I met a friend's new husband many years ago, as they were selling their belongings to leave for his native South American country.  He had fled to the United States after witnessing his fellow politically active university roommate being thrown out the window by government thugs. After earning a degree in economics he returned with his American bride for a position in the government.  I wonder how long it took him to avenge his roommate's murder.

    Time is running out for justice for the victims of decades-old repressive military dictatorships in Latin America.   Those violent eras comprised chapter one.  Now we have chapters two and three:  individuals seek reparations,  and some of the new governments pursue political accountings in trials.   There will never be enough space for all the grief and political backdrop.  What I can write here is merely a sampling of the arduous climbs taken by some.  The identity of most victims is probably lost forever.

        Chapter Two:  Reparations.

       Monetary compensation may be the easiest to win, but what survivors and families want more are public apologies, system changes, and the location of remains.   They look to the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Human Rights Court (IAHRC) [Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos], which decides cases of reparations under the OAS treaty, the Inter-American Convention on Forced Disappearance of Persons (Convencion Interamericana Sobre Desaparacion Forzada de Personas).  Evidence is hard to assemble decades after disappearances.  Countries attempt to thwart jurisdiction.  So, most families never even get into the elevator.

    Even for the successful, though, trial orders are meaningless without effective enforcement.

•   EL SALVADOR which had a 12-year civil war, still has not complied with the court's order to create a system to search for children who were kidnapped by the military and to identify the perpetrators of human rights violations. Many disappeared children were sold into adoption and are thought to be alive today.
•   HONDURAS was ordered to pay reparations to some families, but did not admit culpability or punish any wrong-doers.   Aided by the Center for Justice and Accountability which brings civil lawsuits in the U.S. and in Spain against human rights violators, six people sued Juan López Grijalba, the former head of the notorious intelligence police force DNI (Direción Nacional de Investigaciones) and boss of death squad "Battalion 3-16."  
      Because of his human rights violations he was deported in 2004.   In 2006 a federal judge in Florida ordered him to pay $47 Million to torture survivors and relatives.
•  BOLIVIA admitted liability in 2000 and was ordered to pay reparations to the mother of a college student unaccountably imprisoned in 1972.  He disappeared the day his mother came to visit, accompanied by a Red Cross official. Three years after the court's order Bolivia had paid the mother $5400 and still owed her $4,000;  it was in non-compliance otherwise, not having (1) criminalized forced disappearances, (2) investigated to identify the perpetrators, (3) located the student's remains, and (4) named an educational center in Santa Cruz for him.  
•  PERU has been ordered to apologize and pay $20 Million to the families of 41 suspected and convicted members of the Maoist Sendero Luminoso, shot in the head execution-style when a 1992 prison riot was quelled in a semblance of a three-day mini-war (planes, heavy artillery, grenades, machine guns).  Peru's current president, Alan Garcia, vowed a legal challenge to the decision.  

      Ironically, Peru has established a reparations council for the estimated 10,000 victims of the Sendero war begun in 1980.  Most were indigenous to the impoverished Andean highlands.  After the Senderistas had murdered local authorities and suspected military collaborators, the Peruvian Army came through killing Senderista supporters and kidnapping children in vengeance, in counterinsurgency operations.  Despite photographs and graves, however, reparations will be out of reach of families unable to legally prove a victim's existence:  the Senderistas had targeted any sign of the presence of the state, destroying even the civil registers which contained birth and death certificates. Death certificates require a long journey to fill out a form in castellano.

   --   (dear Liza, dear Liza...) the latest Bush theme song.  The hole is a glacial chasm into which Bush is pushing the least among us, those barely making traction on the ice.

    Members of the 30somethingdems in the House fathomed much of the budget, the size of two Manhattan directories, the day it was plopped on their desks this past week, and explained its major flaws that evening on C-SPAN.   These guys, as they refer to each other, are brainy bloodhounds, illustrating with charts how a gigantic chunk of the budget goes to paying the interest on the national debt for money borrowed abroad.  

    Most offensive to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (FL) Tim Ryan (OH) Jason Altmire (PA) and Chris Murphy (CT) were slashes for health care, particularly Medicare.   Last year, the Republicans had blocked Democrats' proposed reforms of the drug program to save Medicare beneficiaries $61 billion over a ten-year period.

