Say Anything Blog

Today, we have Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova and Jose Guillermo Garcia and Nicolas Carranza (also see here).

The first two:

Reopening a bloody wound from two decades ago, a U.S. federal court in Florida on Tuesday found two retired Salvadoran generals responsible for torture, rape and other atrocities committed during El Salvador’s civil war.

The jury in West Palm Beach ordered Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova and Jose Guillermo Garcia to pay $54.6 million to three torture victims.

The generals each held top posts, including minister of defense, in the rightist Salvadoran government’s brutal war against Marxist guerrillas. Tens of thousands of civilians were killed by army-linked death squads and counterinsurgency sweeps. The Reagan administration saw the war as a crusade against communism and sent more than $1 billion in aid to the Salvadoran government despite loud criticism from many members of Congress.

Both generals were trained at the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas, and both received U.S. Legion of Merit awards from the State Department. They retired to the Miami area in 1989.

and the latter:

The federal court jury found Memphis resident Colonel Nicolas Carranza, the former Vice-Minister of Defense of El Salvador, responsible for overseeing torture and killings in that country.

The trial was marked by several important revelations.  Former U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Robert White testified that Colonel Carranza was a paid informant for the CIA while he was Vice-Minister of Defense and a member of the High Command in 1980.  At that time White asked the CIA station chief in El Salvador to remove Carranza from the CIA payroll because of his deplorable human rights record but no action was ever taken.  Carranza admitted on the witness stand that he had been receiving money from the U.S. government since 1965.

Some nice torture precedents. Uh oh. Someone tell Addington to hide his a$$ets.

Perhaps something Kenny missed.

McCain addresses the NAACP.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: (JOINED IN PROGRESS) I appreciate your kind invitation and this warm welcome to the NAACP. And by the way, this is your second invitation to me during my presidential campaign, and I hope you’ll excuse me for passing on the opportunity at your convention last year and not being here [as I didn’t know what kind of a race this was gong to be].

As you might recall, I was a bit distracted at the time dealing with what reporters uncharitably described as an implosion in my campaign. But I’m very glad that you invited me again [and I brought a sweet excuse for last year’s absence].

(APPLAUSE)

Let me begin, if I may, with a few words about my opponent. Don’t tell him I said this, but he’s an impressive fellow in many ways.

(APPLAUSE)

Is he talking about Osama bin Laden? I thought that McCain and Obama were on the same side?

He’s inspired a great many Americans, some of whom have wrongly believed that a political campaign could hold no purpose or meaning for them.

Oh no! Well, to his credit we did put away the fire hoses a while ago. But McCain is worried ‘bout the south, no?

This success should make Americans, all Americans, proud. Of course, I would prefer his success not to continue quite as long as he hopes, but it does make you and me proud to know the country I’ve loved and served all my life, still a work in progress and always improving.

So Obama has been successful inspiring Americans who thought politics ignored them, but facing their potential ballots, McCain would rather Obama’s success stopped. At least he’s being honest. How De Clerk of him.

(APPLAUSE)

Senator Obama talks about making history, and he’s made quite a bit of it already. And the way was prepared by this venerable organization and others like it.

But of course, McCain hopes it will stop.

A few years before the NAACP was founded, President Theodore Roosevelt’s invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage and an insult in many quarters.

Teddy was repudiated on this blog for being a progressive just a few days ago.

America today is a world away from the cruel and prideful bigotry of that time. There’s no better evidence of this than the nomination of an African-American to be the presidential nominee of his party.

(APPLAUSE)

Here’s a list of African Americans in US Congress. Notice the manner in which it breaks down by ‘party’ and ‘era’. At least it sure does put this post in context.

After all, we all remember how bummed Trent Lott was about Strom’s loss in ‘48.

Reminiscent of Kramer in Karate class.

Michelle Larcher de Brito, a 15-year-old qualifier from Portugal, pushed the eight-time Grand Slam champion from start to finish in a surprisingly tense match at Stanford’s Taube Family Tennis Stadium. But Williams overcame her young opponent’s quickness and deceptive power to win 4-6, 6-3, 6-2.

