Steve Schacher

Illinois Paper Hits Michael Moore for Copyright Infringement: quote:By E&P Staff Published: July 31, 2004 NEW YORK - The Pantagraph newspaper in Bloomington, Ill., has sent a letter to Michael Moore, drafted by its lawyer, citing him for copyright infringement, admonishing him for his "unauthorized ... misleading" use of the paper in his film "Fahrenheit 9/11," and asking for an apology. It is also seeking compensatory damages of exactly one dollar. "While we are highly flattered to be included in the movie," said the newspaper's President and Publisher Henry Bird, "we are a bit disturbed that our pages were misrepresented." Early in the movie, according to the paper, a large headline appears in the film, purporting to be from a Dec. 19, 2001, edition of the paper, and reading "Latest Florida recount shows Gore won election." The paper contends that the headline actually appeared on Dec. 5, 2001, in much smaller type, and above a letter to the editor, hardly a factual news story or editorial. The letter to Moore from the paper calls this a "misrepresentation of facts." The newspaper said it had been unsuccessful in attempts to reach Moore through his film company, Lion's Gate, by phone and e-mail. "In an instance that The Pantagraph prints material in which there is a mistake, it is corrected," the letter to Moore reads. "It is our hope that you would adhere to the same high ethical standard." Moore could not be reached for comment.From what I read from this story, Moore edited a small title over a letter to the editor and made it look like the front page headline on another day's edition.

Illinois Paper Hits Michael Moore for Copyright Infringement: quote:By E&P Staff Published: July 31, 2004 NEW YORK - The Pantagraph newspaper in Bloomington, Ill., has sent a letter to Michael Moore, drafted by its lawyer, citing him for copyright infringement, admonishing him for his "unauthorized ... misleading" use of the paper in his film "Fahrenheit 9/11," and asking for an apology. It is also seeking compensatory damages of exactly one dollar. "While we are highly flattered to be included in the movie," said the newspaper's President and Publisher Henry Bird, "we are a bit disturbed that our pages were misrepresented." Early in the movie, according to the paper, a large headline appears in the film, purporting to be from a Dec. 19, 2001, edition of the paper, and reading "Latest Florida recount shows Gore won election." The paper contends that the headline actually appeared on Dec. 5, 2001, in much smaller type, and above a letter to the editor, hardly a factual news story or editorial. The letter to Moore from the paper calls this a "misrepresentation of facts." The newspaper said it had been unsuccessful in attempts to reach Moore through his film company, Lion's Gate, by phone and e-mail. "In an instance that The Pantagraph prints material in which there is a mistake, it is corrected," the letter to Moore reads. "It is our hope that you would adhere to the same high ethical standard." Moore could not be reached for comment.From what I read from this story, Moore edited a small title over a letter to the editor and made it look like the front page headline on another day's edition.

Yes, please.

This is a reason why Kerry will lose. From CNSNews: quote:Kerry: Elect Me and Find Out (CNSNews.com) - Sen. John F. Kerry told ABC News, "I will have significant, enormous reduction in the level of troops" in Iraq by the end of his term, but he refused to say how he would accomplish that. Elect me and find out, he indicated. I've been involved in this for a long time, longer than George Bush," Kerry told George Stephanopoulos, the host of ABC's "This Week." "I've spent 20 years negotiating, working, fighting for different kinds of treaties and different relationships around the world. I know that as president there's huge leverage that will be available to me, enormous cards to play, and I'm not going to play them in public. I'm not going to play them before I'm president." Kerry indicated that he would seek - and get - more help from America's allies, something that would allow him to bring more U.S. troops home. He said electing a new leader - a "fresh start" - would motivate leaders in other countries to rally around the U.S. Kerry's Economic Remedy Won't Be Revealed Before Election (CNSNews.com) - A top economic advisor to Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry said the public won't hear Kerry's financial plans until after he's elected -- if he's elected. In the Aug. 2 cover story of "Business Week," former Clinton administration treasury secretary Robert Rubin said, "I don't think you can make proposals to try to dig out of this hole until you've gotten elected ... If you start to put out proposals now, they would be vigorously attacked and they would in effect become tainted so they couldn't be used." Full Story Kerry: I won't tell you my plans until you elect me, because you'll just attack them and then I won't get to do them.

This is a reason why Kerry will lose. From CNSNews: quote:Kerry: Elect Me and Find Out (CNSNews.com) - Sen. John F. Kerry told ABC News, "I will have significant, enormous reduction in the level of troops" in Iraq by the end of his term, but he refused to say how he would accomplish that. Elect me and find out, he indicated. I've been involved in this for a long time, longer than George Bush," Kerry told George Stephanopoulos, the host of ABC's "This Week." "I've spent 20 years negotiating, working, fighting for different kinds of treaties and different relationships around the world. I know that as president there's huge leverage that will be available to me, enormous cards to play, and I'm not going to play them in public. I'm not going to play them before I'm president." Kerry indicated that he would seek - and get - more help from America's allies, something that would allow him to bring more U.S. troops home. He said electing a new leader - a "fresh start" - would motivate leaders in other countries to rally around the U.S. Kerry's Economic Remedy Won't Be Revealed Before Election (CNSNews.com) - A top economic advisor to Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry said the public won't hear Kerry's financial plans until after he's elected -- if he's elected. In the Aug. 2 cover story of "Business Week," former Clinton administration treasury secretary Robert Rubin said, "I don't think you can make proposals to try to dig out of this hole until you've gotten elected ... If you start to put out proposals now, they would be vigorously attacked and they would in effect become tainted so they couldn't be used." Full Story Kerry: I won't tell you my plans until you elect me, because you'll just attack them and then I won't get to do them.

quote:Unfortunately, I saw the whole convention. Looked more like a who's who of Hollywood than anything else.I have to say, I was disappointed with the coverage of the convention this year. First off, the broadcast networks scaled back coverage to three hours over four nights -- one hour per night with one night off. The night off was Teresa's night. What this allows them to do is, instead of the voting (non-cable) public seeing for themselves, they will hear the network pundits gush over how well she did, how positive Edwards' speech was, and how pointed and specific Kerry's speech was, planting an impression that the voter was denied seeing for himself. You can bet when the Republican convention rolls around, that the opposite will happen -- the network pundits will say how poorly Bush spoke, how negative Cheney was, etc., without the public tuning in to see for themselves. Second, on the cable shows, unlike past conventions when they actually showed the convention, they had the pundits in the skyboxes overlooking the convention as a backdrop, but the pundits were talking over the speakers, saying what the speakers were saying, but not showing the speakers themselves. They were making them (and their coverage) the focus instead of the speakers and the party. Unless one watched the C-SPAN coverage (which I did not, but maybe will in September), the coverage was disgraceful. For an event that happens only once every four years, they could have lived up to their public service obligations and just showed the thing.