    First responders?  Screw `em.   Cut firefighters' money in half.  Education?  Rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul.  Not nearly enough for the No Child Left Behind Act.

     The AARP growled politely.

 Bush's budget would hit low-income seniors particularly hard, via cuts in energy assistance programs, housing subsidy programs and payments to states for administrative costs of Medicaid... .

    It batted at proposed means-testing for drug benefits.  

 ...people already pay taxes for Medicare based on their incomes and shouldn't be socked with income-related premiums as well.

    The AMA added:

 ... cutting funding for SCHIP [pronounced "S - chip,"  State Children's Health Insurance for uninsured] is the wrong way to go.  Currently there are nine million uninsured children...

     Moreover, it's sayonara to budding innovative state-sponsored universal health insurance plans, complained the AARP, AMA, and the Center for Medicare Advocacy.  Bush's budget is geared towards replacing Medicare as a uniform health insurance program with a fragmented set of private plans.

This effort is based on industry lobbying and philosophical preferences about how to deliver health coverage, not on a fiscal analysis about what is most cost effective....  

   As Medicare evolves into an income-based program from a social insurance program, the private plans it subsidizes would bleed its budget, resulting in draconian cuts.  Those on lower incomes, still dependent on Medicare, would get the shaft.  

    This is what left Debbie Wasserman-Schultz agog.  Her Florida constituents know Medicare.  Just what are Bush's "family values," she wondered, that he attacks the old, the disabled, the poor.  As he was growing up, what did they talk about around the dinner table?   Didn't his parents speak of taking care of those in need?  She, for example, grew up with the basic Jewish value,  tikkun olam -- "repairing of the world," the obligation to make it a better place through social action, helping alleviate hunger, homelessness, disease, ignorance.  

     On behalf of 16 national Jewish groups from all three religious streams and 62 local groups which advocate for vulnerable populations, the United Jewish Communities urged every member of Congress to fight the cuts.  

  [Such programs as the Social Services Block Grant, the Community Services Block Grant, Food Stamps, State Children's Health Insurance Program, and the Low Income Heating Energy Assistance Program] are critical to the elderly, refugees, children and persons with disabilities.

     I'll ask it again, for the least among us.  Values?  What values in Bush's budget?

  Contractor Has to Pay for Hiring Blackwater
   It's nice to see the good guys win as promised.  In Wednesday's hearing on government contractor waste, fraud and abuse the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform heard how the Army is reducing payments to KBR (Kellog, Brown & Roote) by $19.6 Million, thanks to the investigative persistence of the chair, Rep. Henry Waxman.  KBR had violated its contractual prohibition against subcontracting for armed security transportation in Iraq by employing Blackwater (which had made a hefty profit). The committee's website features a video clip from the hearing. This updates my diary on the subject last month.

   DHS Mismanages Multi-Billion Dollar Contracts
   Yesterday the committee's hearing focused on Homeland Security's mismanagement of two contracts, the Coast Guard's $24 Billion Deepwater program and the Secure Border Initiative("SBInet"), a $30 Billion contract with Boeing.  In both cases virtually everything is being outsourced, from design to oversight.  

   The most ambitious element of the Coast Guard's Deepwater program, the new 425-foot National Security Cutter, was assessed by the Navy for its vulnerability to fatigue. The Navy report concluded that the ship would not last its full 30-year lifespan. Rep. Waxman stated:

  What happened next raises many questions.  The Deepwater Office transmitted an edited version of the Navy report to the Commandant of the Coast Guard.  The briefing slides given to the Commandant were nearly identical to the slides prepared by the Navy, with one critical exception:  all of the Navy's bottom line conclusions about the ship's problems had been deleted.

 This was done just months before the Coast Guard extended the contract.
    Homeland Security made the same "mistakes" with the SBInet contract.

   Drug Manufacturer Fraud Unchecked; Government Purchases in Chaos
    In today's hearing the committee examined the impact on federal programs such as Medicare of the wasteful or abusive pricing policies of pharmaceutical companies. They heard of drug manufacturer fraud costing Medicaid billions, and how only a few U.S. Attorneys offices are seriously involved -- mainly in Philadelphia and Boston.

 Support from investigative agencies is skimpy.  The active support of the Attorney General and his deputy are not in evidence.  The drug manufacturer defendants are aware of these deficiencies and many of them appear to be trying to run out the clock on the Justice Department attorneys.

