been balanced for three consecutive years and a surplus of $236 billion, the largest surplus in American history. Even sweeter, we were running an on-budget surplus no longer diverting surplus from the Social Security Trust Fund to fund other government programs. This conservative largess, of course, came from the previous Democratic administration.

When Mr. Bush took office, the national debt was $5.727 trillion. By September 2008, the national debt had soared to more than $9.849 trillion, an almost 72 percent increase during Mr. Bush’s two terms. And those are the debt figures before the basically unregulated, free-for-all banking and financial system received Mr. Bush's $700 billion Wall Street bailout money.

And as President Obama walked into the Oval office, Mr. and Mrs. George W. Bush were closing the deal on their mansion in a Dallas, Texas gated community, leaving the biggest increase in the national debt under any president in U.S history as a going away present to the American people.

Mr. Bush must have erased the collective memory of his record national debt from the minds of the Republican party. With stern faces they attempt daily to paint the accumulated national debt as President Obama's dangerous "socialist" agenda to send America to the poorhouse. Well, we have already been sent there, and Barack Obama did not do the sending.

Here's a quick review:

• Shortly after taking office, President Bush spoke to the the Republican Congressional Retreat in Williamsburg and blithely declared that his budget would “pay down the national debt."

• President Bush raised the national debt limit eight times during his administration.

• On July 30, 2008 President Bush signed the Housing and Economic Recovery Act, which contained a quiet little provision raising the debt ceiling to $10.615 trillion.

• One week before leaving office, Bush asked Congress for the remaining $350 billion of the $700 billion Wall Street Troubled Assets Relief Program or TARP bailout package.

• That same last week, Bush signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 raising the national debt ceiling for the eighth time to $12.104 trillion to accommodate the $11.3 trillion all time record debt he left the incoming administration.
  

• George W. Bush's $11.3 trillion record debt comes to more than $37,000 each for every man, woman and child in the United States. And it will get worse because of what it is costing to clean up after him while still moving ahead on badly needed changes like national health care to rein in its current out of control cost.
  

I find it both bewildering and angering when Republican conservatives lambaste President Obama for the present state of indebtedness on America's balance sheet as if it was all his fault, spending like a drunken sailor. As if the previous eight years never happened.

Mr. Boehner, Mr. Steele, Mr. Cantor and the rest of the GOP spokespersons du Jour should all be given special pocket calculators with a built in factor of $11.3 trillion that is automatically deducted from any figures they use to attack the Obama administration.

The factor could have a new four letter mathematical name, the Debt factor, a word that also works perfectly to describe the Bush presidential legacy.



Graphic with apologies to Cliffs Notes

David Carradine's Death, and Bizarre Memories from a Reporter's Early Years

Shocking details in news reports today about motion picture actor David Carradine's death in a Bangkok hotel room literally jolted my memory back to my days as a rookie police beat reporter in South Texas almost 45 years ago.

The police radio in the radio station's rattletrap old news wagon broadcast one brief call, "All cars bay front area, possible suicide, Shoreside Motel." I was just a couple of blocks away, and headed over to the motel. No sophisticated news crews and fancy live broadcasts in the mid 1960's. And you had to be on a beat for a while and make good contacts or the cops wouldn't even let you near a crime scene. But there were ways.

About the time I pulled into a side parking space, two sheriff's cars and a city patrol car rolled into the back parking lot. They made a beeline toward an open first floor hallway end door. I just walked in with them. All focus was on a hysterical, weeping housekeeper, pushing the door open into a room.

We started to enter the room, then those in front halted abruptly. Magazines and trash were scattered around the small single room. A bottle of cheap Bourbon was on a table. The ones at the front could see the closet to the left of the door. "Damn, look at that, " an old deputy grunted. The rest of us worked our way inside and then I saw the closet.

Its cloth curtain had been pulled to one side. A paunchy completely naked man, with a pillowcase pulled over his head, was leaning forward, hanging motionless from a rope tied to a closet clothes rod and then around the pillowcase and his neck. A vanity stool from the room was toppled over in front of his folded knees. "He's been there quite a while," one of the city cops observed, "All the blood's drained down into his lower torso and legs."

I had never seen anything as ghastly. His upper body was pasty white. From about his pelvis down, the flesh was a dark port color. The maid had found him and was in a state of shock mumbling that the victim was a merchant seaman. I was working hard to be professional, casual, but one of the deputies finally turned and spotted me. "What are you doing in here!" I told him I was with KEYS Radio and was there on the suicide call. "Well you back your butt out of here," he ordered. I persisted, asking him if he had ever seen a strange suicide like this before. "This ain't no suicide, and this ain't no story. Now beat it. I ain't telling you again."

I had not been on the police beat very long, and with no more to go on than what I had seen, and having been stiffed by the deputy, I backed out of the parking lot feeling I didn't have enough for a story. But I wondered that if what I saw wasn't a suicide, then what kind of murder could it have been? A couple of months later, I learned it was neither.

The Carradine death is initially puzzling to everyone. He reportedly was shooting a new film, "Stretch" in Bangkok, and friends said the 72 year old actor was, "Working hard on the set, and we were liking what we were seeing." News reports say Carradine hung around the hotel lobby Wednesday night, even playing the grand piano to the delight of those at the lobby bar. He reportedly had a shot of vodka, a cola, then told those at the bar he was going up to his room and have a "special whiskey."

Police say he entered his room Wednesday night and was discovered around 11 A.M. the next morning by the maid who had come to clean the room. He was reportedly found nude in a closet of his hotel suite with a yellow nylon rope tied around his neck and a black rope around his genitals. The two ropes, according to the Associated Press, were tied together, and he died of asphyxiation. Suggestions that it was a suicide were strongly denied by his wife and his manager. The bartender told reporters that Carradine had made a reservation for a table for a party with friends for Thursday, the day he was found dead. Bizarre, puzzling. Police said there were no signs of forced entry into his room, which was neat and undisturbed. No immediate evidence of foul play.

