Update: Mr. Johnson has been beheaded. Details here.

**************
This is very sad. American Paul Johnson, kidnapped in Saudi Arabia a few days ago, appears blindfolded in a video made available on an Islamic website. CNN reports:

The gunmen threatened to kill the man within 72 hours unless their demands are met. In the four-and-a-half minute videotape, which was extensively edited, Johnson spoke for 25 seconds, identifying himself by name. "I'm an American out of the United States. ... I work on a Apache helicopter," he said, stumbling over some of the words.

Both the Saudis and the U.S. have policies of non-negotiation with terrorists. Thus, it is unlikely they will meet the demands of the kidnappers to free "the mujahedeen held in the prisons in Haer, Ar-Ruwais and Allecha within 72 hours." The kidnappers say they will kill Mr. Johnson if their demands aren't met.

CNN has aired the tape on television.

[comments now closed]

Country Joe McDonald, of Country Joe and the Fish, has turned down a music award that would require him to go to Vietnam to receive it.

"As a hippie protest songwriter, I could not exist in Vietnam today," said Mr. McDonald, lead singer of the psychedelic band Country Joe and the Fish. "Communism tends to be totalitarian, and I am not supportive of that," Mr. McDonald said while performing in Britain recently.

He also "warned that Washington cannot win the guerrilla wars in Afghanistan or Iraq."

A little Country Joe history here. More Country Joe news here

by TChris

The Correctional Services Corporation is finally taking some well-deserved heat, but it's still able to obtain lucrative government contracts despite its dismal history as an administrator of private prisons.

A report by the Justice Dept.'s Civil Rights Division describes how CSC employees "brutally beat youths" at a facility in Maryland. The report says that "basic living conditions didn’t meet even the lowest constitutional standards."

Yet Homeland Security hired the CSC to operate a new detention center in Tacomah designed to house 700 undocumented immigrants as they wait to be deported. Homeland Security also hired CSC to operate a facility in Texas.

If the goal is to divert governmental functions to the private sector in order to move tax dollars into corporate hands, privatization is working well. If the goal is to obtain better services at a lower cost while maintaining accountability, CSC and Halliburton prove privatization doesn't always deliver.

Eric Alterman has retained a lawyer to go after Fox News' Bill O'Reilly for a retraction of a lie O'Reilly said about Eric on his show--threatening a defamation lawsuit unless O'Reilly complies:

On his show the other day, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly apologized to Texas columnist Molly Ivins for calling her a socialist. Now liberal author Eric Alterman wants a retraction from O'Reilly, who recently labeled him a fellow traveler of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Alterman's Miami-based attorney, Sarah Clasby Engel, sent a demand letter to O'Reilly last week, saying, "We would like to take this opportunity to identify a lie you recently broadcast." On his show in early May, the conservative yakker called Alterman "another Fidel Castro confidant."

Threatening a defamation suit unless O'Reilly makes a retraction, Engel states: "We are certain that you will be unable to point us to any proof whatever of a personal relationship between Alterman, a proud anti-Communist liberal, and Fidel Castro." The letter notes that in mid-May, Alterman signed a public rebuke of Castro, assailing the "brute repression" of his dictatorship. The lawyer gave O'Reilly five business days to respond. A Fox News spokesman told us the missive arrived only yesterday and "our legal department is reviewing it."

[link via Cursor]

by TChris

It's strange to think that citizens need to ask their government for permission to exercise their constitutional rights, but New York City insists that demonstrators obtain a permit before they protest the Republican National Convention. Problem is, New York hasn't issued any permits.

Leslie Cagan of protest group United for Peace and Justice said the group applied for a permit more than a year ago but has not yet been granted permission. The city "has yet to do anything in terms of issuing permits guaranteeing not only that we are able to protest but, more importantly, that we are able to exercise our constitutionally protected right to assemble, to march, to rally, to make our voices heard," Cagan said.

Tuesday was the deadline to apply for a "protest permit." About 15 groups have applied for permits, but none have been granted. The New York Civil Liberties Union plans to take New York to court if the permits aren't issued.

by TChris

An execution in Maryland has been delayed so that the condemned man's lawyers will have time to study Maryland's new procedure for administering lethal injections. Lawyers for Steven Oken contend that the procedure does not assure that the person being executed is unconscious before lethal and painful chemicals are introduced into his bloodstream.

U.S. District Judge Peter Messitte ruled officials in Maryland did not allow sufficient time for the condemned man, Steven Oken, and his attorneys to study a new protocol governing execution by lethal injection. ... The judge said Oken and his attorneys should have time to study a new version of the state's Execution Protocol that was amended on May 26 but not made available to the defense team until last Friday.