There is a presidential election coming up, duh, that we’ve all been unfortunately fixated on for days and days. The candidates, all of them, have been busy phishing, trying us out, testing the water, licking their fingers and turning to the wind, lying, telling the truth, whining, dining, and so on. This time we’re down to two, as usual, neither of whom is that distinguishable from the other. They are liars, flip-floppers, demographic whores, cosmeticized empty suits being jiggled around by the various insidious forces hidden behind the curtain jiggling the strings, all of whom know what’s best for you before you do.
There is lots of blame handed around. Many of us pick up on lies, puff, falsities and run with it. The other guys do, why can’t it hurt our side? While it is understandable, there is so much puff out there it’s almost unavoidable, but there is a sense in which we can do better. Hunter Thompson advocated ‘gonzo journalism’, a form of journalism where the reporter refuses an attempt to purge the article of his presence. This form of journalism is now prevalent, but unfortunately so many of us prefer all of our preformed, theoretical truths that we latch onto whichever form of it agrees with our sensibilities and advocate the underlying bias as fact, pointing to the distortions on the other side, and neglecting the gonzo aspects of our own sited sources, news articles, slander, and whathaveyou. From all sides there is a call for civil discourse. It is only a masked way of ruling out and stigmatizing those views which differ from our own. This is true of both parties, the MSM, the blogs, and everyone else commenting on the situation. We are all gonzo, but we’ve missed the 2nd order reflection need to appreciate it.
And what about being asked to step outside of our preformed theory? What of being asked to be responsive to empirical evidence? Again, there is no clarification we can garner, without work we are mostly unwilling to do, things we are unwilling to read. We come to the plate with a filter we were knitted as younguns, only able to consume foods that are square and fit through the square hole.
We are explained the seriousness, told our opinions are valued, and lied to… all the time, from all sides of the political fray. The people in the city hate the people in the country, and conduct themselves with little care or thought, the people in the country hate the people in the city, and so on. Believe it or not, in sparsely populated areas, people can conduct government for themselves. This truism is neglected. It is dangerous. Look around to your state governments and ask how many give the people on the ground real control over their own situation? Hardly any. Those that do are busy wrenching the power from the localities. And we see the Fed doing the same. This is a bipartisan issue. It is of grave importance and strikes right to the heart of what this whole wonderful experiment of a country is about.
The cities are different. The people feel powerless to affect their own situation, let alone those of others. Daily life is intermeshed with so many other parties that the reciprocal dichotomy is undeniable. Yet, in these large crowds, one’s power is diminished. Voting in a town of 10,000 and a city of 14,000,000 are inherently different. And so these differences need to be appreciated and acted on. If city folk which to wipe the arse of every last person as they feel powerless and ambivalent in the situation, let them. But let the localities do what they want. Period. Don’t bar them from doing things that don’t agree with your baggage, just advocate to be in more control of your own situation. That has nothing to do with Federal advocacy. Nothing at all.
And this election is dark, no matter who you are, when it comes to being able to self determine. The infrastructure is crumbling we are told. Unfortunately, by the time the infrastructure is rebuilt, unless it’s done locally, the Fed will have even more decisive blackmailing power. They come to states, make sweet offers, and eventually the state has the Fed’s extremity up its arse and the Fed is telling it when to breathe and when to buckle its seatbelt. Literally. They steal our money, mismanage it, and steal more. They do ‘projects’ for us, then steal more and more. Federal ‘projects’ are bad, they create a physical inroad.
Vote ‘none of the above’ in November. That’s all I can recommend. Don’t pay attention to the candidates. We deserve better and both of these candidates have laid bare the fact that they are willing to do a lot to get into office, anything really, and we know that neither one of them wants to empower the localities, to empower the people… in a bona fide manner. They sure do love to trick us into thinking things! Don’t let emotional or moral issues cloud your judgment. Structural issues come first, and they protect all of our abilities to self determine. That’s the check and balance we cannot loose. When we watch the talking heads, the nationally syndicated ‘private’ news that sits at the Feds toilet, licking and licking the stains… we do a grave disservice to ourselves. I extend that to any national news service. Investigative reporting is expensive. Businesses like it cheap.
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Go sit on the carpet and wait for scraps in Washington; I’m not paying you to figure anything out, just to repeat in step.
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Evil shit.

2hotel9 apparently can’t conduct himself like a normal human being on the political blogs. Apparently the incidence of buttfucking among his fellow republicans is too much for him.

And so he takes it out on me. With a death threat. (more...)

This news snippet is dedicated to r108, the in house Craig/Foley apologist.

So it turns out that this guy is literally, a f*cking hypocrite.

According to reports, Alabama Attorney General Troy King, who has called homosexuality the “downfall of society,” has allegedly been caught in a gay sex scandal.

King, a conservative Republican, was reportedly caught by his wife Paige King having sex with a male assistant in their Montgomery home. Reports say King was kicked out of his home by his wife and is set to resign over the scandal.

