Incendiary Advice

"One day I read that I was a Republican hack, another day I read that I was a Democratic hack," he said. "And the only thing I did between those two nights was sleep."

--Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, October 28, 2005














With a touch of irony, Patrick Fitzgerald proves he realizes exactly what I suspected to be true in my last post: damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. Good thing he's got both humor and gravitas enough to deflect spin coming from both sides of the aisle over his work in The Plame Affair.

At times rambling (convoluted baseball analogies, anyone?), at times straightforward and articulate, Fitzgerald left an impression most Americans haven't associated with Washington since Jimmy Stewart's fictional Mr. Smith hit town.

Honesty. Humility. Integrity. Amazing the Beltway itself didn't collapse from the shock of it all!

Had he said "Nothing to see here, folks; move along," I would've believed there wasn't anything to see, even after reading books like Imperial Hubris and Worse than Watergate. Even knowing better.

Unaccustomed as most politicos and pundits are to nuance, complexity and a dearth of superficial slickness, Washington's insiders preferred to spend the weekend "bumper stickering" Fitzgerald's words and 22 page indictment, adding partisan flavors where none existed and spinning his direct statements into an end product worthy of Rumplestiltskin himself.

Witness:

William Safire on Meet the Press --

(Paraphrase) There was no crime of outing a covert CIA agent.

Wrong. In actuality, we really don't know that.

Fitzgerald explained quite clearly (baseball rhetoric notwithstanding) that Irving "Scooter" Libby's attempts to obfuscate the truth and lie to the Grand Jury made it impossible to discover the actual truth of the matter. Hence the perjury and obstruction of justice charges.

As far as whether or not Valerie Plame was a NOC, I suspect Fitzgerald, with his cautious wording and refusal to break the rules of law he seems to cherish wouldn't tell the general public, anyway.

Because of this, plan to see much more right-wing talking points about "no underlying crime of outing an agent." In true Pavlovian style, they believe us all so devoid of intellect that simple repetition will create a truth where once was none.

Another talking point, from David Brooks:

Commissioned to discover if there was systemic abuse of power, (Dr.?) Fitzgerald after two years has determined there's no "cancer in the White House."


Well, not really. If we're going to turn to medical analogies -admittedly easier for me to traffic in than sports - the answer clearly outlined by Fitzgerald's findings and subsequent press conference would go like this:

After seeing clear evidence of a sickness and running subsequent tests, the good doctor has not determined exactly what's going on with the patient. He excised the obvious bad cells, but isn't sure just how much of the body has been infected. Now he must either run more tests, or wait and see what further symptoms, if any, the patient experiences.

Hey, I'm no doctor. Don't even play one on tv. Nor am I the brightest med student to walk these hallowed halls. And yet even I know that Brooks is simply trying to avoid a class action malpractice suit, at this point. This administration is known for smearing its enemies, poisoning them with innuendo and outright lies. From John McCain's primary against Bush in 2000 to the "Swift-Boating" of John Kerry -- all signs point to an overzealous immune system, the primary purpose of which is to expel any foreign matter that doesn't look and act exactly like the host.

Gah. I'm mixing medical metaphors. But you get the gist.

In the interest of fairness, the left-wing is also playing 'read the Fitzgerald' tea leaves:

While we know that Karl Rove is the most likely candidate for the party known as "Official A" in the Libby indictment proper, Harry Reid calling on Bush to fire Rove at this point presumes a status that is not proferred and imputes a role to Rove as yet unproven.

The use of "Official A" does make him an ongoing suspect, in legal terms. What it doesn't do is confirm his identity. That's just speculation. Informed speculation, given Rove's history of operational procedure in politics andthe fact he's considered still in legal jeopardy.

Should he be indicted, then by all means - toss the porker on the spit. (That last line makes quite evident my personal feelings about Karl Rove.)

This Wilson/Plame smear has his fingerprints all over it; for proof, one need only go watch Bush's Brain at the Sundance Channel on Comcast on Demand. However, despite coming within striking distance of indicting, Fitzgerald and the Grand Jury did not actually charge him. So he's not (to use his own words about Valerie Plame) "fair game."

As for Fitzgerald, I really do believe he's no partisan hack. It'll be hard (but not impossible, given their past) for the right-wing smear machine to paint our modern-day Mr. Smith into Senator McCarthy.


