“Mugsy’s Rap Sheet”

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- Mugsy

Yesterday I received my “stimulus check” from the Federal Government. Having a low Social Security number and Direct Deposit, I was among the first to receive my check from the government. My first purchase: a full tank of gas.

Since I work from home, I’ve been noticeably absent from my blog as of late, shirking my blogging duties as I concentrate on other projects. This has kept me home quite a bit over the past few weeks. And because I work from home, this saves me a lot of driving and a lot of money on gas. But “money” and I don’t see a lot of each other, forcing me to economize whenever and wherever possible. That means stretching out a tank of gas for as long as I possibly can with fewer unnecessary trips. The last time I filled up my gas tank, a mere 6 weeks ago, I was upset that the price of gas had shot up overnight an extra ten cents a gallon to $2.69. Had I of bought gas the day before, I would of saved a couple of bucks.

Because of my meager income, I try to put off buying gas for as long as I possibly can, hoping that at some point, prices may dip a few cents some week. But I always fill up. I can’t understand people who “only buy a few gallons” or “fill up when they hit just half a tank” hoping against hope that the price of gas will come down before the next fill up. This is just stupid in my eyes because 99 out of 100 times, the price of gas goes up, not down. And if you buy gas more often that you need to, you are ensuring that you always buy gas at the highest current price. While $2.69 seemed like highway robbery at the time, I was awfully glad I filled up at the time when the price of Regular Unleaded hit a national average of $3.51 a gallon 9 days ago:  

…and another nine more cents just six days later:  

Did you know the gas pump “dings” when you hit the $50 mark? I didn’t until yesterday.

As I’m filling up at the pump, the same thought wouldn’t leave my mind: “They might as well of just cut these checks straight to the oil companies because that’s exactly where they are all going.” The irony is that it is the high price of fuel that has caused the current economic crisis, and the bulk of the “stimulus” funds will be eaten up by increased costs due to high fuel prices.

I have a Conservative friend (by Texas law, I must have at least two) that I’ve known since high school. Back in 2004 (I believe), I was angry that gas prices had breached $2/gal. He responded with his usual Conservative “pro-corporate” indignance: “You Liberals all think: gas prices are high (ergo) the oil companies must be making a killing.” His thinking was obviously that the high price of oil was hurting the oil companies too, cutting into their profit margins. I responded that the last time I checked, it didn’t cost them any more to pump the oil out of the ground just because oil prices go up.” It wasn’t a week later before the news reported for the first time that Exxon had record profits that quarter, so high that they had surpassed G.E. as the richest corporation on the planet. I’ve never let him forget it, and now every time they announces record profits in the oil industry, I throw it back in his face (as any good friend would) as an example of how Conservatives can be so sure of themselves and get extremely indignant over things they “believe to be true” when the facts and evidence are often 180^o opposite.

More and more often, I find myself thinking about the Summer of 2000, Clinton’s final year in office. As Texas Governor George W. Bush and his VP-nominee were talking the economy into a recession at nearly every campaign stop (”The economy isn’t as good as they say.” he kept repeating over and over until it became a self-fulfilling prophecy), long-haul truckers across the country were threatening to go on strike when the price of diesel rose 20cents in just four months to the unbearable price of $1.49/gal. In June of 2000, the governor was telling everyone that if he were President, he’d tell OPEC to “open up the spigot” to increase the oil supply and bring gas prices down from the unbearable price of $1.46/gal, up $0.29 from $1.17/gal the year before.

My earliest memory of gas prices was in 1979 when President Jimmy Carter tried to switch an unwilling country over to the “Metric System” and gas stations were required to list the price of fuel in liters instead of gallons. I remember the commotion when gas prices fell from $0.79/gal to $0.21/ltr literally over night. Seeing that low number still sticks in my memory to this day. As Carter correctly pointed out, continuing to use the old “standard” system while the rest of the world went metric was costing the U.S. economy billions every year, mostly from having to produce things likes nuts & bolts in two different formats, one for us and one for the rest of the world. Different labeling, different pricing, and just adding to the cost of doing business overseas. Interestingly enough, the only remnant of Carter’s metric push: the 2-liter soda bottle. Before that, I remember buying Coke in giant 32oz glass Coke bottles. For some odd reason, no one ever complained about only being able to buy soda by the liter… but gasoline, never!