The details David Carradine's death jarred loose all the forgotten details of my once seeing a nude hooded dead man hanging from a rope in a motel closet. A man discovered by the maid who came to clean his room. Then other memories came racing back. I remembered being on the scene of a murder one evening months after the mystery motel hanging. The deputy who had run me off from the crime scene in the motel was there, and had warmed up to me after hearing my newscasts saying I, "just might be a fair to middling decent reporter." It was a misty evening and after he gave me what information he had on the murder, I decided to ask him about the strange hanging in the motel, and if they ever solved that murder. As if he were talking to a police academy class he dispassionately explained what had happened to the man in the motel.

"Look, we see this regularly enough year after year. There are just some people who get sexually excited by letting themselves down slowly on a rope around their neck and as they are almost about to pass out they have an orgasm. Then they ease themselves back up and release the pressure on the neck." He screwed his mouth to one side, then took a deep breath and continued as if he were teaching me his trade.

"The first thing we do is to check the underwear or hands to see if there is evidence of an ejaculation. The old guy in the motel had used the vanity stool to kneel on as he lowered himself down on the rope. Who knows why he had the pillowcase over his head, but what happened is that the stool fell forward and he was unable to get the pressure off the rope in time. Probably had been hitting the bottle pretty heavy."

I asked if he knew why people do this and he shrugged, "These people aren't trying to commit suicide, they sometimes just don't release the pressure on their neck in time and die. No one would ever know about what they do otherwise. They accidentally strangle and then leave everyone all confused because nobody dreamed that their husband or son or father would be into anything like that. They want to insist it was murder or something, anything, else. We see all kinds of weird sex stuff out there."

I was astounded, and felt unsteady on my feet. I really didn't want to hear any more at that point. I now remember those thoughts racing and crisscrossing as I imagined the world this police officer lived in. The things he had seen, the sorry and secret underbelly of people that had become his world. I couldn't even imagine what the longshoreman's life had been like, and why his scary, strange sexual need led him to his eventual death. Several months later I got an offer from a local ABC TV affiliate and chasing ambulances and police calls was less intense.


Now comes today's instant reporting on the Internet about David Carradine's death with shocking details of his nude body, color of the ropes, where they were tied, and that he might have been engaging in some strange sexual fetish, all things that would not have been reported 45 years ago in South Texas. Details similar to the grisly ones I had long ago buried and forgotten.

The Associated Press is already reporting that Thailand's Central Institute of Forensic Science, said the circumstances under which Carradine died suggest the 72-year-old actor may have been performing auto-erotic asphyxiation.

Carradine's family wants to fight a finding of suicide as the cause of death and has asked the FBI to assist in the investigation. Gossip columnists are even suggesting Carradine's connections to Scientology, though he was not a member, could be connected with his death.

Who knows for certain how or why David Carradine died? I certainly do not. Only being able to know and understand his deepest, darkest secrets could one perhaps know the hows and whys of his death.

The awakening of that memory from many years ago did make this old reporter finally do a little research on what the detective deputy told me about the reason the longshoreman died.

It took a little time on Google to narrow the detective's explanation down to a clinical term, asphyxiophilia. The research even notes that auto-erotic asphyxiation has been known since the 1600's.

Once again, more information there than I ever wanted to know. Now I can only hope that the awakened grisly memories from all those years ago will again fade away deep back into my old gray cells.



Graphic by Larry Ray

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"Pedro Tancredo" Latest Mad GOP Buffoon du Jour

Like a buzzard to fresh roadkill, disgraced former GOP congressman, Tom Tancredo could not pass up the lights and cameras. Dusting off his career xenophobic Latino bashing, he attacked Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor calling her a "racist."

In case you don't immediately place Uncle Tom Tancredo, he is the grandson of Italian immigrants and ran for congress from Colorado's 6th Congressional District promising to only serve three terms. Tancredo stumped with unforgettable magniloquence, "We want to reinvigorate the electoral process by introducing people into the system who think of government service as a temporary endeavor, not as a career."

He etched in stone his three term limit promise saying, "For me, the issue of giving one's word and promising to do something like this is more important than the rest of it ... I took the pledge. I will live up to the pledge. That's it. That's the overriding issue."

Tancredo broke his pledge and ran for a fourth term in Congress in 2004.

Then on April 2, 2007, Tancredo announced that he would run for President in the 2008 election. His singular platform issue, his signature fixation, was illegal immigrants and immigration reform.

In the May 3, 2007 debate among the ten candidates for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination, Tancredo was one of three who raised their hands when asked if anyone did not believe in the theory of evolution. Starting to place him now?

A month before he dropped out of the race, he ran a TV ad with a voice of death warning, "There are consequences to open borders beyond the 20 million aliens who have come to take our jobs ... the price we pay for spineless politicians who refuse to defend our borders against those who come to kill." Mercifully, he ended his candidacy on his 62nd birthday.

During his time as a US Congressman, he was a strident anti-abortionist, and had hawkish pronouncements on the Iraq war, even though when he was eligible for the Vietnam war draft, in June 1969 he went for his physical, telling doctors he had been treated for depression, and eventually got a "1-Y" deferment.

Though he was raised a Roman Catholic, he attacked Pope Benedict XVI for "encouraging illegal immigration to the USA to boost membership in the Catholic Church." Tancredo now attends a Christian evangelical church.

But illegal immigration is his constant one-note samba. Whenever Lou Dobbs hears it he dances gleefully.

Tancredo was persona non grata at the White House after getting into a shouting match with Karl Rove, ranting at him, "if the nation suffered another attack at the hands of terrorists able to skirt immigration laws, the blood of the people killed would be on Bush's and Congress’ hands." Rove had him blacklisted from entering the White House, calling Tancredo a "traitor to the Party."

Tancredo said if we have another terrorist attack on the USA we should bomb Mecca.

