The St. Patrick's Four

Happy Friday.

The nation’s first federal criminal trial arising out of civil disobedience in protest of the War in Iraq begins on September 19, 2005, in Binghamton, New York.

On March 17, 2003, two days before the invasion of Iraq, four Catholic Workers from Ithaca, New York, entered a military recruiting center in an act of non-violent civil resistance. They read a statement and scattered some of their own blood around the vestibule to signify the loss of life in Iraq. The four, all of whom are parents and one of whom is a former Marine and Vietnam Veteran, were tried in Tompkins County Court in April 2004 on charges of criminal mischief. Nine of twelve jurors voted to acquit

Nearly two years later, on March 11, 2005, the federal government charged them with conspiracy to impede or injure an officer of the United States, “by force, intimidation, or threat.” 18 U.S.C. § 372. However, the police report does not reflect the making of any threats -- never mind the use of force or intimidation -- against any of the military personnel present at the recruiting facility; nor do the statements taken from the personnel on duty. The police report also states that the four protesters were removed peacefully from the site and charged with criminal mischief in the fourth degree for destruction of property, and the lesser included offense of criminal trespass. None were charged with assault or any other type of threatening behavior.

The federal government’s prosecution of citizens involved in a peaceful protest against its actions resonates back to the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. These four individuals were arrested, charged, and acquitted by a jury once already. They are now being targeted by the government, two years after the fact, and charged again, with another crime, punishable by up to six years in prison and a $250,000 fine. These individuals did not then, and do not now, represent a threat. Quite simply, they are being prosecuted to silence their dissonant voice.

Meanwhile, Karl Rove’s potentially criminal misconduct has fallen from the headlines…

The Mother of All Battles

Happy Friday.

"I think it's important for me to be thoughtful and sensitive to those who have got something to say. But I think it's also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life ... I think the people want the president to be in a position to make good, crisp decisions and to stay healthy. And part of my being is to be outside exercising. So I'm mindful of what goes on around me. On the other hand, I'm also mindful that I've got a life to live and will do so."

Ah, Mr. President, how you charm the ladies. Especially the grieving mothers who lost a child in a war that is without legitimate basis or explanation.

As the Cindy Sheehan saga wages on, the current administration continues to deny the legitimacy of her concerns, her questions, and her frustration. Instead, the right-wing propaganda machine has resorted to personal attacks and distortions of the record.

Whether one agrees with Ms. Sheehan's personal views or not, she is nevertheless asking important questions that have remained unanswered for more than two years and is calling the current administration to task about a war without any defined purpose, or end.

The following article from Salon details the current battle between a mother with nothing left to lose, and a president with nothing to offer.

The Mother of All Battles
Cindy Sheehan has almost single-handedly launched an American antiwar movement. And in the process, she's exposed a president's feet of clay.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Joan Walsh

Aug. 16, 2005 The smearing will continue, but it's already too late: Cindy Sheehan has launched an American antiwar movement. Maybe, as Matt Drudge blared over the weekend, she's said controversial things about Israel. Maybe the IRS will chase her for tax evasion, since she's reportedly announced that she won't pay taxes for 2004, the year her son Casey died in Iraq. Maybe her family has been shaken by her activism. Maybe the smears will even work, and cost Sheehan some of her mainstream political credibility. It doesn't matter: Someone else will take her place.

Sheehan's central demand -- that the president meet with her and explain why her son died -- has immense power in a country that's beginning to understand it was lied to about the reasons for the Iraq war, at a time when the carnage seems not only endless but futile. To build on that power, the antiwar movement being born at Camp Casey must understand and hold onto the source of Sheehan's moral authority: her authentic grief over her son's death and her fearless demand to talk honestly about it, even with supporters of the war.

Bush backers are clearly spooked by Sheehan, and they're shifting their stories as fast as they can get away with it. Early last week, you'll remember, she was a naive flip-flopper who supposedly changed her mind about the war and President Bush, because she'd had some mild words of praise for the president after they met last June. That line of attack didn't work, so this week she's a hardened left-wing agitator, plotting alongside the likes of Michael Moore, Medea Benjamin and Viggo Mortensen to help America's enemies. Need some proof? She's got Fenton Communications doing her media, for God's sake!

