Wampum

This appeared as a column in today's Dawn, as The war president’s options by Mahir Ali. Enjoy.

GEORGE W. Bush did not think long and hard before unleashing his nation’s formidable military might on Afghanistan following the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

It’s more than likely that he wasn’t given to thinking long and hard about anything. But in this particular case, most Americans were fairly sanguine about the motivating mixture of vengeance and retribution. Only one member of Congress had the courage to question the wisdom of this course of action.

True, a couple of Bush’s closest aides wondered aloud whether, given that Afghanistan didn’t boast too many obvious targets, it might be a better idea to attack Iraq instead. Just for the heck of it. The Cheney-Rumsfeld brainwave was overruled, albeit only temporarily.

A few years later, once the battle plans for Baghdad, Basra and elsewhere were no longer a figment of Dick and Donald’s fevered imagination, an up-and-coming politician from Chicago told an antiwar rally that while he didn’t oppose all wars, he was dead set against stupid ones.

Before long this politician was catapulted into the national limelight as an unlikely contender for the White House. His opposition to the Iraq war helped Barack Obama wrest the Democratic presidential nomination from Hillary Clinton, who now serves under him as secretary of state. Throughout the campaign, however, he made it clear that he saw the conflict in Afghanistan in a rather different light.

In the run-up to his inauguration, when Obama consulted the top military brass on the Afghan war, he was evidently mortified to discover that they did not have an exit plan. Nearly a year later, there is still no sign of one. Soon after his swearing-in, Obama ordered 16,000 more troops into Afghanistan. He is now under pressure from the Pentagon to deploy another 40,000.

The president cannot be accused of inconsistency on Afghanistan, but nor can it convincingly be claimed that he has a clear-cut vision of what needs to be done and how it might be achieved. The rhetoric about defeating terrorism, although couched in more articulate terms, is not substantially different from Bush’s empty boasts. It’s hardly a secret that the capture of Al Qaeda members or associates has been accomplished almost exclusively through police action.

At the same time, surely Obama couldn’t be unaware that the past eight years of warfare have substantially augmented the level of resistance, not least on the basis of straightforward nationalism rather than morbid Islamist fantasies. US press reports suggest that even some Karzai government employees spend their weekends fighting alongside the Taliban.

The recent election debacle could only have served to cement opposition to the western military occupation. But what the Obama administration should find even more alarming is growing antagonism towards the war within the US: opinion polls suggest that a clear majority of Americans now disapprove of their nation’s role in Afghanistan.

It was relatively easy for most of them to avert their gaze when their nation’s bombers turned weddings into funerals in a far-off land. Body bags draped in American flags are harder to ignore. But doubts among the Democrats and even within the White House about the potential efficacy of a large-scale troop surge point to the creeping realisation that additional violence is hardly likely to prove decisive in the complex Afghan environment.

A variety of antiwar demonstrations planned for the coming months are intended to press home the message that the war in Afghanistan now lacks popular sanction. By and large, the participants are bound to be Americans who voted for Obama last November. Most of them remain keen on him making a success of his presidency – unlike the embittered core of the movement against modest healthcare reforms.

Former President Jimmy Carter was rewarded with a rap on the knuckles by the White House when he offered the opinion that the virulent opposition to Obama’s proposed changes to medical insurance was essentially grounded in racism. Bill Clinton has declared the trend to be a revival of the ‘vast rightwing conspiracy’ that sought to derail his presidency. Might it be a combination of the two?

Principled opposition to Obama’s proposals is, of course, possible, but there’s plenty of cause for apprehension when those who presume to have some sort of rationale for resisting the changes make no effort to distance themselves from the perverse racists who resent the fact that their ancestors lost the civil war a century and a half ago, and who are psychologically unable to deal with the idea of an African-American in the White House.

The Republican Party, in allowing itself to be led by the nose by media Rottweilers such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, has literally gone to the dogs. But if Obama is wondering why his supporters haven’t taken to the streets to counter the free-flowing neo-fascist insults from the far right of the political spectrum, he ought to realise that limp half-measures such as his health bill are unlikely to enthuse anyone.

Nor have his administration’s efforts to shore up capitalism by bandaging its self-inflicted wounds gone down too well with those who expected a stronger contrast between this administration and the previous regime. The response to protests in Pittsburgh during the weekend’s G20 summit can only serve to deepen doubts on that score.

If Obama is convinced that his incremental health reforms enjoy the popular seal of approval, it’s hardly unreasonable to expect him to view the stupid conflict in Afghanistan in the same light. This doesn’t mean there isn’t a worthy war to be waged – a war that won’t require warplanes and guns. But half-baked ideas and eloquent turns of phrase won’t suffice as ammunition. It calls for action on a number of fronts. It calls for strategies and tactics designed to combat bigotry and ignorance.

And it needs to be fought on American soil.

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This is how Blanche Lambert Lincoln would like to be seen, and what you can do is imagine she is explaining to you why there are no circumstances that would ever cause her to vote for single payer, at least not while she picks up more than 10% of all her 2010 contributions from ... the Friends of Bill Frist.

The perverse peculiarity of reliance upon the Friends of Bill Frist clepto-demographic is obvious ... while 2/3rds of the Senate is in legislative mode, she's picking up for-profit contributions well above the norm, and there it is.

Tabular and graph data from Opensecrets.Org, naturally.

Fortunately, the re-elect campaign, being run by Steve Patterson, is running behind the Any Arkansas Republican, as the first Rasmussen poll of the cycle in Arkansas shows, and fails to get 50% of the vote in any match up offered.

The re-elect is going with [paraphrase] "Sen. Schumer's proposal for public option is the only affordable proposal", and no, there are no circumstances where Sen. Lincoln will vote for single payer. Ever.

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Another pair of Abramoff angels gets his-n-hers wings. Details at the SacBee.

Posted by EBW at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The certainty that is attached this week to the shinny object that is neither a lengthy documentary of the errors of commission, and omission, committed by Tsahal during the war on Gaza, nor a health care reform, that is, to the foreign and domestic policy failures of an administration mid-way through its first year in office and at the leading edge of its mid-term electoral test, has precedent.

I've yet to find a western commentator or news outlet that differs from the point of view offered by Dr. Jeffrey Lewis in Qom Enrichment Facility Roundup, vis

Iran has unequivocally violated its safeguards obligations

It is difficult to understate overstate the severity of the present crisis. President Obama had it exactly right on Friday morning when he said,

Iran’s decision to build yet another nuclear facility without notifying the IAEA represents a direct challenge to the basic compact at the center of the non-proliferation regime.

Simply put, there is no credible explanation for the existence of the Qom facility—as described by Western officials yesterday—that doesn’t involve the option to produce future production of HEU-based nuclear weapons.

I'm uncertain about certainty. In March, 2007, just about the same universe of opinion holders (less ACW which didn't have much to say about a motor boat and a couple of sailors) were certain that the position of a vessel and the position of a boundary were well established, and that a state had violated its treaty obligations in taking custody of a motor boat and a couple of sailors.

I wrote about that event here, in Tony Blair, International Man of Mystery.

Some weeks later the original universe of opinion dissolved, and both the position of the vessel, and more fundamentally, the choice of definition of that boundary, were "corrected". The net was that a state had not violated its treaty obligations in taking custody of a motor boat and a couple of sailors.

When my first daughter was (parentally) kidnapped lo these many years ago, I became aware that there is a difference between the ratification of a treaty and the deposit of the Instrument of Ratification of the same treaty. In Maine, the position of the State in its conflict over tax authority with the Aroostook Band of Mic'macs, an unnecessary one in my view, is that the choice of the State is controlling over the choice of the Tribe, so that the Tribe's choice to accept the Federal Act, but to ignore the corresponding State Act, becomes acceptance of both Acts, and therefore subordination to the State. That is a lot to pack into a couple of gas pumps in Houlton.