He suggested that state legislators and 'sanctuary city' mayors should be imprisoned for passing laws contrary to federal immigration law.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of a long list of hateful, insane acts and statements by Tancredo who, incidentally, was given an A+ for his opposition to amnesty for illegal aliens by "Americans for Better Immigration." The average Congressmen was given a C+.

Last Thursday, May 28th, Tancredo appeared on CNN to voice his opposition to Judge Sotomayor as nominee for appointment to the Supreme Court. CNN host, Rick Sanchez asked him if he thought Sonia Sotomayor is a racist, Tancredo replied “certainly her words would indicate that that is the truth” and he then compared the Hispanic-American advocacy group. "La Raza" to the KKK.

And Tancredo would know about the KKK. On September 11, 2006 in Colombia, South Carolina he was guest speaker before a group he helped form, the "Americans Have Had Enough Coalition." The room in which he spoke was reportedly decked out with large portraits of Robert E. Lee and lots of Confederate battle flags. After Tancredo spoke, men dressed in Confederate uniforms are said to have broken into a rousing chorus of "Dixie."

Tancredo panders to racists. He thunders about "racial multiculturalism" being the ruin of America. He called Miami a "Third World Country." Governor Jeb Bush called his remarks "naive" and countless organizations and political leaders have denounced Tancredo's blatant racism.

I will stop here, but I just wanted to paint a clear picture of this loud, mistaken dogmatist who now is the latest spokesperson du jour for the leaderless Republican Party, whether they like it or not.

Today some Republican Congressmen started breaking ranks with their sour conservative party core calling Tancredo's rant disgraceful and not representative of the Grand Old Party. Even GOP Party Chairman, Michael Steele, has completely disavowed Tancredo.

Judge Sotomayor's early comment, taken out of context by both Tancredo and Rush Limbaugh, who compared Sotomayor to KKK leader David Duke, will certainly be thoroughly reviewed in her upcoming confirmation hearing. Hopefully Republicans in the hearing will not take the low road.

Too bad Tancredo and Limbaugh are both opponents of same-sex marriage, because theirs would be a marriage made in hypocrites' heaven.


Graphic by Larry Ray

Guantanamo : Bush's Toxic Assets, Boogie Men and Political Prostitution

With only 23 percent of Americans now claiming to be Republicans, what’s left of their party has decided to attack Barack Obama for "not having a plan" to close the Guantanamo Bay Detainee Center. It has been a loud, shameless exercise in fear-mongering.

The protean Senators have said, "Never mind the priority of halting a national financial collapse and possible economic depression in America. Forget the powder keg that is the Taliban and al-Qaida threat in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Personal political futures back home are much more important.

The Senate let personal political priorities guide their 90 to 6 vote to withhold the $80 million Obama requested for the Guantanamo closure till he gives them “a plan.” Scared silly Democrats also joined in the disgraceful fear-mongering vote.

No one would like to get Mr. Bush's nightmarish mess cleared up more than Mr. Obama. His Thursday speech made clear that work has been underway by legal, military, and diplomatic experts to solve the complex problem since he took office less than 150 days ago. But Republicans desperate to woo back lost votes are all screaming BOOGIE MAN COMING!!

They warn that dangerous terrorists are going to be moved to jails and prisons in their districts back home where they could break out and hide under YOUR bed waiting to get you! The scenario continues with terrorists being turned loose with a new suit of clothes and a few bucks, on the streets of YOUR TOWN! Shamefully, Majority Leader, Harry Reid said, "Part of what we don't want is them be put in prisons in the United States." That's the way to support "real change," Harry.

The whipped up fear exploits a deeply buried American realization that if we or our family members had been rounded up, shackled, tortured and held with no charges and no rights for seven years we would be mad as hell. Just as mad as the Gitmo prisoners who have been treated that way and are now "headed for the streets of America." OMG

The Republican game plan is to make it look like Obama is about to empty the prison camp down in Cuba, and turn out the lights and let the terrorists be set loose across America. Lots of plain folks, aided by Dick Cheney’s mad raving on cable TV may actually believe this nonsense.

Just so the politically terrorized can all sleep at night without having to leave the lights on, let's review some facts:

Thirty three international terrorists, including those with al-Qaida connections are locked up in the Federal prison known as the “Alcatraz of the Rockies,” or ADMAX Florence in Florence, Colorado, and there has been no public outcry at all.

Any bad guys transferred from Guantanamo to the USA will be housed in maximum security, super-max prisons, like the Fort Leavenworth prison and the Florence ADMAX. No dangerous Guantanamo prisoners are to be released in the USA. The most dangerous of the prisoners held in Guantanamo are to be incarcerated as “enemy combatants” in maximum security prisons, as will others awaiting trial in a federal court of law in the US. No one has ever escaped from a super-max prison.

Terrorists and violent criminals are kept in solitary confinement, and when moved outside their cells one hour a day, they are in leg shackles accompanied by three guards. They rarely see other prisoners, are allowed few visitors and their mail is monitored. Ramzi Yousef, who headed the group that carried out the first bombing of the World Trade Center in February 1993 faces this daily routine as a prisoner in the $60 million Florence, Colorado super-max prison.

Let’s look at how many prisoners we are talking about after Guantanamo is finally closed. Since 2002, 775 detainees have been brought to Guantanamo. Some 420 have been released to countries of origin or other countries with no charges against them. In late January 2004, U.S. officials finally released three children aged 13 to 15 swept up as “enemy combatants” and returned them to Afghanistan. As of January 2009, approximately 245 detainees remain and only three of them have been charged.

The US Department of Defense on February 11, 2008, charged terrorists Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali and Walid Bin Attash for the September 11 attacks under the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Untangling the details of trying these 911 terrorists is part of what is taking time to find a constitutionally and internationally legal approach to handling these cases which involve serious questions, not the least of which include torture.

Earlier, U.S. officials have said they intended to eventually put 60 to 80 prisoners on trial and free the rest. But what to do with those held for years, and never charged? That is one of many tough problems taking so much time to work out. Mr. Cheney and some hard core conservatives would prefer to keep them locked up in Cuba forever, innocent or not, Constitution be damned.

