Author Archives: rff_blog_admin

Tea Party Origins

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A Seattle blogger named Liberty Belle (Keli Carender) is credited with organizing a mid-February 2009 protest against the stimulus package that she originally called the “Porkulus Protest.” The protest gathering of about 100 people became known as a “tea party.”

CNBC’s Rick Santelli is widely acknowledged to have began the nationwide launch of the movement. He was being televised from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange when he went into a rant about proposals that the government step in to help homeowners facing foreclosure. He said, “Do we really want to subsidize the losers’ mortgages? This is America! How many of you people (looking at the floor traders behind him) want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills?” He went on to suggest that he would organize a Chicago Tea Party, where capitalists would dump “some derivative securities into Lake Michigan.” The video of his tirade became a YouTube hit, and the movement was born.

Tea party protests sprang up across the country, and MSNBC and other media outlets began running stories demeaning the gatherings.  I tolerated the frequent “insider joke” about “tea baggers” (apparently the commentators didn’t believe average people would know how to use the Internet to learn what that term means).  However, I stopped watching Rachel Maddow the night she said something to the effect that it was difficult to understand what the protestors were saying, because their words were muffled by their white hoods.

I’ve been an interested watcher of politics since the mid-1950s, and the criticisms by public officials against the Tea Party is the first time I can recall politicians demeaning a significant group of their customers, the voters. 

FBI Spy Plane Video

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The Energy Employees Claims Assistance Project had sent out a link to the video of the spy plane night time flyover of Rocky Flats that the FBI thought proved the Building 771 incinerator was operating illegally. I provided the link in the book about Rocky Flats on this site at the end of Chapter 14. The link is no longer active, and I’m asking for anyone who has an active link to email it to me at fdsmhobbs@aol.com.

For those who have not yet read the book, there was no proof found to support the allegations of illegal incineration, and it was not mentioned in plea bargain with Rockwell.  An expert reviewing the video told the investigators the heat from the stack was probably from the building heating systems.  The video is an important part of the story about the infamous raid on Rocky Flats, and I hope to find a copy to post. 

 
 
 

 

Which President Lied About Weapons of Mass Destruction

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President George W. Bush is quoted as saying in his January 2003 State of the Union Address that “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” CIA Director George Tenet said even though officials of his agency had concurred that the text was factually correct, those “16 words should never have been included in the text written for the President.” The controversy about whether “Bush lied” in exaggerating or inventing that Iraq had, or had planned to make, weapons of mass destruction consumed American politics and news reports for years.

Iraq did have a history of interest in development of nuclear weapons. A BBC report describes how an air attack by Israel destroyed a French-built nuclear reactor near Baghdad, “saying they believed it was designed to make nuclear weapons to destroy Israel.” The reactor “…was near completion but had not been stocked with nuclear fuel…” Iraq also had more than a theoretical interest in chemical weapons. A Department of Defense report details use of chemical agents numerous times against Iranian forces in the1980s and again in 1988 in attacks that killed thousands of Kurds in Hussein’s own country.

With that history it isn’t a surprise that President Bush and leaders of both political parties almost universally believed that Saddam Hussein probably had retained chemical agents and was willing to use them. But now we arrive at the really interesting part about who lied. There are numerous articles on the Internet about the interrogation of Saddam Hussein by George L. Piro, but I will focus on a “60 Minute” report.

It took five months of interrogation for Piro to gain the trust and respect of Hussein before he admitted why he had led the world to believe Iraq had chemical weapons while the United States was threatening invasion. Hussein admitted he miscalculated President Bush. He expected an air campaign that he could survive. He believed that Iraq’s major enemy was Iran, and that eventually there could be a security agreement with the United States that would prevent the Iranians from annexing southern Iraq. He also believed that he could not survive an inevitable attack from Iran “without the perception that he had weapons of mass destruction.” He told his generals that he would order the use of chemical weapons if Iraq was attacked, and he did that to hold Iran at bay. Saddam Hussein lied, and Bush and his advisors believed the lie.