quote:Unfortunately, I saw the whole convention. Looked more like a who's who of Hollywood than anything else.I have to say, I was disappointed with the coverage of the convention this year. First off, the broadcast networks scaled back coverage to three hours over four nights -- one hour per night with one night off. The night off was Teresa's night. What this allows them to do is, instead of the voting (non-cable) public seeing for themselves, they will hear the network pundits gush over how well she did, how positive Edwards' speech was, and how pointed and specific Kerry's speech was, planting an impression that the voter was denied seeing for himself. You can bet when the Republican convention rolls around, that the opposite will happen -- the network pundits will say how poorly Bush spoke, how negative Cheney was, etc., without the public tuning in to see for themselves. Second, on the cable shows, unlike past conventions when they actually showed the convention, they had the pundits in the skyboxes overlooking the convention as a backdrop, but the pundits were talking over the speakers, saying what the speakers were saying, but not showing the speakers themselves. They were making them (and their coverage) the focus instead of the speakers and the party. Unless one watched the C-SPAN coverage (which I did not, but maybe will in September), the coverage was disgraceful. For an event that happens only once every four years, they could have lived up to their public service obligations and just showed the thing.

quote:Hmmm then under that premise Steve, I suppose we also need to drag Rumsfeld and Cheney into court because those two showed Prince Bandar the Iraq war plan prior to battle. Well, I don't know all the ins-and-outs of top secret documents, but my sense is that if you're the top dog (or one of his cabinet members) and you get to declare what is top secret, then you also get to make exceptions as a part of doing your job. Berger was out of government when he took the documents. Cheney and Rumsfeld were still in the Cabinet performing their jobs, and since they are the ones who get to decide what is top secret, they can also decide who gets to see the stuff.

quote:Hmmm then under that premise Steve, I suppose we also need to drag Rumsfeld and Cheney into court because those two showed Prince Bandar the Iraq war plan prior to battle. Well, I don't know all the ins-and-outs of top secret documents, but my sense is that if you're the top dog (or one of his cabinet members) and you get to declare what is top secret, then you also get to make exceptions as a part of doing your job. Berger was out of government when he took the documents. Cheney and Rumsfeld were still in the Cabinet performing their jobs, and since they are the ones who get to decide what is top secret, they can also decide who gets to see the stuff.

Mark Steyn: He was complacent, arrogant and humourless. How they loved him: quote:It was interesting to see Ben Affleck emerge as the Hollywood mascot of the Democratic Convention. The week reminded me of Ben's movie Pearl Harbor: wall-to-wall evocative military imagery, a cast of thousands, superb production values, but a huge gaping hole where the star performance was supposed to be. On TV the other night, young Mr Affleck offered a pearl of wisdom to Mr Kerry and his consultants: "You have to enervate the base," the Hollywood heartthrob advised solemnly. If it's enervating the base you're after, John F Kerry would seem to be the perfect candidate. On Thursday, for his first big moment in the national spotlight, his only concession to the occasion was to speed up his delivery, in order to cram a 90-minute address into the hour of primetime the networks were prepared to give him. But otherwise it was classic Kerry: verbose, shapeless, platitudinous, complacent, ill-disciplined, arrogant, and humourless. On the other hand, despite Ben Affleck's advice, the Boston crowd wasn't in the least bit enervated. They were deliriously happy. The Kerry campaign seems to be the political equivalent of what they call on Broadway a "snob hit": the longer it is, the more boring it is and the worse time you have at it, the more you feel it must be good for you. To his numbed, buttock-shifting listeners, the great sonorous self-regarding orotund bromidic banality of Senator Kerry and his multitude of nuances is proof of how much more serious he - and therefore they - are. This is a profoundly un-American attitude and, from the so far bounce-less post-convention polls, it doesn't seem to be resonating with "swing voters". At one level, what's happening is very unfair. Three-quarters of Democratic voters opposed the Iraq war; 86 per cent of convention delegates opposed it. But they've wound up with a presidential ticket comprised of two Senators who both voted in favour of it. And, after being for-and-against the war for the last year according to political necessity, Kerry seems to have settled on a position of doing pretty much what Bush is doing while simultaneously spending more time on the blower to Kofi, Jacques and Gerhard. If I were a principled anti-war Democrat, I'd be furious. But they're not. Because the real distinction is not between pro- and anti-war, but between September 11 Americans and September 10 Americans. The latter group is a coalition embracing not just the hardcore Bush haters - for whom, as the opening of Fahrenheit 9/11 makes plain, it all goes back to chads in Florida - but the larger group of voters who've been a little stressed out by the epic nature of politics these last three years and would like a quieter life. That's what John Kerry's offering them: a return to September 10. He doesn't quite put it like that, of course. He talks about an America "strong" and "respected" and all the other poll-tested words, while the Democratic platform asserts that Republicans "do not understand that real leadership means standing by your principles and rallying others to join you". Say what you like about Bush, but on Iraq he stood by his principles and rallied the British, Australians, Poles, Italians, etc, to join him. He also rallied Kerry and Edwards to join him. They voted for his war, as the columnist Debra Saunders of The San Francisco Chronical drolly pointed out: "Kerry and Edwards followed. Bush led." Kerry now says that Bush "misled" him on Iraq. But, if he was that easily suckered by a renowned moron, how much more susceptible would he be to such wily operators as Chirac. They would speak French to each other, and Jacques would blow soothingly in his ear, and Kerry would look flattered, and there'd be lots of resolutions and joint declarations, and nothing would happen. We'd be fighting the war on terror through the self-admiring inertia of windbag multilateralism. As for the home front, Kerry says: "As President, I will not evade or equivocate; I will immediately implement the recommendations of that [the 9/11] commission." Whoa, hold on there. There's a ton of recommendations, and some of us don't like the part about concentrating all US intelligence under one cabinet secretary who serves not at the President's pleasure but for a fixed term. That effectively institutionalises the groupthink resistance to alternative ideas that led to the 9/11 failures. Leadership is about hearing different viewpoints and reaching a judgment. But Kerry gives the impression that, as long as he enjoys the perks of the top job, he's happy to subcontract his judgment to others. He moans endlessly about the "outsourcing" of American jobs but, when it comes to his own job, he's willing to outsource American foreign policy to the mushy transnational talk-shops and to outsource homeland security to some dubious intelligence tsar. There's no sense of any strategic vision, no sense that he's thought about Iran or North Korea or any of the other powder kegs about to blow. I tried to ask him about some of these matters during the New Hampshire primary and he intoned in response, "Sometimes truly courageous leadership means having the courage not to show any leadership." (I quote from memory.) In another perilous time - 1918 - Lord Haig wrote of Lord Derby: "D is a very weak-minded fellow I am afraid and, like the feather pillow, bears the marks of the last person who has sat on him." It's subtler than that with Kerry: you don't have to sit on him; just the slightest political breeze, and his pillow billows in the appropriate direction. His default position is the conventional wisdom of the Massachusetts Left: on foreign policy, foreigners know best; on trade, the labour unions know best; on government, bureaucrats know best; on defence, graying ponytailed nuclear-freeze reflex anti-militarists know best; on the wine list, he knows best. Sometimes these default positions have to be recalibrated to take account of various political pressures - hence his current kinky Vietnam macho nostalgia, after two decades of voting against every important weapons system for the US military. But there's no sense - other than the blurry abstract nouns he shoveled off the stage on Thursday - of what Kerry stands firm on. Last year, I was at a Kerry campaign stop in New Hampshire chatting with two old coots in plaid. The Senator approached and stopped in front of us. The etiquette in primary season is that the candidate defers to the cranky Granite Stater's churlish indifference to status and initiates the conversation: "Hi, I'm John Kerry. Good to see ya. Cold enough for ya?" Etc. But Kerry just stood there nose to nose, staring at us with a semi-glare on his face. After an eternity, an aide stepped out from behind him and said, "The Senator needs you to move." "Well, why couldn't he have said that?" muttered one of the old coots, as Kerry swept past us. That's how I felt after the Convention: all week Senators Biden, Lieberman and Edwards made the case that the Democrats were credible on national security. Why couldn't Kerry have said that? Because in the end he's running for President because he feels he ought to be President. That's his message to George W Bush: "The Senator needs you to move." And even then everyone else says it better.

Mark Steyn: He was complacent, arrogant and humourless. How they loved him: quote:It was interesting to see Ben Affleck emerge as the Hollywood mascot of the Democratic Convention. The week reminded me of Ben's movie Pearl Harbor: wall-to-wall evocative military imagery, a cast of thousands, superb production values, but a huge gaping hole where the star performance was supposed to be. On TV the other night, young Mr Affleck offered a pearl of wisdom to Mr Kerry and his consultants: "You have to enervate the base," the Hollywood heartthrob advised solemnly. If it's enervating the base you're after, John F Kerry would seem to be the perfect candidate. On Thursday, for his first big moment in the national spotlight, his only concession to the occasion was to speed up his delivery, in order to cram a 90-minute address into the hour of primetime the networks were prepared to give him. But otherwise it was classic Kerry: verbose, shapeless, platitudinous, complacent, ill-disciplined, arrogant, and humourless. On the other hand, despite Ben Affleck's advice, the Boston crowd wasn't in the least bit enervated. They were deliriously happy. The Kerry campaign seems to be the political equivalent of what they call on Broadway a "snob hit": the longer it is, the more boring it is and the worse time you have at it, the more you feel it must be good for you. To his numbed, buttock-shifting listeners, the great sonorous self-regarding orotund bromidic banality of Senator Kerry and his multitude of nuances is proof of how much more serious he - and therefore they - are. This is a profoundly un-American attitude and, from the so far bounce-less post-convention polls, it doesn't seem to be resonating with "swing voters". At one level, what's happening is very unfair. Three-quarters of Democratic voters opposed the Iraq war; 86 per cent of convention delegates opposed it. But they've wound up with a presidential ticket comprised of two Senators who both voted in favour of it. And, after being for-and-against the war for the last year according to political necessity, Kerry seems to have settled on a position of doing pretty much what Bush is doing while simultaneously spending more time on the blower to Kofi, Jacques and Gerhard. If I were a principled anti-war Democrat, I'd be furious. But they're not. Because the real distinction is not between pro- and anti-war, but between September 11 Americans and September 10 Americans. The latter group is a coalition embracing not just the hardcore Bush haters - for whom, as the opening of Fahrenheit 9/11 makes plain, it all goes back to chads in Florida - but the larger group of voters who've been a little stressed out by the epic nature of politics these last three years and would like a quieter life. That's what John Kerry's offering them: a return to September 10. He doesn't quite put it like that, of course. He talks about an America "strong" and "respected" and all the other poll-tested words, while the Democratic platform asserts that Republicans "do not understand that real leadership means standing by your principles and rallying others to join you". Say what you like about Bush, but on Iraq he stood by his principles and rallied the British, Australians, Poles, Italians, etc, to join him. He also rallied Kerry and Edwards to join him. They voted for his war, as the columnist Debra Saunders of The San Francisco Chronical drolly pointed out: "Kerry and Edwards followed. Bush led." Kerry now says that Bush "misled" him on Iraq. But, if he was that easily suckered by a renowned moron, how much more susceptible would he be to such wily operators as Chirac. They would speak French to each other, and Jacques would blow soothingly in his ear, and Kerry would look flattered, and there'd be lots of resolutions and joint declarations, and nothing would happen. We'd be fighting the war on terror through the self-admiring inertia of windbag multilateralism. As for the home front, Kerry says: "As President, I will not evade or equivocate; I will immediately implement the recommendations of that [the 9/11] commission." Whoa, hold on there. There's a ton of recommendations, and some of us don't like the part about concentrating all US intelligence under one cabinet secretary who serves not at the President's pleasure but for a fixed term. That effectively institutionalises the groupthink resistance to alternative ideas that led to the 9/11 failures. Leadership is about hearing different viewpoints and reaching a judgment. But Kerry gives the impression that, as long as he enjoys the perks of the top job, he's happy to subcontract his judgment to others. He moans endlessly about the "outsourcing" of American jobs but, when it comes to his own job, he's willing to outsource American foreign policy to the mushy transnational talk-shops and to outsource homeland security to some dubious intelligence tsar. There's no sense of any strategic vision, no sense that he's thought about Iran or North Korea or any of the other powder kegs about to blow. I tried to ask him about some of these matters during the New Hampshire primary and he intoned in response, "Sometimes truly courageous leadership means having the courage not to show any leadership." (I quote from memory.) In another perilous time - 1918 - Lord Haig wrote of Lord Derby: "D is a very weak-minded fellow I am afraid and, like the feather pillow, bears the marks of the last person who has sat on him." It's subtler than that with Kerry: you don't have to sit on him; just the slightest political breeze, and his pillow billows in the appropriate direction. His default position is the conventional wisdom of the Massachusetts Left: on foreign policy, foreigners know best; on trade, the labour unions know best; on government, bureaucrats know best; on defence, graying ponytailed nuclear-freeze reflex anti-militarists know best; on the wine list, he knows best. Sometimes these default positions have to be recalibrated to take account of various political pressures - hence his current kinky Vietnam macho nostalgia, after two decades of voting against every important weapons system for the US military. But there's no sense - other than the blurry abstract nouns he shoveled off the stage on Thursday - of what Kerry stands firm on. Last year, I was at a Kerry campaign stop in New Hampshire chatting with two old coots in plaid. The Senator approached and stopped in front of us. The etiquette in primary season is that the candidate defers to the cranky Granite Stater's churlish indifference to status and initiates the conversation: "Hi, I'm John Kerry. Good to see ya. Cold enough for ya?" Etc. But Kerry just stood there nose to nose, staring at us with a semi-glare on his face. After an eternity, an aide stepped out from behind him and said, "The Senator needs you to move." "Well, why couldn't he have said that?" muttered one of the old coots, as Kerry swept past us. That's how I felt after the Convention: all week Senators Biden, Lieberman and Edwards made the case that the Democrats were credible on national security. Why couldn't Kerry have said that? Because in the end he's running for President because he feels he ought to be President. That's his message to George W Bush: "The Senator needs you to move." And even then everyone else says it better.

