I can’t believe this isn’t a bigger story in all of the news outlets! Thanks to Newsday, increasingly one of the best papers covering NYC and the evil Bush regime, we learn that the White House pressured the EPA to say the air quality was fine in lower Manhattan after 9/11 when it apparently wasn’t, or at a minimum they had no evidence that it was safe. Re-opening Wall Street was more important than protecting the health of New Yorkers.

In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, the White House instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to give the public misleading information, telling New Yorkers it was safe to breathe when reliable information on air quality was not available.

…

“When the EPA made a September 18 announcement that the air was ‘safe’ to breathe, it did not have sufficient data and analyses to make such a blanket statement,” the report says. “Furthermore, The White House Council on Environmental Quality influenced … the information that EPA communicated to the public through its early press releases when it convinced EPA to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones.”

On the morning of Sept. 12, according to the report, the office of then-Administrator of the EPA Christie Whitman issued a memo: “All statements to the media should be cleared through the NSC [National Security Council in the White House] before they are released.” The 165-page report compares excerpts from EPA draft statements to the final versions, including these:

The draft statement contained a warning from EPA scientists that homes and businesses near Ground Zero should be cleaned by professionals. Instead, the public was told to follow instructions from New York City officials.

…

A warning on the importance of safely handling Ground Zero cleanup, due to lead and asbestos exposure, was changed to say that some contaminants had been noted downtown but “the general public should be very reassured by initial sampling.”

The report also notes examples when EPA officials claimed conditions were safe when no scientific support was available.

Kenneth Millican, top, of Rising Pond, Ga., and Jerry Layne of Chattanooga, Tenn., hold signs as they join dozens of other demonstrating in front of the State Judicial Building in Montgomery, Ala., Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2003. Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore has said he will defy a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from public view, prompting some arrests on Wednesday by those who refused to leave the buiding. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)

Go right now and read Anees’s post titled For newcomers to this blog. I agree 100% with what he has to say on the issue, and I find it horrifying to see that people think he might support suicide bombers just because he is Palestinian. Frankly, the only violent talk I’m seeing out of people in the blogopshere is coming from the anti-Palestinan/pro-occupation people. Witness this lovely excerpt, courtesy of Letter from Gotham, in which an allegedly college-education person says about Anees:

You fucking Palestinian Arab bastards. Why don’t you fight soldiers? If you fought the Israeli occupation, if you fought soldiers, I’d at least respect you. But you can’t, you don’t, because you are cowards, contemptible fucking cowards. You are not a man, Anees. You are a whiner. Go fuck off.

How fucking dare you whine and complain when you purposely send your children against Israeli soldiers whom you KNOW are NOT targeting children on purpose. You, on the other hand, send your evil demons into Israeli population centers with the express purpose of killing civilians. Now your guys have gone and slaughtered a busful of ultraorthodox Jews who are probably not even Zionists because…because they were Jews.

And your side just loves to see Jewish blood flow, doesn’t it? It doesn’t get them anything (except maybe virgins to fuck in that stupid Muslim heaven of yours; Jesus, over a couple of thousand years Islam must really have selected dumbfuck genes, hasn’t it, which explains a lot)….

DOESN’T IT???

I’m not depressed. I am ANGRY.

Fuck you, and fuck your twisted people. A few days ago I got angry because American soldiers beat up an Iraqi, and it reminded me of Israeli torture of Palestinian suspects.

Shit, buddy, if I had the power, I’d do the same to you. I’m not sure I’d stop.

This is the same idiot who says that it is inapproriate to compare the policies of the Israeli government with that of apartheid-era South Africa. I would consider a state that discrimnates based on race and ethnicity, and has chosen the symbol of a specific religion for its flag, is treading dangerously into an area that no post-Enlightment person can support. States based on ethnicity and religion are morally wrong, whether it’s Saudi Arabia persecuting non-Muslims, or Israel passing race-based immigration and marriage laws.

I don’t think anyone can doubt that the ultimate goal is ethnic cleansing, as evidenced by this report from Steve, our friend in the International Solidarity Movement, on James’s site. The latest post, which I have excerpted, is here.

“Preventing a farmer in Jayyous from planting his
seedlings carries no benefit for Jews in Jerusalem
wishing to return home safely from the Western Wall.
What the closure does is make life in Palestine that
much more unlivable, Palestinians’ access to their
land and water that much more tenuous, “voluntary”
ethnic cleansing that much closer to reality.
That’s the real purpose of locking the gates in the
Wall.

