Sexual and Child Abuse A NEW GOP SCANDAL

Here we go again...

He was a member of the Mitt Romney campaign, charged with bringing in money to the biggest spending campaign. But, besides sucking up cash for Full of Mitt, Lichfield was also involved with child abuse. He quietly slinked away from the campaign but...not much has been heard about this in all the yelling and screaming over Hsu even though he's been bringing in far more money for Flip Flop than Hsu has brought in for Democrats.

Lichfield is named in a federal lawsuit charging that students of the "behavior modification" schools with ties to WWASPS [Worldwide Association of Specialty Schools, founded by Lichfield] were subjected to "physical abuse, emotional abuse and sexual abuse."

...The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Utah, alleges brazen acts of child abuse, including that students of the various programs had been forced to eat their own vomit, clean toilets with a toothbrush and brush their teeth afterward, were chained or locked in dog cages, kicked, beaten, thrown and slammed to the ground and forced into sexual acts.

And this is just one of many more scandals that are simmering in the background of the other GOP sex scandals. Remember that the Blogosphere is digging around Patrick McHenry and others...

Football News

My son's football team played Danbury last weekend and the New Milford Spectrum covered it:

the Wranglers corraled Danbury, 19-0, and the Longhorns gored Plainville, 19-13.

The Wranglers' Mighty Mite 'W' over Danbury's Vikings was built on an edge in total offense of 217 to 27 yards.

A defense which limited Danbury to a single first down was sparked by Caleb Anderson, Isaiah Jenkins, Will Roode and Andre Taylor, who chalked up an interception.

The offense was led by Trent Bryant's 81 yards rushing and two touchdowns and Mike Carrozza's 90 yards rushing.

Tim Gesualdi contributed 20 yards rushing and a TD.

Those players found plenty of holes in the Danbury 'D' thanks to the blocking efforts of Steve Herron, Tommy Gavel, Alex Davlos and Mike Simao.(edited for spelling and other- CM1)

Yeah... I'm proud of Connecticut Kid2. :) He is one of the smallest players and he isn't going to be the star player on any football team, but he is having fun and learning. All of the kids and the coaches on the team have worked hard the last few weeks and they played the entire game as a team.

Fox Caught in a Lie AGAIN

Here is Hannity and Colmes trying to tell people that there really isn't that much support for Ron Paul amongst their viewers regardless of the poll:



And somebody proves The Big Lie... Just another poll showing that Paul is the only credible candidate conservatives have and the corporate lackeys in the media hate it, ridicule it, and lie about it. Denis Kucinich and Mike Gravel get the same treatment too. And the vast majority of the American people align closer to those 3 candidates ideologically than they ever could to the rest of the candidates.

Funding Iraq occupation equals killing the troops

Killing the troops based on a pack of neoconservative republicans' lies... How many unnecessary deaths of American soldiers did your Senator or Representative buy last session?

And is Congress planning on buying more to add to their morbid collection?

Iraq Coalition Casualties:

Period	US	UK	Other*	Total	Avg	Days
6	667	38	5	710	3.26	218
5	933	32	20	985	2.39	412
4	715	13	18	746	2.35	318
3	580	25	27	632	2.93	216
2	718	27	59	804	1.9	424
1	140	33	0	173	4.02	43
Total	3753	168	129	4050	2.48	1631

To View Period Details Click The Period Number

And how do Iraqis feel about all of this?

The Iraqi newspaper, Azzaman, in a blistering editorial bluntly told Prime Minister Maliki he was “in total denial about the daily killings, the uprooting of millions of Irqaqis, the impoverishment of almost the whole country and even the imminent imploding of a whole nation.” The editorial noted Maliki on assuming office had promised to reach out to all factions, but has completely failed to take such action.

Unlike President Bush in Washington D.C., the editors of Azzaman live in daily contact with the Maliki mess.

"This is the reason why our prime minister’s conscience is in total denial of the astronomical figures of civilian casualties and millions of refugees who have fled the country or are languishing in camps inside it."

Military Sexual Trauma NOW

Via NOW on PBS:

Roughly one in seven of America's active duty military soldiers is a woman, but a NOW investigation found that sexual assault and rape is widespread. One study of National Guard and Reserve forces found that almost one in four women had been assaulted or raped. Last year alone, almost 3,000 soldiers reported sexual assault and rape by other soldiers.

On Friday, September 7 (check your local listings), in one of the only national television broadcasts of the issue, NOW features women who speak out for the first time about what happened. One woman recounts her ordeal of rape by her superior officer. Many more don't report the incidents for fear of how it will affect their careers. The shocking phenomenon has a label: military sexual trauma, or MST. NOW meets women courageously battling to overcome their MST, bringing light to an issue that's putting the Army in shame.

It should be broadcast on PBS on 9-7-07... In other words, tomorrow if you are still up reading at this hour. Today if ya catch this with your breakfast. (h/t C&L)

Riverbend Makes it Out of Iraq to Safety

Riverbend makes it out of Iraq and is alive and kicking in Syria:

By the time we were out of Baghdad, my heart was no longer aching as it had been while we were still leaving it. The cars around us on the border were making me nervous. I hated being in the middle of so many possibly explosive vehicles. A part of me wanted to study the faces of the people around me, mostly families, and the other part of me, the one that’s been trained to stay out of trouble the last four years, told me to keep my eyes to myself- it was almost over.

It was finally our turn. I sat stiffly in the car and waited as money passed hands; our passports were looked over and finally stamped. We were ushered along and the driver smiled with satisfaction, “It’s been an easy trip, Alhamdulillah,” he said cheerfully.

As we crossed the border and saw the last of the Iraqi flags, the tears began again. The car was silent except for the prattling of the driver who was telling us stories of escapades he had while crossing the border. I sneaked a look at my mother sitting beside me and her tears were flowing as well. There was simply nothing to say as we left Iraq. I wanted to sob, but I didn’t want to seem like a baby. I didn’t want the driver to think I was ungrateful for the chance to leave what had become a hellish place over the last four and a half years.

The Syrian border was almost equally packed, but the environment was more relaxed. People were getting out of their cars and stretching. Some of them recognized each other and waved or shared woeful stories or comments through the windows of the cars. Most importantly, we were all equal. Sunnis and Shia, Arabs and Kurds… we were all equal in front of the Syrian border personnel.

...snip...

How is it that a border no one can see or touch stands between car bombs, militias, death squads and… peace, safety? It’s difficult to believe- even now. I sit here and write this and wonder why I can’t hear the explosions.

Wishing and hoping for the best for her and her family, as well as for the many other millions of Iraqis that have left their homes in the hopes of finding some peace and safety for themselves and their families.

Could we get a little oversight here Lieberman? Collins?

Just a little oversight for a change? Instead of your typical hyper-partisan republicanista propaganda against the interests of Americans:

The Department of Homeland Security “has given up on one of its broadest anti-terrorism data-mining tools after investigators found it was tested with information about real people without the required privacy safeguards.”

We know Joe neocon Lieberman has completely ignored his responsibility to provide real oversight following the failures of Katrina, either because he is bigoted towards black people OR poor people OR because he is just a Republican bitch, though it could be some combination of all three?

It’s worth noting, however, that Joe Lieberman, as head of the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, promised to investigate the government’s response to Hurricaine Katrina. From January of 2006, when Joe was running for office:

The White House is dodging questions about Hurricane Katrina response and has instructed other agencies to join it in fending off investigators, Sen. Joseph Lieberman said on Tuesday. The White House denies the allegations.

Lieberman went so far as to suggest that the Department of Homeland Security is trying to kill the investigation.