There's actually a tiny shard of truth in the latest right-wing attack on Sheehan, but it serves to underscore how dangerous she is to their cause. Sheehan has in fact been active in opposing the war since just after Casey died -- she starred in anti-Bush ads last year. (She was the lead in Michelle Goldberg's Salon feature on the ads last September.) Almost a year later, Sheehan has managed to break through to the American public, in a way that she obviously didn't in the Real Voices ads. But it's not because of the help of Code Pink and Fenton (which joined her after she was already in Crawford, by the way). It's because Americans are souring on the war and ready to hear what she has to say.

After more than two years of denial, the war is coming home to the American people. It's a journalistic cliche to talk about what you learned on summer vacation, but indulge me: With mostly network news and USA Today to provide my news-junkie fix, I learned this August that the war is finally a mainstream news story. I'm just old enough to remember grim footage from Vietnam on the nightly news, and it's starting to look familiar -- maps of the latest attacks, the dead and wounded soldiers, the grieving families and, now, Cindy Sheehan and antiwar protesters. If there's anybody still eating dinner watching the "CBS Evening News," now with Bob Schieffer and not Walter Cronkite, it's unsettling suppertime fare.

But the news is following public opinion, not leading it. The percentage of people who support the president's handling of the war has been sinking, as the number of casualties, and the apparent power of the insurgency, continue to rise. The other thing that's starting to break through is the president's cluelessness and callousness, his tin ear when it comes to the war and to Cindy Sheehan's appeal. Bush is such a polarizing force in American politics that it's hard to objectively describe either his personal political assets or his flaws. Most of his opponents can't even imagine his appeal to his supporters -- the regular Texan, the man's man, the guy you'd prefer to have a beer with over John Kerry -- and of course his admirers can't see what enrages his detractors, the smirking shiftless bully behind the regular-guy veneer.

Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but it felt to me as if with Bush's latest remarks about Sheehan over the weekend, the clownish lightweight his critics know and despise was beginning to shine through for all to see. If you haven't already, take a moment to ponder what he told Cox News about why he could find time for a bike ride on Saturday but not to meet with Sheehan:

"I think it's important for me to be thoughtful and sensitive to those who have got something to say. But I think it's also important for me to go on with my life, to keep a balanced life ... I think the people want the president to be in a position to make good, crisp decisions and to stay healthy. And part of my being is to be outside exercising. So I'm mindful of what goes on around me. On the other hand, I'm also mindful that I've got a life to live and will do so."

You don't have to be Cindy Sheehan to think that yammering on about "staying healthy" and living a "balanced life" while so many are suffering and dying in Iraq is unthinkably cruel, as well as unbelievably politically tone deaf. When I read Bush's quote -- I read it over and over -- I found myself wondering not just about his character but about his fundamental emotional health. It's as if he's confessing he couldn't stay "balanced" if he had to confront Sheehan's grief, and even worse, her questions about why her son died.

And yet, even as Sheehan's public relations victories give people reason to be optimistic about the administration's unraveling in Iraq, liberals and war opponents have to be careful not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. It's important to understand why Sheehan matters, and how she's gained traction on the war. Yes, it's the uptick in violence in Iraq, and the decided downturn in optimism, even among war supporters, who are continually defining success downward. Sunday's Washington Post had a great account of how the war architects are ready to declare victory -- not a Democratic Iraq but "some form of Islamic republic" -- and get out of Vietnam, I mean, Iraq. And yes, it's also true that August is a slow news month, giving Sheehan more room to tell her story. (I'd add that karma required that the president's stubborn monthlong vacation in Texas -- whether it's after he got a warning about terrorists using airplanes as weapons in 2001, on the eve of 9/11, or during one of the bloodiest months yet in Iraq -- would come back to bite him.)