 
    One of the witnesses, a director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Hospital Finance and Management, delivered his review of the problems when the government purchases drugs.  He found that in some government programs, e.g., the Medicare Part D program, the government agencies in charge have no idea what they are paying for the drugs. This includes the HHS Secretary, the GAO, CBO, and so forth.  Before you can negotiate a price, you have to know what you are currently paying.

    Apparently the military and the VA pay the least:  their respective heads negotiate the prices.  Consumers Union and other organizations have attempted to estimate the prices paid and found that the VA pays maybe half as much as Part D plans for the same commonly prescribed drugs.

   If it weren't for Christine Jennings, would the general public fathom the urgency for voting system  accountability?  I think it's the numbers.  She lost by 369 votes.  The Democrat is still in the fight for that Florida congressional seat, though.  Contending that the loss was due to an undervote of over 18,000 ascribed to malfunctioning touch-screen machines, she has gone to court and to Congress.

    Jennings is still trying to force Election Systems & Software to cough up iVotronic computer codes; probably the Florida Supreme Court will make the ultimate decision.  Meanwhile, an independent lawsuit for a revote is being pursued by a coalition of the ACLU of Florida, VoterAction, People for the American Way Foundation and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

   The House Administration Committee, which has authority over contested House elections, has opened an investigation.  The chair wrote a cautionary letter to Sarasota county's election supervisor, requesting the preservation of election material (software, poll books, and the like).  

   We're on a roll this week.

•   The Senate Rules and Administration Committee, chaired by Sen. Feinstein, is holding a hearing on electronic election reform, going beyond the Florida race.
•  Florida's touch-screen electronic machines will be converted to optical scan machines, paid by the state (not the counties) if all goes as planned by newly-elected Gov. Crist in his budget proposal.  The plan is criticized, though, for allowing current touch-screen machines to be equipped with printers for disabled access -- no cure for any underlying troubled technology.
•  Rep. Holt will once again introduce his legislation, the "Voter Confidence and Increased Accessibility Act," requiring electronic machines to have paper back-up.  It also would toughen requirements for touch-screen machines that have printers -- hence, "increased accessibility."  The bill has 222 co-sponsors.  Under last year's supine Congress, he couldn't even get it out of the Republican-dominated committee.

  Others, like Kissinger and Perry, land in a university post.  Rumsfeld?  We're still stuck with him, and for who knows how long.  He's traded Pentagon limelight for Defense Department shadows.  As a non-paid consultant (a status needed to continue his security clearance, or so the Pentagon says) he works from an office provided by our government, with seven Pentagon-paid staff.  The excuse is paper-sifting.  

 The transition office has raised some eyebrows inside the Pentagon. Some question the size of the staff, which includes two military officers and two enlisted men. They also ask why the sorting could not have been done from the time Mr. Rumsfeld resigned Nov. 8 to when he left the building Dec. 18.

    Big deal, huh?  
    I suspect he's doing more than assigning documents to some library.  For openers, he brought with him his close advisor, Dr. Stephen A. Cambone, his Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence (that "Dr." is for a Ph.D. in Political Science).  Guys like Cambone, who held the top spy job in the country, don't fade away as a step'n'fetchit for someone's book project.

   Cambone was next to -- maybe in front of -- Rumsfeld and his decisions to expand brutal intelligence-gathering techniques into Abu Ghraib.  Seymour Hersh wrote at length:

  Cambone was a strong advocate for war against Iraq. He shared Rumsfeld's disdain for the analysis and assessments proffered by the C.I.A., viewing them as too cautious, and chafed, as did Rumsfeld, at the C.I.A.'s inability, before the Iraq war, to state conclusively that Saddam Hussein harbored weapons of mass destruction.

   Cambone grabbed control of the Pentagon's "special-access program" (sap) and its very troubling interrogation procedures.

  Cambone then made another crucial decision...: not only would he bring the sap's rules into the prisons; he would bring some of the Army military-intelligence officers working inside the Iraqi prisons under the sap's auspices.

   Told that no rules apply, that the interrogations were part of a covert operation kept within the Defense Department, seven members of the 372nd Military Police Company ultimately faced charges for their role in the abuse at Abu Ghraib.

    Abu Ghraib, of course, is the reason Rumsfeld and Cambone bear the stigma of war criminal, even though they have yet to be prosecuted, much less convicted.  An earlier complaint lodged in Germany had been dismissed on the eve of Rumsfeld's trip to Munich.  By November 2006, though, the case was even stronger:  new evidence (including Brig. Gen. Karpinski's testimony), new plaintiffs, and a new German Federal Prosecutor.    

 The United States does not transport, and has not transported, detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation using torture. The United States does not use the airspace or the airports of any country for the purpose of transporting a detainee to a country where he or she will be tortured.

  So insisted Condoleeza Rice in December 2005 as she departed for Europe to appear before the EU's Committee on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transport and illegal detention of prisoners.  

    Not so, says the Committee.  The U.S. interprets the United Nations Convention against Torture far too strictly, especially the prohibition on any renditions that may lead to extradited prisoners being subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

   This week, the Committee announced the adoption of its lengthy report, along with recommendations that individual European countries pursue investigations and strictly regulate third countries' secret services' activities.  It urges closure of Guantanamo, with the return of European detainees to their respective countries. On February 13 the full European Parliament, 785 members directly elected by citizens of European Union States, will vote on the report.

  Two broad conclusions:
(1) The U.S. extraordinary rendition program contravenes established international human rights -- as well as the Treaty on European Union -- as it ensures suspects are not brought before a court but are transferred to third countries to be interrogated, where they could be tortured.

(2) Governments must cease the practice of attempting to limit their responsibilities by asking for diplomatic assurances from countries they will not torture the suspects.  
   

   European airspace and airports have been used by CIA front-companies in order to bypass the legal obligations for state aircraft... thus enabling persons suspected of terrorism to be transferred illegally to the custody of the CIA or the US military or to other countries (including Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Afghanistan) which frequently use torture during interrogations...

   At least 1245 flights operated by the CIA flew into European airspace or stopped at European airports 2001 - 2005, though not all were used for extraordinary rendition.  So many hundreds of flights through European airspace and airports could not have taken place without the knowledge -- and tacit rendition cooperation -- of the respective country's security service.  

   The Committee did meet with hostility within the EU.  Poland was the worst.  The Belgians were uncooperative. Austria sent only something written.  Current and former Secretaries-General of NATO, Lord Robertson and Jaap de Hoop Sheffer, refused to appear or provide access to the full text of the 2001 decision providing blanket over flight and landing clearances for US aircraft engaged in anti-terrorism operations.  

   
This month the President resubmitted 28 district and circuit judge nominations to the Senate. A few controversial names were abandoned.  The remainder, as selections from Mr. Screw-the-constitution, are worth eyeballing.  "Merit" has been redefined as "Do you promote the Bush Agenda?"

  The President's list doesn't shine to reflect the importance and power of federal judges.  I've grouped some of the district court nominations to make this easier to skim, saving the other nominations for future diaries.  

   NEW YORK

             Mary O. DONOHUE
  Seen as "lackluster and virtually anonymous," she has been opposed by Sen. Schumer. From 1999 - 2006 Donohue was Lt. Gov. under Gov. Pataki, who then appointed her to the bench in the state court of claims.  She bombed as Pataki's running mate.

 The specter of Donohue in charge of New York might be enough to prompt a statewide stampede to the Democrats. The Republicans added her to the ticket four years ago because she was blond and leggy ...

   Again, how has she earned a lifetime job as a judge?

        Roslynn Renee MAUSKOPF
   Another Pataki-follower, she was rated by the ABA merely as "qualified."  Her credentials were questioned when she was put up for U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn in 2002.  

 Pataki's inspector general since 1995, [she] would be the first U.S. attorney in Brooklyn without any credentials as a federal prosecutor in at least the last 30 years.

.    
   Her coziness with high-level Pataki aides and look-the-other-way reputation didn't help.  Neither did delaying the release of an audit of state architectural contracts to the governor's next-door neighbor and in-law until her nomination for U.S. Attorney was in trouble.  
   Another Republican wolf in judge's robes?

     You'd think Bush could find well-qualified candidates.  New York is big enough to have, oh, at least a few.  

      CONNECTICUT

        Vanessa Lynne BRYANT
    In a rare move, the ABA rated her not qualified.  She was a bond attorney before her eight years with the Connecticut superior court, principally in administrative positions.  She has no huge volume of written work to analyze.  The ABA team had interviewed 65 lawyers and judges, and spent over two hours interviewing Judge Bryant.  Judge Bryant is pleasant off the bench, but rigid in court business.  They heard a large number of adverse comments about (1) her judicial temperament ("arrogant and unreasonable" "rude to litigants" "impatient" "erratic" "ill-tempered") and (2) her competence ("opinions poorly done" "snap judgments" "lacks significant trial experience" "may not bother to do legal research").  

    Republican Connecticut Gov. Rell recommended her to President Bush, and the state's Attorney General testified on her behalf before the Senate Judiciary Committee.  Senators Dodd and Lieberman supported her.  

Bryant would be the first black woman named as a federal judge in New England.

    How can Judge Bryant still have so much juice if she is so unqualified?  Could it be her husband, Tracy L. Rich, Executive V. P. and General Counsel of the Phoenix Companies?  Mr. Rich was appointed by Gov. Rell to the Connecticut Ethics Commission.  

    That Judge Bryant hasn't asked to withdraw her name is testament to an enormous ego.  She embarrasses everyone. Shame on Governor Rell.

        INDIANA  

      Joseph S. VAN BOKKELEN
     Sen. Lugar is promoting him.

  As U.S. Attorney, Van Bokkelen has built a reputation for leading a string of high-profile public corruption cases, as well as a steady stream of gun, drug and gang prosecutions.

   Picayune public corruption cases can be high profile on slow news days.  The man is 64.  His appointment has been seen as reward for "tenacious pursuit" of Lake County Democrats.

 Doesn't matter about qualifications; this is little more than a payback.  It all makes you wonder about the GOP philosophy of filling the courts with young Republicans to have an impact on the direction of the federal judiciary for decades to come. ... makes Republican criticism of Lake County Democrats giving jobs to campaign workers pale in comparison.

 

    Again, military tribunals are up against the Nuremberg principles -- refuse to obey orders to commit war crimes.  Again, they prefer to throw the book at an officer to make an example, rather than rise to the challenge.

   Watada - Iraq
   First Lieutenant Lt. Ehren Watada, from Hawaii, publicly criticized Bush and called the Iraq conflict illegal, refusing to accompany his Stryker brigade in June.  He will be court-martialed next month in Fort Lewis, WA, for missing a troop movement and conduct unbecoming an officer.  

    A military judge has ruled that Watada's "illegal war" defense is a political question outside the authority of a military court to consider.

 Watada's lawyer said the ruling guaranteed a conviction on the charge of missing a troop movement and would make it hard to defend Watada against four charges of conduct unbecoming an officer, based on the officer's public statements.

   Levy - Vietnam
   In the Vietnam era, among soldiers of conscience the most prominent was Capt. Howard Brett Levy, M.D. This is his story.

    Upon completion of his medical training in Brooklyn, dermatologist Howard Levy was driven by the draft into the Army while Vietnam was escalating.  He was sent to Fort Jackson, SC, where he ran a clinic.  While there, he helped out in neighboring counties in the Black voter registration drive.  

    The Yankee's voter-registration activities angered white Southerners in the Army.  He was flagged.  
 

 At some point the Army assigned some Green Beret guys to me and I was supposed to train them in some aspect of dermatology.  I did that for a number of months... The more I got to know them, the more upsetting some of their stories became.  ... I said, "I don't really want you in the clinic, so let's not make a big fuss about it, but I want you to leave." And they did.  Each month a new guy would come and I'd give him the same spiel.  That went on for a number of months.

 
   It violated Dr. Levy's medical ethics to train soldiers to use medicine as another propaganda tool, a reward for friendliness from Vietnamese villagers.  

 That strikes me as illegitimate because it can be taken away as easily as it can be given.

    More on the ethical dilemmas of medical personnel in the military here.

    Charged
    In 1966, when he had only another two or three months in the Army, he was charged with (1) promoting "disloyalty and disaffection" among soldiers -- for encouraging Black soldiers to refuse to serve in Vietnam because it was a racist war, and (2) for refusing to obey a written order to teach dermatology to Green Berets.

   Not one to break with his tradition of appointing old-timers from other Republican administrations, Bush is reportedly replacing White House counsel, Helen Miers, with a man who held that position under Reagan. If Bush hopes to resist the subpoenas expected from dirt-digging Democrats, why Fred Fielding?  This stands out:

• When he was White House counsel one of his assistants was John Roberts, now the Supreme Court's Chief Justice.
• He was Chief Deputy counsel for John Dean, in that subpoena-filled era called Watergate.
• He does a lot of white collar crisis management counseling, negotiating, and large-scale problem solving.
• He has an impressive background as a Washington business litigator and legal strategy counsel in government affairs and white collar defense.  That includes those pesky congressional investigations.

    Reagan wrote him warmly when he resigned.  

  At times of crisis, yours was a voice of calm and reason. Your intellect, skill, and tact mixed with warm personal qualities of compassion and good humor....

   If I were sporting Bush's Stetson, I'd have wooed Fred Fielding into the White House the day Bush's nervousness over intelligence committees was belied by his foot in mouth disease:  

 I'd rather have them sacrificing on behalf of our nation than, you know, endless hours of testimony on congressional hill.

   The new White House counsel must have moved in.  That's the President saying Bring them on.

 

   Is our Defense Department simply unwilling or is it incapable of proper contract management?  Did it know that multiple tiers of Halliburton subcontractors added exorbitant overhead fees?  Follow the sleuthing of Henry Waxman and the committee he chairs, Oversight and Government Reform.  

   In Iraq and other deployed locations contractors provide billions of dollars worth of services each year and play a role in most aspects of military operations.  Last month the GAO issued another report giving Defense a D, "High Level DOD Action Needed to Address Long-standing Problems with Management and Oversight of Contractors".

   Past reports of enormous waste and the potential for fraud prompted recommendations that Defense establish clear accountability and authority to coordinate actions over contractor support.  DOD agreed but stalled. Interviews yielded many examples, a few among them:

•  The Air Force has about 500 civilians deployed to Iraq, but could not readily identify how many were contractor personnel and how many were DOD
•   the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense was unaware of its responsibility to develop and implement procedures for counterintelligence and security screenings of contractors
•  A battalion commander from a Stryker brigade said he was unable to determine the number of contractor-provided interpreters available for his unit
•  Contracting officials at U.S. Central Command said they do not maintain centralized information on contractor support in their area

    Henry Waxman's office has collected information on government contractor fraud and waste for years.  Following the issuance of this GAO report, he sent a letter to the general in charge of U.S. Army Materiel, requesting a briefing on the report's conclusions as related to Halliburton.  He cited the history of inflated costs of dining halls for contractors:  Halliburton and its subcontractors supply free meals for people who receive per diem food allowances.  The Army estimates it loses $43 Million every year on this.  

    Halliburton deserves a colonoscopy.  The story is outlined in a readable December 2006 letter to Rumsfeld.  A Halliburton subcontractor, ESS, operated in Iraq as a dining facility subcontractor.  Apparently, it used Blackwater USA for armed security. Blackwater received a reported markup of 36% on each employee paid $650 a day.  Additional costs include $1200 a day for hotel room (another 100% markup).  Blackwater's vice president refused to provide documents as promised;  his testimony contradicted the terms of his firm's contract.  

   Meanwhile, the Army denied knowing of any such arrangement.  Its contract with Halliburton prohibited it.

    In probing for the multiple layers of overhead caused by contract tiers, Rep. Waxman is pressing the Army to account for payments for Blackwater services to all defense subcontractors.

... the Defense Department still lacks a basic understanding of these contractor activities and their effect on the prices paid by the U.S. taxpayer.

   The money sponge, Iraq, having filtered funds to and from various budgets, is hard to squeeze dry fast enough to employ defunding the war as an efficient means to get us out.  Barney Frank, new chair of the House Financial Services Committee, explained more to Keith Olbermann this week:

OLBERMANN: ... Are you fearful that if you were to cut the money off, if you were to actually refuse to bankroll it, as a Congress, that ... there`d still be money spent to send them there...

FRANK:  Well, that`s the problem.  It could be spent.  The fact is that the Pentagon budget could -- other money could be taken from other purposes and spend it.  ... We've already voted for the defense budget for the year.

He already has hundreds of billions of dollars legally in his possession to spend.  So there is, in fact, no way, I think, to cut off the money, unless we were to pass a law [that said, None of the money that we`re voting can be used for this] and he would veto it.  So we are frustrated in that extent.