It would seem that our Congressmen and Senators would all be enthusiastically pitching in to work with the administration on a plan for a diplomatic, constitutional way to empty Guantanamo, and close this sad chapter in our history. Sadly, they are thinking only of remaining career politicians.

Yes these prisoners include dangerous terrorists who want to hurt America. But all have to be dealt with under the law. Holding them in maximum-security prisons poses no threat to our security at home. Continuing to do what we have been doing for the past seven years in Guantanamo remains a growing threat to our security.

We cannot continue to hold these prisoners in indefinite limbo on our military base in Cuba. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that they are entitled to the protection of the U.S. Constitution ... the same constitution our Congressmen and Senators have sworn to defend and uphold.


Photo by Shane T. McCoy, U.S. Navy

Dick Cheney and the Curse of the Pomegranate Seeds

There are emerging scholarly theories about former Vice President Dick Cheney's lifelong allergy to pomegranates which could be at the center of his secretive, imperious, angry and delusional behavior and his lifelong health problems.

Mr. Cheney is part of the estimated 1.24% to 16.8% of the population considered "at risk" for having an anaphylactic reaction if they eat, are injected with or even inhale one or more allergens. Anaphylaxis comes from the Greek, meaning "against protection." Anaphylactic shock can attack those severely allergic to a bee sting, or even a pomegranate, causing a serious blockage of the airway, an extreme drop in blood pressure and can lead to death in a matter of minutes if left untreated.

For this reason, Mr. Cheney has always had within arm's reach, what is commonly called a "bee sting kit" which has a preloaded syringe containing epinephrine (adrenaline) to keep the heart beating, and other compounds to keep one breathing. Early in his political career, a staffer, and more recently a Secret Service agent has constantly been at the ready with the little zippered pouch in case a bit of killer pomegranate makes it down the Veep's gullet.

So with this bit of basic Mr. Wizard science background under our belts, let's look at why Dick Cheney might have been a nice guy with, say a peanut or bee sting allergy instead of the curse of the pomegranate. It all has to do with the Greek connection.

The pomegranate features mightily in the complex Greek story of Zeus's daughter Persephone who was snatched by Zeus's brother Hades, Lord of the underworld, and taken below to become his Queen. Now, when you get snatched and taken to the dark side, the deal is that if you don't eat, you can eventually return back up to light and goodness. Persephone's mother, Demeter, became so distraught at the loss of her daughter she neglected the earth which had droughts and became barren. It got so bad that Hades relented and called Hermes to take Persephone back home to momma.

But, just as Persephone was leaving, Hades gave her a pomegranate to eat. She knew the deal about eating and not being able to return to earth, but she was famished and ate seven pomegranate seeds. Well . . . you can figure out the ending. She got to return to the happy world to be with mom and dad, but poor Persephone had cut a deal with the devil. She wound up having to return to Hades four months out of the year. It wound up giving us winter and summer, but, those damned pomegranate seeds!

Actually pomegranate juice has powerful antioxidant properties and is used to treat a variety of maladies, most notably cardiovascular disease, stroke and heart attack. Medical researchers also claim great benefit in interrupting the process of atherosclerosis which is the clogging of arteries due to excessive fat deposits.

Mr. Cheney has earned the diagnostic title of "vasculopath" with an almost 30-year history of coronary atherosclerosis, with his first heart attack when he was only 37. No one is sure when he ate his first pomegranate seeds, or how many he ate, but clearly he was damned to the dark side early on, and as a result was not even allowed to have any more of the sweet, potentially health benefiting fruit. The deal with Hades was already made.

To many, it is clear that Cheney didn't get a short four-month deal like Persephone. He clearly spends lots more time down in the underworld's dark side than she did. Cheney's official press releases have conveniently described him as being in "an undisclosed location."

His buddy Hades has lately been giving Mr. Cheney more weekend passes than in years past so he can spend more time up here in the light to appear on radio and TV to spread his dark message. He has been reveling in his angry, convoluted attacks upon truth, transparency and change by America's new Democratic leaders and majority voters.

Hades and Cheney working together, make Machiavelli's schemes pale by comparison. They have even cleverly lured Speaker Pelosi into a torturous lose-lose series of public appearances and defensive statements where her political armor has finally been pierced ... by her own spear.

No one is happier than Hades, chortling down in his dark homey hell while topside the earthly GOP, Guardians of Pomegranates, urged on by Hades' emissary, Dark Dick, pass out the fruit's sweet seeds to their dwindling hard core members, and unsuspecting malcontents.

Hopefully Hades will soon cut out the weekend passes, and Dark Dick will return to his undisclosed location ... for good. But he mustn't forget his bee sting kit because there is always the possibility he will eventually finally even tee off Hades, who certainly will have his pomegranate waiting for him.


Graphic from MerchantCircle

Facing Extinction? Grand Old Party Blues

Republican diehards at some point must realize that their invitation-only (Tea) party is over. They must first acknowledge that the vast majority of Americans are simply trying to make it through the economic and societal mess left, in large part, by the last eight years of rogue Republican superintendence. The Grand Old Party is way out of touch with political reality and running mostly on bluster and using a worn out old play book of negativity and exclusion.

Defection from the Republican ranks is notable, with tens of thousands of moderate and centrist Republicans leaving their old party and becoming Democrats or independents. Concerned Americans who have already voted their centrist values rather than hewing to the strident, divisive, self-serving GOP party line.

Senior Republican Senator Arlen Specter's recent defection from the GOP to the Democratic Party has caused an uproar in the toxic hard-core of the remaining Republican party. But it has also brought forth thoughtful, constructive commentary from long-time loyal Republican moderates like Maine Senator Olympia Snow and former New Jersey Republican Governor, Christine Todd Whitman. They have both recently written strong, intelligent Op-Ed articles for The New York Times calling for a reconstituted GOP.