The procedure was changed after IV lines carrying both the anesthetic and the fatal chemicals leaked during a 1998 execution. Oken argues that the executioners are not proficient at delivering the drugs and that the new procedure is "confused" about the precise quantities of chemicals to use.

The state, ever eager to kill, is appealing the stay of execution.

Update: A Fourth Circuit panel upheld the stay by a vote of 2-1.

Both candidates are vying for the single, female voter. It's a big untapped block. The Village Voice examines their efforts, and says Bush is behind. From their press release on the article:

Almost 22 million single women voters sat out the last election. Since
pollsters recently realized that never married, divorced, and widowed females
make up the largest untapped voting bloc, both major parties have been engaged in a desperate scuffle for their votes. There's no question the candidates want single women, but do single women want the candidates? Sharon Lerner looks at the parties' pitiful pitches for the young, unattached female vote.

From the article:

TChris wrote earlier about Paul Krugman's column in today's New York Times calling John Ashcroft s the "worst Attorney General in history." Eric Alterman and Atrios agree. Here's Eric:

The thing is, even this understates the case. Remember John Ashcroft is the man who claims to have it in his power to arrest you, Mr. American Citizen, and hold you incommunicado in prison forever if he wants. He has apparently passed along a memo to the president claiming the right to torture and kill you as well.

Here's Atrios:

Ashcroft is corrupt. He's stupid. He's incompetent. He loves the spotlight. He believes laws don't apply to Republicans. He's obsessed with porn, pot, and prostitution. When he did his latest "WE'VE ARRESTED A TERRORIST!!!!!" news conference yesterday I thought that finally there was a bit of skepticism on the part of the press. Maybe I was just projecting, but I sensed a bit of subliminal eyerolling coming from the CNN anchordesk.

by TChris

Paul Krugman argues that John Ashcroft is "the worst attorney general in history." Here's a taste:

Perhaps most telling is the way Mr. Ashcroft responds to criticism of his performance. His first move is always to withhold the evidence. Then he tries to change the subject by making a dramatic announcement of a terrorist threat.

An AG who is more interested in attacking civil liberties than terrorists has no business holding the office. Remember that a vote against Bush is a vote against Ashcroft. Remember too that a vote for Kerry is an effective vote against Ashcroft. The country can't afford to have him back for another four years.

by TChris

Audits continue to show that Halliburton is treating the federal treasury as a deep pocket that is easily picked.

"DCAA has identified significant deficiencies in [Halliburton subsidiary] KBR's estimating practices related to the award of subcontract costs," said William Reed, director of the Defense Contract Audit Agency, in prepared testimony. He said these deficiencies led to potential overpricing at dining halls in Kuwait and Iraq for U.S. troops and that the military was holding back on paying $186 million for meals.

Vice President Cheney vigorously denies that he played any role in the decision to award lucrative contracts to Halliburton, his former employer. Here's a good argument that, like "many things uttered by the vice president, this simply is not true."

by TChris

Iraq's interim Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, said Monday that Saddam Hussein will be turned over to the interim government within the next two weeks, but the White House will say only that Hussein's custody will be transferred at "an appropriate time."

Whether that "appropriate time" will arrive before Iraq becomes (sorta) sovereign on June 30 is unclear. President Bush says he's seeking "security assurances" before handing over Hussein.

"We want to make sure that he (Saddam) doesn't come back to power. And so therefore, it's a legitimate question to ask of the interim government: 'How are you going to make sure he stays in jail?' And that's the question I'm asking.

Answer: lock the door?

Update: UPI reports that the U.S. is likely to hold Hussein beyond the June 30 transfer of (at least a little) power. This despite a warning by the International Committee of the Red Cross that detaining Hussein after Iraq (kinda) regains its sovereignty could violate the Geneva Conventions.

Brigadier General Janis Karpinski says she's a scapegoat:

In an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. radio broadcast Tuesday, Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski said Miller told her last autumn that prisoners "are like dogs, and if you allow them to believe at any point that they are more than a dog then you've lost control of them."

Miller denies making the comment. Here's more:

Karpinski said that during a visit to Iraq in September, Miller - still the commander at the Guantanamo Bay prison - spoke of wanting to "Gitmoize" Abu Ghraib by applying the Cuban facility's regimented detention and interrogation techniques. "He talked about Gitmoizing in terms of what the (military police) were going to do; he was going to select the MPs, they were going to receive special training," she said. "That training was going to come from the military intelligence command," Karpinski added, noting that the troops under her command had no training in such interrogation techniques.

Update: Contract interrogators deny reports of top Generals: