"Isn't that terrible!" Cruella and Jesus' Best Administrative Assistant exclaim over the Minneapolis bridge collapse. There's no connection, after all, between the kind of Republicans they vote for and this starving public works of funds...
"Nation's Crumbling Infrastructure Probably Some Sort Of Metaphor," suggests The Onion.
But not to worry, says whitehouse.org—"Minneapolis Bridge Collapse: President Comforts Grieving Families With Pledge to Continue Rebuilding Iraq's Infrastructure."
In Utah, while miners remain trapped in the collapsed Crandall Canyon mine, owner Robert Murray commandeers press conferences to blame the union—to which his workers do not belong. Tula Connell covers the scenario, in which Murray also claims a non-existent an earthquake caused the collapse. Anything to deflect from the mine's being cited—by Bush era inspectors—for 325 safety violations since January 2004.
How unsurprising: workers' lives in jeopardy, and the media can't get enough of a camera-hog Republican activist who previously called concern over worker safety, "anti-American." Meanwhile, the trapped miners die, and three rescue workers are killed trying to reach them.
This month also marks the 20th anniversary of the hit job on the fairness doctrine, by Reagan-appointed FCC commissioners. Since then, two decades of ownership concentration, plus the rise of christianist broadcasting have done the job of destroying any semblance of information in the public interest.
Media Matters attempts the month's worth of debunking in seven pages, starting here. Ranging from "Wash. Post's Marcus ignored key info in concluding Gonzales not guilty of perjury" (8/1), to "Media ignored Mississippi's use of waivers to redirect funds designated for low-income Katrina victims" (8/30).
A Mother Jones piece by Jean Casella and James Ridgeway—Windfall: How Conservatives, Contractors, and Developers Cashed In on Katrina—is a second anniversary review of events. It's also a reminder of how the media woke up for a few moments, expressing outrage not to be sustained for long.
On August 16, Jose Padilla is found guilty on all counts, after a day and a half of jury deliberations. Since its start in May, Lewis Koch has covered the trial for firedoglake. Links to stories are here, here, and here. Koch on July 13–
The prosecution has concluded its case against Jose Padilla, and two others charged with conspiracy to help support violent Islamic extremist groups worldwide. The total hard evidence against Jose Padilla consists of an alleged Al Qaeda training camp application form document Padilla allegedly signed in July 2000. The paper was among a myriad of documents handed to a CIA agent in a remote area of Afghanistan by a complete stranger.Koch does an admirable job of covering the issues created by Padilla's imprisonment and trial. An American citizen stripped of all constitutional rights after being classified an "enemy combattant," to be held in isolation and under 24-hour observation, for three and a half years. The shackled Padilla is then taken to court wearing blinder goggles, for a trial that would never have been held if the administration hadn't needed to head off a Supreme Court challenge.
Democracy Now interviews forensic psychiatrist Dr. Angela Hegarty. After interviewing Padilla for 22 hours to evaluate his mental health, she concludes, "What happened at the brig was essentially the destruction of a human being's mind...[Padilla's] personality was deconstructed and reformed," the final product of the severe isolation being consistent with brain damage.
More detail from Dr. Hegarty's observation of "Padilla's absolute state of terror, terror alternating with numbness"—
It was as though the interrogators were in the room with us. He was like—perhaps like a trauma victim who knew that they were going to be sent back to the person who hurt them and that he would...subsequently pay a price if he revealed what happened...Scott Horton in "Bush and the Art of Breaking Human Beings" concludes, "The Padilla case is important as a demonstration of the power of isolation tactics to destroy a human being—without producing anything of gain."
Also he had developed...a tremendous identification with the goals and interests of the government. I really considered a diagnosis of Stockholm syndrome. For example, at one point in the proceedings, his attorneys had, you know, done well at cross-examining an FBI agent, and instead of feeling happy about it like all the other defendants I’ve seen over the years, he was actually very angry with them. He was very angry that the civil proceedings were "unfair to the commander-in-chief," quote/unquote. And in fact, one of the things that happened that disturbed me particularly was when he saw his mother. He wanted her to contact President Bush to help him, help him out of his dilemma. He expected that the government might help him, if he was "good," quote/unquote.
"As flies to wanton boys are we to the Mainstream Media; They kill us for their sport"—driftglass, on the death of Richard Jewell at 44. From the AP report: "The Jewell episode led to soul-searching among news organizations about the use of unattributed or anonymously sourced information. His very name became shorthand for a person accused of wrongdoing in the media based on scanty information." From driftglass—
It is well to remember that once you have had a target painted on your back and the shelling begins, you are never whole again.
...And it is also well to remember that this ever-hungry slaughterbeast that rips men apart and drives them falsely to infamy, despair, suicide and ruin is the favorite pet of the GOP...
And that it was not Richard Jewell who murdered and maimed so many in Atlanta, but White Conservative Christopath Terrorist Eric Robert Rudolph.
Who, like White Conservative Christopath Terrorist Timothy McVeigh, did nothing more than implement in deed the kind of homicidal Jebus Jihad against liberals and government employees that the Mullahs of the Christopath Right like Tom DeLay, Jerry Falwell, Pat Roberston, Ann Coulter and Michael Savage (to, sadly, name only a few) have been relentlessly and hysterically fomenting for the last 30 years.
God's peace be with you, Mr. Jewell, and with your loved ones.
I'm sorry our culture destroyed you.
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