I'm aware of the political utility of anti-Iranian state rhetoric, to those who are clients of Tel Aviv or Washingtong, such as "President Obama had it exactly right on Friday morning when he said ... ", but is either Tel Aviv or Washington the best places to look for correct legal reasoning on this, and related issues?

Posted by EBW at 07:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Le Monde is reporting 113 known dead as of this morning, with the toll expected to rise.

Posted by EBW at 06:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

ABC reports that at 3pm the Senate Finance Committee voted to create the Progressive Democratic Party.

We won't sweep the 2010 mid-terms, but we won't be running on the for-profit insurance scam bail-out record of the Failed Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, is any blogger planning to provide coverage of any incumbent who voted for amendment introduced by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D) of New York that shields a hack who:

(iii) obtains the information sought while working as a salaried employee of, or independent contractor for, an entity ... that employed Judy Miller.

Then there's ... this ... via Suzie

Between the 1958 and the 1970 birth cohorts, the biggest decline in social mobility occurred in the professions of journalism and accountancy. For example, journalists and broadcasters born in 1958 typically grew up in families with an income of around 5.5% above that of the average family; but this rose to 42.4% for the generation of journalists and broadcasters born in 1970.

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Friday evening I read the crosstabs of recent (Sept. 21/22) Marist poll for the November 3rd Mayorial contest -- Bloomberg has 50%, and Thompson has 39%.

It looks pretty good for the incumbent, until I got to the anomaly -- the percentage of registered voters who describe themselves as "very closely" following the race. Bloomberg's number is 7%. Thompson's number is 20%. In a low-turnout, off-year election, having a bare majority of phone poll respondents is no guarantee of having a majority of actual go-to-the-pools voters, and it could be a cold, wet, miserable day on November 3rd, and the media could be having H1N1 sniffles the immediate cycles prior. It could be a competitive race, even with $100,000,000 in paid media outlays by the incumbent.

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I found this gem in the usually brilliant, and usually not administration-aligned ACW, writing about the which version of Article 3.1 of Non-Proliferation Treaty, the 1976 version, or a later version, applies:

A state can no more pull out of a contract than you can get out of, say, a mobile phone contract before it expires. It takes two parties to terminate an agreement. And the IAEA never accepted Iran’s withdrawal.

That got a chuckle. All I could think of was unilateral modification of treaties by the US, starting with the 1830 Removal Act.

Posted by EBW at 07:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For we to proceed with the Koufax Awards, second series, we need to be doing more than attempting to recreate what existed when Dwight Meredith began the Koufax Awards, as those halcyon days of a broad, cooperating community of writers, is gone.

Rather than try to re-create what we enjoyed for several years, and failed to keep, we should try for something we can create. Something that hasn't been co-opted, yet, and perhaps can be retained for as long, or longer. After all, once burned and all that.

The debate with the print media is over. They're going online. The debate with the A listers is over too. They're going corporate. A marriage made in heaven.

Video blogging hasn't caught on, and podcasting is less than the original promise, but that may be simply that we haven't figured out how the mesh of co-reading-and-linking writers -- what works in the real blogosphere -- mutates as streaming media sources, to form meshes of co-listening-and-linking streams. The CurrentTV model seems as close as anyone's gotten so far to "user contributed content", and even so, that's still far from what we had, and to a lesser extent, still have, in the text-and-link media blogosphere.

So what would be transformational? What would be worth the effort, not just the effort of conducting the Koufax process, and that's actually real work and both Dwight and MB have burned out on the work, but also the work of nominating, reading, linking, revisiting, rereading, writing graciously to readers, linking, revisiting and rereading, writing graciously about semi-finalists, and then finalists, which of necessity, means writing about someone else's work being a finalist for an award, that is, the work of believing that winning an award is less than the awards themselves -- the awards the writers, commenters and readers of the blogosphere give to each other.

I want to go for the brass ring.

I want Susie Madrake and David Neiwort and Marcy Wheeler and Melissa McEwan and Juan Cole and PZ Myers and Riverbend and ... to get the same kind of deal that Annie Lennox and Billy Bragg and Howard Jones and Kate Nash and Josh Weller and ... seek through the FAC.

... We want all artists to have more control of their music and a much fairer share of the profits it generates in the digital age. We speak with one voice to help artists strike a new bargain with record companies, digital distributors and others, and are campaigning for specific changes ...

Our IPR. Our DRM.

So here are my suggestions:

1. The Koufax Awards work should result in paid work for the people doing the scut work, as it has in the past, and
   
2. The Koufax Awards work should result in bloggers having more control of their content and a much fairer share of the profits it generates, new in the 2nd series.
   

Read A Manifesto for Fair Play in the Digital Age. They are us.

Discuss.

Posted by EBW at 01:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

I really have learned quite a bit from Chris Clarke. First, to look past Indy's failings to meet all my expectations, and the memories of an earlier canine, Katie, to his gifts to all of us -- his history as Jonah's ride and Jonah's pillow, his joy in snow and leaves and chase -- before age and the gimlet eyes of people who cage all dogs, even service animals, on public lands -- all slowed him down. That's Zeke's Gift. And Indy's too.

That's Indy at Jalama, in 2006.

Posted by EBW at 06:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I just finished rereading Sterling's novel, a reasonable work exploring the themes of Abolition and globalization, that is, non-state economic actors. It is a work I'm fond of, the ideas of economic democrats, of rizomes as a metaphore for distributed corporate formation, of Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, ...

Abolition is a good word.

Nuclear arsenals (estimated) by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute - January 2009:

1. Russia: 4,834 deployed weapons
   
2. United States: 2,702
   
3. France: 300
   
4. United Kingdom: 160
   
5. China: 186
   
6. Israel: 80 (undeclared)
   
7. India: 60-70
   
8. Pakistan: 60
   
9. North Korea: unknown
   

Posted by EBW at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This is the phrase in Obama's speech that turned Avidor Lieberman (Russian Gangster) on. Christian Identity Movement, meet your OT peer.

To quote Ha'aretz:

Obama also said the goal of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is "two states living side by side in peace and security - a Jewish State of Israel, with true security for all Israelis; and a viable, independent Palestinian state with contiguous territory that ends the occupation that began in 1967 and realizes the potential of the Palestinian people."

The cannibals in Tel Aviv are turning handsprings with joy, they've made the Great Satan cry "uncle", and the better Israel, the one that accommodated Muslims, Christians, Atheists, ... is dead, and its killer-cannibal is the successor in interest of all US dollar-denominated loans, gifts, grants and remittances.

Giving up the settlement project, temporarily, in return for ending social tolerance of anything but Orthodoxy, is a big win for the Zionist Republic. That would be Russian Gangsters and Racists disguised as Rabbis.

Posted by EBW at 08:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Both Duncan Black, who used to actually write stuff, and John Cole, who I never read anyway, swap links on the Gale Norton / MMS story ... without actually writing anything, or linking to MB's work.

I wouldn't have known except a Google alert on Norton just dropped in ... with Duncan's grand "They [the media] just can't stop talking about Gale Norton."

A listers. The text alternative to talk radio.

Posted by EBW at 09:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the advantages of growing up inside the NPGS was having access to unclassified material that only the geek would grok. I'd this, and other works by Claude. Quoting from the rare book dealer where I found the image:

"The immediate source of inspiration for Claude Shannon's information theory was his work on cryptography at Bell Labs during World War II. Shannon's theory of communication grew, paradoxically, out of organized attempts to intentionally prevent effective communication from occurring (that is, his work on cryptography).” As Shannon once explained, "During World War II, Bell Labs was working on secrecy systems. I'd worked on communication systems and I was appointed to some of the committees studying the cryptanalytic techniques. The work on both the mathematical theory of communications and cryptology went forward concurrently from about 1941… I started with Hartley's paper and worked at least two or three years on the problems of information and communications. That would be around 1943 or 1944; and then I started thinking about cryptography and secrecy systems. There is a close connection; they are very similar things, in one case trying to conceal information, and in the other case trying to transmit it”. (Rogers and Valente "A History of Information Theory in Communication" in Schement and Ruben, ed. Between Communication and Information, 39-45).

Shannon’s initial report on secrecy systems appeared first in a Bell Labs classified memorandum dated 1 September 1945 and titled, “A Mathematical Theory of Cryptography.” After the war, it was declassified and revised and published as the present paper, “Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems.” Shannon’s paper “provided, for the first time, a well organized theory of cryptography and cryptanalysis” and is generally regarded as the foundational work in the field (John R. Pierce, An Introduction to Information Theory, 272).

Offprint from: Bell System Technical Journal, vol. 28, pp. 656-715, October 1949. New York: American Telegraph and Telephone Company, 1949. Quarto, original printed wrappers with punched spine holes. Mild soiling to wrappers, otherwise fine. Scarce in offprint form. $2900.

Modern crypto is 60 years old this month.

Posted by EBW at 02:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Saturday afternoon was Chonodate, where we learned that if a girl picks up a lacross stick and walks into the middle of a group of boys her age and young men not her age, and is ignored, it is "cultural", women don't play the little brother of war, at least not with men, which cooled my enthusiasm for New York tribes in their quest for more tobacco and slots revenue, and if the girl's autistic brother also walks into the middle of the same group of boys his age and young men not his age, and is ignored, it is "cultural", neurologically typical boys and men don't play with handicapped kids, period.

So, that explained the watch-the-guys-on-blankets formation of the visibly non-athletic girls, who probably aren't going on to adult lives involving ball handling, organized behavior, and goals conflicts, and the absence of any other handicapped kids.

Clearly, for any home events at-or-near Cornell, I'll have to organize something more for the girls than watch-the-boys, and stickball-for-play alternative to the phony stickball-for-status crudmatch.

Jonah enjoyed running around in the warm sunlight holding an iphone to his ears and stimming on the audio, and Kezzie slept in the sunshine.

Posted by EBW at 06:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Uri Avnery's column of last week, which I only just got around to reading this evening, has a tin foil nugget. If you wanted Obama weak, where would you through your support? His guess is AIPAC has its movement orders and is conducing an op in the target country.

So if we find, a year or two down the road, or whenever, that AIPAC has been, for the bast months, pushing Blue Dogs and Stripped Weasels away from Single Payer and towards Snowe's clammy cauterized chouddah, then we'll know something we don't know today.

AIPAC, gunners for Big Pharma, Bill Frist, and hell, Ole Tobaccy Too. Meanwhile, in Israel, even Arabs have single payer. All of them.

Posted by EBW at 09:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I can't recall the last time Wampum was linked to, but Susie did, to give props to MB's work on the DOI-DOJ revolving door.

Posted by EBW at 02:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Barack Obama will meet Tuesday with Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas.

Assuming, just for the moment that the former Senator from New York poses no latent threat to the Party of the Obots, in which Other Democrats are invited to participate, in non-political positions in the administration and at the local level, far from the levers of public policy, and that the Florida and New York Democratic primaries in 2012 will be uncontested, and that the American Israeli Political Action Committee decides that its going to take a couple of years off from its New American Century Project of turning the Democratic Party into the Republican Party, what could, or should a meeting of Barak, Bibi and Mahmoud attempt?

Bibi's coalition evaporates if Russian gangsters or welfare cheats who perch in tents on hilltops and make babies for Jeebus aren't well oiled. Mahmoud's coalition evaporated years ago when his party lost the first free and fair election in the Occupied Territories, and his term in office ended last January.

A mistake one way and Tzipi Livni enters Bibi's coalition as his senior partner. A mistake another way and Mahmoud, of Ramallah, is joined by Ismail Haniyeh, of Gaza. Those are the limits. Both Russian gangsters and welfare cheats stay at the table, and Hamas is kept from the table.

Stopping the "settlements" would steal the bread from the babies mouths, for the welfare cheats. Stopping the ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem would unravel ponzi schemes in real estate, for the Russian gangsters, so neither can happen.

Reopening the crossings, the Erez Crossing into Israel, the Rafah Crossing into Egypt, or a "corridor" between Gaza and the West Bank, would "just reward Hamas", so that can't happen.

Reopening GZA (bombed by Tsahal in January, 2001, no doubt because in the Second Intifada, the Palestinian Air Force posed a militarily significant threat to the F-4 Phantom II, A-4 Skyhawk, F-15 Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon, and E-2 Hawkeye combat air, and General Dynamics FIM-92 Stinger, Raytheon MIM-23 Hawk, Raytheon MIM-104 Patriot surface-to-air missile inventories, not to mention the rotary wing and tube anti-air inventories held by Tsahal in 2001) or the Port of Gaza, would unravel the "two states" and "unitary Palestinian Authority" fictions, and lead to an independent Gaza, so that can't happen either.

That leaves some symbolic number of roadblocks in the West Bank to be temporarily vacated by gangs of twenty-somethings, armed with automatic weapons, indoctrinated, bored and authorized to do anything ... the other Tsahal. So much for "change".

But suppose the point of the exercise is not to keep Hamas in the Bush Box labeled "terrorists", or prolong the perpetual US-funded bailout Russian gangsters and welfare cheats.

Suppose the anonymous West Wing policy adviser who said "let's pull the plug on the Polish/Czech strategic defense fiction and run with the real thing, Aegis theater defense" goes for a second big smart thing. Suppose the anonymous West Wing policy adviser said "let's pull the plug on the fiction of a controlled Middle East and run with the real thing, an Arab street that doesn't equate the corrupt Egyptian monarchy and Israeli militarists with the United States, and act accordingly."

La! Now that would be change, and a second big, smart thing.

Update: I'd not read Uri Avnery's Wobbly Stools before writing this. I had to laugh after reading the first paras.

Posted by EBW at 06:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Apparently, that surface-to-air missile defense system, the S-300, that engendered so much Le Carre-esque writing in the MSM, from Ha'aretz to the NYTimes, in route from Kalingrad to Iran, or at least Cape Verde, on the Maltese-registered Arctic Sea, garnished with pirates, was mere wood.

Erectile under stimulus, but generally inert, and requiring significant lubricants for erotic enjoyment.

But who's going to stop making stuff up?

Just to be cruel to my Ha'aretz reading friend ...

06/09/2009 Report: Ship 'hijacked' near U.K. carried Russian missiles for Iran, By Haaretz Service

And for those who read Time/CNN, there's this:

Was Russia's 'Hijacked' Ship Carrying Missiles to the Mideast? By Simon Shuster / Moscow, Aug. 31, 200

The Other Times made the grade too ...

September 6, 2009 Missing channel pirate ship carried Russian arms for Iran

Posted by EBW at 07:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Susie sent this link to a post at Crooked Timber by Michael Bérubé.

Michael manages not to point out that Marcos was in it for the money, and that Jane followed the same guiding light, that Josh became expert on DOI-DOJ corruption overnight, without cites, following the same Veleyat-e Faqih (source of imitation), and each self-promoter had hundreds of willing accomplices, along for the ride up the food chain.

The Lamont campaign was a social disaster, it killed everything else for months and left behind synchronous monoculture, and the primary was a second social disaster, with Obots behaving badly everywhere.

I spent yesterday writing a response to a letter by Lamar Smith (R-TX-21) and Howard Coble (R-NC-6), the ranking members of the Committee on the Judiciary and the Subcommittee on the Courts and Competition Policy, to Rod Beckman, who won the lottery and got an appointment to be ICANN's CEO just before the Sydney meeting last June, and may, or may not be paging out of that operational gig to be the wonderkid responsible for nothing at the Office of the National Cybersecurity Adviser. My missive goes out by snail-mail today to John Conyers, Hank Johnson, respectively, the chairs of those two committees, and Rick Bourcher, chair of the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet.