“My staff believes that DHS has engaged in a conscious strategy of slow-walking our investigation in the hope that we would run out of time to follow the investigation’s natural progression to where it leads,” Lieberman said. “At this point, I cannot disagree.”

The Connecticut senator, who is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, further said no real reason is being given for the administration’s reticence.

“There’s been no assertion of executive privilege, just a refusal to answer,” Lieberman said. “I have been told by my staff that almost every question our staff has asked federal agency witnesses regarding conversations with or involvement of the White House has been met with a response that they could not answer on direction of the White House.”

And once Lieberman was re-elected with no small amount of help from the GOP?

Bush’s Best Democratic Buddy Joe Lieberman gives the president a pass on Katrina.

Jan. 11, 2007 - Sen. Joe Lieberman, the only Democrat to endorse President Bush’s new plan for Iraq, has quietly backed away from his pre-election demands that the White House turn over potentially embarrassing documents relating to its handling of the Hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans.

Lieberman’s reversal underscores the new role that he is seeking to play in the Senate as the leading apostle of bipartisanship, especially on national-security issues. On Wednesday night, Bush conspicuously cited Lieberman’s advice as being the inspiration for creating a new “bipartisan working group” on Capitol Hill that he said will “help us come together across party lines to win the war on terror.”

(As a side note, I think the above paragraph is a pretty clear demonstration of the fact that when Joe says “bipartisan” what he really means is “Karl Rove’s bitch.” Because nobody wants to bring the troops home more than Joe, you know.)

But since so many of our Democratic 08 candidates are current or former members of the Senate, maybe they would like to prod their colleague Joe about his promise to give residents of New Orleans an explanation for the government’s mishandling of the disaster and what happened to their lives?

But how does Lieberman feel about patriotic Americans that want to see him uphold his oath to protect the Constitution? We have a right to privacy and the department Lieberman heads, the Department of Homeland Security, flushed it down the toilet along with the Constitution.

Why should we have to rely on the GAO to keep Lieberman's department in line?

A report by Congress' Government Accountability Office cautioned last March that the program should complete privacy analyses and notify the public of how individuals' data would be verified, used and protected before ADVISE was implemented. "Like other data-mining applications, the ADVISE tool could misidentify or erroneously associate an individual with undesirable activity such as fraud, crime or terrorism," the GAO warned.

Then in separate reports released without fanfare in July and August, the department's inspector general and its privacy office concluded that between 2004 and 2007, three pilot tests of ADVISE used personally identifiable information without first completing required privacy impact analyses. The DHS privacy office concluded the tests "created unnecessary privacy risks."

This is the second such error at DHS. The Secure Flight program to screen domestic air travelers was barred from implementation by Congress after it was learned that it acquired live data for testing rather than using made-up data. That program, however, is going into testing this fall having issued the required privacy impact assessment and dropping the use of commercial data, such as people's credit card histories.

Are you so fuckin' incompetent and so hyper-partisan against our freedoms that you are incapable of running the DHS in an ethical manner? Are you so anti-American that you can't protect citizens from the abuses of illegal data mining operations by your own department?

These questions can and should be asked of Susan Collins, the other incompetent republican Senator tasked with running the DHS, as well. Lieberman and Collins, both of them bush hacks, embrace the ideals of repeated failure, incompetence, and criminal negligence with no accountability.

From an MLN diary posted in July:

From today's Washington Post:

FEMA Knew Of Toxic Gas In Trailers
Hurricane Victims Reported Illnesses
By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 20, 2007; Page A01

The Federal Emergency Management Agency since early 2006 has suppressed warnings from its own field workers about health problems experienced by hurricane victims living in government-provided trailers with levels of a toxic chemical 75 times the recommended maximum for U.S. workers, congressional lawmakers said yesterday.
[...]
As many as 120,000 families displaced by hurricanes Katrina and Rita lived in the suspect trailers, and hundreds have complained of ill effects.