No doubt they'll try, but as he showed so ably on Friday, Mr. Fitzgerald emanates something few Washington insiders of any stripe can even fake well: sincerity.

Americans instinctively sense the real thing when they see it. Or rather, the America I remember was full of people who recognized and rewarded honesty and integrity - and I don't think we've strayed so far as to be irredeemable just yet.

Misguided, blinded, too busy and consumed by worry to notice much? Yes. But devoid of solid bullshit detectors? Not yet.

His track record squeaky clean and filled with hints about his prosecutorial style, Fitzgerald has a "bottom up" approach when it comes to exposing illegal activity. He initially grabs that which he can most capably bite into and holds-on, eventually working his way up to through the chain of corruption and getting right to the main course.

Whether he will do it yet again remains to be seen. I've no doubt, however, he's already in for a very bumpy ride. Nor do I have any doubt he'll emerge both victorious and vindicated at the end.


Welcome to Washington, Mr. Fitzgerald.

For the time being, the plan is to post a bit about everything - nothing in-depth. I've avoided prognosticating about The Plame Affair, simply because it's impossible to tell what will happen. That, and the recollection of a dark day in November 2004 when even the best of soothsayers got it wrong. Please note this, however: www.thewashingtonnote.com brings us the report that Patrick Fitzgerald, Special Prosecutor ---potentially aka "Out of Control Indicter" or "Republican Paid Schill" depending on upcoming events --has leased Washington office space.



Now, on to other matters:


Don't know if you're coming or going? The government WILL:


Against strong opposition, the Bush administration plans to install Radio Frequency ID chips (RFID) that transmit personal information via passports. Highly hackable and an invasion of privacy, the RFID chips will contain "the name, nationality, sex, date of birth, place of birth and digitized photograph of the passport holder. Eventually, the government contemplates adding additional digitized data such as "fingerprints or iris scans."

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5913644.html?tag=nl.e550


"Because Privatizing is just soooo efficient. . ."

Our Congress is voting to privatize the food stamp program.Now, by the guys who brought you Enron, comes a fabulous new opportunity not only to lose your pension, but also your lunch.

25 million Americans depend on food stamps to feed their families. The only thing worse than relying on governmental beaurocracy to assist in this matter HAS TO BE the notion of greed, graft and corruption ruling social services formerly performed by mostly benevolent, if slow-working government administrators. Problems? What problems?

For the Reuters' story:

http://tinyurl.com/chjju


From the "Oh, Hell. I Just Can't Stay Away From It" Department:

More on Fitzgerald...

After reading Worse than Watergateby John Dean, there's a piece of me that buys into the whole progressive meme that perhaps Fitz is working in conjunction with current AIPAC prosecutor McNulty (more on him in a minute)to unearth if laws were broken by this administration in the process of "sexing-up" the intelligence that took us into Iraq. But I'm hesitant - not only due to the too good to be true angle, but also because it seems so far beyond the scope of Fitzgerald's current, albeit expanded, powers.

But there exist intriguing bisecting lines in both cases:

1. Susan Ralston.

Karl Rove's right-hand woman, she was not only called to testify in the Plame affair, but also in AIPAC. For those unaware of what AIPAC is about, you're not alone. I have a basic understanding, and it goes like this - AIPAC stands for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a Washington lobby group, currently being investigated by the FBI for "illegal receipt of classified information". Yes, what the less-refined among us refer to as espionage.

2. Larry Franklin

On June 26, 2003, Larry Franklin (a career Pentagon official on Doug Feith's staff) was observed by FBI surveillance disclosing classified information on a proposed policy initiative to destabilize Iran at the Tivoli Restaurant in Arlington, Virginia. The AIPAC investigation apparently had been ongoing for some time, which is why there were FBI agents tailing the AIPAC staffers. Afterwards, as one would expect, the FBI obtained a wiretap warrant to monitor Larry Franklin, and picked him up in May 2004 disclosing classified information to Adam Ciralsky, a CBS News producer who had previously been an attorney with the CIA.

Leaving aside legal considerations for a moment, politically speaking the AIPAC case is about passing along ginned-up intelligence to push America into "regime change" in Iran, but also Iraq.

Are your "theme" senses tingling, yet?

The Plame Affair is also, at its heart, a case about doctored "evidence" from Niger that was used as a rationale by our neo-con national security hawks as a basis for invading Iraq.

Interesting that McNulty and Fitzgerald are cooperating with one another in terms of witnesses and evidence.

Now, the rightwing Bush supporters would have people believe that the Plame Affair is a matter of rogue CIA agents, Clinton administration holdovers (but of course Clinton's to blame!) who plotted to bring down a presidency by planting false intelligence.

Since Franklin was recently found guilty, I'm not sure where the CIA fits. Frankly, though, I'm also not keen on wading through right-wing doctrine to see if he does fit.

3. The time frame

Note the June of 2003 mention above re: Franklin.

If it seems familiar, that might have something to do with the fact that columnist Robert Novak "outed" Valerie Plame as a CIA NOC in July 2003.

Coincidence? I just don't really know. But I'm sure more intersections can be found between the two cases. Where does Cheney fit in, for instance? A career national security guy, Old Sneery was said to be personally pressuring the CIA for a better rationale for the Iraq war in the form of twisting intelligence to suit the agenda.

The same can be said about his desire to head to Iran. But, really, just read the PNAC documents:

www.newamericancentury.org

They serve as a virtual mapquest of where the neocons want to take America's military might next, and then after that. These are the same people, including Old Sneery, who availed on President Clinton to oust Saddam in 1998.

There's a lot riding on our going to Iraq and Iran, not the least of which is Dick's defense stock dividends. Which, by the way, saw an over 2000 percent increase this year. And who says war isn't worth anything?

Since time is at a premium lately and at war with blog updating, I've decided to lightly touch on just a few things - both profound and personal.



Let's start with the profound:

NATIONAL

I've no idea if Patrick Fitzgerald will truly indict anyone in the Plamegate matter. The first casualty of reading and listening to both sides is clarity; all the spinning from the right and the left just makes a person dizzy.

Nevertheless, it's been the most interesting news week in, oh, forever. From all the lawyerly leaking, one thing truly comes into focus: The Cheney/Libby and Bush/Rove camps are having a meltdown, rushing so fast to separate from one another and begin cannibalization they look like a rugby team stuck in the Andes mountains.

And Fitzgerald, who will emerge as either yet another partisan crony OR the Elliott Ness of his day, depending on both what he does next week AND which side of the political spectrum you question, is simply the Goliath of Washington this week. He's got so much pinned on him that he could be a voodoo doll.

The right will herald him and trumpet his adherence to law, should he pack-up shop without indictments. They will call him a Democratic hack, if he indicts. The left will use the same adjectives, should he indict. Poor guy just can't win.


Perhaps telling - perhaps not (a meme echoed through newspapers, blogs and 24/7 cable infotainment "news" programs) Fitzgerald created a website of his own, yesterday. Thus far it contains DOJ memos and information pertaining to the scope of powers assigned to him regarding the Plamegate investigation.

A sign of impending indictments? A way to counter media spin? The left hopes for the former, and the right prognosticates the latter. Only Fitzgerald knows for certain.

Me? Of course, I believe this administration is, as John Dean's book title says, Worse than Watergate. Really, I'm just in it for the Editor and Publisher promise of a weekend at the St. Regis in DC for the winner of the "Title Judy Miller's new book" contest. My entry was posted last week - as well as my song parody for Plamegate. Wish me luck! ;)

LOCAL

Ameriquest Mortgage, one of the largest national -- and in particular, local -- predatory lenders, faces an Ohio Supreme Court challenge from mortgagers who claim unfair practices. Shame on Ohio government for tossing the legal ball onto cities, only to reject the law created by Cleveland's government when push came to shove.

Not surprisingly, after giving the Bush campaign 12 million dollars, Ameriquest's owner is now being made Ambassador to The Netherlands. "(Insert name here), you're doing a heckuva job!"

For more info:

www.clevescene.com

Speaking of "heckuva job" -- those emails between members of famed FEMA fall guy, Michael Brown's camp and FEMA official Marty Bahamonde are damning in the extreme. They show both Brown's supreme disinterest in New Orleans' survivors after Katrina, his foreknowledge of just how disasterously things were unravelling, and how important it was for Brown. . .to get a good dinner longer than 20-30 minutes. Ugh.


From Brown's camp to Bahamonde on Weds, August 31, 2005:

"Also, it is very important that time is allowed for Mr. Brown to eat dinner. Given that Baton Rouge is back to normal, restaurants are getting busy. He needs much more that (sic) 20-30 minutes. We now have traffic to encounter to get to and from a location of his choise (sic) followed by wait service from the restaurant staff, eating, etc. Thank you.

