Tonight Taxi to the Dark Side won the Oscar for best documentary. The film had a hard time of it — the Discovery Channel and the MPAA both threw up obstacles in the way of the story of a young Afghan cab driver who was suspected of being a Taliban fighter and was tortured to death. It was deemed "too controversial."
Nothing can right the shameful wrong of his death, or erase the enduring black mark on the legacy of the nation responsible for torturing him and others. But kudos to the filmmakers for making sure that the story did get told, and that includes former FDL contributor Sidney Blumenthal and friend o’ the blog Rob Johnson, both of whom served as Executive Producers.
We’re really, really proud of both of you.
Related posts:
- Congratulations, White House: You’ve Given the GOP a New Line of Attack Against Sotomayor
- Excitement over Public Option in Senate Health Bill Leads to Premature Congratulations
- FDL Late Night: Pastor Calls For Obama’s Death
- Late Night: South Carolina Issues Ambler Alert
- Late Late Nite FDL: Real Kind Of Thing
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zzzzzzzed
Sidney!
I really want to see this. Can it be purchased yet online?
zed is dead
I’m really anxious to see this. No HBO here. Is it for sale yet?
Is anyone here a member of Netflix? Is the movie available there?
Hear! Hear!
I don’t know if I would have the stomach to watch it, but I am glad that the Cheney Bush failures and scandals in Afghanistan are getting some attention.
If I may, ahem, comment-whore, there is a good recent interview on problems awful Cheney-Bush policies have produced in Afghanistan. The interviewee is from Hoover institution but apparently he has not peform like a trained seal in a vaudeville act on corporate media, so you never hear the guy. Way too conservative for me, that that goes to show you how bad the corporate censorship is.
Link is at:
http://firedoglake.com/2008/02…..nt-1296101
Not sure if I did that comment URL referenc right, but it is in the late nite Lieberman post.
Updates on the Siegleman story.
We should really start to make some concentrated and unfied noise about this politically motivated hit.
We should make him into a Sacco and Vanzetti cause.
-G
Hi wesgpc: You did it perfectly. And, I appreciated when I say it downstairs and was thinking of linking to it for the folks up here. Nice work.
Agreed. This is really media manipulation/censorship. Wouldn’t it be beautiful if it somehow tied into what McCain and the Cindy-lookalike were involved in???
It’s a fucking outrage!
I think best commentary on Afghanistan, Pakistan diplomacy, economic reconstruction, Taligan, etc, from Barnett Rubin at Informed Comment: Global Affairs
http://icga.blogspot.com/2008/…..s-and.html
Gwarsh! thanks wigwam. I got my confidence up now. Think I’ll take another crack at some of those gizmos on my cell phone.
You wanna bet it wouldn’t be shown in Alabama?
Siegelman Expose Blacked Out in Hunstville
Bass-millionaire owned WHNT Channel 19 apparently went dark for 12 minutes of “60 Minutes” when the expose of the trumped-up investigation and trial of former Gov. Siegelman was broadcast on CBS. WHNT management has said that it was because of the feed from CBS in New York. But oddly, no other affiliate had the problem (at least outside Alabama) and it oddly cut out just long enough to lose the first story.
CBS in NY says that WHNT is well “wrong” and that it must, and can onl;y be, the result of a “local problem” unrelated to their transmitter or feed reception. IOW WHNT is lying.
I’m afraid we need us a whole new Department of Justice.
Sorry, but that has to be in the top 3 priorities in 2009.
The most telling part of the Siegleman scandal was when the judge had him taken away immediately and in chains. Usually, a convicted white collar crime person gets 45 days before they have to turn themselves in.
No Krguman today. Too bad. But here are two interesting bits from the NY Times, I think worth a look. Well, actually, first on is more worthy of look.
————————-
Alan S. Blinder (Very good and eminent economist from Princeton) argues for a federal agency to hash out mortgage mess:
Economic View
From the New Deal, a Way Out of a Mess
By ALAN S. BLINDER
Published: February 24, 2008
“…a small but growing group of academics and public figures, including Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, is calling for the federal government to bring back something like the HOLC. Count me in.