What is Congress's role in a situation like this? To investigate. You might expect that Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins, who chair the Senate Committee on Homeland Security—the committee that oversees FEMA—to lead an investigation. But you’d be wrong. Just as they failed to look into the incompetence that led to the Katrina disaster, Joe and Suzy have been AWOL on this scandal too.

To these two republicans (face the facts, Lieberman is a republican now) that are supposed to provide oversight of the DHS and FEMA, what are a few more dead black and poor people? Who gives a shit if the bulk of the displaced survivors are still displaced, and still in mortal danger because of something these two refused to do anything about? And who cares about Americans' fucking rights to privacy? Those are just quaint ideals to these two, these two bush ass-kissers that have embraced the neoconservative goals of an all surveillance all the time fascist society, regardless of rights entrenched in the Constitution they took an oath to uphold.

These two republicans, Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins, want nothing to do with providing real oversight of their departments repeated failures, want nothing to do with helping the poor and minorities, want nothing to do with protecting our freedoms, want nothing to do with an open democracy.

And they have both come to embody all things wrong and republican during the bush years.

Buzz It! if you want to...

NBC Outs Keith Olbermann

And Countdown's ratings soar!

No... This is not your typical republican type outing that you have had to explain to your kids over and over again the last few years. Last Tuesday I passed along a News Corpse story on Keith Olbermann's Sunday night pre-football game broadcast:

A resounding success for Keith Olbermann and the Countdown crew according to News Corpse:

Last night’s broadcast of Countdown on the mothership, NBC, was a major coup for Keith Olbermann and his MSNBC program.



For all the clamoring for attention that goes on amongst the cable news kiddies, they are all fighting for slices of a relatively small pie. The ratings leader, Bill O’Reilly, averages about 2 million viewers a day. The lowest rated network news program (CBS) pulls in over 6 million. So graduating to the network opens millions of doors to a cablecaster.

Olbermann, not surprisingly, benefited from this. The early results show him with 4.1 million viewers. That only earned him a third place finish, behind “60 Minutes” and “America’s Funniest Videos,” but it was good enough to quadruple his average MSNBC audience. What’s more, (and this has to hurt) it is twice what Bill O’Reilly does on an average night.

Lies about Countdown are most assuredly forthcoming from Rupert Murdoch's Republican stooge, O'Liely, any minute now... You can read more at News Corpse about why there is still room for growth in those numbers for KO and Countdown.

This is a good showing for a brand new entry in the time slot. I suspect that the football game shown afterwards may have helped his numbers a little with people tuning in expecting a pre-game show, or just not wanting to miss kick off. I wonder how his numbers compared to the game's numbers?

The key here is to see if he can replicate (or increase) those numbers when he gets slots like that again. Another good measure of how well he did might be if there is a spike, even a little one, on his regular 8 pm (EST) and midnight slots. That might be some of those NBC viewers going out of their way to find his show on MSNBC. I hope that does happen... One of his Special Comments on a prime time network would probably shake a few viewers out of their seats.

This week News Corpse comes back with numbers showing that the NBC broadcast was a resounding success and it showed in Countdown's recent ratings numbers on MSNBC:

On August 26, 2007, Keith Olbermann's Countdown was broadcast on NBC. Despite a scattered schedule wherein the program was delayed or preempted in many markets, it performed respectably, delivering 4.1 million viewers. But what I was waiting for, was to see if there would be any afterglow that reflected on his MSNBC airing. There was:

Countdown's NBC outing drives viewers to cable.

For the week ending August 31, Countdown averaged 278,000 viewers in the key 25-54 demo. That's a 17% increase over the program average for the 2nd quarter of 2007. It is fair to conclude that this spike was due almost entirely to the promotional value of the NBC broadcast. None of the other programs on MSNBC's schedule enjoyed a comparable bounce. Olbermann's numbers exceeded his 2nd quarter average (230K) as well as his prior week average (242K).