…

“Nabil”, ISM coordinator from Tulkarm, is in Jayyous
for a visit. He told us a hair-raising story last
night. He was taken from his house and imprisoned at
age 17Å“ during the waning days of the first Intifada.

He said that the Israeli forces used to target the
top students for arrest. He was only in jail for 21
days, a very short term compared to most of the
Palestinian men I know, but during that time the
guards went from underground cell to underground cell,
opened a hatch in the very heavy metal door, and
dropped in a half kilo of powder with an action like
tear gas, only stronger. (I assume that the Jews
reading this journal have the same horrible
association that I have with this image, even though
the substance in question here is not Zyklon B and is
usually not lethal.) Nabil says that it took about
80 hours for the irritant to dissipate. “Rashid”,
head of the Prisoners’ Club in Qalqilya, had told us
about the same process in all 3 of the Israeli prisons
he was in. Last week, about 100 prisoners at Ashqelon
Prison were injured while being gassed in their cells,
9 of them critically.

…

I’m convinced that the goal is not land and water
theft, it’s ethnic cleansing. The Israeli government
wants to make the Palestinian communities within 5 or
6 kilometers of the Wall unlivable, forcing the
thousands living there to move deeper into the West
Bank or into another country. Perhaps the plan is
then to repeat this process a little further in, until
the West Bank is virtually Arabrein from the Green
Line to the Jordan River. Sharon’s governing
coalition includes parties that support expulsion of
all Palestinians from Palestine; it seems that the
“moderates” have the same plan, but wish to make it
appear voluntary."

Let’s also talk about the fact that Israel is now demolishing huge sections of the West Bank and Gaza — to build a new “”http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1775.shtml">security wall</a>". Here is a Reuters photo of what’s going on near Tulkarem.

Israeli soldiers watch an Israeli mechanical shovel demolishing Palestinian houses at the village of Nazlat Eisa near the West Bank city of Tulkarem in the area where the Israeli security fence is being built, August 21, 2003. Israel killed Hamas political leader Ismail Abu Shanab in a missile strike on Thursday, two days after a suicide bombing in Jerusalem, and Islamic militant groups called off a seven-week-old old ceasefire. REUTERS/Nir Elias

I see crypto-fascists — I don’t have a problem using that term for people who advocate the persecution of entire groups of people — like Michele at A Small Victory talking about how the Arabs don’t understand the idea of a “cease fire”. This image, and the destruction of the market in Nazlat ‘Isa — over 100 shops — don’t resemble much of a cease fire to me. A country that finds the need to own many armored bulldozers is probably up to no good. Israel also continued its policy of targeted assassinations during this period, before the recent Jerusalem bus bombing.

Witness also the comment which appeared on James’s site today after he posted on the the idiocy of Bush saying “There’s a foreign element that’s moving into Iraq.”:

hey fuckwad – he meant iranian, syrian, “palestinian”, saudi, etc by foreign.

you have a typically disgusting “progressive” site – hope one day you’re mistaken for a jew by your terrorists buddies and they crack your skull.

People don’t have to wear brown shirts to behave like fascists. I must admit I’m amused by the idea of “progressive” as an epithet. Is this person suggesting we go back to the good old days of non-white and non-Christian people fearing for their lives in significant stretches of America?

… if we can stand the weather — both part of the Howl! Festival — and free:

• Way the F**k off Broadway
  
  2:00 – 4:00 PM
  Tompkins Square Park Bandshell, 7th and Ave. A
  
  Featuring appearances by Heather Woodbury, XAR, Mike Albo, Julie Atlas Muz, Pat Harper, Lissa Moore, Lady Finger, Wau-Wau Sisters, Polly Mormon & The Wives, Gecko, Big Mike, Moe Kelly, Dan Green, Missy Galore, Rev Jen, Porno Jim & Faceboy.
  
  Hosted by Penny Arcade & Murray Hill
• Wigstock returns to Tompkins Square Park!
  
  5:00 – 7:00pm
  
  So far the lineup includes:
  
  Lypsinka
  Taboo!
  Sweetie
  The Girls from Lips
  Sugga Pie Cocoa
  Murray Hill, and The Dazzle Dancers

From Rush and Malloy of The Daily News:

‘Debate’ vs. Coulter-geist

Tough-talking Ann Coulter wouldn’t say a word last night.