Sharon Worthy
Press Secretary


Bahamonde's response is one for the ages:

"OH MY GOD. No, I won't go any further, too easy of a target. Just tell her that I ate an MRE and crapped in the hallway of the Superdome along with 30,000 other close friends so I understand her concern about busy restaurants. Maybe tonight I will have time to move the pebbles on the parking garage floor so they don't stab me in the back while I try to sleep, but instaed (sic) I will hope her wait at RuthChrist is short. But I know she's stressed so I won't make a big deal about it and you shouldn't either."

To see all of them:

http://michellemalkin.com/





And, finally, the personal

We know as much now about my daughter's leg tumor as we did when I blogged about it. The orthopaedic doctor didn't seem as alarmed as his ER peer, and said nothing can be ascertained until her ankle heals. According to him, a sprain that bad on a child's ankle is akin to breakage, so she's been stuck in a Darth Vader boot for nearly two weeks. When she's fully mended, he says he's do a bone scan to check for malignancy. I've not written about it and consciously have avoided giving it lengthy though. There's simply nothing we can do but wait.

So. . .how was your week?

From a Hong Kong newspaper, an opinion piece. Apparently, they understand the best advice my parents ever gave me: If you can't afford to buy it outright, you don't need to have it - don't use credit:

It's time to take seriously a US-led global recession

Lau Nai-keung

2005-10-06 07:37

I think it is time that we should take a serious look at the possibility that the US is going to take us down towards a worldwide recession in one or two year's time.

It is well known that the US is the world's biggest economy, taking up about 30 per cent of global GDP, but it is now also the world's biggest debtor country. According to the most authoritative person on this subject, the US Comptroller General David Walker, who audits the federal government's books, the tab for the long-term promises the US Government has made to creditors, retirees, veterans and the poor amounts to US$43,000 billion, US$145,000 per US citizen, or US$350,000 for every full-time worker.

And this figure does not even take into account all the personal debts such as credit card bills and mortgages. With a low interest rate of 1 per cent running for the past three years in a row, savings plummeted to just 1.8 per cent last year, below 1 per cent since January and at zero in the latest estimate from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In 2000, household debt broke 18 per cent of disposable income for the first time in 20 years. Credit card debt alone averages US$7,200 per household.

The US Government indebtedness is financed this way: The US now runs a trade deficit roughly 6.5 per cent of its GDP and the gap is widened every day. Its citizens are spending ever more on foreign goods, and with the US dollar as the international currency, the US Government just prints money to finance the deficit. And with this money, central banks in the surplus countries purchase most of the US Treasury bonds as currency reserve.

By now, Japan is the largest creditor of the US Government, and the Chinese mainland has been a fervent buyer for the last few years. As for Hong Kong, most if not all of our reserves are in US dollar denominated assets. The US Government in turn uses this foreign borrowed money to finance as much as 90 per cent of the federal deficit which stood at US$412 billion last year. The federal deficit is expected to be running at about US$2 billion a day at the moment.

Put it simply, the Americans have been living way beyond their means for much too long. On top of this, the Bush Administration is cutting tax at least three times while fighting an expensive war in Iraq, which has already cost the country US$700 billion, and currently progressing at US$5.6 billion per month. Now the US economy is dependent on the central banks of Japan, China and other nations to invest in US Treasuries and keep American interest rates down. The low rates keep American consumers snapping up imported goods.

Any economist worth his salt knows that this situation is unsustainable. This includes the country's economic guru driver Alan Greenspan, who recently warned his countrymen that the federal budget deficit would hamper the nation's ability to absorb possible shocks from the soaring trade deficit and the housing boom. Now he may have to add two more worries: soaring oil prices and cyclones.

The US is now clearly in huge trouble, economically, socially, politically, and internationally. The Bush Administration bungled big in cyclone Katrina's aftermath in New Orleans, and then a minor rerun from Rita in Houston, and this will trigger the general outburst of people's dissatisfaction with the government, leading to great internal turmoil lasting for many years. In all likelihood, long-term interest rates are going to rise, and the greatest property bubble the world has witnessed is going to burst in the next one to two years.