It isn't a question of whether the documents were originals or copies, that's just a testament to the effectiveness of the spin. It's a question of whether the documents were allowed out of the room or not. Remember, this is a room that is secured by steel walls, where nothing is allowed in or out without being logged, where documents are often shown by a handler, where your own notes become top-secret and are kept in the file for your future use (but only in the room), where security cameras aren't allowed to be used because they may pick up the contents of code-word documents thereby making the tapes top-secret documents as well. He took highest-security documents out of the secure reading room with the intent to bypass security. The chain of custody was broken. The question is who else got to see the documents that shouldn't have been seen, not whether the documents were originals or copies.

It isn't a question of whether the documents were originals or copies, that's just a testament to the effectiveness of the spin. It's a question of whether the documents were allowed out of the room or not. Remember, this is a room that is secured by steel walls, where nothing is allowed in or out without being logged, where documents are often shown by a handler, where your own notes become top-secret and are kept in the file for your future use (but only in the room), where security cameras aren't allowed to be used because they may pick up the contents of code-word documents thereby making the tapes top-secret documents as well. He took highest-security documents out of the secure reading room with the intent to bypass security. The chain of custody was broken. The question is who else got to see the documents that shouldn't have been seen, not whether the documents were originals or copies.

quote:As for you... I think it is great that you are calling attention to the fact that Bush is doing nothing to improve domestic security by enacting real immigration policies in this country. First off, let me state categorically that I did and will again vote for Bush. That said: I, too, share the concerns about border security. I'm not sure where to place the blame, as there is plenty to go around. I'll give a short list: the INS: like all the departments under Bill Clinton's administration, this was politicized where it wasn't before. The Elian Gonzalez fiasco highlights how the department was politicized, when they first declared that it was a Florida family court issue, but then backtracked and called it an immigration issue after diplomatic meetings with Castro over the Louisiana prison revolt by Cuban criminals. The fact that they are downplaying any reports of people who overstay their visas shows 1) more politicizing, 2) the practice (beginning with Waco, continuing through TWA800, and with all current "incidents") of denying upfront what to many is evident. With Waco, it was that no incendiary rounds were used. With TWA800, that there was no missile, the July 4 2002 LAX El Al incident was not terrorism, etc. The TSA: Congress, in an attempt to do (or show that they are doing) something, created the TSA and federalized (they said "professionalize") airport screening. Just last month, Congress agreed to allow airports to re-privatize airport screening. The Secretary of Transportation: Norm Minetta is the "William Cohen" of Bush's administration, that is, he's the token Democrat on the Cabinet. For that reason, Bush is probably loathe to replace him. However, Minetta, who was also a WWII Japanese-American internment-camp victim, is insistent on not profiling airline passengers. That's why we see the elderly, children, and even former Vice-President Al Gore, being searched at the gates, while there is a limit on how many Middle-Easterners who can be searched per flight. The Border Patrol: Because of relations with Mexico, our Border Patrol has been given a "hands off" order regarding people crossing from Mexico. It has gotten to the point where roving Mexican military personnel are crossing over, taking pot-shots at Americans, and then fleeing back. Local vigilante groups are forming in Arizona and Nevada just to protect their own property from vandals. The sad fact is that the Mexican border is currently held hostage by election politics of wooing the Hispanic vote. p.s. It was the Border Patrol that stormed the home of Luis Gonzalez to take Elian back to Cuba, after the FBI, the INS, and the ATF refused. Seaports: could this be a part of what former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger was stuffing down his pants? John Kerry's policy paper on seaport security was pulled from his website on the day that news of Berger's theft of code-word secret documents hit the wires. Anyway, the Democrats (and Repulicans from coastal states) have always complained of the lack of security around cargo containers and the ships that carry them. The truth is that there are so many of them that it is near impossible to search every one of them without affecting the economy (you might as well search every 18-wheeler on the highways, all the longshoremen, you get the idea). However, it is an effective campaign pabulum, fodder for the base: improved airport security, what about the trains? Trains improving, what have you done about the ports? Port security tightened, who's looking at the trucks? For everything that one does, there are dozens other of things to question that weren't done instead. Homeland Security: It's easy to blame Tom Ridge and HSD for failures, but let's also remember that the Department of Education has been around for 40 years and people are still complaining about "is our children learning?" This was an attempt at consolidating the FBI, local police departments, and the INS, under a single Cabinet position, charged