The HOLC was established in June 1933 to help distressed families avert foreclosures by replacing mortgages that were in or near default with new ones that homeowners could afford. It did so by buying old mortgages from banks — most of which were delighted to trade them in for safe government bonds — and then issuing new loans to homeowners. The HOLC financed itself by borrowing from capital markets and the Treasury.”
—————————————
More on corporate press BS: been hearing in media that the Times Ombudsman is ‘down’ on that nasty NY Times story saying bad mean things about the old corrupt husk, Mr. McCain, suggesting that the vulgar impolite nastiness should be ignored. But I see the ombudsman is just all prissy about the *** (oh my!), and thinks that the corruption angle was right on:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02…..ef=opinion
The pity of it is that, without the sex, The Times was on to a good story. McCain, who was reprimanded by the Senate Ethics Committee in 1991 for exercising “poor judgment” by intervening with federal regulators on behalf of a corrupt savings and loan executive, recast himself as a crusader against special interests and the corrupting influence of money in politics. Yet he has continued to maintain complex relationships with lobbyists like Iseman, at whose request he wrote to the Federal Communications Commission to urge a speed-up on a decision affecting one of her clients.
Much of that story has been reported over the years, but it was still worth pulling together to help voters in 2008 better understand the John McCain who might be their next president.
I asked Jill Abramson, the managing editor for news, if The Times could have done the story and left out the allegation about an affair. “That would not have reflected the essential truth of why the aides were alarmed,” she said.
But what the aides believed might not have been the real truth. And if you cannot provide readers with some independent evidence, I think it is wrong to report the suppositions or concerns of anonymous aides about whether the boss is getting into the wrong bed
Taxi to the Dark Side on netflix
http://www.netflix.com/Movie/T…..020677_0_0
“the story of a young Afghan cab driver who was suspected of being a Taliban fighter and was tortured to death.”
That can’t be right.
The United States does not torture.
George W. Bush said so.
Or was it our puppet regime in Afghanistan that did the torturing?
Digg It…for Sidney and Rob.
Over @ Harpers Magazine Scott Horton has more on the Siegleman piece
http://harpers.org/archive/2008/02/hbc-90002487
DiggWorthy, Jane!
Ot… as always… Ohio ,texas has anyone looked into
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/
And is some going to watch the count?
Thank you!
The repugs couldn’t beat Siegleman. His other crime was trying to make the educational system in Alabama work. Can’t have the riffraff edumacated now can we?
OT on housing bubble: I’ve read that in many bubble markets, rents are rising steeply because of reduced housing available. So, poor slob victims of sharp loan practices are evicted, or people (the guilty and innocent) walk away, or house flippers decide to go out of business by abandoning their properties, and these sit empty. Less stand along rental housing, ex-single family home dwellers look for rental housing.
Seems to me huge and what we in the economics business call “real” economic costs bring rung up around country. Not talked about much in the press, that I can tell. But is mostly affects regular working folks who need a place to sleep, so… who cares?
Of course not. Up here in michigan i’m amazed how our education system managed to turn out people like Micheal Moore and me. He hails from Flint, which is some ways scarier than Detroit! But just as poorly off as the rest of the state at the moment.
The GOP’s just fought our governor tooth and nail, they didn’t have anything to nail her with to get her in jail. Aside from that, it was one of OUR USA’s that got the axe for refusing to follow orders, i think. Still, i think michigan’s just plain weird sometimes. *grin*
That would seem to merit a complaint to the FCC and to the congressional committees charged with overseeing the FCC. In a democracy, such corporate behavior is an outrage. And those charged with protecting “the constitution against all enemies, both foreign and domestic” should take note.
alias, sometimes I get the impression that the Goopers are willing to flush MI to get DeVos (sp) into office. Jennifer was lucky last time, but the strangulation is getting intolerable there.
I hope 60 Minutes does more on Siegelman’s 2002 race. He was declared the winner on election night, then in the morning it was announced that something like 15,000 votes had been “found,” and Riley was the winner. Siegelman asked for a recount, and a judge sealed all the ballots. There has never been a recount.