King is known for voicing his opposition of abortion and homosexuality. He has worked to outlaw sex toys in Alabama. King frequently wrote editorials for The Crimson White in which he called homosexuality the “downfall of society.”

McCain apparently had tapped King for his campaign, appointing him to a good position, and garnering some ass-kissing.

“John McCain is the best hope for conservatives to succeed in November,” said Attorney General Troy King. ’He is a principled conservative with a clear record of supporting a strong national defense, fighting for fiscal responsibility, and defending the sanctity of life. John McCain has served our country his entire life, and I am honored to lead his efforts here in Alabama.’

Apparently McCain dumped King after his buttf*cking promised to inhibit and McCain’s presidential bid.

King is (or was) the chairman of John McCain’s Alabama Leadership Team.

D’oh! Another hypocrite self-hating homophobe. Let me make a policy recommendation to the RNC. Come clean. Admit how gay you guys all are.

Or, just stop courting these Christian right types. They are homosexual hypocrites. Not only do their deviant behaviors undermine your platform, they wish to legislate their hypocrite morality from a federal level, something we should all be on guard against, no matter whether we sympathize with the moral strictures under question or not. If the situation is reversed, it won't please you.

***UPDATE***
Apparently, King left an accurate self-description on the Alabama AG's office website.

Attorney General King's approach to his job can best be described as energetic, hands-on, and pro-active.

Attorney General King has worked hard...

And, the icing on the hypocrite cake...

They are members at First Baptist Church in Montgomery, where General King teaches three-year-olds' Sunday School.

Iran, British oil, Guatemala, and Chiquita Banana.



The thing that is just too effing ironic is that the guy who negotiated with the Egyptians in ‘52, ran the coup in Iran in ‘53, and inspired the efforts in Guatemala in ‘54… was the son of FDR, and FDR was the man who the Guatemalan leader we ousted in ‘54 modeled his ‘socialist’ position after.

Also, at the end, notice the young Richard Nixon coaching an admission out of the Guatemalans that the ousted popular government was actually a front government for Russia. Controlled by a foreign government, eh?

I figure this will be a many part series, so let’s start off with some obvious ones.

Osama Bin Laden

Baby Doc

Luis Posada Carriles

Here.

Burlington Telecom, owned by the small city of Burlington, Vermont, (population 39,000), decided to carry Al Jazeera English, sparking debate among residents and leading some groups to ask for its removal from the list of channels.

Aha! Its the conservative, ‘government out of my backyard and into that faggot’s bedroom’, crowd who wish to have it banned. Of course, don’t speak of banning Fox…

Another issue which lays bare the fact that the whole conservative complaint that Dems want you regulated and not them is pure hogwash. That inconsistent position is proudly trumpeted by both parties now.

Forget conservatives versus liberals—the real debate over Al Jazeera in Burlington and elsewhere is increasingly turning into a debate between those who have watched the channel and those who have not. Those who have watched Al Jazeera on air will benefit from its strong global perspective on international news and affairs. On the flipside, most of the sections of society insisting Al Jazeera be dropped have never even watched it.

...one group should not be allowed to impose itself on the other…

Even if you are against the content that some news channel like Al Jazeera is broadcasting, don’t you nonetheless want it available to you if you choose to watch it? I don’t see why anyone would censor any of these news channels… be it Fox or Al Jazeera.

New Jersey is giving governors and mayors across the country — assuming they are paying attention — a chilling lesson on how hard it is for elected officials to pay down a recklessly incurred debt in timely fashion.

No matter how much Trenton slashes spending for hospitals and other essential services, this debt will cost the state’s taxpayers $2.6 billion annually in payments for interest and principal for years to come.

For New York, California and other states staggering under out-of-control debt, New Jersey’s warning may have come too late. But it is not too late for other states and thousands of cities, towns and counties to learn that politicians who have little trouble running up a big tab have a terrible time paying it off when the bill, as it must, finally comes due.

or should that be

politicians who have little trouble running up a big tab have a terrible time [fessing up to what they’ve done]

These are ‘flatlander’ Dems. Meanwhile, in the northern mountains...

VBM: And we’re seeing another budget surplus for this year?

Spaulding: Right. I think we could end up this year with, say, a $40 million surplus. That would be pushing the upper side of it but it could easily be in the upper-30s.

In any case, the bond rating firms appreciate the Capitol Debt Affordability Advisory Committee, because we seem to be able to keep a lid on our debt. Around 1990 we were in the top 10 in the country in debt per capita and debt as percentage of personal income, and now we’re down below medium, and we have a really strong story to tell there.