Former Governor Whitman minced no words: "Our democracy desperately needs two vibrant parties. And for Republicans to be that second party, we need to remind the nation of the principles for which we once stood." Whitman listed those principals as a party "committed to such important values as fiscal restraint, less government interference in our everyday lives, environmental policies that promote a balanced approach between protection and economic interest, and a foreign policy that is engaged with the rest of the world." The present party seems to have dozed through all their noble ideals for at least the past eight years.

Certainly fiscal restraint was not a hallmark of the Bush-Cheney years. The national debt more than doubled, growing from $5.727 trillion when Bush took office to $11.315 trillion as he hastily cobbled together fiscal bailout legislation as he was leaving office. That legislation included yet another provision to raise the debt ceiling in addition to the seven times Bush had already raised the debt ceiling while in office. For six of those eight years he had a Republican-controlled Congress to back up his reckless, endless spending.

No other administration in history had ever run up such national debt. After the total fiscal irresponsibility of a Republican controlled Congress that allowed mega-banks and mortgage giants to run rampant with virtually no supervision, leading to the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, it is really hard to be lectured by Republicans about "fiscal responsibility." And we have not mentioned the costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars which had totaled some $840,000,000 at the end of Bush's term. That's not far from another trillion bucks.

As far as "less government interference in our everyday lives, environmental policies that promote a balanced approach between protection and economic interest, and a foreign policy that is engaged with the rest of the world," just analyze those yourself.

For starters, there is Bush's warrant-less wiretapping of American citizens, unprecedented secrecy and torture, trampling the Constitution, wholesale sellout of our national resources to environmentally hostile energy companies, and a foreign policy that, against the advice of "the rest of the world" led to the unilateral invasion of Iraq, a country which had nothing at all to do with the 2001 9/11 attack.

Just what did happen to Governor Whitman's "principals" for which her GOP once stood?"

Clearly the success and amazing leadership exhibited by President Obama in his first three months in office continues to energize the nation, and the world, even as a global flu pandemic threatens. Obama's team approach to attacking the GOP debris he inherited has garnered international admiration and support. This has all made the frantic, defeated, remaining conservative Republican leadership angry and more irrational than ever.

Instead of accepting reality and trying to formulate a new platform and bring forward constructive centrist ideas and proposals which would positively engage them with the majority party, they simply continue to implode.

The disappearance of the dinosaurs is generally attributed to a huge asteroid colliding with earth wiping them out. Daily Kos today posted an appropriate graphic that Michael Steele and his party might want to put in their offices and contemplate for a while. The clever, telling logo design even has elements of Leader Limbaugh in it.

Slightly defaced Mad Hatter Tea Party Engraving - Sir John Tenniel

Obama's First 100 Days : Now a Piggie Pandemic?

As President Obama's first 100 days draw to a close, another potentially deadly challenge has been added to the myriad complex problems he has been thoughtfully working his way through. Identified as "Swine Flu" or the N1H1 flu virus, it has a potential to become a global flu pandemic.

The new president started out already waist-deep major problems left by Mssrs. Bush and Cheney. Two wars in the Middle East, America's battered international image, and an economic nightmare are just part of Mr. Obama's to do list. To date, he has received high approval ratings for his leadership. A global flu pandemic on top of what we already face is tough to even imagine.

I read John M. Barry's "The Great Influenza" a few years ago. Barry meticulously details the "Spanish Flu" of 1918. His finely researched narrative left me astounded at the far-reaching damage a ravaging pandemic can cause. It is generally agreed that a flu outbreak on a Kansas farm originating from farm animals infected soldiers in Kansas who quickly spread the disease to other soldiers headed for the WWI front in Europe.

It became known as the Spanish Flu because Spain was one of the only countries left with a free press and they reported on the panic with detailed accounts of how those infected bled from the nose and ears and turned blue from lack of oxygen. Helpless victims suffered aches saying they felt like their bones were being broken. Death came quickly. The rampaging pandemic killed more people in one year than the plagues of the Middle Ages killed in a century. A third of the world's population were infected and worldwide deaths are estimated at between 50 and 100 million.

In the United States, as troops mustered in huge cantonment camps across the nation preparing to ship out to the war in Europe, President Woodrow Wilson, a conservative Democrat and religious fundamentalist, clamped down on press freedom. Citing patriotism and the need to keep Americans on a righteous and patriotic path, he personally prevented even a mention of the raging flu. A public health official in Philadelphia even allowed young soldiers to mingle with the public during a parade. The bureaucrat noted that, "It is not patriotic to establish guidelines to protect the civilian public." Whole ships, loaded with sick and contagious troops were sent on to Europe rather than admit openly that there was a problem. They were aptly called "death ships" with most of the troops dead or wretchedly ill as they arrived in European ports.

The mass movement of people to and across Europe hastened the spread of the virulent flu. In the USA, people were most infectious to others during the days before they experienced any symptoms themselves. Globally, an estimated 2 to 2/5% of those who came down with the flu died. In the fall and winter of 1918 more people died from influenza than from any other pandemic before or since.

This Sunday afternoon, unlike Woodrow Wilson, the White House declared a "public health emergency" and the center for disease control announced, “We expect to see more cases of swine flu. As we continue to look for cases, I expect we’re going to find them.”

Politics remain at play as the seriousness of the current swine flu outbreak is assessed. The World Health Organization is taking its characteristic cautious stance calling the present flu outbreak in Mexico that has already killed more than 80 and infected another 1,900, “a public health emergency of international concern.” The W.H.O. is holding off till Tuesday to announce if it will raise the threat level. Dr. Keiji Fukuda, deputy director general of the W.H.O. is reported to have said, "Raising the threat to level 4 “would be a very serious signal that countries ought to be dusting off pandemic plans.” The level is currently a 3 on a scale of 6. (Ed Note: Now raised to level 5, April 29th)

So, here we are at the early, early stages of a strain of flu that seems to have developed in pigs and birds, mutated into a unique virus that is now being transmitted directly from human to human. Mexico seems to be the originating point. Already milder cases are being reported and identified across America and also mild cases are now being reported in Canada and New Zealand, and it has reached Europe.