The Smith-Coble letter was the familiar recitation that new TLDs will destroy American business, that ICANN unfettered keeps the Birchers up at night, and so on. Smith shilled for the RIAA when his party was in the majority, and in 2006 wanted to expand the police powers authorized by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

At the heart of the issue is this -- should trademark infringement, a way of life in the $6 playpens, Verisign's .com and its clones, prevent Indians and Africans and Scots and Parisians and ... from obtaining the right to operate top-level domain registries, particularly where each uses the template I and others developed for the Catalan linguistinc and cultural top-level domain in 2004, which in four years of operation has had only one infringment complaint (a car dealer in Barcelona lost his franchise and so the mark holder asked for the $car.cat domain name).

But under that is the bigger issue -- is the net completeley defined by the $6 vanity license plate business model? Is it nothing more than a vehicle for trademark portfolio promotion? Are we looking at the regulatory equivalent (without any controlling statutory authority as Anna Gomez was wont to say earlier this year as she settled into the NTIA job) of the CIX agreement, which allowed private commercial traffic to transit via the publically funded internet backbone, restricting the use of the DNS to non-infringing trademark publication?

If that went over your head, imagine trying to come up with $6 (plus registrar markups) for every air quality sensor, every ocean monitoring bouy, every ... and if you can't figure out a way to come up with the scratch, then that's why you can't find out in one click what crap you're breathing today. If it doesn't promote trademarks, it must harm them, and so therefore must be ... the target of artless letters by Republican rent-a-hacks. It wasn't so long ago that they were going after blank recordable media and did I mention that Internet Radio is dead?

So I didn't have time to blog. Besides, the only issue that matters, other than Lamont's virtues and Lieberman's failings, is "network neutrality". At least in what is left of the left of the blogosphere (y!sktp!). Today I'll take the kids to Chonodote, the Peachtown Native American Festival, for social dancing with the local Haudenosaunee kids.

And yeah, we did the Koufax Awards until the A listers made it too painful to work around their monitized desires.

Posted by EBW at 06:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Matt Lockshin, Campaign Manager for CREDO Action (Working Assets) wants me to threaten Chellie Pingree. Odd, the things non-Mainers do to try and win one vote they'll never look at again.

Tell Rep. Pingree that if she stands by her commitment [to what WA calls "robust public option", because I suppose they are too supine to write "SINGLE PAYER"], we'll have her back. But if she caves under pressure from the White House and insurance companies, we will not forget.

How odd. How utterly odd.

Posted by EBW at 03:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I may have time to pare these down to the CREA / Norton / Finley / Shell / ... posts, but here's MB's work on the subject on DOI-DOJ corruption.

Search Results from Wampum

In honor of President's week...

Let's begin a recall of some of John McCain's actions as chair of the Senate Indian Affairs investigation into Jack Abramoff. From his own state's paper: McCain says inquiry focusing on lobbyist, not on lawmakers Billy House and Jon Kamman... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on February 18, 2008 12:38 PM

Italia cooperating; gets tap on the wrist...

I'll have more to say later, but I just caught this on Google News: Abramoff Figure Spared Prison By MATT APUZZO - 8 hours ago WASHINGTON (AP) - A Republican environmental activist who arranged lobbyist Jack Abramoff's entree into the... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on December 15, 2007 12:02 AM

Dear Media: More like this, please.

The Houston Chronicle takes on MMS. [The HoC's editorial links (all of them) have been broken for at least 24 hours, so here's the HoC's original text. ebw] Royal mess, Lawsuits and testimony suggest the U.S. Interior Department has forgotten... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on September 25, 2007 11:29 AM

The WaPo Energy Task Force "list"...

Susie emailed me the link this morning, and being three hours behind here in sunny California, I had not yet seen it. Of course the general question of which "White House official" leaked the list is always relevant too. I've... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on July 18, 2007 10:10 AM

Cheney's Klamath dam begins to leak, and non-fish casualites mount...

A couple of weeks ago, I finally signed up for Google News "alerts", setting up a couple of keywords such as "Gale Norton", "Italia Federici", "Tom Sansonetti" - names I used to Google every morning, but now, if breaking news... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on July 11, 2007 08:44 AM

The DoI/DoJ revolving door.

Most people think of a governmental "revolving door" involving individuals moving between the private and public sectors; however, in the Bush Administration, there's also the movement between particular departments, and even specific offices. Take the apparent career track between the... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on July 10, 2007 12:03 PM

Who's protecting who?

The marriage of two former Interior Department appointees, Deputy Secretary J. Steven Griles and Solicitor and Deputy Chief of Staff Sue Ellen Wooldridge made headlines last spring, as it occurred three days after Griles entered into a plea agreement with... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on June 29, 2007 10:41 AM

Justice is best served cold...

It's only been one year, eight months since the former Deputy Secretary of the Interior lied to Congressional investigators, but hey, I'll take it. From the DoJ press release: Former Interior Deputy Secretary Steven Griles Sentenced to 10 Months in... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on June 26, 2007 08:08 PM

Fourteen years here, fourteen years there...

But who's counting? From the letters in support of J. Steven Griles: First, his dear friend, Tom Sansonetti, We maintained a social friendship for the years up to and including 2001, when as the head of the Bush-Cheney transition team... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on June 18, 2007 08:17 PM

There's more below the fold. Yeah MB!!!

Senator Tom Sansonetti (R-WY)?

I apologize for my lack of tact in suggesting, even before Senator Craig Thomas was interred in his local cemetery, that Tom Sansonetti might be picked to replace him. However, now that open season for the seat has apparently been... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on June 18, 2007 03:00 PM

Getting back to CREA...

I want to repost something I wrote on April 20th, 2006, entitled, CREA's Roots in the Former Texas Governor's Office, as I'll be updating some of the information in the next few days. * * * Yesterday I wrote on... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on June 18, 2007 09:20 AM

Griles, facing prison, asks instead to go camping...

Over at The Next Hurrah, where Marcy is doing outstanding work on the latest J. Steven Griles sentencing docs, I noted her latest post on Griles' attempt to have the sentence proposed by the Justice Department in his Plea Agreement... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on June 18, 2007 08:30 AM

Italia Federici goes down...

Must be working too hard, as I missed this one. From The Hill, via Indianz.com: Former Norton aide to plead guilty in Abramoff case By Mike Soraghan June 06, 2007 The Hill has learned that Italia Federici, a one-time political... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on June 6, 2007 11:41 AM

The sweet song of the jailbirds...

Via Indianz.com, we learn that Mike and Jack are being extra helpful to the DoJ Public Integrity Section: Citing ongoing cooperation, district court postpones sentencing for former lobbyist Abramoff and ... By Susan Crabtree May 23, 2007 Former lobbyist Jack... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on May 23, 2007 11:10 AM

Something's rotten in... Denver?

The Colorado US Attorney's office was added to the ever expanding ranks of federal prosecutors targeted in the US Attorney purge. McClatchy and the Washington Post both added the acting US Attorney in Denver, William Leone, to one of Kyle... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on May 18, 2007 09:07 PM

Kennedy in Vanity Fair

Robert Kennedy, Jr. has an article in this month's Vanity Fair on my favorite subject, corruptionand cronyism in the Executive Departments. Here's the teaser: Texas Chainsaw Management Spinning the revolving door between government and business as never before, the White... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on May 9, 2007 12:20 PM

On Johnnie Burton, a repost from January, 2007

I wrote this diary in January for dKos (back before the Sierra fiasco, when I was still foolish enough to give my content to Markos) and was stupid enough not to post it here as well. Marcy reminded me of... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on May 9, 2007 10:41 AM

A true US Attorneys/Abramoff link uncovered...

And boy, is it a doozy. The discussion has continued over at Marcy's place, spurred on by this excellent post documenting recent changes in the make-up of the Native American Issues Subcommittee at the DoJ. Of particularly interesting note, the... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on May 1, 2007 12:50 PM

Was Chiara's firing linked to Abramoff?

Last year, I spent so much time sifting through the Abramoff documents released by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee that I think they're all permanently burned onto my brain tissue. Thus, when I was reminded in Marcy's comments that US... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on April 30, 2007 09:14 PM

So does spousal-immunity come into play now?