But mainly it's the sincerity and humanity of Sheehan's core message. The anecdotes coming out of Camp Casey tell the story: Sheehan's quiet discussion with a soldier who opposes her views, which ended in a hug. Another Camp Casey activist had a respectful talk with a trucker who supports the war but stopped by to see if his dead son was listed among the casualties there. (He was, and the visit reportedly ended with him declaring his love for Sheehan.) Against the backdrop of an administration that refuses to acknowledge the dead, that prohibits photos of coffins and flies the wounded home under cover of darkness, that lets the president vacation and "stay healthy" instead of talking to the mother of a dead veteran, Sheehan and Camp Casey can get attention and win converts just by bearing witness to the violence and despair of a war whose goal nobody really understands anymore, in which victory seems less and less likely.

To build on her success it's important that organizers understand her appeal. Sheehan doesn't have all the answers -- she's smart enough to know she doesn't need to provide them. By simply asking why her son died, she's starting a dialogue about a war in which we've been lied to from the outset.

Moving forward and coming up with a broader message that can unify an antiwar movement will be tougher. Even war opponents aren't sure whether the message should be "Out now," or "Out soon," or "A lot of us out now and the rest asap." But if the goal is to build a big-tent antiwar movement, the messages must be simple, inclusive and from the heart.

The right will continue to use Sheehan's more controversial statements against her, of course. And it could, conceivably, hurt her appeal with the American people -- especially if antiwar allies choose to play up those positions. While I think there's plenty of room to blame the pro-Israel Project for a New American Century for helping lead us to war on false pretenses, as Sheehan does, let's remember that we won't end the war by requiring a litmus test on Israel and Palestine. Too often antiwar organizers have driven away supporters by leading with their most divisive views -- and by failing to communicate with those who hold different views.

Sheehan is outspoken -- and like all Americans, she has the right to be outspoken -- but she hasn't made that mistake. Camp Casey has become an outpost of grief and dialogue, and that's what gives it worldwide recruiting power. In Kentucky, the Republican grandmother of Marine Lance Cpl. Chase Johnson Comley, killed in Amiriyah, Iraq, earlier this month, told local media she wished she could join Sheehan in Crawford because she's "on a rampage" against Bush and the war. "When someone gets up and says, 'My son died for our freedom,' or I get a sympathy card that says that, I can hardly bear it," 80-year-old Geraldine Comley told the Lexington Herald-Leader. "And it irritates me no small amount that Dick Cheney, in the Vietnam War, said he had 'other priorities.' He didn't mind sending my grandson over there" to Iraq.

Michael Moore couldn't have put it any more harshly. Smart organizers will make sure the Geraldine Comleys of the world are always welcome at Camp Casey. Because, sadly, their ranks are growing by the day.

Another Fixed Election

Happy Friday.

Bush's 2004 campaign chairman for New England has been indicted in federal court for conspiring to fix the results of the 2002 election for Senator from New Hampshire. As if the 2000 election fix weren't bad enough.

From The New Hampshire Union Leader:

RNC now admits paying lawyers
for alleged conspirator in NH case

WASHINGTON — Despite a zero-tolerance policy on tampering with voters, the Republican Party this week admitted that it has paid more than $700,000 to provide private defense lawyers for a former Bush campaign official charged with conspiring to keep Democrats from voting in New Hampshire.

James Tobin, the President’s 2004 campaign chairman for New England, is charged in New Hampshire federal court with four felonies accusing him of conspiring with a state GOP official and a GOP consultant in Virginia to jam Democratic and labor union get-out-the-vote phone banks in November 2002.

Republican Party officials said they don’t ordinarily discuss specifics of their legal work, but confirmed to The Associated Press they had agreed to underwrite Tobin’s defense because he was a longtime supporter and that he assured them he had committed no crimes.

“Jim is a longtime friend who has served as both an employee and an independent contractor for the RNC,” a spokeswoman for the RNC, Tracey Schmitt, said Wednesday. “This support is based on his assurance and our belief that Jim has not engaged in any wrongdoing.”

RNC HAD DUCKED QUESTION

Last month, RNC spokesman Aaron McLear refused to say whether the RNC was paying Tobin’s legal bills when the New Hampshire Union Leader presented evidence that it was and asked the same question.

The Union Leader had reported on July 21 that a document dated October 2003, which had been recently filed in federal court in Concord in the Tobin criminal case, shows that former RNC Deputy Counsel Charles Spies represented Tobin “in his capacity as an employee of the Republican National Committee.”