That’s a big can of worms they couldn’t fit into the 10 or 12 minutes they give each story, but they had better cover it later.
I also note that Kristol has reached a new low in 750 words.
Dowd had a silly column on Sunday. She is trying to work her “HRC is a bitch-man and Obama is a feminine softy” piffle into some kind of High Thesis. She is elaborating on the Metaphore and working out its logical implications as a Theory of Our Political Times. Maybe, she thinks it will become a deep polticological something or other worthy of Brooks.
Man, what a zoo about half the NY Times columnist page has become.
But back to Kristol: dishonest, incoherent, self-contradictory. The slob cannot even be bothered enough to edit his quotes anymore. I mean, you can see he is twisting and mendaciously lying about the quotes from what he put right there in his own column. It is hilarious and disgusting -a phrase that comes to my mind every other day when watching the reactionaries recently.
Actually i wouldn’t be surprised about that in the least. There’s been rumors of one of our old mayors of Detroit being asked to run for Governor. Someone else to trounce the Brat DeVos. (I live in DeVos country, it’s insane!) I’m a liberal in a pretty much red town. I haven’t seen any Democratic signs out for the presidential race yet. I give it time. I think everyone in general is pissed with things as they are. Even this area has seen the factories close left and right in Grand Rapids.
Only a few Rethug signs showed up during the primary and i live right smack in the middle of town. A few McCain, one for Huckabee and i think one for Romney. I’m keeping an ear to the ground to see how things are going, especially in my job where i see EVERY walk of life. From the rich to the dirt poor like myself.
I hope the WHNT blackout of the Siegelman 60 minutes piece backfires and blows the top of the scandal in Alabama. Nice touch that it looks like the local station lied through its teeth also.
Just from what I have witnessed in the last three or four days the Nov. election is going to be the nastiest evah. Evah! Obama will soon be call the n word every which way but actually saying it.
A scared neocon/fascist/prickhead is a dangerous neocon/fascist/prickhead.
Sen. Obama takes on the patriotism question. Says if not putting your hand on your heart during the national anthem, 75% of people at most pro-sports events would fail that test.
-G
The NYT’s is a worthless rag.
Fox News is a parade of propaganda.
-G
Probably worthless with Kevin Martin, who was the tableboy of the Family Research Council in the Bush Adminsitration, as the Commissioner of the FCC. I think that those impacted should file complaints, as should CBS (both interested parties), but likely no action will be taken until a Democrat is sitting in the WH. Lots of things that the next President will have to clean up.
I’ll write a letter to the Democrats on the Senate Commerce Committee that oversees the FCC.
Is there such a thing as an NCFPH who is not dangerous?
m.m.m.m.m.mmmmmm nope
Didn’t know that about the election. I hope the whole business is really investigated someday. Soon enough to keep it from happening again during an important election! Coming soon!
This should be headline news… let me know if you see anything about it on page A-23 in the corporate press:
McCain Breaks Law…That He Wrote
by DHinMI
Sun Feb 24, 2008 at 06:01:34 PM PST
Tomorrow morning the Democratic National Committee will file a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission against John McCain. Why? In the words of DNC Chair Howard Dean:
We want John McCain to obey the law with his own name on it.
This afternoon Dean and officials at the DNC held a conference call in which they spelled out why they will file a complaint with the FEC against McCain. The background is that in December and January, McCain was broke and had to tap in to a massive amount of lobbyist money to keep his campaign afloat. Doing so put him in danger of exceeding the spending limits attached to participation in the federal matching funds program, in which an eligible candidate can receive monies voluntarily contributed by taxpayers to match low-donor campaign contributions in exchange for abiding by spending limits.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…..333/463437
NYT is still the best print daily newspaper in the US despite a few firepuppies who don’t like some of the columns.
It also has dozens of blogs now on the web that offer ancillary content that few people know about.