Hard to believe the answer is anything but "yes": Three days after guilty plea, Griles ties the knot By Mike Soraghan April 20, 2007 Two Bush administration officials who have been linked in scandal are now linked in wedlock. The... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on April 20, 2007 10:17 AM

Uncle... Retirement cancelled postponed...

It's obvious I'm just kidding myself. My retirement is thus postponed until after Italia Federici, Grover Norquist and Gale Norton, et al. are indicted and sentenced (or pardoned.) However, since I'm working on the book (and hope to get going... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on April 3, 2007 11:59 PM

It seems Italia Federici got a letter too...

My friend Dennis emailed me yesterday, asking if I'd read the latest CREW announcement on my favorite criminal subject, Italia Federici. Seeing that we'd spent Sunday travelling from Mojave NP back to the coast at Malibu, and then Monday running... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on April 3, 2007 09:28 AM

Gonzales won't testify about ...

I'm taking bets on how long it will take the Main Stream Bloggers to attribute this to ... something other than Indians, or attribute the presence of Norquist, McCain, Abramoff, Ridenour, Federici, Griles, Norton, and Shell, Exxon, Mobile, Peabody, National... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on March 28, 2007 12:03 PM

So here's the summary of the Slonaker affair...

In July, 2002, Special Trustee for American Indians Tom Slonaker (a Clinton appointee held over by Bush) testified before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee (chaired then by Sen. Inouye) that the Interior Department's handling of the Individual Indian trusts was... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on March 13, 2007 02:20 PM

Slonaker's 7/25/2002 testimony before SIAC

This is what got Slonaker fired by Griles and Sampson. * * * * * * * The Chairman [Sen. Inouye]. May I proceed by asking the Special Trustee questions? In the most recent report of the Court Monitor for... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on March 13, 2007 01:40 PM

More on Sampson and Slonaker

From Indianz.com 2002 reporting on the Slonaker firing: Slonaker appeared before the committee -- with the department's support, he stated -- and gave a less than glowing assessment of the accounting plan. He suggested that his views contradicted the government's... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on March 13, 2007 12:17 PM

Sampson participated in politically-motivated firings before...

I knew I ran across Kyle Sampson's name in my Cobell v. Norton (now Kempthorne) research. A year ago, I posted this, on the promotion of one of Sampson's partners in crime: While at the DoJ, Johnson apparently was up... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on March 13, 2007 11:59 AM

Griles update

I've already had two friends and a journalist email me links to the latest Griles/Wooldridge news, e.g., they bought a condo together, along with a ConocoPhillips lobbyist, and failed to disclose their relationship, and expensive gifts, to the DoJ and... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on February 15, 2007 01:12 PM

It's about the royalties, stupid...

This shouldn't leave much doubt that the underpayment of lessor royalties, and the attempts by Interior and Congressional officials and staff to cover it all up, is part and parcel of Cobell v. Norton (now Kempthorne.) From the NYTimes: Kerr-McGee... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on January 26, 2007 10:27 AM

The impending Griles indictment: It's bigger than you think

[Posted this over at the Orange site, hoping to inform a larger pool of readers than we have here at our mere consonant-level blog.] Two days ago, LeftWingNut posted a diary which informed dKos readers that former Deputy Secretary of... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on January 12, 2007 02:26 PM

Norton officially joins Shell Oil

Of course, she was working "unofficially" for them for years as Interior Sec. (H/T to Susie, whose site is currently down.) Ex-Interior Secretary Norton to join Shell as counsel Last Update: 4:05 PM ET Dec 27, 2006 HOUSTON (MarketWatch) --... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on December 28, 2006 11:23 PM

Circle them wagons...

USN&WR adds to growing speculation: Abramoff Probe Hopes to Nab Another Congressman By Paul Bedard Posted 10/23/06 The FBI and Justice Department appear to be expanding their probe into the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal in hopes of nabbing another member... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on October 24, 2006 02:07 PM

The LA Times on Cobell v. Babbitt Norton Kempthorne, blah, blah, blah

The LA Times takes on the most recent impasse in the ten-year-old Indian Trust Fund case. Yawn. Not even a mention that perhaps Indian Trust accounts are perhaps not so dissimilar to other federal land accounts, you know, the ones... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on October 23, 2006 02:33 PM

The recent Abramoff "leaks" and why we should care...

Over the past few weeks, there have been a plethora of Abramoff goodies - first, the House Committee on Government Reform released a scathing, scathing report on over 400 contacts Abramoff and his crew at Greenberg-Traurig had with Bush Administration... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on October 13, 2006 11:22 AM

McCain, Abramoff and the Indian Trust Fund: The short of it all.

Since Lambert asked, and Susie always tells me I need to do a better job of simplifying the story for non-Indians, here's my best shot at a short-and-sweet synopsis. How Republicans benefit from a Congressional settlement of Cobell v. Kempthorne... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on September 27, 2006 12:44 PM

News to me: Interior Department "powerless" against energy companies

Interior Official Says She Will Not Try to Recoup Lease Money By EDMUND L. ANDREWS WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 - A top official at the Interior Department said on Thursday that she would not try to recover $1.3 billion in royalties... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on September 22, 2006 02:03 PM

Sovereign Immunity

... that in the things aforesaid all your officers and ministers shall serve you, according to the laws and statutes of this realm ... That is from the final paragraph of Petition of Right of 1628. Two decades later... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on September 6, 2006 08:36 AM

A Judgment Call

by Peter B. Rutledge, Associate Professor of Law, Catholic University Original at indiantrust.com Adverse judicial orders are a reality for every lawyer. The possible responses range from acceptance, to appeal, to downright anger in the case of orders that, in... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on August 9, 2006 10:30 AM

Harjo in ICT on Cobell v Norton

Suzan Shown Harjo / Indian Country Today Some people in Washington, D.C., fight for Indian rights as hard as anyone has done in the past century. I know you're laughing, faithful reader, and saying: Tell another joke. Here's the funny... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on July 22, 2006 04:51 PM

Koch's Brand of Bozos

[I'm archiving MB's work sent elsewhere, since otherwise I'd have to ask where I left the car keys or something equally clue-challenged. ebw] Twice a day, as part of my developing routine of Gore-watching, I surf through Google news looking... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on May 16, 2006 09:51 PM

Are GOP longknives being sharpened for Gore already?

This morning, while doing my daily trolling of news on Al Gore, I came across this opinion piece in the Salt Lake Tribune: Democrats will err if they pick Gore By Eric Peters WASHINGTON -- It took three election losses... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on May 12, 2006 10:31 AM

I Lead (you lead too)

I Lead is Maine's motto. Dirigo. You don't have to be a Mainiac, or a Mainer, or have a camp in Maine, or have served the latter part of your adolesence in one of Maine's three "little Ivy League" holding... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on April 27, 2006 07:22 AM

Draft Gore 2008

Last fall, Eric, Dwight, Deb and I sat in their shiny new sunroom plotting the overthrow of the universe. Alright, just the Republican hegemony over the US political system. And despite my long term affection for former Senator John Edwards,... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on April 23, 2006 06:45 PM

CREA's roots in the former Texas Governor's Office?

Yesterday I wrote on the Coalition of Republican Environmental Advocates' apparent genesis at the hands of Republican Congressional Leadership in the summer of 1998. For those who haven't been following along with my obsession with this group, CREA has been... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on April 20, 2006 09:15 PM

CREA's roots on the Hill?

I sent out the Googling monkeys today to search on CREA's original name, the Coalition of Republican Environmental Advocates, and came up with an interesting interview on "Living on Earth" back in October, 1998. COCHRAN: Perception is very strong, but... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on April 19, 2006 03:35 PM

Was Jack Abramoff really an "insider"?

The simple answer is, yes. And, no. Sort of, works as well. If we look at the Republican Party of the last decade as one big happy tent of fiscal conservatives, libertarians and social ideologues, then Abramoff easily gets a... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on April 18, 2006 11:06 AM

A new batch of pigs at the trough...