The agencies also like the fact that we have a joint revenue forecasting process twice a year that really works.

VBM: What is that?

Spaulding: Twice a year the Emergency Board, which is made up of the Governor and the legislative financial leaders, get together with the Governor’s economist and the legislature’s economist and they develop a consensus revenue forecast and bring it to the Emergency Board, where it is adopted. You don’t have a governor saying, ‘Well, I think that this much money is going to come in,” and a legislature saying, “Yeah, but we think only this much money is going to come in.” There is a revenue forecast, and everyone lives by it. It tends to allow you to build your budgets around a realistic revenue forecast.

We have been fairly conservative in that regard, too.

A realistic revenue forecast? Wow.

I don’t think the flatlanders, or even the banks, know what that is anymore. Its just another dirty word - we would all rather have hollow words that lie, coddle, and inspire false confidence.

“The voters won’t like paying back all this money we’ve blown.”

“Don’t tell them.”

Jerusalem Post

The report said that instead of driving its enemies out of power, the US-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007.

David Wurmser, who resigned as Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief Middle East adviser a month after the Hamas takeover, said he believed that Hamas had no intention of taking over the Gaza Strip until Fatah forced its hand.

“It looks to me that what happened wasn’t so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was preempted before it could happen,” he was quoted as saying. Wurmser said that the Bush administration engaged in a “dirty war in an effort to provide a corrupt dictatorship [led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] with victory.”

Wurmser said he was especially galled by the Bush administration’s hypocrisy. “There is a stunning disconnect between the president’s call for Middle East democracy and this policy,” he said. “It directly contradicts it.”

Neocon critics of the administration told the magazine that the old State Department vice of rushing to anoint a strongman rather than solving problems directly had led to the terrible missteps in the Gaza Strip.

To rely on proxies such as Dahlan, former UN ambassador John Bolton said, was “an institutional failure, a failure of strategy.” Bolton blamed Rice, saying Rice, “like others in the dying days of this administration, is looking for a legacy. Having failed to heed the warning not to hold the elections, they tried to avoid the result through Dayton.” Lieutenant General Keith Dayton was the US security coordinator for the Palestinians, who reached a secret agreement with Dahlan to strengthen Fatah’s forces.

If only we could look our own Middle East policies ‘in the eyes’. But no, we are lied to and Bush/Rice/et al. provide covert support to terrorists.

If I was in high school still, I’d be reassured. “He’s cool.”

TOYAKO, Japan — President George W. Bush looked into the eyes of Russia’s new president, Dimitri A. Medvedev, on Monday and saw, he said, “a smart guy.”

The exchange brought to mind Mr. Bush’s first meeting with Mr. Putin, at Brdo Castle in Slovenia in June 2001, when Mr. Bush famously said he had “looked the man in the eye” and “was able to get a sense of his soul.”
...
“You know,” Mr. Bush said, “I’m not going to sit here and psychoanalyze the man, but I will tell you that he’s very comfortable, he’s confident, and that I believe that when he tells me something, he means it.”

Honestly, these two meet and we hear about Bush’s birthday.

“I congratulated George on his birthday, which is also a very important thing, irrespective of summits out there — irrespective of our will, these dates occur in our life.”

Hmmmmm. I wonder if they had a chance to talk about Bout and his precarious legal situation.

Watermelons do the same thing that Viagra does.

Meanwhile, women are desperately trying to get their diseases cured by convincing us that they lead to erectile dysfunction.

ISN Security Watch (Read the whole thing!)

The arrest on 6 March of 41-year-old Viktor Anatol’evich Bout in Bangkok continues to shine a most unwelcome (for some) spotlight on the shadowy world of the international arms trade, and will doubtless leave many governments, including the US, scrambling for cover as they attempt to limit the fallout from his arrest.

Bout was taken into custody in a conference room on the 27th floor of Bangkok’s five-star Sofitel hotel after reportedly attempting to sell armaments to Colombia’s FARC guerrillas.

His arrest involved not only the Royal Thai Police and the US Drug Enforcement Agency, but the Romanian Border Police, the Romanian Prosecutor’s Office Attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice, the Korps Politie Curacao of the Netherlands Antilles and the Danish National Police Security Services.

The following day, Michael Garcia, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Michele Leonhart, the Acting Administrator of the DEA, announced the unsealing of charges against Bout (aka “Boris,” Victor But,” “Viktor Budd,” “Viktor Butt,” “Viktor Bulakin,” “Vadim Markovich Aminov … and so on.