Read more on how these numbers compare to a certain regular nominee for the "Worst Person in the World!" and how this reflects not just on Keith Olbermann and the Countdown crew but, also, on "mainstream progressive news that is factual and compelling."

If you haven't seen Countdown before, here is a clip of Keith Olbermann's most recent Special Comment. These Special Comment editorials have become a fan favorite and hallmark of the show:

"Just over 500 days remain in this Presidency.

Consider the dead who have piled up on the battlefield.... in these last 500 days.

Consider the singular fraudulence of this President's trip to Iraq yesterday, and the singular fraudulence of the selling of The Petraeus Report... in these last 500 days.

Consider how this President has torn away at the fabric of this nation in a manner of which terrorists can only dream... in these last 500 days.

And consider again how this President has spoken to that biographer: that he is "playing for October-November"… the goal in Iraq is "To get us in a position where the presidential candidates will be comfortable about sustaining a presence"… and consider how this revelation contradicts every other rationale he has offered... in these last 500 days.

In the context of all that… now, consider… these next 500 days.

Mr. Bush, our presence in Iraq must end.

Even if it means your resignation.

Even if it means your impeachment.

Even if it means a different Republican to serve out your term.

Even if it means a Democratic Congress -- and those true Patriots among the Republicans -- standing up and denying you another **penny** for Iraq, other than for the safety and the safe conduct home of our troops.

This country cannot run the risk of what you can still do to this country... in the next 500 days…

Not while you, Sir... are playing.

Good night, and good luck."

Partial transcript via Countdown's Blog, The News Hole.

Another Edition Of Blog Radio

ePluribus Media presents ePluribus Radio

For those who are around tonight, we are back on the air live for Don't Hijack My Thread! The time, as always, is 8PM Eastern/5PM Pacific and we hope to hear from you. Info is posted at the Political Nexus site (http://www.political-nexus.blogspot.com) as well as below. "Don't Hijack My Thread!" is an interactive discussion on today's hot political topics with a progressive slant. Join "rapid fire" hosts Adam Lambert (clammyc) and David Atkins (thereisnospoon)!

Listen Live Online!
8:00 pm EST
Call in to participate:
(718) 508-9410

Tonight's juicy list of topics include the following:

• Republican hypocrisy - the case of Senators Craig and Vitter
• Bill Richardson's spectacular implosion
• Iraq spending - another $200 Billion?
• Bush and media figures' Iraq visits vs. the reality of ethnic cleansing and the GAO/NIE reports
• "Manly" Bush admits to crying alot - is he cracking up?

Don't Hijack My Thread! will be recording another live show this week and we need callers. Think you have what it takes to sit on hold for upwards of five minutes for a few moments of radio obscurity and acute political observation?

The show is scheduled to tape Wednesday, 8:00 PM (EST), though times are subject to change and update, of course! We are still in BETA testing, after all...

For those interested in calling in, the number is: (718) 508-9410

Don't Hijack My Thread is produced with ePluribus Radio, and the site is http://www.blogtalkradio.com/hostpage.aspx?show_id=40864

You can stream the show live as it airs or download it an hour after air time. The link to past shows for podcast or streaming is here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/epradio

TIPS FOR CALLERS:

• Please turn the radio off in the background when you go on air
• We can't screen callers or talk to you off-air, so be ready to state your name or blogger handle when we suddenly throw you live, on air with clammy c and the gang!
• Speak LOUD and CLEAR. We are severely limited in terms of our ability to control sound volume and even audio quality. We are looking into ways of increasing production values
• Familiarize yourself with our format and foibles by taking a listen to last week's show, linked in a previous Don't Hijack My Thread! post. Just click the media player embedded for your convenience--you don't have to download ANYTHING.

ePluribus Media

Nuns For Impeachment of Bush and Cheney?