At the last minute, the conservative pundit canceled her appearance opposite best-selling “”http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312315600/tristanmedial-20">Big Lies"</a> author Joe Conason on CNBC’s “Kudlow & Cramer” – this after having programmers change the debate to fit her schedule.

One might think the roundtable, which featured Wall Streeter James Cramer and Reaganite Lawrence Kudlow, would be a breeze for Coulter. Could she have been afraid of facing Conason, whose book presents evidence that her arguments are ill-researched and calls her lifestyle hypocritical?

Coulter didn’t answer our E-mail.

Meanwhile, we hear fellow right-wing tough guy Bill O’Reilly won’t even let Conason on his show. (The Fox News Channel star – fingered by Matt Drudge as the instigator of Fox News’ much-derided lawsuit against Al Franken’s “”http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0525947647/tristanmedial-20">Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right</a>" – wouldn’t comment.)

and you have Time Warner Cable, I wouldn’t get it. For an extra $10/month, they’ve introduced a Digital Video Recorder. We just got ours, and it’s pretty cool. I’m using it to tape Deutsche Welle each morning for German practice.

I posted something a couple of days ago in which I said I was very disappointed to see so little coverge of the U.S. killing journalists like Mazen Dana in the blogosphere. Yesterday, the Boston Globe had a pretty fierce editorial, A cameraman killed, which I’ll excerpt (emphasis mine):

WITH AMERICAN soldiers being killed almost daily in Iraq, nervousness among the occupying forces is understandable. But there is no excuse for US troops gunning down a TV cameraman doing his job, as happened to a prize-winning Reuters newsman on Sunday.

Despite the fact that Mazen Dana, 43, a father of four, had received permission from a US military official to film on the site, where other newsmen were also working, soldiers on two approaching tanks thought he might be an Iraqi guerrilla and his camera a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, according to reports. They shot first and attempted resuscitation later, unsuccessfully.

Eighteen journalists have died in Iraq from hostile fire and accidents. Five have been killed by the US military.

…

It is only natural that such organizations — and newspaper editorials — react with outrage when colleagues are killed on the job. But these killings raise a broader question of whether the coalition rules of engagement are too aggressive with all civilians. Reports of excessive force against Iraqis mount: US soldiers even killed two Iraqi policemen they mistook for criminals recently. Such actions inflame local passions, making it all the harder for occupying forces to keep the peace.

There is also a Salon article — worth watching a free ad to read — on how some journalists feel they are being targeted deliberately.

“From the eyewitness accounts, it appears that Dana was fired on without warning,” wrote the Committee to Protect Journalists in an open letter to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. “He was filming in an area where no hostilities were taking place, raising questions about whether U.S. troops acted recklessly in targeting him.”

Larry Nussbaum has three cool photos, taken from Hoboken, of NYC Blackout 2003.

I will send James, but I might be working. Tomorrow night is the Howl Festival’s opening night party at Angel Orensanz Foundation on Norfolk Street, 7-11pm.

My cable modem finally came back at 3pm yesterday, so I’ve been working frantically to try to catch up with missed work — I work from home.

One thing I noticed while looking around some weblogs: I was disturbed that so few people seemed to be talking about the death of Mazen Dana, the Reuters cameraman, at the hands of U.S. soldiers. It barely showed up on the main blogs I read. Here is a link to the Committee to Protect Journalists, who are continuing to cover this, plus the lousy “investigation” our government made of the <a href=http://www.cpj.org/news/2003/USA13aug03na.html">attack on the Palestine Hotel</a> in Baghdad — which housed journalists covering the war. Two cameramen were killed when we shelled the hotel.

The other thing I wanted to bring up was how saddened I am by the bombing in Baghdad of the U.N. headquarters. Our country went in and toppled a regime without adequate planning, and is trying to have an occupation “on the cheap.” We’ve plunged Iraq into chaos and anarchy, with no end in sight. Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN’s special representative in Iraq, was killed in the bombing. He was a man with a great career, having served as the head of the U.N.’s operations in East Timor. He guided that country from being a rebellious Indonesian province to an independent country with democratic elections. His expertise would have been invaluable during the creation of what the Bush regime allegedly wants to happen in Iraq — a democracy.