The countdown is in progress, and there is no way that anybody can do anything to reverse it either by short-term measures such as fiscal and monetary policy, or through long-term reform of tax policy, entitlement programmes and even the entire federal budget. This is as inevitable as gravity, and it will take place under a new and inexperienced chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. I do not want to sound alarmist, but I see very bad omens.

To make things simple, let us just examine some key economic issues raised by some economists:

What if the dollar plummets? Do stocks follow? How about pensions?

What if interest rates soar? How would all the new homeowners, who stretched to buy with adjustable and interest-only loans, cover their mortgages?

How would consumers with record credit-card debt make their payments? Would they stop buying? Stop taking vacations? What will happen if they go bankrupt? New rules going into effect later this year make it harder on such debtors.

How would a government, which depends on the taxes of a strong economy to operate, keep all its promises?

To us, the good news is that when the country is in deep trouble, the US will not have the energy to pick on China. Even when it is necessary to start another war to divert people's attention, it would pick one much smaller in size and weaker in strength, like Iran. This will provide a much more amicable environment for China to make good use of its "period of strategic opportunity" till 2020 for the country to pass through a turbulent zone between per capita income of US$1,000-3,000.

But in the short term, now the US not only sneezes, and all symptoms indicate that it is going to suffer from a SARS-like trouble, the whole world should take extra precaution not to get infected. One thing is for sure, some time in the not too distant future, every central bank and institutional investor is going to dump US dollar and US Treasury bonds. Once, when a country like South Korea dumps the dollar, the still unsold US Treasuries in the asset column of Asian central banks - US$2,000 billion according to some estimates - will collapse. The cheapened dollar will cause a sudden jump in the US inflation, which forces the Fed to jack up interest rates. A giant leap in inflation will cause a severe recession, or perhaps a depression, in the US. These countries' exports to America will dry up, which in turn will spread the global economic downturn like wildfire.

After the stampede, everybody is going to get hurt, not least the central bank of China, and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, which are major US creditors and with the US as their number one export market. The recent currency reform of the RMB is most timely, and it is about time we should do something about the Hong Kong dollar. At the same time, China should make extra efforts to rekindle internal consumption, and diversify its market really fast before the great US bubble bursts.


http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-10/06/content_482807.htm

Last week was the ten year anniversary of my daughter's near-death drowning experience.

Needless to say, the memory of that event is still terribly vivid and will probably be one of the few almost tangible recollections I'll carry until my last breath. Mostly, I recall literally begging God not to take her away, to let her be okay, and the amazing gratitude when she pulled through the first critical 24 hour period.

The cliche is true: meeting her was the first time I ever really fell in love.

Her older sister has always been different: emotionally stalwart from birth, distant, completely enamored of her father, rather disdainful and suspicious of me. Naturally, we love one another. But our relationship's always been akin to that of warriors or respectful sparring partners - we share entirely too many personality traits to ever fully let down our respective guards. Our fun moments are real highs. Our arguments are basement lows. Very little rests between them.

Not so with the baby of the family. She's ebullient, pliant, unbelievably trusting and open, and kind to a fault. Of all the people I've ever known, she is closest to me and our relationship is virtually tension free. A mama's girl since birth, even at nearly 12 she still sometimes runs to the door with open arms to greet me at the end of a long day. She came into the world with complications and was a Code Pink baby upon arrival, a knot in her umbilical cord and a traumatic delivery.

Between that and her accident, she has fought the odds - and seemingly won, every time.

Needless to say, all the good times in the past ten years have been on my mind during this milestone of a week. How full my life is because she's in it. How awful it would have been had the fates succeeded in taking her away all those years ago. I've been especially thankful, even moreso than I am every year around this time, for her presence and beauty.

The silver lining of a terrible grey cloud - one that came back during Katrina. Holding your own unconscious child in your arms, covered in water, eyes staring off into some unknown distance...these things make you understand other mothers' pain in ways the truly lucky never could.

Yesterday brought all of it sharply back into focus.

While running to grab the phone, she jumped off a step and her ankle twisted. The ER doctor said it wasn't broken. Just sprained it, thankfully.

"But...well, look at this x-ray," he said, gesturing for me to join him.

In my daughter's fibula was a blackened area, an innocuous seeming shadow where bone should be.

"She has a tumor in this bone, right here. A cyst or tumor of some sort. It's amazing the bone didn't fracture today, or sooner. It's filling up the space," he explained.