They broke wiretapping in a huge way and it’s a big story. You’re being tapped right now irregardless of what goes on with S. 2248 as the House postures as if they’re fighting Bush for a few days.
They did a much better job than Drudge on McCain’s corrupt and illegal relationships with lobbyists and in 3 days time have inspired over a dozen articles at FDL and EW. Dozens of sites and papers chimed in with “metoo” stories after NYT went first. They will followup with several more stories on McCain’s lobbying and McCain has already lied in denials on several fronts that will soon come to bite him in the ass.
It’s far from a rag IMO, but to each their own.
What newspapers are you reading that are substantive since NYT is “worthless” to you? I’m always looking for good sources.
I caught up on the FELA thread Saturday afternoon. Noticed your comment.. did you see FELA at the Warfield?
I think the Judy Miller episode may have ticked off a couple of pups.
Keller
Miller
Freidman
Dowd
Too many douche bags for one paper.
You forgot Bobo Brooks and William “the bloody” Kristol.
and what newtonusr said.
I was taking a measured approach :-)
No reason to kill the ostrich when there’s eggs to be eaten in the morning.
I cannot wait to see you and the other pups on Sunday.
Bringing camera and stuff.
Is punaise going to come?
I don’t think Pun has confirmed. Sure hope so, though.
Just a drive-by comment – my power has come back on after it going off just as 60 minutes was starting – the air was filled with forks.
reading by candlelight is not all that it is cracked up to be, folks. i’m plum tuckered out and am headed off to bed.
congratulations, sidney and rob. i am ashamed of the subject matter but proud of their work exposing this most heinous of injustices.
I am looking for a ride. Maybe I can see if John from Sac wants to come.
Suz!
Let there be flying forks!
Sucks not having power but the storm wasn’t as bad as feared.
Nite ((Suz)). I can picture those flying forks now.
Working on that and other stuff.
send email to
newtonusr
at
aol
dot
com
Nite, Suzanne. You can watch the 60 Min piece tomorrow on line. It’s been posted in a couple places. Sleep well!
60 Minutes piece @ Brad Freidman’s Blog (h/t Betsy)
How’s the FEC complaint going to work out, given that there is no functional FEC and it’s been shut down since 1/1/08 thanks to the Bush puppet Mitch McConnell?
Obama has been one the leading opponent of Hans Van Spakovsky since he flew voting rights into the ground while at DOJ (despite the people who don’t follow the Senate and say Obama has done nothing while there. He was the first to speak out against this scumbag and has made a big point of blocking his nomination to FEC.
How Much Will the FEC Shutdown Affect the ‘08 Election?
FEC Shuts Down After Senate Republican Leader McConnell Blocked Up-or-Down Majority Vote on Each of Four FEC Nominees
Good night all. See you tomorrow if we are all not dead yet.
Hi Bob,
I’m ignorant about Texas. I’ve heard of organized efforts to keep things clean in Ohio, but don’t have links to them. Mostly, I’ve been watching the recommended diaries on Dkos for signs of immanent problems, and haven’t seen much.
Kudos and thanks to Rob and Sidney!
I hope that this win will finally embolden the spineless morons who decide what is “too controversial” or “suitable for all audiences” to do the right thing and broadcast this important film while encouraging many more Americans to actually watch it and face the horrors that are being done in our name.
I was moved by Mr. Gibney’s acceptance “speech”:
http://showbizandstyle.inquire…..ocumentary
RIP Dilawar and far too many others……..
(many thanks to RBG for your kind assistance with getting me back “into” the Lake!!)
not very well? I knew there was something nagging me in the back of my head about it…
But my basic point was to ask whether media has been covering the current (as in, happening right now) McCain shady campaing finance tricks story. After all, it is a serious issue now, the FEC is functioning enough to issue letters saying McCain may be breaking law (saw that in TPM). Seems like that is more interesting issue than the blonde, and more relevant to “The Straight Talk is Crock” McCain’s credibility than stuff that has been in the news before. Why not a major story on the campaign finance problems, which is a more natural link to Keating 5 etc, than the babe he may or may not have boffed?
angie! So very nice to see you.