with policing and investigating. The hope was to tear down the "wall" built up during the Clinton administration (see all the hoopla around Jamie Gorelick). Many say that the "wall" was really created to prevent investigation into the Chinese funding of Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign, but the unintended consequence was to prevent inter-agency sharing of sensitive intelligence. It's hard to say how much of the pre-9/11 clues were swept aside as "noise" during the Clinton impeachment protection activities (such as the FBI agents requesting permission to search computers of people learning to fly but not to take off or land). An Intelligence Czar: Just like the Department of Homeland Security, the 9/11 Commission is recommending a new Cabinet position for someone who consolidates all the intelligence activities. There are concerns over overlap with HSD, and with the unintended consequences of funneling all intelligence through a single person/staff. I guess we'll see how this one plays out. As it stands now, I lean towards the camp that thinks this was a dry run. Like I said earlier, if you can learn to fly a plane, you can learn to play a guitar, or speak Spanish. Spies go into deep cover for years before being activated, with the purpose of developing their cover. There is no reason to think that a musician can't be a cover for someone. In fact, it would be a perfect cover given how musicians frequently travel, you need several of them to form a band, and "ethnic bands" would have the extra protection of political correctness if scrutiny gets too close to home. Regarding the reporting of this particular incident, the silence speaks louder than the words. Why haven't the band members been all over TV to make their case? Isn't that exactly what one would expect in America with 24/7 cable news scrambling for scoops? We've seen the woman who made the first report, we've seen private airline security people, representives from government and airlines, other passengers, but not one of the musicians on the flight, not even a representative for the group if they're too shy to appear themselves. Why not? That's just another suspicious activity to me. Regarding President Bush specifically: when I think of what Bush can/did/should/didn't do, I always go back to the question he was asked in the third debate with Gore (in the townhall format) when he was asked (by an African-American man) about all the executions in Texas, and by extension the death penalty. Bush's answer: As an Executive, his job is not to retry the case, but to ask if all the processes were properly followed, was the convict allowed all of his rights, were all the reviews/appeals allowed, was there anything new in the case that should be considered, and if all the answers were the proper ones, then he wouldn't stop the execution. It's that kind of Executive thinking that I expect of a President. I don't expect him to get mired in the details, because that's what Secretaries, and Under-Secretaries, staffs, etc., are for. It's easy to say that the buck stops with the President, but he can't be expected to be concerned with the details of each of the 280,000,000 of us, let alone those unknowns who come through the ports on a given day. I could go on, but I've made my point. It's a bigger thing than what one person can do on a political timeframe. Personally, I'm glad that Bush appears to be (mostly) unwilling to do what is politically expedient. He gives me the impression that he will take the short-term hits for the sake of putting longer-term protections in place. He did say very early on that there would be many things that we don't see, and I trust that there are things that I don't see happening. What dismays me is that there are people on the Democrat side that are (to me) desperate to regain power, and will use anything to create a wedge to divide people for political gains, even if they are privy to intelligence that may indicate the opposite. I trust that Bush is doing the things that are necessary to be done. I would rather be seeing a strong push-back policy than a weaker diplomatic policy, given how many UN resolutions and how many years of trying it "their way" have passed (three presidential terms now, by my count). For me, enough is enough, shake things up a bit, and let the crumbs fall where they may (and yes, that means people will die, how heartless of me, why didn't I go if I feel so strongly about it...). quote:...so our borders remain unprotected.It may be that the bombs are already here, suitcase, dirty, or otherwise. I think that the fact that there hasn't been another 9/11 is a credit to the Bush administation, as is the fact that al Qaeda has been relegated to attacking softer targets in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Madrid, and elsewhere, and using the hostage beheading tactic now to get what they want. On the other hand, they may very well be underground, saving themselves for a large-scale, final assault on us in the coming months, given all that is coming up. To me, the Olympics would be a wasted attack. That would only alienate countries that don't have a direct "skin in the game." If there is to be a last-ditch spasmodic attack, it will be during the election here. That's the thing about suicide attacks, you only get one chance at it so you better make it a good one. Will it happen? Was this a dry run? Are there dry runs? Should we be looking for dry runs, or castigating people who think they observed a dry run? Should the government cover up reports of dry runs and squelch witnesses, especially after making security warnings asking for vigilance, or should they publicize them and heighten awareness? What is motivating the government into this "push-me/pull-you" behavior? That's how I see it.

