Note to readers
Work and a vacation starting middle of next week mean I will probably not be blogging again until the 2d week in June. Thanks for dropping by. Meanwhile, I recommend Marstonalia, Arts & Letters Daily (not a blog, but that's OK!), Interfaith Nunnery (where Iris, Andrea, and Niki chat about medieval studies, science fiction, movies, politics, and whatnot), Gary Farber, Matthew Yglesias, and of course Josh Marshall for all the latest on Texasgate and life inside the Beltway. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:45:00 PM -- |  

 

Gotcha, you bastard: the continuing series
Not Al Qaeda this time -- although similarities come to mind: Olympics Bombing Suspect Rudolph Arrested. Abortion clinic bomber suspect, too. Sayonara, a**h*le. Way to go, FBI. (Prior "Gotchas" here.) posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:44:00 PM -- |  

 
Zimbabwe threatens planned opposition demonstrations
The French and South African help on the way to the Congo may well be too little, too late -- not that great efforts shouldn't be made regardless. But a little well-placed attention right now might help avert a tragedy in Zimbabwe. Via Glenn Reynolds and his source StrategyPage, there's word from a South African newspaper that Robert Mugabe is arming his thugs in advance of planned demonstrations next week. On Thursday, the "Mercury" reported:

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe is surreptitiously arming his war veterans and violent youth brigades with guns so that they can crush the planned street protests to topple his regime next week.

The street protests have been dubbed "the final push for freedom" by the opposition.

Army sources promised chaos and bloodshed on a scale never seen before, if protesters tried to march into Mugabe's official residence in Harare.

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said it would begin street protests from Monday to force Mugabe out of office, but Mugabe's militant war veteran supporters have vowed to crush them. They said they would use their military experience to ensure the MDC protests "don't even take off".

According to sources, Mugabe has "opened army barracks" to the war veterans and youth militias. The sources said Mugabe was taking the MDC threats seriously. They said Mugabe was well aware that the last national strike called by the opposition had been an overwhelming success. He was therefore taking into account the possibility of an overwhelming response to the latest call.

"Mugabe's resolve to crush any challenge to his authority must not be underestimated," said a middle ranking army official, who preferred not to be identified.

That's for sure; I happened to read Doris Lessing's April piece in the New York Review of Books recently, have a look for yourself. See also this tremendous report by the U.S. State Department, issued in March.

The government's tough, threatening line against the MDC is confirmed by articles in the Harare Herald and the Daily Telegraph ("Protest will be crushed, Mugabe's army pledges").

I ask you to contact the government of Zimbabwe by e-mail, phone, and/or fax, and let them know that, as they say, "the whole world is watching." I suggest saying that we condemn threatening demonstrators, and condemn Mugabe's miserable human rights record, and that we'll be watching to see what happens next week. I plan to mention that Rwandans have been tried in Arusha (Tanzania) and in Rwanda for their crimes against humanity, and to suggest that might happen to Zimbabweans who go too far next week, too.

An ounce of prevention, and all that: the ongoing carnage in the Congo has been traced by at least one analysis to our collective failure to prevent the Rwandan tragedy.

To put this little action in the proper perspective: this may be just a thimbleful of prevention, and it's almost certainly yet another case of too little, too late. If you send a message, it may get deleted or ignored. The MDC seems to be intent on a showdown with Mugabe, so violence is almost guaranteed next week. But it doesn't seem utterly naive to hope that enough messages might help a bloody crackdown stop a little bit sooner.

Bottom line: if you send a message, you'll probably never know just how ineffective it was. But you'll know you've helped put Mugabe on notice that someone is watching.

Contact the Zimbabwe government:
Zimbabwe embassy to the US: web site, e-mail, contact web page.
Zimbabwe mission to the U.N.: Telephone: (212) 980-9511/5084, Telefax: (212) 308-6705
Zimbabwe embassy in Canada: web site, e-mail
Government of Zimbabwe: web site, contact web page.

Consider CC'ing these organizations:
US State Department, Human Rights: web site, contact web page
Human Rights Watch: web site, e-mail
UNHCHR: web site, e-mail

Here's a handy-dandy multiple address e-mail link, modify as you wish, of course.

