SNOOPING ON AMERICANS

Amazingly, on the weekend before the election, Vermont's premier newspaper, Burlington Free Press is playing catch-up on a story that's been around for quite a while. It has a front page story about Adrienne Kinne.

If a definitive history is ever written of the challenges to Americans’ civil liberties in the tumultuous aftermath of Sept. 11, Sharon resident Adrienne Kinne might well be one of the sources.

Kinne is more than a footnote in a new book on National Security Agency eavesdropping, and her allegations — widely reported over the past year — have prompted calls for a full investigation by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. and ranking member Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

After she was called to active duty as a sergeant in the Army Reserve after Sept. 11, Kinne said in a recent phone interview, she was assigned to eavesdrop on satellite phone communications over a broad territorial expanse that included Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia. The intercepts included calls to and from aid workers and journalists, among them Americans and citizens of U.S. allies. The intercepts began several months after Sept. 11 and continued through the invasion of Iraq until she was demobilized in August 2003, she said.

There are several comments in the Free Press denouncing her (showing a vitriolic, vomituous Vermont you rarely read about).

Ms Kinne has also been featured since last spring on Democracy Now!: look here, here, here, here and here.

I met Ms Kinne when we participated in a sit-in at Leahy's office in spring of 2007. She's also an active member with other Vermonters of Iraq Veterans against the War.

OBAMA'S DUTCH BACKERS GET POLICIES WRONG

THE HEADLINE is from DutchNews.nl

Thursday 30 October 2008

Barack Obama might be most Dutch people’s favourite to be the next American president, but they don’t know much about his policies, according to a poll in Thursday’s De Pers newspaper.

In total, 21,000 people took part in the survey, which was organised by tv show EenVandaag. The poll shows the Dutch think the Democratic candidate is more progressive than he really is, De Pers says.

For example, 78% think Obama is opposed to the death penalty, 62% think he supports gay marriage and 56% think he supports gun control. In fact, the paper says, Obama supports the death penalty and the right of individuals to own guns, and is against gay marriage [although he opposes an outright ban].

Some 75% of those polled support Obama as president.

Dutch politicians are also surprised where Obama stands on social issues, the paper said, particularly when it comes to gay marriage. ´He is against it?’ said Gerard Schouw, a senator for the gay-friendly party D66. ‘Okay, he is against gay marriage but not against gays,’ Schouw told the paper.

A survey conducted by Radio Netherlands earlier this week showed that 85% of Dutch expatriates and emigrants living in the US want Obama to win the race for the White House.

Three members of the young Socialists, in New York to campaign for Obama, told De Pers they describe themselves as ‘social democrats’. ‘ Socialists are something dirty here,’ said Astrid Benschop (18). ‘Sometimes they even run away, they are so shocked.’

The American stereotype about the Dutch is that they are progressive and tolerant, but that's not true if you follow current affairs in the Netherlands. But what's telling in this news report is how Obamamania has hit NL in much the same way that it has in the USA. Note how some liberals (a D66 senator, for example) in NL don't really know much about Obama's opinons. (The Dutch media are as much to blame as the American.) I daresay a lot of American voters who claim to be "progressive" have joined the Obama cult and don't really know what Barack Obama stands for or don't want to know.

ANNOUNCEMENT: A HALLOWE'EN HOLLER EXPERIENCE!

Y'ALL COME to a sign waving experience in Burlington. Tomorrow. Symington volunteers are gonna do a wave

"Jim Douglas: Taxpayers are not your personal ATM"

MEET @ STAPLES PLAZA
FRIDAY 31 OCTOBER
7-9 AM

ONLY IN AMERICA

Only in America can someone who's arguably to the right of England's Tories be described as a "socialist."

Many thanks to Green Left Infoasis (always a good read I highly recommend) who got it from the Mahatma X Files.

THE GOVERNOR'S ETHICS VIOLATION

A formal complaint has been filed. GREEN MOUNTAIN DAILY has the whole nine yards.

GOD.DAMNED.FUCKING.THIEVES

NYT Editorial

Loans? Did We Say We’d Do Loans?

In his column on Saturday, The Times’s Joe Nocera told about a conference call that he had listened in on recently between employees and executives of JPMorgan Chase. Asked how an infusion of $25 billion of bailout funds would change the bank’s lending policy, an executive said the money would be used to buy other banks.

“I think there are going to be some great opportunities for us to grow in this environment, and I think we have an opportunity to use that $25 billion in that way,” the executive said. He added that the money could also be used as a backstop in case “recession turns into depression or what happens in the future.”

There was not a word about lending — not to businesses or home buyers or car buyers or students or other consumers. Just the opposite. In response to another question, the executive said that the bank expected to continue to tighten credit.

THE MOTHER OF ALL AIRPORTS

I can remember it as if it were yesterday. In the summer of 1966, I took my very first airplane trip on a BEA flight ($25 RT student fare!) from Hamburg to Berlin-Tempelhof. The flight was short, but wow! Not only was the landing amazing for me, but this visit was my first to Berlin, then a divided city - the Wall had been up only a few years. Today the last flight will depart from the world's first air passenger terminal. Tempelhof is closing.

