An Amazing Capacity for Compassion

I just love the guy in the Oval office who starts a war preemptively and gets teary-eyed about it, then "Having given the order, the president walked alone around the circle behind the White House. Months later, he told Woodward: "As I walked around the circle, I prayed that our troops be safe, be protected by the Almighty. Going into this period, I was praying for strength to do the Lord's will. I'm surely not going to justify war based upon God. Understand that. Nevertheless, in my case, I pray that I be as good a messenger of his will as possible. And then, of course, I pray for forgiveness." Wow. Such sensitivity to needless carnage (oh, and God, don't forget to forgive George this premeditated multiple murder just like he asked.) But, on the home front there's even more compassion to go around.

On January 5, 2004, MSNBC reported that, "The Labor Department is giving employers tips on how to avoid paying overtime to some of the 1.3 million low-income workers who would become eligible under new rules expected to be finalized early this year." Just in case businesses big or small hadn't already figured it out, the Labor Department was providing tutorials on how to screw their employees. (Keep in mind the numbers eventually serve to increase the "productivity index" which also allows the Bushies to continue yammering about a "jobless recovery" (code for "investors are getting their share, but those who produce the wealth are getting little or none.") But wait, there's more compassion in that lil' ole Bush administration.

Today, MSNBC reported that, "With an eye toward November’s election, the Bush administration is retreating on its planned overhaul of the nation’s overtime rules to allow more white-collar workers, including those earning up to $100,000 a year, to continue collecting the premium pay if they log more than 40 hours a week." It's good thing that white-collar workers are being protected. (These folks tend to vote Republican.) Isn't that amazing?

If you read further in the article you find that, "The regulations will not apply to workers covered by labor contracts, although union officials said they feared the changes would strengthen the hand of companies in future bargaining. “The fact that President Bush is slashing overtime pay for even a single worker is outrageous,” AFL-CIO spokeswoman Lane Windham said. True enough, but these folks tend to vote Democrat.

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To hear Condi and George talk about the briefings they received before 9/11/01, the material was uninformative. Just because the briefings didn't specify the time, date and location of the next attack doesn't mean that the president and national security advisor shouldn't have had a very good idea of what was going on, if they'd paid attention.

Notice that this CIA memo refers to FBI information--they were sharing information and still didn't connecct the dots. That's amazing.

Below you'll find the text of 6 August 2001 briefing that has been the focus of so much attention recently.

Text: President's Daily Brief on Aug. 6, 2001
Saturday, April 10, 2004; 7:24 PM
The following is the text of an Aug. 6, 2001, intelligence briefing for President Bush that outlined al Qaeda plans to strike within the United States. It was released Saturday by the White House.
Declassified and Approved for Release, 10 April 2004

Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US

Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladin since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Ladin implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."

After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a ...(redacted portion) ... service.

An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an ... (redacted portion) ... service at the same time that Bin Ladin was planning to exploit the operative's access to the US to mount a terrorist strike.

The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of Bin Ladin's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the US. Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that Bin Ladin lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own US attack.

Ressam says Bin Ladin was aware of the Los Angeles operation.

Although Bin Ladin has not succeeded, his attacks against the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Ladin associates surveilled our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.

Al-Qa'ida members -- including some who are US citizens -- have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks. Two al-Qa'ida members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our Embassies in East Africa were US citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.

A clandestine source said in 1998 that a Bin Ladin cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ... (redacted portion) ... service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar 'Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.

© 2004 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive


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Here’s an interesting nugget:

“The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed a protest Thursday (April 8, 2004) with the U.S. attorney general, saying a federal marshal violated federal law when she confiscated recordings during a Supreme Court justice’s speech on the Constitution.
The marshal took a Hattiesburg (Miss.) American reporter’s cassette tape and also erased an Associated Press reporter’s digital recorder while Justice Antonin Scalia spoke Wednesday to high school students in Hattiesburg about the importance of protecting constitutional rights.”
. . .
Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the suburban Washington-based Reporters Committee, said the marshal didn’t violate the First Amendment but likely violated Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure.”
. . .
At an earlier appearance at William Carey College, a Christian school in Hattiesburg, Scalia talked about the religion clauses contained in the Constitution. At a reception, Scalia told TV reporters to leave, and newspaper photographers initially were not allowed to take pictures.” (Antionette Konz and Ana Radelat, Gannett News Service)

No comment is needed. This is amazing on its face.

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