We have learned a great deal about combating pandemics, and have new medicines and vaccines that were nonexistent in 1918. But is is sobering to realize that by the early 1990s, 75 years of research had failed to answer a most basic question about the 1918 pandemic: why was it so fatal? In recent years we have made some progress, but there are still lots of unanswered questions.

Today human fear and uncertainty remain pretty basic. A growing number of Americans are already barely living on the edge following loss of jobs, homes, savings, and face health care that is out of reach because of lack of insurance. America's vulnerability to a sweeping killer flu pandemic is doubly frightening today because so many families are already terribly weakened from the results of another endemic disease . . . greed.

Fat greed that grew and mutated while the host banks and financial giants flourished. Then just like in some farmyard in Mexico the greed genes intermingled, mutated and became toxic. We are already fighting the results of a pandemic of unregulated greed. Now real swine instead of figurative pigs once again spawn a physically life-sapping virus.

If ever there was a need for cool, serious and effective leadership and consensus, it is today. This also is a chance for detached conservative Republicans to get over their loss at the polls, and instead of throwing tepid tea parties, to come together and join in positive action to see America safely through what could be even tougher times ahead.

Swine flu is non partisan.


Graphic by Larry Ray

Dick Cheney: A Political Madness

A storm of delusional rage, classic paranoia, frightening pettiness, and political irrelevance continues to characterize former Vice President of the United States of America, Dick Cheney.

And his madness has recently been on public display wherever he can manage a TV interview.

Dick Cheney is sadly childlike in his petulant public outbursts. There is a mad gleam in his eye as he insists that his fantasy world and imagined demons are real. He is both the raving old uncle bursting into the room, ranting wildly and an overindulged child throwing a tantrum, kicking and screaming on the floor.

Cheney is still fuming that W resolutely refused to pardon his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr. who was convicted of several federal counts including perjury for his part in leaking the identity of former CIA agent, Valerie Wilson. Cheney will reportedly be a no-show at a Bush gathering next week of the old administration faithful including Condoleezza Rice, Karen Hughes, Dan Bartlett and other loyal insiders.

That George W. Bush would stand up to him in a heated argument during the last hours of their administration remains a stinging, maddening affront and personal defeat to Cheney, the consummate controller. His reluctance to quietly retire after imposing incalculable damage upon this country really should come as no surprise as we look back at his past.

Cheney began his political career in 1969 as an intern for Wisconsin Congressman William A. Steiger. The fall of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford's assumption of the presidency inadvertently opened the doors to the White House to Cheney.

Ford chose wunderkind and Nixon cabinet member, Donald Rumsfeld, to help him regain control of a White House in disarray and crisis. On his tapes, Nixon said of Rumsfeld, "at least Rummy is tough enough" and "He's a ruthless little bastard. You can be sure of that."

The bureaucratically saavy Rumsfeld tapped by then Wyoming Congressman Dick Cheney, as his deputy. Early on, Cheney was characterized by insiders for "making himself valuable by initially doing the lowest forms of bureaucratic scutwork."

Rolling Stone Magazine succinctly described the Rumsfeld-Cheney power grabbing cabal: "Having turned Ford into their instrument, Rumsfeld and Cheney staged a palace coup. They pushed Ford to fire Defense Secretary James Schlesinger, tell Vice President Nelson Rockefeller to look for another job, and remove Henry Kissinger from his post as national security adviser. Rumsfeld was named secretary of defense, and Cheney became chief of staff to the president. The Yale dropout and draft dodger was, at the age of 34, the second-most-powerful man in the White House."

After years of steadily parlaying his political power, in 1993 Cheney left Washington and the Defense Department after the Democrats returned to power under Bill Clinton. Cheney joined The American Enterprise Institute and in 1995 until 2000 the career politician became CEO of energy sector giant, Haliburton. In those five years, before returning to politics, Cheney's net worth was estimated to be between $30 million and $100 million, and said to be largely derived from his position at Haliburton. This was in addition to his gross income of nearly $8.82 million. Not bad for a Yale dropout who eventually earned both a BA and MA in political science.

The world is generally very familiar with Cheney's transformation in 2000, of the basically powerless office of Vice President of the George W. Bush administration into a secretive Dr. Strangelove operation. The Washington Post noted, "Across the board, the vice president's office goes to unusual lengths to avoid transparency. Cheney declines to disclose the names or even the size of his staff, generally releases no public calendar, and ordered the Secret Service to destroy his visitor logs. His general counsel has asserted that 'the vice presidency is a unique office that is neither a part of the executive branch nor a part of the legislative branch,' and is therefore exempt from rules governing either."

He did not leave office gracefully, being confined to a wheelchair following a fall. His image is forever burned into our memory as he was wheeled into his place at the Obama Inauguration, bundled up in a lap blanket, dressed in black, and wearing a dark fedora. An image of physical defeat, and dour reluctance to acknowledge that the nation was overwhelmingly, joyfully welcoming in a new era of change, openness and rejection of everything he stands for.

Cheney is sadly like a modern-day Norma Desmond substituting Pennsylvania Avenue for Sunset Boulevard. An over-the-hill, discredited political actor who may be ready for his closeup, but does not realize that it would be in High Definition today, showing all his warts and madness in more detail than anyone wants to see. Like Norma, Dick is better remembered silent. He now must head back, deep into the hills of Wyoming and let America get on with its business.

Thanks to Hieronymus Bosch for the look into Dick's Dark Brain

Congressional Kabuki and the Constitution

Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley's call for AGI bonus recipients to, " . . .follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say I’m sorry, and then either do one of two things — resign, or go commit suicide" was so over the top and insane that it reminded me of a Japanese Kabuki Theater plot.