The Union Leader also reported that RNC financial disclosures filed in July of this year showed payments of more than $500,000 to the high-powered Washington law firm Williams and Connolly for “legal services.”

McLear, after checking with RNC lawyers, refused to answer any questions about Tobin.

A telephone firm was paid to make repeated hang-up phone calls to overwhelm the phone banks in New Hampshire and prevent them from getting Democratic voters to the polls on Election Day 2002, prosecutors allege. Republican John Sununu won a close race that day to be New Hampshire’s newest senator.

At the time, Tobin was the RNC’s New England regional director, before moving to President Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign.

A top New Hampshire Party official and a GOP consultant already have pleaded guilty and cooperated with prosecutors.

“The object of the conspiracy was to deprive inhabitants of New Hampshire and more particularly qualified voters ... of their federally secured right to vote,” states the latest indictment issued by a federal grand jury on May 18.

HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS IN LEGAL DEFENSE

Since charges were first filed in December, the RNC has spent more than $722,000 to provide Tobin, who has pleaded innocent, a team of lawyers from Williams and Connolly. The firm’s other clients include Bill and Hillary Clinton and former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros.

The GOP’s filings with the FEC list the payments to Williams and Connolly without specifying they were for Tobin’s defense. Political parties have wide latitude on how they spend their money, including on lawyers.

The Republican Party has repeatedly and pointedly disavowed any tactics aimed at keeping citizens from voting since allegations of voter suppression surfaced during the Florida recount in 2000 that tipped the presidential race to Bush.

Earlier this week, RNC chairman Ken Mehlman, the former White House political director, reiterated a “zero-tolerance policy” for any GOP official caught trying to block legitimate votes.

“The position of the Republican National Committee is simple: We will not tolerate fraud; we will not tolerate intimidation; we will not tolerate suppression. No employee, associate or any person representing the Republican Party who engages in these kinds of acts will remain in that position,” Mehlman wrote Monday to a group that studied voter suppression tactics.

Dennis Black and Dane Butswinkas, two Williams and Connolly lawyers for Tobin, did not return calls Wednesday seeking comment. Brian Tucker, a New Hampshire lawyer on the team, declined comment.

Tobin’s lawyers have attacked the prosecution, suggesting evidence was improperly introduced to the grand jury, that their client originally had been promised he wouldn’t be indicted and that he was improperly charged under one of the statutes.

Tobin stepped down from his Bush-Cheney post a couple of weeks before the November 2004 election after Democrats suggested he was involved in the phone bank scheme. He was charged a month after the election.

"HOW HIGH DOES THIS GO?"

Paul Twomey, a volunteer lawyer for New Hampshire Democrats who are pursuing a separate lawsuit involving the phone scheme, said he was surprised the RNC was willing to pay Tobin’s legal bills and that it suggested more people may be involved.

“It originally appeared to us that there were just certain rogue elements of the Republican Party who were willing to do anything to win control of the U.S. Senate, including depriving Americans of their ability to vote,” Twomey said.

“But now that the RNC actually is bankrolling Mr. Tobin’s defense, coupled with the fact that it has refused some discovery in the civil case, really raises the questions of who are they protecting, how high does this go and who was in on this,” Twomey said.

Federal prosecutors have secured testimony from the two convicted conspirators in the scheme directly implicating Tobin.

Charles McGee, the New Hampshire GOP official who pleaded guilty, told prosecutors he informed Tobin of the plan and asked for Tobin’s help in finding a vendor who could make the calls that would flood the phone banks.

Allen Raymond, a former colleague of Tobin who operated a Virginia-based telephone services firm, told prosecutors Tobin called him in October 2002, explained the telephone plan and asked Raymond’s company to help McGee implement it.

Raymond’s lawyer told the court that Tobin made the request for help in his official capacity as the top RNC official for New England and his client believed the RNC had sanctioned the activity.
———

The indictment in this is available at: http://wid.ap.org/documents/tobinindictment.pdf

RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman’s recent letter on voter suppression is available at: http://wid.ap.org/documents/rncletter.pdf

Baghdad Bob in the White House

Happy Friday.