So says Nicolle Belle at Crooks and Liars:

I think we’ve reached a tipping point, Ladies and Gentlemen:

“The National Coalition of American Nuns is impelled by conscience to call you to act promptly to impeach President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for … high crimes and misdemeanors,” the group wrote in a letter written on behalf of its board members.

The letter says that impeachment is warranted for their “deceiving the public under the false pretense that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction” and “destroying” the reputation of the United States and the good will of other nations.

“The time for impeachment is now — before the example of George W. Bush’s regime is set in stone,” they wrote. “Future generations will thank you for preserving the freedom of our nation and its relation to the entire human community.”

read more…

Proving there is a huge difference between the warmongering "Religious Right", an extremist misnomer, and the "Religiously Correct" that chose to put into action the teachings they espouse.

Bloggers Bad Buzz

Take note fellow Bloggers:

Blogger and malware

You may have seen stories in the news recently about malware on Blogger, such has this one from the BBC or this one from Committee to Protect Bloggers. Blogger was not compromised. Instead, the blog posts are from bloggers whose machines were compromised by a Trojan horse. These bloggers had their mail2blogger email addresses in their computers' address books (a perfectly legitimate use case), so when the malicious software spammed every address in their address book with its content, a copy of that email was posted to their blog.

We are in the process of notifying impacted bloggers and recommending that they scan their computers and run current anti-virus software, available in the Google Pack. This is also good advice for all computer users, especially those who may have clicked the links in the emails sent by the virus. For more information about computer security, check out upenn.edu and us-cert.gov.

Watch for notices coming your way if you use Blogger. Take note, and take care to update and run your spyware and firewalls. Also: As soon as you run them you might just want to take the precaution of changing your passwords. It is something that I have learned firsthand needs to be done regularly. My Blog was hijacked once, but I caught it before any serious damage was done.

Do Not Trickle Down My Back

And try to tell me it is raining...

Today's Hartford Courant and New Haven Register share the results of the annual Labor Day report issued by Connecticut Voices for Children, which looks at how well Connecticut's economic growth has been trickling down to wage-earners. Apparently, not very well:

The state's wage earners - low, median and high - earned less in real dollars in 2006 than in 2002, the report said.

Real wages for workers in every category are either flat or have declined, the report said. In real wages, someone who earned $18.36 an hour in 2001 earned $17.75 an hour last year, the report said.

"Health care costs are consuming a larger proportion of total compensation," said Hall, citing one reason for stagnant or declining wages. "There seems to be a disconnect between an economy that's doing well and the wages people are being paid."

The gain in lower-paying service jobs has not quite compensated for the loss of higher-paying manufacturing jobs.

The state continues to keep shedding manufacturing jobs, although the rate of loss is dropping. Those traditionally well-paying jobs are being replaced by lower-paying service jobs. "That is not a positive direction for our state economy and it is not a situation that is going to right itself," he said.

Things were different in the 1980s, when hourly workers saw real wage growth of 14.9 percent; in the 1990s, low wages dropped, but median wages increased slightly and high wages jumped the most.

The articles point out that these conditions are part of a national trend, and Connecticut Voices for Children say that wage-earners would benefit from a change in priorities:

The group is urging the state's policy-makers to strive for more higher-wage jobs, provide more child care and housing subsidies for low-wage families and invest more in education.

In a separate report issued in July, The Connecticut Department of Labor stated that; "we are now just 4,900 jobs short of our all-time high of 1,700,700 reached in July 2000."

The good news is that we're gaining jobs. The bad news is that although we have just about reached the number of jobs we had six years ago, the wages paid for the jobs being produced are not keeping pace with the cost of living.

I have never claimed to be some Economics expert... But I do have some resources that are competent in this area of expertise. And I can read these tea leaves and tell that this is bad. Really bad. This national trend is the direct result of "The Great Republican Experiment" that has obviously completely failed America since the Ronny Raygun administration and their followers started pissing themselves with extremist tax and spend conservatism and fear of the rest of the world.

Live in fear and the American free market truly dies.