Kabuki is classical ancient Japanese folk theater performed broadly and loudly for the general public. I became familiar with it when I lived in Tokyo years ago. Kabuki on the Potomac this week fit Kabuki's theatrical definition with lawmakers wailing loudly, uttering angry threats, and rhythmically pounding podiums in a performance of mangled metaphors and fantasy.

Though none of our elected officials actually got made up in classical white face, their outraged and out sized exaggerations, both facial and verbal would have qualified them for a Kabuki casting call in Tokyo. But they were playing to Americans . . . American voters. Let's review this week's performances.

A Treasury Department decision to not risk lawsuits and to allow payment of last year's Bush-approved retention contract bonuses by failing insurance giant AIG, set off a firestorm of anger and self-righteous rhetoric. The specter of AIG employees receiving bonuses while AIG is propped up by billions in taxpayer money opened the floodgates of rhetorical rage.

It also inadvertently created a bizarre moment of bipartisan participation on both sides of the aisle as the House reacted to steamed emails from their districts. It was time to affix blame. Names and faces were needed as a focus for threats and epithets

The populist Kabuki's first act centered upon Edward Liddy, who has been untangling AIG's myriad problems as a government appointed CEO of AIG. Liddy, former CEO of Allstate Insurance, who is working for a dollar a year, became a carnival punching bag as he testified before the House Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises subcommittee last Wednesday.

Liddy quickly defused rumors and misinformation about the "bonuses" making it clear that after earlier executive housecleaning of AIG's top management, no performance bonuses were being paid at all to anyone. But, clearly going over the heads of many sub-intelligent members of the subcommittee, was his explanation of "retention bonuses" and how they worked.

The retention bonuses were contractual arrangements made with market specialists to defuse toxic financial bombs in AIG's failed 'Financial Products' division. "Wind down," it the term used. But while being neutralized to get them off AIG books, the potentially explosive complex credit default swap securities were still being actively traded. De-fusing the complicated potential bombs requires experts intimately familiar with how they worked. Mishandled or ignored, the securities could blow up and cause further potentially ruinous damage to AIG if not carefully and slowly sold off and neutralized. Picture McGuyver locating the red wire on the bomb's timer.

Firing the AIG FP division specialists and not paying them for the work they were legally contracted to do could invite disaster for AIG. Folks seemed to think managers were being paid huge bonuses to keep them as employees. In fact, it seems the promise of a bonus after they completed specific difficult contracted tasks was what "retained" them to complete the complex and difficult work . . . then they were free to go.

Highway contractors routinely contract to get a new bridge built as quickly as possible, and they accept promises of so many millions as a bonus if it is finished on time and even more if it is finished ahead of time. After the evil lords of AIG's Financial Products Division were fired and sent packing with no bonuses, AIG's remaining Financial Products specialists stayed on, working long hours to get the toxic trades off the books, and had money coming when they got the bad stuff off the books for good. That was the deal. This is essential for AIG to quickly return profitability and pay back the federal money propping it up. But no one wanted to hear all this. Folks back home wanted a pound of flesh, not clear reason. It was time to be mad and indignant!

The red faced representatives heard only the word BONUS in Liddy's explanation. And each used up his or her five minutes for the folks back home who were watching on TV to let the rude, accusing rhetoric fly at Mr. Liddy.

Subcommittee member, Judy Biggert, R-IL, was typical of the befuddled, yet angry, representatives to have a go at Mr. Liddy. Biggert, represents Illinois 13th district, and since her election in 1999, she has sponsored 92 bills of which 81 haven't made it out of committee and 2 were successfully enacted. She looked disheveled and confused, and after Mr. Liddy's complete explanation of the bonus situation he inherited, she, nonetheless, read from her rambling prepared remarks anyway. The general, simplistic image of bonuses and rich executives slurping umbrella drinks on their private jets was just too big a target.

"Give me three good reasons why the taxpayers should be paying, umm, . . . all those bonuses, with, you know, that taxpayer money . . . .?" Had she been listening, and not simply waiting to grandstand with her pre-prepared anger, she could have answered all three of her own questions from Mr. Liddy's explanation. Biggert's own net worth in 2007 was estimated at just under $7 million from her financial disclosure statements, so she should be able to explain what rich folks do to her unemployed constituents back home.

Democratic Congressman, Barney Frank, came on stage as an early plot changer, and in sputtering rage demanded the names of all those getting bonuses. A Kabuki Western where the sheriff sends out a posse for a possible mass trial of those pre-judged as guilty. And if Black Hat Liddy didn't cough them up, Frantic Frank would issue subpoenas! Never mind New York Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo had already made such a request.

Mr. Liddy exhibited impressive control and just let the madness about him rage while responding quickly and politely in the face of rude and shameless behaviour by his inquisitors. When Barney ended his threats and demand for names and addresses, Liddy read him a typical email from those being whipped up by misinformation and fear over the failing economy. The threatening email called for AIG employees to be garroted by piano wire. Liddy suggested that Mr. Frank might want to reconsider his demand simply based upon personal security reasons for his fellow Americans.

Just like in Kabuki theatre, those in the audience came and went. There was an intermission, during which MSNBC afternoon news reader, Nora O'Donnell, perhaps better known for co-hosting the New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade than her on air news work, warmed up. "Liddy is really getting bombarded," she snarled, and then shoving aside any journalistic credentials she may possess, she joined in the outrage demanding, "Why?" "When?" "Who?" instead of applying the journalistic challenge of finding answers to those basic questions herself as the reporter she is supposed to be.

As the weekend approaches, all this theater and angst has but one central schwerpunkt. The House frantically cobbled together a bill to "get back our taxpayer money." They voted 328-93 to impose a 90% tax on any bonuses paid by AIG. This populist mob, responding to impulse and mass hysteria, mostly caused within their own ranks, are supposed to be lawmakers. Legislators.

Over the weekend, hopefully both our esteemed Congressmen and Senators will drop by for a thoughtful look over the Constitution of the United States of America. Wiser heads, going back to the days of English King, James II, have stepped in to restore law and prevent mob rule such as has been proposed in this week's Kabuki theater at the Nation's Capitol.