quote:As for you... I think it is great that you are calling attention to the fact that Bush is doing nothing to improve domestic security by enacting real immigration policies in this country. First off, let me state categorically that I did and will again vote for Bush. That said: I, too, share the concerns about border security. I'm not sure where to place the blame, as there is plenty to go around. I'll give a short list: the INS: like all the departments under Bill Clinton's administration, this was politicized where it wasn't before. The Elian Gonzalez fiasco highlights how the department was politicized, when they first declared that it was a Florida family court issue, but then backtracked and called it an immigration issue after diplomatic meetings with Castro over the Louisiana prison revolt by Cuban criminals. The fact that they are downplaying any reports of people who overstay their visas shows 1) more politicizing, 2) the practice (beginning with Waco, continuing through TWA800, and with all current "incidents") of denying upfront what to many is evident. With Waco, it was that no incendiary rounds were used. With TWA800, that there was no missile, the July 4 2002 LAX El Al incident was not terrorism, etc. The TSA: Congress, in an attempt to do (or show that they are doing) something, created the TSA and federalized (they said "professionalize") airport screening. Just last month, Congress agreed to allow airports to re-privatize airport screening. The Secretary of Transportation: Norm Minetta is the "William Cohen" of Bush's administration, that is, he's the token Democrat on the Cabinet. For that reason, Bush is probably loathe to replace him. However, Minetta, who was also a WWII Japanese-American internment-camp victim, is insistent on not profiling airline passengers. That's why we see the elderly, children, and even former Vice-President Al Gore, being searched at the gates, while there is a limit on how many Middle-Easterners who can be searched per flight. The Border Patrol: Because of relations with Mexico, our Border Patrol has been given a "hands off" order regarding people crossing from Mexico. It has gotten to the point where roving Mexican military personnel are crossing over, taking pot-shots at Americans, and then fleeing back. Local vigilante groups are forming in Arizona and Nevada just to protect their own property from vandals. The sad fact is that the Mexican border is currently held hostage by election politics of wooing the Hispanic vote. p.s. It was the Border Patrol that stormed the home of Luis Gonzalez to take Elian back to Cuba, after the FBI, the INS, and the ATF refused. Seaports: could this be a part of what former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger was stuffing down his pants? John Kerry's policy paper on seaport security was pulled from his website on the day that news of Berger's theft of code-word secret documents hit the wires. Anyway, the Democrats (and Repulicans from coastal states) have always complained of the lack of security around cargo containers and the ships that carry them. The truth is that there are so many of them that it is near impossible to search every one of them without affecting the economy (you might as well search every 18-wheeler on the highways, all the longshoremen, you get the idea). However, it is an effective campaign pabulum, fodder for the base: improved airport security, what about the trains? Trains improving, what have you done about the ports? Port security tightened, who's looking at the trucks? For everything that one does, there are dozens other of things to question that weren't done instead. Homeland Security: It's easy to blame Tom Ridge and HSD for failures, but let's also remember that the Department of Education has been around for 40 years and people are still complaining about "is our children learning?" This was an attempt at consolidating the FBI, local police departments, and the INS, under a single Cabinet position, charged with policing and investigating. The hope was to tear down the "wall" built up during the Clinton administration (see all the hoopla around Jamie Gorelick). Many say that the "wall" was really created to prevent investigation into the Chinese funding of Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign, but the unintended consequence was to prevent inter-agency sharing of sensitive intelligence. It's hard to say how much of the pre-9/11 clues were swept aside as "noise" during the Clinton impeachment protection activities (such as the FBI agents requesting permission to search computers of people learning to fly but not to take off or land). An Intelligence Czar: Just like the Department of Homeland Security, the 9/11 Commission is recommending a new Cabinet position for someone who consolidates all the intelligence activities. There are concerns over overlap with HSD, and with the unintended consequences of funneling all intelligence through a single person/staff. I guess we'll see how this one plays out. As it stands now, I lean towards the camp that thinks this was a dry run. Like I said earlier, if you can learn to fly a plane, you can learn to play a guitar, or speak Spanish. Spies go into deep cover for years before being activated, with the purpose of developing their cover. There is no reason to think that a musician can't be a cover for someone. In fact, it would be a perfect cover given how musicians frequently travel, you need several of them to form a band, and "ethnic bands" would have the extra protection of political correctness if scrutiny gets too close to home. Regarding the reporting of this particular incident, the silence speaks louder than the words. Why haven't the band members been all over TV to make their case? Isn't that exactly what one would expect in America with 24/7 cable news scrambling for scoops? We've seen the woman who made the first report, we've seen private airline security people, representives from government and airlines, other passengers, but not one of the musicians on the flight, not even a representative for the group if they're too shy to appear themselves. Why not? That's just another suspicious activity to me. Regarding President Bush specifically: when I think of what Bush can/did/should/didn't do, I always go back to the question he was asked in the third debate with Gore (in the townhall format) when he was asked (by an African-American man) about all the executions in Texas, and by extension the death penalty. Bush's answer: As an Executive, his job is not to retry the case, but to ask if all the processes were properly followed, was the convict allowed all of his rights, were all the reviews/appeals allowed, was there anything new in the case that should be considered, and if all the answers were the proper ones, then he wouldn't stop the execution. It's that kind of Executive thinking that I expect of a President. I don't expect him to get mired in the details, because that's what Secretaries, and Under-Secretaries, staffs, etc., are for. It's easy to say that the buck stops with the President, but he can't be expected to be concerned with the details of each of the 280,000,000 of us, let alone those unknowns who come through the ports on a given day. I could go on, but I've made my point. It's a bigger thing than what one person can do on a political timeframe. Personally, I'm glad that Bush appears to be (mostly) unwilling to do what is politically expedient. He gives me the impression that he will take the short-term hits for the sake of putting longer-term protections in place. He did say very early on that there would be many things that we don't see, and I trust that there are things that I don't see happening. What dismays me is that there are people on the Democrat side that are (to me) desperate to regain power, and will use anything to create a wedge to divide people for political gains, even if they are privy to intelligence that may indicate the opposite. I trust that Bush is doing the things that are necessary to be done. I would rather be seeing a strong push-back policy than a weaker diplomatic policy, given how many UN resolutions and how many years of trying it "their way" have passed (three presidential terms now, by my count). For me, enough is enough, shake things up a bit, and let the crumbs fall where they may (and yes, that means people will die, how heartless of me, why didn't I go if I feel so strongly about it...). quote:...so our borders remain unprotected.It may be that the bombs are already here, suitcase, dirty, or otherwise. I think that the fact that there hasn't been another 9/11 is a credit to the Bush administation, as is the fact that al Qaeda has been relegated to attacking softer targets in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Madrid, and elsewhere, and using the hostage beheading tactic now to get what they want. On the other hand, they may very well be underground, saving themselves for a large-scale, final assault on us in the coming months, given all that is coming up. To me, the Olympics would be a wasted attack. That would only alienate countries that don't have a direct "skin in the game." If there is to be a last-ditch spasmodic attack, it will be during the election here. That's the thing about suicide attacks, you only get one chance at it so you better make it a good one. Will it happen? Was this a dry run? Are there dry runs? Should we be looking for dry runs, or castigating people who think they observed a dry run? Should the government cover up reports of dry runs and squelch witnesses, especially after making security warnings asking for vigilance, or should they publicize them and heighten awareness? What is motivating the government into this "push-me/pull-you" behavior? That's how I see it.

Back off on the personal attacks.