See what reading the business briefs in the Denver Post yields: Only natural for firm to lobby D.C. The Denver law practice Holland & Hart will get "a place at the table" to help with natural resources. By Greg Griffin... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on April 13, 2006 04:08 PM

Cassandra wrote...

I've crossed paths with this August 2005 article by Lou Dubose in the Texas Observer a few times, but never took the time to read the whole thing (essentially, it came up as a google hit for CREA, and I... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on April 12, 2006 07:23 PM

What does the Bush Administration do if they don't like the verdict?

Remove the judge. Even if that judge was appointed by none other than the Great Conservative Father, Ronald Reagan. Even if that judge was an icon for Clinton-hating conservatives during the '90s, as he hammer the President and his Administration... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on April 12, 2006 09:42 AM

Even the Bush Interior Department leaks...

Just when you think the media is bored with the Abramoff scandal, new goodies appear. TPM Muckraker points out a new AP report on emails they "obtained" (no indication how) regarding communications between Abramoff and his GT associates, GOP politicos... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on April 11, 2006 06:34 PM

Fun with typesetting....

Last week, I pointed out this email, one of the hundreds released during the Abramoff Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearings from September, 2004 until November, 2005. I asked why the Senate Indian Affairs Committee Chairman, John McCain (R-AZ), had redacted... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on April 6, 2006 05:36 PM

Reframing the Abramoff scandal(s)

I was over catching up at Josh Marshall's place (both TPM and TMP Muckraker) a short while ago. Now, I think Josh and crew are the top of the heap when it comes to their knowledge base on the "culture... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on April 5, 2006 03:26 PM

Who is Julie Finley?

And what is her connection to Jack Abramoff? Washingtonian magazine puts out an annual list of "100 Most Powerful Women" in Washington. On its 2001 list, along with Laura Bush, various Senators, Congresswomen, Cabinet Secretaries, non-profit heads and lobbyists, two... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on April 5, 2006 01:48 PM

CREA takes down its website...

The last cached version of the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, or CREA, was March 28, 2006. I've been using the Way Back Machine for earlier website versions for my recent research, and tried to connect to the current... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on April 5, 2006 10:52 AM

A documented history of a Republican front group, part 1

A few readers have asked for a more background on an organization I continuously harp on as central in the Abramoff scandal, the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, or CREA. I discussed CREA president Italia Federici's November 2005 testimony... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on April 4, 2006 11:35 AM

Scanlon's jilted fiance key to Abramoff's unraveling

I vaguely remember hearing of this angle of the story months ago (during a chat with Dwight, if I recall correctly.) The Wall Street Journal has all the sordid details. Bottom line, "hell hath no fury...." A couple of things... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on March 31, 2006 09:19 AM

Does the FEC actually enforce BCRA contribution limits?

I was doing a bit of research on Julie Finley, hostess (and turns out founding member) of a number of CREA (Council for Republican Environmental Advocacy) fundraising dinners attended by Gale Norton, Jack Abramoff and various Congressmen, Indian Tribal leaders... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on March 26, 2006 12:19 PM

Another criminal connection to the subverting of the Trust Fund?

Laura Rosen at War and Piece has pulled up a juicy tidbit in the Mitchell Wade/Duke Cunningham bribery case: One very weird MZM contract. The first contract I can find that Cunningham co-conspirator Mitchell Wade's MZM Inc. received from the... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on March 23, 2006 09:30 AM

Left in the drafts ...

On January 9, 1999, Abramoff's executive assistant, Susan Ralston, emailed him regarding an invite to a private reception hosted by CREA director, Italia Federici. She reminded Abramoff that he had been introduced to Federici by Grover Norquist at a recent... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on March 11, 2006 01:16 PM

Griles Indictment Watch

With Gale Norton's sudden resignation within weeks of Abramoff's sentencing, I think that it's pretty clear that Jack spilled all the beans he could on former Deputy Secretary J. Steven Griles, and Norton is a) terrified that Abramoff has the... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on March 10, 2006 03:04 PM

Ding dong, the witch is dead!

Duncan is reporting that CNN says Gale Norton is outta here! Can anyone but wonder what Abramoff has had to say about their relationship and it's impact on this momentous decision? Heh! I was having writers block recently regarding the... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on March 10, 2006 12:59 PM

20 Million Acres...

Approximately the size of Maine (19,75 million acres). That's the size of the land "appropriated" and put into trust for four Indian tribes, a trust a federal judge has now ruled is in fact a trust, and will allow the... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on February 23, 2006 11:51 AM

Slip slidin' away....

I've a soft spot in my heart for Paul Simon, especially with all that hanging out with the natives (alright, they were indigenous Africans, not Americans, but, A for Effort). And so this was the first song that popped... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on February 10, 2006 06:12 PM

The missing link?

A number of people, having read my various ramblings on the Indian Trust Fund scandal and my suspicions that it was covered with Abramoff's fingerprints, have expressed concern that while it's fun speculating, there's not a hell of a... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on February 10, 2006 10:13 AM

Bush and Co. on the Trust Fund warpath once again

Lots of juicy stuff this morning over at Indianz.com's news aggregator, but this one tops the lot: Interior hits the road with new trust reform initiative Wednesday, February 8, 2006 The Bush administration is launching a new round of... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on February 8, 2006 11:01 AM

More on CREA

[Why this image? Check the update] I've written quite a lot about CREA, or the Council of Republicans for Environmental Advocacy, in particular, the cozy relationship between Executive Director and former Norton campaign staffer, Italia Federici, Jack Abramoff and... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on February 5, 2006 02:24 PM

Scrub a dub-dub? (Update)

The Goggling Monkeys this evening led me to a site called FactBites, which aggregates stories from mainstream media, blogs, organizational press releases and governmental sources. The orginal Goggling string was "Gale Norton", but seeing that I had the option... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on February 5, 2006 12:18 AM

Taking Pombo's Hair

This is a follow-up to CA-11. Read that, then this. What's changed since then is the Abramoff-Pombo link. From the College of the Atlantic press release archive. Former Congressman Paul Norton McCloskey Jr., more familiarly known as Pete McCloskey, will... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on February 3, 2006 06:48 PM

More of the puzzle pieces fall into place...

I'm deep in the archives of J. Steven Griles material, and the Nov. 2001 article from Indianz.com is great background on how one of the biggest natural resources lobbyists, and former James Watt protege, ended up do deeply involved... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on February 3, 2006 04:28 PM

Interior official was to join Abramoff as lobbyist...

I was scanning through the huge pdf file of exhibits of documents presented to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee last year, and ran across this email (transcribed). Note: J. Steven Griles (for the Wampum novice) was Secretary of the... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on February 2, 2006 08:20 PM

More on J. Steven Griles

As I've mentioned in previous Indian Trust Fund posts, Sec. Gale Norton's go-to man in her department on Indian issues was Deputy Secretary J. Steven Griles. In fact, as we learned late last week, it was apparently Griles who... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on January 30, 2006 11:19 AM

Atom & Jerry show

The moving van arrives in a few hours and a cat and I are watching the pre-dawn. Duncan linked to Hoffmainia, where there's a verbatium of the Beeb's piece on IO. That's a good thing. Since that might get some... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on January 28, 2006 06:17 AM

Technorati Watch: Day 2

So now there are a whopping five links on Technorati which reference "Norton + Indian + Trust Fund" over the past month+. Yet, once again, they're all here. In case you missed them, in chronological order (leaving out the Koufax... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on January 27, 2006 01:18 PM

Go figure...

I just ran a Technorati search for this term: Norton Indian "Trust Fund" In the past 50 days, there are three relevant posts: Here, here and here. Hey, they even have a little graph: Posts that contain Norton Indian "trust... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on January 26, 2006 01:13 PM

Forget about the little fish...

If you want the big one, try looking in the ocean, not the mud puddle. For months now, Democrats have been trying to bring down the Bush Administration through Abramoff's dealings with Congressional crooks such as Delay, Ney and Doolittle.... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on January 26, 2006 11:58 AM

A Clue! A Clue!