From the International Herald Tribune:

A functioning airstrip since 1923, its monolithic limestone terminal building was built by forced labourers between 1936 and 1941 on the orders of Hitler's architect Albert Speer.

The airport became a powerful symbol of the Cold War when Soviet forces prevented supplies from getting into West Berlin in 1948. The West responded by airlifting more than 2 million tonnes of food and other goods into Tempelhof for nearly a year.

The photo above is a German postal stamp commemorating the Berlin airlift.

PRETTY MUCH SUMS IT UP

ON LAST NIGHT'S OBAMA INFOMERCIAL

PROBLEMS WITH SEQUOIA OPTICAL SCANNERS: WHO DO YOU TRUST?

In Palm Beach County, Florida, there are problems in some of the county's high-speed optical-scan tabulation machines, made by Sequoia Voting Systems.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

With just a few days until the Nov. 4 general election, questions about the ballot counting machines' accuracy leave Palm Beach County vulnerable to legal challenges and could erode voter confidence, voter advocates say. One other Florida county and several others across the nation have reported similar problems — with accuracy, phantom votes and other issues — involving Sequoia Voting Systems machines.

The same machines that failed an Oct. 1 test to see whether they could sort ballots will be used to process absentee ballots and to tally results of a recount if one is needed.

There have also been problems in New York

Sequoia Voting Systems and Election Systems & Software – have been told to correct scores of problems in their devices and related materials. Sequoia, for instance, has 104 discrepancies in its source code and ES&S has 174 discrepancies in its documentation, according to the state board. Previous progress reports indicated that the board wasn't satisfied with SysTec, the firm doing the testing, either.

"The problem the vendors are having is New York state has a higher standard than they're accustomed to," says Bo Lipari, executive director of New Yorkers for Verified Voting, a group that has pressed for rigorous vetting of electronic voting devices. New York is believed to be the only state to require that BMDs and scanners meet guidelines promulgated by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission in 2005. "What we're seeing is the vendors are not prepared to meet that standard." In fact, several vendors have pulled out of the competition in New York since 2006. One company that withdrew in July, Premier Election Solutions of Texas, cited the costs of complying with New York's testing regime as its reason for pulling out.

VIA GUBERNATORIAL FORUM

UPDATED POST

Governor Jim Douglas never showed at last night's gubernatorial debate sponsored by Vermont Interfaith Action.

Gaye Symington, Anthony Pollina and Peter Diamondstone did. The event at College Street Congregation Church was billed as a forum for the candidates to answer questions about affordable housing, the crisis in home-heating, environment and green jobs, and health care - all issues important to VIA's eleven member congregations in Chittenden and Washington Counties - and burning concerns for all Vermonters.

It should be noted that VIA originally rescheduled the forum from October 15 to last night to accommodate Douglas' busy schedule. Still, the governor bowed out. Fox 44 made that a big deal and called his absence "controversial."

But really controversial - and disgraceful - were the other no-shows (they were not at fault) - three bona fide candidates were never invited.

They are Sam Young, Cris Ericson, and Tony O'Connor.

As a VIA leader and one of the original organisers for this forum, I lobbied for and convinced the staff and other organisers to include Diamondstone in it. But VIA was unwilling to include all seven candidates for governor in this debate about social and economic justice issues important for all Vermonters. VIA likes to build relationships with the power structure, but apparently those powerful people are only in the three major Vermont parties. It also likes to grovel and kiss ass: it begged and cajoled the powerful governor to come last night, yet wouldn't stand for democratic values and include Young, Ericson and O'Connor.

Pollina initially annouced as the Progressive candidate, but changed his mind and decided to run as an independent.

Why didn't VIA include other independents, too?

One of the tenets of VIA is to transform ordinary people into engaged citizens. The three candidates who were not invited last night are involved citizens who care about Vermont and had been all over the state to gather signatures to be placed on the November ballot. VIA does good work; it was at the forefront in bringing attention to the Westlake debacle, saving the Gosse Court Armory, initiating efforts to build affordable housing for UVM employees. I didn't attend the debate; indeed I have disassociated myself from VIA. Not to have had all seven candidates goes against the ideals of democratic engagement and the citizen activism VIA stands for. I don't want to be connected to an such a hypocritical group. Democracy is too important to me.

CAN YOU SPEAK DINGLISH?

NRC HANDELSBLAD INTERNATIONAL

Students at Amsterdam and Groningen universities are protesting against what they see as the erosion of modern language studies. Recent reorganisations at the literature departments mean modern languages are increasingly becoming part of broader study programmes.

The protest has the support of two well-known Dutch writers: Hella Haasse, who studied Scandinavian languages, and Arthur Japin who studied Dutch language. They have added their voice to a special website set up as part of a protest campaign launched last month by former Amsterdam University student Erik Schoonhoven and Jonathan Oudendijk who is currently studying Italian at the university.

They are protesting at what they see as a commercialisation of language studies... [more]

Read the Op-Ed piece (in Dutch) that Hella Haase, Erik Schoonhoven and Jonathan Oudendijk wrote for NRC Handelsblad on Erik's blog. Watch/listen to Erik explain their concerns here.