Don’t know if it’s been mentioned here, but Crooks & Liars has a post up about further developments in JohnMcCainGate. The C & L article links to a follow-up NYT article, and also to a post by Marcy on the subject.
This is a step in the right direction:
There will be some paper ballots on hand here in Ohio in March.
WHNT Alabama.
A likely story. Not!
Nice to see you too, ES!
(It’s great to read your posts as well– congrats!)
inadvertent video cameras, too?
inadvertent video would be a cool name for a company.
I’ve noticed that a bunch of Democrats as well as Republicans of course are saying that Hilary should give up after Texas and Ohio if she does not win in order to save the party.
Yet none of these tools are saying the same about Mike Huckabee who can’t win the nomination unless John McCain dies or the rumors about the blond lobbyist prove true.
Hilary still has a chance and she has more cash than McCain or Huckabee. But the DEM/GOP media want her to quit?
Hey as long as she has a chance we get news coverage every debate gets us news coverage, every state primary more news coverage FOR FREE! If there is a Democratic Convention fight we will own the news in midsummer!
Or Hilary can quit now and all the news coverage will go to McCain and Huckabee!
I am against the super delegates deciding the election but I am cynical enough to use them to provide us news coverage provided that we are smart and talk more about ideas.
What great news, Jane, on Taxi to Nowhere!
I missed the awards – busy typing away on a Don Young update for Howie at down with tyranny. Hope to finish it tonight.
The FEC has indeed raised the problem that McCain used his filing with them to get a bank loan and now that he is the nominee is trying to back out of his spending limits, but they don’t have enough members to actually vote on a sanction because Bush is insisting on Hans Van Spakovsky being on it, which is like putting Hannibal Lecter in charge of the steak cookoffs on the Food Channel.
The FEC isn’t “functioning enough to issue letters.” The letter is coming from Dr.Dean at the DNC to the FEC.
Until the FEC has four members–while the complaint can be a serious problem for McCain and will be covered, they can’t act on it.
The FEC cannot take votes or disburse funds right now, and it needs 4 members to perform most of its functions including arrive at any decisions. It currently has two, and the thugs have taken the position that either their scumbbag gets in or they block any other confirmations and shut down the FEC as they are doing currently.
DNC Filing Complaint on McCain Violating Spending Limits
The story has plenty of legs, and it will get prime coverage from now on–so I think you will ses it buried. It has prominent coverage today in virtually every large paper and many small ones.
Dr. Dean had a similar but technically not same situation as McCain in 2003
Most crecible sources including NYT have already moved way past whether McCain had an affair with the lobbyist to the more substantive things you’ve seen Christy and Marcy digging into.
The public editor of The Times had an article in today’s paper critical of the paragraph about the potential improper relationship with the lobbyist, but Jill Abramson, the managing editor for news said they felt it was necessary to say why his aides were concerned:
What the McCain Article Didn’t Say/Public EditorNYT
My sentence should have read that “I don’t think you will see the story of the complaint to the FEC buried.
I also misspoke when I said the FEC has raised the McCain issue. Dean raised it and until there are 4 members, you can consider them a catcher missing most of the number it takes for their team to actually play the game on the field.
All the MSM tools particularly the GOP ones say that there is not that much difference between Hilary and Obama and that to motivate the base Hilary needs to attack Obama more? Mark Penn must be getting the Karl Rove blackberry emails because that seems where Hilary is headed.
Now then the Dem base is to the Left of Hilary and Obama we want the war over now we would rather not wait for a new president. We also want a healthcare plan like the 9/11 volunteers got in Cuba in the Mikel Moore film “Sicko”
diagnoses and treatment with no HMO hassles.
We don’t want Hilary to attack Obama, attack politics work for GOPers.
But going LEFT on the issues could have worked. I think it might be to late now. But who cares after what Mark Penn and the Center Dems have done to Hilary’s campaign after this election nobody will touch the politics of surrender/compromise or attack for the sake of attack politics.
I think that we have already created the conditions for victory and now must await it, to paraphrase Sun Tze.