...OK, you've been very patient and very good. Now go have some fun. :) posted by Thomas Nephew at 1:35:00 AM -- |  

 

Boeing air tanker lease deal approved
U.S. Senator John McCain, Friday, May 23:

I am extremely disappointed that the Department of Defense has approved the lease of Boeing 767 aircraft for use as aerial tankers, a profligate waste of federal revenues. This is a great deal for the Boeing Company that I'm sure is the envy of corporate lobbyists from one end of K Street to the other. But it's a lousy deal for the Air Force and for the American taxpayer.

For background, see my earlier posts (04/20/03, 01/01/02), but also a reader e-mail comment mentioned on 05/04/03. After the famous Far Side cartoon, here's what I imagine the Bush administration heard:

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah. This is a great deal for the Boeing Company blah blah blah...

McCain points out that the Defense Department appears to have ignored a specific Congressional requirement to provide an "analysis of alternatives", or AOA in the jargon, and comments, I know of no other weapon system that has been procured by the Pentagon without an AOA." The senator notes that the Armed Services Committee will look into the matter, and promises he will hold hearings in the Commerce Committee on aspects of the lease. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:34:00 PM -- |  

 

Fun stuff on the net

Icon war (via Praschl)

Ant City (via gHack, Flash required: "Take your magnifying glass, and go burn stuff up.")

Viking kittens (via everyone, sooner or later)

posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:25:00 AM -- |  

 

Texasgate: the saga continues
The Associated Press reported this morning that

...Texas Homeland security coordinator Jay Kimbrough gave Department of Public Safety officers the telephone number to the agency within the federal Homeland Security Department that helped Texas officials track down more than 50 Democrats who fled the state in a political walkout, said Rep. Kevin Bailey, chairman of the House General Investigating Committee.

As Tony Adragna points out, even if Kimbrough merely left the phone number on the desk and walked away, that would constitute "willful blindness," given that as a legal advisor he should have counseled the DPS officer not to contact the Department of Homeland Security agency AMICC under any circumstances. Adragna concludes there was probably criminal wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, State Representative Lon Burnam is trying to depose four members of the DPS regarding the DPS destruction of documents associated with the quorum-skipper manhunt, which could shed light on what Kimbrough and others did. The Texas Attorney General's office, though, appears more concerned with getting the whistleblowers than with investigating DPS misconduct, and convinced the judge involved to require Burnam testify about his sources.

The Houston Chronicle (among others) reports that Burnam and the four officers will be deposed about his sources next Monday. Josh Marshall spoke with Burnam, who says he plans to reveal the names of his DPS sources, and believes "they are trying to find out what I know and who I know it from and how they can get to them."

Meanwhile, I overlooked a media milestone for the story: on May 26, the Washington Post became the first newspaper to use the term "Texasgate," according to Google. Keep it up, DeLay, Craddick, Kimbrough, all of you! This story would be nothing without you!

=====
EDIT 6/10: Sheesh. I wrote "Berman" twice instead of "Burnam", took until now to notice that. There's no Berman in this story, just Lon Burnam. posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:11:00 PM -- |  

 

New Mexico, Texas
Earlier this month, Tony Adragna pointed out that New Mexico Democrats attempted to do more or less the same thing Texas Republicans are trying: redraw Congressional districts after a political process and a court order led to the current district boundaries. Adragna notes that the attempt apparently died ("action postponed indefinitely").

If I'd known about it, I'd have opposed the New Mexico effort, too, barring some extremely compelling reason not to. At any rate, Texas Democrats weren't therefore compelled to roll over and play dead when the DeLay-Craddick redistricting bill came along.

In an earlier post, Adragna criticized the Democratic quorum-busting ploy, claiming the Democrats could have bottled it up in the Texas Senate. Maybe. What I've read is that the Texas Senate Democrats would have had to act with near unanimity to avert the redistricting plan, and that Texas House Democrats thought that was unlikely.

So they left. Under the circumstances -- Speaker Craddick, Governor Perry -- good for them. Under the circumstances, refusing to provide a quorum seems more like valid civil disobedience than mere lawbreaking to me. The point of having a quorum rule is mainly to protect the absent, not to compel the present to assist in their political suicides.

Tony links to the excellent Center for Voting and Democracy ... located right in my home town! They have a ton of interesting articles and web links about things like instant runoff voting, full representation (i.e., proportional representation schemes that avoid the problems of the familiar winner-take-all process), D.C. representation (they punt on how it should happen), redistricting (including state by state roundups) and much, much more.

The basic question is how to arrange for fair redistricting processes. USA Today points out that Iowa and Arizona have both decided to move the process out of the legislature (to "nonpartisan technocrats" and an independent commission). Alternatively, cumulative or instant runoff voting schemes could be implemented that would make it much more difficult to gerrymander a state, since the losing minority in any given district would still have a chance to gain representation.