Baghdad Bob was the Iraqi spokesman who, as televised reports showed U.S. forces approaching the outskirts of Baghdad, famously denied reality, exclaiming: "They are not any place. They are on the move everywhere. They are a snake moving in the desert. They hold no place in Iraq. This is an illusion."

The one lesson the current administration has taken from Iraq is, when all else fails, lie like Baghdad Bob:

LIE: The Bush administration claims you’ll be able to pass along the money that accumulates in a private account, to replace Social Security, to your children or grandchildren. (White House website.)

FACT: “Most lower-income workers will be required to purchase government lifetime annuities, financial instruments that provide a guaranteed monthly payment for life but that expire at death. Money in these annuities cannot be passed on to heirs.” (NY Times 2/3/05.)

LIE: In signing the No Child Left Behind Act, Bush declared “We’re going to spend more on our schools and we’re going to spend it more wisely.” In his 2004 State of the Union speech, he claimed “I refuse to give up on any child and the No Child Left Behind Act is opening the door of opportunity to all of America’s children.”

FACT: Bush’s FY2005 budget under funds the No Child Left Behind (“NCLB”) program by $9.4 billion – or 27 percent less than authorized by Congress. Bush under funded the NCLB program by $15 billion during his first three years in office. Most of the under funding is in the area of Title I of the Act which provides funds to schools with low income or disadvantaged students. (The Daily Distortion 10/24/03; New Democratic Network 12/02/03; Center for American Progress 02/03/04.)

LIE: The Bush administration claims it has imposed “stringent new rules on power plant emissions.”

FACT: The new Bush rules gutted Clean Air Act restrictions to allow utilities to avoid having to install expensive new anti-pollution equipment when they modernize their plants. The EPA’s civil enforcement chief resigned in protest, while another senior EPA lawyer wrote to former director Christine Todd Whitman complaining that the administration “seems determined to weaken the rules we are trying to enforce.” A study commissioned by the administration demonstrated that current, weakened policies on power plant emissions have led to the death of 24,000 people a year. (Center for American Progress 12/13/03; NY Times 06/10/04.)

LIE: President Bush claimed there is insufficient scientific evidence of global warming as part of his justification for withdrawing from the Kyoto Treaty.

FACT: The National Academy of Science’s 2001 report stated that there is “general agreement that the observed warming is real and particularly strong within the past 20 years” and that most of the warming “observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.” Similarly, an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that global temperatures were rising dramatically due in part to human-induced emissions. A Pentagon study stated that the threat posed by global warming “vastly eclipses that of terrorism.” The study said that climate change should be considered immediately as a top political and military issue and warned of catastrophic results between 2007 and 2020. (NY Times 01/12/03; The Nation 10/13/03.)

LIE: Bush told the Veterans of Foreign Wars that “Veterans are a priority of this administration . . . and that priority is reflected in my budget.”

FACT: In 2003, Bush killed an emergency funding request that included $275 million for Veterans’ medical care, while his 2004 budget request fell $1.9 billion short of maintaining what the American Legion called “an inadequate status quo.” Bush’s 2005 budget cuts Veteran funding by $13.5 billion over 5 years. (The Daily Mis-Lead 10/21/03; The Center for American Progress 02/04/03.)

LIE: The Bush administration claimed its Medicare prescription drug cards would provide “significant price reductions off typical retail prices” for seniors.

FACT: A Congressional report found that the drug prices available to beneficiaries using the “discount cards” are no lower than existing prices and even higher than prices available in Canada, under the U.S. Federal Supply Schedule, and through discount pharmacies such as Drugstore.com. Moreover drug companies raised their prices by 3 times the rate of inflation immediately prior to the release of the “discount cards.” (Daily Mis-Lead 05/04/04; “New Medicare Drug Cards Offer Few Discounts,” House Committee on Government Reform, Minority Staff April 2004, AP 07/01/04.)

LIE: During the debates, Bush claimed he would not seek to overturn the FDA’s approval of RU-486.

FACT: Bush later insisted he would not accept the FDA’s approval decision and would seek to appoint an FDA commissioner who would “make sure the FDA considered the risk”. (ABC News.com 10/4/02.)