　

 

　
 
 

 

Dream Act Revisions

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I searched the Immigration Policy Center web site after the Dream Act failed to pass to consider the opinions of supporters. That helped me understand why there is a wish to provide a path to citizenship for young people brought to this country illegally who have grown up as Americans. There are several revisions that could be made to the Act that would make it something I could support. The primary flaw with the Act as proposed was, in my opinion, including mere attendance of college as a path to citizenship. I would support citizenship for those who serve honorably in the military.

One criticism of the Act is that it would encourage others to come into the country illegally. Probably the best way to gather support for the Act is to include it in immigration reform legislation that proves we are serious about addressing the total problem, including border security. Of course there would have to be solid proof that the applicants did grow up in this country. There also must be a sunset clause to eliminate incentives for more illegal immigration. However, I have no objection to a young person earning citizenship by honorably serving in the military. To those who might say having only one path to citizenship through military service is too limiting, there is a GI Bill which provides substantial college benefits. The link also provides information on Federal and State grants available to veterans.

President Obama would undoubtedly disagree with my suggestion about the need to consider the Dream Act as part of immigration reform. He said in a recent press conference that border security has been improved under his administration, and that issue shouldn’t deter a vote for the Act. The same day I read a New York Times article by James C. Mckinley Jr. in the Denver Post (December 22, 2010, page 7A) titled “Audit: Millions entering U.S. minus proper ID.” The article included the observation that “A year and a half after the federal government strengthened rules on the documents needed to enter the country, millions of people are still being allowed through without passports or…other identification cards…The Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security estimated…about 3.6 million people a year were still passing through customs without the required documentation, and that half of those were coming through the border crossing in Texas.”

Hans Rosling’s 200 Countries, 200 Years

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This post provides a link to a four minute You Tube presentation about the connection between life expectancy and income.  I originally didn’t think of adding this post to the blog, and then I realized it could be a light companion to the video about nuclear explosions. 

From the description I received, “Hans Rosling’s famous lectures combine enormous quantities of public data with a sport’s commentator’s style to reveal the story of the world’s past, present and future development. Now he explores stats in a way he has never done before – using augmented reality animation. In this spectacular section of ‘The Joy of Stats’ he tells the story of the world in 200 countries over 200 years using 120,000 numbers – in just four minutes. Plotting life expectancy against income for every country since 1810, Hans shows how the world we live in is radically different from the world most of us imagine.”

I don’t know how famous Hans Rosling is, but his video will challenge those who have the opinion math can never be fun.

The Classified Documents in the Pants Mystery

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The mystery of how the Justice Department operates becomes more baffling the more I read. “Scooter” Libby was found guilty of failing to remember events correctly, or failing to correctly tell investigators what he knew. He was sentenced to 30-37 months in jail followed by two years of probation and fined $250,000. Sandy Berger stole classified documents from the National Archives, and was sentenced to two years of probation and fined $50,000 after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor.  Berger was supposed to be finding information that would be important to the 9/11 Commission. I speculate that he instead took the opportunity to remove documents that might be embarrassing to him or perhaps the Clinton legacy. One would think that stealing documents from the National Archives would be a serious crime, and that the crime would be even more serious if the purpose was to obstruct the work of the 9/11 Commission.  It apparently was a mere misdemeanor.

Clinton had asked Berger, who had been his National Security Advisor, to testify to the Commission. Berger was allowed access to classified documents in a secure reading room during four visits to the National Archives to prepare for his testimony. He was caught in the act of stealing documents. The incident was reported to the Justice Department by Paul Brachfield, the Inspector General of the National Archives. Brachfield became concerned about a lack of action from DOJ, and arranged a meeting with a DOJ trial attorney to emphasize he was concerned Berger was obstructing the Commission’s investigation. An article sent to me by my Sister-in-law observed that DOJ began to investigate after Brachfield persisted.

There is no way of knowing how many classified documents Berger cleaned out of the National Archives during the visits before he was caught. DOJ apparently wasn’t curious about what he removed, because they decided there was no need for the lie detector test that was a condition of Berger’s plea bargain.  They conducted a multi-million dollar investigation about “who outed Valerie Plame” (even after they learned whodunit early in the investigation and didn’t prosecute that person), but apparently weren’t curious about what Berger was up to.  It’s a mystery. I’d be interested if there is a reader who can explain this to me and/or can set me straight.