In 1996, just prior to Bill Clinton’s re-election, gas prices briefly fell to just $0.99/gal locally, down from the normal price of about $1.10. Think about that. From Carter to Clinton, 1979 to 1996, in 17 years, the price of gasoline had risen a mere $0.30 (with fluctuations in between, maybe as much as $0.50 at any one point.) When George Bush became President in 2001, the price of Regular Unleaded gasoline was $1.43/gal (up apx 30cents in four years). A mere three months later, with two Texas oilmen now in office, the “National Average” price of gasoline “soared” $0.19 cents to $1.62/gal. This was BEFORE 9/11, so you Bush apologists, don’t waste my time with your stale “9/11 changed everything” defense, and AFTER Governor George Bush said “as President” he’d tell OPEC to “open the spigot” in order to to bring down gas prices from the lofty high of $1.49/gal.

In the 7 years since George Bush became President, the price of gasoline has risen 252% from a “National Average” of $1.43/gal in April of 2001 to $3.60 today. And only NOW as the price of diesel broke the $4/gal threshold, have truckers threatened to go on strike in protest of high fuel prices.

I have no answers, only questions. Why is it when a Democrat is in office, a 30cent rise in fuel prices is worth striking over; a stock market that grew from just under 340% (3,500 points to 11,723 at the start of the 2000 Presidential campaign) was derided with “the economy isn’t as good as they say it is” and helps get a Republican elected President, but a 252% rise in fuel prices in seven years, a stock market that has risen barely 21% in seven years, despite not one but two recessions, and a home mortgage market in meltdown, a Republican candidate for President can describe the economy as “strong” and still be considered a serious candidate for President?

If you have the answer, you are wiser than I.

(Postscript: “Crooks & Liars” started a great thread yesterday reminding everyone how the price of gasoline magically fell $0.80 just in time for the 2006 election.)

(ThinkProgress: RNC Celebrates Windfall For Oil Companies.)

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- Mugsy

This was a busy week for the Giant Rubber Room we call Washington. The Supreme Court decided that the day of the first Papal visit in 27 years… which happened to fall on the Pope’s 81st birthday… was the perfect day to reinstate the Death Penalty that the church so opposes. Couldn’t wait another 24 hours to starting killing people again, guys? Oil hit a record $117 a barrel and three airlines declared bankruptcy because of it. The Media-Meat Grinder decided that in a time of war, with record high gasoline & oil prices pushing the economy towards recession, employment hitting record lows, home foreclosures rising at an alarming rate and financial companies asking for multi-billion dollar bailouts, the pin-heads at ABC News decided that the most pressing question on peoples minds was “why doesn’t Barack Obama wear a flag pin?” Sigh.

So shifting focus for a moment, a Conservative visitor to one of BI30’s YouTube videos (”Senate investigation finds no Iraq/al Qaeda link EITHER“) reported the findings of a Pentagon contracted November, 2007 report (summary) by the “Institute for Defense Analysis” citing documented ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. At first glance, the report looks quite damning:

• “600,000 recovered documents” and “several thousand hours of audio & video” following the 2003 invasion of Iraq reveal Saddam armed and trained terrorist groups to target enemies of Iraq.
• State sponsorship of terrorism became such a routine tool of state power that Iraq developed elaborate bureaucratic processes to monitor progress and accountability in the recruiting, training, and resourcing of terrorists. (I was already aware of this item.)
• Saddam kept “Weapon caches in overseas embassies”.
• Recovered documents show Saddam held a high-level meetings on August 5th and September 2nd of 2001 regarding “recruiting suicide bombers”, including members of al-Qaeda, that would “write volunteer statements, preferably in blood.”
• In 1999, Saddam’s Fedayeen trained suicide bombers to launch bombings and assassinations inside London as part of a plot code-named “Blessed July”.