In my post this morning on Republicans, gas and oil interests and Cobell v. Norton, I speculated that Abramoff and his cronies probably had their mitts all over the Trust Fund case, and all we really needed was to... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on January 24, 2006 04:27 PM

Down the wrong rabbit hole, Part I

While the Blogosphere has been chasing Jack Abramoff, his K-Street cronies and their Congressional co-dependents down the tribal gaming rabbit hole (and getting distracted by navel-gazing in the process,) they've past by time and again a separate hole the... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on January 24, 2006 12:19 PM

The Presidential Succession Act of 1947

The Moonies are running the story that Geo. Bush, Jr. is now talking only to Barbara, Laura, Condi, and Karen. If even proximal to the actual state of affairs, this list must be considered. The Vice President Richard Cheney Speaker... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on November 15, 2005 07:25 PM

Cobell v Norton continued

Judge Royce C. Lamberth just ordered the Interior Department to disconnect from the Internet all computer systems that house or provide access to Individual Indian Trust records. "Indian Trust records continue to be in imminent risk of being manipulated and... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on October 20, 2005 04:48 PM

Pass the White Out Please

Another document is ... scheduled for liquidation. The government made an unusual request yesterday to a federal appeals court for an order that would expunge reports that have not been adopted by the federal district court. The targeted document are... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on October 15, 2005 12:57 PM

Cobell v Norton -- Tiger Teaming Interior

Earl E. Devaney, who's the Inspector General for the Department of the Interior, had a tiger team run an attack on the National Business Center. The IG's tiger team were able to again enter the National Business Center computers "without... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on October 9, 2005 10:43 PM

Fire the Auditor

This comes from the Indian Trust list. I wish I could write that all the fecal matter is Bushian in origin, but the fact of the matter is that there was just as much fecal matter under the last legal... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on July 29, 2005 10:52 AM

Cobell v Norton, press avail., June 20

The following is an interesting institutional development, but it is unlikely to involve Eastern or Southern or Western or Alaskan (or Hawai'ian) claims that arise from the American claim of a Trust relationship towards Tribes. HISTORIC UNION OF NATIVE AMERICAN... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on June 17, 2005 07:23 PM

My fellow trust beneficiaries

My fellow trust beneficiaries, As we move into 2005, we have much to reflect upon, as Indian trust beneficiaries and as plaintiffs in the Cobell v. Norton lawsuit. With two recent U.S. Court of Appeals decisions, a nine-month attempt at... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on January 15, 2005 01:54 PM

Richard Pierce's Reign of Error at GWU

This is rather sweet. Endowed Dimwit writes an over-the-top piece on a rather esoteric bit of Federal Indian Law -- the authority of the District Court over the evidence in the Cobell v. Norton Individual Indian Trust case, a case... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on December 3, 2004 07:22 PM

ANWAR and the Senate

With the reelection of President Bush, the GOP retaining control of the House, and an enlarged Senate Republican majority, many of the legislative proposals defeated in the last few years may rise again. Among those porposals will surely be a... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on November 16, 2004 03:49 PM

Things ANWR

I wrote two pieces on ANWR, one published here, one on the triballaw blog. Here they are again, as here we go again. I've set the time so this appears below Dwight's piece on the current calculus. 1. Akaka Bill... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on November 16, 2004 03:47 PM

No checks and no balances :: Update

For those without scorecards, Ross Swimmer was the Chairman of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma (CNO) at one point in time, before he moved over to the BIA. He's pretty much the epitomy of "BIA Indian". From the Cobell v.... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on October 1, 2004 04:07 PM

Cobell v. Norton -- rhetoric reviewed

[from the Indian Trust ListServ <list@list.indiantrust.com>] Dispute Over Article Accusing Presiding Judge of Conducting a Reign Of Terror WHO: Keith Harper, Esq., Counsel to the Class in Cobell v. Norton, the largest case ever filed against the United States, involving... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on September 20, 2004 08:58 AM

Cobell v. Norton --- Evidence Denied

Dwight's covered the "federal appeals court refused to take the federal judge overseeing the Indian trust fund off a contentious contempt proceeding involving dozens of government officials and attorneys" aspect of the Trust Fund litegation. There is another part however.... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on September 16, 2004 09:41 AM

Cobell v. Norton --- Recusal Denied

Via Howard Bashman, a three judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has denied a motion to recuse Judge Royce Lamberth in the Individual Indian Trust Trust Fund Litigation known as Cobell v. Norton. That is a good... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on September 14, 2004 10:46 PM

Cobell v Norton news

via Triballaw Judge Royce C. Lamberth granted a TRO today, halting the DOI from selling parcels of the Indian owned land at issue in the case. This is a win. An invitation for bids for the sale of the Indian-owned... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on September 1, 2004 09:14 PM

Pulling the [DSL] plug on Interior

Yesterday, the increasingly ticked-off, Reagan-appointed, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, ordered the Interior Department shut off...from the Internet. Lamberth concluded that in the three years since the court was first made aware of massive security flaws which could allow... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on March 16, 2004 07:36 AM

Still Looking for Cracks In the Dam

For some time now, I have been looking for signs of cracks in President Bush�s base of support among Republicans and conservatives. For previous posts on that subject see here, here and here. There are a lot of anecdotal evidence... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on February 23, 2004 02:44 PM

The Budget Game

The President presented his FY 2005 budget to Congress today. You can find the Times story at the link. The actual budget documents are here. Those documents are my source for this post. Let�s ignore the 2005 budget for a... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on February 2, 2004 03:45 PM

2003 Koufax Awards – Best New Blog Nominations

One of the most welcome developments of 2003 was the explosion of good lefty blogs. There was a time when I could read most all of the good lefty bloggers each day. That day is long gone. It is now... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on January 17, 2004 02:33 PM

Derailing the Midnight Rider (Cobell v Norton)

On Friday the legal team respresenting the class action filed a motion in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia challenging the constitutionality of the latest legislative twist in this saga -- the "midnight rider" that Congress... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on November 24, 2003 10:01 AM

Return of the Midnight Rider...

Late last fall, just days before the Congressional vote on the Homeland Security bill was to take place, the Midnight Rider struck, anonymously tacking on the now infamous Eli Lilly get-out-of-jail-free provision on the end of the massive bill. Many... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on October 29, 2003 06:40 AM

Nightmare scenario for Norton

In the latest news from Cobell v. Norton: Gov't Ordered to Account for Indian Money By ROBERT GEHRKE Associated Press Writer September 25, 2003, 9:55 PM EDT WASHINGTON -- A federal judge on Thursday said he will give the Interior... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on September 26, 2003 07:03 AM

Whistleblower fired by Interior...

I sort of understand why Democrats haven't made much hay with the Cobell v. Norton lawsuit (namely because Clinton's guys have been implicated as well), but the recent nefarious behavior by Bush's Interior in regards to other Indian issues is... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on September 18, 2003 08:58 PM

It's the (not so) little things which matter

Proof that I should make sure I read beyond an article's title. Last Friday, this headline made me so depressed, I decided not to read farther: Contempt Ruling Against Norton Reversed D.C. Circuit Says Sanction on Interior Chief Not Warranted... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on July 21, 2003 08:13 PM

The latest on Cobell v. Norton (the "Indian Trust Fund" case)

Diane at Karmalized has a late breaking press release on Congressional effort to subvert the nearly complete trial on the Indian Trust Case, Cobell v. Norton, by handing all authority to determine the value of trust accounts to Secretary Norton,... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on July 10, 2003 01:27 PM

If you can't beat 'em...screw 'em...

For anyone familar with the Indian Trust Fund case, aka Cobell v. Norton, weaving it's way through federal court and piling up more than a few contempt orders for Interior Department staff, including the Secretary herself, this action by the... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on June 25, 2003 12:01 PM

Another Aroostook War (of words?)