Join them to save the study of languages at universities: Red de Talen/Save the Languages (Dutch link.)

EN GARDE!

ONCE AGAIN, it's the City of Burlington/Kiss administration and the Parks Department versus citizens and an Old North End neighborhood.

"The Avant Garden," Standley wrote Thursday in an e-mail distributed to city officials and the news media, "is/was intended for a place for people to grow (food and themselves) and gather, not a place for the city to control and to use to make itself look community-oriented."

Two trees were cut down by the Parks Department personnel; the day before they were removed Ms Standley had been told they wouldn't be taken down. Councilor Tim Ashe, P-Ward 3 says it's just a communications gap. On whose part, Mr Ashe?

ONCE AGAIN, there's obfuscation and no accountability from the city officials.

Cross-posted at Local Action Works!

OBAMA BRAND DEMOCRACY

Money marries influence.

NOW WE KNOW THINGS ARE BAD

I saw two letters in today's (UK) Guardian. The first read,

I have primulas and chives flowering alongside roses, nicotiana and summer stocks, not to mention that the tomatoes are still going strong (Letters, passim). I'm planting a banana next spring.

And the second,

I was idly casting an eye over an estate agent's offerings this week when a smart young man emerged from the office to politely inquire if there was anything that took my interest. Now we know things are bad.

SHOCKED!

CIVICS LESSON

LOCAL ACTIONS WORK! notes a letter today in the Burlington Free Press

Developers who live up to commitments

In the article about Burlington's Armory renovation ("Armory developer donates $100,000," Oct. 7), it was wonderful to read that Robert Miller, the project developer, has been so generous with his time and money.

Ironically, the story about his civic pride and charitable contribution reminded me of the Deslauriers/Westlake hotel and condos on Burlington's waterfront. In exchange for special treatment and permits for these high-end buildings, Westlake made promises to repay Burlington with affordable housing. Westlake managed to meet its commitment to the wealthy customers and pocket the sale price of these prime properties, but wasn't able to step up to the plate with payback for Burlington. Shame on the team from Westlake. And to Mr. Miller -- thank you very much. Maybe other people can learn from you.

TACTICAL POLITICS AS PANDERING

Robert Weitzel has a post up in Counterpunch on why he'll vote for Ralph Nader. But I saw this bit --

In 1933, the Glass-Steagall Act was intended to prevent the kind of banking shenanigans that have helped to plunge the world into worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. But legislation written by Republicans Phil Gramm and James Leach and signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton repealed the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999.

It's Gramm's bill that has helped get us into the mess we're in. Then I realised that's the same James Leach who very publicly endorsed Obama and spoke on his behalf at the Democratic National Convention. Just this past weekend lying warmonger Colin Powell said he'll vote for Obama. And today's story has neo-con Rumsfeld subordinate Kenneth Adelman's endorsement. So much for being endorsed by the "right people." I think stinks.

MORAN DEAL STILL IFFY

Screaming across the print edition of the Burlington Free Press

Burlington City Council likely to OK Moran deals

But wait.

They city council may likely agree on the MOU's tonight.

But it's not a done deal, is it?

The city will pay $58,533 as its share as well as the cost of any necessary "environmental remediation," and demolition work required to fit the building for the new tenants.

The MOUs also ask that each partner, including the city, have financing plans in place before the final development agreement is signed.

"What I'm going to be focusing on here on out is whether the city is going to be delivering on the financing on its own, without going back to taxpayers for a tax increase," [Council president Kurt] Wright said.

He said that while he supported the concept of the public/private redevelopment of the Moran plant in an extended Waterfront Park, it was always with the "caveat" that it not result in a tax increase.

"I would have to reassess," he said, "if they talk about another bond or a tax increase."

It ain't over. (Meaning, we shouldn't assume the outcome just yet.)

Cross posted at LocalActionWorks!

NA JA, EINE ANDERE NACHT DER LANGEN MESSER

Austrian far-Right leader Haider goes to his grave, taking secret of last hours in gay club with him

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

Financial workers at Wall Street's top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn (£40bn), a substantial proportion of which is expected to be paid in discretionary bonuses, for their work so far this year - despite plunging the global financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock market crash, the Guardian has learned.

Staff at six banks including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are in line to pick up the payouts despite being the beneficiaries of a $700bn bail-out from the US government that has already prompted criticism. The government's cash has been poured in on the condition that excessive executive pay would be curbed.
-------
None of the banks the Guardian contacted wished to comment on the record about their pay plans. But behind the scenes, one source said: "For a normal person the salaries are very high and the bonuses seem even higher. But in this world you get a top bonus for top performance, a medium bonus for mediocre performance and a much smaller bonus if you don't do so well."

Many critics of investment banks have questioned why firms continue to siphon off billions of dollars of bank earnings into bonus pools rather than using the funds to shore up the capital position of the crisis-stricken institutions. One source said: "That's a fair question - and it may well be that by the end of the year the banks start review the situation."