Wow. Damning stuff. And if I didn’t read one more word or were provided any more detail, I might be inclined to believe that maybe, just maybe, the Bush Administration had some justification in invading Iraq. A Google search produced MANY links referencing the IDA Report in defense of the Bush Administrations’ decision to go to war, but none examining the report and coming to the opposite conclusion. “Maybe there’s something to it?“, I mussed.

Of course, most obvious is that if this report really had uncovered information all but exonerating the Bush Administrations’ justifications for invading Iraq, why haven’t we heard the Bush Administration crowing about it, pointing to it at every opportunity in defense of their decision to invade Iraq?

Questions in hand, I promised our YouTube friend that I would read the report before coming to any conclusions. The full report is said to be several hundred pages, but the Executive Summary linked to above is a more concise 94 (closer to about 60 once you cull the blank pages, index and endnotes). So I started reading and taking notes.

The very first claim I was most interested in was the “links between Saddam and al Qaeda“, a most dubious claim, principal among the Bush Administrations justifications for preemptively invading Iraq, because it has also been well documented that the two groups were bitter enemies and not allies. So I searched the PDF for the word “Qaeda”. The first result states:

This study found no “smoking gun” (i.e., direct connection) between Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaeda.

It does go on to suggest:

Some in the regime recognized the potential high internal and external costs of maintaining relationships with radical Islamic groups, yet they concluded that in some cases, the benefits of association outweighed the risks.

The impetus for this extremely limited collaboration: the imminent invasion of Iraq by mutual enemy, the United States. Ironically, George Bush’s invasion of Iraq may have provoked the very collaboration the Bush Administration said invading would prevent.

While reading the IDA report, it is important to keep in mind exactly whom the targets of Saddam’s terrorist activities were: primarily expatriated Kurd’s and Iran. The report also cites no examples whatsoever of Iraq procuring nor using chemical or biological weapons in any form. Iraq’s weapon of choice: bombs. Conventional incendiary devices.

All examples citing Saddam’s animosity towards the United State are “retaliatory”, following threats by the U.S.. The first recorded expression of this in the IDA report is just prior to the 1991 Gulf War (pg 45), where the U.S. threatened to respond should Iraq invade Kuwait. The majority of “pan-Arab” terrorist activities conducted by Iraq were against other Arabs and those whom threated the reign of Saddam as ruler of Iraq. There are no examples of Saddam threatening “unprovoked” attacks against the United States, clearly indicating that the object of all his terrorist activities were simply to remain in power.

It is reasonably clear from the report that Saddam was not interested in drawing the wrath of the United States down upon him. His sole concern was holding on to power, which meant going after groups that threated his Presidency. On those few occasions when… as a result of U.S. threats… aiding an opposition group against their common enemy was desirable, he was still extremely cautious, documenting in detail (pg ES-2) just what type of aid and how much was actually given, to avoid having that group then use that aid against him.

By the time I finished the Summary and reached Pg. 1, it was already clear that Saddam only used “terror organizations” against the Kurds & Iran… threats to his Presidency, and not a threat to the United States so long as we did not threaten his Presidency (note again the above observation that it was the threat of an invasion by the U.S. that initiated any contact between Saddam and al Qaeda at all, and even those were inconsequential). The suggestion by the Bush Administration that Saddam might initiate another “9/11 type attack” is unfounded because there would be nothing for Saddam to gain by drawing the wrath of the U.S.. This is evidenced by his willingness to allow weapons inspectors back into Iraq in late 2002 and the dismantling of al Samoud missiles in early 2003, all in an attempt to appease the United States so he could retain power.

On the question whether Saddam might “inadvertently” have provided a terrorist group like al Qaeda with weapons/training that could then be used against the U.S., one must keep in mind that Saddam never entrusted al Qaeda with any weapons or training that they could then turn around and use against him.