On Thursday morning, I heard a similar story as this print one, but on Maine Public Radio: Battle brewing over tax-free cigarettes Thursday, May 29, 2003, 8:32 AM AUGUSTA (AP) -- A battle is shaping up between state and federal... [Edit]

Posted in Wampum on June 1, 2003 08:20 PM

Posted by EBW at 02:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Outstanding! The fiction that Iranian ballistic missiles, but in darker fact, the attempt to maintain the Cold War through forward basing of triggering assets in Poland, and retain the Air-Land model of attriting the Warsaw Pact follow-on forces in Poland through air power, just took a budgetary hit below the water line.

The morons at Reuters are describing this as "a gift to the Russians", with more moonbat follow-on from the standard morons on the Hill such as Senator McCain.

This is the first big-smart thing the Obama Administration has done in defense policy.

Posted by EBW at 02:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Towards the close of the week this bit popped up -- at the Federal Bar Association meeting in Oklahoma City Charles Ogletree Jr., Harvard Law, argued morality as his basis of choice on the freedmen citizenship issue.

He could have read this at Balkinization.

He could have read this at the Friends Committee on National Legislation.

There are two positions worth reviewing, the majority opinion of the Court which heard Allen v. CNO, by Justice Leeds and a special concurence by Justice Dowty, and the minority opinion of Justice Matlock. Both can be found here.

A lot has been written on the issues. What is surprising is arguing on the basis of morality. I guess I'll have to call and ask.

Posted by EBW at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Gracie came home from her first day of 7th grade excited about her home-room / social studies class. She reported that they'll be studying from 15,000 BCE to the US Civil War, and rights and wrongs and ...

So I looked at her text. 3.2lbs of print, the first 1.6lbs allocated to the period 15,000 BCE to the US Civil War. I flipped past the dozens of pre-content content, all very colorful and no doubt keyed to how the subject matter would be laid out when I got to the subject matter, and read until I got to the Puritans. It didn't take long, and the path from that deep past to that present was just a jumble.

Things not learned:

1. culture kits during the Berengia land-bridge
   
2. multiple migrations, multiple language families
   
3. existence of any but Mayan, Inca, and Aztec high civilizations
   
4. existence of Hopewell, Woodland, Mississipian cultures
   
5. Cahochia was the largest human settlement north of the Valley of Mexico 600 years ago
   
6. Tenochtitlan was the largest human settlement on Earth 500 years ago
   

I was laughing when I got to the "sneaking up on bison, hurling spears". Buffalo jumps are so well-known and the way to catch buffalo is to interest the curious calves, followed by their cows and the rest of the hurd and walk towards a jump. How could anyone writing a text not know this? Why should middle school kids not know that calves are curious, cows cautious, and bulls follow, just like people?

Yes Virginia, there's a page "How the Iroquois Governed Themselves". Oh, and Indians "learned how to grow corn", which does seem slightly less impressive than domesticated the genus Zea between 12 and 9 thousand years ago in Middle America, and contemporaniously domesticated the genus Solanum in Andean Amerca, and domesticated the genus Phaseolus some 6 thousand years ago, contemporanious with the first domestication of plants by Old World cultures.

Anyway, that part of Prentise Hall's "American Nation" is junk. I can't imagine that the Puritan-to-Yankee transition will get better treatment.

Maine Dirigo: I Lead, by B. Bennett, Dean (Editor), Barbara E. Young (Editor), is a gem in comparison.

Related, Oren Lyons recently wrote a short piece worth reposting with comments, and MB's ConLaw prof had a bit of an epiphany last week when MB brought the Cherokee cases to her attention as the ignored second "Constitutional Crisis" case, following Marbury v Madison. So why are the Cherokee cases overlooked as a source of Judicial vs Executive, and State vs Federal, powers cases in the customary ConLaw canon?

Posted by EBW at 06:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

So the thing to do is to start. Most of the delegates are in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd CDs, in the eastern part of the state.

The caucus will be in the mid-January, so the field effort, were we, the non-cash-register-working-class 'rootz, the leftover Deaniacs and Edwardians and Clintonistas and Gore Drafters and KuDems, the ABC (Any Body but Changelings), have to staff field offices and execute ID and persuasion, a lot of which can be done "remote", in Des Moins (Polk), Cedar Rapids (Linn), Davenport (Scott), Iowa City (Johnson), Waterloo (Black Hawk), Debuque (Debuque), Ames (Story), Sioux City (Woodbury), Council Bluffs (Pottawattamie), Clinton (Clinton) and Mason City (Cerro Cordo).

That's on the order of 10 field offices, each needing 1, 2 and 3 FTEs during October, November and December, or 60 staff weeks, and an order of magnitude more phone banker time blocks to sign up for, and that's about it to mount the challenge.

Whether the caucus participants stand and divide for anyone other than the failed incumbent, or for "undecided", doesn't much matter.

A 3 hour call block is a hundred calls attempted, some button clicking on a website to record the Voter ID, and no persuasion.

A staff week is 72 hours of office time coordinating volunteers, answering calls, clicking on a website to record the tasks done and the new tasks queued for the next shift, and no persuasion. And in December and January, staying warm, like every other working class stiff in Iowa.

The persuasion effort should be down by Iowans. Nearly half of them in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd CD were more progressive than the balance-of-state. Direct mail too. Both once the ID effort has been done, and nothing wasted on the 1s or the 5s. Followed by a GOTC effort and lawyers to stop the 'bots from pulling the same strings twice.

Posted by EBW at 01:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Opposed to single payer. For Mainers. For everyone.

Posted by EBW at 08:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

It wasn't Bush and Cheney. It was Mr. Change. Villagers were taking the gasoline from the two trucks the OpFors had captured and moved and abandoned. So they were "illuminated".

This morning, in Stockholm, Bernard Kouchner called it "une grosse erreur" and David Miliband asked for a study to "assurions que cela ne se reproduise pas". The EU ministers were outraged at what is unmistakably a war crime, the targeting of civilians benefiting from the conduct of the OpFors.

The official line is that the fuel trucks were within 6km of friendly forces, and therefore were a threat of some kind, and therefore the fuel concentration had to be reduced ... which the villagers were in fact doing.

The underlying rational, that the OpFors lack only some unspecified but substantial quantity of fuel to conduct a militarily significant motorized assault (very large movement order), and can not obtain that fuel except by seizing one, or two, NATO fuel tankers, rather than through ordinary clandestine accumulation, or that the OpFors could use the captured fuel tankers as effective weapons, and against which likely targeted NATO forces have no effective defense except aerial delivered missiles, which was only available while a large number of civilians are in the primary and secondary damage area, seems wicked unlikely.

Incidently, the Talib are paying $50 per family, which is living expenses for a month. NATO is paying half that.

Posted by EBW at 06:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

As unsurprising as the sell-out public health to private investors has been, its not the only big ticket item where the candidate of change is obligingly supine. Bibi is about to approve a three month frenzy of destruction in the Occupied West Bank, which is quite rational, after all, what should he do but push if his "restraint" signals weakness?

Posted by EBW at 05:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The John and Jean DeNault Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Executive Director of the Property and Environment Research Center (PERC), and Professor Emeritus at Montana State University, has used several hundred words on the Journal's always entertaining editorial page to show that, if Tribes seek to replace IHS service with contract service (using the same dollars), that proves that Single Payer doesn't work. Click on the [link] for the original.

Given Senator Obama's time in (deeply red) Western States with margin-of-win (in anemic late, and usually ignored, Democratic primary elections) Indian demographics, I'm surprised his "death with dignity for the public option" writers haven't discovered that they can use the IHS to kill off single payer.

NDNZ don't like IHS, so we're going to privatize diabetes. Maybe next week. Nader's begining to look good, and he's next to dead.

Posted by EBW at 08:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the oddities of Federal Indian Law is whether the US Bankruptcy Code applies to Tribes and their economic creations. The Mashentucket Pequots came within hours of needing to know today, as they apparently just made a bond payment.

Posted by EBW at 02:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Thank you Suzie for posting this!

Posted by EBW at 08:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)