    With no line item veto, Congress may still hold open our wallet for one supplemental budget after another.  For the FY 2007 supplemental budget, creative accounting came to the Pentagon. It redefined "emergency."  The recently submitted $99.7 Billion emergency supplemental budget extends beyond such traditional war costs as replacing what was lost in Iraq and Afghanistan, to the "overall efforts related to the global war on terror."  Among requests normally funded through the regular budget:

• money for future weaponry such as two Lockheed-Martin Joint Strike Fighter planes
• $2.52 Billion for research and development
• $3.04 billion for new and repaired aircraft for the Navy (likely to be pressed to cut billions of dollars in aircraft purchases in the regular budget, since it wants a $10 billion "next-generation" aircraft carrier)

"It's a feeding frenzy," says an army official involved in budget planning. "Using the supplemental budget, we're now buying the military we wish we had," he says...

Hanukah begins this coming Saturday, so I thought I'd post a poem I learned in the 1970's, the author unnamed.  I found it posted here here, here and here among other places, words varying a bit, sometimes with more English.  Before reading, know the location of your nearest deli.  

  Twas the night before Chanukah, boychiks and maidels,
Not a sound could be heard, not even the dreidels.
The menorah was set by the chimney alight,
In the kitchen the Bubba hut gechapt a bite.

Salami, pastrami, a gleisaele tay,
And zoyreh pickles mit bagels, oy vay!
Gesundt and geschmacht, the kinderlach felt,
While dreaming of taiglach and Chanukah gelt.

The alarm clock was sittin', akloppen and tickin',
And Bubba was carving a shtickeleh chicken.
A tummel arose like a thousand Boruchas,
Santa had fallen and broken his tuchas.

I put on my slippers -- ein, zwei, drei,
While Bubba was now on the herring and rye.
I grabbed for my robe and buttoned my gotkes,
Now Bubba had almost devoured the latkes.

To the window I ran and to my surprise,
A little red yamulke greeted my eyes.
When he got to the door and saw the menorah,
"Yiddishe kinder," he said, "Kinehora.
"I thought I was in a hamishe hoise,
"As long as I'm here, I'll leave you some toys."

"Come into the kitchen," I said. "Here's a dish,
A guppell, a leffel, a shtickele fish."

With smacks of delight, he started his fressen,
Chopped liver, knaidlech and kreplach ge-essen.
Along with his meal, he had a few schnapps;
When it came to eating, this boy was tops!

He asked for some knishes with pepper and salt,
But they were so hot, he yelled, "Oy gevalt!"
He buttoned his haysen and ran from the tish.
"Your kosherer essen is simply delish."

As he went through the door, he said "See you all later.
"I'll be back next Pesach, in time for the seder."

More rapid than eagles his prancers they came,
As he whistled and shouted and called them by name:
"Now Izzy, now Morris, now Louie and Sammy?
"On Irving, on Maxie and Hymie! and Manny?"
He gave a geshray as he drove out of sight,
"A Gutt Yontiff to all, and to all a good night."

     The Navy just broke off its engagement of several months to the delightful San Francisco, dumping it for San Diego for the commission of its newest and most powerful warship, the Makin Island, now under construction in Mississippi.  Navy Secretary Donald Winter nixed the plan.

   A fancy commissioning ceremony committee, co-chaired by Schultz, Perry, Bechtel, and Feinstein, had been organizing an elaborate program for the summer of 2008 when the officers and crew formally take charge of the vessel.  The Navy's b.s. reason conveyed to the Chair, Retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. J. Michael Myatt, was an impression that San Francisco is "anti-military."  Its factual support is too shallow to float a bar of soap:  (1) the city's refusal to provide a homeport for the Iowa to become a museum, (2) the school board's cutting Junior ROTC training, and (3) a politician's remarks.

    Myatt reacted diplomatically.

There are lots of veterans living here...One in every nine members of the military now serving come from California. These people in Washington don't understand.

    The Navy has a following in the San Francisco area.  Every year, the Blue Angels draw crowds in Fleet Week.  A local company recently won a $2.5 Million contract from the Navy for software to train Surface Warfare Officers in simulators. Naval Station Treasure Island, a major facility since World War II, was closed in 1997.  Moffett Field was closed as a base in 1994 and turned over to NASA.

    Activity continues, though, northeast of San Francisco.  At Suisun Bay floats the Mothball Fleet, about 78 cargo ships, tankers, victory ships, missile cruisers, barges, and tugboats, most of them  maintained for possible future use in another career. The Coast Guard and the Marines use them for practice, e.g., firefighting.  

    We know what people in Washington do understand:   San Francisco is overwhelmingly Democratic and San Diego is Republican. That's it. Oh.  And San Diego is home for a huge chunk of the Navy Secretary's former company.

    Navy Secretary Donald Winter is no mustang captain.  Sworn into office in January 2006,  Winter, who has a doctorate in physics, came from the executive offices of Northrop Grumman's Mission Systems sector. Northrop Grumman is one of San Diego's largest defense contractors, with over 4,000 employees in seven corporate sectors located there.  

    In November Northrop Grumman received a contract from the Navy to supply lightweight, laser target designators (which determine the distance to a target and place precision guided munitions on an exact position).   This week, the Navy announced the award of a $40.3 Million contract modification to Northrop Grumman, for continued work by the Electronic Systems-Marine Systems unit on the Navy's fleet ballistic missile program. "If all options are exercised, the contract could be worth up to $139.2 million."  Good news for some:  shares of Northrop went up sixteen cents.

    Isn't Northrop Grumman getting enough?  The Navy doesn't deserve such micromanagement with divisive politics.  Send the guy to Suisun Bay and park him alongside a Liberty Ship.  

     

   The audit is only a beginning.  A second round of testing on five of Sarasota's machines produced similar results -- using the same protocol -- so, the official okay was not unexpected.  

    It failed to explain the 18,000 undervotes. Christine Jennings' campaign is undeterred. They will pursue the lawsuit to overturn the election results, calling for a thorough and independent audit of the machines.

   Bloggers have donated $48,000 -- more than the candidate raised in her own online fundraising pleas, reported the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.  

[Buchanan's campaign spokeswoman] said the bloggers supporting Jennings are just another example of "liberal outside interest groups" taking over her campaign.

    The undervoting was not evenly spread, but occurred in certain precincts, as I read the Complaint of local voters filed November 21, 2006 in Leon County, Florida.

The congressional undervote rate in Precinct 153 was 38%, meaning that no vote was recorded for more than one in every three voters who cast votes in the U.S. Senate and Governor's races that appeared on the ballot immediately before and after the congressional race.

 
   The ES & S iVotronic machines also produced high undervoting results outside the congressional 13th (Jennings v. Buchanan) district.  For the State Attorney General race, Sumter and Lee counties had undervote rates of 21% and 22%.

   The plaintiffs' experiences varied.  Some saw their "x" register when they marked it, but the box in the summary screen was unmarked, with no text warning. Others did not see the congressional ballot until they reached the summary screen, and they voted at the summary screen -- something which should not have been possible if the iVotronic worked properly.
   

In a November 2, 2006 e-mail response to several complainants... who had offered detailed descriptions of the voting machine irregularities they had encountered in early voting [defendant Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent] was dismissive of the reports.  Her concluding words were:
   With election Day almost upon us, I hope we can stop looking for ways to disrupt the process and disenfranchise voters.... The political strategy of attacking the process has become so vicious that it is destroying the very process that makes it possible to have confidence in the electoral process.

    One Sarasota columnist, Tom Lyons, still criticizes the Division of Elections for its confidence that voters, and not the machines, were to blame.    

  They know the severe limitations of their attempts to uncover malfunctions on touch-screen voting machines after an election. ...
    The state's experts know that even if there was a glitch on Election Day, it was darned unlikely that their tests had revealed it, and totally likely that the test team had just messed up again.

    Read case files, video links, and more in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune's webpage on the disputed election.  

    The link to the map showing how precincts in the district voted is especially interesting. In fewer than ten precincts the undervote was over 25%.  I sense a correlation between old age or neighborhood and suspect precinct machines.  

    Precinct 153, described in the Complaint, is near a community center precinct, also site of more substantial undervoting.  In ten precincts with undervoting of at least 20%, seven were located in mobile home parks or retirement communities -- including the place where my mother lives along with a couple of hundred of other octogenarians. Four of these were in the same neighborhood just north of Northport.