Now, thinking outside of the IDA report, connect what the report actually says… training/construction assistance in “car bombs“ and “explosive vests“ to be used against anyone that threatened the reign of Saddam Hussein, to the Bush Administrations’ pre-war claims of:

“25,000 liters of anthrax, materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent [...] upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents, several mobile biological weapons labs.” [...] “the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

It would seem clear that the threat from Saddam Hussein was greatly exaggerated. Possession of such items suggests a regime seeking a conflict with the United States, when the IDA report clearly demonstrates that is the last thing he wanted.

There was a phrase in the report that piqued my interest: “Weapon caches in overseas embassies”. Every mention in the report simply acknowledges their existence yet provide no detail. As it is unlikely Saddam stockpiled those “tons of chemical weapons” in foreign embassies (and the report certainly never makes that claim), it is likely the weapons being referred to were conventional firearms such as handguns and rifles “in excess of weapons required for embassy security” (pg 4). Without more detail, this is only speculation. I find it interesting that we appear to know the existence of these weapons, but no record of their seizure following the fall of Baghdad. I mean, how is it we know about these weapons but apparently no one has gone in, confiscated them, and provided a full accounting of what was there? For more than a year, Iraq had no sovereign government to deny anyone access to those embassies. And someone MUST of had access enough to confirm the weapons were there, so how come we don’t know how many and of what type? The report never says (at least the 94-page summary never says).

In 1999, Saddam tasked his Fedayeen to plot an offensive dubbed “Blessed July”, targeting Kurd’s living outside of Iraq, including London. Fedayeen training camps were reused to “train terrorists for assignment in London” (pg 1) targeting “Kurdish areas” [...] “targets for this operation were most likely Iraqi exiles”, not Londoners in general. Note: “it remains unclear to this day if any parts of this specific plan were ever executed.” A quick date-restricted Google News search between 1999 & 2000 for any report of Kurds being bombed or attacked “in London” turned up nothing. Included in Saddam’s “Blessed July” plot: “hostile agent Ahmad Chalabi”… you remember Chalibi… the Iraqi exile that convinced a willing Bush Administration that he had “documented evidence” of Saddam’s vast WMD stockpiles and burgeoning nuclear programs… documents which he never produced.

Regarding documentation of “the production, testing, and delivery of a sophisticated car bomb using military-grade explosives” described on pages 4-5, keep in mind that the targets of these bombs were Kurds and other Arab enemies of Iraq, not Americans. Since al Qaeda was not concerned with targeting Kurds, it is unlikely, considering Saddam’s hyper-sensitivity towards al Qaeda, that he ever provided them with this sort of training. And again, remember that no such attack ever took place in the UK.

On pages 7-8, the IDA report reveals Saddam’s increasing support for “suicide attacks”, producing a letter showing “organizations within the regime were already considering the use of suicide terrorism in the fall of 2001.” Anyone that might draw a connection between this and 9/11 is talking nonsense. The planning for 9/11 had been in the works for at least 18-months (perhaps years) by that time, and flies in the face of the report’s own acknowledgment of Saddam’s reluctance to aid al Qaeda, with “no collaborative ties” ever being found. Also keep in mind that the uncovered document is a continuation of Saddam’s Kurdish offensive.

Moving on to later pages, the report cites Saddam’s training of Arab militants as early as 1981 (pg. 15), but for what purpose, the report never says. It does say that training was still taking place before the 1991 Gulf War (presumably to fend off a U.S. defense of Kuwait).

Between the years of 1991 and 1999, the report shows a number of extra-Iraq (outside Iraq) plans by Saddam’s Fedayeen Army:

• In 1992, Saddam sought a retaliatory strike against Egypt for its assisting the U.S. during the ‘91 Gulf War. (pg 16)
• In June of ‘92, Saddam ordered no less than 212 operations against the Kurds in Northern Iraq, which became the impetus for the UN decreed “No fly zones”.
• A 1993 document (pg 17) speaks of Iraq training Sudanese fighters inside Iraq to be followed by opening a training camp for Sudanese insurgents inside Sudan after the U.S. became involved in the Somali Civil War (Sudan is the Western region of Somalia). Weapons listed that were to be supplied to the Sudanese: conventional arms: rifles & pistols.
• Saddam tried to inject himself into the 1993 World Trade Center bombing controversy after the fact, expressing doubt that Abdul Rahman (”the blind sheik”) was even capable of organizing something so elaborate on his own without any outside help, but wanted to know if he had because “it would be a big bonus for the Arabs…” if he had (pg 43)
• In 1995, Saddam tasked an IIS (Iraqi Intelligence Service) agent “to kill two Swedish journalists by blowing up their car with two sticks of dynamite”. While the report does not state where or why, the suggestion appears to be that they were in Iraq at the time. Without going into too much detail, the plot failed due to colossal incompetence (pg 32).
• Saddam’s Fedayeen Army actively recruited thousands of foreign fighters between 1990 and 2003, mostly from Saudi Arabia, to fight in the Iraqi army. Other than that, there are no substantial reports of Iraqi military operations between 1995 and the planning of the “Blessed July” offensive against the Kurds in 1999, prompted as a retaliation against U.S. imposed sanctions against Iraq (Saddam believed he could bargain-down the sanctions if he threatened the Kurds we were protecting behind our No Fly Zone).

Summarizing a 90 page summary of a 400 page report takes some doing, but one point is clear, that at no time did Saddam ever posses the desire, means nor capability of threatening the United States, and viewed groups like al Qaeda to be too great of a threat to his own rule to entrust with any substantial support that could then be turned against him. His weapons were limited to conventional firearms and “dumb missiles” like SCUDs and al Samoud rockets with no navigation and minimal payloads, none of which were prohibited under the terms of his 1991 surrender (the UN ordered Iraq’s al Samoud missiles destroyed in 2003 upon discovery they had been modified to exceed their maximum travel distance to within reach of Israel.)

The IDA report does dispel (yes, that’s the correct spelling) the common misconception that Saddam was not engaged in “any” terrorist activity between 1992 and 2003, or that Iraq “never” contacted al Qaeda, though it is clear that none of these activities were related to instigating an unprovoked attack against the United States, nor any of the other justificatios given for invading Iraq on the grounds of it being an “imminent threat” to the security of the United States.

I’ll try to get to some lighter fare next week. Promise.

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- Mugsy

Websters dictionary defines “paranoid” as “characterized by suspiciousness, and an overwhelming sense of persecution.”

On last Friday’s NBC’s Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams interviewed John McCain, where he gave a speech at the 40th anniversary vigil of Martin Luther King Jr. outside the former Lorraine Motel where King was murdered. A speech was being delivered behind them on the loudspeaker that all but drowned out the interview (I’ll be including the segment in a future video):

Williams explained that they were promised a quiet remembrance would be taking place during the interview, but instead, they found themselves competing with a impassioned speech before a boisterous crowd. In the days before, NBC interviewed Clinton and Obama in nice quiet rooms where you could hear every word. Republican viewers were quick to notice, and NBC received so much angry email over the McCain interview that Williams was forced to respond on air the following Monday:

“UNFAIR! You allowed Senators Clinton and Obama to give an intelligible speech on your program while having Senator McCain drowned out by noise so no one could hear him. BIAS!”

“This is another example of the liberal media in our face. I shall find my news elsewhere — not on NBC.”

So I’m listening to this nonsense, and it had me thinking once again about my frequent observation that “Conservatism is a mental disorder“. I’ve never seen any group of people with such a deep…and totally baseless… inferiority complex as Conservative Republicans. They see biases where none exist. The world is out to get them. It’s “right-thinking” them against the “permissive Librul” world that wants everyone to smoke pot and have lesbians pass out condoms to 2nd graders.