Clinton and Penn are very centered behind the scenes on getting to count Michigan and Florida, and to get every delegate vote, Super and Pledged that they can. They know they will probably lose Texas, and if they win Ohio it will be by the narrowest of margins, so that strategy is their only hope.
The Obama campaign has been onto this for months, and they are working just as hard to make sure she doesn’t steal the election via two states who didn’t hold a real election, and via 20% of the delegates who cast votes at the convention.
I give her the chance of an ice cube in hell at pulling this off, and the night of March 4 this primary will be all but over although I don’t expect Clinton to admit she isn’t the candidate until after the convention if then.
Actually, I think the pre-December 31st FEC, at full-strength, had approved McCain’s entry into the public financing system. The staff letter last week told McCain’s campaign that there is no functioning FEC to release his campaign from public financing, as he recently requested.
So, until the FEC is at full-strength, he’s in the public financing system.
Whether the staff has any heft without a fully functioning FEC is probably the reason for Dr Dean’s letter.
The GOP talking heads on the business channels all seem to think that a Democrat will be bad for the economy because they will raise taxes. They neglect to say to pay for Bush’s war! They neglect to say the GOP will keep us in Iraq and that will cost us more money. They neglect to say that Bill was great for the Stockmarket and Bush has been horrible unless you invested in oil, pawnshops and payday loan companies.
I’ll try to watch, and let all fdl’s know
Helps good
goodnite
g’nite everybody
It’s just dawned on me after reading some of these comments and considering all the money raising potential that the two Dems have compared to McCain that the fight over the FEC and now McCain’s bid to withdraw from pubic financing is going to be pretty significant.
I’m glad they took a stand against Hans Van Spakovsky. I’ve watched him since he was a state Republican elections official, and he’s been very bad news ever since.
One thing this administration isn’t lacking is chutzpah–there is no finesse at all on the part of this White House. It’s ram through everything–”my way and the high way.”
nite teddy
bailing a bit south of you as well
That army, undermanned and ill equipped, is now engaged in the government’s service in Iraq and Afghanistan. When a British soldier deploys to the front, his or her family receives a letter from the defence secretary promising that he has taken “all measures possible to ensure that the equipment issued to the UK armed forces is both right for the job and right for them”.
This is simply not true. To take one example, a recent article in the Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps pointed out that British troops were taking longer to get to a field hospital than it took the Americans in Vietnam. Two hours’ delay in Iraq has become seven hours in Helmand. This often fatal delay is almost entirely due to the lack of helicopters, caused by a shortage not of money but of ministry competence.
The British Army is fighting in two countries against forces whose equipment is primitive and who have never posed any military threat to Britain. In both it is losing. Money is squandered on equipment that is useless in either theatre – or in any foreseeable one. For want of that money, equipment vital to victory is forgone.
In a sane world this might be cause for a revision of priorities within the defence establishment. Instead, the brass hats continue to squabble to protect their precious toys and politicians lack the guts to bang their heads together.
It was the sort of thing that made the Iron Duke weep
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/t…..423663.ece
Seems like the Obama story about our troops in Afghanistan has a parallel in the British Forces in Afghanistan.
I assume the English and Americans did coordinate a few things then like undersupplying both their armies there.
One of the dramatic moments in Thursday’s Democratic debate came when Senator Barack Obama — in making the case that Iraq was the wrong place to launch a war — cited an Army captain in Afghanistan who told him of a rifle platoon that lacked manpower, ammunition and Humvees. As Mr. Obama recounted, the soldiers looked for captured Taliban weapons as it was easier to be armed that way than “to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.”
Conservatives pounced on the story, questioning its authenticity. Senator John Warner of Virginia, the ranking Republican and former chairman of the Armed Services Committee who has endorsed Senator John McCain, wrote to Mr. Obama on Friday seeking more details. Senator Warner wants to find out of the story is true -– and, if so, who might be responsible for any lapses. He said that he will also raise the issue with Army Secretary Peter Geren and Army Chief of Staff William Casey when they testify next week before his committee.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes…..r-captain/
My Bold Senator Warner has just stepped into a trap him McCain and the other GOPers were all on the Senate Armed Forces Committee the Dems didn’t take charge until after November. Any oversight should have been done by him!
A common thread runs through these cases and other KBR scandals in Iraq, from allegations the firm failed to protect employees sexually assaulted by co-workers to findings that it charged $45 per can of soda: The Pentagon has outsourced crucial troop support jobs while slashing the number of government contract watchdogs.
The dollar value of Army contracts quadrupled from $23.3 billion in 1992 to $100.6 billion in 2006, according to a recent report by a Pentagon panel. But the number of Army contract supervisors was cut from 10,000 in 1990 to 5,500 currently.
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org…..profiteers
So Senator John Warner when expenses go up you cut the number of auditors for finance? Are you stupid or on the take?
In October 2002, five months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Khan threw a birthday party for Seamans at a Tamimi “party house” near the Kuwait base known as Camp Arifjan. Khan “provided Seamans with a prostitute as a present,” Rock Island prosecutors wrote in court papers. Driving Seamans back to his quarters, Khan offered kickbacks that would total $130,000.
Five days later, with Seamans and Khan hammering out the fine print, KBR awarded Tamimi the war’s first $14.4 million mess hall subcontract, court records show.
In April 2003, as American troops poured into Iraq, Seamans gave Khan inside information that enabled Tamimi to secure a $2 million KBR subcontract to establish a mess hall at a Baghdad palace. Seamans submitted change orders that inflated that subcontract to $7.4 million.
By June, Seamans and fellow KBR procurement manager Jeff Mazon, a Country Club Hills resident, had executed subcontracts worth $321 million. At least one deal put U.S. soldiers at risk.
The Army LOGCAP contract required KBR to medically screen the thousands of kitchen workers that subcontractors like Tamimi imported from impoverished villages in Nepal, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
But when Pentagon officials asked for medical records in March 2004, Khan presented “bogus” files for 550 Tamimi workers, Assistant U.S. Atty. Jeffrey Lang said in a court hearing last year.
KBR retested those 550 workers at a Kuwait City clinic and found 172 positive for exposure to hepatitis A, Lang told the judge. Khan tried to suppress those findings, warning the clinic director that Tamimi would do no more business with his medical office if he “told KBR about these results,” Lang said in court. The infectious virus can cause fatigue and other symptoms that arise weeks after contact.
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org…..profiteers
This is giving the troops our best?
Epidemics
The most widespread hepatitis A outbreak in America afflicted at least 640 people (killing four) in north-eastern Ohio and south-western Pennsylvania in late 2003. The outbreak was blamed on tainted green onions at a restaurant in Monaca, Pennsylvania.[citation needed]
Symptoms
Early symptoms of hepatitis A infection can be mistaken for influenza, but some sufferers, especially children, exhibit no symptoms at all. Symptoms typically appear 2 to 6 weeks, (the incubation period ), after the intial infection.[6]
Symptoms can return over the following 6-9 months which include:[7]
Fatigue
Fever
Abdominal pain
Nausea
Diarrhea
Appetite loss
Depression
Jaundice, a yellowing of the skin or whites of the eyes
Sharp pains in the right-upper quadrant of the abdomen
Weight loss
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hepatitis_A
In order to save money you outsourced Cooks jobs to Hepatitis A people! Yes Senator Warner you and John McCain do have a lot of explaining to do I want hearings on television for Treason negligence is no excuse treason during war time is the death penalty Senator and a place with Judas in hell.
Morning all…
Morning Biodun Iginla!
WASHINGTON DC – Senator John Kerry wrote to Department of Defense Inspector General, Charles M. Kicklighter today, to request that he report on sub-standard armor inside protective helmets that were distributed to troops over the last twenty years, including those fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The DoD contractor, Sioux Manufacturing of Fort Totten, recently settled a $156 million suit alleging that Sioux knowingly manufactured helmets for American troops below critical minimum safety requirements. Despite reports of wrongdoing, the DoD recently awarded Sioux a new $74 million contract to make more helmets. This news is especially disturbing, considering the horrible toll head injuries have taken on American troops.
“The possibility that a company knowingly put troops at greater risk is unacceptable, but reports of the Pentagon’s inadequate response once these allegations surfaced are even more troubling,” said Kerry. “We need an investigation, not to dwell on the wrongdoing of the manufacturer, but to guarantee that our troops are never put at risk because their government can’t inspect the equipment meant to protect them. The lives and health of our troops are too important to be lost to negligence or bureaucratic foot-dragging.”
http://kerry.senate.gov/cfm/record.cfm?id=292642
Time to stop being nice Senator Kerry nail some GOP Senator heads to the wall punish one teach a thousand. But get the big guys first I suggest Senators Warner and McCain!
Fine if we can’t end the war lets put some of the people who made a profit shortchanging our troops into jail! We can make the GOP beg us to end the war if we threaten enough of them. Remember they care about money above all and after that image/pride lets take that from them then.
John McCain thinks that we can win in Iraq well where the hell was he when the Pentagon cut the number of auditors? Oh right free markets will save us by saving money…and infecting just how many of our troops with Hepatitis A?
Kevlar helmets that are defective! How long did our troops wait for the new armored vehicles and before that armored humvees and bullet proof vests!
If the Armed Forces Committee doesn’t do its job then our troops can’t do theirs. They need enough troops and equipment to do the job right the first time.
Cause like a cake if you mess up on the ingredients the first time its real hard to salvage anything edible…that tastes like a real victory.
This tastes like Crow Senator and I believe the meal is yours and your BFF Bush.
We need managers not delegators the whole Harvard School of Business MBA program that treats labor as a cost is a disaster. We need army cooks, we need more freakin auditors for the army when a war happens because that is when the army spends more money. The phrase Pennywise Pound Foolish sums up the entire Bush Presidency.
I want Senators Warner and John McCain on TV saying I didn’t know, it wasn’t my job/fault etc. I want round the clock hammering on this issue until the election.
More commentaries on the Alan Blinder article are at Brad DeLong’s blog. Where Blinder supports a buyout of loans by the Federal Govt (as proposed in the Senate by Dodd), Lawrence Summers is in line with another Senate proposal that would use the bankruptcy process to adjudicate lower principle amounts for borrowers who apply for Ch.13 relief, an action popularly known as a “cram-down” of the loan.
Both of these proposals are likely to enter debate this or next week in the Senate. FWIW, I greatly prefer the second for several reasons, a biggy being that the bankruptcy court would evaluate an applicant’s financial situation including ability to pay —indeed, applicants are likely to self-select with a bias toward actual need— making it more likely that relief is handed out fairly on the consumer side. On the business side I think the educational potential to have to absorb both credit and operational losses from courtside piecework is also greater than from a bulk government purchase, which might help delay the Next Time, a little. More later.
We need our Dems to return all the cash they got from companies that have screwed our troops we have plenty of cash and if we do it all at once we protect ourselves from GOP charges of they did it too! Plus we get a positive newsstory out of it and we can hammer the cash desperate GOP for not returning the money they got.
We do not need more of the same to be the GOP’s catchword about us Change begins at home.
The GOP has to discredit Change to beat us it is their next logical move. The thing is will things really be different this time or are we fooling ourselves?
Only we can apply the pressure!
If you are still here: You are correct that the FEC is not functioning, but TPM has said that the FEC Commissioner is still functioning, and wrote letter to McCain saying he was in violation of the law. So that is the letter I was referring to, not Dean’s letter: Here is the rundown from TPM. A later post discusses McCain’s response to the FEC Commissioner’s letter:
McCain’s FEC Problem
By Paul Kiel – February 22, 2008, 1:17PM
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi…..roblem.php
ot, sorta, but don’t forget about Freeheld — Documentary on lesbian police officer’s struggle gets Oscar
(and they left Whoopi out of all the montages–wtf? i hear it was one of the lowest-watched ever)