One of Bout’s three lawyers, Yan Dasgupta, claimed that, “Some [US] governmental officials at the moment of his detention tried to actually send him to United States without following proper extradition procedure prescribed by the law. He was doing everything in his power including physical resistance not to fly to the US”

The Russian embassy immediately hired Thai lawyer Lak Nitiwatvichan, who told reporters, “He was a military man. He has done nothing wrong. Thailand is a sovereign country, so since he was arrested in Thailand, he is willing to be prosecuted under Thai law”

Bout’s organizational skills have impressed many western observers. Misha Glenny, author of McMafia, a study of global criminal networks, told ISN Security Watch when asked about Bout, “He’s a spectacular success - my own personal opinion. […] “You generally find behind spectacular success of criminals shady government support.

“That Bout has been arrested is a very positive sign. […] The influence of gangsters in Russia is diminishing,” Glenny concluded.

Bout’s trials promises to be a unique and disturbing peak into the shadowy world of illicit arms trafficking, and the US must be nervously contemplating what he might say in court about his transports flights into Baghdad and Afghanistan as a Pentagon contractor.

Perhaps however, Viktor Bout is merely misunderstood; as his wife Alla recently observed in her first interview with a western newspaper: “He’s a poet, not the lord of war”

The newsmedia don’t seem to care much for the story of Bout. We did a movie based on the guy, ‘Lord of War’ and, when he is jailed in Thailand and a extradition battle ensues between the US and Russia, no one pays attention. At all. He was due to be extradited at the end of last month. Heard any news? (Okay, here's one article.)

If only someone would make a film about this… then the media could, LIKE, interview the lead actress, LIKE, and it’d be so, LIKE, awesome!

Here’s an interesting article about the departure of ‘Fumo the Democrat’ from a 30 year career in state politics.

HARRISBURG - Every man needs a little madness in life, or else he never dares cut the rope and be free.

With those words, culled from the exuberant character in the book-turned-movie Zorba the Greek, an emotional State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo bid farewell to his colleagues in the Senate yesterday, in what was likely his last speech from the floor he has commanded for almost three decades.

The Democratic senator from Philadelphia said he was not resigning early - he will stick by his plan to serve out his term, which ends this year.

But he said he wanted to give his goodbyes because he did not believe he would be back in Harrisburg in the fall, when lawmakers return from summer break.

At that point, he will be fighting a raft of corruption charges awaiting him in federal court in Philadelphia. He is accused of using his position and staff to live lavishly at the expense of taxpayers - and of trying to block an FBI investigation into his conduct. His trial is scheduled to begin in early September.

“I will miss it terribly,” Fumo said of being in the Capitol. “I’ve spent half my life here, and I’ve spent it here with every fiber in my body. I’ve loved it, I’ve hated it, I’ve had great experiences and very sad ones.”

In many ways, it was an unlikely end to a 30-year career in Harrisburg, where Fumo left his mark with an unapologetically aggressive and swashbuckling style that people only half-joked was vintage Philadelphia.

His farewell speech came on a holiday in a near-empty Capitol, where the focus of anyone left working was almost exclusively on completing the state budget in time to catch the July Fourth fireworks.

Two of Fumo’s friends and colleagues - Minority Leader Robert J. Mellow (D., Lackawanna) and Gib Armstrong (R., Lancaster) - talked about his career and told a few stories about him. And there was a resolution honoring his Senate service.

But his exit was low-key and in many ways did not seem to fit the fiery brand of politics and the love of winning at all costs that he came to be known for.

“It’s sad,” Gov. Rendell said. “This is not the way he would have wanted to go, or the way people who admired him would have liked him to go. He’s done a lot of good here.”

Fumo was one of the most powerful Democrats in the Capitol and in Philadelphia. Over time, he expanded his political sphere to exert control over the election of city judges, City Council members, Democratic City Committee members, and ward leaders.

Fumo would use that power relentlessly for things he wanted, large or small.

Well, ‘Fumo the Democrat’…

good fucking riddance buddy. I guess your ‘funtime’ is over. Thanks though, the city tax in Philly is fucking crippling, douche. Now at least we know what you did with it after admonishing everyone to spend it. “Its needed.” If hell were real, two-faced Janus’s like you’d be the fuel.

I hope the FBI cracks their knuckles and keeps right on at it. We need about 80% of our ‘big party’ politicians sent upstate. On both sides of the isle.

Oh, and someone give Governor Rendell a hanky. He’s teary over the whole ordeal. “It’s sad.” Yep, a 139 charge indictment. I’m just not as upset as the governor.