After getting the crutches, prescription and a promise from me to take her to a bone specialist, the hospital released us and worries about this cyst took a backseat to concerns about her getting around the house on crutches, getting the swelling down, etc.

Until this morning, when I awoke with an epiphany.

Earlier this year, after a few weeks of complaining from being tired and pain in her leg, she was diagnosed with mono. The leg pain eventually receded, but she is still frequently tired. The pain was in the same spot her tumor is in - but her doctor attributed the pain to mono, because it can present with bone ache.

Hopefully in a few days we will learn the tumor is benign, and the "mono" was not really a symptom of something much worse that also causes bone pain and tumors. But that few days will feel like several years, until they're able to aspirate the tumor and check the cells.

In the meantime, I guess I will simply believe that her survival against all odds ten years ago, and all the joy she has brought into the world before and since, are obvious signs that surely everything is going to be fine.

And I'll ask God, yet again, to let her be okay.

Tonight, the Senate voted overwhelmingly - 90 to 9 - to add an anti-torture policy to our latest defense spending bill. For the first time in five years, President Bush threatened to veto the spending bill if it contained this anti-torture measure.

Let me repeat that.

All the bridges to nowhere in Alaska. . .the $500,000 given to said state for the purpose of painting an airplane to resemble a giant fish . . .the hundreds of billions of spending. . .not one bill has been shot-down by this administration. In five long, arduous years.

But cut the torture? Them's vetoing words, kids.

Can you help me out here? I'm truly at a loss, all snarkasm aside. Each "aha, this has to be the lowest crap they'll pull" moment of jaw-droppingly stupefyingly stunning heinousness gives way to yet another even more slimy, reprehensible act. If you think that's just a way to work in some glorious adjectives, you're wrong.

It's like drunken frat-boy political limbo, and the damned limbo stick's already so low it's in the basement.

Where are we? What the hell country advocates for torture? When there's a clear opportunity to send the international community a message that we simply will not stand for Americans committing acts against the Geneva Convention, our President threatens to pull the plug.

Unfathomable.

And lest you really believe that Americans committing torture is so yesterday's news, effectively ending when that powerful 'evildoer' Lyndie England was sentenced, guess again:

A report released Friday by The Human Rights Watch revealed that soldiers in the Army's elite 82nd Airborne Division systematically tortured Iraqi detainees from 2003 into 2004, hitting them with baseball bats and dousing them with chemicals, the Associated Press reported.

That would be from an article posted on 9/25/05.


Now that the anti-torture measure has thankfully passed in the Senate (no kudos to the dastardly nine listed below), whether Bush will use his first ever veto remains to be seen. How it will be spun, twisted and otherwise mutilated by a compliant press corps into something positive will no doubt tax even the biggest Fox kool-aid drinkers. Okay, except O'Reilly. He's probably got the text written already.


But I really do pray that no amount of spin will make a Bush endorsement of torture palatable to the American public. It just cannot stand.

In the meantime, here are the names of the Notorious Nine Pro-Torture Leaders in the Senate. If you're one of their constituents and feeling ashamed, do drop them a line:

NAYs ---9
Allard (R-CO)
Bond (R-MO)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Stevens (R-AK)



May all nine go down in history as the despicable sadists they are.




(By the way, if you've noticed my conspicuous absence of late, suffice it to say I'm pondering another job. Who needs sleep, really? So way overrated, especially when you can stump for a mayor turned gubernatorial hopeful in all weather, under cover of darkness, with just a flashlight for safety. Exercise, democracy, yet another paycheck and possibly danger or eventual pneumonia: what's not to love?

Rest assured, however. Should the Plame inquiry result in the rumored impending indictments, or the Apocalypse arrive before that, I'll be back to weigh-in.)

You left them swimming for their lives
Down in New Orleans
Can't afford a gallon of gasoline
With your useless degrees and your contrary statistics
This government business is straight up sadistic

And it's a black rain
Oh it's a black rain is gonna fall

You don't fight for us but expect us to die for you
You have no sympathy for us but still I cry for you
Now you may kill the revolutionary
But the revolution you can never bury
And it won't be long 'til the people fill the streets
We come for you
One and all

Ben's sharing this song via the Internet, as the recording company refuses to put it on his latest CD. So, here's the link; please spread the song around:

http://s40.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0ERX62E9M1K8N1V47OSCJVYYQQ