In the meantime, note that Republicans won their majority in Texas under the very district geography they seek to "improve." The burden is on them to demonstrate why democracy is best served by artificially enhancing that victory. posted by Thomas Nephew at 2:27:00 AM -- |  

 

Spanish troops
Condolences to the country and families of the 62 Spanish peacekeeping troops who died in a plane crash in Turkey on Monday. Most had been in Afghanistan for four months building an airport road and clearing mines and explosives.

Americans should take a moment to remember them, and thank their country for their service. The Spanish Embassy to the US has a web site and an e-mail form, that's all I can find.

This is neither here nor there, but I've been to Spain twice, once last year: Madrid, Toledo, the Asturias region, and Barcelona. I had a great time, even though my Spanish is confined to a handful of words. Nice people, great food, fascinating history, beautiful country. And an ally we owe a debt of gratitude to. posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:33:00 PM -- |  

 

Pest control
Josh Marshall has an item up wondering where the outrage and interest is about Tom DeLay's role in the Texas redistricting business and the manhunt for Democrats that ensued. He closes with a question:

[The] House Majority Leader was directly and intimately involved in activities that are now the subject of investigations by two cabinet departments and grand jury proceedings in Texas. Yet Washington is still barely paying the matter any attention. How do you explain that?

Marshall figures everyone in the media expects skulduggery and hardball from DeLay, so it isn't news when it happens, and everyone on Capitol Hill is just plain scared of DeLay -- Republicans need the campaign cash he controls, and Democrats are just "sadly cowed."

That leaves us Democrats off the Hill. But what the heck is the matter with Democrats, and Democratic bloggers? Kevin Drum's take, for example, was:

Tom DeLay, apparently barely in control of his rage these days, decided to get the feds involved in tracking down those Texas state legislators who fled the state last week. That's bad, but let's face it: it's not really that bad. [...]

Since I don't like DeLay I guess I think this is all just fine, but even so it's slightly painful watching yet another of these train wrecks unfold.

The hell it is. It's bracing and invigorating watching this train wreck unfold. There's a song in my heart and a smile on my lips watching this train wreck unfold. Trust me, Kevin, there's nothing like watching former pest control man Tom DeLay scuttle from one explanation to the next, all six legs pumping, to lift the spirits.

Matthew Yglesias gives it one early item, Abuse of Power, good as far as it goes, but his only item since (that I know of) has been kind of bored with it, seemingly because Lieberman is going after it, and Lieberman is boring and all:

As a partisan Democrat it's my sworn issue to try and hype the Tom DeLay abuse of power story as much as possible (something about a wurlitzer or something) so this is a link to a story about Joe Lieberman calling for an investigation.

WTF? Wurlitzer? What's that about? I like Yglesias's blog a lot, but this is just amazingly half-hearted; even if Lieberman isn't your favorite candidate, give him some real credit and support for getting after this, don't yawn "ho-hum" because it doesn't directly benefit Dean or Kerry or Gephardt or whoever you support. A rising tide lifts all ships.

Like it or not, and half the time I don't, this kind of thing is today's bread and butter politics. You can do tax spreadsheets six ways from Christmas, debate prescription drug benefits, or muse about foreign policy, but what people care about is trustworthiness and a sense of playing by the rules. Somebody besides me and Joe Lieberman ought to be getting the word out that Tom DeLay is a frightening control freak creep who's risen to the pinnacle of power, is busy finagling and conniving for more, and is twisting the spirit and letter of the law to get it.

What's going on may seem trivial, but it isn't. I remember Florida on the one hand, and all the penny-ante crap the GOP threw at Clinton for eight years, "Travelgate," for crying out loud, Whitewater, murder innuendoes. If you're a Democrat and can't get fired up about some richly deserved non-penny-ante payback, I don't know what's the matter with you.

Yes, it is that bad. It's not trivial, it's not picky stuff, it's not Travelgate or Monica. This is deciding how to staff the House of Representatives, our Congress. This is about how we shouldn't trivialize that process, and shouldn't let politicians like DeLay and his Texas brethren muck around with federal agencies and state governments they've got no business mucking around with. No business whatsoever. This is about setting limits to power, and observing those limits.