Back off on the personal attacks.

quote:As we get closer to the election all news sources will start pulling records and posting voting records and give informed opinions on the two candidates stance on issues.That used to be the way it was done, but don't count on it this time around. The media wants Kerry to win -- managing Newsweek editor Evan Thomas said so two weeks ago. Thomas said that favorable Kerry coverage will amount to 15 points in the polls by the time the campaign is over. Don't expect a fair reporting of Kerry's voting record in the Senate, since he was scored the most left-leaning of all Senators by all who score those things. Furthermore, he was more absent from the Senate than most, and in all his years in the Senate, no legislation that he has sponsored was passed into law. Bush's record is pretty well-known, given that he has been president for four years. I expect that he will run on his four years as president. I expect that, just like last time, this election will come down to who does best in the three debates.

quote:As we get closer to the election all news sources will start pulling records and posting voting records and give informed opinions on the two candidates stance on issues.That used to be the way it was done, but don't count on it this time around. The media wants Kerry to win -- managing Newsweek editor Evan Thomas said so two weeks ago. Thomas said that favorable Kerry coverage will amount to 15 points in the polls by the time the campaign is over. Don't expect a fair reporting of Kerry's voting record in the Senate, since he was scored the most left-leaning of all Senators by all who score those things. Furthermore, he was more absent from the Senate than most, and in all his years in the Senate, no legislation that he has sponsored was passed into law. Bush's record is pretty well-known, given that he has been president for four years. I expect that he will run on his four years as president. I expect that, just like last time, this election will come down to who does best in the three debates.

From Michelle Malkin's Blog. quote: A BAND OF 14 ILLEGAL ALIEN SYRIANS?! By Michelle Malkin · July 23, 2004 01:47 AM WNBC investigative reporter Scott Weinberger reported on Joe Scarborough's MSNBC show tonight that the 14 Syrians on Northwest Flight 327 ALL had expired visas. He said his sources told him that law enforcement officials xeroxed the men's paperwork without looking at the dates. The visas had expired nearly a month earlier, according to Weinberger. This does not give me much confidence in the background checks that the Joint Terrorism Task Force, FBI, and LAPD may or may not have conducted on the men before letting them walk away. Would you trust the terrorism investigation of officials who apparently neglected to verify whether these men--coming from a designated state sponsor of terrorism, flying on a day on which Department of Homeland Security officials had issued a warning about a possible terrorist attack--WERE EVEN IN THE COUNTRY LEGALLY?!?!?! If Weinberger's reporting is accurate, I won't be surprised. The 14 men join a club of at least an estimated 2.3 million illegal visa overstayers currently living in the U.S. today. Until September 11, 2001, the Visa Overstayers Club also included "student" Hani Hanjour and "businessmen and tourist" Nawaf al-Hazmi and Satam al-Suqami. Flashback: On Scarborough Country (July 19, 2004), former FBI chief of counterterrorism, Steve Pomerantz, commented on the FBI's investigation of the Syrian band members: I am struck by the fact that the FBI did turn out. There seemed to be an appropriate and proper response, and they did what sounds to me like a very thorough, exhaustive investigation, during the course of which nobody was charged with a crime, nobody was even detained, which tells me that these people were here legally, legitimately, had official and appropriate and proper documentation, because, as you know, for the last few years in particular, the FBI has not been reluctant to detain people who are here in any way illegally, whether they're out of status, or whether they have false documentation. That didn't happen in this case. Update: Avert your eyes if you are allergic, but some immigration law wonkery is necessary here. Some readers have technical questions for Scott Weinberger. For example: [A]s you must surely know, just because a person's visa has expired doesn't mean they are "out of status." A person is deemed to have "overstayed" when they have exceeded the time allowed him or her to stay in the U.S. by DHS/ICE. This time is put on the alien's I-94 card when they enter the U.S. In fact, if the Syrian musicians entered the U.S. on P-1 visas, as I suspect, the visa, i.e., the stamp in their passport issued by the U.S. Consulate, would have expired the instant it was used. Syrian P-1 visas can only be issued for a single entry...And even if they entered with B-2 visas, which can be issued to Syrians with more than one entry, just because the visa itself has expired doesn't mean they've overstayed. To determine whether the Syrians overstayed we'd have to see their I-94 cards. Right. In lay parlance, partly because of journalists and politicians trying to avoid bureaucratese, "overstaying a visa" is commonly used interchangeably with overstaying the authorized "duration of stay." I assumed that Weinberger meant the latter and have put in a call asking him for clarification. (See more here for a tutorial on what a visa is and how the visa expiration date differs from the duration of stay date or status determined by DHS at port of entry.) Update: Still no word back from Scott Weinberger. Meantime, these comments from reader BorderAgent are on point: Musicians typically have a P-1 visa and without a doubt a Syrian, entering on a P-1 visa would only be allowed a single entry on that visa and the visa would then expire immediately upon entry. The Visa only allows them to enter, while the I-94 allows them to stay here for the duration, whatever that might be, of the I-94. As Michelle said earlier, in lay parlance, "overstaying a visa" could also mean having an expired I-94. But even then it would not necessarily make them an overstay. You see, you can actually apply for an extension of your I-94 while you are here at an inland office with BCIS. And the funny thing is, when you apply for an extension you are legally allowed to stay, even if you documents expire, until you receive a response, which generally takes longer than 45 days. So basically, you can automatically extend your stay for up to 45 days if you merely receive a peice of paper saying that you are waiting for a response. Hope that helps clear some things up. A good rule of thumb when dealing with the old INS, now the DHS, is to remember that we have the most strict laws of any agency but have a waiver for everything. Yeah, that last sentence pretty much sums up our entire immigration (non) policy: A waiver for everything. Update: From KFI's Eric Leonard: Air Marshals Say Passenger Overreacted. Excerpt: FBI agents met the plane when it landed in Los Angeles and the men were questioned, and Los Angeles field office spokeswoman Cathy Viray said itÔÇÖs significant the alarm on the flight came from a passenger. ÔÇ£We have to take all calls seriously, but the passenger was worried, not the flight crew or the federal air marshals,ÔÇØ she said. ÔÇ£The complaint did not stem from the flight crew.ÔÇØ Too bad the flight crew has been barred from confirming this.