Here are my Top Ten things Conservative Republicans are scared to death of:

1. First, it was Communism. Ronald Reagan is their hero from saving us from “the Godless Commies!”
2. Today, it’s terrorists… namely fighting them in Baghdad so we don’t have to fight them on the mean streets of Gary, Indiana.
3. Iran, they want to give nuclear bombs to Osama bin Laden. The fact Iran is Shi’ite and al Qaeda is Sunni… the “Hatfield’s & McCoy’s” of the Middle East… is of no concern to them. Them A’rabs all stick together, ya’know. And beware, because you know Barack Osama is a secret Muslim. Don’t let the hysteria over the rantings of his Christian Minister for the past twenty years fool you!
4. The “liberul media”… the one that refuses to tell us about all the “good” happening in Iraq… like Fox does (actually, Fox doesn’t; covering Iraq less than any other network.)
5. Mexicans… illegal immigrants especially, causing crime, stealing our jobs, signing up for welfare & food stamps (note: they take our jobs AND apply for welfare), and, worst of all, refuse to speak English. They want to turn America into another Mexico.
6. The Gays and their “Gay Agenda”: to lure your children into the homosexual lifestyle… an abomination in the face of God. Allowing gays to marry belittles the institution of marriage. However, Britney Spears getting married & divorced in a 24 hour period apparently doesn’t.
7. Oh, and there’s a “War on Christmas“, too! If the 18 year old sales-girl can’t tell if you’re Jewish, Muslim or Catholic, and dare use the generic “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” to avoid offending customers, it’s because the company told her to in order to push their “Liberal secularist agenda” upon poor oppressed God-fearing Christians.
8. “Socialized Medicine” - cut-rate medical care brought to you by the people that gave us the DMV.
9. Hysteria over “Global Warming” will bankrupt American businesses with all the costly new regulations they’ll be forced to pay for. Millions of jobs will be lost as coal, oil and gasoline industries are abolished overnight. If the “Libruls” have their way, we’ll all be lighting our homes with solar powered flashlights.
10. Having their guns taken away… probably the closest thing panic-stricken Conservative have to a Security blanket. When you live in constant fear of the outside world, having more guns than Cheeto crumbs in your beard is an absolute must.

These same Conservatives that once told us never to trust the Federal Government, now allow them to wiretap our phones and search our homes without a warrant, arrest American citizens without due process, and engage in “Nation Building” (once synonymous with “Democratic President”) at a cost of $356 million dollars a day.

PLEASE! PROTECT ME FROM THE EVIL-DOERS! TAP MY PHONES! READ MY MAIL! WHATEVER YOU WANT! JUST DON’T TAKE MY GUNS AWAY!

Liberals & Progressives believe that people are basically good. That restrictions should be placed on corporations so that they don’t infringe on the rights of people.

Conservatives believe the exact opposite: that people are, at their core, evil, and left unchecked, will commit evil… and when it comes to Republicans, maybe they have a point. When the Republicans controlled Congress, they allowed President Bush unchecked power, signing statements that circumvented the very bills he was signing into law, his Administration crafted The Patriot Act, that gave the President unheard of unconstitutional power; to tap our phones without a warrant and even arrest an American citizen and hold them for years without charge, never even seeing a lawyer. Conservatives therefore believe in mechanized “systems”… like “Capitalism” and “the free market”… that on their own with no human interference, will always end up producing the desired outcome.

People are “evil”, but companies simply do what the free market asks of them with no agenda of their own. Saddam = person = evil. Contractors in Iraq = “free enterprise” = pure capitalism with no agenda of their own except to make a profit, and therefore, “good”. Conservatives believe it is “people” who must be regulated, not corporations.

This also helps explain why “religion” is such a big part of the Republican platform. “People are Evil”, and without constant oversight, will engage in subversive behavior. Having an “all seeing, all knowing God” watching your every move and threatening you with punishment (”eternal damnation”) if you misbehave, by a God with no agenda, free of humanly frailties, matches up very nicely with the Conservative belief that people, left unchecked, will choose to do bad things.

Suddenly, we’ve come full circle. Constant oversight, constant monitoring, threat of unimaginable punishment if you “misbehaves”… sound like any Administration you might know?

And you wonder why this country is so screwed up? Just look at the people in charge: paranoid, xenophobic, racist, homophones that believe the worst in people.