They can even simply drop by WikipediA and type in "Bill of attainder." Their bill instituting a 90% tax on AIG bonuses should never even be considered in the Senate. You can't pass a law like they have just passed in the House. And you cannot ratify it in the Senate. The proposed law is against the law. Ex post facto.

Here it is plain and simple:

"A bill of attainder (also known as an act or writ of attainder) is an act of legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them without benefit of a trial.

Bills of attainder are forbidden by Article I, section 9, clause 3 of the United States Constitution."

Period. Curtain closed.

Next act: Less hysterical and more responsible legislators go the the real root of the problem and reinstate governmental financial regulatory oversight removed by Regan, which has allowed AIG, and dozens of other big players to run rampant during the recent Bush administration. Madly chasing horses already out of the barn will do nothing at all to fix the terribly broken world of high finance and banking.


graphic by Larry Ray

The Hammering of "Jabber the Nut"

Rush Limbaugh, during his brief and disastrous run as a TV talk show host in 1990, was hammered by his audience on one show to a point that he was forced to halt taping. Less than a minute after he started, his audience became so outraged at his mean spirited attacks on women that he literally couldn't get a word in edgewise. Audience members repeatedly got in his face, refusing to be be intimidated by his bluster. Taping was stopped after the shouting, jeering audience ultimately reduced Rush to a red-faced mumbling wimp. Show producers finally were forced to clear the studio in order for Rush to be able to finish the segment.

With Rush challenging President Obama to debate him, the video clip below of a much younger Rush Limbaugh, shows how he actually holds up when he is not totally alone, unopposed, shouting into a microphone in his radio studio.

After the corpulent, "Jabber the Nut" shook like a ton of jelly speaking before the Conservative Political Action Committee a couple of weeks ago, it is delightful to see him hooted off his own stage before a real audience.

From the video archives, the "Hammering of Jabber the Nut" is presented below for your viewing pleasure . . . he makes it almost exactly one minute before the attack begins.



Graphic by Larry Ray with apologies to Jabba and friends

Sen. Jim Bunning: A Shameful Show

New Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner was subjected to an unconscionably mean, sarcastic and possibly pathological verbal lashing by Kentucky Republican Senator Jim Bunning in a televised senate hearing today.

Secretary Geithner was questioned by members of the Senate Budget Committee with Republican Senators particularly putting on quite a show, peppering Geithner with rhetorical verbal lashings that served not so much to educe useful answers as to vent frustrations and to grandstand for the voters back home.

Televised hearings, instead of being orderly proceedings seeking to find solid solutions, are unfortunately being used as free political advertising by disorderly and disgraceful public officials like Senator Jim Bunning.

Secretary Geithner has barely had time to move into his office. Yet he has spent more time appearing before hearings than he has using his expertise and experience to craft details of his bailout budget plan. Today's petty viciousness did not serve America in any way. Instead of budget committee members asking rational questions and attempting to help craft a plan with positive ideas and input, the hearing was more like something from the Spanish Inquisition.

Secretary Geithner showed his mettle and maturity as he weathered the rude rantings and abrupt cavalier treatment, the worst of which came from aging Republican Senator Jim Bunning. In case the name doesn't roll off your tongue immediately, Bunning is the snappish buffoon who has a history of ugly, mindless and mean spirited comments for which he has repeatedly been forced to apologize. He made Time magazine's list of the worst senators, and refused to return to Kentucky to debate his opponent, instead doing it from Washington, where it was later learned he had used a teleprompter for the debate.

His most recent gaffe was made at a Hardin County (Ky.) Republican Party's Lincoln Day Dinner. In a headline grabbing comment about approaching vacancies on the Supreme Court he predicted that U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would be dead by year's end.

Justice Ginsburg returned to work just two weeks after her surgery for pancreatic cancer. Bunning issued an apology, but his press release reportedly misspelled Justice Ginsburg's name.

While many senators were terse and faulted Geithner for not having a detailed bailout plan in hand, Senator Bunning was coarse, mean spirited and imperious. After asking Geithner, "Where is your plan to rescue the United States system? We've been waiting for that." he would not allow Geithner to even respond, shouting over him with more ranting questions.

Bunning's tirade was what one might expect to see from an an enraged worker who has lost his job, all his savings and his home having a rude rant at George Bush. Yet here is a disgraced Republican Senator whipping up on a member of President Obama's cabinet.

Fearful of losing his seat as junior senator from Kentucky, Bunning, just a few weeks ago threatened to sue the National Republican Senatorial Committee if it tries to recruit a GOP candidate to challenge him. He went on wildly, claiming Kentucky Senate President David Williams "owes him $30,000" and questioned the honesty of NRSC Chairman John Cornyn of Texas.

To his credit, Secty. Geithner kept his cool, and strongly defended his budget plan and even after being rudely interrupted by Bunning who waived a memo and hissed, "Where is the bottom line to the taxpayer dollar-wise?" Geithner defended the $160 billion AIG bailout, offering measured, rational reasoning.

Sadly, his fellow senators allowed Bunning to berate and verbally lash the Treasury Secretary like he was an unprepared schoolboy. Finally, following the firestorm, Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. attempted a half-hearted try at extending an olive branch, saying to Geithner, "Thank you for taking the job, I know it is tough." It was too little too late. But Geithner remained poised, restrained and certainly much more professional than the gathered Senators.

Bunning is clearly old, cranky and may be exhibiting early senile dementia. He also may still be living in some reverie from his days as a major league baseball pitcher dating back to the 1950's. But even back then the only good thing many baseball fans remember Jim Bunning ever did was blowing the 1964 pennant for the Phillies, so the Cardinals could come from 6 games back and win. But finding a way to halt America's worsening economy is no game, and Senator Bunning's time at bat today showed him swinging wildly and striking out.

Like the old horses from his state of Kentucky, he needs to be put out to pasture. It is no secret that many of his colleagues would like that.



graphic by Larry Ray with apologies to the horse