From Michelle Malkin's Blog. quote: A BAND OF 14 ILLEGAL ALIEN SYRIANS?! By Michelle Malkin · July 23, 2004 01:47 AM WNBC investigative reporter Scott Weinberger reported on Joe Scarborough's MSNBC show tonight that the 14 Syrians on Northwest Flight 327 ALL had expired visas. He said his sources told him that law enforcement officials xeroxed the men's paperwork without looking at the dates. The visas had expired nearly a month earlier, according to Weinberger. This does not give me much confidence in the background checks that the Joint Terrorism Task Force, FBI, and LAPD may or may not have conducted on the men before letting them walk away. Would you trust the terrorism investigation of officials who apparently neglected to verify whether these men--coming from a designated state sponsor of terrorism, flying on a day on which Department of Homeland Security officials had issued a warning about a possible terrorist attack--WERE EVEN IN THE COUNTRY LEGALLY?!?!?! If Weinberger's reporting is accurate, I won't be surprised. The 14 men join a club of at least an estimated 2.3 million illegal visa overstayers currently living in the U.S. today. Until September 11, 2001, the Visa Overstayers Club also included "student" Hani Hanjour and "businessmen and tourist" Nawaf al-Hazmi and Satam al-Suqami. Flashback: On Scarborough Country (July 19, 2004), former FBI chief of counterterrorism, Steve Pomerantz, commented on the FBI's investigation of the Syrian band members: I am struck by the fact that the FBI did turn out. There seemed to be an appropriate and proper response, and they did what sounds to me like a very thorough, exhaustive investigation, during the course of which nobody was charged with a crime, nobody was even detained, which tells me that these people were here legally, legitimately, had official and appropriate and proper documentation, because, as you know, for the last few years in particular, the FBI has not been reluctant to detain people who are here in any way illegally, whether they're out of status, or whether they have false documentation. That didn't happen in this case. Update: Avert your eyes if you are allergic, but some immigration law wonkery is necessary here. Some readers have technical questions for Scott Weinberger. For example: [A]s you must surely know, just because a person's visa has expired doesn't mean they are "out of status." A person is deemed to have "overstayed" when they have exceeded the time allowed him or her to stay in the U.S. by DHS/ICE. This time is put on the alien's I-94 card when they enter the U.S. In fact, if the Syrian musicians entered the U.S. on P-1 visas, as I suspect, the visa, i.e., the stamp in their passport issued by the U.S. Consulate, would have expired the instant it was used. Syrian P-1 visas can only be issued for a single entry...And even if they entered with B-2 visas, which can be issued to Syrians with more than one entry, just because the visa itself has expired doesn't mean they've overstayed. To determine whether the Syrians overstayed we'd have to see their I-94 cards. Right. In lay parlance, partly because of journalists and politicians trying to avoid bureaucratese, "overstaying a visa" is commonly used interchangeably with overstaying the authorized "duration of stay." I assumed that Weinberger meant the latter and have put in a call asking him for clarification. (See more here for a tutorial on what a visa is and how the visa expiration date differs from the duration of stay date or status determined by DHS at port of entry.) Update: Still no word back from Scott Weinberger. Meantime, these comments from reader BorderAgent are on point: Musicians typically have a P-1 visa and without a doubt a Syrian, entering on a P-1 visa would only be allowed a single entry on that visa and the visa would then expire immediately upon entry. The Visa only allows them to enter, while the I-94 allows them to stay here for the duration, whatever that might be, of the I-94. As Michelle said earlier, in lay parlance, "overstaying a visa" could also mean having an expired I-94. But even then it would not necessarily make them an overstay. You see, you can actually apply for an extension of your I-94 while you are here at an inland office with BCIS. And the funny thing is, when you apply for an extension you are legally allowed to stay, even if you documents expire, until you receive a response, which generally takes longer than 45 days. So basically, you can automatically extend your stay for up to 45 days if you merely receive a peice of paper saying that you are waiting for a response. Hope that helps clear some things up. A good rule of thumb when dealing with the old INS, now the DHS, is to remember that we have the most strict laws of any agency but have a waiver for everything. Yeah, that last sentence pretty much sums up our entire immigration (non) policy: A waiver for everything. Update: From KFI's Eric Leonard: Air Marshals Say Passenger Overreacted. Excerpt: FBI agents met the plane when it landed in Los Angeles and the men were questioned, and Los Angeles field office spokeswoman Cathy Viray said itÔÇÖs significant the alarm on the flight came from a passenger. ÔÇ£We have to take all calls seriously, but the passenger was worried, not the flight crew or the federal air marshals,ÔÇØ she said. ÔÇ£The complaint did not stem from the flight crew.ÔÇØ Too bad the flight crew has been barred from confirming this.

Just because it didn't happen this time (the terrorist act, not the dry run), doesn't mean that this wasn't one. Let me ask you this question -- when we (or anybody else, for that matter) plants a "deep cover spy", what does that really mean? I read a story of a spy who went undercover in South America for two years just to build up his cover before infiltrating a ring in the Middle East. Isn't that what we'd expect of our spies when we cry about not having HUMINT, about relying too much on technology? Well, why wouldn't that not also apply to our enemy's spies? According the last report that I posted, the band was made up of musicians from Detroit and from Syria. Who's to say that the musicians aren't here in a deep cover capacity, establishing themselves in everyday roles, until the time comes to "activate?" I think the purpose of this story was to get the debate going. On the one hand, we have the government asking all of us to be vigilant. On the other hand, what cannot be allowed to happen is the vilification of a vigilant person should the warning not pan out, or that would squelch any future warnings by vigilant people. As an example, why do you think the flight attendants were afraid to warn the musicians to take their seats during descent instead of letting them roam the plane against the rules?

Just because it didn't happen this time (the terrorist act, not the dry run), doesn't mean that this wasn't one. Let me ask you this question -- when we (or anybody else, for that matter) plants a "deep cover spy", what does that really mean? I read a story of a spy who went undercover in South America for two years just to build up his cover before infiltrating a ring in the Middle East. Isn't that what we'd expect of our spies when we cry about not having HUMINT, about relying too much on technology? Well, why wouldn't that not also apply to our enemy's spies? According the last report that I posted, the band was made up of musicians from Detroit and from Syria. Who's to say that the musicians aren't here in a deep cover capacity, establishing themselves in everyday roles, until the time comes to "activate?" I think the purpose of this story was to get the debate going. On the one hand, we have the government asking all of us to be vigilant. On the other hand, what cannot be allowed to happen is the vilification of a vigilant person should the warning not pan out, or that would squelch any future warnings by vigilant people. As an example, why do you think the flight attendants were afraid to warn the musicians to take their seats during descent instead of letting them roam the plane against the rules?

Quick... somebody reboot the chatbot server.

I'd have to open the link from home, but I've never bought into the contrail conspiracy theory.