This is a power grab on a level with the Florida recount or the Clinton impeachment in the big picture, and is starting to look Watergate-like in the details. It's being orchestrated right in front of us, by one of the chief nuts, and I don't understand why all the supposed best and brightest can't muster up more than a yawn.


What to do #
Anyhow, what now? Keep pestering people. Risk ticking off a friend or two for a while: tell them DeLay is a jerk for what he's doing. Write Congress, make them hold hearings. Courtesy of the Democratic National Committee, here's a message checklist and some key Representatives and Senators to contact :

Please contact the members of Congress listed below and tell them the following:

Congressman Tom DeLay misused his power when he asked the Justice Department and Federal Aviation Administration to get involved in Texas politics. His actions should be investigated.

Texas Republicans abused the federal Department of Homeland Security by asking them to track Democrats' locations. Their actions should be investigated.

The role of and costs incurred by the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Aviation Administration in local Texas politics should be investigated.

The Texas Department of Public Safety immediately and questionably destroyed all records relating to their search for Democratic legislators. Their actions should be investigated.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner, Jr (R-WI), House Judiciary Committee Chairman
Rep. Christopher Cox (R-CA), House Select Committee on Homeland Security Chairman
Rep. Donald Young (R-AK), House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman
Rep. Joel Hefley (R-CO), House Committee on Standards and Official Conduct Chairman
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee Chairman
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman
Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH), Senate Select Committee on Ethics Chairman

The key contacts are all Republicans. I plan to appeal to their egos: "I understand that it would take a lot of courage for you to take on Tom DeLay." (I'll spare McCain the courage bit.) Something like that.

There's blood in the water. Not all of it's ours. Let's get busy. If the bullies in the GOP want to push, push back. posted by Thomas Nephew at 9:06:00 AM -- |  

 

Where have I heard this one before?
Houston Chronicle: Malfunction blamed for gap on DPS tape:

Texas state police officials on Monday blamed a faulty duplication machine for a five-hour gap in a Capitol security tape that was given to a House committee investigating how authorities handled the Democratic walkout. [...]

"It's odd that it was the day and time that we wanted," [committee chairman] Bailey said. "It's fine all week, except for that one period."

Say, that really is odd, isn't it.

=====
UPDATE, 5:30PM: The San Antonio Express News reports that an intact copy of the video surveillance tape has now been produced. The tape will allow investigators to see who entered and exited Texas House speaker Craddick's office, as well as a DPS command post next door set up to coordinate the search for the missing Democratic legislators. For more, see, as ever, Josh Marshall. (I beat him to this one by a couple of minutes, though.) posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:23:00 PM -- |  

 
Newsrack update parade

Idiocy displayed: The British Press Complaints Commission (PCC) has spoken: Dave Brown's scurrilous cartoon in the Independent wasn't anti-Semitic. As I wrote back in January ("Goyish") I think it was, and still do. Here's why the PCC doesn't:

There was no reason for the Commission to disbelieve the cartoonist's position - published in the newspaper and submitted as part of its evidence - that he had taken the view that the attack on Gaza city was a form of 'macabre electioneering' whose equivalent in a less fraught situation might be the more traditional stunt of kissing babies. He explained that this brought to mind the Goya painting and its depiction of Saturn, who is driven by paranoia into consuming his own children.

"Fraught situation" is a nice touch. In a less fraught situation I'd cartoon this outcome as the PCC engaged in a passionate, tonguewrapping kiss with David Brown and the Independent, but maybe harder imagery is called for. What would David Brown do?

Bloggers afraid: In April, Iranian blogger Sina Motallebi was arrested by Iranian authorities on charges involving the content of his weblog and the interviews he'd given to foreign journalists. I'm probably the last person to report that he is now out of jail (since May 12). The bail was pretty hefty: $38,000. The case attracted widespread attention, including this Newsweek story.

Almost simultaneously, the Iranian government adopted different means to control their citizens' online activities, by blocking access to a mixed bag of political, private, and non-profit domains and blog web sites. A partial list can be viewed at the gireh.com blog and website. Remarkably and fortunately, blogspot.com and hoder.com were not among them, and so far they seem to still be accessible to Iranian bloggers.

Justice DeLayed? We may get to add the Justice Department to the growing list of departments (Homeland Security, Transportation) leaned on by the DeLay cabal in the course of their efforts to redistrict Texas. The background: Texas state representative Richard Raymond complained that bilingual announcements of the redistricting initiative were not provided as required by law, and initiated a complaint to the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Then rumors arose that DeLay put the kibosh on DOJ pursuit of the matter. Josh Marshall has a copy of letter from Mr. Raymond to the Justice Department asserting that Raymond had

received reliable information that the normal processes of the Department of Justice for such complaints have been circumvented under pressure from Congressman Tom DeLay of Texas.

Assistant Attorney General Ralph Boyd, Jr. denies any such pressure occurred. In another tidbit, DeLay claimed last week that the FAA information he got was a matter of public record. CBS News quotes DeLay:

I asked a staffer to contact the FAA for publicly available flight information that any member of Congress gets from FAA — or you can get it off the Internet — as to the whereabouts of a certain plane, of a certain tail number.

That sounded like fun, so I thought I'd try it. The closest thing I've found is the FAA Aircraft Registry Inquiry page. Using Google, I searched for pictures of airplane tail numbers, and found one with the N-code N412BA. I then pulled up the available information about it. (You drop the "N" when searching.) There's a lot -- but none of it is about what the plane's current location is. As I mentioned in the earlier post, the FAA says such plane flight information is "routinely available." So I guess the right search engine is somewhere else on the FAA web site.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, there's speculation that Texas Governor Perry will call a special session to ram through the redistricting plan that the Democrats' quorum-breaking gambit headed off at the last moment. Texas Senate Democrats could kill the effort -- but only if at least 11 out 12 Democratic state senators vote against it.

UPDATE, 12PM: Josh Marshall e-mails: "In a subsequent report the FAA conceded that the information is *not* publicly available through the FAA. Some of it is sold to commercial info providers and they make it available to their subscribers." Still, even though he may have got the "you can get it off Internet" angle wrong, DeLay may not have done anything wrong here. I suppose it depends on whether DeLay either became a commercial subscriber, or was specifically entitled to such nonpublic, usually commercial information on short notice, and (in either case) what the terms of use are for such information. This may explain the "information any member of Congress gets" part of his statement. (Or, of course, DeLay may have got that wrong.)

New York Times flayed: Jack Shafer dissects the Rick Bragg story, and Mickey Kaus and Glenn Reynolds readers confirm that leaving stringers off bylines was just the way the New York Times does things, as my wife has known for years. That means Bragg is being scapegoated for a practice that's widespread at the Times. That may mean other reporters are wondering whether they'll be the next headline. And that might make the Bragg suspension more of a "warning shot" than "housecleaning," since worried reporters might be less eager to leak details of any Jayson-Blair-like stories still lurking at the Times.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 2:01:00 AM -- |  

 

The way the Times does things
In the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal, the Washington Post reports that the New York Times has now suspended veteran reporter Rick Bragg for not acknowledging a stringer's contributions to several pieces published under his name:

In an editor's note yesterday, the paper said that Bragg had only briefly visited the Florida town of Apalachicola, from which he filed a story last June, and that most of the reporting had been done by a stringer. That freelance reporter, J. Wes Yoder, should have shared a byline with Bragg, the paper said. [...]

Times staffers say that national bureau reporters like Bragg are under constant pressure from Executive Editor Howell Raines and his management team to get in and out of cities quickly and accumulate as many datelines as possible. Some staffers may touch down in a city shortly before deadline and file a piece based largely on phone interviews done by researchers in New York -- a practice that, to varying degrees, other newspapers sometimes pursue in tight deadline situations.

The thing is, failing to share bylines may have been just the New York Times' way of doing business. My wife recalls a similar story:

In the days after the Loma Prieta earthquake in October 1989, my fellow journalism grad students at UC-Berkeley and I were recruited by the San Francisco Bureau of the New York Times to report on the quake and its aftermath. I contributed to two or three longer stories -- amalgams of reporting from different people, many of them un-bylined.

I also went after a human interest story on my own initiative, doing all of the reporting and interviewing about injured Armenian children -- victims of a far deadlier quake in 1988 -- who had been flown to San Francisco only two weeks before for treatment and therapy at a local hospital.

But no byline was forthcoming for me this time, either. Instead, the story was called in to a veteran NY Times sports reporter who happened to be in town to cover the World Series, and he got the byline. When I asked staff at the bureau later about sharing the byline, I was blown off with a laugh: "That's not the way the Times does things."

Well, it should have been; if you put in the work, you ought to get a byline. But this isn't sour grapes, or piling on, it's just to suggest that Rick Bragg may have thought he, too, was just going by "the way the Times does things." posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:17:00 AM -- |